Santa Claus reindeers as Disciples of Jesus

(You Tube Video narrated and illustrated)
It being October, the month when the department stores put up their Christmas displays along with an aisle or two of Halloween costumes, where stylish witches hats still are most popular, I was Googling the origins of Christmas.

All agree that December 25 is not the correct day for the birth of Jesus, but it does not matter because it is really the climax of the Roman festival of Saturnalia, which was appropriated by the Church. The festival of Saturnalia began at the beginning of the the astrological sign Capricorn and ended on December 25 on the winter solstice. December 25, being the solstice and thus the day of the birth of the Sun God, was a perfect day for the birth of the Son of God.

A rabbi makes the case that it is a Jewish hate day because many misused Saturnalia as a time to degrade the Jews, since, as St. Nicholas taught, were responsible for killing Jesus. It is not surprising that Saturnalia, given its theme of a Mardi Gras atmosphere, would be expropriated by those with no conscience as an excuse to commit murder and rape, but it was not meant to be that way.

Saturnalia was a time that servants would be treated as masters (reminiscent of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples in John 13:1-17) and all would exchange small presents. Someone would be named as the "Lord of the Feast" and would play "Simon says" (This expression originated from Simon Magus who claimed to be the leader of the early Christian Church). This lord could instruct the guest, for instance, to get naked and stand on one leg and all would have to comply.

Perhaps, we all need a week of partying to celebrate the end of the solar and human darkness and, if it was not so cold, to run naked in the streets. Given that it is the Mass of Christ, we should follow the Golden Rule of Jesus, Hillel, Buddha, and Mohammed: "To do to others what you would have them do unto you." "Turning the other cheek" would not be advised as it should be a week of self-expression and innocent-exhuberance, not to encourage a repression of future trauma.

In line with the weakening of Christianity and the replacement of the birth of Jesus with Santa Claus, it dawned on me that the reindeer of Santa Claus were his disciples.

The first six were his trusted disciples:
1-2 Dasher (Peter) and Dancer (Andrew),
3-4 Prancer (Philip, head of the unmarried daughters - Acts 21:9) and Vixen (John Mark, the disciple whom Jesus loved - John 13:23),
5-6 Comet (James Niceta), and Cupid (John Aquila who was married to Priscilla - Acts 18:2)

The last two were actually the superiors of Jesus:
7-8 Donner and Blitzen are from the Dutch "Dunder" and "Blixem" meaning "Thunder" and "Lightning". "Sons of Thunder" are the nicknames of James and John (Mark 3:17) and by the Pesher of Christ, can be shown to be "Thunder" as the nickname of Jonathan Annas, the disciple know as James, son of Alphaeus, with his adversary being Simon Magus, know as Simon, the Zealot/Canaanite as "Lightning" (Luke 10:18).

9 Rudolph, being a 20th-century inclusion, would clearly fit as St. Paul, who was ostracized by the other disciples (reindeer), but whose prominent nose guided Christianity through the fog of the pagan world.

As to the other disciples, they were not so helpful: Judas who betrayed him, Thaddaeus who was Barabbas, Matthew who was a subordinate to Jonathan though later he would take over for him, and Thomas, who was "the doubter" being the disinherited son of Herod the Great.

So let us not spend another Christmas engaging with the news reporters' "War on Christmas" or reading reports of beheadings in the name of religion, but take joy that Santa Claus is coming to town, bringing toys for girls and boys and knowing that they all try to be nice and not naughty. For Santa Claus says, simply, that a joyous life awaits us with the coming of the next Spring and let the festivities of Saturnalia begin, "Ho, Ho, Ho"!

Urban Ark (Performance Art)

Urban Ark was the name that Wendy-Bird and Dylan came up with for this
Performance Art Work for Harlech Biennale XI - 2014 Published on Sep 7, 2014
International Contemporary Art Wales (ICAW)
Exhibition: "In and Out of the Citadel"
To the song Earth Ship by Dylan Stephens
performed by the Stephens family: (Dylan, Wendy, Kes, Nirvana, Llyr, and Atira)
Sonotubes protected by Rainguard (Note the pun for Rain and God)
Filmed at Garage-Mahal located on Rainbow Lake, Bellingham, Washington.

The theme is a family who are building an Urban Ark to survive the coming catastrophe. It is built from Sonotubes which are cardboard molds used to make concrete pillars. It ends with Wendy trying to contact others, "This is the Urban Ark. Anyone there in outer space. Hello" Then the signal fades.

It is based on the song by Dylan Stephens:
Earth Ship (Published on Aug 20, 2014)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1PrBp4-Abs

Chorus:
Earth Ship, Pleasure trip, People overboard.
The whole world is drowning.
Won't you save us, Lord !
Money quest, Emptiness,
Drifting in the void.
It won't take much
To become an asteroid.

Flood gate,
Can't escape
Sickness of the mind.
It's only the naive
Believe a human could be kind.
Every day
Stories say:
People rape and kill.
We're abused by the news,
Yet we've never had our fill.
(Chorus)

Tick-tock;
Stop the clock;
We're growing old too fast.
Where's the treasured hope
That was always in our past.
Brave knight
Wins the fight,
But she can't be his bride.
We've grown so cynical
That we've even lost our pride.
(Chorus)

Olive branch,
Cosmic dance,
Peace must be proclaimed
And not just to the chosen ones
Of whom the church has named.
True love,
White dove
Flying o'er the sea.
Only with compassion
Can the world be truly free.
(Chorus)

God is Fun

The article by David Graeber in The Baffler Titled What’s the Point If We Can’t Have Fun? got me to thinking. To paraphrase its premise: fun appears to be innate in organic life and inorganic life and may actually explain the creation of more complex organisms and of the universe itself.

So I thought that one could take it a step further and say God is Fun. Far better than the God that judges and punishes. However, fun clearly must have ethical restrictions. (Perhaps ethics are innate also. We all knew the Golden Rule before Buddha and Jesus.)

Then I thought how Gurdjieff's division of man/woman into Body. Emotions, and Mind has significance here: where Body is passive, Mind active and Emotion neutralizing and that these three forces Passive, Active, Neutralizing are the building blocks of everything, including inorganic matter. Therefore the fun part is the reconciliation of the two opposites: passive and active and that this process creates something higher as one 'do' note passes to the higher 'do' in the enneagram.

I have been wrestling with Gurdjieff's apparent mistake in the Food Octave and I believe that I have resolved it. The Food Octave is a perfect representation of how person with just a physical body could grow a Spirit (Astral Body) and a Soul.

So I say, "Down with Darwin's survival of the fittest and down with the atheists, God is Fun because God is the neutralizing force that balances depression and elation and makes us happy."

dylanesque, A new music genre?

The Urban dictionary defines "dylanesque" as having the qualities of Bob Dylan. Well, to that I could add to that two other Dylans: the poet Dylan Thomas and me. There is an album out called Dylanesque, but it occurred to me that it was a perfect name for my music genre.

All these years I have had to check the box "folk rock", but there is no "folk" in my songs and as to "rock" what does that mean anymore? Kurt Cobain and the other Seattle groups were not "punk" and the term "alternative" is just a general term for "who knows what you are" so suddenly, and no one knows for sure how, they started to call themselves "grunge" and the rest is history.

As to being Dylan Stephens, I used to be in the top 10 on a search, but no more. There is a body builder, androgyne, and probably even a female, and a person in a sheepskin coat from the 60's - oh that is me! Anyway, I am a Dylan and being named after Dylan Thomas the poet, not Bob Dylan because I am too old, I have a legal right to have a music genre: "dylanesque". I am hoping that it will stick and defeat the mainstream as "grunge" once did. Wish me luck.

My channel is "oldiesbutdillies". These YouTube creations represent my best songs, which were so unique and good that the mainstream ignored them, and you could say that they are 'oldies' from this Dylan and thus 'dillies' - get-it! These illustrated songs are also a new art form in themselves. Thanks for listening and watching.

Thanks from Snowdon to Edward Snowden

Yeah, I once had a Secret Clearance. It was strange though as my greatest claim to fame, beyond being a classmate of Clinton, was attending the "March on the Pentagon" October 24, 1967. As I stood outside the entrance with tear gas all around, someone gave me a wet cloth for my face. The dilemma: to go in and get arrested or to just return back to the mob where communist trucks drove by to try to claim it was their rally.

Well, years later I had a Secret Clearance, so not on the watch list yet! As I entered into the secure location of the "Reagan's Star Wars Project" as a Boeing Computer Services guru, astronomy/physics major, astrologer, and Columbia Records signed band: the Grey Company (named after Aragorn's friends in the Lord of the Rings), all I saw were people wasting taxpayer money.

It is strange that all this NSA stuff should shock people. We gave away all our privacy to Dick Cheney ages ago and very few cared then! (Interesting that two of the most famous Presidential crooks are "Dicks".) I always take refuge in the fact that too much data overwhelms the system. Just look at the Internet. You can't find information anymore, just commercials. I do not know why people are so complacent about being controlled by the modern Gestapo.

I agree with Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, that we are facing a crisis greater than the days of Nixon. For the President and the key Senators, who have been briefed on what is going on, to shrug their shoulders is unforgivable. The reason that those 'techies' like Snowden earn fabulous salaries has to do with the fact that few people know anything about this field of intelligence gathering technology. It scares them and they think that by paying a high salary that they are protected.

In my system programming days in the 70's all I had to do was to convince the prospective employer that I could handle anything. Well, I was good, but not that good and computers did sometimes defeat me. We are looking at the reality of all those future movies of machines taking over. It is not that easy to just pull the plug on "2001 Space Odyssey" "HAL" (the word created from IBM shifted one letter to the right.) "HAL" or shall we say "MRZ" (sounds a bit like "MRSA" the incurable physical infection) is everywhere and no one is in control!!!

Has the NSA tracked the Skype calls to my wife in the U.S. from my house overlooking Harlech Castle and Snowdon Mountain where the Welsh "traitors" to King Edward once hid out. They will now!!!! Will the British Government shield me from the NSA cops? Not likely as they are in it, too.

My YouTube song: Modern Times seems fitting here.

Many thanks from Snowdon Mountain to you, Edward Snowden. Integrity comes with a cost.

Star Hopping out of generic commercial pop music

Zach Sobiech, farewell, and Sammy Brown, what a beautiful goodbye.

Thank our stars that YouTube allows a small window for real music to bleed through the cracks. What better way than the power of song to say goodbye to the world with "Star Hopping" and "Clouds"!

And yet that freedom is rapidly losing ground in the under the weight of Google ad-words where money is again determining what gets played. Money continues to perpetuate the quick buck marketing of generic commercial pop music records where clones of Britney Spears, boybands, 50 Cent rap and X-Factor are released in an endless loop.

Once upon a time there was folk music that was exactly as its name: music of us folks. From that we had the pop music of Buddy Holly, the Beatles, and the Stones, Bob Dylan, and Leonard Cohen. (You can guess my ancient age from these choices.) These were songs of real people, some were light like Star Hopping, others serious, but most of all they were real. Country Music held on to that concept, but its styles of singing were too confining. Blues, of course, has had a great influence. Perhaps, real songs are still out there.

Zach, may the wave of real songs continue as your legacy and be of comfort to your friends and family and help the Zach Sobiech Osteosarcoma Fund.

I offer my song: Venus and Mars
as a companion to "Star Hopping" and "Clouds".

End of the world December 21, 2012?

If that were only true, I think many would welcome the end of the world on Friday December 21. The real question is how would the Mayan's know this?

On November 8, 1519, the Aztec leader Montezuma met Cortés on the causeway leading into Tenochtitlan and the two leaders exchanged gifts. Montezuma gave Cortés the gift of an Aztec calendar, one disc of crafted gold and another of silver. (Wikipedia)

Clearly, the Aztec Calendar, which was derived from the Mayan Calendar, was partly responsible for Montezuma's defeat because of the superstitions associated with it. At that time the Mayan Empire was merely a shadow of their once great empire. None of this decline was predicted from their calendar.

Christianity had its own prediction of the end of the world in 64 CE (AD) and Nero used it to his advantage after the great fire in Rome to kill Peter and Paul and ruthlessly kill and torture Christians. See my book: 'The Seven Sisters and the Apocalypse'.
Calendar predictions are dangerous because they prey on the masses, who want things to be better and yet they do not accept that they could get worse! The annoying characteristic of change is that it can possibly take lifetimes to manifest. Who wants to wait for the joining of all races into a global truly democratic peace?

Thus when the aliens land and offer us their help on Friday December 21, many will accept them with open arms. Yet, they may really have intentions to destroy us all. Our defeat will be due to the Mayan Calendar or as people are saying an Obama Apocalypse.