Monday, December 21, 2009

Happy Midwintersday!

Happy Midwintersday. This is the day that the spiritual and the physical join in agreement and look forward to new beginnings. The photo below is of a mount in Ireland built by the ancients. It is a physical manifestation of their spiritual beliefs. The whole structure is dedicated to detecting the winter solstice, or the longest night and the darkest day.

I will be writing much more about this subject later. But if you have any thoughts about Midwintersday, or what it means to you, please dive in. I just wanted to start the day with a good thought.

This large mound is called "Newgrange" and it is estimated to be over 3,200 Years old.


At the very lowest point the the sun reaches in the winter sky, a beam of sunlight shines though the opening above the entry and shines on a mark all the way back into the central chamber.

I read somewhere that they used to sacrifice humans at the winter solstice, but the catholic Church stopped it. I guess they figured that human sacrifice was their prerogative.



Some of my ancestors are from Ireland, so I find the Early Irish to be, at least, as fascinating as the Early American Indians. Indeed there are many similarities in the two people. They were both extremely creative. They both used stone tools, and many of their legends and stories were the same. They both had rebirth or renewal celebrations. They based many things on information passed down from generation to generation. Neither of the two people had written language. The French gave Britton their written language in about 650 AD.


At one time my accumulated knowledge and memory would have been considered to be very valuable. An old person back in stone age times was the ancient equivalent to Google today. If you needed to know something, you had to converse with the elders. Elders were the most revered people of all of the culture back then.

The modern Irish estimate The Newgrange Structure to be between 5,000 and 5,200 years old. The mound is not more than 10,000 years old, because all of the British Iles were covered with a glacier before that. As the glacier melted stone age man moved northward. Unlike modern day man, they looked forward to global warming. But that was the period where global warming was slowing down considerably.

One of the things that made me realize that all people are the same is the similarities in the stone writing. The spirals, circles, boxes, and zigzag lines are found in all Neolithic stone carvings. The carvings could easily been done by our local Indians.

31 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dang! That mound looks brand new. It must be made of good stuff to look that good after 3200 years.
Kinda like me, darn near perfect after all this time.
I just buy a calendar every year and it gives me the same information. I always used a tide book for my almanac but I haven't seen one of those around here.

Oregon

Ernie Branscomb said...

Check the photo of the rock at the bottom of the post. It has all of the markings of the local indigenous people, yet they were half a world apart in distance, and separated by an ocean.

Also, notice the ever present, and all over the world "Cupules". Yet nobody can fully explain why they made those baseball size holes in the rock.

Dave Kirby said...

The spiral shows up everywhere I wonder why....

http://www.myerchinphoto.com/ChinaLakePetroglyphs.html

ImBlogCrazy said...

I love reading historical articles from anywhere in the world.

You picked an interesting subject (to me)and I'm just going to have to read more about it.

Thanks

Ernie Branscomb said...

Dave
When studying the British Isles, one thing leads to another, and you find yourself fascinated with so many things, in their long history, that it is hard to pull away. Soon, you find yourself mired in the moors of mythology and legend.

\ said...

hey Dave, maybe its cuz JahSpiralBlahBlah is omnipresent, LOL! i;ll reswarch it and get back 3 ya, i'm in the library in Santa CRux, i woke up on my friends couch at 6am and took a long walk, i only cried a little bit, then i got some coffe and the dude in front of me inline piad 3 it so that helped with the caffeend to cheer me up a little, (and let go Spy) but its hard and its raelly wierd and uncomfortable here but i have enuff time, i think, to say --thanx soooooooooooo much yuo guys 5 all the suppurt and freindshop, i luv the whole gang here, even Ekup and Ruse and Kcym and that other redneck dude, dang i cant even remember his name, and Mr Rose Sideburn, and Fluffy n Dave, and that other hillbilly whose name i wont mention cuz if it passses my lips i may barf, i may barf anyway, watch out anonymous, no fibbin, and happy equinox Spy, time is my my relative, its winter but the red red Robin is bobbin along, and if i cant park there when i get my car back from the pOlease Ernie cuz yuo have a new parkingfriend thats okay i still love yuo, and OMR, if yr listenin, and i gnow u r lol,
i'm off to investigate the only qiustion worth resaerchin ... and uh ok my time is up, (in more ways than one as per usual)

happy huggledaze,
s

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\ said...

okay now i DO give up --i cant get the link to work --yuoll just have to imagine what teh question is that i'm resaerching

Ernie Branscomb said...

Suzy
Your parking spot is still here. Alizee was just a short drive around the block. You know how men are.

Seriously, take care of yourself. I don't know anything about your circumstances, but there is tons of help for people on the outs. Seek help if you need it. Or write here, and we will find it for you. I’m not real religious, but I have a lady preacher friend who is not into preaching or judging, and she is a darn good listener. She has helped a lot of my veteran friends get their lives back together. I know that you must be in a lot of pain. I’ve had some bad days myself, but one thing that I can say without any reservations; you will be happy. All you have to do is work on it and wait. It WILL come.

Anonymous said...

Your Awesome Ernie.
Marry Christmas.

Oregon

ROSS SHERBURN said...

ROSE SIDEBURN! SUZY,is that me you are referring to???

THATS GREAT!!!! LOL!

better than calling me MAURICE!!!

Anonymous said...

Away in some danger
our suz has no bed,
She's got no bail,
nor nugs for her head.
The car got hempounded,
her heart is broke,
The blues are much realer
without a toke.
Stay clean and low profile,
be good to yourself,
The next chapter's unfolding, the script has some pelf.

We pray for our sister whose future draws nigh,
Our bloglove is real, and for her.. we'll get high.
(well, some of us)

for suzy blah blah...
the light returneth

Anonymous said...

Merry*
Dang, what did I do with that bottle of hooch anyway?

Oregon

ROSS SHERBURN said...

"HOOCH" i haven't heard that TERM in YEARS!!! OREGON,you're showing our AGES!!!

Anonymous said...

Ross, was it your dad that used to reload his ammo?

Oregon

ROSS SHERBURN said...

YES OREGON!! he even reloaded for quite a few people around town also. he also had a 100 yard range behind our house.the bench was inside a redwood building,so you could shoot in the winter as well.

Ernie Branscomb said...

Oregon
My dad and Ross' dad, Shine, used to go to turkey shoots together. When they loaded their shells they would take up the air space on top of the powder with corn meal. After winning a few turkeys a guy game over to them and said," What the hell is it that you're shootin’ there, biscuits?

ROSS SHERBURN said...

i think that happened in NEW HARRIS at a TURKEY SHOOT??? i remember a fellow named POPKEY,he had a GROWTH on his EYE??? anyone remember him???

Ernie Branscomb said...

Yes
Ken Popkey. He owned the New Harris Store and post office. He also owned the Popkey Ice Company. I knew him well, and I was his refrigeration tech. He was Phyllis Drewry's dad.

The New Harris Store is open again. Some local people bought it and they have a small grocery and convenience store. They also sell hardware, plumbing, and lumber.

ROSS SHERBURN said...

i had bunch of stories to tell,but didn't want to TREAD on SPYROCK,so, it will just have to wait!!!LOL!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL YOU RIDGERUNNERS!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Yeah Ross, I was thinking it was your dad that developed a load for the .270 that some are still using today. I'm not sure but think he used DePont 4895 at 49.3 grains of powder with a Sierra 90 grain hollow point bullet. When I started reloading back in the early 60's I had a .243 and used Hodgdon 4831 powder because it was $1.35 a pound, much cheaper than the DuPont powders of the day. When I bought my first 270 I kept using the Hodgdon 4831 powder with the 90 grain hollow points but found it worked better at 49.5 grains of powder.
Ernie, the ol' cornmeal trick worked good but now days there are enough different kinds of powder to select from that if you work at it, you can find a load that will group good and still have a compressed powder load without adding a biscuit to the case.

Oregon

ROSS SHERBURN said...

OREGON, my dad got hot on the 25-06 in the early seventies.necking down cheap military 30-06 brass and using h4831 military powder.he was buying the powder in 50 pound kegs! and he was using the 25-06 to shoot GROUND SQUIRRELS over here in the valley.

Anonymous said...

Those pesky squirrels are what wore out my 243. Sometimes over a hundred rounds a day. I treated my 270 better and it still shoots straight.
I was going to start buying my powder in bulk but I ended up moving to Alaska and started catching salmon and halibut for a change.

Oregon

ROSS SHERBURN said...

i had a WINNY model 70 243 Feather weight,PRE-64 rifle. wish i had kept it. think it belonged to ERNIES DAD,it ended up being some payment on a wrecked airplane,if memory serves????

Anonymous said...

Ross, I shot a little competition pistol and used a 44 mag and a 7TCU, both Thompson Contenders. The 7 TCU was a wildcat and I used 223 rifle case's necked up to 7 mm. I shot 160 grain boat tail rifle bullets in that pistol and they worked great. Talk about compressed loads. LOL
I necked some 308 brass down for my 243 but the brass only was good for 3 loadings. Maybe if I had annealed the necks the brass would have lasted longer.

Oregon

ROSS SHERBURN said...

OREGON,i would like to swap EMAIL address sometime????

Ernie Branscomb said...

Ross and Oregon. DON'T put your email addresses here! I have both of them and all you have to do is say "yes" and I will send the addresses out to you.

Once your email gets into the Garbage Bin, you can't stop the crap that those Nigerian businessmen frauds send you. Not to mention, all of the sweet girls offering to sell you Little Blue Miracle Pills. And, oh, would you like to buy a phony watch?

ROSS SHERBURN said...

What about the Little blue Pills & Sweet Girls???? LOL!

Anonymous said...

Put me into the yes colume Ernie.
I might be interested in a sweet girl too.

Oregon