We met Savitri Devi at a Christmas party a few months before in Porto, Portugal. She was the Twin of the chick in the flyer below and a groupie who was following Fetal Incest. Portugal is no different than any other Topos in the West that the Devil now owns. It has a large following of Post-Postmodern Punk/Psycho Bands with names like: Gut, Dead Infection, Rot, Last Days of Humanity, Corrupted Mutation, Simian Raticus, Guzznag, and Negative Gain. Fuckin' poetry for the Dry Age we are living thru. Skippy and Pooler loved Fetal Incest. They turned out to be very good noise. So they invited themselves to a band party later and Pooler picked up Sivitri Devi who was looking very fine in Pink Leather Low Riders which were cut to let her blond pube-line glow like something out of Moses. She was flashing Camel Toe and Pooler moved in to read her lips. Now here she was with Pooler and Skippy at Beltany Tops near the border with Northern Ireland. She flew in from Lisbon where she's living just so she and Pooler could complete the Zen Task which they forged with each other in Porto after she had learned our Irish plans and listened to a drunken Skippy blather from 2am to 5 about the Semiotics of Stone Circles and the Purpose of Newgrange.
Beltany Tops is composed of 64 large stones, though there may once have been as many as 80. It's a Late Bronze Age site which dates it between 1400-800 BC. There is a single standing Menhir which has been placed outside the Stone Circle. It's about 2 meters high and marks the South East. One of the stones in the circle on the North East Axis has "cup marks" carved into the stone and facing the center of the Circle. This was Skippy's 3rd visit to the Stone Circle of Beltany Tops and he was never disappointed. Pooler couldn't say how many times, over the years, that he has visited the site. But we were there for a reason and outside of Pooler and Sivitri's plans, it had nothing to do with the meaning of the minds which had constructed the circle and first invested it with meaning. The "cup marks" are concave indentations, man made, in the stone. Some Etics call them "female signs," others emphasize not the shape per se but the process of making it. Everybody knows these stone circles in the Celtic Lands have Astronomical significance. They function as both Lunar and Solar Observatories. They are Clocks and Calendars. That's a function. But it is only one of the Circle's usages and probably it's an Exaptation - a lucky accident where something with a primary purpose is later discovered to have a secondary usage. Language, in humans, is an exaptation of a part of the brain which 1st evolved to chart and manipulate sequences. Feathers did not evolve for flight but for controlling body temperature.
"Mr. left foot, peg foot, followin' on, follow the Drinking Gourd."
Gaudiam

Inexprimabile
The LURP team had long since marked the spot. Not with a large "X" but with GPS. Pirates had to draw maps of their Treasure Caches and often they would disguise the map itself to look like something else. Steganographic. Postmodern Billy interfaces with a Satellite - a pseudomorphic moon. Kenny pegged the base of the Shmird down into the goop; it was just solid enough to hold and withstand any wind our weather could produce. We were mindful of the fact that when we were finished with Installation we would have not just a Spike which will Ensoul the Topos surrounding but also a Gnomon. It was going to cast a shadow on an island with one dead tree. It would be Clock & Calendar. If only for the Gulls, and the Cormorants. And the Coons, maybe. And the Fay.
"Given that humans and monkeys are social species, it is not difficult to see the potential survival advantage of a mechanism, based on mirror neurons, that locks basic motor acts onto a larger motor semantic network, permitting the direct and immediate comprehension of others' behavior without complex cognitive machinery."
Salience is the Key. Mirror Neurons react most intensely when they "witness" acts which are relevant and salient to the Watcher. We understand other things that do the things that we do which are important to our survival: drinking, eating, defecating, and sex. Out of these categories, which are universal to our animal ancestry are likely to flow metaphors, symbols, and icons.
GRASPING INTENTION - the basis of all animal social behavior is the ability to understand the intentions of the others. To test the role of Mirror Neurons in this skill human volunteers were shown film clips. They were shown: 2 similar cup-grasping actions without contexts; 2 contexts without actions; and combinations of actions and contexts that signaled the action's and the actor's intentions - like an "afternoon tea setting" which suggested that the cup was being grasped to drink from it, or a setting which suggested that tea-time was over and now the cup was being grasped to clean it up. Mirror-Neuron activity was strongest reacting to scenes with clear intentions. Also, they responded more intensely to the bio-act of drinking than the culture-act of cleaning up.
So what we have in Mirror Neuron Theory is a mechanism to explain imitation, learning, creativity, poetry, music, art and most importantly - religion. If Jung was alive today he would be giddy over Mirror Neurons - they provide the basis for a physiological explanation of Archetypes. Jung and others have laid down the Psychological explanations of Archetypes but Transpersonal Psychology remained a Soft-Science because it could not, yet, generate empirical data to show how and why Neural Networks in human minds could be Evoked by flashed message and codes from the outside world. Rizzolatti and his Eyetie buddies have also given us a clue to how and why humans have climbed higher on the Primate ladder: "Although the word `Ape' is often used to denote mimicry, imitation is not an especially well developed ability among nonhuman primates. It is rare in monkeys and limited in the great apes, including chimpanzees and gorillas. For humans, in contrast, imitation is a very important means by which we learn and transmit skills, language, and culture. Did this advance over our primate relatives evolve on the neural substrate of the mirror neuron system?" You bet your sweet ass. We learn how to play the guitar and piano, how to sew and how to saw, by watching the hands, fingers, and movements of the Others. Studies and probes, using fMRI machines, show activation of the human mirror neuron system whenever we are trying to pick up a skill by watching the pros.
Don't be fooled by the angles. We set the base of the Shmird like a jewel - all symmetric and level, with all of its lines Mirroring the constants of man's physio-psychic umwelt - horizon, waterline and the sun at noon. So this must be a picture of the base just setting on the turf after we brought it up from the beach and before we pegged it down and leveled it as you see in the first image above. Since the images portray a reversed sequence from their real actions in the "real" world - the picture to the left is jarring. It upsets an expectation. It is no surprise to Skippy, who taught Linguistics for years, that human mirror neurons have been found in Broca's Area in the brain, an area involved in the human production of Language. But the language areas of the brain are using a substrate which 1st evolved to read facial and hand gestures - Language is an exaptation from these skills, and all of these things: reading gestures, language, religion ... are abstracted uses of the processes of Sequencing. Putting things together to make something else is a Sequential Act. Things Follow. Meaning follows sentences which follow words which follow syllables, which follow phonemes, which follow the mouth imitating sounds which follow the things in the world which they are standing for. Symbolism is not a thing; it's a process. And it only makes sense when it follows a sequence which is Salient to the lives of things which use symbols. Sex only makes sense after we know where babies come from.
The Stone Circle called Beltany Tops draws its name from its function. Beltany is a English form of the Celtic word: Bealtaine. All the Etics know that the suffixed "tene/taine" means Fire. But they all balk at where "Bel" comes from and what it means. Beltane is one of the 4 Quarter Festivals of the Celtic Year - their conception of the Great Round. The Great Round is the story of the Sun's journey thru the Zodiac each year. Christians understand the 12 Stations of the Cross but they most often fail to see them as a Type of an earlier narrative where it was the Sun itself which was conceived by a virgin, born in a cave or cavern - or hole at the end of the earth, and then rises in its power until, at it's appointed time, it sags, falls, and dies back into the underworld. Some Hero goes on a Night-Sea Journey, down into the darkness - or upriver, where he will meet the beast which swallowed the Sun - usually a serpent, dragon, or Leviathan, whom he will slay and free the Sun for its return to the upper world of the living, reborn, resurrected - and then starts the Round again. 12 Stations, 12 Months, 12 Knights of the Round Table, 12 Tribes ad infinitum, ad absurdum. Beltane is celebrated on May 1st. It's a May Day thing. It was celebrated with huge fires on hilltops the purpose of which was to lend to the climbing Sun the power in the fire and the light from the fire so that the Sun could burst-forth its heat and light to the earth and the crops and the little people who just felt better when the Sun was out. Beltane Fires were the site of Sympathetic Magic. I give to you this, you give to me the like. Empathy and Sympathy are exaptations of Mirror Neurons; they are the ability to imagine the inner thoughts and feelings of the Other, even when the Other is god. "In Scotland, every fire in the household was extinguished, and the great fires were lit from the need-fire which was kindled by 3 times 3 men using wood from the 9 sacred trees. When the wood burst into flames, it proclaimed the triumph of the light over the dark half of the year."
Beltane is one of the 3 `Spirit-Nights' of the year when the Fay can be seen. At Twilight, twist a Rowan sprig into a circle and look thru it. After, you should wear this sprig as a Ring, a Bracelet, or an Amulet.
On Beltane/May Day - if you live on or near or "off" a waterway, you need to cast a Garland of fresh flowers into the spring or the lake or the river or the sea you draw your life from.
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