Angels

I recently experienced a sync flap around the subject of "Angels" which began when I took my son to buy a halloween costume at a shop called "Angels". Secondly I met somone called "Angel" and thirdly a colleague at work mentioned "Angels" to me confirming the synchronicity.
I come from a "catholic" background so have a fairly orthodox concept of Angels (Michael, Gabriel, Raphael etc), that of the Abrahamic religions ie Angels as messengers of God / instruments of God's will,also that Angels are generally benevolent, although that doesn't prevent them having a protective function (as in Guardian Angels) or even a wrathful/punitive function eg Azrael. and of course Satan is supposed to be a fallen Angel.
As I write this post I note the date is Nov 2nd (celebrated as "All Saints day" by catholics) Nov 1st is "All hallows/All souls",  ( October 31st being Halloween /All Hallows Eve ) which brings to mind "Angels and Demons" and the age old battle played out on the world stage and perhaps invidually in our own lives on a psychological level.. "as above so below."

 

Dr Who

"Knock Knock"
"Whos there"
"Dr"
"Dr who? "
"You just said it"


I might not have written this post today (23/08/14) had I not recently experienced the following synchronicity. Whilst taking my 4 year old son to a birthday party. I was telling/teaching him and his friends the "Dr Who" knock knock joke. It was the first joke I ever learnt and now the pattern was repeating itself.While I was telling the joke to the children, the tune on the c.d. changed to a Grime/dubstep tune with the refrain "Tell Em its Dr Who!" the synchronicity was poignant to all of us and there were some surprised little faces at the coincidence.
As a child I was a huge Dr Who fan, my introduction to the show was during classic era of Tom Baker.My favourite characters were of course; The Daleks,The Cybermen, K9 and The Master. I had my first personal connection with a tv show as an episode "Dr Who and the Hand" was filmed at Hinkley point Point Nuclear power station near to where my Dad worked. I had friend who was also was a massive "Dr Who" fan, but as we grew older "Dr Who" went through a dire period and I felt it was increasingly uncool. I disowned "Dr Who" and my friend.

 Maybe it was the tune by The KLF /Timelords "Doctorin the Tardis" that ushered in "the rebirth of kool" and reminded me what I liked about "Dr Who" This was quite a few years before it's revitalisation on screen with another regeneration and the era of David Tenant. Today 23/08/14 see the return of a news series of "Dr Who" and it seems the "discordian" connection is now well embedded for more on this see John Higgs book "KLF Chaos Magick and the band that burned a million quid.

Dennis the Menace

This week I have experienced a minor sync flap in relation to black and red horizontal stripes.prompting me to recall a reoccuring dream I used to have as a child in which I was somehow stuck in a war between two opposing tribes one of whom wore red and the other wore blue. My sync flap began on tuesday evening as I sat down with my family to watch the World Cup Semi final.We were surprised to see Germany turn out in a strip consisting of Red and Black horizontal stripes. Germany usually play predominantly in white .It is however not unusual to watch footballers in Brazil playing in Red and Black horizontal stripes because one of the biggest Brazilian club teams "Flamengo" from Rio have the exact same strip. much of my family in Brazil are Flamengista's and I have supported them ever since I first went to Brazil.Flamengo are often use as their mascot Black Urubu (a kind of vulture).

I first became aware of black and red horizontal stripes as a young child as the colours of the comic book character "Dennis the Menace" from the Beano. Apart from Dennis the Menace I didn't much care for comics much and forget all about them until my teens when as a skater I became interested in punk music and was introduced to characters like Tank Girl & Judge Dredd from 2000AD. I was mostly into American hardcore punk bands ,but I dipped my toe into the British punk scene and during my UK punk phase my favourite t-shirts were perhaps those of "conflict" or the "uk subs" i tended to wear my Kronstadt Klub or Class War anti poll tax tshirt with  my black and red stripped "Dennis the Menace" jumper (given to me by my mum of all people). 

In the late eighties I discovered the acid house culture. I remember The Shamen of "Ebeneezer Goode" fame holding one of their early Synergy events in Bristol not long after that I was baptised by the Dub of hardcore jungle drum and bass at Warehouse Raves and free party movement of the early nineties, where Dennis the Menace was a regular on the scene. I further explored the techno punk aesthetic at Sabresonic , which I always associated red and black tartan ( the sabrettes in the punk threads of  Viviene Westood.

During these years I became aware of Japanese anime/manga , "Akira" which resonated some of these revolutionary themes for me.

Clink the link for more on  red and black 

The Elephant in The Room

Yesterday I read a post about how one of the largest elephants in India was killed by Poachers, and this morning I was reminded of the exhibition by the Graffiti artist Banksy

Elephants entered my awareness as a child with the Disney Movie Dumbo and around the same time my dad made an elephant "hat" for me out of papier mache which I used when my brothers and I won 1st prize in a carnival we entered. as Noah , his ark and the animals.
At age 11. My old secondary school was named Queen Elizabeth's Hospital (QEH) which kids from other rival schools  referred to as "Queer Elephants House" to tease us.

At about the age of twenty three I threw a joint birthday party at the infamous Clays Lane Housing cooperative on the site of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park & Olympic village. The main symbolism in the flyer that my friend and I designed was a "smurf", which was intended to represent "Earth/Smurf consciousness" however we also incorporated an sacred chao/yin yang and at the insistence of my friend an elephant .

The preservation of elephants, tigers, rhinos, etc like the rainforests and environmental protection more generally seems to me to be one of the most critical goal facing humankind.

I have blogged elsehere about elephants in the cartoon "Horton hears a who"

The final resonance of the elephant that seems worth mentioning is in the imagery often used to represent in the Hindu/ Buddhist deity Ganesh.

J.I.M.

Every Shrove Tuesday/ Pancake Day marks the last day before lent in the uk, ( in the UK many people eat simple pancakes with just a dash  of butter and a squeeze of lemon juice." In Brazil they have Carnival.

Carnevale is an Italian word derived from the Latin carnem (meat) and levare (remove), corresponding to English "carnival". It is a traditional Christian celebration which marks the beginning of Lent,the period of 40 days before Easter during which no meat is eaten.

 I remember the early 90's  for  ecstacy of my awakening to the "Cult of Lemon Tango" .This was depicted in a seldom remembered series of television adverts that depicted a spoof cult, the members of which had left their mundane 9-5 jobs to wear yellow robes practise rituals including "the cutting of the lemon" , drink lemon tango and follow JIM.
This advert had particular resonance for me because a few years earlier my mother who was devout Catholic/Christian and a member the Charismatic Renewal Movement had told me about J.I.M the acronym meaning "Jesus in Me" this had resonated with my Buddhist leanings and the concept of Christos or Christ Conciousness that I had heard about while travelling in the U.S.A. a few years earlier.
The Cult of yellow Tango became evermore relevant when as chance would have it I moved out of the rather infamous "Clays lane Housing Cooperative" rather suddenly and found my self out of necessity sleeping in the floor of the Buddhist Temple of my Tai Chi Gung Fu Teacher who's school was named in honour of the meeting between Buddhist Monk Yellow Dragon and a Taoist Monk named Loi Dong Bung . (members of this Buddhist Sect have also been known to wear yellow robes just as in the Cult of Yellow Tango ;-) , I lived and slept on the wooden floor in the Temple for just over a year and left almost as suddenly as I moved in. To this day I remember it as a very special time in my life and am grateful to my teacher for his support.