THE SURPRISES PAGE

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

“Is there anyone at your house over 65 who could get a senior discount?” she asked slyly looking at my gray hair.

Over 65!  I thought the senior discount was for anyone 55 and older.  That was at the medical supplies store where I was buying a hot water bottle to keep my toes warm this winter, when I plan to have the heat turned down to save energy.  Is this store pinching pennies?  Well, most of their customers would be seniors and they can’t be expected to give a discount to all of them.  (By the way, if you use a hot water bottle, you learn very soon to wrap it securely in a plastic bag in case it leaks, and to not let the water be too hot.)

Then at the grocery store I noticed that the produce department had shrunk.  Well, harvest time is over isn’t it?  Taking the place of produce was a huge display of carbonated beverages.  But I noticed that the baked goods section had also shrunk.  (This grocery store has its own bakery – very nice.)  Actually, I’d noticed that before – the baked goods area has been steadily shrinking for several months as they remove sales tables and counters.  The case of the shrinking grocery store (hmmm).

No problem finding everything I wanted in the grocery store this time, unlike previous visits over the past few months when some things were out of stock.  I kept asking myself how this store could be having a problem staying stocked just a mile or two from one of the biggest interstates in the nation, if not the biggest.  Producers are faltering?  And now there is more to buy, because others are buying less?  I don’t know what’s going on.  This store carries some organic products, so I go there for the organic.  I need this store.

And what’s happening with the salad bar?  Seems like the new policy is to make sure each and every bin is nearly empty before they toss what’s left and replenish.  I got a well-picked over salad.  Oh well, maybe the salad bar was just unattended for some reason?

There was something else new – two huge tables filled with assorted items, all sale-priced 99 cents or less; all discontinued brands I suppose.  Not great on a day when the papers were screaming “global meltdown” or some such.

Another thing I like about my grocery store is that they take the groceries to the car and load them.  What do you say to a man pushing your groceries?  I asked this man “What do think about the ‘crisis.’  Is it real or are they just trying to sell newspapers?”  He had plenty to say on that – he is retired he says, in his seventies, like his wife.  (Some retirement where he has to keep working!)  He said, “I don’t trust the banks; I don’t trust Washington.”  He’s worried about his very small retirement savings.  He didn’t say he’s angry and scared, but he is. 

I am worried that in these hard times this grocery store could be losing customers.  It’s such a great store, I hope it can stay open.

Earlier that day I noticed the gas station had changed, too, and I don’t mean the sky-high prices for gasoline.  For some months now, the new rule has been cash customers pay inside first unless they are at the nearest pump where they can be observed by the checker.  Dishonesty, or rather desperation, has been growing along with the prices.  Now I noticed a new sign – “For these credit cards, pay inside” (they named two card companies).  So they don’t trust those cards anymore. 

Another sign of the times – almost no traffic!  I was thinking maybe I was the last person on Earth.  People are finally learning how to conserve gasoline and to do more than one errand at a time?

Many houses for sale on my street.  Where will the people go? 

Later that week the local paper announced some teachers might be fired – not as many children had signed up as anticipated.  Where are the children?  Another article mentioned 500 homes on the market locally that were foreclosed (banks took over).  Could the lack of children have something to do with that?  People are moving to less expensive areas?   Nobody knows what’s happening with the schools.

Several weeks ago the clerk at the drug store said that more and more people are asking for rain checks (to get the current price at a later date).  Meaning more things are out of stock?  Or just more people are asking?  Or both?  I don’t know.

When I went to the bank in early August, the desk clerk there said, “Watch out for that other bank,” and he named a bank.  “It will fail.”  He said he was sure.  He said it’s easy to find out how sound a bank is by going online.  At the time I thought he was just trying to steer me away from his competition and shrugged it off.  Now if he knew two months ago what was going to happen to that particular bank, and obviously the bank’s officials must have had a pretty clear idea of what could happen, why didn’t the government know AND do something well in advance of this crisis to head it off?

Why hasn’t the government done something about health care, immigration, global warming, etc?  This Congress was elected to stop the war.  They didn’t.  Did they do anything?  Oh well, they kept the government running.  That’s good.

The bank clerk said, “If you want to be secure, buy a cow.”  Now I’m thinking maybe this guy knew what he was talking about.  Now I’m thinking a cow would be a good idea, except that a cow would be too big.  Maybe I need a few sheep instead.  They would take care of cutting the grass and that way I wouldn’t have to pay for lawn care.  Sheep milk tastes OK, doesn’t it? 

My view – when people’s lifetime savings can vaporize overnight or in a week, just because other people are gambling, and that’s what it is, gambling in the stock market with nearly real-time online trading, and gambling by making bad bank loans, then this gambling has got to stop.  We have an economic system that is badly in need of radical reform.  Forget about just rearranging the deck chairs.

-2008-

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ONCE UPON A TIME

“It is the Earth Goddess for all to see” – that’s what Silbury Hill is according to the narrator on the DVD, “Goddess Remembered.”  It is “the tallest prehistoric man-made mound in Europe and one of the world's largest,” according to the Stone Pages site on antiquities.  It looks like a gigantic pile of dirt.  It is more than four thousand years old.

I couldn’t recall Silbury Hill.  I looked it up in my book, Voyages of the Pyramid Builders; The True Origins of the Pyramids from Lost Egypt to Ancient America, by Robert M. Schoch, Ph.D. with Robert Aquinas McNally.  The book says, “Whiteness is a key characteristic of another pyramid candidate:  Silbury Hill, which is located just south of the village of Avebury in England’s Wiltshire.  A massive artificial mound with a flat top, Silbury Hill stands approximately 130 feet high, with a base circumference of 1,640 feet that covers more than five acres.  The hill contains over 12 million cubic feet of earth and chalk, the latter originally coloring it white.  This monument was built in three stages, the first beginning in about 2660 BC.  Various legends and stories attach to Silbury Hill, but the monument’s purpose remains unknown.”

If Silbury Hill is a mound of the Great Goddess, does it signify her breast or her womb?  The DVD would seem to favor the idea of a breast because it launches into some sort of paean to her breast.  However, a BBC article says “Earth worshippers believe that Silbury is, in fact, the swollen womb of the Earth Goddess and provides a symbol linking the harvest with the pregnant earth.” 

Silbury Hill is flat on top, but that flat area is atop some sort of round crown, a circle within the much larger circle of the base circumference.  And the round crown – is it a nipple or just some erosion?  This tourism page says, “Each of the six steps was concealed within the overall profile of the mound, except the last one at the top which was left as a terrace or ledge about 17 feet (5 m.) below the summit. This terrace is clearly visible on the eastern side of the mound, but less distinct from the west.”  Yes, it is clearly visible and apparently intended – so the breast idea seems plausible.  I’ll add here what the UK’s English Heritage says about Silbury Hill, “Its purpose and significance remain enigmatic,” just so you know what the official position is.

According to the DVD, people dug into Silbury Hill in order to search for ancient treasure, but apparently, there was no treasure (at least no known report of it).  The top of Silbury Hill collapsed in 2000 and this was a delayed result of destructive excavations in 1776.  And other excavations at Silbury Hill have caused similar problems.  (What barbarians would dig destructive tunnels into an ancient artifact!!!  What a shame!!!)  And now as part of an effort to analyze and remedy the problem tunnels, “investigators” have drilled seven boreholes deep into the mound.  No doubt adding to the destruction.

The DVD shows Silbury Hill covered by sheep.  The hill is brown compared to the surrounding countryside and I had to ask myself if the brownness is grass or some other plant that is seasonally brown, or if the hill is nearly denuded by the sheep (that tend to nibble down to the roots and kill the grass).  Without sufficient grass, this ancient monument will just wash away in the rain.  The photo in the book shows erosion gullies cascading down the sides of the mound.  (Maybe something has already been done to protect the mound from the sheep by now?  We can only hope so.  And perhaps the sheep are allowed there only briefly to provide some sort of ecological “mowing” function to keep tree saplings from taking over?)  Seems to me their sharp little hooves could dislodge bits of surface material.

An aerial view of a different pre-historic site in the DVD astonished me.  Some bureaucrat had put a paved road right across the Stonehenge site.  The circle of prehistoric stones there is just a small circle inside a much larger circle, which has a road across it.  Is nothing sacred?  Didn’t building the road disturb the archeological record?  I can’t imagine how a road could be built there without disturbing at least the top layers.  I was just aghast to see that road!  In their hubris they thought no doubt that they could find and knowledgeably analyze everything there was to find of any archeological significance before they sent in the bulldozers.  What a shame!!!  And the road had no purpose other than to get the tourists within closer walking distance of the stones. 

There is also a major highway that misses the Stonehenge outer circle by mere meters – what artifacts were lost putting in that highway?  Not much thought went into that either! 

There’s a major highway going right past Silbury Hill, too.  Not much thought went into that either!

I wonder what motivated the ancient people to keep on building Silbury Hill generation after generation for 400 years.  What was its purpose?  Did they climb it to make harvest offerings to fruitful Earth at the top of the hill?  Did they dance on it to celebrate the rising of the full moon?  Did they sing hymns to the nourishing Great Mother?  Sounds like more fun than sitting in front of a screen clicking on a mouse.

Sometimes a circle is just a circle.

Full-size image

It is interesting that the Silbury and Stonehenge design of a circle within a much larger circle is also found in the huge “rose windows” of many Christian cathedrals; for example, the beautiful rose window at the Cathedral of Notre Dame (for many more, search Google images for “rose window”).  Could it be we remember her still in a way, even after centuries of having spiritual traditions subverted to fit a male mold? 

And sometimes a circle is an octagon???  According to the UK’s English Heritage, their recent survey using satellite mapping “suggests . . . that the mound is not in fact truly circular: on the summit it appears to be more angular than circular, while at the base it is almost octagonal in form.”  That page also says that the steps may in fact be a spiraling ledge.  I went back and viewed the DVD again to see if the periphery looks octagonal.  Nope.  The aerial view in the DVD shows nearly the whole circumference.  Sure looks like it was intended to be a circle to me as the whole mound is rounded except for the top and crown.  I couldn’t find the particulars on their “suggestion of an octagon,” but I expect the edge is wobbly after 4,000 years of weathering and that’s all it is.

Of course there’s no way to prove (yet) what the Goddess Remembered DVD implies, that Silbury and Stonehenge were used for worship, let alone a particular kind of worship, but it’s a good bet, because worship of the Goddess was prevalent at that time.

Our legacy will not be an enigmatic pile of dirt, or the temples, art, and statues of the ancient Goddess worshippers.  Rather it will be gigantic piles of rusting containers oozing radioactive waste and hazardous chemicals, thousands of landfills overflowing with garbage, it will be a gazillion tons of crumbling asphalt and concrete, it will be a toxified and desertified landscape, polluted air and water, biological warfare germs, etc., the legacy of ripping-off the Earth.  We’d do better to get re-acquainted with our connection to the Earth.  A consumerist, hierarchical way of life is not the only way – there are alternatives that revere the Earth.  We hope.

-2008-

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