Administrative Holiday

It's that day again - "where does the time go?", you might well ask.

Of course, just what the meaning of this day depends on the beholder. Here in the noble city of Louisville, this is Oaks Day, which means it's Churchill Downs' annual Grade I stakes race for three-year-old Thoroughbred fillies. But more importantly, it means an excuse to have a pre-Derby celebration and start drinkin' early. Many workplaces and even schools take off for Oaks Day, but no one declares that the holiday is explicitly because of the Oaks, of course - most simply say it is an "administrative holiday."

For others, April 30 means Walpurgis Night (Walpurgisnacht). It's a traditional religious holiday of pre-Christian origin, celebrated by Christian as well as non-Christian communities, past the stroke of midnight and through "The Door Into Summer" - May Day, the beginning of the new season. It's probably the one day of the year that Catholics, pagans, witches, Satanists, and anarchists all almost see eye-to-eye.

Walpurgisnacht is named for Saint Walpurga. The earliest representation of Walpurga, from the early 11th century, depicts her holding stylized stalks of grain. The grain attribute has been interpreted as identifying Walpurga as a Christianized protectress of the grain, the Grain Mother. Farmers fashioned her image in a corn dolly at harvest time, and from this tradition also comes the real origin of the Scarecrow figure in the fields - scaring birds was never its original intention.

Coming of the Corn

As I write this late on Friday night, MSNBC is having a ball ridiculing an article on the website of televangelist Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcast Network: on it, CBN employee Kimberly Daniels makes some crackpot assertions about Halloween candy being literally possessed by demonic entities:

"Most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches," Daniels wrote. "I do not buy candy during the Halloween season. Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store. The demons cannot tell the difference."

"Halloween is much more than a holiday filled with fun and tricks or treats," she wrote. "It is a time for the gathering of evil that masquerades behind the fictitious characters of Dracula, werewolves, mummies and witches on brooms. The truth is that these demons that have been presented as scary cartoons actually exist. I have prayed for witches who are addicted to drinking blood and howling at the moon."

MSNBC, not surprisingly, is treating CBN like they're nuts - which, I admit, they certainly are - but the snarky intellectuals at MSNBC are too much of a rationalist-skeptic bunch to even entertain the notion that something really could be possessed by some sort of spirit.

Myself, I tend to live in a world-view not unlike that of the Algonquin Tribe and their "Manitou" concept, one where everything is haunted by a very real and very tangible living spirit - trees, rocks, birds, dirt, pencils, shoes, laptops, rutabagas, etc. Not only all things, but all classifications of things and components of things, and components of the components. And so on. (It's really not as maddening as it sounds.)

But even without opening that philosophical can of nightcrawlers, there is one instance where CBN's fear of eating food possessed by spirits may clearly be justified.

It's called corn.

We've previously discussed here the horrors of Kentucky corn implanted with human genes being experimentally genetically modified right here in the commonwealth. This is frightening enough in itself to keep a person wide-eyed at night, but that's actually just the tip of the genetically modified iceberg. According to some sources, over 80% of all corn/maize in the United States of America is genetically modified. If you've been trying to avoid eating it, you might as well give up. GMO corn is literally everywhere.

But the omnipresence of GMOs in our nation's corn gets even more disturbing when you consider the omnipresence of corn in our nation's diet. Two scientists at the University of Hawaii recently made a shocking discovery when they chose to analyze the most commonly-eaten foods in America: McDonald's, Wendy's, and Burger King. Using stable isotope analysis, they found that corn molecules were everywhere, in the burgers (corn-fed meat plus corn used as filler) in the buns (corn used in the flour), in the chicken sandwiches (corn-fed meat plus corn used as filler), in the french fries (coated in cornstarch and cooked in corn oil), even in the soft drinks (High Fructose Corn Syrup)! They didn't do Taco Bell, but if they had, needless to say, the ubiquitous corn tortillas would have made everything a forensic nightmare.

Most GMO corn is circulating freely in our food chain with little or no testing - in most cases, some paid lab shill force-fed the stuff to some rats, and if they didn't immediately drop dead or start bursting out with instant bladder cancer, then the corn was given a green light for you and me and children and babies and pets to eat. If someone finds out later that GMO corn causes some sort of zombie disease that takes decades to show up, it'll be too late for us because we're all devouring the stuff every single day of our lives without even knowing it.

Even the bourbon I'm sipping as I type these words is made from corn.

And just what is corn, anyway? That's a good question, and the short answer is that no one seems to know for sure. As columnist Roger Matile has observed, "For something so valuable and yet so common, corn is one of the nation's historical mysteries".

Corn is especially suited to genetic experimentation because of its rapid ability to grow, to hybridize, and to mutate. Unlike most other plants, a cross will show up in the very next generation. Native Americans were the first to "genetically modify" corn in the literal sense, by planting the kernels with deliberation in separate rows, observing which specimens gave the best results, and subsequently increasing production of those samples which had the most desirable attributes.

Scientists are still undecided about just what corn is, and where it came from. Mary Eubanks of Duke University believes ancient humans actually invented corn by interbreeding two varieties of wild grasses. Eubanks believes that Tripsacum dactyloides (Eastern gamagrass) and Zea diploperennis, a perennial variety of Teosinte (a tall annual grass found in Mexico) were crossed to create the original Maize.

There is no clear chain of evolution of corn to be found in the fossil record. Corn as we know it does not seem to have existed until after the Pleistocene era - seemingly, it just suddenly appeared out of nowhere. The oldest corn evidence we have is actually quite sketchy - a specimen of alleged 80,000-year-old fossilized corn pollen, found buried 200 feet beneath the surface of Mexico City. Ears of popcorn, 5,600 years old, were found in Bat Cave, New Mexico. Archaeologists opened tombs in Peru and found kernels of popcorn that were 1,000 years old. They were so well preserved that they still popped when cooked. Remnants of corn from the year 400 have been found in Southern Ohio, near the Kentucky-Ohio border and the ever-spooky Ohio River.


The modern-day proponents of the cult of corn are everywhere, even in Kentucky. The Kentucky Corn Growers Association website seems innocuous enough at first glance, but then you realize that they're prominently linking to Sweet Surprise, a pro-HFCS ad campaign that goes beyond shameless in sheer blatant lies and disinformation. (You've seen their TV ads, which invariably portray pro-HFCS people as highly intelligent and happy, while they patiently try to educate an anti-HFCS person who is portrayed as irrational, uninformed, and just plain dumb. The ads are total "Straw man" fallacy, misrepresenting the anti-HFCS position, and then proceeding to argue with and tear down this false position.)

And then you start noticing troubling little things on the kycorn.org site, like prominent corporate logos for some of the most evil nature-wrecking entities on the planet, like DuPont, Syngenta and Monsanto. Ugh. Seeing Kentucky farmers openly and cheerfully endorsing these cynical and toxic polluters makes me want to hurl my corn-based dinner.


Sounds depressing, I know. And on a certain level, it is. But in the bigger picture, maybe, just maybe, the cornification of Earth is all part of the plan. Sir James Frazer, in his landmark tome The Golden Bough, observes:

Dionysus was not the only Greek deity whose tragic story and ritual appear to reflect the decay and revival of vegetation. In another form and with a different application the old tale reappears in the myth of Demeter and Persephone. Substantially their myth is identical with the Syrian one of Aphrodite (Astarte) and Adonis, the Phrygian one of Cybele and Attis, and the Egyptian one of Isis and Osiris. In the Greek fable, as in its Asiatic and Egyptian counterparts, a goddess mourns the loss of a loved one, who personifies the vegetation, more especially the corn, which dies in winter to revive in spring.

The oldest literary document which narrates the myth of Demeter and Persephone is the beautiful Homeric Hymn to Demeter, which critics assign to the seventh century before our era... It has been generally recognised, and indeed it seems scarcely open to doubt, that the main theme which the poet set before himself in composing this hymn was to describe the traditional foundation of the Eleusinian Mysteries by the goddess Demeter.

But there is yet another and a deeper secret of the mysteries which the author of the poem appears to have divulged under cover of his narrative. He tells us how, as soon as she had transformed the barren brown expanse of the Eleusinian plain into a field of golden grain, she gladdened the eyes of Triptolemus and the other Eleusinian princes by showing them the growing or standing corn. When we compare this part of the story with the statement of a Christian writer of the second century, Hippolytus, that the very heart of the mysteries consisted in showing to the initiated a reaped ear of corn, we can hardly doubt that the poet of the hymn was well acquainted with this solemn rite, and that he deliberately intended to explain its origin in precisely the same way as he explained other rites of the mysteries, namely by representing Demeter as having set the example of performing the ceremony in her own person. Thus myth and ritual mutually explain and confirm each other.

Let me repeat what he just said, and place it in bold face: the very heart of the mysteries consisted in showing to the initiated a reaped ear of corn.


Frazer goes on to systematically deconstruct the generally-held belief that Demeter represents an "Earth-Mother" archetype, and insists that Demeter is actually a personification of corn (and also barleycorn); a Corn Goddess, seeking domination over the Earth and its limitations, seeking to transcend the soil to which it is tethered. "The conclusion is confirmed by the monuments; for in ancient art Demeter and Persephone are alike characterised as goddesses of the corn by the crowns of corn which they wear on their heads and by the stalks of corn which they hold in their hands. Again, it was Demeter who first revealed to the Athenians the secret of the corn and diffused the beneficent discovery far and wide through the agency of Triptolemus, whom she sent forth as an itinerant missionary to communicate the boon to all mankind."

In more modern times, the idea of the Corn Goddess is still with us. In Germany to this day, corn is commonly personified under the folkloric name of "The Corn-mother". When the wind causes waves to ripple across a field of corn, the farmers say, "There goes the Corn-mother" or "The Corn-mother is walking through the corn." She is believed to be present in the handful of corn which is left standing last on the field. Depending on local custom, she is either revered by turning that last corn stalk into a ritual doll, or she is exorcised and driven out like a demon.


Frazer continues his scholarly ponderings with a section entitled "The Spirit of the Corn embodied in Human Beings". Which brings us back to where we came in. Says Frazer:

"The spirit of the corn manifests itself not merely in vegetable but also in human form; the person who cuts the last sheaf or gives the last stroke at threshing passes for a temporary embodiment of the corn-spirit, just as much as the bunch of corn which he reaps or threshes".

In other words, you are what you kill, and you are what you eat.

That phrase, "you are what you eat", has its origins in the Anthelme Brillat-Savarin quote, "Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es (Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are)". Many readers may recognize this as the maxim of the TV show Iron Chef, shown at the beginning of each episode. In the 21st century, we now know that, all allegory aside, we really are literally made of what we have eaten.

If you want a real scare this Halloween, look no further than the documentary film King Corn, in which two researchers set out to find out why corn is taking over the country, invading practically every food Americans consume. They had their hair analyzed by a lab and discovered that corn was even detected in their hair. They learned that the corn found in almost all processed foods is actually "not fit for human consumption", and yet we're eating it, and so are the animals we eat.


High Fructose Corn Syrup, which is the key ingredient to everything from soft drinks to candy, is made from this same low grade corn that was supposed to be classified inedible. The makers of King Corn could not, try though they did, gain access to any corn syrup factory to view the circumstances under which it is made. In other words, it's essentially as much a guarded and classified state secret as Area 51. You, as a member of the public, are not allowed to see how High Fructose Corn Syrup is manufactured even though you are forced to eat it every day of your life.

Rutgers professor Chi-Tang Ho has proven that soft drinks sweetened with High Fructose Corn Syrup are up to ten times richer in dangerous carbonyl compounds, including the mysterious methylglyoxal. Carbonyl compounds are highly elevated in the bloodstreams of diabetics, and are blamed for diabetic complications such as foot ulcers, nerve damage, and decreased vision.


Since almost all candies now contain High Fructose Corn Syrup, CBN's Pat Robertson and Kimberly Daniels are inadvertently speaking a sort of truth when they say that Halloween candy is possessed by spirits. That ancient spirit of the Corn Goddess is spreading to all that it touches, and it has very nearly touched everything. You, me, Pat Robertson, we're all part corn. It's in our hair. It's in our cells. Our brains. Our nerves. Our molecular structure. Our atomic structure. All living things are increasingly infected by the presence of corn, for better or for worse. And it's too late to stop it now even if we could. It may or may not truly impact us in our own lifetime, but the long-term difference it will make in the future trajectory of life on Earth is immense.

Like a virus and its host, corn has successfully used us as a means to enable it to multiply and spread itself.

To what ends? Probably nothing more sinister than that age-old simple reason for doing anything: survival. Corn is not only surviving and thriving, it is closer to world domination than any other plant in nature, thanks in part to our own inexplicable efforts to promulgate it. We're turning the entire planet into a corn domain, and we don't even know why we're doing it; we're just doing it because something is compelling us to do so. We don't ask questions, we just plough the fields and scatter.

Jack o' the Lantern

At the home of some hippie babysitter I once had, I used to read those Foxfire books as an impressionable youth. No doubt they had some sort of nefarious influence on me, filling my innocent noggin with all sorts of ideas about soapmaking, butter churning, beekeeping, hide tanning, basket weaving, woodcarving and hog butchering.

But in all of that idle leafing through arcane texts of lost homespunnery, I never did really grok what was meant by the name "Foxfire" at the time.

Years later, I learned it referred to bioluminescent fungi, which is related to the concept of the Will O' the Wisp, which in turn is related to the Irish mythos of Stingy Jack, from whence we derive the mythical Jack o'the Lantern - and that is, of course, in whose honor we carve Pumpkinheads around the Halloween season.



Dave Tabler, on his wonderful Appalachian History blog, recently did a piece about the Jack o'Lantern Mushroom:

If you have ever tramped around the woods after dark, you may have noticed an erie glowing substance on the forest floor. This is the light from luminescent fungi---foxfire. One of the most common fungi responsible for foxfire is Clitocybe illudens, also known as the Jack 'o Lantern mushroom. Makes complete sense that it would be named that: it’s orange, it glows in the dark. But did you ever stop to wonder where the phrase "Jack 'o Lantern" came from?

Tabler goes to tell one version of the Stingy Jack legend - there are many - and you can read more on Wikipedia. For our purposes here, I'll just give you my abbreviated Jeff's Notes version:

Basically, a slovenly but lovable alcoholic lout with a mischievious, trickster mentality encounters Satan, and tricks him into turning himself into a coin, which Jack then quickly thrusts into his pocket which also contains a crucifix. This imprisons Satan who, stuck in coin form, cannot re-transmogrify while touching the Holy Cross. Satan tells Jack that in exchange for freedom, he promises to leave Jack alone for ten years. Jack, apparently not being a very good negotiator, agrees to this.

Ten years after, Satan returns with the intent of killing Jack and taking his soul. Jack again tricks Satan by entrapping him up an apple tree surrounded by crucifixes. This time Jack makes a better deal, and insists that in exchanging for releasing Satan from the tree, he will never, ever go to Hell. Satan agrees to this.

Finally, at the end of Jack's natural life, he floats up to Heaven but is turned away because of the wicked and sinful life of drinking, womanizing and carousing. Apparently being a free-agent of a spirit is very painful and unpleasant, because Jack then decides he'd rather be in Hell than to be stuck in the in-between nether world. Satan gets the last laugh on Jack, saying "Sorry, a deal's a deal - you made me promise you could never enter the gates of Hell!"

Jack is forever doomed to wander in limbo and on Earth, unable to ever rest his soul in Heaven or Hell. Some versions of the story have him holding a lantern consisting of a candle inside a hollowed-out turnip; in others, it's a rutabaga, a gourd, or a pumpkin. Somewhere along the way, his actual head became that hollowed-out flaming vegetable lantern.


Meanwhile, back to the mushroom, I should also point out that it is extremely poisonous, but looks very similar to the highly edible Chanterelle mushroom which is equally common in Kentucky. If you aren't 100% percent positive, do not eat. (And of course, the corollary is: make sure you have the right shroom so that you don't sit in the darkness staring at a Chanterelle and waiting eternally to see the bioluminescence.)

Kentucky Kokopelli?

Your parents might not have ever heard of Kokopelli, but there's a good chance that you have. In recent years, the ancient Southwestern Native American symbol of Kokopelli has become trendy and hip, leading to greater awareness of this mysterious trickster music/agriculture/fertility deity. The first known images of Kokopelli appear on Hohokam pottery circa 750 A.D. and reportedly, the tradition goes back even further to the Ancient Pueblos, circa 1200 years B.C.

Kokopelli petroglyphs (see image above) usually depict him as a slightly hunchbacked humanoid figure (though some theorize he's actually intended to be a cartoonishly anthropomorphized insect) holding a sticklike object up to his face. Because music is among Kokopelli's realms of overseeing, the object is generally regarded to be a flute. Some say it may have originally been a blowgun but gradually gave way to a more peaceful, musical symbol. Still others contend it's actually a pipe for ceremonial smoking of tobacco and herbs.


Kokopelli is also sometimes depicted with obvious male genitalia, and protrusions from the head that variously resemble antennae, hair, horns, or long floppy ears like Walt Disney's Goofy.

Images of Kokopelli are ubiquitously found in the Southwestern states, and I've always wondered why his influence never spread to other parts of North America to states like, well, you-know-where.

But it just may be that the power of the Kokopelli myth did indeed make it to Kentucky in antiquity. I submit to you pages 24-26 of Rock Art of Kentucky, the ultimate compendium of prehistoric petroglyphs of our commonwealth. There you'll find information about the Reedyville Petroglyph (see image below). Located in Butler County, southeast of Reedyville, near the old Honaker's Ferry, this set of petroglyphs reside on a slab of Pennsylvanian sandstone known as "the Caseyville Formation". They show what clearly seem, to me, to be a Kokopelli-ish figure, hunched forward with protrusions from his head and holding something up to his face. A more primitive one is just inches away, with a head of "hair" that even more resembles Kokopelli, but is limbless and tree-trunk-like. Most importantly, look at the legs and feet and how they relate to the torso.


The sketch in Rock Art of Kentucky is just one person's attempt to draw what he saw there, of course. Unfortunately the photo in the book is a terrible one and shows very little. These glyphs lay flat, open to the elements, and were almost certainly much more detailed when they were new. Many details that would aid in analysis may have been eroded away.

Me, I'm convinced this is a rendering of Kokopelli, deliberately done as such by an ancient hand for reasons unknown.

The Green Man

"The Green Man" is a curious architectural motif that goes back to antiquity, and we have fine examples on this downtown Louisville building.

Green Men need not actually be green, as Wikipedia describes:

A Green Man is a sculpture, drawing, or other representation of a face surrounded by or made from leaves. Branches or vines may sprout from the nose, mouth, nostrils or other parts of the face and these shoots may bear flowers or fruit. Commonly used as a decorative architectural ornament, Green Men are frequently found on carvings in churches and other buildings (both secular and ecclesiastical). "The Green Man" is also a popular name for English public houses and various interpretations of the name appear on inn signs, which sometimes show a full figure rather than just the head.

The Green Man motif has many variations. Found in many cultures around the world, the Green Man is often related to natural vegetative deities springing up in different cultures throughout the ages. Primarily it is interpreted as a symbol of rebirth, or "renaissance," representing the cycle of growth each spring. Some speculate that the mythology of the Green Man developed independently in the traditions of separate ancient cultures and evolved into the wide variety of examples found throughout history.

Two different Green Man faces are depicted on this building, one of which wears a beard and a crown, possibly representing Triton or Neptune. It's hard to tell in the image - I need to go back and try to zoom in sharper and closer - but it looks like there's grapes amongst his panoply. If they are indeed grapes, that pretty much fingers him as being my good friend Bacchus/Dionysus, the God of wine, intoxication, and unrestrained revelry.


One could go quite mad tracing all the possible branches of all the Green Man's known and theorized lineage. Some have said he's connected to The Green Knight, while others point to Freyr or the cereal-spirit John Barleycorn, or Jack-in-the-Green, or the mysterious Woodwose. Not to mention Lob, Hobs, and Hobgoblins. Even Robin Hood and Peter Pan have been suggested by some scholars as being part of the Green Man's family tree.

But for myself, I'm with the school of thought that says the Green Man goes all the way back to ancient Egypt. Osiris was, among other things, a corn deity, often depicted with a green face and sprouting vegetation that represented resurrection and rebirth.

Things with Wings

You've seen them. We've all seen them, or variations on the theme. Those very-official-looking, yet also very occult-looking, round-ish things with shieldlike wings. You know, this thing:


There are a surprisingly high number of them on graves in Kentucky cemeteries, including Louisville's Cave Hill:






There are many interpretations and uses of this symbol, and its many variants, by several different groups. The symbol, very loosely and generally called The Winged Dragon, The Winged Sun, The Winged Disc, etc. The book The Rosicruicians and their Teachings by Swinburne Clymer says:

The Winged Globe is pre-eminently a Rosicrucian symbol, although the Illuminati may lay claim to it, and it may be admitted that it is of Egyptian origin. The Winged Globe is the symbol of the perfected soul making its flight back to the source of its creation in the Elysian fields beyond.

This interpretation of the symbol is most likely why it turns up on tombstones as often as it does. But the ancient Egyptians traditionally depicted two serpents on the wings, representing the goddesses protecting Upper and Lower Egypt - it's a bit odd to maintain this practice in modern-day Kentucky. Unless there's more going on, symbolically speaking, than meets the eye.


Meanwhile, Albert Churchwald's 1913 book The Signs and Symbols of Primordial Man, describes it this way:

The Winged-Disk, with the Uraei of Egypt, the original of which we find in the text summarized by Naville in the "Myths of Horus," pII. xii. "Horus commanded Thoth that the Winged-Sun-Disk, with Uraei, should be brought into every sanctuary wherein he dwelt, and into every sanctuary of all the gods of the lands of the South and the North, and in Amentet, in order that they might drive away evil from therein...." This is what is meant by the Winged-Disks, with the Uraei, which are seen over the entrances of the courts of the temples of all the gods and goddesses of Egypt.

The early Egyptians called it Behedeti, and associated it with Horus and, some say, later Ra. A somewhat modified version, in a tribute to Horus, can been seen in this artifact from the Louvre:


Note the Shen Rings in Horus' falcon claws, and note the downward-pointing tail, features which appear on some variants of the Winged Sun but not on others. Note the tail does appear on this Zoroastrian depiction, which also includes a man's soul ensconced in the center, making his way Heavenward:


Then there's similarity to some depictions of mythical Firebird creatures, including Bennu, The Huma Bird, Fenghuang, Garuda, Simurgh, Zhar-Ptitsa (which Stravinsky's Firebird Suite was about), and of course, the Phoenix. The Phoenix myth is also symbolically appropriate for grave decoration, meaning as it does rebirth, rising from the ashes of Death - literally, not just figuratively. Some of these mythical creatures are distinctly dragon-like in many ways, and displaying oddly insectlike antennae.

Just last month, this crop circle with a Firebird motif caused more than the usual stir among the woo-woos of the world (myself included):


And here's a more classic example of the symbol in a 1999 crop circle:


I'm on the lookout for interesting variants of the Winged Sun/Disk/Dragon symbol on gravestones in Kentucky, so if the taphophiles lurking out there know of any, let me know. I'm also very interested in gravestones with the very similar motif of winged skulls, cherubs, and seraphim. Seraphim, incidentally, literally means "burning ones" in Hebrew (which brings us back to the Phoenix) - and also has an ancient slangy double-meaning connotation of flying reptiles (which brings us back to dragons).


Lastly, some of the aforementioned internet woo-woos have been saying that the symbol has been a warning all along about the eventual return of the double-tailed rogue planet Nibiru in 2012. It is true that the Babylonian God Nibiru was sometimes represented by the winged-disc insignia, but it also represents a celestial object (some say comet, some say planet, some say spaceship). What, if anything, all this has to do with the Nibiru of Zecharia Sitchin's theories, remains unclear to me. Supposedly, some say, the winged-orb emblem is mankind's vestigial memory of twin-tailed Nibiru's previous calamitous crossings of our own orbit:



Oh, and one more thing; Don't get me started on the Chrysler logo, which also seems to have an eye (of Horus?) in its center: