Sunday 22 April 2007

Food for Thought

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Mercy, Mercy Me ~ Marvin Gaye

Oh, mercy mercy me
Oh, things ain't what they used to be
No, no
Where did all the blue sky go?
Poison is the wind that blows
From the north, east, south, and sea
Oh, mercy mercy me
Oh, things ain't what they used to be
No, no
Oil wasted on the oceans and upon our seas
Fish full of mercury
Oh, mercy mercy me
Oh, things ain't what they used to be
No, no
Radiation in the ground and in the sky
Animals and birds who live nearby are dying
Oh, mercy mercy me
Oh, things ain't what they used to be
What about this overcrowded land?
How much more abuse from man can you stand?
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Originally Posted April 6, 2007

Something I completely overlooked with the Smarties dream until Purpleaura brought it to my attention was the possibility of chocolate being tainted. We’ve both had more than one dream leading to contaminated food in the past so it could be a possibility.
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Purpleaura’s Dream ~ December 22, 2005

I seem to be at a gathering of couples. We are sitting around a kitchen island or an event with a dessert chef making a dessert for everyone at the table. I was watching the chef as he would take cling film and put chocolate on it, then he did some twisting and turning it inside out, and it came out as a small chocolate dessert bowl, then he filled it with what appeared to be chocolate mousse. The chef then asked hubby whether he would like to taste the chocolate. All the time the other couples at the table were being treated well.

The chef again takes the cling film, turns it inside out and it looked like a bowl but then he snapped out part of it and it looked like a chocolate rose petal. Hubby tasted it and was loving it and so were the other people at our table.

I was getting annoyed as I was being overlooked and the chef never asked me whether I would like some. I was getting pissed at this, like I didn’t exist. No one asked me, not even hubby, whether I would like to try some, I felt like I was being pushed out.

I remember having a flash or picture of me with a carrot in my mouth and I could hear myself saying to everyone, “You know I can eat that, I don’t always eat carrots”. I was pissed that they thought that just because they saw me eating a carrot they never even acknowledged or asked whether I would like to try some. Even the chef didn’t ask me, everyone just presumed. Then I woke. I was pissed with hubby when I woke up. Very strange. I remember there being about 4 other couples at the table.
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Carrots made an appearance In the Eggo Shell dream on September 16th as did potatoes. Potatoes were referenced twice in that dream and a few others since. A couple of days after that dream I checked out a dream forum, not searching for potato or carrot dreams but just to see what was up.

Date: September 16, 2006 at 19:23:19
From: MCYoung/Tx, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Regarding the Tainted Spinach

…each car contained one single very huge, giant vegetable. "Giant" means each vegetable covered the entire car. One car contained a giant ear of corn without the shuck and appeared to have been partially eaten. The rest of it was rotting.

Another car held a giant potato that had some form of blight upon it. A third car contained a giant rotting carrot and a fourth was carring a giant rotting cabbage or lettuce…

http://earthboppin.net/cgi-bin/talkrec.cgi?submit=lt&baseurl=http://earthboppin.net/talkshop/theend&msg_num=13590
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Three weeks later…

Toxic carrot juice paralyzes 2 in Toronto
Last Updated: Monday, October 9, 2006 1:43 PM ET

Two Toronto residents are paralyzed after drinking carrot juice that tested positive for a botulism toxin, according to the city's public health department.

"There are two adults who are severely ill in hospital and they had a history of drinking the exact same juice that's been part of the carrot juice recall," Dr. Elizabeth Rea, an associate medical officer of health, told the Toronto Star on Sunday.

The juice, produced by Bolthouse Farms in Bakersfield, Calif., was ordered off North American store shelves late last month after four cases of botulism in the United States were linked to toxic carrot juice.

A Florida woman has been in hospital, unresponsive, since mid-September. Three people in Georgia suffered respiratory failure and are on ventilators since drinking carrot juice a month ago.

Botulism is rare, but it can be fatal and must be treated quickly. Symptoms can include blurred vision, slurred speech, difficulty swallowing and paralysis, Toronto Public Health said.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/10/09/botulism.html
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Potatoes

Miss Scarlet ~ December 18, 2005

I had a yucky dream last night. I was at my mom's, I think it was Christmas dinner, the whole family was there. For some reason I brought some mashed potatoes but they looked more like turnips, orange in colour but not quite as orange as turnips. Mom also had a pot of potatoes on the stove but they were in a shiny stainless steel pot and when I opened the lid they looked like they came from a commercial, they were perfectly swirled.

We went to eat and mom says we're not having potatoes, there was a rat in the pot. I wanted to know which pot, and why we couldn't eat the other pot of potatoes. I also wanted to know when this happened because I had just looked in one of the pots and saw no rat. It ended up being her pot of potatoes that had the rat and I assumed it must have crawled in after I looked at them and wondered how it did that because it would have had to take the lid off. That was all.
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Miss Scarlet ~ November 15, 2006

I seem to have this potato thing on the go, I had another potato dream last weekend. I was cleaning a machine that looked like a cotton candy making machine. It was a huge steel drum, very shiny. I had this red plastic thing in my hand that was used to clean it. It was some sort of handle with a space between it, hard to describe. So I was cleaning away and all of a sudden something jammed up. I flipped the red plastic thing over and there was a potato stuck in it. I thought, “Now how the heck did that get in there”? There was nothing in this drum, I'm not even sure why I was cleaning it, so I had no idea where this potato came from. It was peeled and fresh looking. That was it.

I’m still not sure what to make of the potato dreams because they really could be leading to so many things besides tainted food. There are hot potatoes and couch potatoes and who can forget Dan Quayle’s famous potatoe blunder?

Six years out of office with two failed presidential bids now behind him, ex Vice President Quayle still ranks as America’s favorite dumb politician because of what happened in Trenton on June 15, 1992.

That’s the day, you probably recall, a Trenton sixth grader had to teach the Vice President of the United States that potato is not spelled with an e on the end.

In his 1994 memoir, Quayle devotes a whole chapter to the events in a classroom at Trenton’s Munoz Rivera School — and the impact of them on his career.

"It was a defining moment of the worst kind imaginable,’’ Quayle wrote in the autobiography.”Politicians live and die by the symbolic sound bite.’’

Less than five months after the incident, Quayle and President Bush were voted out of office, replaced by Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Ever since, the ex VP has been a straight-faced political joke.

http://www.capitalcentury.com/1992.html
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Back in one of the beginning blogs I mentioned a person named P Sadie. Luckily it didn’t take me long to realize how disturbed she was and to this day I am still a little foggy on her intentions. What she wanted of me is to give up my husband, country, family, job and friends to relocate to a trailer in her back yard in Arkansas, so that we may channel Ashtar from the Galactic Federation any time we needed. She was under the impression I had the ability to do this and more importantly thought I would want to do this.

Not knowing anything about channeling at the time I agreed to speak to her by telephone and see what happened. I saw Ashtar all right and he looked like Darth Vader hovering over the earth just waiting to pounce. She claimed I was misled and was seeing the wrong Ashtar, there was a fake out there and he likes to trick people. I disagreed and thus ended that relationship. But not right away. Like I said I need that sure thing, a sign I was correct in my assumptions. I could easily explain away the desire to have me move to Arkansas as being nothing more than the wishes of a lonely old woman in dire need of company. But this Galactic Federation thing was a bit too weird even for me.

A short time later I dreamt I saw P Sadie hovering in space with all her parts floating around beside her. I wasn’t going to bother to try and find that original email but it came up anyway to add just a bit more weirdness. I just searched my files for an old email regarding a movie Ron Howard produced and starred in because it pertains to the next subject, milk. I found the reference I was looking for but was a little freaked when I read the first sentence:

Miss Scarlet ~ January 13, 2005, 11:11

P Sadie I just saw something else. Those things in the box with you were your parts, it's like you were Mrs Potato Head and your parts, gifts, whatever they were...were scattered all around you. They weren't gone, they just weren't in the right places.

And what do I hear on the radio the very next day?

PAWTUCKET, RI, January 14, 2005 – Falling to the temptations of the evil Emperor, MR. POTATO HEAD is adopting a new look and heading over to the dark side of The Force! To build on the excitement of the Star Wars fantasy, Hasbro, Inc.’s (NYSE:HAS) PLAYSKOOL division is launching a new MR. POTATO HEAD figure, Darth Tater. Available at stores nationwide in February, kids will be able to have all kinds of mix 'n match, MR. POTATO HEAD fun with this wacky spud dressed as the infamous Star Wars saga villain, Darth Vader.

http://www.hasbro.com/media/default.cfm?page=release&release=274

So maybe potatoes aren’t going to be tainted, maybe they have another meaning. I believe there are certain articles on this planet not indigenous to this planet. Corn and chocolate are two of those things. Maybe potatoes are another?

In any case I sure hope nobody finds Mrs Potato Head and decides to put her together. Yikes!
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Purpleaura ~ September 28, 2006

I had dream where I was watching young lad about 8 or 9 years old go to the fridge and grab some milk and begin drinking it. Suddenly he ended up with a jippy tummie. I went to have a look at the milk and heard someone say, "They have put something in the milk that is making everyone ill". I went to the fridge and checked the milk to make sure it wasn’t out of date to cause the illness, but when I looked it was still in date. I remember getting rid of the box and replacing it with another one just in case. A towel came to mind but I can’t remember what color etc. it was.

Miss Scarlet ~ September 28, 2006

Okay that milk dream really freaked me out. Two weeks ago BWB and I decided not to use cream in our coffee anymore but milk. We eat way too much cheese and butter. I said to him from what I've been reading about milk lately I'm thinking of giving that up too. I never really did like milk, I have to drink it with chocolate or I can't drink it at all.

Miss Scarlet ~ October 16, 2006

I think there's something to your milk dream. I bought some cream not too long ago and it was curdling in the coffee. It didn't taste or smell sour, but it was gross all the same. Last week JC was bummed out for the whole day because he went to eat his cereal for breakfast and opened a brand new carton of milk that he bought the night before. The best before date was not for days but it came out lumpy. That would ruin my day too. Today I was riding the elevator with Bob and he had a carton of milk for his tea, he said he had to replace it because the other carton he just bought was sour. One incident I could see, maybe the store didn't store it properly or something, but not 3 different people who shop at different stores, especially after your dream.

Okay so no more potatoes or milk or carrots or spinach or lettuce. We had better evolve into beings who don't need food real soon or we're going to be in deep shit.
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Then the Ron Howard movie Bitter Harvest came back again. I first saw that movie when it aired on TV in 1981. It scared the crap out of me and stayed with me for a long time. Actually I don’t think it’s ever left. The plot concerned a dairy farmer whose herd was poisoned by PBB’s. What terrified me the most is how fast the contamination spread throughout the country and the world. The baby’s drinking the milk was a huge deal either in the movie or my head, don’t recall which or it could have been both. The whole concept of the plot was a truly horrifying thought.

I just looked on the IMDB to see what they had to say about it and was quite surprised to learn it was based on a true story.

This was actually based on a true story, 3 February 2006

Author: rem1010 from Anaheim, California

I was amazed at this film. The story takes place in a fictional area, but I know for a fact that it was in Michigan during the mid-late 60's My relatives were on farms affected by the poison in this movie and the events actually occurred. Some of my relatives died as a result of the tainted food supply and others came down with horrible cancer growths. To this day, the farmers are not to speak of this event and the government covered up this story very well. I have to give Ron Howard a lot of credit to bring this information to the public, even though most will not know the true story. I do not want to give away the plot, but you must see this for yourself and then see if you can actually believe that it really happened. By the way, do some more research on the foundry sands of Detroit and see what they did there! There is not a movie about that part yet.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082077/
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Looks like we’re going to have to keep an eye on milk. As far as I’m concerned, any government endorsed food council that keeps pushing certain foods at us, and more importantly at children, has got nothing but ominous written all over it.

And the final and ultimate source of authority on everything, Homer Simpson:

Mayored to the Mob (#AABF05 / SI-1005) 20 Dec 1998

When Homer rescues Mark Hamill and Mayor Quimby from a rowdy mob of sci-fi fanatics, he is appointed the mayor's new bodyguard. But after convincing Quimby that he needs to stop Fat Tony's mob from selling rat's milk to the town's schools, the mayor's life is placed in jeopardy.

http://www.snpp.com/episodeguide/season10.html

Hmmm, wasn’t Mark Hamill in Star Wars and wasn’t his father Darth Vader?
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Cantaloupe

Miss Scarlet ~ November 27, 2006

In this dream I was lawn bowling with cantaloupes. Not sure what I was aiming at, and the lawn wasn't really a lawn but more of an old country road with 2 ruts for car tires and overgrown grass down the middle. That was all.

Miss Scarlet ~ February 11, 2007

I don't know if these things are related or not, but this just blew me away. When I was at the grocery store the other day, there was a cantaloupe sitting beside the scale. The cashier asked me if I wanted it because the customer who brought it up didn't want to buy it. I asked what was wrong with it and she said nothing, other than it costs $12. This melon was no bigger than 5-pin bowling ball. Needless to say I didn’t buy it either.

6 days later…

Tainted Cantaloupe, Baby Food Recalled

02.17.07, 12:00 AM ET

SATURDAY, Feb. 17 (HealthDay News) -- The tainted-food scare widened Saturday with the recall of fresh cantaloupe and selected jars of organic baby food.

Dole Fresh Fruit Co. recalled several thousand cartons of imported cantaloupes after the fruit tested positive for salmonella, the bacteria involved in the nationwide peanut butter recall earlier this week.

Dole late Friday said the recall covered roughly 6,104 cartons of Costa Rican cantaloupes distributed to wholesalers in the eastern United States and Quebec between Feb. 5 and Feb. 8, the Associated Press reported. There were no reports of illness.

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Chocolate

I don’t even know where to begin with chocolate. If TPTB are purposely contaminating our food, don’t they realize what messing with chocolate will do? Are they nuts? Men do you agree? Do we really want a world full of women PMSing without chocolate? Do they understand the ramifications? Purpleaura woke up pissed at her hubby and she only dreamt he wouldn’t give her any chocolate.
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Miss Scarlet ~ September 16, 2004

I had a dream the other night where everything was made of chocolate, which was pretty funny until I woke up and heard Hershey Pennsylvania. Wonder what's up there?
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Purpleaura ~ November 25, 2004

I had weird dream last night. I dreamt I was in a posh hotel and suddenly I have what looks like a credit card. It started out silver then it changed to platinum and I’m thinking WOW I'm rich. Then I’m looking at all the counters and seeing people loading up on the fresh chocolates being made. They are buying loads of them. I'm thinking well now that I am rich I can at least buy a few. It seems everyone has a set package of milk chocolates. I told the lady I wanted to pick out my own and it was mostly white chocolate. There were about 5 or 6 chocolates in the basket. All of sudden I see in the basket are strawberries covered in chocolate and underneath the milk chocolate was the white chocolate.

It jumps and a man behind the hotel reception desk says, “We will order a long limousine”. This long metallic silver limousine turns up and I hand him my card which keeps changing from silver to platinum. The gentleman behind the hotel desk opens the limousine door and I get inside. Its huge, I’ve never been in a limousine. Then he comes back and he says, “I hope you don’t mind but can I put a family in with you?” I said, “Sure no problem?”

I move to the corner of car, there was 6 in the family so including me there were 7 total in the limousine and it was getting crammed. A lady got in next to me and started chatting, she looked to be about in her 40's with greying hair. She had a son who looked like he was in his late teens. Mind you I had a sense or feeling they had other children, but all the children seem to be not below teen years. The father I did not see. Where I was going in the limousine I don’t know, but that there was 7 of us. Then I awoke.

Very weird dream I almost believed I had some strawberries. I guess I was picky at choosing my own chocolates but I got a banana covered one and fruit chocolates but everyone else just bought a package deal where they just got milk chocolate and didn’t decide on which.

This looks to me like maybe the masses were okay with what somebody else was choosing for them, which ironically was milk chocolate. But Purpleaura was not. There’s a whole lot more thinking to do on this one still. Bloodlines and all sorts of things come into my head.
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Miss Scarlet ~ July 9, 2005

I had another dream about Ray from the TV show last night. We were in a big field, green rolling hills as far as the eye could see. No buildings, no people, no roads, just green. Right in the middle of the field was a drinking fountain, like the ones they had in school. There was a little boy there, about 8 years old and very sick. I got the feeling he was dying. He was in a wheelchair all bundled up in a blanket and he had a tube coming from his mouth for a breathing apparatus of some sort. Ray was telling him to drink from the fountain. I was just watching all this and I don't even know if they saw me and that was all of that one.

Purpleaura ~ July 9, 2005

Ok shoot what a freaky deaky 2 nights we are having. I was going to email the last 2 nights, I’ve been having weird names coming to me a lot and quick dreams and I couldn’t remember much apart from waking up and hearing either the name Ray or Richard 2 nights ago, then you emailed me about this. I wasn’t sure whether to email about it because it was only a name and I couldn’t remember anything else. And it was funny I was thinking about that last night and thought, “Ok I wonder why I would remember that name and nothing else?”

Last night I can’t remember much apart from waking up and recall seeing what looked like a drinking tap, but it either was made of cherries or covered in cherry, and I also had feeling chocolate was involved as well which I thought was funny. Then you email this morning about a drinking fountain and the boy.

I have to explain I am not so engrossed in TV that I have incorporated that world into waking world to the point it ends up in dream world. I rarely watch TV and when I do it’s one of 5 shows, all sitcoms, mostly the Simpson’s and Seinfeld. I’m not a fan of the show Everybody Loves Raymond and although I have nothing against Ray Romano, he doesn’t stand out in my mind for any reason. The only reason I can figure out why this happens, which could also pertain to what I was talking about when you see people in dreams you haven’t seen for a while, is simply the name. There’s somebody out there who goes by Ray, don’t have a clue who he is, and since Ray Romano was the most recent Ray in my life in a long time, so to speak, I associated Ray Romano with this other Ray.

Both Purpleaura and I saw a fountain at the same time and a man named Ray. The fountain I observed was almost definitely a healing fountain which leads us to believe chocolate and cherries have healing properties. Maybe the Germans were onto something with Black Forest Cake?
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I don’t know enough about natural remedies to know about cherries, but I have done a fair bit of research into chocolate and it’s quite well known for its healing properties. Maybe it’s the combination of fruit and chocolate that makes for an even better therapy? Also the fact Purpleaura chose white chocolate makes me think that represented the purity of it. Pure cocoa is the key, not the FDA’s version of chocolate:

White Chocolate

White chocolate originates from the cocoa (cacao) plant, but it is not 'chocolate.' According to the FDA, to be called 'chocolate' a product must contain chocolate liquor, which is what gives it the biter intense chocolate flavor (and color) to dark and milk chocolates.

http://www.foodreference.com/html/artwhitechocolate.html
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Miss Scarlet ~ August 20, 2005

In this dream I was looking for a pen. There was a woman here I don't know and she needed to write something down but I couldn't find a pen. I have a tin that I think cookies came in that I now keep pens in, but it's in a drawer somewhere and I haven't seen it for a while. The lady was telling me I had to get the tin.

OK so I just went and got the tin, it was buried deep. I found it interesting that it’s exactly the same colours as the mural you just painted for Miss Kitty.
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This is what it says on the side of the tin:

On Rue Chocolat (the name of the chocolate shop on the tin) everyone enjoys Belgian chocolate.

In the late 1800's, chocolate was a favorite of wealthy Europeans, who believed it to be a health food - they purchased it at pharmacies!

Realizing the appeal of chocolate, a Belgian pharmacist named Monsieur Delacre, changed careers and opened one of Europe's first chocolate shops.

His fabulous Belgian chocolate biscuits are still popular today, and the quaint beauty of his chocolate shop lives on "Rue Chocolat" ("Chocolate Street")

These collector tins pay homage to Mr. Delacre and to the pure Belgian chocolate treats that made him so famous.

Bon Appetit!
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Miss Scarlet ~ November 15, 2006

I've got chocolate on the brain again...still. Last week we were watching TV and there were several chocolate commercials in a row. BWB says, "What's up with the chocolate all of a sudden and why does it seem like they're pushing it on us?" The next day I see this post on GLP:

History of Chocolate, another cover up, why?

Another lie, the Egyptians had chocolate that was delivered by Phoenicians in ancient times. Why try to hide this fact?

Chocolate Through the Years

The story of chocolate, as far back as we know it, begins with the discovery of America. Until 1492, the Old World knew nothing at all about the delicious and stimulating flavor that was to become the favorite of millions.

The Court of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella got its first look at the principal ingredient of chocolate when Columbus returned in triumph from America and laid before the Spanish throne a treasure trove of many strange and wonderful things. Among these were a few dark brown beans that looked like almonds and seemed most unpromising. There were cocoa beans, today's source of all our chocolate and cocoa.

The King and Queen never dreamed how important cocoa beans could be, and it remained for Hernando Cortez, the great Spanish explorer, to grasp the commercial possibilities of the New World offerings.

Then a couple of days after that, this Hershey's salmonella thing hits the news:

Salmonella scare sparks Hershey recall
Last Updated: Sunday, November 12, 2006 9:17 AM ET
CBC News

Hershey Canada has recalled many chocolate bars and baking products — including Hershey bars, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Oh Henry! bars — because they may be tainted with salmonella.

http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2006/11/12/recall.html?ref=rss
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A person could literally go on and on about chocolate so if I don’t stop soon this blog will end up being full of nothing but recipes and yummy pictures. We have 70-something emails just about chocolate. I think I need to go get some.

We’ve been given mixed messages about chocolate forever... It’s bad for your skin, it’s good for your heart, it’s bad for your teeth, it’s good to fight cancer…

Do they want us eating it or not? Because I tend to do the opposite of what “they” think I should be doing. Seems safer that way. I’m gonna go with “they” don’t want us eating it and no matter what they’ve done to try and destroy it by all the other crap they put into it, chocolate continues to maintain its mystical properties and allure.

So what’s next? I’m serious, they don’t want to mess with chocolate.

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Bees

Lots of talk about bees lately. This post in particular disturbed me:

Anonymous Coward
User ID: 214755
3/27/2007 12:16 AM

Albert Einstein speculated that "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left."

Species under threat: Honey, who shrunk the bee population?

Across America, millions of honey bees are abandoning their hives and flying off to die, leaving beekeepers facing ruin and US agriculture under threat. And to date, no one knows why. Michael McCarthy reports

[link to http://www.heyokamagazine.com/]

http://www.godlikeproductions.com/bbs/message.php?messageid=364296&mpage=&showdate=
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The following dream is from May 11, 2005 as I posted it to a forum:

I had a dream last night that I opened a book to read it and there was a big bumble bee dead and squished in it.

I am reading the Da Vinci Code right now and I'm fairly sure this was the book in my dream

Thanks to anybody who has any ideas about this
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Date: May 12, 2005 at 07:06:29
From: hive,

I started out doing a google search on the symbolism of bees and the various symbols of The Vatican and its power---the results are many, and wordy...to the point that it was difficult to wade through it all. Let it suffice to say that bees are, and have been for millennia, powerful symbols---one of them being The Mother Goddess. Maybe the background research and tossing around of symbols in that 'not very well written, but readable book' unlocked some chain of symbols within you and led you to the dead bee.
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Hive also directed me to this site:

Subject: the buzz on Bees
Posted By: UmbertoXXII - The Magnificent
Posted At: (10/29/02 14:26)

The symbolism of bees... several views.

The Masonic view:

The bee and the hive have long been symbols of industry and regeneration, wisdom and obedience, with a place in Egyptian, Roman and Christian symbolism. The hive is often seen in Masonic illustrations of the 18th and 19th century and both Clovis and Napoleon adopted the bee as their symbol. Although "the bee was among the Egyptians the symbol of an obedient people, because, says Horapollo, 'of all insects, the bee alone had a king. Its use in Freemasonry was secondary to any number of other symbols based on the working tools of a stone mason.

http://p196.ezboard.com/fredcatsboardsfrm7.showMessage?index=1&topicID=370.topic
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Purpleaura’s Dream ~ August 24, 2005

I couldn’t tell whether I was in the dream itself but i seem to be aware from many different levels. It starts out on a farm and I'm hearing voices discussing whether the black bull had the plague or not. They said they would have to kill the bull just like all the animals, they would have to destroy it and bury it.

It jumps and suddenly they show how they would do this. They stripped the grass on the ground, almost like the red carpet treatment in Hollywood, but instead of the red carpet they had placed a black plastic sheet and what appears to be a yellow plastic sheet on top of it. They said they have to wrap the dead animal in this sheeting before they buried in the ground. I was aware at this time, that the plague had happened before, the people were very nervous. I wanted to make sure the bull did have the plague and this is the weird part. The reason they thought the bull had the plague was because the bulls sexual performance has suddenly stopped (LOL don’t ask). This for some reason happened to be one of the first signs of having the plague. I wasn’t sure if the bull had plague or not and as I approached the black bull which, happened to be standing next to a car, i heard someone say, "Be careful the bull is dangerous". I remember saying, “Don’t worry he wont hurt me, he’s my friend".

It jumps again and suddenly I got a vision that the black bull did not have the plague but in fact was only having a period where it was just off. LOL It was embarrassing but I saw the bulls privates suddenly start working again.

It jumps again and suddenly a person opens the door of the car and I get in and see a person sitting there. I wasn’t sure what happened but I heard what sounded like a little girl singing a song which I couldn’t quite catch. Then I woke up suddenly with what sounded like "gabby" in my ear, I heard a voice whispering and thought it was Miss Kitty but I checked she was fast asleep.
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The bull was lying on a black plastic sheet with a yellow plastic sheet covering it. Yellow and black immediately conjures up images of bumble bees for me and a cover-up’s a cover-up. In light of our dreams and the information from “Hive”, I can’t say for sure who’s behind the bumble bee disappearance, but I am reminded of a joke I just heard today.

A drunken man who smelled like beer sat down on a subway next to a priest.

The man's tie was stained, his face was plastered with red lipstick, and a half empty bottle of gin was sticking out of his torn coat pocket.

He opened his newspaper and began reading. After a few minutes the man turned to the priest and asked, "Say Father, what causes arthritis?"

The priest replies, "My Son, it's caused by loose living, being with cheap, wicked women, too much alcohol, contempt for your fellow man, sleeping around with prostitutes and lack of a bath."

The drunk muttered in response, "Well, I'll be damned," Then returned to his paper.

The priest, thinking about what he had said, nudged the man and apologized. I'm very sorry. I didn't mean to come on so strong. How long have you had arthritis?"

The drunk answered, "I don't have it, Father. I was just reading here that the Pope does."
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Why is it everything I look up regarding this story keeps leading back to Darth Vader & Luke Skywalker?

From the Blog Kung Fu Monkey:

Pope Benedict XVI - the most huggable of Popes


"Your friends will fail, Young Skywalker. For this Papacy is not under construction (whirling chair around). It is a fully functioning DEATH VATICAN!"

http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2005/04/pope-benedict-xvi-most-huggable-of.html
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Ratzinger? Rats in the potatoes? Hmmmmmm.

Teeth

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Originally Posted April 4, 2007
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Teeth have been mystifying me since I got my first one. I hate teeth. Mine have caused me nothing but pain and grief my entire life. Being an adolescent with abscess after abscess along with the accompanying excruciating pain would be the first memories I would delete from my brain. If we could delete stuff from our brains.

My feelings for dentists aren’t much better than they are for teeth. Holy crap there’s the scam of the century. Completely true story. My ex-dentist, the Rotarian, happened to be working as a volunteer at my place of employment one evening. He didn’t recognize me and I really wouldn’t expect him to. Dentistry was second to his more lucrative career as an expert witness in the fight against amalgam fillings. I am thankful he chose that as his cause and I’m thankful he made it his top priority to replace the many my mouth contained, but that’s where any good feelings I have about him end.

As I was saying, he was working where I was working one night, which was a food concession, and bought up almost our complete inventory of candy. I asked him what he was going to do with it all and he responded it was for his patients. Then I said “Hello Dr. Jones”. He looked at me wondering why I knew him, I explained I had been one of his patients for the past 5 years. Perhaps he may have recognized me if I introduced myself as the dollar amount I spent.

I then told him it didn’t seem like a very good idea to me to be buying candy to give to his patients, seeing how he was a dentist and all. He didn’t appreciate my humour much, glared at me and walked away. The next time his office called for a check-up I explained I would no longer be requiring their services.
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I’ve never really felt the common dream analogies regarding teeth pertain to my dreams and therein lays the mystery. I dream of teeth constantly and always have, as do many others. It’s a very popular theme.

Dreams that your teeth are falling out are the most common dreams we here at Dream Moods receive. Common dream scenarios include having your teeth crumbling in your hands or your teeth falling out one by one with just a light tap. Such dreams are not only horrifying and shocking, but often leaves the dreamer with a lasting image of the dream. So what does it mean?

One theory is that dreams about your teeth reflect your anxiety about your appearance and how others perceive you. Sadly, we live in a world where good looks are valued highly and your teeth play an important role in conveying that image. Teeth are used in the game of flirtations, whether it be a dazzling and gleaming smile or affectionate necking. These dreams may stem from a fear of your sexual impotence or the consequences of getting old. Teeth are an important feature of our attractiveness and presentation to others. Everybody worries about how they appear to others. Caring about our appearance is natural and healthy.

Another rationalization for these falling teeth dream may be rooted in your fear of being embarrassed or making a fool of yourself in some specific situation. These dreams are an over-exaggeration of your worries and anxiety.

Teeth are used to bite, tear, chew and gnaw. In this regard, teeth represent power. And the loss of teeth in your dream may be from a sense of powerlessness. Are you lacking power in some current situation? Perhaps you are having difficulties expressing yourself or getting your point across. You feel frustrated when your voice is not being heard. You may be experiencing feelings of inferiority and a lack of self-confidence in some situation or relationship in your life. This dream is an indication that you need to be more assertive and believe in the value of your own opinion.

In the latest research, it has been shown that women in menopause have frequent dreams about teeth. This may be related to getting older and/or feeling unattractive and less feminine.

Traditionally, it was thought that dreaming that you did not have teeth, represent malnutrition which may be applicable to some dreamers.

Other Perspectives

A scriptural interpretation for bad or falling teeth indicate that you are putting your faith, trust, and beliefs in what man thinks rather than in the word of God. The bible says that God speaks once, yea twice in a dream or a vision in order to hide pride from us, to keep us back from the pit, to open our ears (spiritually) and to instruct and correct us.

In the Greek culture, when you dream about loose, rotten, or missing teeth, it indicates that a family member or close friend is very sick or even near death.

According to the Chinese, there is a saying that your teeth will fall out if your are telling lies.

It has also been said that if you dream of your teeth falling out, then it symbolizes money. This is based on the old tooth fairy story. If you lose a tooth and leave it under the pillow, a tooth fairy would bring you money.

http://www.dreammoods.com/cgibin/teethdreams.pl?method=exact&header=dreamid&search=teethintro

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I’m not saying those things don’t apply to me, I certainly could use a bit more assertiveness and I don’t eat as well as I should. And who doesn’t feel a loss of control over their life or a little insecurity once in a while?

But so far, with all the teeth dreams I’ve had, no tooth fairy has left any money. Since I don’t judge books by their covers and don’t much care for those who do, putting my faith in man’s beliefs doesn’t really apply nor does anxiety over my appearance. I don’t leave the house in my pyjamas or anything, but I certainly don’t stress over hair and makeup. If people treat me badly because of that then I have no desire to know those people anyway.

No, I feel it goes much deeper than any of those explanations. I personally think something got screwed up somewhere in our evolution. I don’t think we’re meant to have teeth. Far too much surrounding teeth always leads back to nothing but sinister and evil vibes. I don’t think dentists belong to any secret society, I think they are a secret society. I’m not sure if there is any pain greater than that of a toothache, if there is, I don’t want to know about it. So right there they’ve got you. They can charge anything they want because you are literally at their mercy. We’ve all seen in the movies how effective a method of torture drilling teeth can be.

“The idea for the use of the swastika by the Nazis came from a dentist named Dr. Friedrich Krohn who was a member of the secret Germanen order. Krohn produced the design for the actual form in which the Nazis came to use the symbol, that is reversed, spinning in an anti-clockwise direction.”

The above quote is from a website no longer in existence.

On top of that the last few years have seen a barrage of commercial after commercial from the TPTB who have done all they can to convince the world that without sparkling, white, perfect teeth we are nothing. Might as well just kill everybody who doesn’t fit the mould because they must be truly loathsome human beings.

Imagine what the world would be like if we didn’t need nourishment? No more hunger is the biggie there, but no food also means no teeth which means no pain and no judgment. No internal organs to screw up, no need for two of the worst rooms to clean in your house, no need to buy 75% of the stuff we have to buy therefore no need to work at anything but keeping yourself sheltered and content. No more killing animals, no more genetically engineered crops, no more beating down your enemy by removing their food source. Now that’s my idea of paradise.
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When I was a kid I so longed to have my teeth pulled and replaced with dentures that I used to wrap chewing gum around them and the roof of my mouth just to see what it would feel like, which probably led to the many problems I later encountered in the first place, but that seemed irrelevant at the time.

I began trying to find a dentist in my early 20’s who would pull my teeth but had no luck. At that age it was far more profitable to keep on filling and bonding and crowning me right into the poorhouse. It wasn’t until I was in my late 30’s I finally convinced a dentist to see things my way by refusing to get any more work done. Most of the teeth I had were 95% fillings and it was pointless. I will maintain to this day it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made and that man is one of my heroes. Talk about a bunch of thorns in the paw.

So apparently since birth I’ve already got this bad feeling about teeth, then I get half of mine removed and a funny thing happens. This could just be my imagination, but I feel my personal awakening coincided with precisely the same time I had all my upper teeth pulled. And that really got me wondering. I suddenly recalled the meanest lady I ever knew, a 96-year-old woman whose claim to fame was she still had all her own teeth.

What if teeth are used to control us in some way? I guess in that regard the dream analysis would be correct. What if our teeth hold all of our negative memories or work as some sort of restrictor? And maybe that’s why dentists want you to keep them for as long as possible and seal them up tighter than a drum? I kind of picture a little mechanism in our brains consisting of a sifter that filters all the bad down into our teeth where it remains until we remove it.
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My teeth dreams have changed a lot over the years. They started out being the popular theme of having them fall out into my hand, or spitting them out of my mouth or having them break apart right in front of my eyes. Since I’ve had them removed, the teeth dreams are usually at the end of a more bizarre dream, a dream of having been on a spaceship or in another realm. The last thing I’m often doing before I wake up is looking for my teeth or trying to figure out how they go into my mouth. Sometimes they’re broken and I believe that is simply a fear of not being able to afford a new set right now. I’m not quite ready to leave the house yet with no teeth so that would present a problem, although I would if I absolutely had to. I’ve been caught a few times without them, like when I’m on a long road trip I tend to take them out and then forget I have them out and start talking to people. And I am here to tell the tale so it wasn’t the end of the world. But in the dreams where I’m simply trying to figure out what the heck these things are, I believe I’ve been somewhere else where teeth aren’t required or necessary. My little heaven I guess.

So even though I have these theories that seem to make perfect sense to me, I still haven’t really had any confirmation on the possibility of these thoughts being correct. I know something’s up for sure and I think I’m on the right track, but with a mystery that’s been going on this long I needed some sort of verification. And along comes Miss Kitty.
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Purpleaura ~ January 27, 2005

I have to tell you about a silly thing happening this morning around 2:00am. What’s interesting is this has happened about 4 times in 2 months, I wake up to hear hubby talking in his sleep of stuff I am seeing and hearing in dreams. Last night I was cracking up as I heard a voice tell me to wake up because of Miss Kitty. Suffice to say I didn't want to, it was way too early in morning. Then all of sudden at that exact time hubby starts to kick me and hit me in the arm. I was rather pissed at this. I awoke to hear banging from Miss Kitty’s room and then hubby started to talk. He kept on mentioning, "There are loads of mega-bits in her mouth", then he went quiet.

What’s interesting for example is at one stage I kept on seeing symbols and colors and being told what it was, yet I didn't say a word to hubby about the dream. Again I woke up at the exact time to hear him talking in his sleep saying, “can’t do it, I don't think that’s the right symbol". Its seems we work in tandem and when I need to hear it I wake up at exactly the same time I hear hubby talk, then he goes back to sleep. What’s up with that?

The first thing I remembered from a dream was once Miss Kitty starts talking there’s gonna be a lot of stuff coming out of her mouth, a mind of information. Spirit usually gives me advance warning of what is gonna happen. But what cracks me up, hubby has started to do this and for the life of him he doesn't remember waking me up last night. Needless to say I had a lack of sleep last night.
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Miss Scarlet ~ March 4, 2006

In this dream last night I was listening to the song Your Gold Teeth II by Steely Dan (an all time favorite). I was at work but it was a weird place. It felt like a castle in the sky again and I was sitting on the wall at the very top of it. The tallest level was the smallest and they got bigger as they went down, somewhat like a pyramid. One level below me was a young girl and she asked me what the song was and who was singing. She found it very interesting and had never heard it before and was smiling at how much I got into it, I was just singing away. I told her the song was never a hit for them, it was on the B Side of one of their albums, and I have only heard it on the radio once (that is true in real life also and I was totally gobsmacked the time they played it), but from the first time I heard it I loved it.

Your Gold Teeth II ~ Steely Dan

Who are these children
Who scheme and run wild
Who speak with their wings
And the way that they smile
What are the secrets
They trace in the sky
And why do you tremble
Each time they ride by

Throw out your gold teeth
And see how they roll
The answer they reveal
Life is unreal

Who are these strangers
Who pass through the door
Who cover your action
And go you one more
If you're feeling lucky
You best not refuse
It's your game the rules
Are your own win or lose

EEEK I've never really paid attention to the lyrics, the music always gets me on this one.

After I repeated the chorus to her, I was wondering what they meant by Gold Teeth. Were they like dice you kept in your mouth and you could spit them out and they would roll and give you answers? Then it ended. Now I am reminded of your dream about mega bits, it seems these 2 dreams are related and apparently Miss Kitty has lots of Gold Teeth.
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Purpleaura ~ October 15, 2006

Here’s another thing you can add to your weirdness, Miss Kitty is sounding more like you. She came in about 10 minutes ago complaining to me and she said, "Mum I hate these teeth, I want them out, I want to pull all of them out”. I asked why and she said, "’cause I hate them in my mouth, and I don’t like them”. I don’t know where she got this but she says she doesn’t care whether she has teeth in her mouth or not ‘cause she can eat without them.
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And she would be correct, I have no trouble eating most things without teeth. And that's all the confirmation I need on that.
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I started writing this blog a while ago but got sidetracked as usual. However people on GLP are talking about teeth dreams and TMJ so this seemed like as good a time as any to finish it. I too was diagnosed with TMJ which I now feel is just a by-product of grinding. I spent a bunch of money (what the insurance company didn’t cover) on an “appliance” that was supposed to cure me. It didn’t. And of course along with the appliance were the many dental visits to have it adjusted and realigned and all that crap. I finally just quit wearing it because my main reason for even going to the dentist was the daily and decade-long headache I was suffering which they attributed to my teeth. After having my teeth pulled I no longer have anything to grind, no more TMJ and the headaches I get now are different and the causes usually explainable.

Having all your teeth pulled for some kooky thoughts may sound a bit extreme, but for me it was far less worse than the piercing of a nose or tongue or belly button or some even more sensitive body part. Now that looks painful! I was eating steak two days after the procedure. And I’m certainly not recommending what I did for everybody. Lots of people have perfectly functional teeth with ne’er a cavity or slightest tinge of pain. And lots of people have a lot of problems with dentures. And lots of people don’t have the money which is sad because it shouldn’t have to cost so much. George Washington seemed to do fine with his wooden version. I was very fortunate at the time to be employed with a company with excellent dental benefits, otherwise the vice grips may have become my favorite tool.

Speaking of Rare Celestial Occurrences


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Originally Posted April 4, 2007

Many thanks to the AC on GLP who posted this. Unfortunately I can’t find out exactly who it was as the site is down at the moment. The entire thread is interesting though and worth a read when it’s back up and running again.

http://www.godlikeproductions.com/bbs/message.php?page=1&messageid=366029&sho...

A very remarkable planetary/galactic configuration occurs on 23rd and 24 December 2007. The 23/12 configuration — Mars, Earth, Sun, Mercury, Jupiter, Galactic Centre, is shown in the graphic simulation (picture below); it becomes even more remarkable in that it will be accompanied by the Full Moon (conjunct mars) at about 2 a.m. on December 24 when a simultaneous Venus square Neptune occurs. It is even more remarkable in that the Pluto/Sun conjunction appears exactly on the Winter Solstice, just past conjunction with the Galactic Centre.

Link below is the view from Mars toward the Jupiter, Mars, Earth, Mercury, Pluto alignment toward the Galactic Centre on 23 December 2007 which occurs just after the Pluto/Jupiter (Heliocentric) conjunction on 23 November 2007. NASA Solar System Simulator for 23rd Dec 2007.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_conjunction#Grand_conjunctions

Big Yellow Taxi

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Originally Posted April 3, 2007

BWB has solved the mystery of the Matchbox #20. Don’t know why he decided to look into this on Sunday but its kinda funny the picture above was taken the same day. It shows an ebay ad for an as-new Matchbox Regular wheels #20 Chevrolet Impala Taxi. There are many other Matchbox cars in different series and such also named #20, but none of them hold quite as much charm as the Chevy Impala Taxi.

http://cgi.ebay.ie/MATCHBOX-SERIES-No-20-CHEVROLET-IMPALA-TAXI_W0QQitemZ290098770638QQcategoryZ56351QQcmdZViewItem

Not sure why but I seem to have this thing with Yellow Cabs for some reason. As far as I can tell it started on a trip to New York. And a trip to New York is a visual feast, you can’t turn your neck fast enough to take in everything you want to take in. And with all there was to see, one of the most vivid memories I have is the sea of yellow on the streets below the first time I looked out the hotel window. It was an unbelievable sight and something I’ve never forgotten. That was in 1985.

About 4 years ago I noticed a yellow fish painted on the street beside the sewer grate in front of the house. I learned later it was a program school children were undertaking to remind us of what we carelessly send down the drain on any given day. Not knowing this at the time, I momentarily wondered if it was some sort of mark of a professional hit man, like the dead canary on your doorstep. Not that I would have any reason for a mobster to leave such a sign, but it was still a curiosity.

I posted on a forum what I had found and asked if anybody know what it meant. The last sentence of the post was, “Is there anything I should know about yellow fish?” I returned to the main menu where somebody else had posted a dream from the night before titled Yellow Fish, and we both posted at exactly the same time, right down to the second. Her dream was about seeing a flock of Checker Cabs on Wall Street leaving the city that resembled a big school of yellow fish. So that was weird.

Then Purpleaura and I had a funny little incident regarding a taxi:

Miss Scarlet ~ May 26, 2006

This evening while sitting in traffic I saw a yellow truck the exact same colour as a Yellow Cab. I remember a few years ago when this colour became popular for cars. I didn’t think I would ever want a car that colour because then people would think you're a cab and I would feel obligated to pick them up and drive them wherever they needed to go. So tonight there's this yellow truck, and right behind it a Yellow Cab and it was cab #811. There were 811's all over it.

Purpleaura ~ May 26, 2006

I had to laugh, your story reminded me of my mum. She ordered a taxi to take her to her friends and in England they beep you. So mum hears a beep and runs outside and climbs into the car. The guy is looking at her and mum is giving him the address of where she wants to go. The guy turns around and says to my mum that he would love to give her a ride to her address but that he wasn’t a taxi. He had only come to pick up his friend and beeped his horn to let him know he was there. Suffice to say mum went bright red and left the car, and the taxi she ordered pulled up right behind them. We still have a good giggle about the time mum tried to pick up a guy in his car.

Back to the beginning of the story, BWB decides Sunday to look into this long standing mystery of mine regarding Matchbox Twenty and finds the Matchbox #20 Chevy Impala Taxi on ebay the same day it’s posted. And now we have even more weirdness going on because for one he knows about the Yellow Taxi thing and two he knows my "within reason" dream car is a Chevy Impala, late 60's to early 70's vintage. The gotta-win-the-lottery-first dream car being the Tesla electric car of course On top of that, both our fathers, born the same day, who both spent the main portion of their working years defending civilians (BWB’s dad was in the army, mine a cop), also both drove taxi for a short period of time before enlisting in their respective duties.

Still not sure what to make of all that.

Smarties, Beetles, Moths and Money



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Originally Posted April 2, 2007
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Talk about making a short story long. I have this one little dream and end up with a couple dozen pages of “thinking out loud” and still no concrete answers. Lots of different theories and conjecture, but nothing tangible enough to note as of yet.
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Miss Scarlet ~ April 1, 2007
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Well I had a creepy and funny dream last night. A lot of it I don't remember but the parts I do mostly involved bugs. The first part was BWB and I sleeping in my old room at my mom's. I was sleeping on the side of the bed against the wall and woke to find myself face to face with a big bug who was slowly making his way up the wall. It reminded me of those other bugs we saw in another dream that looked like a praying mantis. Very black and very shiny and you could tell the shell was hard as a rock. I was trying to figure out what kind of bug it was and at first I thought it was a cockroach but then realized there were no cockroaches here for some reason. I took a closer look and decided it was a beetle.
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I freaked and woke up BWB to check out this bug and get rid of it. He looked at it and said "I'm not killing that" and fell back asleep. I somehow knew my dad was in the room sleeping on the floor, as were a bunch of other people sleeping all over the place, and I started yelling "Daddy, daddy help me". I don't think I called him daddy much past the age of 5 or 6 so that was kind of weird. He didn't get up to help me either so I watched the bug crawl along the wall and realized it wouldn't hurt me and there was no need to kill it. So I just watched it make its way to wherever it was going.
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Next thing I'm laying in our own bed only we have a chandelier over the bed which we don’t have in waking life (where would we hang the trapeze?) I was just laying there staring at the ceiling trying to wake up when I see all these miniature Smartie boxes, the kind that usually only come out at Halloween.
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I laid there looking at the Smartie boxes wondering WTF? and then I see them start to move and some kind of bugs that looked like moths are metamorphisizing out of the boxes. Some of the bugs started to fly away with the boxes still attached but they fell off soon after. It was like the Smartie boxes were a skin they were shedding as they morphed. I then looked at the nightstand on BWB’s side and there was one there too under the lamp on the nightstand. I was a little freaked.
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I could hear BWB and Randy in the dining room talking or playing a game or putting something together or ripping something apart. Whatever it was they were having fun at it. I get up and go to the dining room and ask them what the hell is with the Smarties boxes and the moths? Apparently on the back of the box they had this contest or game. You had to leave one Smartie in the box, then put it near a source of light and warmth, like an incubator, and hope it would hatch. BWB and Randy figured the chandelier would make the perfect hatchery. I had to agree but still wished they would have let me know before this. I also told them they knew this was supposed to be for kids right? Not middle-aged men? Judging by the looks on their faces this was the craziest statement they had ever heard. What did that have to do with anything?
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The most integral part of the game was guessing the correct Smartie that held the larvae. BWB and Randy were both elated to hear the news of the births and asked me how many hatched. The more that hatched the more you won. I didn't remember how many but I did remember not all of them hatched.
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I realized I needed smokes so I head out the front door to go to the store, but I'm not in my neighbourhood. I don't know where I was but all the buildings were kind of a Mediterranean design of a coral or light pink stucco. I looked straight ahead and saw a very long road that disappeared over the horizon lined on each side with the stucco buildings. I wondered how far I was going to have to walk to find a store because I had that drugged heavy feeling in my legs again.
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I made my way down the road and all of a sudden I'm in downtown Ridgeway and right in front of a store that sells smokes. I smoke menthol and a lot of stores don’t carry my brand (Kool), but the store window was full of cartons of nothing but menthol cigarettes. Cameo really stood out. In waking life the store was called David's Menswear for years and years, then changed to a dollar type store selling all kinds of novelties.
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I asked the lady at the counter for a pack of Kools and first thought they wouldn't have them, but then worried I didn't bring enough money with me. I had a five dollar bill and 3 quarters which were our new quarters celebrating the Olympics in Vancouver in 2010. I asked the lady if they had Kools and she laughed and said of course they did, then I asked how much they were and she said she wouldn't know until she scanned them. I thought that was weird and she should at least have a ballpark figure. I got the impression they were like the stock market with prices fluctuating constantly and she really had no idea. I said, “Okay then, I don't know if I have enough money but I guess ring them in, if I do I'll buy them, if not I guess we cancel the transaction”. She rang them in and they were $5.69. I thought, “Awesome, that's really cheap for smokes because in Alberta they're more like $10.69”. I gave her the 5 and three quarters and was figuring out the change in my head, one penny and a nickel, only it wasn't called a penny but a copper. I got the impression coppers were very rare and mostly out of circulation, and this particular transaction was unusual. The lady said something about the combination of the price of the smokes, the amount of money I had and the change I was receiving being a very rare occurrence.
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And that's all I remember.
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When I woke up one of the first thoughts I had was, if you didn't guess the right Smartie, then that meant you had eaten the larvae. Yuck!
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The second thing was the beetle. I had a dream over 20 years ago where I found a beetle trying to burrow its way into my heel. I grabbed it and it ended up breaking in half, but the other half continued to burrow and disappear. That was it. I still haven’t figured that one out but is was creepy and has stayed with me all these years. This morning while pondering this new dream I wondered if it didn’t represent a Beatle. And since BWB and dad would have nothing to do with hurting it, then it must be a good Beatle. And maybe the one in my foot is a good Beatle too, not the sinister “bug” I thought it might be.
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What stood out the most in the dream were:
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Smarties
Beetle
Moth / Butterfly
Cameo
Metamorphosis
Commodities
Chandelier
Olympic Games
The money, both the denominations and composition, as well as the rarity of the transaction (I wondered if it could represent some sort of astronomy related convergence)
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The various numbers shown:
-534?
-5¾?
-5.75?
-5:45?
-569
-1069
-2010
-15 (one copper and one nickel)
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More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About Smarties
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Smarties conjure up two different but equal memories for me. One, I didn’t know until a short time ago, 5 years maybe, they were not available in the U.S. I learned this after my nephew, who had relocated to Memphis, came for a visit and stocked up before returning home.
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The other recollection is of an old friend who always ate Smarties before an exam. He claimed they helped his intelligence quotient. I thought of him because of another part of the dream too and I haven’t seen him in a few years so maybe I’ll be hearing from him soon.
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Smarties Historically Speaking:
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Nestlé Smarties are a colourful sugar-coated chocolate confectionery popular in Australia, Austria, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Malaysia, South Africa, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and other countries. They are similar to M&M's produced by Mars; in fact, M&Ms were based upon them.
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They are distributed in the United States, where another type of confectionery uses the "Smarties" name, only by specialist importers.
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Smarties are oblate spheroids with a minor axis of about 5 mm (0.2 in) and a major axis of about 15 mm (0.6 in). They come in eight colours: red, orange, yellow, green, mauve (or purple), pink, brown and white in the UK. In Canada, blue Smarties are included in place of white. In the UK, orange Smarties contain orange flavoured chocolate. Blue Smarties are no longer available in the UK as Nestlé have removed all artificial colourings from the product.
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Smarties were introduced in 1937 as "Chocolate Niblet Beans" by Rowntree's of York and renamed as Smarties in the following year. They became known as "Nestlé Smarties" in 1993, five years after the company Rowntree Mackintosh was acquired by Nestlé. Smarties are still manufactured in York but production is now moving to Germany, where currently a third of them are already made.
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In the original range of colours, there was a light-brown Smartie. This was replaced in 1988 with the blue Smartie. Before 1958, the dark-brown Smarties had a plain-chocolate centre, while the light-brown one tasted of coffee. The orange Smarties contained, and still contain, orange-flavoured chocolate.
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In 1997, larger-sized Giant Smarties were introduced, and, in 2004, Fruity Smarties.
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In 2006 it was announced that Nestle were removing all artificial colours from Smarties in the UK, owing to consumer concerns over chemical dyes producing hyperactivity in young children - various theories had circulated concerning which colours were better or worse for one's health. In answer to this controversy, Nestle decided to replace all chemical dyes with natural ones. As they were unable to source a natural blue dye, blue Smarties were replaced with white. Nestlé now uses cochineal, a derivative of the Cochineal insect, to dye red Smarties, which are therefore not kosher or vegetarian.
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In 2005, 570,000 tubes of Smarties were being manufactured each day, with an average of 48 to a tube. In the UK, an average of 307 tubes are consumed every minute.
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Smarties in the UK were traditionally sold in cardboard tubes, capped with a colourful lid usually having a letter of the alphabet on it. The purpose of this, according to a Rowntree’s' spokesperson in the 1980s, was for them to be useful as a teaching aid to encourage young children to recognise the letters.
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Over the last 25 years, Nestle has manufactured five billion Smarties lids. Some lids are very rare and are now regarded as collectors' items. Sales of Smarties are worth £73 million each year.
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In February 2005, it was announced that the traditional cylindrical tube was to be replaced with a new six-sided "Hexatube" packaging in the summer. Nestlé have stated that the redesign is in order to keep the brand interesting and fresh to children; the new packaging is also lighter and more compact. The last 100 tubes to leave the factory in York have a certificate inside them.
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Smarties are also made with fruit chews inside: these are called Smarties Fruity.
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Smarties are also sold in the form of chocolate bars and eggs with bits of Smarties in them and they are also sold in with ice cream (Smarties ice cream is chocolate and vanilla with bits of Smarties pieces in it).
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Current colours:
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Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
Mauve (or purple)
Pink
Dark Brown
White
Blue (Canada & Australia only)
Black (Halloween and Happy Feet version only)
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Trivia
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On packages of Canadian Smarties, a Smarties 'Fun Fact' states that Canadians eat enough Smarties each year to circle the Earth "350 times". However, a grade 6 math class in Thunder Bay, Ontario proved otherwise in December 2005. The math class calculated that the amount of Smarties Canadians eat in a year would circle the Earth only once. Nestlé Canada has promised to amend the packaging.
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Smarties: Meltdown is a third person game, apparently aimed at young children. The game is set on a giant Nestlé Smartie shaped factory ship which orbits the Earth. Dr. Soursweet is the main villain in the game, who aims to take over the Smarties factory. The main hero, the character played by the player, is Big Blue, who must battle to save the factory and the Smarties.
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The game was only released in Europe and received generally poor reviews. The Official PlayStation 2 Magazine UK gave Smarties: Meltdown its lowest possible score, 1/10.
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Sometimes the manufacturers print pictures on the Smarties themselves. Many people have written in asking about this practice. Here is one recent British sample:
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And who can forget the popular jingle?
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When you eat your Smarties do you eat the red ones last?
Do you suck them very slowly, or crunch them very fast?
It’s the candy-coated chocolate, so tell me when I ask
When you eat your Smarties, do you eat the red ones last?
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“Only Smarties have the answer” seems to be their newest marketing slogan. So tell me Smarties, what’s up with this dream? Am I supposed to have a séance with a bowl of Smarties?
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In the dream I told BWB and Randy this was a kid’s thing, and Smarties appears to be all about kids, which is not unusual. Redesigning the box “in order to keep the brand interesting and fresh to children” might be though. We don’t get Smarties in tubes here except on special occasions such as Christmas. This is the box we’re accustomed to:
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And there's usually a game or an interesting fact (even if wrong), on the back of the box. Again that part was not at all unusual. What was unusual is the boxes in the dream were shaped similar to the type that makes an appearance only on special occasions such as Halloween.
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Then I went to Rowntree UK and saw the new “Hexatube” and wondered if that wasn’t what I saw in the chandelier. All I knew was the boxes were smaller and different than normal.
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And even that still isn’t super woo woo. What I find super woo woo is the email Purpleaura just sent a short time ago:
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I had to laugh at Rowntree (York) and Smarties. LOL guess where my mum used to work at? You’re right! When we were younger it was cool because mum used to come home with tons of candy, I think us kids were the first in the world to have lion bars, the boss let her have them for us.
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Purpleaura also noted the hex boxes seemed odd to her, before knowing my thoughts on it (or at least before I told her), so that makes me think something’s up with that.
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Another thing I wasn’t completely sure of was if the creatures I saw coming out of the boxes were moths or butterflies. They looked furry so I assumed they were moths. But while still in the half-asleep half-awake state I was thinking about a couple of movies and Ashton Kutcher. The two movies were the Mothman Prophecies and The Butterfly Effect, but I knew he wasn’t in the Mothman Prophecies, so I was still unsure what to think about that. In the email from Purpleaura was a link with a list of Rowntree’s confections, and on that list are Beetles and Butterflies.
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I was also a little more than stunned to read about the Cochineal insect extract used in Smarties:
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Cochineal is the name of both crimson or carmine dye and the cochineal insect (Dactylopius coccus), a scale insect in the suborder Sternorrhyncha, from which the dye is derived.
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History
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The cochineal dye was used by the Aztec and Maya peoples of Central and North America. Eleven cities conquered by Montezuma in the 15th century paid a yearly tribute of 2000 decorated cotton blankets and 40 bags of cochineal dye each. During the colonial period the production of cochineal (grana fina) grew rapidly. Produced almost exclusively in Oaxaca, Mexico by indigenous producers, cochineal became Mexico's second most valued export after silver. The dyestuff was consumed throughout Europe and was so highly prized that its price was regularly quoted on the London and Amsterdam Commodity Exchanges.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochineal
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So all that seems kind of weird, the Smarties, the bugs, UK Smarties contain bug extract, Purpleaura’s mum worked at Rowntree and made Smarties, the smokes were a commodity, the cochineal dye was a commodity. And this all involved a game and then I learn about Smarties: Meltdown. That doesn’t sound good at all… the meltdown part.
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I find it interesting the hero is Big Blue, and blue Smarties are only available in Australia and Canada. But that’s not necessarily a good thing because the blue dye is danger. Not sure what to make of that. A wolf in sheep’s clothing is about all that’s coming to me right now.
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Mothman Prophecies the Book
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The Mothman Prophecies is a 1976 book by parapsychologist John Keel, described as nonfiction.
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The book's subject matter mostly concerns events in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, during 1966 and 1967, focusing on sightings of a creature dubbed Mothman. It also includes Keel's theories about UFOs, Men in Black, ghosts, and other paranormal phenomena, as well as the December 15, 1967, collapse of the Silver Bridge across the Ohio River from Point Pleasant to Gallipolis, Ohio.
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The book was the basis of a 2002 film of the same name.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mothman_Prophecies
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Mothman Prophecies the Movie
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Richard Gere plays John Klein, a hot shot reporter whose life is suddenly changed after a car accident. It's discovered his wife has a tumor, and will likely die from it. Shortly after his wife's passing, he discovers a strange assortment of drawings she made of a strange creature they encountered the night of the accident. Two years later, John suddenly finds himself in the small town known as Point Pleasant, West Virginia where several people have reported strange supernatural encounters. Along with weird lights, and phone calls, John begins to investigate the encounters and realizes more.
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Apparently these strange encounters are from a creature known as the Mothman which foretells cataclysmic events. John realizes there may be a tragedy in store for the small town, but can he stop it before it's too late?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mothman_Prophecies_%28film%29
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The Butterfly Effect
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A young man (Kutcher) blocks out harmful memories of significant events of his life. As he grows up, he finds a way to remember these lost memories and a supernatural way to alter his life.
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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0289879/
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I think I’ve veered far enough away from Smarties now.
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The Big Nickel is a nine-metre (30-foot) replica of a 1951 Canadian nickel, located at the grounds of Dynamic Earth in Greater Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. It is listed in the Guinness Book of Records, as the world's largest coin.
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Money
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As with the Smarties a Canadian 5 dollar bill also conjures up two equal memories. The guy I mentioned above who thought Smarties helped him before an exam pulled a little fraud scam as a youngster of about 10. He and his friend really wanted to go to the arcade but had no coin. They knew the guy in the change booth was not much older than them and probably stoned. Combined with the fact the lights in the arcade were dim they figured this mission would be easy to pull off.
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They snuck a fiver out of mom’s purse, photocopied it, COLOURED IT WITH CRAYONS, crumpled it up and off they went. Everything went as planned and they enjoyed their day at the arcade. Oh to have been a fly on the wall when the boss found that in the deposit.
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The other recollection concerns Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the man whose face adorns the 5 dollar bill. All I have ever known up until this evening about Sir Wilfrid Laurier is that he was a prime minister of Canada and has a university named after him. The reason I know his name is rather comical.
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Wilfred Laurier is the name of the university my brother went to. When he started it was called Waterloo Lutheran University, then about halfway through his attendance the school wanted to break away from the church influence, so they renamed it Wilfred Laurier University. And the funny thing about that is, I don’t think it had much to do with Laurier doing anything spectacular, the school simply didn't want to have to change their logo on anything, it remained WLU. That's what our government means to us, as long as we don’t have to have new stationary printed it’s all good.
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As it turns out, Laurier was quite an accomplished politician and well respected leader:
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Sir Wilfrid Laurier, PC, GCMG, KC, BCL, DCL, LLD, DLitt, baptized Henri-Charles-Wilfrid Laurier (November 20, 1841 – February 17, 1919) was the seventh Prime Minister of Canada from July 11, 1896, to October 5, 1911.
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Often considered one of Canada's greatest statesmen and the first francophone prime minister, Laurier is well known for his policies of conciliation, nation building, and compromises between French and English Canada. He argued for an English-French partnership in Canada. "I have had before me as a pillar of fire," he said, "a policy of true Canadianism, of moderation, of reconciliation."
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Laurier was also well regarded for his efforts to establish Canada as an autonomous country within the British Empire. His efforts were continued by his successor as Prime Minister, Robert Borden.
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Laurier is the fourth-longest serving Prime Minister of Canada, behind William Lyon Mackenzie King, John A. Macdonald, and Pierre Trudeau. A Maclean's historical ranking of the Prime Ministers placed Laurier third behind King (first) and Macdonald. Laurier also holds the record for the most consecutive federal elections won, and his 15 year tenure remains the longest unbroken term of office among Prime Ministers. In addition, his nearly 45 years (1874-1919) of service in the House of Commons is an all-time record in Canadian politics, unmatched by any other politician. Finally, at 31 years, 8 months, Laurier was the longest-serving leader of a major Canadian political party, surpassing King by over two years.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfrid_Laurier
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Wilfred Laurier University
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Wilfrid Laurier University's history as an institution of higher learning dates back to 1911 when the Evangelical Lutheran Seminary of Canada opened its doors to students. This was a result of the agreement made between the Canada Synod and the Synod of Central Canada of the Lutheran Church who decided they wanted to open a Lutheran Seminary. Waterloo was selected as the location of the seminary for two main reasons, the first being that land was offered by the citizens of Waterloo on the boundary of town for the seminary and the second being that most of the Lutherans in Canada at the time resided in Waterloo and Berlin (now known as Kitchener).
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfrid_Laurier_University
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Well a few things stuck out there for me. 1911 being a trigger year for us, it’s interesting the university was founded in 1911, the same year Wilfrid Laurier concluded his prime ministerial ship. And on October 5th to boot, which seems to have become a date of interest lately. Especially where Canadian history is concerned.
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But the university and the man didn’t have any sort of connection until long after his death. It wasn’t until November 1, 1973 that the two became connected and WLU became WLU.
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$5 Bill
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The Canadian five-dollar bill is one of the most common banknotes of Canadian currency. It is the lowest denomination banknote currently issued in Canada.
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The current five-dollar bill is dominantly blue in colour. The front features a portrait of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the coat of arms, and a picture of the West Block of the Parliament buildings. A security feature visible from the front consists of three shiny maple leaves. The reverse side depicts children engaged in winter sports, including sledding, ice skating, and hockey; this is accompanied by a quotation from Roch Carrier's short story "The Hockey Sweater".
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Yellow dots representing the EURion constellation can be found on both sides (and on all 2001 series notes). As well as textured printing, this new 2002 design incorporates a special tactile feature similar to Braille dots for the blind indicating the denomination. On 15 November 2006 the Bank of Canada released an updated version of the $5 bill with the updated security features, including a holographic stripe, found in the rest of the series.
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Security features include 'BANK OF CANADA' and 'BANQUE DU CANADA' only visible under ultraviolet light. The coat of arms is also on the bill.
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As with all modern Canadian banknotes, all text is in both English and French.
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In 2005, the Canadian government polled its citizens on the idea of retiring the five dollar bill, replacing it with a five dollar coin. The money saved in making the coin would then fund the Canadian Olympic team. Canadians resoundedly rejected and ridiculed the idea of a five-dollar coin. Some pointed out the bill's most recent redesign had only been four years previously, while many others were averse to the idea of carrying yet another heavy coin in their wallets and pockets. Due to the overwhelmingly negative response, the plans for the five dollar coin were scrapped.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_five-dollar_bill
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2010 Olympic Quarters
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These coins have been issued by the Royal Canadian Mint to commemorate the winter games in Vancouver, B.C. in 2010. Until I read the paragraph above I had no idea what the official reason for minting the $5 coin was, so there’s another reference to Olympics and money.
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So far only one of the circulation coins has been issued and that was on February 24, 2007. Since I had three in the dream, these are the first three to be released, the next two in April and July, 2007.
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The hologram coin has no meaning whatsoever to this dream, I just thought it was eye-catching.
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One of the other factors emphasized in the dream was the rare transaction I thought might relate to astronomy. The reference to a constellation in the article on five dollar bills was odd and I wondered why EUR was capitalized:
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Yellow dots representing the EURion constellation can be found on both sides
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Not having a clue what this constellation was:
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The EURion constellation is a pattern of symbols found on a number of banknote designs since about 1996. It is added to help software detect the presence of a banknote in a digital image. Such software can then block the user from reproducing banknotes to prevent counterfeiting using colour photocopiers.
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The name "EURion constellation" was coined by Markus Kuhn, who discovered the pattern in early 2002 while experimenting with a Xerox colour photocopier that refuses to reproduce banknotes. The word is a portmanteau of Orion, a constellation of similar shape, and EUR, the euro's ISO 4217 designation.
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The EURion constellation first described by Kuhn consists of a pattern of five small yellow, green or orange circles, which is repeated across areas of the banknote at different orientations. The mere presence of five of these circles on a page is sufficient for some colour photocopiers to refuse processing. Andrew Steer later noted simple integer ratios between the squared distances of nearby circles, which gives further clues as to how the pattern is meant to be detected efficiently by image-processing software.
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The EURion constellation is most prominent and was therefore first recognised on the 10 Euro banknote.
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Some banks integrate the constellation tightly with the remaining design of the note. On German banknotes, the EURion circles formed the innermost circles in a background pattern of fine concentric circles. On the front of former English Elgar £20 notes, they appear as green heads of musical notes, however on the Smith £20 notes of 2007 the circles merely cluster around the '£20' text. On U.S. dollar bills, they form the digit zero in little yellow numbers that show the value of the note.
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Technical details regarding the EURion constellation remain kept secret by its inventors and users. A patent application suggests that the pattern and detection algorithm were designed at OMRON Corporation.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurion_constellation
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Well obviously that doesn’t work because a 10-year-old with a couple of crayons and a black and white copier seems to have cracked that code.
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Cameo
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Cameo is a method of carving, or an item of jewellery made in this manner. It features a raised (positive) relief image; contrast with intaglio, which has a negative image. The effect of "cameo" also refers to a proof coin that has frosted lettering and features, providing attractive contrast with the mirrored fields of the coin.
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2010
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There’s already lots planned for 2010 according to Wikipedia, this is January so far, speaking of money and rare celestial occurrences:
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January 1 - Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries to establish and introduce monetary union.

January 1 - Bulgaria, Lithuania and Estonia are set to adopt the euro.

January 10 - Deadline for the America's Space Prize for private manned orbital spaceflight.

January 14 - The Space Shuttle Endeavour launches from LC-39A at the Kennedy Space Center, beginning the Space Shuttle's final flight, STS-132.

January 15 - Annular solar eclipse (The longest lasting annular eclipse of the 21st century.)

Late January - The Space Shuttle Endeavour returns to Earth after STS-132, concluding the Space Shuttle Program.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010
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2010 The Movie
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2010: The Year We Make Contact, also known as 2010, is a science fiction film released in 1984 directed by Peter Hyams. It was based on the novel 2010: Odyssey Two by Arthur C. Clarke. The film, like the novel, is a sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010:_The_Year_We_Make_Contact
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Revelations 20:10
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Then the Devil, who betrayed them, was thrown into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur, joining the beast and the false prophet. There they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
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http://www.allaboutgod.com/truth/revelation-20.htm
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Symbol 20:10
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http://www.symbols.com/encyclopedia/20/2010.html
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When I see things in dreams, I first turn to Google to search for a reasonable facsimile, as was the case with the chandelier. I came across this fixture most resembling the object in the dream, actually it’s almost exactly what I saw in the dream. The only difference being the fixture in the dream had decorative chandelier bulbs. I didn’t see the top of the chandelier partly because of my viewpoint and partly because the Smartie boxes and light bulbs were in the way. So I can’t say for sure this was an exact match, but the lower portion was pretty darn close.
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Some interesting facts:
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The chandelier which is shown in The Art of Painting probably dates from the end of the sixteenth century, as does this one from Mechelen, Belgium. On page 323 the author states that the bird on top is not an eagle but a phoenix (compare the Arnold Bon poem on Fabritius and Vermeer as mentioned by Blankert, Vermeer, 1975/1978)
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The chandelier has been exhibited early on in Delft and later on in Ghent in 1961 but a photo has probably not been published in Vermeer literature until now. An astonishing comparison indeed!
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Van der Auwera's central thesis is that the chandelier has a deep meaning within the complex Vermeer painting (and he gives ample documentary proof in contemporary paintings and books): "Still without light, it represents the first necessary but not yet sufficient phase of the training program of the painter, who portrays himself as such: in his studio and surrounded by the tools of his trade."(p.332).
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http://www.johannesvermeer.info/verm/house/hz-chandelier-eng.htm
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Vermeer's ultimate masterwork with its thrilling chandelier was 'The Art of Painting' painted ca. 1666-1668, now in the Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum (detail on the right). It was in Vermeer's possession at his death but it was kept hidden from the 1676 inventory. The painting was transferred to the possession of her mother Maria Thins on February 24, 1676. The painting was then sold in a Delft auction on March 15, 1677.
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Note : Montias 1989, pp. 338-339 (doc no 363). This object was omitted from the Vermeer-inventory as listed by the clerk working for Delft notary public J. van Veen on February 29, 1676, in the Thins/Vermeer home located on Oude Langendijk on the corner of Molenpoort. The painter Johannes Vermeer had died there at the end of December 1675. His widow Catherina and their eleven children still lived there with her mother Maria Thins.
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Art of Painting ~ Johannes Vermeer
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Johannes Vermeer or Jan Vermeer (baptized October 31, 1632, died December 15, 1675) was a Dutch painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of ordinary bourgeois life. His entire life was spent in the town of Delft. Vermeer was a moderately successful provincial painter in his lifetime. He seems to have never been particularly wealthy, perhaps due to the fact that he produced relatively few paintings, leaving his wife and eleven children in debt at his death. Virtually forgotten for nearly two hundred years, in 1866 the art critic Thoré Bürger published an essay attributing 66 pictures to him (only 34 paintings are firmly attributed to him today). Since that time Vermeer's reputation has grown astronomically, and he is now acknowledged as one of the greatest painters of the Dutch Golden Age, and is particularly renowned for his masterly treatment and use of light in his work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Vermeer
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Eternal Hexagon, from the portfolio Ten Works x Ten Painters
1964
Robert Indiana
Publisher: Wadsworth Atheneum
Printer: Ives-Sillman
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Museum purchase
1965.37.1A
Not currently on view

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I’m not sure what’s up with the painting above, but the Smithsonian purchased it in 1965 so it must be important.

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1069

I couldn’t really find much on 1069 but it made me think of October 1969 so just for fun I Googled October 5th, 1969. I think it’s apparent by now how I feel about Ron Hubbard and his religion.

The Sunday Times 5 October 1969
Spectrum

SCIENTOLOGY: Revealed for the first time. . .
The odd beginning of Ron Hubbard's career


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Above: "In 1946 Aleister Crowley (left), the sorcerer and mystic whose dabblings in black magic earned him the title The Wickedest Man in the World, found a new disciple and welcomed him to one of his occult communities in California. The extraordinary activities of this new and enthusiastic disciple are described in a vast collection of papers owned by a former admirer of Crowley which we have examined. The man in question is Lafayette Ron Hubbard (right), head of the now notorious Church of
Scientology."

JOHN WHITESIDE Parsons, a brilliant rocket fuel scientist, joined the American branch of Crowley's cult in 1939. He struck up earnest correspondence with "The Beast 666," as Crowley was known by his followers, and soon became his outstanding protégé in the United States. By January, 1946, Parsons was impatient to break new frontiers in the occult world. He decided to take the spirit of Babylon, the "whore of Babylon," and invest it in a human being.

But to carry out this intricate mission Parsons needed a female sexual partner to create his child in the astral (spiritual) world. If this part of the fixture went successfully Parsons would be able to call down the spiritual baby and direct it to a human womb. When born, this child would incarnate the forces of Babylon. During his magical preparations for this incarnation Parsons found himself overwhelmed with assistance from a young novitiate named Ron Hubbard.

(Does this sound to anybody else like something Tom might try?)

Parsons wrote to Crowley at the beginning of 1946. "He (Hubbard) is a gentleman, red hair, green eyes, honest and intelligent and we have become great friends. Although he has no formal training in magic he has an extraordinary amount of experience and understanding in the field. Ron appears to have some sort of highly developed astral vision. He describes his angel as a beautiful winged woman with red hair whom he calls the Empress and who has guided him through his life and saved him many times." He concluded almost ecstatically, "He is in complete accord with our own principles. I have found a staunch companion and comrade in Ron."

But within two months the bonds of friendship were under some strain: Ron claimed Parsons girlfriend Betty. With admirable restraint Parsons wrote to Crowley, "She has transferred her sexual affection to Ron. I cared for her rather deeply but I have no desire to control her emotions." As if to cement their loyalties Parsons, Hubbard and Betty decided to pool their finances and form a business partnership.

Meanwhile preparations for the mystical mission were well under way. From January 4 to 15, 1946, Parsons and Hubbard engaged in a nightly ritual of incantation, talisman-waving and other black magic faithfully described in Parson’s diary as Conjuration of Air, Invocation of Wand and Consecration of Air Dagger. With a Prokofiev violin concerto blaring away the two of them pleaded with the spirits for "an elemental mate" -- a girl willing to go through sexual rites to incarnate Babylon in the spirit world.

Parson mentions that windstorms occurred on a couple of nights and one night the power supply failed. But nothing seriously responsive until January 14, when Ron was struck on the right shoulder and had a candle knocked out of his hand. "He called me," Parsons wrote, "and we observed a brownish yellow light about seven feet high. I brandished a magical sword and it disappeared. Ron's right arm was paralyzed for the rest of the night.

The following night was even more portentous. Hubbard apparently saw a vision of one of Parsons' enemies. Parsons wrote, "He attacked the figure and pinned it to the door with four big throwing knives with which he is expert." For four days Parsons and Hubbard were in a state of tension. Then, on January 18, Parsons turned to Ron and said, "It is done." He added, "I returned home and found a young woman answering the requirements waiting for me."

The incarnation ritual set out in Parsons' manuscript, The Book of Babylon, is difficult reading for the unconfirmed spiritualist. Broadly interpreted, Parsons and Hubbard constructed an altar and Hubbard acted as high priest during a series of ceremonies in which Parsons and the girl shared sex. The owner of the documents, who is an expert on Crowley's magic, says that Parsons at this stage was completely under Hubbard's domination. How else can one explain Hubbard's role as High priest in the rites after only a few weeks in the trade?

For the first of the birth ceremonies which began on March 1 Hubbard wore white and carried a lamp while Parsons was cloaked in a black, hooded garment carrying a cup and dagger. At Hubbard's suggestion they played Rachmaninoff's Isle of the Dead as background music.

Parsons account of the start of the birth ritual is as follows: "The Scribe (Hubbard) said, 'The year of Babylon is 4063. She is the flame of life, power of darkness, she destroys with a glance, she may take thy soul. She feeds upon the death of mean. beautiful -- horrible.' The scribe, now pale and sweating rested awhile, then continued." There are two possible reasons why Hubbard showed anxiety at this stage of the ceremony, the owner of the papers says. He was either deeply moved by the spiritual depth of the ceremony or he couldn’t think what to say next.

Hubbard further instructed Parsons: "display thyself to our lady; dedicate thy organs to her; display thy mind to her; dedicate thy soul to her, for she shall absorb thee. Retire from human contact until noon tommarro. Speak not of this ritual. Discuss nothing of it. Consult no book but thine own mind. Thou art a god. Behave at this alter as one before another."

On the third day the ritual began four hours before dawn. Ron tells his companion, "lay out a white sheet. Place upon it blood of birth. Envision her approaching thee. Think upon the lewd, lascivious things thou couldn’t do. All is good to Babylon. All. Preserve the material basis. Thus lust is hers, the passion yours. Consider thou the Beast raping." These invocations along with other passages in the ritual indicates that Parsons had collected specimens of his own sperm and the girls menstrual fluid.

The climax of the ceremony occurred the following day with Ron at the altar working his two subjects into a sexual frenzy. Over Rachmaninoff he intoned such gems as:

Her mouth is red and her breasts are fair and her loins are full of fire,
And her lust is strong as a man is strong in the heat of her desire.

An exalted Parsons wrote the next day, "Babylon is incarnate upon the earth today awaiting the proper hour of her manifestation. And in that day my work will be accomplished and I shall be blown away upon the breath of the father even as it is prophesied." (In fact, Parsons was "blown away" in a rocket experiment laboratory in Pasadena in 1952.)

Unable to contain his joy, Parsons decided to tell Crowley what had happened. On March 6 he wrote, "I can hardly tell you or decide ho much to write I am under command of extreme secrecy. I have had the most important, devastating experience of my life." Crowley was dumbfounded by the news of the incarnation ceremony. He wrote back, "You have me completely puzzled by your remarks. I thought I had the most morbid imagination but it seems I have not. I cannot form the slightest idea what you can possibly mean"

With a distinct note of concern he dashed off a letter on the same day to the head of his American cult saying, "Apparently Parsons or Hubbard or somebody is producing a Moonchild. I get fairly frantic when I contemplate the idiocy of these louts." (This acid rebuke comes from a man whose activities were once summed up by a judge like this: "I have never heard such dreadful, horrible, blasphemous and abominable stuff as that which has been produced by the man who describes himself as the greatest living poet.")

By May that same year Crowley was not only concerned about Parsons spiritual well-being. There was a smaller matter of certain moneys. When the trio formed their business enterprise, Parsons is believed to have put in 17,000 dollars, Hubbard about 1,000 dollars, and Betty nothing. Using about 10,000 dollars of the money, Hubbard and his newly acquired girlfriend, Betty, bought a yacht. A report to the head of the American branch by another cult member says, "Ron and Betty have their boat at Miami, Florida, and are living the life of Riley, while Brother John (Parsons) is living at rock bottom and I mean rock bottom.

In a more sinister way, the report added: "Let is consider this matter of the magical child which Jack Parsons is supposed to turn loose on the world in nine months (now seven). Ron, the Seer, was the guy who laid down the main ideas, technic (sic), etc., of said operation."

On reading Parson's accounts of the ceremony and the reports from branch headquarters in America, Crowley cabled his U S office on May 22: "Suspect Ron playing confidence trick -- Jack Parsons weak fool -- obvious victim prowling swindlers." In a letter a few days later he said, "It seems to me on the information of our brethren in California that Parsons has got an illumination in which he lost all his personal independence. From our brother's account, he has given away both his girl and his money. Apparently it is the ordinary confidence trick."

A much-chastened Parsons wrote to Crowley on July 5, "Here I am in Miami pursuing the children of my folly. I have them well tied up. They cannot move without going to jail. However, I am afraid that most of the money has already been spent. I will be lucky to salvage 3,000 to 5,000 dollars." Just how Parsons managed to capture the errant lovers is in keeping with the other extraordinary chapters of this story. "Hubbard attempted to escape me," Parsons wrote, "by sailing at 5 p.m. and performed a full invocation to the Bartzabel within the circle at 8 p.m. (a curse). At the same time, however, his ship was struck by a sudden squall off the coast which ripped off his sails and forced him back to port where I took the boat in custody."

Parsons recovered financially and possibly as a backlash to his experience with Hubbard, he took the Oath of the AntiChrist in 1948 and changed his name to Belarion Armiluss Al Dajjal AntiChrist. In his scientology publications Hubbard says of the period, "Crippled and blinded at the end of the war I resumed studies of philosophy and by my discoveries recovered so fully that I was reclassified in 1949 for full combat duty."

Hubbard claims that more than two dozen thinkers, prophets and psychologists influenced scientology (which he launched in 1951); everyone from Plato, Jesus of Nazareth to Sigmund Freud whom he says he studied under in Vienna. The record can now be righted with the inclusion of Aleister Crowley, the Beast, 666.

Alexander Mitchell

http://www.lermanet.com/scientologynews/crowley-hubbard-666.htm
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Beetles

A fascinating part of God’s wonderful creation, dung beetles roll balls of animal dung along the ground. These balls are rolled into holes, whereupon the beetle deposits its larvae which, being hatched, feed upon the dung. According to Egyptian doctrine, the dung beetle rolling his ball was considered illustrative of the Sun’s heavenly circuit and its daily self-renewal. Hence, a symbolical scarab carrying a solar disk upon its back represented the Sun’s cycle through the sky.

Scarabs were also symbolic of resurrection. This too was directly linked with the rising of the Sun. In fact, since the scarab was spiritually connected with the Sun-rise, it became closely associated with the Egyptian deity Khepri–"god of the rising Sun." In every aspect, scarabs and Egyptian Solar worship were inseparable.

http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/2002/carl-teichrib/11scarab.htm
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Hexagon

28:23 · the regular hexagon, a uniform, six-sided, geometrical design, is used in Western ideography in the contexts of chemistry and electricity and in engineering to represent a flow restriction.

http://www.symbols.com/encyclopedia/28/2823.html

Could that mean the new Smarties box, specifically designed to the keep the brand interesting and fresh to children, is in reality restrictive in some way?
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A bizarre six-sided feature encircling the north pole of Saturn near 78 degrees north latitude has been spied by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer on NASA's Cassini spacecraft. This image is one of the first clear images ever taken of the north polar region as seen from a unique polar perspective.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia09188.html


One of the most bizarre weather patterns in the solar system has been photographed at Saturn, where astronomers have spotted a huge, six-sided feature circling the north pole.

"This is a very strange feature, lying in a precise geometric fashion with six nearly equally straight sides," Kevin Baines, atmospheric expert and member of Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said Tuesday in an image advisory. "We've never seen anything like this on any other planet. Indeed, Saturn's thick atmosphere, where circularly shaped waves and convective cells dominate, is perhaps the last place you'd expect to see such a six-sided geometric figure, yet there it is."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17816192/
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From the Blog Semi-Charmed Life

A Journeyman's take on everything under the Sun ranging from Philosophy to Supermodels.........

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

666 = Taurus

Even I felt a little weird about this, 666 is supposed to be the lucky number for the Bulls. I have always been fascinated by this so called number of the beast (Bull is a beast). I found this interesting article about how this 666 is a number for bulls.

The lucky number for Taurus is six (also known as the Hexad). It is the mystic number of Venus and a number which Taurus shares with those individuals born under the Sign of Libra. Six represents family and symbolizes the home, parents, healers and counselors. It is representative of domestic bliss, responsibility, compassion, marriage and devotion. Six is also associated with fraternity and brotherhood...or sorority and sisterhood. It is the common bond of closeness between people, representing love, nurturing, harmony and justice. Six is the perfect divider of the circle and the radius of a circle divides its circumference into the six points of the hexagon to form the Seal of Solomon...the hexagram. In geometry, six is the hexagon...two triangles which share a common side. Similarly, in mathematics, six is two threes, also known as the second perfection. A mystic number represented in nature by the formation of crystals, honeycomb, snowflakes and flowers, six is a happy number with the power to ward off evil. It is said the cycle of life has six periods (birth, growth, decay, death, absorption and metamorphosis) and that there are six states of man (love, chastity, death, fame, time and eternity). Six is also perfection in the form of power, expressed by the symbolism of six equilateral triangles in a circle. In a biblical sense, the world was created in six days (man being created on the sixth) and in Jewish tradition, took six thousand years. Six is the number of points found on the Star of David and in the Cabala, it is the center of equilibrium...the junction of two perfect triangles. This number has also been designated as the mark of the Beast...the Anti-Christ. In China, the number six was, above all else, the number of Heaven. In Mayan lore, six was considered to be unlucky...the day of the rain and storm god and the number of death. If the divisors of six are added (1+2+3), the answer is the number six...there is hardly any other number which will give such a result. Not only does adding the divisors make six, so does their multiplication (1x2x3). It is also the center of the first five even numbers (2-4-6-8-10) and is often called a "pivoting number" which creates a cycle of sorts.

In biblical numerology, six is the Number of Man. Man was created on the sixth day and labors for six days only. The Serpent was also created on the sixth day. The Sixth Commandment is, "Thou shalt not murder." Six words are used for man: Adam; ish; Enosh; gehver; anthropos and anar. In addition, 6 x 6 = 36. 36 + 35 + 34 + 33 + 32 . . . 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 666. 666 is the number of the Antichrist, meaning that the name of the Antichrist in Greek adds up to 666. This is generally considered to be a mockery of the Trinity.

Six is feminine in nature and, when associated with Taurus, resides in the Second House of Money and Possessions, governing all things lucrative. It is the number of luck and chance...life and strength...honesty and beauty...a number which is capable of both creation and destruction. In short, it may have an equally strong tendency toward evil as it does toward good...toward rebellion as it does toward union with God. It is the number of mutual hating and giving...of mystic destiny. The colors associated with the number six are all those within the blue family. Its peak tends to be during the daylight hours, with its natural element being earth and its associated gems being emeralds and turquoise.

http://theravikshow.blogspot.com/search/label/Conspiracy
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I thought I was done with Smarties, but did anybody else notice the game on the back of the box was comprised of two triangles?

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Moths & Butterflies as Totems

Moths live in all but polar regions. The wings, bodies, and legs of the moth are covered with numerous touch hairs that come off if it is handled. Because of this the moth is highly sensitive to touch. They can feel, smell, taste and determine temperatures with their feathery antennae. The tiny pegs upon them serve as receptors. This gives the moth the ability to perceive everything with clarity. Those with this totem usually have strong psychic and healing abilities. They must be careful not to pick up other peoples problems and carry them around in their own energy field. If this happens confusion and irritability can set in.

The process of metamorphosis is part of the magic the moth holds. The egg stage symbolizes the birth of an idea. The larvae stage indicates the laying of a foundation. The chrysalis stage represents the process of creating, and the winged stage allows it to take flight and explore new territory.

One of the most interesting characteristics of the moth is how it wraps its wings around itself. When resting, they either fold their wings, wrap them around their body, or hold them extended by their sides. This suggests a basic nurturing quality and those with this medicine often find themselves in some sort of care giving role.

The hearing ability of the moth is acute. They are capable of detecting ultra sound because their hearing organs are found on their legs. These enable them to sense vibrations emitted around them. Paying attention to what is being said and what isn't being said is part of the teachings the moth holds. Observing the body language of others is helpful.

When the moth appears in our life it is asking us to pay attention to issues of sensitivity. Are you overly sensitive or insensitive to those around you? Are you involved in a situation that needs to be reevaluated? Are you honoring the integrity of all concerned?

The transformative qualities of the moth are numerous. It shows us how to develop and refine our psychic gifts. The moth is an optimist and an opportunist. It can teach us how to release unwanted influences and fly into the discovery of our personal joy.

http://www.sayahda.com/cyc3.html
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Scientific research has shown that the butterfly is the only living being capable of changing entirely its genetic structure during the process of transformation: the caterpillar's DNA is totally different from the butterfly's. Thus, it is the symbol of total transformation.

http://www.crystalinks.com/totemanimals.html


Throughout history the butterfly has been admired for their delicate beauty. Most adult butterflies live just one or two weeks except for the monarch and angel wing which can live for six months or more. This is very symbolic. It suggests that a person with this medicine will experience tremendous soul growth in their earlier years. A difficult childhood is common. Life lessons are revealed to the consciousness while in the womb of the mother - the cocoon stage - and are completed when the caterpillar emerges into the butterfly and takes flight. Butterflies are symbols of freedom and creativity. They hold the gift of transformation and soul evolution.

Butterflies have a pair of large compound oval eyes made up of thousands of individual lenses. They can see a single image clearly and are able to perceive ultraviolet wavelengths of light. This suggests clairvoyant abilities for those that hold this totem.

The antennae of the butterfly has small knobs on each end which is said to play a role in orientation. When one antennae is missing the butterfly will fly in circles unable to find its way. Those with this medicine need to stay consciously connected to spirit at all times in order to arrive at their desired destination.

The butterfly represents the process of transformation and shape shifting. When butterfly shows up, make note of the most important issues confronting you at the moment. What state of change are you at in regard to them?

To the Native Americans the butterfly is a symbol of joy. They remind us not to take life so seriously. They feed on flowers that they help pollinate, thereby further spreading beauty. They represent the element of air, quickly changing and ever moving, so gracefully. Butterflies are messengers of the moment. They come in a variety of colors. To understand the message that the butterfly holds for you a study of its colors can be helpful.

Whenever an eco system is damaged, butterfly is usually the first to leave. They are especially sensitive to the harmony of earth. If butterfly comes to you in a hurt, trapped or ill way, you are being asked to stop disturbing the natural design of life and to flow with events in a more gentle, natural way.

http://www.sayahda.com/cycle.htm
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What more can I say? I’m sure I’ll think of something.