A Musical Saturday Morning Mystery!

Okay, so you know I have total amnesia.

Unless something external triggers a memory.

So, as my friends are continually being reminded:
Kris is very broken,
And life can be a riot!
But ever so often, I do get something right!

I heard this song while I am driving down to mother's last week.
The song was confusing me though.
The lyrics just did not seem to be logically connected!
I was missing something.

So, I watched the video ......



When the lady came out onto the stage, I instantly recognized her as being, Ronnie Spector!

I loved her voice as a child in Germany.
So did Phil Spector.
Or perhaps her potential cash flow more!
I felt real sorry for her, that she ever tangled with the creep!
And that was at the time!
Long before he shot and killed Supergirl!
Yeah, even as a child I could spot a creep with my back turned!

Phil took Ronnie, and with his contacts, did make her a music legend.
There are few female performers whom do not owe her!
Except perhaps Brenda Lee or Dale Evans!

So, what did Ronnie say?



And she is still saying it!



So, be my baby!

Yeah, mystery: solv-ed, as they say ....

Musical Saturday Morning

So, this is the video I told you about earlier in the week.
No idea as to whom it refers.
No idea as to why I know it so well.
Nor the singers face.

But, it moves me every time I hear it, in non understood ways ...

Silver

I think about a great a many things on a great many subjects daily.
I have no clue why.
Thoughts come - thoughts go.
Most I just dismiss.
No real time to think deeply.
I am in survival mode.

But I have pondered often enough one on subject,
So much so,
I am intrigued.

Why is silver so cheap?
Historically, it has always been about 12% of gold in value on a free market.
Except, for when the prices are being "fixed" by the government.

So, silver is running about $18.
But gold is at say $1500!
Not the expected silver at $125!
Why?
Certainly Mexico, Chile and Peru are being strip mined for silver by US corporations.
But, that is by far feeding the industrial sector.

So, is someone dumping silver for the past year in great volumes?
It is an intriguing question.
Or, is the real question that someone is artificially keeping gold prices high?
And, if so why?

Either silver is too cheap or gold is too high!
But, both can not be true.

Deje Vu

Talk about total deje vu!

It began on Sunday night.
A song echoing faintly through a dream.
I knew it,
I knew the words,
I knew the singer and her sultry voice well!
Real stuff she would probably never say in public.
Somewhere our paths must have crossed,
And she spilled her guts to a weird German.
Yet I knew nothing once awake.
So very odd - so very normal anymore.







Then, I was at Toyota Tuesday shopping for a new car, or at least the next car for me ....
Suddenly this song begins to play and in a semi-dreamlike state I was transported elsewhere!
So very weird!

I knew the song,
I saw a face I no longer know,
But not the one from the memory-dream of the other night.
A very different face.
But, I knew well.
And all of the seasons of her being.

And the words stung me deeply,
But I know not why.

Another place,
Another time,
Another Kris,
Before I was robbed by the fates:
Of my body,
Of my mind.

I will post the song on Saturday.
Maybe I will know more by then?

An official Kris Mystery I need to solve!
For now she will just be the Wunschmädchen of my dreams ....


(and how the heck did I, out of nowhere did I remember an old German term from mythology for what appears to be untranslatable?!?!?!?  Such is the moment by moment struggle within  my mind!  Too many expressions, too many languages - and I truly know nothing, and yet, somehow I do! Almost every moment of everyday is Deje Vu!)

Repeated Curse

When I was 20 years old, I started thinking about how horrible things always seemed to happen in and around every July.  Yeah, it was in July 1964 when I got the letter from my mother, while at my Danish great-uncle's farm, telling me that I was moving to Germany!  I would by far, much rather have stayed the rest of my life with my great-uncle!

And in that same July, I was dropped into a small French village in the Belgium border with Luxembourg!  Somehow, Germany became France, but hey, no one every asks me my opinion on anything!  And I knew NO French what-so-ever!  But, my parents could not have cared less.

July 1965 and my mother cracked up on a trip to Spain, never to return to Earth, even to this day!  Fifty-one years later and she still has no concept of reality ... sigh.  You simply would not believe.

July 1966 all tarnation had broken out in France and we had to be evacuated to the German border.  I could not even go to the funerals for all of my friends, whom were butchered in the uprising! And then the fun started ... I had no, still do not, have a birth certificate.  I was born on an American NATO base to a foreign father.  So, no one would claim me!  And then father's war history had to be evaluated by the German's.  Sigh.  But, best part was being arrested for not being in school.  How could I go to school when I was trapped in no man's land!?!?!?!?  My sister and I were lucky to be allowed near the toilet!  Aaaaargh!

July 1967 and I was removed from my little village I loved so dearly, to live on a NATO base, safely protected from the Red Menace.  But, not so much so, from neurotic American teenagers - I learned how to run real well, get the tar beaten out of me real well, and well, as for bleeding - I was gifted.

and on and on and on!

July was the month, it seemed, life is to be having the rug pulled out from under me was to become the norm.  No settling down, no real friends, no possessions, they only would last until July anyway ...  I know, waah, waah, waah!

But personal relationships, interestingly, were stuck in the same cycle of loss!  Get interested in some female, "POOF!" they would be gone in July, at the latest August!  It was amazing.  And that was what caught my attention.  My high school girl friend of many years, whom I was very serious about - POOF and she was gone!  A good friend I made in college - POOF.  My first fiancee - POOF.  And I stopped and thought about this, it was now August 1975.  Three July's in a row, three females I had an interest in - POOF!, in a row.

Was it something I was doing?  Was I like a July Were-A-Hole, but normal the rest of the year?  No, not that I could understand in any event.

One of my friends in my Bible Study offered that perhaps this was curse and I needed to have it exorcised ... well, that was a rabbit trail as I was to learn.
I always have since enjoyed the other popular default Western Theology reasoning: I was obviously the worse of sinners and being punished every July for my unGodly life of sin ... yeah, right ...  I did not have to be from Texas to smell that one!
Another thought, perhaps all of this trauma was something inside of me playing out a situation from long ago.  And they were close I think.  But, no one had a clue as to what this meant at the time.

A few more July's rolled by.  Loss of a best friend, loss of another best friend, fall off a 160 foot cliff - survive but suffer horrible foot injuries.  Another year was a car accident that cost me 1.5 inches in height due to spinal compression.  The years became a blur but I could never figure out what was driving this weirdness - every single July!  It was to the point that I would just disappear in July, see no friends, talk to as few as possible, I even stopped teaching Sunday School in July!  But even in hiding, you can still get shellfish poisoning!  Almost did kill me - nothing like laying in ER and watching your heart monitor go flat line three times!  The crash cart crew got to know me and my sardonic wit rather well!  Yeah, I will obviously die a smart ass ...

And today is no different, albeit nothing horrible has happened so far this July, no I am still recovering from June's disasters!  But, hey holding my breath because it might come in early August instead!

---

Past experiences result in anger and frustration, building a foundation of failure in our lives.
Repeated behavior - patterns of response to problems in our past?  Over and over and over again?  Yeah, probably.

Psychologists will tell you that it all goes back to your parents, your unmet needs from them, and then from others as well.  Yeah, well my parents never should have had children - I knew that when I was nine years old!

Was there something in my past which programmed me to fail, to always respond the wrong way?  Re-enforcing the knowledge that I am a failure, inadequate, unqualified, unlovable ..... ?

But, this reoccurring drama needs to be seen in a slightly more positive light I have learned across the past several years of July failures.

1.  Let yourself be drawn closer to God, not pushed away by events!
2.  Know that you can not overcome or conquer in your own strength!
3.  Focus on the need for the workings of the Holy Spirit!
4.  God will show what He can do with as little as you have to work with!
5.  Let God be free to use you to His max!
6.  Allow God to get all of the glory!
7.  Be content in your spirit!

But you do have to allow God to do His work in your life, without your help.
Let inadequacy be the basis for blessing!
Put it all upon God.
Live in faith that He will help you overcome.
Do not look back ...
Do not stop and accept defeat .....

---

And last week, I finally got there, after a lifetime of trying to keep standing from blow after blow.  The last one, though was not in a July, but was the lowest of all.  I could no longer stand, I have no ability to overcome a blow so low ...
In my pain, I saw it all rolled back to  a summer's day, in July 1961, when a neighbor invited me to watch Rocky and Friends, on his new color TV.  But, it was how my family reacted - and the police - that broke what had been inside of me.  No one believed me, no one cared, I as just the unloved liar ...  It took two more destroyed lives before that man was sent to a prison pyscho ward.  But by then, no one thought back and said .... hmmmm .... maybe that kid had been right ....

I had been marked for failure ever since.

Well, good to know the starting point, changes nothing other than, I can now understand how that broken kid inside of me has been responding after all of these years to the same trauma.  Nor does it excuse my failures before God.  Nor does it soften the pain imposed upon me ...

Faith: take a step, faith, take another and continue on - keep realizing that God is driving me - not memories of failures which were never mine to own.  And to try and not close myself off from mankind - to continue to be transparent, to be honest, to be available for others.  But, I fear that which I so long for, will in the end, never be mine on this Earth ... but that is a tale for another day ...

Just Waiting

Sitting here, not much going on.
Listening to the songs of Fitz and the Tantrum.
Yeah, morose and introspective as I write.
One of those moments when I really need to talk, but the ear I need  ...

So, silence piles on silence and distance grows.

And I thought on this.
If only I had not said what I had, to God, in 2011.
There was no chance of living into 2012 at the time.
What could one final task cost?

I was already dead anyway.

Oh yeah, He threw me a hardball!
Complete with spit, a slice, a spin straight from Hell and I did as promised.
Four years and as many lives.
Success in God's eyes, failure in man's.

Then the mythical occurred.

Sure my death sentence was premature.
Satan attacked with a wrath that even surprised me.
But, God protected and blessed me.
Always keeping me just a moment ahead.

Confounding those arrayed against Him.

No, I am not exactly comfortable.
But, God is sovereign ...He is not going to mislead.
He is going to protect.

He expects my obedience.

To stay obedient to His last order.
To stay obedient to what I know.
To stay ready to move - in any direction.
To always remember I am out of my league!

And I do wish it was more than just a dream ...

His Will

September 23, 2013 - God found me in prayer, befuddled by an unexpected occurrance, I had hoped it was to be a change for the better, but it turned out to just be an error someone made.

I went to bed that night frustrated and disappointed.  My prayers much different than in the past.  I prayed for God to replace me.  Previously, I had been praying for restoration, but if I was now percieved as that negative, then just replace me God!  Because of my nature I have no real concern for me, it is others whom are important.

And He gave me a vision: people, names, places, and yes even dates.  Then I understood just how broken all had become.  But, it showed me that God was still in control and what was to follow was Him exercising His sovereignty, and yes answering my pray.  Make no mistake He was sovereign before, but He can work with stiff necked people if he has to.  Just less than perfect are the outcomes for some.

So, I have seen much unfold since then.  Destruction, salvation for others, God moving to continue to show His hand (only they do not still recognize this) and of course, the implosion of Kris and his rebirth (well some would say suicide).

I have thought on this for months now, as all remains on the same path; I watch - I pray, God talks to me when I need to be praying for others.  And He shows me answers which often take me months to finally realize what the actual question was.  For example my question from earlier in the year, "What makes you human?"  I had gone with my acquaintence's definition that it was the ability to empathize with others.  But, I have since learned that it is not empathy, it is the ability to understand sin, which defines humanity.  Sigh, not the answer I had hoped for.

Yes, inspite of the mess most see, it does all lead somewhere, to His end, for His purpose - and I do praise His name for this.

I just wish it could be a little less painful sometimes ... and alright already! lets get movin' here.

Who Is The Blonde Man?

Last night I had a dream or more like a memory, because my dreams are rather complete stories.  But this one is pieces of something that must have happened in 1956 or 1957.  Yeah, most people can remember a little from being three years old, however I have vivid memories of the locust invasion of 1957, which made me two at the time.  But, this precedes even that and this memory has repeated throughout my lifetime!

It all revolves around a family my parents apparently knew quite well at the time but mother's memory is pretty much gone so no clues from her, now that I actually can remember this in an awake state!  The father was blonde, good looking, worked with my father - so that made him German and in on the nuclear program.  His wife was also blonde and very German in appearance, I thought her lovely.  They had two children whom were older than me, I remember nothing about them, I was but a toddler.

Now the dream or memory always starts out the same way: baby grouse all bunched together, some sitting on the backs of some type of spotted feline (bobcat kits?).  At some point I have a basket full of these chicks and am hauling it through the grass.  The chicks keep falling out and the woman is laughing so hard as she gathers up these chicks and drops them back into the basket.

But, what the heck was this from?

I know the woman's face well, as well as my own mother's, so I must have seen her quite often, even though I was probably pre-verbal.  Her husband I had a great liking to - but whom is he????? I can still see him standing there in a livingroom, light colored slacks and a knit wool sweater that is white or beige, I can remember the cabling on the sweater even!  And have no idea whom he is!  I do not even remember my parents being there in this memory, so perhaps they were baby sitting me and had a farm of some type?  Or perhaps I really was adopted as I have long suspected (like since second grade!).

So very strange and yet so intriguing!  Driving me crazy where this could have been.  That year, father's work had him in Portland, Castle, Lawrence Livermore, Sandia Labs, White Sands, Iceland and Hungary (as I found out a few years ago) .  Well, Iceland and Hungary I can eliminate, as I was never there.

I do remember being at all of the others, except for White Sands.  I do not remember any grass in New Mexico and Sandia was a just a huge kitty litter box - albeit with a cool underground I remember being in often.  I would eliminate the California locations just because of the heat and a sweater would have been a bit much.  So, that leaves Portland.  It could be but outside of Von Braun, I just do not remember any other Germans ever stopping by, or my spending time with anyone other than American families after I turned three years old.  Outside of the Germans at Lawrence Livermore and Sandia in any event ... they were an awesome source of humor to this little guy!

So, a mystery to ferret out one of these days.  It was probably Otto the shoe repair man anyways ...  LOL

KJV Says Cockatrice

Another of the enigmatic Biblical animals is the Cockatrice.  A supposed half chicken, half serpent, something which just does not exist.  Now all modern Bibles use the term Adder, but as you will see, that would incorrect, since the Adder never existed in the Holy Land ... so the Cockatrice must be something else ...

Isaiah 11:8 - "And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the Asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the Cockatrice den"

Isaiah 14:29 - "... for out of the serpents root shall come forth a Cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent"

Isaiah 59:5 - "They hatch Cockatrice eggs, and weave the spider's web: he that eateth of their eggs deith, that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper."

Jeremiah 8:17 - "... I will send serpents, Cockatrices, among you, which will not be charmed and they shall bite you ..."

Proverbs 23:32 - "At the last it biteth like a serpent ..."
(oddly KJV uses Adder here.)

 According to Alexander Neckam's, De naturis rerum (ca 1180), the cockatrice was supposed to be born from an egg laid by a chicken and incubated by a toad; a snake might be substituted in re-tellings.  Cockatrice became seen as synonymous with basilisk when the basiliscus in Bartholomeus Anglicus', De proprietatibus rerum (ca 1260) was translated by John Trevisa as Cockatrice (1397). A basilisk, however, is usually depicted without wings.  It is thought that a cock egg would birth a cockatrice, and could be prevented by tossing the yolkless egg over the family house, landing on the other side of the house, without allowing the egg to hit the house.

The Basilisk was first mentioned by Pliny the Elder, in his book Natural History (ca 79 AD): 
"There is the same power also in the serpent called the basilisk. It is produced in the province of Cyrene, being not more than twelve fingers in length. It has a white spot on the head, strongly resembling a sort of a diadem. When it hisses, all the other serpents fly from it: and it does not advance its body, like the others, by a succession of folds, but moves along upright and erect upon the middle. It destroys all shrubs, not only by its contact, but those even that it has breathed upon; it burns up all the grass, too, and breaks the stones, so tremendous is its noxious influence. It was formerly a general belief that if a man on horseback killed one of these animals with a spear, the poison would run up the weapon and kill, not only the rider, but the horse, as well. To this dreadful monster the crow of a rooster is fatal, a thing that has been tried with success, for kings have often desired to see its body when killed; so true is it that it has pleased Nature that there should be nothing without its antidote. The animal is thrown into the hole of the basilisk, which is easily known from the soil around it being infected. The weasel destroys the basilisk by its odour, but dies itself in this struggle of nature against its own self."

I think a strong case could be made that this snake Pliny is talking about is a cobra of some type and they mongoose has become a weasel in this telling.

Okay.  I am a firm believer that the Bible was written for people to understand and just because we are ignorant does not mean that prior generation were!  So, we need to dig into the world of snakes here to figure out what the Cockatrice could have been!

The snakes we know as Viper, Asp, and Adder are all names for the same snake.  However, there are varieties within the species.  Note that the Cockatrice is considered a separate creature.

So we have some clues here:
A snake
Venomous
Not a Viper, Asp or Adder
Laid by egg, so not a live birth
Range included the Middle East

And drum roll please!  We do have a snake which meets all of these conditions: the Cerastes gasperettii !

Known as the Arabian Horned Viper or more commonly as the Sidewinder there.  Its range was throughout the Middle East once, now limited to northern Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Northern Israel.  It is laid by egg, not similar with Vipers, very venomous.

Since it is a sidewinder, it does lay its eggs in a den (Isaiah 11:8),  "fly" up to 24 inches when it strikes and "fiery" due to its venom (Isaiah 14:29), the hatched babies are fully loaded with venom for hunting (Isaiah 59:5), the snake can not be charmed like a cobra or distracted (Jeremiah 8:17), and it will bite you! (Proverbs 23:32).

Another Biblical mystery solved!
Aren't you glad you asked!

KJV Says Unicorn

Questions, I just love questions ...

"The King James Versions says Unicorns exist(ed) in Job 39:9-10, Psalm 22:21 and Isaiah 34:7.  Did they exist?  How come they are not in the fossil record?"

I know from my readings in old Biblical Commentaries, dating back to the 16th century, which I studied from for many years, the idea was always that the unicorn was the rhinocerous!  Horse like, sort of, but with usually only one horn.  Made sense to me.

But, then one of my friends came up with the idea that no one today believes this, it was just some unknown animal being identified.

So, unknown animal, untranslatable from Hebrew.  Therefore it seems likely that this animal no longer exists.  It had to have lived or at least been known in the Middle East.

Job 39:9-10; an illusion is being made to making it work like an oxen and plowing fields, idea being NO WAY!

Psalm 22:21; it has a horn or horns

Isaiah 34:7; whatever these animals are they will die in the sacrifice of God's cleansing of the land

Hmmmmmmmmmm

And then I remembered the once widespread, now extinct - Auroch.

Beginning in World War II, Herman Goering, an avid hunter, was given the task of hunting a hunting preserve roughly the size of half of today's Poland.  He had a breeding program to recreate the native wild horse population, he set about having the auroch recreated by breeding from existing primitive cattle stocks from around the world, and to have some fun while this going on - he imported raccoons from the US Pacific Northwest.

The German breeding program was quite successful, the horses still roam the northern forests of eastern Germany and Poland.

The raccoons, like rats have over run most of Europe.

As for the Auroch, yes they did breed something huge, fearsome and very much auroch like!  And the local villagers were not amused.  There was a reason these animals were hunted to extinction in the 17th century.

So, two horns, can not harnessed to pull a plow, yeah, I think we have just found the KJV Unicorn reference ...

Aren't you glad you asked?
:)