Solar Storms and Crop Circles

AP  NASA

  A friend from the U.K.  forwarded this article to me - unfortunately, the forward did not have credits, so I'm unable to give them.  I recalled my interest in Crop Circles when I read, and some pretty far out speculation I remember hearing about solar storms, and certain crop circles back in 2009.

After attending the Glastonbury Symposium last year, walking in a crop circle myself, and meeting many people who have been involved with research for years, including meeting a woman from Avebury who told me she belonged to a group that used to make crop circles......I just don't know what to think.  I came away agreeing that a great many of the circles are human made, but not all are, and those cannot be explained in any logical way, and also have unique phenomena associated with them.  Whether human made or not, the circles are beautiful, and embody sacred geometry and universal human spiritual symbols.  There is also a very good chance that so many of these circles occur in the ancient sacred landscape of Avebury and Wiltshire because of the electro-magnetic qualities of the area and the underlying water table - some suggest that the circles may energize or affect the land and ground water, "raising the vibration" in some way.   One theory regarding a series of  3 formations in 2009 was that they were predicting solar flares that summer. 

According to  Michael Salla, Ph.D., from his 2009 article (http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_sol22.htm)  3 crop circles predicted solar flares in July of 2009, or may be predicting future solar activity.   "If so" he commented, "this may be the first barrage of CMEs to hit the Earth in Solar Cycle 24. Importantly, scientists will be able to directly study the impacts of large amounts of solar plasma penetrating a breach in the magnetosphere first reported by NASA scientists in December 2008."  
 

 


Here's the article about solar flares:

"Recent reports have warned of an increase in solar activity and subsequently more solar weather. Some scientists have claimed the storms created by eruptions from the sun will cause damage to satellites and communication systems around the world.

The sun has variable magnetic activity going on all the time, sometimes this activity releases in the form of coronal mass ejections (CME) or solar flares, which causes high levels of radiation in space.  Not all CMEs or solar flares head towards to Earth, but if it does it will come in the form of either electromagnetic radiation (including ultraviolet wavelengths or X-rays) or plasma (electrically charged particles). The sun has a cycle during which the star's magnetic field changes polarity form north to south; on average this cycle last just under 11 years. The two extremes of this cycle are known as solar minimum and solar maximum. During the solar minimum there is less activity, fewer solar flares and CMEs, while during the solar maximum there is much more activity.

We are currently emerging from a period of relatively calm solar activity and scientists predict the solar maximum is due to begin in 2013. This means there is expected to be much more solar activity, more radiation and subsequently more solar weather.

What damage can solar weather cause?

The real problem comes when a solar storm hits the Earth's magnetic field. This will cause magnetic storms and power surges that can damage communications satellites, GPS systems and electric power grids. With so many aspects of our life reliant on these systems, scientists believe the damage could prove to be huge.  Helena Lindberg of the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency said: "I'm not talking about days or weeks, but several months without electric power, blackouts, across large regions of Europe and the US."

One of the last major solar storms came in March 1989 and caused a massive blackout in Quebec, and since then we have become more dependent on the kind of sensitive electronic technology that can be damaged by solar storms. As a result of the solar flare in February 2011 many airlines re-routed away from the polar regions, over fears their radio communications would not work.

How often is solar weather a problem?

The sun's cycle means that solar storms are not a consistent problem; the cycle also makes it easier for scientists to predict when solar weather should worsen. The sun has had a relatively quiet period recently and the solar flare which erupted in mid-February was the largest in four years.  In May 2009 the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said that they expected the next solar maximum to occur in May 2013 and scientists warn that we can expect more severe solar weather for a few years once the solar maximum begins. 

Are we prepared for big solar weather events?


The simple answer appears to be no. Many leading scientists have recently spoken about how ill-prepared the planet is for a severe solar storm.  During a recent symposium at the American Association for the Advancement of Science the strongest warning yet about the dangers of space weather were delivered. It was at this event when Sir John Beddington spoke of the global hurricane Katrina and Helena Lindberg talked about long-term blackouts.  Lindberg also said: "To my mind, there are few emergencies today that require such a close cooperation across the Atlantic as that of the geomagnetic storm."

The US and the UK have finally joined forces to look at this issue and a joint statement on the threat of space weather is expected later this month. We are more reliant on GPS and other communications satellites than ever before and if there is mass damage to these devices, or they are disabled by a solar storm, it will have a massive impact.

Should I be worried about this?

There will be an increase in solar activity, which will bring with it more solar weather. The sun's cycle is known and calculated and the solar maximum is expected in 2013.  There is a medical study which claims to show a link between increased solar activity and an increase in strokes; there was also a study in the US which claims those monitored, who were born under a solar maximum, had a slightly shorter average life.  The main danger looks to come from the damage a solar storm could inflict on satellites, GPS and power grids. The largest solar storm on record occurred in 1859 and a slightly smaller storm happened in 1921 and both caused damage to the communication systems of the time."

Crop Circles & the Symposium

Walking in crop circle, August 2, 2011

 I have been waiting to write about crop circles, largely because there's so much information that has been available (and a lot of disinformation as well).

Here it is, from the air on Windmill Hill site

I attended the Glastonbury Symposium, and listened to various experts on the subject, among them Lucy Pringle, whose beautiful photographs, and many years of dedicated research I have the highest respect for.  She's been flying over crop circles for 30 years, and has participated in many research projects.  At the Symposium she spoke about studies of subjects brain waves ( including herself) within quite a few circles - the results were surprising, showing that the circles produced a trance or meditative state in many who spent time within them.

Sig Lonegren, a famous dowser living in Glastonbury (he is also my teacher, and it was a real pleasure to meet him and his wife again after all these years) believes that some crop circles act as batteries - concentrating energies that dissipate after a while (depending on how long they have  been present, and also how many people enter them)  Of course he comments that many crop circles, but not all, are human made.

 It is clear that there are amazing anomelies surrounding crop circles - many occuring within minutes of them not being there by witnesses, and people having experiences inside of them, including visions, healing, etc.  In what they call "authentic" crop circles,  there have been electro-magnetic anomilies, inexplicable white powder, and evidence that the circle was formed by short bursts of great heat, resulting in plants being inexplicably  bent at joints but not broken, the joints being burst.  Some plants that occured in crop circles come back larger and healthier the following year, and some , areas not so, or a "ghost image" of the circle occurs in the field the following year.  Some crop circle "ghosts" can even be seen in the winter, when snow surrounds the area of the circle, but is not visible on the "ghost".

I must also add here that a great many crop circles are human made.  I met a woman right here in Glastonbury, who is affiliated with the Temple, who told me that when she lived in Avebury she and her husband belonged to a group of people who made crop circles, for fun, and also because they considered it earth art.  There is a famous crop circle of the Goddess that she told me they made.  I see no reason to disbelieve her, and there are groups who have clearly demonstrated their ability to create crop circles, as well as earth art that includes sacred geometry.  With anything that has been going on so long, and generates so much interest, is it any surprise that this should be so?  Many circles include universal human sacred symbols - I do not negate them because they may have been created by humans.   Why do they do it at night, and secretly?  Because they can.  Why not admit what they've been doing?  Some have, but  because destroying  crops is illegal and they can go to jail if caught they tend to keep quiet.  And the secrecy is part of the excitement - also, apparently there are  "true believers" who refuse to  believe that any crop circle can be human made, becoming hostile even when they demonstrate that they can. Here's a very funny "crop art" that happened in Wiltshire this past July of an ET smoking a pipe. 

Please do not think, reading this, that I am thus negating the mystery of the circles.  Indeed, my own research this summer, and attending the conference, has convinced me that the phenomenon is real.

There is a very  famous analog video (made on vcr camera in 1996) that was filmed at dawn by someone camping on a hill overlooking a field - the film was analyzed in labs, and no one was ever able to determine how it could have been faked.  But, as with so much of what I can determine about the phenomenon here, there is a controversy surrounding the film, as the film maker vanished without being able to locate within a month of having produced the film - perhaps he didn't like the publicity, or perhaps there was something darker about his disappearance.  All of this is available in most of the books written about crop circles.   Anyway, here's the famous clip:

So, to conclude, I have to say that from what I can understand, this is a great mystery, some are enormously complex and inexplicable - they don't know who made them, and could not be made by any human means, and have many anomalies surrounding their creation and presence. They are communications that, like all symbols, exist on multiple layers of meaning - like dreams, perhaps.   There are also many that could, and probably were, made by people.

My trip to a Circle was with 5 people, and we left Glastonbury toward Avebury, stopping at the Silent Circle Cafe - a cafe near the town of Devizes (but out in the countryside) that features the 'CROP CIRCLE REPORT" - a map with all the current sites of circles, pictures of them, and information as to when they occurred, and whether they are still in existence.  It's in the midst of "crop circle hot spot country"..... and a great place to hang out and meet people from all over the world who are pursuing the Circles.   Looking out over that vast mosaic of wheat fields, and the strange march of standing stones and prehistoric barrows that are to be seen occasionally in the midst of it all.........one can well imagine this being a canvas for the "Circle Makers".

(Here's one that was made in 1999 called the "Basket Circle" - notice how the wheat is woven within this amazing circle - this is considered one that is inexplicable, and too complex to have been created in a single night by a group of people. ) 

The crops are currently being harvested, and so many circles are about to become bread or cooking oil (which I found kind of energetically wonderful as well).  Like the sheep wandering through the avenues of Avebury, it all seems of a piece, the mysterious, the sacred, and the mundane magic of the agricultural world.  it's all about the Great Mother and the true  alchemy of the land.

We walked for quite a while on the borders of some extraordinarily beautiful golden fields of ripe wheat.  The heavy heads of the wheat rustled in the breeze, very peaceful to be in.  At  last we came to the  circle........walking along the lines of the tractors (left when the crop was planted) so as to not hurt the surrounding fields of wheat we entered the circles that made up a much larger circle.  It was peaceful, and I confess I enjoyed lying down on the soft, swirled bed of the circle.  Did I feel any special energy?  No, and I confess as well to breaking some stems of wheat and feeling that my efforts didn't look very different from the bent stems I walked on.  It was, howevever, and "old" circle, having been discovered on the 20th of July.  Sig has commented that as a dowser, he's seen that circles seem to lose their energy with time, and depending on the number of people who visit them.   I personally found no evidence of anything strange within the circle of circles, although when one considers the vast scope of it (it's huge), that is pretty amazing to everyone except, no doubt, the farmers who planted the field.  I understand many of them are very angry about the phenomenon, although I suppose they are used to it by now as well.

I'll close with a trailor from a new movie about the phenomenon that I've heard many good things about.  I'm glad I got to walk in one at last.

Here's the website: http://www.whatonearththemovie.com/flash/#/trailer/clip

Spider Woman "Crop Circle"....last reflections

West Kennet Long Barrow, April 19, 2009 Photo by Lucy Pringle

“What might we see, how might we act, if we saw the world with a webbed vision? The world seen through a web of relationships…as delicate as spider’s silk, yet strong enough to hang a bridge on.”

Catherine Keller, From a Broken Web

I felt like writing a bit about the "Spider Woman" crop circle I found......I was somewhat amazed to find this obscure symbol in a crop circle site! Mr. Silva believes that it is a man made circle, but reminds me that that does not have to negate its power as a symbol, or for that matter, a beautiful work of earth art.

There was a legend that when the world was going to change, Spider Woman would return again to help her Relations, as she has done in the previous worlds.

I have often thought that the World Wide Web just might be Her latest appearance.

I am grateful to Mr. Mark Fussell and the Crop Circle Connector for feedback, as well as "Crop Circles Reflections of a Season, by Mr. Fussell and colleagues.

Below is the "circle" in black and white, and next to it a detail from a pre-historic Mississippian shell ornament. I believe this one is from Spiro Mound in Missouri, although I will have to check my reference books - the ornament, most probably worn on a cord around the neck, would be anywhere from 400 to 1,000 years old.

I see the Spider Woman image in the crop circle (without all of the legs), the cross, the head and "womb" shapes, and rayed "web" or "strands" emanating from the spider/creatrix figure. (There is often an emphasis upon the "womb" center of the spider, as Spider Woman is associated with the Earth Mother/Creatrix, from whose body all things emanate).

To me, obscure as it may seem, these "crop circles", and the interest, even the controversy surrounding them, are important as contemporary icons manifesting within the collective consciousness, "words" from a timeless language, the iconography of humanity. They are communications worth meditating upon.Spider and Cross Gorget, ca. A.D. 1300, Fulton County, Illinois, Dickson Mounds Museum

Whether created by paranormal forces or through the efforts of contemporary "earth artists" who prefer to further controversy about their work.........these are still sacred symbols that exist on many layers of meaning. Mr. Silva is right; the origins of the "crop circle" are not as important as what its meaning for our time might be.

This symbol, with it's origins in the remains of the "mound builder" sites in south eastern U.S., somehow found it's way to Great Britain last summer. No one knows the exact significance of the spider and cross in the ornaments pictured above, but Spider Woman has an ubiquitous presence throughout the Americas. It's generally thought the "Spider and Cross" represents the Great Weaver (Creatrix)/Earth Mother, the cross on her back representing the union of the 4 directions, thus, balance or completion.

Spider Woman's origins go back as far as the Maya. The Spider Woman/Weaver Woman was a goddess of the Pre-Columbian Teotihuacan Maya in Mexico, discovered on the ancient murals there.* I see that I"m moving into a dissertation here, so I'll cut to the chase.

What meaning could this symbol have for us today?

Spider Woman, the Great Weaver, was also called Thought Woman ("Tse Che Nako" ) among Pueblo peoples. She brought all things into being with what she thought about, the "stories she spun about the world" - like the spider, she "spins the world into being" from her own substance. All things are connected upon the Great Web.....and this power to co-create, to "make the world with the stories we tell" she passed on to her Relations.**

To the Navajo (the Dine`), Grandmother Spider Woman is a wise guide whose teachings can be heard in the wind; but she will only offer instruction to those who have achieved a certain level of maturity or initiation. To the uninitiated or immature, she will appear only as an insignificant insect, her power and words unperceived. Spider Woman was responsible for bringing the people from the previous worlds into the new worlds in Hopi mythology.........in some stories, when the 3rd world ended in flood, she help the people to make boats and stepping stones to cross into the new world in safety and harmony.

It's worth noting that it is the "end" of the Hopi calendar as well as the Mayan (2012); the "4th World" is coming to a close. In each previous world, the breaking of balance, loss of harmony, greed and war brought about destruction and chaos. Here's from Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopi_mythology):

"Some contemporary writers tend to posit an absolute importance of the feminine to the Hopi ............In this interpretation, the Hopis traditionally saw the goddess Spider Woman as the creator, "Grandmother of the sun and as the great Medicine Power who sang the people into this fourth world we live in now.”

In other interpretations, Spider Woman is an intermediary between Creator (Tawa) and this plane of being. Generally, it is agreed that in each "previous world" the people fell from harmony, and had come to live contrary to Creator's plan (Tawa)....thus, the people

"were led (usually by Spider Woman) to the next higher world, with physical changes occurring both in the people in the course of their journey, and in the environment of the next world. In some stories, former worlds were then destroyed........whereas in others people were simply led away from the chaos which had been created by their actions." (Wikipedia)

I am trying to understand why I'm so struck by this crop circle, which, like so many others, occurred near old sacred sites of Great Britain, "power centers" of the ancients.**** Perhaps, in this "way of telling, way of praying", Spider Woman is again invoked, to help, to bring us again through the kiva, the "sipapu", the "Birth Channel" of the Mother Earth.....into the "5th World" yet to be.

**Although often referred to as the "Great Goddess" of Teotihuacan, anthropologist Karl Taube was the first to appropriately christen her the "Teotihuacan Spider Woman" in his article in the 1983 edition of The Journal of Latin American Lore after his evaluation of the murals found there.

*** "Tse Che Nako, Thought Woman,
the Spider, is sitting in her room now.
I'm telling you the story
She is thinking". ...........Keresan Pueblo Proverb

Freddy Silva on Crop Circles

human made  giant Crop Circle "The Butterfly Man", Netherlands, August 17, 2009***

I felt like copying here an article on Crop Circles by one of the world's foremost investigators, Freddy Silva. It was my pleasure to meet him and buy his dvd and book this summer. I was especially impressed with his spiritual perspectives on crop circles and ancient sacred sites.

A Brief Education Of Crop Circles 

by Freddy Silva

Crop circles are not a modern phenomenon.

They are mentioned in academic texts of the late 17th Century, and almost 200 cases- some with eyewitness accounts- have been reported prior to 1970. Since then some eighty eyewitnesses from as far away as British Columbia have reported crop circles forming in under twenty seconds; cases are often accompanied by sightings of incandescent or brightly-coloured balls of light, shafts of light or structured flying craft.

Serious attention was given to the simple circles in 1980 in southern England. The designs appeared primarily as simple circles, circle with rings, and variations on the Celtic cross up into the mid-1980s. Then they developed straight lines and created pictograms, not unlike petroglyphs. After 1990 the designs developed exponentially in complexity, and today it is not unusual to come across designs mimicking computer fractals and elements that relate to fourth dimensional quantum physics. Their sizes have also increased, some occupying areas as large as 200,000 sq feet. To date there have been over 10,000 reported and documented crop circles throughout the world, with some 90% emerging from southern England. While many still go unreported each year, the emegence of the phenomenon in the world media and the internet has allowed more information to be lodged.

If you happen to buy the story that all crop circles were originated by two sexagenarians with planks of wood, string and a weegie board, you are not in the minority. Once in a while, governments like to control public interest in unexplained phenomena by generating a disinformation method called 'debunking', a technique invented during the Cold War for the sad purpose of controlling mass opinion in the face of unexplainable phenomena (this was the prime motive of the 1953 Robertson Panel, details of which are obtained under the US Freedom of Information Act). The method is very effective because the media provides little or no scientific or factual data with which the public can form an educated opinion on the subject. This absence of evidence is then replaced by ridiculing the subject through association with other 'fringe' topics; so-called experts are brought-in to explain away all the events as freak weather conditions or the work, general pranksters, even sexually excited animals!

According to TV documentaries, all crop circles up to 1992 were made by two simple, elderly men called Doug and Dave. It has since been discovered by researchers such as George Wingfield and Armen Victorian that the D&D story was tied to the British Ministry of Defense- in collusion with the CIA, among others. Evidence supplied by a high-ranking informant in the British Ministry of Defence suggested that the government had every intent to discredit the phenomenon by putting forward two hoaxers in an effort to quell growing public interest in crop circles (for a fuller story see Crop Circles History 1991). 

When confronted to provide evidence on certain claimed formations, Doug and Dave changed their story, even reversing previous claims; or they simply remained silent when asked to explain the list of features found in the genuine phenomenon. When they claimed making all the formations around the English county of Hampshire, for example, it was pointed out that half the known formations had actually occured in another county- "Er, no, we didn't do those either," they replied. In the end, not even Doug and Dave knew which ones they had made. And although they claim to have made hoaxes since 1978- at the time the published date of the first design- evidence witheld confirmed crop circles dating back into the 1930s. The public has never heard these retractions, nor been given the opportunity to compare the mess created by D&D with the mathematical symmetry of the real phenomenon.

In 1998, however, the surviving member of the deceptive duo did make an incredible admission to British newspapers that he'd been guided by an unknown force.

Since Doug and Dave's inauguration, many copycat hoaxers have appeared on the scene. Some do it to disprove or derail researchers, some for profit, some because they are sociopaths, some because they genuinely believe they can communicate back to the phenomenon (with very interesting results, I may add). Prior to 1989 the hoaxing problem was virtually unheard of. After 1990 designs of man-made origin vary by year- in 1992 and 1998 it was as high as 90%, in 1996 as low as 20%.

That people with a good amount of training can go into a field and eventually create a coherent pattern has never been the issue- recently, a group of known hoaxers called TEam Satan/the circlemakers was paid to go to conveniently out-of-the-way New Zealand to make an elaborate formation for The Discovery Channel. The deceptive tactics used to trick a viewing public into accepting the hoax theory are dealt with here.

The issue is that no man-made crop circle has satisfactorily replicated the features associated with the real phenomenon, and this has baffled scientists and researchers. Crop circles are created by a force seemingly at odds with modern science. Central to the hoax argument is that a physical object is required to flatten the crop to the ground, resulting in the breaking of the plant stems. In genuine formations the stems are not broken but bent (left), normally about an inch off the ground at the plant's first node. The plants appear to be subjected to a short and intense burst of heat which softens the stems to drop just above the ground at 90�, where they reharden into their new and very permanent position without damaging the plants. Plant biologists are baffled by this phenomenon and farmers, who know how the land ticks, are baffled by this. It is the singlemost method of identifying the real phenomenon. Research and laboratory tests suggest that microwave or ultrasound may be the only method capable of producing such an effect.

Crop circles are sometimes accompanied by trilling sounds, since captured on tape and analysed by NASA as artificial in origin, with a harmonic component in the infrasonic range.

The detection of electromagnetism also differentiates genuine formations from fakes. This naturally-occuring energy is known to exist at ancient sites such as stone circles, long barrows, tumuli, dolmens and menhirs, and in churches and cathedrals which were built upon these sites. Crop circles, sacred sites and other places of worship are also found upon intersecting points along the Earth's invisible energy grid, and the size and shape of a crop circle is typically determined by the area of these 'node' points on the Earth's surface. The frequencies of this energy are associated with changes in brainwave patterns and affect the body's biophysical rhythm, so it is not unusual to find reports of people experiencing heightened states of awareness and healings in crop circles- a situation also common to sacred sites. People may also experience dizziness, disorientation and nausea- effects caused by prolonged exposure to infrasound or microwave frequencies.

Biophysical evidence includes plants' expanded epidermal walls, and drastically extended node bends in fresh formations (normalright, crop circle far right); also observed are distortions of seed embryos, and the creation of expulsion cavities in the plants as if they have been heated from the inside. In genuine formations there is a disruption of the plant's crystalline structure, as these microscope photos demonstrate. Yet in all cases, the plants are not damaged and will continue to grow and ripen if left untouched. This would not be possible had they been trampled by force.

Genuine crop circles are areas of gently laid and swirled plants which create a floor in mathematical proportions similar to the Golden Mean, the vortex nature uses to create precision organisms such as shells, sunflowers, the spatial relationship of the bones in the human hand and galaxies. The floor of crop circles can have up to five layers of weaving, all in counterflow to each other, with every seed head intact and placed beside each other as if arranged in a museum case; the centres can contain nested, woven, crested, or wreathed swatches of plants- sometimes the center will consist of a single standing plant.

They are not perfectly round but slightly elliptical (a hoax, requiring a fixed central rope, cannot achieve this adequately). Their edges are crisply defined from the flattened crop as if drawn with a compass and incised with surgical precision. Hoaxes, by comparison, bear a stylistic resemblance to tuffs of greasy, uncombed hair- and, of course, all their plants have been trampled, bruised and crushed.

Other anomalies indicate an increase infra red output within and around a new formation, indicating that both the heat content of the plants and the watershed have been affected. Evidence even exists of four non-naturally occuring, short-life radioactive isotopes in the soil inside genuine crop circles (these dissipate after three or four hours); the soil in around them appears to have been baked.

Mathematically, genuine crop circles encode obscure theorems based on Euclidian geometry as well as the unalterable principles of sacred geometry. They have the capacity to alter the local electromagnetic field so that compasses cannot locate north; cameras, cellular phones and batteries fail to operate, and aircraft equipment fails whilst flying over them. Then there are levels of background radiation up to 300% above normal, radio frequencies falling dramatically or rising sharply within their perimeters, animals in local farms avoiding that particular area or simply acting agitated hours before one materializes, and car batteries in entire villages failling to operate the morning after one is found nearby. In some of the major events, entire towns are left without power.

Since genuine formations materialize at crossing points along the Earth's magnetic energy currents, they are influencing the energy pattern of local phehistoric sites. They reference local Neolithic sites in size/shape/direction, and are dowsable upon entry, with as many as 150 concentric rings of energy outside their physical perimeter. In fact, a year after they have been harvested and the field ploughed and re-sown, the energy imprint of the formations will still be dowsed, long after their physical traces have vanished.

This area of research has allowed for the possibility of crop circles as a healing force, and they are already being successfully employed in radionics, flower essences and resonance therapy around the world, both for people and environments in distress.

Crop circles are generally formed at night between the hours of 2-4 AM, traditionally during the shortest evenings of the English year when darkness lasts but four hours, in fields eagerly watched by farmers, military, laser alarms, scientists or hundreds of enthusiasts in their sleeping bags hoping to be the lucky ones to witness a crop circle forming. Some of those lucky few have witnessed large balls of brilliant colour project a beam of golden light into a field which next morning displays a new crop circle.Yet despite many stakeouts and fields rigged with top surveylance equipment, crop circles have appeared out of the mist right under the noses of those looking for them. On one occasion, the Circlemakers even materialized in full view of the British Prime Minister's heavily-guarded country residence.

At Stonehenge in 1996, a pilot reported seeing nothing while flying above the monument, yet 15 minutes later this huge 900 ft formation resembling the Julia Set computer fractal, and comprising 149 meticulously layed circles, lay beside the heavily guarded monument. It took a team of 11- including myself- no less than five hours just to survey the formation.

Still not convinced? This web site contains a sampling of the on-going research dedicated to enlightening the public. More will be added as time goes by.

 Look at the pictures, study the research or better still, visit a genuine crop circle. You'll get the message pretty quickly.  And when you do, tell this story to a friend.

Source: CropCircleSecrets.org

**Although a dutch group claims to have made the above giant figure in one night, in the dark, there is considerable controversy as to whether that is actually true, or indeed possible, since no one actually saw it being constructed. And if there are people who can make art like this, so precisely and in the dark at that, why not join earth artists like Andy Goldworthy in fame, fortune, and the Museum of Modern art? "Who is going to invest time and money in a mega 'project' like this? No cause, no publicity, no revenue? They could have established their name nation-wide, even around the world? The DaVinci/butterfly was harvested 17th of August 2009. If they made it, why did they let the opportunity pass by?"
http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?noframes;read=157241

Crop circles!

near Salisbury, Wiltshire, May 5th, 2010
Photo by Steve and Karen Alexander www.temporarytemples.co.uk

I seem to have found a new passion, which is the extraordinary phenomenon of crop circles. I had no idea about the scope of the phenomenon, and plan to attend the Circles of Knowledge conference next summer in Wiltshire, UK. held by the Wiltshire Crop circles study group.

Here's a great video I found showing crop circles 2009-2010 - just amazing.

The Wiltshire Crop Circles Study Group describe themselves as "such called because the group is located in the county of Wiltshire in the UK, the most active area for crop circles in the world. The Group was established in 1995 to study the crop circle phenomenon in all its aspects -Physical (scientific evidence - the physical effects on plants and soil),Metaphysical (the meaning encoded in their symbolic designs),Spiritual (their transformative effect). They continue with:

"Since 1980 thousands of designs have been investigated and recorded in databases worldwide. This is impressive by anyone's standard.

• They are found all over the world.
• More than 6,000 have been documented since 1980.
• Over the last twenty years analyses of thousands of plant and soil specimens from hundreds of formations worldwide have been carried out in laboratories in various countries, and most extensively in the UK and in the USA.
• These analyses show that the cellular structure of the plants has been strongly affected and that the composition of the soil greatly altered in crop circles (man made designs exhibit no such results).
• Their designs are based on complex geometry, ancient symbology and advanced mathematics.
• They can be decoded.
• The message that comes through is important for mankind at present."
  

I was stunned to learn, from a related site, Crop Circles and More that over 47 complex circles
have appeared in the UK this summer alone, predominantly in southern England. All the images herein are circles that manifested this summer. Without touching the metaphysical, geomantic, historical and physical mysteries of the Crop Circles, I have to say that they are simply amazing Earth Art! The "Spiral Jetty" in the Great Salt Lake (below), the famous earth work by Robert Smithson in the '70's occurs in many art books, and photos can be seen in the Smithsonian. But to the best of my knowledge, there are no crop circles in the Smithsonian, in fact, they are pretty much ignored in that corner of civilization ..... but almost 50 of these "Earth Works", beautiful mandalas and mysterious symbols......in one summer! Amazing.

"The Spiral Jetty"

Photo by Lucy Pringle (http://www.lucypringle.co.uk/)

Photo by Lucy Pringle (http://www.lucypringle.co.uk/)

Photo by Lucy Pringle (http://www.lucypringle.co.uk/)

Photo by Steve and Karen Alexander www.temporarytemples.co.uk

Last, I couldn't resist the circle below, which is (I believe) something similar to the archaic "Spider and Cross" or "Spider Woman" motif. This occured in West Kennett, Long Barrow, Wiltshire on the 19th of April, 2009, while, interestingly, an important native American conference ("the return of the Ancestors") was going on in New Mexico. See the Spider, Cross, and the Web?

Earth Mind

If anyone asked me what my theology was, I think I would have to say it is Gaia-ism. Since the first time I read about James Lovelock's Gaia Hypothesis (with collaborator Lynn Margulis). 

Encountering a proposal that said, in essence, that the planet we live within is alive, I felt affirmed in something I intuitively sensed since childhood. That the whole world was alive, conscious in some amazing way, responsive, conversant. With their revolutionary work, the Gaia Hypothesis (now, more generally accepted, it has been called the Gaia Theory), a name was chosen from both science, and mythology. My paradigm, as they say, shifted like the Teutonic plates, and I've been seeing the world I live in through that lens ever since. My notion of God ceased to be not only male, but human-centric, and my art sprouted roots, vines, and webs in every background, always going "off the picture plane".

Sometimes a book, or an event, is the beginning footprint of a lifelong "Marga", the hunt for divine purpose or meaning. Gaia Theory set me to wondering about the mythos of "Gaia", the Great Mother, as well. I learned about the work of archaeologist Marija Gimbutas in her excavations of prehistoric Europe, and I read "When God Was a Woman" by Merlin Stone. I read Joseph Campbell (The Way of the Animal Powers), Riane Eisler (The Chalice and the Blade), and later, as a graduate student in the arts looking for the "roots" of the Goddess in visual history, Gloria Orenstein (The Re-Flowering of the Goddess), Elinor Gadon (The Once and Future Goddess) and many others. I found I was not alone in my quest to uncover earlier perceptions of deity, my fascination with the idea that to ancient peoples the Earth was a Great Mother with many children, to imagine worlds where where deities like Crow and Turtle, the lion headed goddess Sekhment or the generous Roman Numina of place had something to teach and tell.

Prehistoric Mississippian "Hand and Eye" gorget 

The eye and hand  fascinates me and has occured in my art process numerous times.   We can integrate symbols into our being so deeply that we forget where they come from, they are simply a way we speak to ourselves about the world. The hand of the Great Spinner and Weaver, the hand of Spider Woman, the hand of Gaia. Within my own hand, as I create my life, if I'm lucky enough to contact that divine essence.

As I work on my "Icons for the Earth", I see the Eye represents the intelligence, awake and aware and creative, within what we so blithely call "nature", as if we were somehow not part of it, as it "nature" was something "out there".

"We are living IN the Body. Not ON the Body, but IN the Body. And what we do to the Earth, we are doing to ourselves."

........Rachel Rosenthal, Performance Artist

The eye keeps re-occurring, and is the spirit of place I have so often felt in the mystery of the woods, the dapple of shadow on water, the bones of lives abandoned in the desert heat. I felt it without words when I was a child, observing a lizard that was also observing me. The Eye is the world awake and

 aware, the conversation

 I think this has been a prologue to something. I was inspired by the talk on Crop Circles I enjoyed in Roswell, by Freddy Silva, an Englishman who has spent many years researching the Crop Circle phenomenon in his native country, and around the world. He has found that they have unique magnetic and energetic properties, that they are increasingly complex, they can occur unnoticed within as short a period as 20 minutes, and that they often occur near prehistoric sacred sites and standing stones, places of "energetic power" where ley lines cross and underground water domes occur, etc. Freddy believes they are not only communicating through the universal language of symbol and mandala (a symbol of wholeness), but they are also, speaking in terms of subtle energies, changing the land and water in some

 way - perhaps, an infusion, a "pollination".

 I need to learn more about this..............as an artist, they are not only mysterious, but stunningly beautiful, Mandalas that incorporate sacred symbols drawn from all human cultures.

So, I'll meander with this, because this is a mystery, serpentine by nature, as all "earth mysteries" are. What I remembered as I was listening to Freddy's lecture was an experience I had many years ago, something I always wanted to share, but didn't know how to, or what it meant.** I have had a few real visions in my life. By that I mean, I was not asleep, I wasn't dreaming, I experienced an "altered state of consciousness" that was lucid and visionary. When this occurs, I consider it big, something I've been graced with. One of the most extraordinary "visions" occurred in the spring of 1989, when I pulled off the interstate at a rest area near the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia. At the time, I owned a little red Toyota truck. I shut my eyes, and immediately found myself in the back of my truck.....which much to my surprise, began to fly! Looking tentatively over the side of the truck, Virginia was gone, and I seemed to be flying above a misty, very green landscape with rolling hills. Below me I could see a circle of standing stones. They were really more like a kind of spiral that culminated in a circle. Up the hill came a procession of people, most clad in white clothing, and many carrying flowers and baskets; they seemed to be preparing for a ceremony of some kind.

  Then I was peering down at an entirely different kind of landscape, as my magical truck transported me to a Southwestern terrain. The red earth had bluffs and mesas, and as I looked, I could see that there were many, many layers of petroglyphs within the rocks - they seemed to recede infinately into both human and natural patterns.

  Then I was flying high over Los Angeles, where I grew up! Below me was a familiar, vast pattern of freeways - and as I watched, they formed the "figure 8" infinity sign. And then I opened my eyes, seated at the wheel, pulled over at a rest area, with a map on the seat next to me. The whole experience was too vivid to have been a dream, nor did I have any memory of being "sleepy" before it happened. What does it mean? I don't really know, even now, but seeing those crop circles, I remembered this vision, and thought of it's message of pattern, language, deep within the processes of the earth, the speaking, dreaming earth. Deep within the past, universal human language and ritual and art, deep within us even in our contemporay world. I still find this vision somehow encouraging. We stand on the razor's edge, poised for global community and maturation as a species, as well as in dire danger. To me, the freeways that formed an infinity symbol across the land could mean that, even in our ignorance and hubris, the mind of Gaia still speaks beneath and through the works of our hands and minds - there is a larger pattern, an evolution we participate within. The pattern, the template, Earthmind. ***

 

*** EARTHMIND: Communicating With the Living World of Gaia is a book by John Steele, Paul Deveraux, and David Kubrin (1989) that I highly recommend. It was another one of those "paradigm shifters" for me. **There is so much I have said in the past about the shamanic function, the visionary function, of art - something we so little understand, and yet is basic to the understanding of archaic and indigenous cultures.