Holy Blood, Halle Berry

To piggyback on the fine recent works of fellow “Synchromystics” (If I may be so bold) at Sabrina's Journey, The Wrong Way Wizard, and Battling The Behemoth, I submit actress Halle Berry into the Mary/Isis pantheon with a twist. We shall see the duel masculine/feminine hermaphrodite (Baphomet) role she has taken on in pop culture.

First, Halle was born Halle Maria Berry or could we also say Holly (Holy) Mary Berry. This of course brings all kinds of things to mind.

According to wikipedia Halle was named after a department store in her hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. Now, I've heard some interesting baby name stories (as I'm sure we all have) but a department store???? What's the connection? None that I can see...neither of her parents appear to have had any connection to the said Halle's Department Store. They both worked at the same psychiatric ward (hmmm, interesting) but beyond that, not much to warrant naming your child after a store (K-Mart, Target, Wal-Mart anyone?) .

What little we do know is that Halle is of English decent on her Mother's side. Born to Judith Ann Hawkins.

The play on Halle to “Holly” (which she even does herself in the name of her official website Hallewood.com) associates her with the masculine (Ivy is usually ascribed to the feminine) Sun God, symbolizing him in his death and resurrection. Holly was a sacred plant used to adorn the head of Saturn during the Saturnalia in Rome. We also see that the red “berries” of the holly plant represent not only the Sun but blood. Need I say more here? The amount of information required to follow the concept of blood/bloodlines or even the color red are staggering.

So, what do we make of this dichotomy? Are we to assume that perhaps there is more than a virgin mother goddess association at work, like say...a more hermaphroditic one?

There seems to be some interesting occult “play” going on with the names of many of Halle's characters as well, with some being more obvious than others. We have quite a few to choose from: Autumn Haley (The Program 1993), Rosetta Stone (The Flintstones 1994), Ginger Knowles (Swordfish 2001), Leticia Musgrove (Monster's Ball), Giacinta “Jinx” Johnson (Die Another Day 2002), and her upcoming role as the bald Venus Johnson (hermaphrodite?) in “Nappily Ever After”. (Least we forget the less name oriented characters Nikhaule/Queen Sheba (Solomon & Sheba 1995), Catwoman (2004) & Ororo “Storm” Munroe from three X-Men movies.).

Born, August 14^th we see Halle as “Autumn” Haley (or Halle?) which we associate with Ceres/Demeter or in alchemy autumn is the season in which the Philosopher's Stone is brought to maturity and perfection.

From there she becomes “Rosetta Stone” which assisted us in deciphering hieroglyphic and demotic writings of ancient Egypt.

I find Ginger Knowles and Leticia Musgrove especially esoteric. In the highlands (Knowles from Knoll or grassy hill) of Papua New Guinea we see a puberty rite which involves an imaginary “Ginger Woman” playing a role in the sexual maturity of young males. For more information see: http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/GESUND/ARCHIV/GUS/PAIELA.HTM

Leticia is derived from the Latin greeting (Laetitia) meaning joy, gladness or delight and also associated with a minor (?) goddess of fertility of abundance. While Musgrove comes from Old English and literally means mouse grove. Groves considered sacred places for magical worship (having played Catwoman/Bast are we seeing a cosmic drama of “Cat and Mouse” being played out within the career of Halle Berry?).

This leads finally to perhaps the most interesting of all, her role as Giacinta “Jinx” Johnson (yet again, a hermaphroditic allusion) in the 007 film (let's not forget the significance here...see John Dee) “Die Another Day” (or is it DAD?). On the surface this name seems relatively non-sexualized in the pantheon of double entendres used to represent “Bond” women, or is it? For this one, we are forced to look a little deeper...The origin of Giacinta is Italian, for hyacinth, an herb originally related to the lily family, and now classified as it's own family Hyacinthaceae; oft associated with rebirth. Named for a male (hmmm...) figure from Greek Mythology. From here, the use is a little odd to say the least...

The lad Hyacinth's beauty caused a feud between Zephyrus and Apollo, which was aggravated by the fact that Hyacinth preferred the radiant archery god Apollo. In jealousy, Zephyrus blew Apollo's discus off course, so as to injure and kill Hyacinth. When he died, Apollo didn't allow Hades to claim the boy; rather, he made a flower, the hyacinth, from his spilled blood. According to Ovid's account, the tears of Apollo stained the newly formed flower's petals with the sign of his grief.

Within the context of the film “Jinx” is so named because she was born on Friday the 13^th (the unluckiest day for the all male order The Knights Templar). As far as our word origin thread is concerned Jinx may come from Latin iynx, that is, the wryneck bird, which has occasionally been used in magic and divination and is remarkable for its ability to twist its head almost 180 degrees while hissing like a snake. The Jinx bird is found in Africa and Eurasia.

And while Halle's feminine charms are possibly no where more apparent than in her obvious homage' to Ursula Andress' character Honey West (Venus & her later literal Aphrodite in “Clash of the Titans”) from “Dr. No” the underlying meanings and symbolism suggest something far more masculine about her character. Often we see Halle's characters as double agents, using her feminine sexuality to achieve her more masculine agenda.

In yet another synchromystical twist, her character Jinx ritualistically offs hench woman Miranda Frost by impaling her with a throwing knife stabbed through a copy of Sun Tzu's The Art of War. Her character in 2003's "Gothika" is named Miranda Grey...oddly similar names which both invoke Shakespeare's "The Tempest" (Storm). Miranda is the beautiful daughter of the sorcerer Prospero. In this mirroring of the Hyacinth myth, Jinx becomes Zephyrus (Storm) slaying Miranda or her duel nature. Or perhaps her real life maternal parents? In "Gothika" Halle's Miranda plays the duel role of psychiatrist and patient in a mental ward. As noted earlier, Halle's parents both worked in the same psychiatric facility together.

In her personal and professional life, Halle has had her ups and downs over the years (Winning an Oscar and Razzie award all in the same year? Ouch!)...on the heels of more recent “Hollywood” meltdowns, Halle decided to capture headlines herself by announcing that she had attempted suicide (although it is my understanding that she actually was only restating something she had disclosed on the Oprah Winfrey Show previously???) over her breakup with ex-baseball star David Justice (Just US), and will don a bald head (a' la Britney Spears) in the aforementioned film “Nappily Ever After" as VENUS JOHNSON. What's going on here? What light are we supposed to see her in? Female personification of Venus or dualistic embodiment of Baphomet. The thread continues...

[In yet another tip of the hat to Ben Fairhall, I should point out that Madonna provided the theme song to "Die Another Day"

The lyrics and video serves as more of a Kabbalistic escape trick than having anything to do with the movie itself. Or does it??? ]

Breaking News!

NASA Madness all over again...

Gunman opened fire in NASA building, police say

NASA evacuated a building at the Johnson Space Center in Houston after a person with a gun was seen and a shot was fired, a NASA spokeswoman said Friday. A SWAT team has been sent to the scene, a source told CNN. One report indicates the suspect has barricaded himself in a building. NASA spokesman James Hartfield told CNN gunshots were heard in the building. He added NASA security rules do not allow weapons on the property.

Stay tuned...this should get real interesting!

The Sky is Falling!

Virginia Tech Shooting
Largest Mass Murder in U.S. History?
Oh really...
Perhaps some fact checking is in order.

At the very least a semantic misuse by some media outlets has been at work.











Thanks a ton to:
http://www.whatdoesitmean.com

Chinese make first artificial snowfall

By Richard Spencer in Hong Kong

Last Updated: 2:25am BST 19/04/2007

China claimed yesterday to have caused a snowfall for the first time as part of its increasingly ambitious attempts to control the weather.

Officials in the meteorological bureau in Tibet said they had used "rain-seeding" techniques to trigger a snowfall over the city of Nagqu last week.

"This proves it's possible for humans to change the weather on the world's highest plateau," said Yu Zhongshui. The bureau said it had produced just under half an inch of snow at a height of 15,000ft.

Mr Yu said the experiment was conducted in the hope it would lead to alleviating drought on the northern Tibetan plateau, whose grasslands are turning brown as global warming melts and drains its permafrost.

The government also hopes that the project will benefit the great river systems of China. The Yellow, Yangtse, Salween, Mekong and Brahmaputra rivers all rise in Tibet, and the effects of damming and over-extraction for agriculture are beginning to threaten water supplies to major cities.

China is the world's largest practitioner of rain-seeding, a controversial procedure that involves releasing silver iodide as a catalyst into clouds either by aircraft or by firing cannon shells into them. It employs 37,000 people on the programme, which it uses to trigger rainfall principally to maximise water supply in the drought-prone north of the country, although in Beijing it is often said to be part of attempts to ensure a blue sky for major events.

Authorities have already promised to use rain-seeding before the Olympics to clear the often gloomy August skies for the opening ceremony.

Happy Templar's Day!

What does the 13th mean to you?

The Pot Calling the Kettle Black

DRINK it UP here!

From the King of Bohemia

Moloch

By George Sterling

I said, "The dark has come too soon."
 I gazed across the marshy waste
 To where, by vapors half-effaced,
Sank the southwestern, slender moon.

The vapors brooded on the land,
 Too big to sink, too foul to float,
 Upcast like poison from the throat
Of one great chimney near at hand.

The factory about its base
 Droned to the darkness, hour on hour—
 Squat dungeons, huddled at its tow'r,
As fearful of the night's dim face.

As fearful of the outraged night,
 It glowered with unblinking eyes
 On marshy waste, on tainted skies
Shamed by the desecrating light.

I said, "Within those roaring walls,
 What engines gleam, what toils await?
 There strength and power serve their fate,
And there a Titan's hammer falls.

"And surely there the fire reveals
 What giants at their service bend,—
 What thewed endurances attend
The sleepless shuttles and the wheels . . . . "

In meadow-dews an irised flame
 Stirred as the lucid morning broke,
 And from those portals, black with smoke,
A thousand weary children came!

In November of 1926, Sterling committed suicide by swallowing cyanide at his residence at the San Francisco Bohemian Club.
Kevin Starr wrote that "When George Sterling's corpse was discovered in his room at the Bohemian Club... the golden age of San Francisco's bohemia had definitely come to a miserable end."

A Bird in the hand...

I just happened to catch the CNN unedited footage of Bush's visit to Walter Reed on Friday afternoon. Just seconds after this photo was taken (Where Bush gives the Masonic glad hand to a newly bionic handed soldier) Mr. Bush wipes his hand on his jacket in conscious or unconscious disgust. As the entire segment made it's way into edited rotation, every subsequent clip ended just prior to his childish (and yet telling) hand cleansing.

(Reuters video version)

If anyone happens to have the unedited version of this footage I'd love to see it posted! If I had my wish, it would be to have limitless tape machines recording the days events as they unfolded. Ah, to be wealthy, and unemployed. Another sequence I would be interested in is the now famous "Duck in the Noose" mind-control trigger uttered by Police Chief Charles Moose during the (actually the day before Muhammad & Malvo were captured) D.C. sniper drama.