It has got to be an appropriate day to write a Blog today. Spring Equinox AND a full moon – a powerful combination together. Easter in all its glory.
Gareth has cancelled tonight (here) as he is going to an important meeting. Well, he is a Pagan at heart! It is also Good Friday, of course, and an important day in the calendar of the Christian Church universally; not just the Catholic one but other denominations besides. Actually, I prefer Easter to Christmas. For one thing its warmer (normally), but its not bogged down (rather suppressed) by commercialism. At least, the real meaning is often ‘suppressed’ by that human desire for greed, and all the rest of it. This still applies to Easter, of course, but to a lesser degree. I think that is mainly limited to the sale of Easter eggs, and the greeting cards hardly touch the Christmas ones in contrast to sheer magnitude. Please do not get me wrong anybody. I am not opposed to the real meanings behind Christmas and Easter in the TRUE sense; only the hypocrisy of many people and big businesses who try – indeed do – make huge profits out of these. That is just the way of the ‘material world’, I suppose, but there can be no harm in pointing this out. It is only an observation in any event. It is not just my personal observation – anybody can see it if they care to look.
Aside from this, I went to a small meeting this evening. (I usually do on a Thursday, and ‘no’, it wasn’t a religious one!). I got back to find a hand-delivered letter a friend had dropped round. It unnerved me a little as I thought the person had completely forgotten about myself, and she did not live so close in any event so must have made a special trip. She was deeply into mediumship and spiritualism when I last saw her, although I didn’t particularly agree with some of the conclusions she was trying to convince me of. Which made the letter intriguing. It didn’t mention any of these, but the fact of unexpected contact again; well, it was just a little unnerving!
I may make contact. But it won’t be yet. I have a hundred and one other things going on at the moment, and I don’t want to make it one hundred and two! Cat has been back getting me to talk about prison of all things. I suspect he could have been put in a Cattery at one point in his mortal life, and has never quite got over it!
For the moment,
David
11 responses
– “Ask away if you want.”
If you had to choose one woman to be marooned on a desert island with, who would it be?
Nice easy question for a change , Cat!
Apart from Felicity Kendal, the answer would have to be Shipla. A most extraordinarly beautiful woman.
Might even be able to go without my cigarettes as well then!
David
At least spell her name right. SHILpa not SHIPla. You silly berk.
Thought it was too good to be easy!
David
Oh do behave.
Next question. Are you responsibe for fabricating some rubbish about a “ghostly cat” who “urinates on a witches bed” at the Ancient Ram Inn?
For the record, I do not mind tales about “ghostly cats”. However this rubbish about cats engaging in “malicious urination” must be nipped in the bud….
“Next question. Are you responsible for fabricating some rubbish about a “ghostly cat” who “urinates on a witches bed” at the Ancient Ram Inn?”
No I was NOT Cat.
For the record, I spent two all-nightly ghost vigils (with others) in 1998 an 2002 respectively.
I subsequently published two detailed articles about each of these vigils and nowhere did I mention a ‘ghostly cat’,
It is true that there is a large ancient bed in the ‘Bishop’s room’ upstairs which is reputed to a ‘witches bed’. (Indeed, I laid on this with my camera for a long part of one of the vigils). This is supposedly the most haunted room in the Inn, and many people have reported paranormal experiences there.
It is true that the owner told us that a ‘ghostly cat’ also haunted the building – but this did not come from myself.
So sorry, not guilty (as per usual!).
David
No. You wouldn’t mind, would you? being a ghost yourself!
I’m still glad you mentioned it though as it is just another example of things being attributed to myself in the ‘paranormal world’ which have either been grossly distorted or which I had nothing to do with.
The tragedy is that a few gullibly-minded people actually believe such nonsense!
Next question please . . .
David
here u go david.
check it out.
shilpa dressed as a CAT!!!
it was for the PETA campaign – against animal crulety.
shes difinately pretty and well classy.
cheers
Craig
p.s any effect on u up there in cat narnia??
Hello David.
So this is where you’ve all transpired to. I was wondering why the forum’s been silent for so long.
Here’s a small piece I wrote about the TRUTH about Easter.
The theme is cosmological. The garden is mythological the place where Venus meets Adonis; and it is also the garden of generation where all living things are reformed after they have disintegrated.
(‘A Preface to the Faerie Qveene’. Graham Hough. (London: Duckworth, 1962), 176.
Easter, the Christian festival which celebrated the resurrection of Christ and bewails his sacrifice and crucifixion, sometimes, re-enacting the events in a bizarrely pagan fashion originated in the resurrection of Attis who combined in himself the characters of the divine father and the divine son. This was officially celebrated at Rome on the same day as the Christians believe it to have occurred
The birth of faire Belphœbe and
Of Amoret is told
The Gardins of Adonis fraught
with pleasures manifold
This emblematic epigram to the sixth canto of Spencer’s ‘The Faerie Qveene’ fits Christian Easter ritual and is worth a read in this regard. This is discussed by Frazer in the chapter on ‘Balder’s Fires.’ Cicero, the Roman orator writes
When we call corn Ceres and wine Bacchus, we use a common figure of speech; but do you imagine that anybody is so insane as to believe that the thing he feeds upon is God?
(De natura deorum. 3: 16. Cicero).
St Jerome writes in his EPISTOLAE LVIII: 3, that the Lord was born within the shade of the grove of Syrian Lord Adonis and that this lover of Adonis was bewailed where the infant Jesus had wept. Adonis’ death was traditionally bewailed at Bethlehem (which means ‘House of bread’) long before Christ said ‘I am the bread of life.’ Could the weeping of the infant Christ have been that for the lament for Adonis – As described in the book of the Prophet Isaiah?
Many men have been counted the sons of God in the most literal sense of the word, being supposed to have been born begotten by his Holy Spirit in the bowels of mortal women. I have merely illustrated the creed by a few examples drawn from classical antiquity, and there are various theories by which pagans and Christians explain these striking similarities
Taken altogether, the coincidences of the Christian with the heathen festivals are too close and too numerous to be accidental. The mark the compromise which the church in the hour of its triumph was compelled the make with its vanquished yet still dangerous rivals.
(‘The Golden Bough.’ 12 Volumes, Oxford world’s classics, 1906 – 1915).
Most strikingly, Frazer draws parallels between Christ and Buddha as Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian – The Promised Messiah and Mahdi has discussed in his own treatise – ‘Jesus in India’ many decades before Frazer’s book was published.
Hi Rehan,
We haven’t really ‘gone’ anywhere – except when some dear person persuaded me to start posting a Blog.
Been some mixed reaction – mainly because I just insisted on writing the truth about ‘everyday happenings’, I suppose.
Apparently, some people just can’t abide that! They would rather hear a lot of prentatious sensationalism instead!
Anyway, glad you found us.
You’re synoposis of Easter was very appropriate. But then, I realise it was from your own observations as a poet. Probably not everyone would get the meanings. But I do, and thanks.
Please do post again if you want,
For the moment,
David