The Sync Serpent

Excerpt from my chapter in The Sync Book 2:

"I closed my eyes and relaxed.  After several minutes the fatigue began to subside and I was about to open my eyes when something changed.  My attention was drawn to the lower half of my body which felt as if it were being slowly stretched like a length of elastic.  It was as if everything from the waist down had been snagged on an invisible fish hook and was being gently pulled towards some unknown destination.  Despite feeling bewildered by this unexpected turn of events, at no point did the 'stretching' become uncomfortable.

While trying to locate the source of the unusual sensation a spot of light materialized in the center of my vision.  The light was faint at first, as though it were reaching me from across a great distance, but like the sun piercing it's way through a dense cloud, the light gradually grew brighter and more vivid.  Different colors began to flood the periphery of my vision, hues of blue and green, and I intuitively knew that the ball of light was somehow responsible for the stretching in my legs.  It was like I was being sucked towards it, caught in a gravitational pull that I had absolutely no control over.

I knew that I could end the experience by opening my eyes but managed to resist the temptation and simply observed.  When I think about what happened next I'm reminded of the way in which our sun releases a solar flare into outer space.  I watched as a tendril of light curled outwards from the point of origin and continued to expand in a clockwise direction, spiraling towards me in slow motion.

As the light flowed along its corkscrew trajectory, the spiral path becoming wider with each rotation, I was hit with the realization that I was in the presence of a serpent.  A serpent made of light.

As the worm-shaped body approached I became conscious of the fact that if it didn't stop soon it was going to collide with my head, which is exactly what happened next.   As the light moved into and through my skull I felt an overwhelming tingling or vibrating throughout my entire body. There was a momentary feeling of ecstasy as the serpent merged with me.  The tail then passed beyond the realm of my perception, out the back of my head I suppose, and disappeared.  The spiraling light faded away, the stretching in my lower body came to an abrupt stop, and my vision returned to the grey black smudge that one would usually see while lying in bed with their eyes closed.

I thought that the experience had reached it's conclusion, however it turned out that this was a two-parter.

I kept my eyes shut while trying to digest everything that had just transpired.  I'd never seen or felt anything like this before so my mind was reeling with questions.  This inner monologue was cut short when two parallel rows of zigzags suddenly appeared at the top and bottom of my peripheral vision.  As the zigzag patterns took on sharp definition I could see that they were being created by rows of small triangles, each aligned horizontally, and seemed to consist of the same greyish light that the serpent had been made of.

My mind tried to put these new visuals into a context that it could understand, so it occurred to me that the two rows of triangles represented teeth.  Several minutes earlier a snake had corkscrewed its way through my head so it seemed natural to associate the triangles with the teeth of a serpent.  In my minds eye I zoomed out, looked down at myself lying horizontal on the bed, and almost burst out laughing at the mental imagery I'd concocted.  There I was, completely swallowed, my face peering out the open mouth of a giant snake."

The Clock and the Cat

"Two things are aesthetically perfect in the world - the clock and the cat."

Émile-Auguste Chartier

I was channel surfing last week and landed on the climatic scene of Back to the Future where Doc Brown is trying to send Marty home.  As the lightning illuminates the Tower I noticed the presence of this large cat.

The following day I'm doing the house work and Hot Tub Time Machine comes on the TV.

 

I'm only half paying attention as I do my chores, but it get's to point where the group of guys arrive at the hotel which will become their portal to the past.  As they enter the hotel one of the characters says,

"This place stinks of cat piss"

My mind automatically connects Doc Browns cat statue atop the Clock Tower to the cat piss hotel, and I think "Sync!"

But what on earth do cats and time-travel have in common?  My mind is a blank.

The caretaker of the Hot Tub Time Machine is Chevy Chase. 

I look him up on the net and find Chevy Chase connected to the Clock Tower, the Hot Tub...and now the Dog.

I'm thinking Chevy Chase...Time Travel...Dog

What do Dogs Chase?

The Cat.

And now I'm curious.

So last night I find a dodgy copy of Looper and stream if off the net.

While watching Looper, probably my favorite movie this year, my thoughts wander to the series of Time Travel/Cat syncs from last week.

It's not long before the penny drops.

I had time-traveling Joseph Gordon-Levitt connected to the Cat so where did Bruce Willis fit into the pattern?

 

It turns out I'd already made a video to help answer my own question!

Paradise Kitty from Richard Arrowsmith on Vimeo.

Feeling like I'm on a roll I start thinking about other actors who syncs with these themes.

Bill Murray gets caught in a Loop in Groundhog Day and he's also voiced Garfield.

Mike Myers traveled back in time in Austin Power and he was of course...

There's more I can add to this but I've run out of time.  If I get a chance I'll do an update tomorrow.

Part 2:  Through the Looking Glass

Bill Murray and Mike Myers both have a strong 'Stripey' vibe going on in the images above.  Garfield is a striped cat and the Myers posters speak for themselves.

If we use this as a jumping off point then we can take these syncs into the realm of Aztec mythology.


Tezcatlipoca was the Mayan deity who embodied the energy of the Cat.

According to Wiki he is associated with a wide range of concepts, including the night sky, the night winds, hurricanes, the north, the earth, obsidian, enmity, discord, rulership, divination, temptation, jaguars, sorcery, beauty, war and strife.

TezCAT was often depicted with Stripes running horizontally across his face.

It's one of his defining features.


His name in the Nahuatl language is often translated as "Smoking Mirror".

Smoking

Mirror

Here we have Bill Murray emerging from the Smoke, with emphasis on the Stripes.

Tezcatlipoca is a deity associated with the North.


On a clock face North would be represented by the Midnight hour.

In the night sky you can find the North Star by following the Big Dipper, which looks like a Frying Pan.  This is one of the first things my dad taught me about the stars as a kid.  Look for the Pan in the sky and it'll point you towards the North Star.

So if we combine some of these elements, Tezcatlipoca the Smoking Mirror, the Pan which points North, and Midnight, we arrive at a 1970s group called Flash and the Pan.

I checked out the Midnight Man music video and found some strong Tezcatlipoca syncage going on inside.

 

 According to one source Tezcatlipoca was responsible for the creation of the Big Dipper, or Pan:

The Great Bear Constellation, or Ursa Major, is believed in Aztec tradition to be the single footprint of Tezcatlipoca. The Great Pole, or North Star, was considered a place sacred to the gods, and Tezcatlipoca, not being an entity of goodness, was unable to approach it, but hopped around the Pole Star on his single foot creating the Great Bear Constellation.

Tezcat points to the North Star which in turn points to the Center, or the Whole, so it makes sense that he should be a strong sync-attractor.  You can go as deep into his pattern as you like and you'll never reach the end...but that's beside the point.

For now let's follow the darn cat and see we it takes us.

Back in 2009 I kept seeing synchronicites involving the Cat and the Train so compiled all the syncs and put them intp a post called Keeping Track of the Cat.

Here's one of images I used which shows how the CAT associates with the Pyramid or Mountain.

The journey to the North Pole begins at Midnight.

Now I'm not going to take this post to oblivion, been there, done that, worn the T-shirt, but what I do want to touch on is the Cat's relationship with the North.

I live in the North of Scotland, as far North as you can get without getting your feet wet in the North Sea, and the vikings who landed here a long time ago decided to call the area Caithness, which means 'Land of the Cat's'.

The Cat syncs with the North, and the North syncs with Tezcatlipoca, and here we see the Midnight Man doing his best 'walking on water' impression.

If you're aligned with North you're technically 'walking on the water'.

Sean Bean played a character named Loki in the movie Far North.  Here we see him standing on ice aka walking on water.

Sean Bean (Loki) also starred in NORTH County alongside actress Charlize THERON, whose very name encodes the word NORTH.

Jake pointed out in Lometheus Rising that Charlize THERON/NORTH has the letters LOKI on her kitty cat T-Shirt:

Sean Bean, who syncs with Loki and now the Cat, was King of NORTH in the awesome TV show Game of THRONES.

In Thrones he lost his head, in a BIG way.

Here we see Sean Beans decapitated head mounted on a North pointing spike.  This is the Midnight Hour, or the Witching Hour, when everything aligns perfectly and our sacrifice grants us a much higher vantage point.  This is the moment we arrive at the Pole.  Or North Pole.

I'm not even going to get into the whole Bigfoot thing, it just get's too weird.  All we need to know is that it has something to do with the journey that our Sole/Soul makes up the K2 mountain, and we'll leave it at that.

Now usually a break is considered a BAD thing, especially if you're trying to reach the Summit and your leg suddenly gives way.

Which brings me back to the Aztec deity Tezcatlipoca, who only had one leg.  Apparently a giant fish swam away with his other one.

Not many people want their head on a spike, or their leg to break, but in this sync-context it's actually a good thing.  It's like breaking the old habits, or old cycles, or the chains that keep us from moving forward.


Sometimes the shackles need to come off and 2012 seems to be the perfect year for it.


Now what does any of this have to with Time-Travel I hear you ask.  That's how I got caught up in this loop in the first place so I'll try and round this off with one last sync.

Catman Bruce Willis and Elijah Me and my Cat Wood both starred in the movie North.

Bruce Willis time-travelled in Looper and 12 Monkeys while Elijah Wood started his career in this movie.  He's the young kid who watches Marty showing off his skills as a 'CRACK shot'.


Better go now.  Got a train to catch.  Funny how time McFlies when you're having fun.

Thanks for reading.

R

Dark Light and Daemon Born

Whenever I become aware of a new sync trail I'm always curious about where it might lead. As the unfolding pattern gradually takes shape (over days, weeks or sometimes months) I'm never quite sure how it's all going to pan out and for me that's a part of the process that keeps me coming back time and time again. There's always surprise nuggets of treasure waiting to be discovered, unexpected detours which were never mapped out on the original path, and I find this is all part of the fun when following the flow. Where will it go...nobody knows.

Now this post started to gather momentum simply following a shadow. Not my own shadow mind you. I'm talking about Matt Damon's.

While browsing through Damon's movie posters I noticed that the shadowy figure, or Dark Man, repeatedly shows up in his work.


In The Good Shepherd poster we find a subtle reference to angel wings, whereas this next example is a little more blatant.

Damon's Shadow lead to the Dark Man lead to the Dark Angel lead to the Man In Black.


In this Ocean's 12 poster we find numerous MIB and once again Matt Damon is in close contact with the Shadow.


While wondering where all this was leading I decided to see what others had to say on the subject.

I came across this oil painting by artist Steven Kenny entitled The Shadow...

...which ties in nicely with the beastly concepts explored in this Man In The Mirror video by fellow sync-head Will Morgan.

I also checked out the work of Carl Jung who wrote much about the shadow and the integration of our unconscious 'Dark Side'.

I even found references on cave walls reminding me that mankinds interest in the MIB is really nothing new.

I believe that if you want to explore something in any great detail then you've got to be prepared to come at it from different angels as there are always two sides of the coin to consider. Dark naturally leads to Light.

Shadows cannot exist without a light source so I turned to an ancient Sun God named Elagabalus (depicted above) for some answers.

Elagabalus

The first sun god consistently termed invictus was the provincial Syrian god Elagabalus. According to the Historia Augusta, the teenaged Severan heir adopted the name of his deity and brought his cult image from Emesa to Rome. Once installed as emperor, he neglected Rome's traditional State deities and promoted his own as Rome's most powerful deity. This ended with his murder in 222.

The Historia Augusta refers to the deity Elagabalus as "also called Jupiter and Sol" (fuit autem Heliogabali vel Iovis vel Solis).

From Wikipedia I learned that Elagabalus, also known as Jupiter and Sol, was the very first sun god to be consistently called Invictus.

In the Invictus poster we find Matt Damon inside the Dark Man.

We also know that Invictus was the provincial name for the SYRIAN sun god Elagabalus.

Having joined these loose dots together I reached the conclusion that the Dark Man and the God of Light are really one and the same.

Regardless of which way you flip it, there is only one coin.

While writing this post I've been reading a novel called A Clash of Kings by author George R.R. Martin, the sequel to A Game of Thrones. If you haven't read these books or watched the TV show then do yourself a big favour and check them out.

As synchronicity would have it the Shadow has started to play a pivotal role in A Clash of Kings and I recently read that:

"There are no shadows in the dark. Shadows are the servants of light, the children of fire. The brightest flame casts the darkest shadows."

Matt Damon's Shadow lead me to Elagabalus (a god i'd never heard of before) who in turn lead me to the name Jupiter (a god whose always circulating the syncrosphere).

Actor Liam Neeson bridges the gap between Elagabalus/Jupiter and the Shadow Man as he happens to have played both these roles.

the brightest flame casts the darkest shadows

Jupiter was commonly associated with the Golden Eagle so I wasn't surprised to find Matt Damon making contact with this giant statue in The Informant.

You can even find Jupiters totem imprinted on his Temple.

The Jupiter connection grows stronger if we consider that Damon also starred in the movie Spirit. Notice how the Golden Eagle and Sun/Sol/Invictus combine.

Also notice how the Sun crowns two Horses.

In this trailer for Matt Damon's new movie the words 'sunlight' and 'joy' are both mentioned round about the 42 second mark. I also like how Damon owns a pair of Zebra.

Rather than focusing on the dualities of the Dark/Light Man (and chase my own tail in the process) I decided to head off on a new tangent by looking at Matt Damon's surname.

Oftentimes the simplest syncs can be the most rewarding.

The name DAMON resonates DAEMON as they're both pronounced the same.

From here on out this is going to be something of a Dummies Guide to Daemons so don't worry if you're not familiar with the concept as you'll see how this plugs into everything already discussed. Shouldn't be too difficult considering it's all connected.

It's probably a good idea to familiarise ourselves with what the Daemon is, while also clarifying what it is not, so let's see what Wikipedia has to say on the subject:

The words daemon and daimon are Latinized spellings of the Greek δαίμων (daimôn), a reference to the daemons of Ancient Greek religion and mythology, Hellenistic religion and philosophy.

Daemons are good or benevolent "supernatural beings between mortals and gods, such as inferior divinities and ghosts of dead heroes", and differ from the Judeo-Christian usage of demon, a malignant spirit that can seduce, afflict, or possess humans. To distinguish the classical Greek concept from its later Christian interpretation, it is usually anglicized as either daemon or daimon rather than demon.

Hesiod's Theogony relates how the men of the Golden Age were transmuted into daimones by the will of Zeus, to serve as ineffable guardians of mortals, whom they might serve by their benevolence. In similar ways, the daimon of a venerated hero or a founder figure, located in one place by the construction of a shrine rather than left unburied to wander, would confer good fortune and protection on those who stopped to offer respect. Daemones were not considered evil.

So let's remove any fear from the Daemon by making it clear that it's not to be mistaken for the Demons you might find in horror movies. It's not going to take over your body and make your head spin and spew pea soup. It's not going to descend from the dark rafters and tear your head off before pissing on your twitching corpse. There's really no thing to fear when it comes to the Daemon.

The Daemon = No Demon

The original neutral Greek word "daimon" does not carry the negative connotation initially understood by implementation of the Koine (Hellenistic and New Testament Greek) δαιμόνιον (daimonion), and was originally intended to denote a spirit or spiritual being.

Ancient Greek δαίμων daimōn is a word for "spirit" or "divine power", much like the Latin genius.

This all syncs nicely considering Damon starred in this movie.

In Plato's Symposium, the priestess Diotima teaches Socrates that love is not a god, but rather a "great daemon". She goes on to explain that "everything daemonic is between divine and mortal", and she describes daemons as "interpreting and transporting human things to the gods and divine things to men; entreaties and sacrifices from below, and ordinances and requitals from above..."

Plato in Cratylus gives the etymology of δαίμονες (daimones) from δαήμονες (daēmones) (= knowing or wise), though in fact the root of the word is more probably daiō (to distribute destinies).

In Plato's Apology of Socrates, Socrates claimed to have a daimonion (literally, a "divine something") that frequently warned him - in the form of a "voice" - against mistakes but never told him what to do. However, the Platonic Socrates never refers to the daimonion as a daimōn; it was always an impersonal "something" or "sign".

After the time of Plato, in the Hellenistic ruler-cult that began with Alexander himself, it was not the ruler but his guiding daemon that was venerated, for in Hellenistic times, the daimon was external to the man whom it inspired and guided, who was "possessed" by this motivating spirit.

The Hellenistic Greeks divided daemons into good and evil categories: Eudaemons and Kakodaemons, respectively. Eudaemons resembled the Abrahamic idea of the guardian angel or Higher Self in psychology; they watched over mortals to help keep them out of trouble.

We all have a shadow which follows us wherever we go so it kinda makes sense to me that the Daemon was considered a guide or guardian who shadows our every movement.

To put it bluntly the Daemon = Shadow Man or Shadaemon.

Wiki: The Greek term for Daemon, εὐδαιμονία, literally "GOOD-spiritedness", is a term for "happiness".

Matt Damon wrote the script for Good Will Hunting while also playing lead role as the young mathematical Genius.

Wiki tells us that the Daemon and Genius represent the same thing:

Ancient Greek δαίμων daimōn is a word for "spirit" or "divine power", much like the Latin genius.

Wiki also says that: The word genie in English is derived from Latin genius, which meant a sort of tutelary or guardian spirit thought to be assigned to each person at their birth.

In Good Will Hunting Matt Damon (a maths Genius) stars alongside Robin Williams, an actor who gave his voice to Aladdin's big blue Genie.

Daemon = Genius = Genie

Your wish is my cOMAND

the Daimōn in the rough

The word TIGER is encoded in the movie title TRUE GRIT which got me thinking about the link between Genies/Genes and this trail of blood.

DAEMON

EMO DNA

MOM DNA

WOW DNA!

These syncs seem to suggest that our bond with the Daemon goes skin/sink/sync deep.

What does it all mean?

I dunno. You're the bloody Genius. You figure it out!

Let's wander off on a different tangent by looking at the Shadaemon's relationship with the color Blue.

In The Departed actor Matt Damon is a cop, or 'Boy in Blue', who plays on the side of the blue rugby team.

When you put it all together you could say that the Daemon is a Boy in Blue whose Stuck on You.

In The Smurfs the little blue angels/daemons dimension hop and find themselves alienated in (Dr.) Manhattan.

Smurfette makes contact with these Zebra...

...which syncs with the pair of Zorses Damon owns in We Bought a Zoo:

The Zebra is of course a STRIPED/SPIRITED Horse.

In The Smurfs movie Katy Perry did the voice of Smurfette aka Smurf E.T.

Here's her love song to her Daemon:

When I came across the link between Daemon and E.T. I combined this with the blue theme and figured that the Avatar might help point me in a new direction.

In this Avatar: The Last Airbender poster we find the conjoined twins similar to the ones in Stuck on You.

The Avatar is a NOMAD...

...which when reversed becomes DAMON.

In this scene from Stuck on You the conjoined twins, Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear, play the piano while shadowed by a big blue Avatar (which has more than a passing resemblance to the goddess Kali). I like how Damon is striped/spirited in this scene.

In @syncwinnipeg and @seallion's new Moonkey video they daemonstrate how the Avatar and Monkey entrain. If you haven't watched it yet then I'd highly recommend doing so.

Moonkey by the StArmy from Syncwinnipeg on Vimeo.

After watching the video I realised that with a little rearranging:

dae mon = ape mon = ape moon = moonkey

This fits nicely considering Matt Damon played a role in the movie Che 2: Gorilla.

Now if we each have this theoretical Shadaemon/Genius/E.T./Avatar/Angel whose constantly watching over us, shadowing our every movement, kinda like a monkey on your back, then why are we not aware of it? Why are we so blind to it's existence?

To try and make sense of this I took a look at the word Jinn, an alternative name for Genie.

Wiki says that:

Jinn is a word of the collective number in Arabic, derived from the Arabic root ǧ-n-n meaning 'to hide' or 'be hidden'. Other words derived from this root are maǧnūn 'mad' (literally, 'one whose intellect is hidden'), ǧunūn 'madness', and ǧanīn 'embryo, fetus' ('hidden inside the womb').

The Arabic root ǧ-n-n means 'to hide, conceal'. A word for garden or Paradise, جنّة ǧannah, is a cognate of the Hebrew word גן gan 'garden', derived from the same Semitic root. In arid climates, gardens have to be protected against desertification by walls; this is the same concept as in the word "paradise" from pairi-daêza, an Avestan word for garden that literally means 'having walls built around'. Thus the protection of a garden behind walls implies its being hidden from the outside. Arabic lexicons such as Edward William Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon define ǧinn not only as spirits, but also anything concealed through time, status, and even physical darkness.

You could say that it's the Daemon's/Genies/Jinn's very nature to be remain hidden or concealed from view, which is probably why I've found it so bloody hard writing this post. It's not meant to be defined or scrutinized as it's been cleverly designed/programmed to work silently below the radar.

Wiki: In Unix and other computer multitasking operating systems, a daemon (pronounced /ˈdeɪmən/ or /ˈdiːmən/) is a computer program that runs in the background, rather than under the direct control of a user; they are usually initiated as background processes.


I've come to think of the Daemon in terms of a program which was installed at birth onto all our genetic hard drives. Passing down from generation to generation it keeps us plugged into the Source and acts as a failsafe to prevent yet another 'fall' from grace.

Like a computer virus or trojan horse our Spirit/Sol/Soul can always gain access regardless of how well fortified our defences might be.

The Ego might have grown strong after a lifetime of accumulated beliefs, however there's always a vulnerable opening in your firewall through which Spirit can slip through.

When the Eggo cracks it can be quite a shock to the system.

In The Good Shephard we see Matt Damon's face hidden behind a white mask.

The white mask emphasises the concealed/hidden nature of the Daemon, but it also links in nicely with the trojan horse which is a computer programme designed to spread like a virus.

White masks and white gloves are worn to prevent contamination and I like how this same viral theme was also explored in Jim and Jakes new Moonkey video.

Matt Damon's recent movie release certainly fits the pattern.

In Contagion Matt Damon's wife is played by Gwyneth Paltrow...

...which leads back to the Shadow.

Viruses are designed to spread as far afield as possible so it was interesting to learn that:

The Merriam-Webster dictionary gives the etymology of the Greek word Daemon as from the verb daiesthai "to divide, distribute."

Again, what does it all mean?

I really don't know, and ask that you take everything in this post with a healthy pinch of salt, however I think the answers are probably simpler than you might expect. I often get caught up in the details, caught up in joining all the dots together, and forget to zoom out and look at the bigger picture.

In this scene from Stuck on You the conjoined twins, Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear, manage to fluke a role in a hit new TV show called 'Honey and the Beaze'. The producers do not want Matt Damon to appear in the show (despite him being physically attached to his borther) so they dress him a blue suit to make him invisible to the video cameras.

While the twins monkey about with this clever technology we see that Greg Kinnear is supported by Damon. On the TV screen it looks like he's floating but we know that this is just an illusion. It's simply the Daemon at work.

And I think this is the key to the whole post.

The Shadow Man, or MIB, or Guardian Angel, or Genie, or Spirit, or whatever you want to call it, is here to support us throughout life. It's an invisible support system which means it's not tangible, you can't physically touch it, but it is there nonetheless. By paying close attention to the ebb and flow of your own life you'll feel it at work rather than see it. When contact is eventually made you'll find it very hard to unmake it. Once it's slipped in past your defences...well...there's no turning back.

That's my take on it anyhoo. Ask me next week what I think about all this and I'll give you a completely different answer, but hopefully you get the jist of what I'm saying here. I've rambled on long enough but before I go there's one more thing I'd like to mention before calling it a day.

There's a thread that I've deliberately left dangling while writing this post so I'm going to leave it with you and let you make of it what you will.

I noticed that Matt Damon's leg is highlighted by a cross-hair in two of his posters. In one his foot is targeted and in the other his kneecap:

I also noticed that Damon has a 2nd Shadow emerging from his achilles heel.

While watching the movie Green Zone there's a scene in which he chases down an Iraqi informant named Freddy. As Damon and his team catch up with Freddy (whose trying to scale a wall to escape) his artificial limb is pulled off.

Damon picks up his leg and hands it back to him. This proves to be the start of their friendship and later in the movie Freddy becomes Damon's loyal side-kick (pun intended).

Things got curioser when I checked out The Departed.

In this scene the lyrics to the background music read:

"I'm a sailor of pain, AND I LOST MY LEG, climbing up the top sails, I LOST MY LEG"

What does a Sailor have to do with Matt Damon's decapitated leg theme?

I dunno.

Maybe it's got something to do with the black boat hiding in the negative space between these two lovers:

Maybe it's time to take a cruz. To go with flow.

Happy sailing!

RA