WG newsletter – Stoner bards and spiral galaxies (22/8/15)
Was Shakespeare a stoner?
I have always found odd sensations regarding Shakespeare. His work that I have delved into was too forced upon me during my stint in the academic realm to afford me the chance to know him beyond what I was expected to delineate of his poetry and place into a word formula for marks, something far removed from the original inspiration of the verse. And yet, the brief dealings I have had with my countryman since those days when my English Literature standard was at best slovenly – every assignment returned with more red ink demanding corrections than blue ticks for quality work – have proven far more impressionable.
As much as I am more focused on less florid wordsmithery (other than when my heart is ablaze with amour), I have learned to understand that any form of art which moves people in heart and head, which inspires, sickens, excites, grabs you by the throat, shakes your femurs, causes your deepest of tides to flow high and powerfully, is valuable art. Regardless of the medium or language. What more could any artist aspire towards? This dawned upon me when finding my tear ducts a dam of waves when attending a ballet many moons ago, the story of which was lost on me, but the feelings conjured by the monstrously built yet dainty as a sparrow on his lower paws lead character…were immense. I could have cried for that beastly wolfman in tights!
On this score, Shakespeare was a Duke. Because he is still inspiring and moving hearts and heads to this very day. I will never become a Hamlet devotee as I am naturally more suited to the scorching wild flames of Medea and the fairy-tale enchantment of my favourite play of all time, Swan White, yet nonetheless, Shakespeare was a Pro. His work has affected millions, if not billions…And it appears that the velveteen penned wordsmith may have enjoyed the odd toke to loosen the mind and encourage his creative rivers to flow…
Recent advances in forensic testing have found traces of cannabis on four pipe fragments pulled from the great bard’s garden. Could the green have been the catalyst for his majestically crafted genius? We will likely never know for sure, yet find a few clues in his ink…such as Sonnet 76 which refers to ‘invention to a noted weed’.
Professor Francis Thackeray of the South African University of Witwatersrand led the research and has made such claims of Shakespeare’s drug use in the past (though without the evidence now in hand). Not content to sit back and feel vindicated by the recent revelations, the determined old boot has called for the Church of England to exhume Shakepeare’s grave, to finally put that matter once and for all to rest, along with the bones.
‘“If there is any hair, if there is any keratin from the fingernails or toenails, then we will be in a position to undertake chemical analysis on extremely small samples for marijuana,”
Closer to the present, Edgar Mitchell, veteran astronaut of the Apollo 14 mission of ’71 – which made him the sixth man to walk on the moon – has been voicing his theory that Aliens have long been visiting Earth. And that rather than preparing an invasion force, designed to cull and enslave, the ETs have our own best interests at heart, if they have hearts. Let us agree on souls.
Mitchell has suggested that plenty of his colleagues saw strange craft flying over the notorious nuclear testing ground of White Sands during the 70s. Interested in our military capabilities, yet working to thwart our efforts to destroy each other and the planet.
“You don’t know the area like I do,” he said in an interview with Mirror Online.
“White Sands was a testing ground for atomic weapons – and that’s what the extraterrestrials were interested in.
“They wanted to know about our military capabilities.
“My own experience talking to people has made it clear the ETs had been attempting to keep us from going to war and help create peace on Earth.”
“I have spoken to many Air Force officers who worked at these silos during the Cold War,” he continued.
“They told me UFOs were frequently seen overhead and often disabled their missiles.
“Other officers from bases on the Pacific coast told me their [test] missiles were frequently shot down by alien spacecraft.
“There was a lot of activity in those days.”
It seems logical to believe that there are other civilizations knocking about the 14 billion year old universe and that whilst there are surely equally destructive horrors as humanity can be at its worst, in turn, there are surely the very opposite, aliens exhibiting the very best of our own species and maybe so much more. Super beings well advanced of our own mayhem and altruistic in nature, at one with the universal soul. Perhaps such types are drawn to us, as they feel the pain we cause as we toil onwards forgetting the beauty in our own essence and the magical gift of existence, the echoes of the Earth wailing, reverberating across time and space until they reach a group of Universal Elders. Who set course to our galaxy and teleported, or simply thought themselves here. Just in time to avert nuclear apocalypse, to give us all another chance, and hope we find our way.
Perhaps theirs is a way of clandestine encouragement, rather than overt interference? Preferring to allow global biosystems to run their natural course, unless their total ruin is at stake. Only then do they step, float, crawl or teleport into our company.
Moving slightly further afield, yet remaining with the Elders…as not much of heartwarming joy can be found presently on our ailing planet we must turn to the celestial realm…not to give up but to seek inspiration and a greater connection with the myriad of mysterious beauty found in the night sky and beyond, the light of which each and every one of us was born of, and retain in our souls.
To begin our voyage of marvel and stretching of the synapses, let us start with something simple. Yet wonderful. Those in the know suggest that this fascinating whirlpool galaxy is created by the gravitational disturbance caused by its galactic dwarf neighbour to the right. Perhaps we would see a similar mischievous dwarf next to our own Milky Way spiral if only we could find our eyes far enough from Earth to gain such a perspective? To offer a startling idea of size…our own galaxy is thought to contain 100 billion stars. Potentially 100 billion solar systems…
Whether the effect is as mesmerizing to those who call such a realm home is impossible to say, yet from our long distance viewpoint, Stephan’s Quintent is a thing of brightness and wonder. The five galaxies of various sizes seem confined to a cage of sorts and in constant movement, their collisions resulting in steadily changing cosmic explosions of dazzling brilliance.
Nebulae are huge clouds of gas and dust, often spanning many light years in breadth and depth yet light enough to hold in your upper paws. The more dense nebulae are truly where stars are made, for as more matter collects together, it attracts yet more matter, until something magical happens…a star is born. Cats Eye, seen above, is an exception, and was the first nebula spotted by man made devices. Rather than an inter-stellar maternity ward Cats Eye is a graveyard in the making, the star at the centre read the last rites as it expels its outer layers into the sublime patterns of light expanding ever outwards.
A star factory in full bloom…The Eagle Nebula is the most special of discoveries we have found in the abyss. I do not see the Eagle, yet can make out a dragon’s head and its forming wings on the first column, ducks feet nearer the base, which leads onto a cat’s head. The third column reveals surely a human form, or perhaps Grendal from Beowulf? Regardless of the absence of any eagles, the aptly named Pillars of Creation are home to millions of new born stars, as can be seen in the right image. I stand truly in awe of this image of stellar genesis of such marvelous scale.
Whilst I remain stunned and staggered by the eagle nebula, it is this image which brings me the greatest excitement. The jaws of my mind ajar with bedazzlement…Who and what lives there! For with the most modern layers of technology applied to our dear Hubble telescope, we aimed our galactic gaze into a range of darkness, lacking any hint of light or life, then went to sleep for a few days. Upon returning, old man Hubble had found in what had formerly seemed sparse and empty, the countless galaxies you see above. There is light everywhere. Even in the darkness…
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