Happy Winter Solstice

Celebrate the Winter Solstice today--GO OUTSIDE AND HUG YOUR MOTHER. Spend some time outdoors, take a walk in the woods, do some work around your yard...Just do something to connect with and be with our Mother,

Today is the shortest day of the year and soon the days will begin to get longer. The Winter Solstice marks the New Year and is about new beginnings. This is a time to reflect upon what has been and what will be. Use it to make changes to and redirect your life.

Give Thanks. The last year has been challenging. Covid-19 has ravaged the world, it has brought hardship and suffering to many, the environmental crisis escalated and we saw increased wildfires, flooding and temperature rises around the world...Yet you are still here. Give thanks for that.

Long ago when we were in harmony with our Mother the earth, the Goddess ruled and life was more pastoral. The Winter Solstice was a sacred and holy event. You can  make it so again.

GO OUTSIE AND HUG YOUR MOTHER.

Manitou's at Skytop (in the city of Syracuse) Posting #6 Creviced Manitous

Here are some trail maps from TrailForks-- Skytop Main Loop     and  Skytop lot South Entrance for Skytop. 

I have found an incredibly rich area for stone structures within Skytop; an abandoned quarry that straddles the  city of Syracuse and neghboring Jamesville, NY. There are areas with powerful energy and lots and lots of Manitou Stones.

Manitous in Crevice/Ravines 

One of the more interesting findings within Skytop are Manitous Stones located within rock crevices that are 5-10 feet deep and 10-20 feet wide. It is hard to believe that someone would place large stones within a crevice of that size.

The pictures below are from a crevice about 50 feet long. There are several Manitou stone within it.

My staff is painted in 1 foot increments. The Manitou Stone above is tilting. 

Looking ahead in the picture above is another Manitou picture below.

Below a wide angle to better show the crevice

The picture below is of a Manitou Stone with a small crevice, the size of a few hot tubs put together. The Manitou is tilting and about 4-5 feet long.

Who would have thought that millennia ago people would go to the effort to construct Manitou Stones in rock crevices.

Skytop continues to amaze and educate. It has been such a blessing to find such a place close to home.

UN Chief--We Must End Our War on Nature

 "Our planet is broken," the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, has warned.

Humanity is waging what he describes as a "suicidal" war on the natural world.

"Nature always strikes back, and is doing so with gathering force and fury," he told a BBC special event on the environment.

Mr Guterres wants to put tackling climate change at the heart of the UN's global mission.

Hurricanes Staying Stronger After Landfall

A recent report in Nature (Tropical cyclones could last longer after landfall in a warming world) found that hurricanes forming in the North Atlantic Basin are staying stronger after they hit landfill because of warmer sea water. One of the results of climate change is that the water temperature of our ocean's has been rising since the 1960's 

It seems that the payback of OUR abuse of our Mother (karma) is accelerating with findings like this, Covid 19, a record number of hurricanes this season, extended fire seasons,,,,etc. WELCOME TO THE NEW NORMAL.

Return To Melondy and the Appearance of Another Yellow Orb

Freaky. Almost a year to the day when I first photographed a yellow orb (Rare Photo of a Yellow Orb ) in one of my pictures while doing a survey of the Hudson Valley (Stone Structures--Hudson Valley/ Catskills Part 1 Overview) I catch another one.

Rare indeed to photograph a yellow orb..

A Big Coincidence?

I went back to Melondy Hill Thursday as a follow-up to my visit a week ago (Melondy Hill State Forest (SE Chenango County, NY), Part 1 Manitou Stones) to try and find a large triangular stone mound 15 long and 8 feet high that Don Windsor Chenango county historian talked about in his manual on stone mounds in Chenango County in NY.

I walked all around the general area that he referred to and did not see a large stone mound. I did find huge flat top boulders, which I assumed was the bedrock he referred to in his write-up.

Several of these stone slabs had Manitou Stones on them, or near them as in the photo below.

I had just photographed a Manitou Stone on top of one of these large boulders and went to investigate below the stone slab and found lots of loose stone stones surrounding the slab wondering if they were stones from a stone structure that may have fallen npart?    

The picture below shows lots of stacked stone, or a fractured section of the slab, below a hemlock tree.

It also shows a yellow orb on the upper left side of the picture.

The next shot I took at a different angle with my camera turned shows the yellow orb in almost the same exact location. Demonstrating it was not something on my camera lens that created the yellow orb.

Below is a photo of the yellow orb from last year.  Rare Photo of a Yellow Orb

In my post about the yellow orb last year I noted that many view yellow orbs as a sign, or omen, of caution or to be cautious. I now wonder if the appearance of the yellow orb was because of something else--perhaps another connection to me, or to the fact that both areas have columned stone structures.

Here are the two posts about stone columns.

Stone Structures--Hudson Valley/ Catskills Part 4 Stone Piles/Columns

Melondy Hill State Forest (SE Chenango County, NY), Part 3 Stone Columns

Or?

German philosopher Max Weber said that we have become "disenchanted" with Nature and no longer see its Magic because of the "dis-godding" of Nature (all is God).

Seeing a yellow orb says that enchantment is still there if we believe and look hard enough.

Manitou's at Skytop (in the city of Syracuse) Posting #5 Mountainside Manitous

Here are some trail maps from TrailForks-- Skytop Main Loop     and  Skytop lot South Entrance. 

I have found an incredibly rich area for stone structures within Skytop Powerful energy and lots and lots of Manitou Stones.

Today's posts are about some of the Manitous on a steep hillside. Seriously steep, yet there are bunches of Manitou Stones. I have certainly seen Manitous on hillsides and mountainsides, but nothing of this steepness combined with the size of the manitous. No doubt all the stones, rocks and fissures most certainly provide lots of rocks to work with.

As soon as you enter you come across several Manitous. Although there is not much of a gradient in the pictures below.

In the center of the picture above there is a large Manitou that has fallen over' Above it is Manitou stones. Not pictured is one on the left.

Jaeda Bear gives perspective to the size of the Manitous.

Looking down on a Manitou.

Looking up.

The side view above gives perspective as to how steep the hillside was.

My hat is off to this that place these humungous Manitou stones on a hillside.

Walking in the Dark is Good For Your Soul

 “Only in the past few hundred years have we shut ourselves off from our natural surroundings. Walking at night is a powerful way of reconnecting . When your vision is reduced, your other senses are sharpened.”

Walking at night is like discovering a new world on your doorstep, one that allows you to roam beyond the duration of winter’s short days and explore in the time of Covid. As Henry David Thoreau wrote in Night and Moonlight: “Night is certainly more novel and less profane than day.”

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Into the night: why walking in the dark is good for the soul