Now, listen. Not every artist is prone to be a magician. I am not going to even try to define what constitutes an artist. But I will say this much.

Magic is all about transformation. Whether we're talking about turning a base metal into gold, climbing through a wardrobe into an alternate reality, or pulling a rabbit out of a hat, magic is about changing the nature of reality.

Artists are always tinkering with reality. Representational painting is about working a two dimensional surface to appear as three dimensions. Music does not actually exist in three dimensions. Composers translate something they "hear" into symbols on a page that are then interpreted by musicians who interpret those musical ideas into vibrations of sound. Novelists and screenwriters make up worlds left and right, crammed with characters in places who have relationships and histories. Architects imagine structures and spaces then pull together materials and build. Voila! Where there was a meadow now stands a building.

All of this is work is transformational. All of this is a form of magic. And all of it demands some level of a shift in consciousness. 

The comics writer, Alan Moore beautifully draws up the idea of the Artist as Magician. Here's an excerpt.
​

More than ever, at this very moment, we need artists of all stripes to consider their transformational skills and role in our culture and how they're going to use those skills and play their parts.

Exploring this very consideration is what I'm after with my Creative Wayfinding course. If you are an artist or creative (whatever you call yourself) and this resonates with you, click here and let me hear from you.

You never really know for sure.

It's hard not to judge an experience or situation that, on the surface, in the context of our limited frame of reference, may seem like a horrible tragedy or a major win. Something "bad" or something "good".

It's a helpful practice to question what we think we know, to test the boundaries of what we think is real. Each of our realities is based on a set of conventions established early on in life. The boundaries of these conventions were set up via family systems, societal rules, religion, and education. Not all boundaries are without good reason. But reason, as in "the intellectual faculty that adopts actions to an end" is likely to change. And change, as you've probably heard, is the only constant.

You don't have to change your mind but you might want to entertain the possibility that what you think may not actually be true. Or at least entirely true.
 
Only when we do not try to resist change, control an outcome, or cling to any solid thing or certainty are we free to experience the mystery of life unfolding and all the gifts that way of being brings.

No one can exactly predict the future. Why not stay centered in the present moment and wait to see what actually unfolds? This is a practice for an open mind.

Is That So?
(Zen Story about Hakuin)

The Zen Master Hakuin lived in a town in Japan. He was held in high regard and many people came to him for spiritual teaching. Then it happened that the teenage daughter of his next-door neighbor became pregnant. When being questioned by her angry and scolding parents as to the identity of the father, she finally told them that he was Hakuin, the Zen master. In great anger the parents rushed over to Hakuin and told him with much shouting and accusing that their daughter had confessed that he was the father. All he replied was, “Is that so?”
​
News of the scandal spread throughout the town and beyond. The Master lost his reputation. This did not trouble him. Nobody came to see him anymore. He remained unmoved. When the child was born, the parents brought the baby to Hakuin, “You are the father, so look after him.” The Master took loving care of the child. A year later, the mother remorsefully confessed to her parents that the real father of the child was the young man who worked at the butcher shop. In great distress they went to see Hakuin to apologize and ask for forgiveness. “We are really sorry. We have come to take the baby back. Our daughter confessed that you are not the father.” “Is that so?” is all he would say as he handed the baby over to them.

The Farmer's Son
(Taoist variation on a theme)​

An old farmer who had worked his crops for many years set his aging horse free to pasture. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors said, "Such bad luck, to lose your only horse." "May be," the farmer replied.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. "How wonderful," the neighbors exclaimed. "May be," replied the old man.

The following day, the farmer's son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune. "May be," answered the farmer.

The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son's leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. "May be," said the farmer.

And then, of course, the young village men were killed in the war and the farmer's son, limp and all, was the only able bodied man remaining. The farmer and his son prospered. When his neighbors praised his fortune, well, you know how the farmer replied. "May be".

Here's Eckhart Tolle’s commentary on Hakuin’s Zen story and its Taoist variation:

“The story of the Zen Master whose only response was always “Is that so?” shows the good that comes through inner nonresistance to events, that is to say, being at one with what happens. The story of the man whose comment was invariably a laconic “Maybe” illustrates the wisdom of non-judgment, and to the fact of impermanence which, when recognized, leads to non-attachment. Nonresistance, non-judgement, and non-attachment are the three aspects of true freedom and enlightened living.” 
​
― Eckhart Tolle (A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose)

The other night, I walked out to get some air and screen relief. I watched Venus rise above the high school, directly under the paws of the Leo constellation. Just now, when I checked my astronomy app, Leo appears to be walking on a path of Venus, Mars, and Mercury, directly into the Sun. It looks like Sirius is on a trajectory to become part of that pathway for a little while at some point tomorrow, August 8th.

I am posting my weekly words a little early because we're about to pass through what’s called the Lion's Gate Portal which, this year, happens to coincide directly with the New Moon on August 8th.

While I was growing up, we called this time of year the Dog Days, the hottest, most miserable time of summer. That term can be traced to ancient Greece describing the same and also the time of year when Sirius (aka the Dog Star because it’s part of the Canis Major constellation) rises and is visible above the horizon in the morning at dawn, just before sunrise.

The ancient Egyptians also honored Sirius and this time of year as it was when the Nile overflowed and flooded the Delta.

These days, many astrologers and New Age writers refer to the period of July 28 to August 12, as the Lion’s Gate Portal, culminating on the 8th of August. I couldn’t tell you when this trend started but personally, I can buy into the idea that this is a special moment in time. Especially this year. Especially in conjunction with the New Moon.

Without getting into a cosmic mashup of theories about energetic resonance, the basic idea of the Lion’s Gate Portal, is that this is a time of increased cosmic energy flowing between the spiritual and physical realms, between heaven and earth.

If the stars transmit energy, and of course they do, then it stands to reason that, because we’re all traveling through space in various configurations, on occasion, Earth will find itself in a certain proximity to massively energetic stars that can’t help but have noteworthy effect on Earth’s systems which happens to include us, the human beings. Some of us humans are more sensitive than others. It’s only logical that some of us, especially those of us who are aware of these astrological moments, might take advantage of and be affected by the same.

There’s no getting around the significance of this simultaneous New Moon which is already a time of darkness, star gazing, and quiet, providing perfect opportunities for new intentions and fresh starts. This New Moon is in Leo, and Leo is ruled by fire and connected with the heart, with courage.

There’s also a numerological significance to his event. August 8th is the 8th day of the 8th month. That’s a double 8 which represents spiritual enlightenment and intelligence. It’s also the number of constellations in the sky.

And, as it happens, August 8th is the 220th day of the year! In numerology, 22 is the master number of the builder, bringing together the spiritual and the material.

There it is again. The connection of the sublime and the material.

I am spending the 8th communing with nature, meditating, and entering a new phase of my life. How about you?

You can listen to my long-time fave, Gregory Scott's take on this New Moon, and another regular fave, Molly McCord's New Moon and Lion's Gate Portal.

I've jettisoned my old list and have started a new mailing list for this phase of my life and work. You can sign up here to receive at least monthly mailings.

I've had this post planned for a while but only this morning did I realize that today is the 52nd anniversary of the first moon walk. I love synchronicity!

This coming Friday, July 23rd, we’ll be under a Full Moon at 10.37 p.m. EDT. It’s not a supermoon or any sort of eclipse this time but it will look full for a few nights and you can watch Jupiter and Saturn chase the moon.

I've kept my eye on the moon since high school, and kept the full and new moons on my calendar for fifteen years, but I started paying attention daily the year I lived on a remote strip of beach in South Carolina. It was so dark and open there that I could walk to the shoreline at night, lay back on the sand and see the Milky Way and more stars than I could comprehend. Because I planned my days around long beach walks, checked the tide app on my phone every night. When the tide was high, there was no beach for walking.

Mostly, when I mention to…pretty much anyone, “Oh, it’s a full moon tonight,” they are not aware or need reminding or don’t see the relevance. But it is relevant. It’s important to pay attention to the moon.

All you have to get is the way that the moon affects the tides and the fact that humans along with almost all life on earth are primarily made of or critically reliant on water. So, if the moon affects the tides, it most certainly affects us and every other living thing on this pretty blue planet, individually, socially, culturally, and commercially.

When I was working for the MIT Office of the President, there was an actual file in a filing cabinet, just inside the inner office door labeled “Full Moon File” into which fell paper documenting any and all unusual campus happenings on or around a full moon.

Which reminds me to mention that the word lunatic is defined as someone who is "affected with periodic insanity dependent on the changes of the moon.” The word can be traced to the 13th century and is rooted in the Latin, lunaticus, literally “moon struck”, and the French, lunatique,  "insane". It helps to be compassionate with yourself and others while keep your own head in check over the day or two surrounding the full moon.

Remember the Ever Given? That ship that ran aground and blocked the Suez Canal a few months ago? (Yes. That was four months ago, not last year.) The full moon freed that ship and, as a result, reopened the passage. 

I couldn’t help but note that the beachfront, Surfisde condo collapsed just 13 hours before the apex of the last full moon on June 24th.

Our bodies swell with the waxing of the moon and contract with the waning. This is probably true for women more so than men. When all synced up, women—individually and often as a group—menstruate in coordination with the full moon.

Following the moon is a way of keeping time. Native Americans looked to the sky to plan their lives. Each tribe created its own conventions for particular locations and needs.

As a way of tracking personal time, the full and new moons gives us opportunities for beginnings and endings, to set intentions and mark completions of projects and other involvements. If you have any experience with creating just about anything then you know that some ideas are realized and some are not. You can launch fresh desires with the new moon and close whatever loses energy or doesn’t eventually manifest with the full moon. That’s twelve or thirteen potential new beginnings in one year! I love this notion and take full advantage of it.

One seemingly paradoxical perk of paying attention to the phases of the moon is that monitoring what is happening in the sky helps to keep us grounded on earth. Looking at the visually changing moon occasionally will remind us that we’re on a spinning planet, rotating around a star while hurtling through space. It’s kind of thrilling and not a bad idea to remember, if not daily, then at least every once in a while.

Finally, the moon is beautiful, even in its seeming absence. At the new moon, we can more easily see the other planets in our system and the stars beyond. Or what once were stars.

Living by the moon enriches our human experience and reminds us that we are both mere and magnificent beings on earth. Just for a little while.




©2021 Suzanne McDermott

A couple of weeks ago, I was re-watching Ira Glass's oft quoted talk on storytelling. I used to ask my drawing and watercolor students to watch the third segment of the talk because it's so relevant for beginners at any new creative practice.

Essentially, you have to bite the bullet about what the thing you're practicing looks like and how you want it to look (or sound or read). You must keep practicing until your skill and understanding meet up with your aesthetic sensibilities. The active instruction is that "You have to fight your way through that."

But as I was listening recently, I was struck by the subsequent instructions. "You will be fierce. You will be a warrior."

That, I thought, is what we carry with us after years of practice. After conquering an acceptable level of ability, agility, in any expressive form. This practicing and conquering actually makes us warriors in many other areas of our lives. We carry our learned and earned warriorship with us.

Each creative artist has a unique narrative of their own individual process and procedure. But regardless of the story and the product, it's the process of creative warriorship that propels us along our soul's journey.

My personal life has trained me as a warrior but that is a story worthy of a large advance.

I worked through Shambhala Training in Boston and in Vermont, at Karme Chöling, in the early 1990's, with small workshop groups led by Pema Chödrön. That was a particular and broadly applicable form of overt Warrior Training.

With that warrior training in mind, as I considered all of my creative projects over the years, images from the Suit of Swords in the Pamela Coleman Smith deck kept coming to the forefront of my mind like they were plastered on my forehead.

So, I reviewed that entire suit of swords in terms of the creative process. As a result, I am developing a course with that framework on the Tarot. This will be preceded by my upcoming course on Creative Wayfinding.

Just look at this Ace of Swords.

Here is the Hand of God tranformed into the Tarot from a long history of appearances in sculpture and painting. This is Divine Intervention, offering a gift. Any of the Aces represents a Divine Gift. But here, the hand of god is offering the gift of the sword. The Swords represent thought or reason, the intellect. But in light of the frame of the creative process, this hand presents the Divinely Inspired Idea which sparks most any creative project.

Any artist who is not a complete megalomaniac, will confess that their original idea or inspiration for any project, product, process or performance was not of their personal, mundane design. Somewhere, at the beginning of the process, shone through, If only for one brief second, this Hand of God, offering that stroke of a bright idea.

As I develop my course on Tarot as a guide through the Creative Process, I am offering a 12-week course on Creative Wayfinding.  We'll have total accountability and companionship through the process with weekly meetings of like minded souls. If you would like to learn more, click here.

Thanks, as always, for reading.


©2021 Suzanne McDermott (All Rights Reserved)

Whether you are a creative or some other sort of worker, one of the topmost important ways to take care of yourself right now is to rest. It is not enough to just sleep right now.

There is entirely too much going on in the world, too much changing and way too quickly. Our physical bodies, our brains have not evolved quickly enough to keep pace with the speed of our ongoing tech developments, the increasingly rapid-fire news cycle, and our social and economic shifts over the past few years.

Rest is a critical component of recovery and healing. Rest is also a critical component of the creative process.

In so many ways, rest is about trust. Trust that your world will get along fine without your active participation for a while. That whatever you're resting on will support you. That you will continue to be just fine without trying to figure anything out or make anything happen.

When you don't know what to do next? Try doing nothing. Try resting.

Turn your energy and dilemmas over to source, to your personal definition of a higher order of things. Notice your breath if you have to calm your mind, and just rest.

That's really what this IV of Swords is all about. The illustration is by Pamela Coleman Smith and is a part of the classic and highly influential Waite-Ryder deck. The abbreviated, original meaning indicates rest (possibly after suffering).

We see a figure at rest, his hands in prayer position, above what is commonly called the "Sword of Truth", with three additional swords hanging on the background wall. The integral, often overlooked part of this image is the stained glass window showing one figure imploring another for some sort of assistance. Considering that the scene is depicted in a church and that the window is illuminated, that scene is playing out in a spiritual domain.

Most things are beyond our control. The unfolding events of the world certainly are. Why not hang up your swords, lay yourself down, ask the universe, or God, for help (if you need it), and surrender to rest?

I will elaborate on rest in a future post and maybe add to this one later. But for now, and for so many reasons, I am going to rest.

If you are entering my Roswell chronicle here, I suggest that you start at the beginning, My Road to Roswell, and work your way forward to this fifth and final part that I write on the eve of the Pentagon's highly anticipated report on UFOs or UAPs. At least go back and first read the previous part, Klaatu Barada Nikto

When I wrote The Roswell Incident, I could never have imagined the voyage on which I was about to embark, the ongoing surprises the song would present, and the people I would meet along the way.

Although I am obviously fascinated by the subject, I am not a UFO Enthusiast. However, I am quite sure that something extraordinary happened outside of Roswell in 1947.

The human experience of UFOs is as old as recorded history and it persists. If you study the history of art, you will find a whole lot of flying objects in the skies from the Hand of God,  to angels to, well, they sure look like what we think of as flying saucers. But then, the mindset and archetypes of Robert Campin  or Carlo Crivelli, for example, are radically different from say, Mark Rothko.

If these phenomena are extraterrestrial, and the Pentagon claims empirical proof that they choose to share publicly, the result would require whatever humans happen to be paying attention, to shift their fundamental world view. Also, it could be an entertainingly novel way to control the population. Just sayin’.

In Ezra Klein’s astute NYT Op-ed on the topic last month, he referred to the former NASA chief historian, Steven Dick who

“…has argued that indirect contact with aliens — a radio signal, for instance — would be more like past scientific revolutions than past civilizational collisions. The correct analogy, he suggests, would be the realization that we share our world with bacteria, or that the Earth orbits the sun, or that life is shaped by natural selection. These upheavals in our understanding of the universe we inhabit changed the course of human science and culture, and perhaps this would, too.”

But upheavals in our understanding of the world do not happen overnight. Not by a long shot.  Copernicus published his heliocentric model in 1543. By 1632, Galileo had proved it. It took the Catholic Church until 1835 to fully and formally accept that the earth was not the center of the universe. Ideas take time to unfold within a culture.

On the other hand, the mindset of an individual has been known to change overnight. One example would be a born again Christian. One day a sinner, the next day saved.

The brain, you can pummel with drugs and vibration, extract and dissect, define and otherwise mess around with. The mind, though, or consciousness is something that you can point to, experience, and certainly discuss, but you can't say this is it and I've put it in a box.

Flying saucers or no flying saucers, extraterrestrials or no extraterrestrials, we, the terrestrials, need to shift our fundamental world view anyway. This is what some people refer to as the paradigm shift.

During the pandemic, I was stunned but not surprised at how many people were clamoring to get back to “normal”.

I was stunned because we are living in a world where what is considered normal is not working on so many levels. In all sorts of ways and daily, people are losing their minds left and right. This does not indicate a norm or reality that is working very well. The results of so much of our normal behavior and actions are literally disastrous.

I was not surprised at the call to return to normal because of the alarm over the almighty economic engine. Also because disruption of routine and change, in general, is disorienting and scary. Our isolation was not helpful but instructive.

The disruption of the pandemic has given us an opportunity to literally retool the results we are creating. It would be a shame if we were to just fall back into a pattern of thoughts and behavior that has been creating destructive results not only for ourselves but for our planet and remaining fellow species.

This issue of mindset and paradigm change is an integral part of the coaching practice. As a trained individual who works on personal growth for myself, and especially as a coach for others, I have to coach myself daily on my own thoughts and behavior and question the results I experience.

If we are unhappy with the results in our world and/or in our personal lives, we absolutely have to change our thoughts in order to create different results.

All great athletes understand this. Timothy Gallwey called this the "inner game" and is credited with the revolutionary approach he outlined in his books starting with The Inner Game of Tennis in the early 1970s.

But this idea of changing one’s inner game, one’s mindset, and even more deeply our personal paradigms goes way back to Thomas Troward, James Allen, Wallace Wattles, Napoleon Hill, and Earl Nightingale, to name the old school biggies.

Although it's a bit more complicated than this, their basic agreed upon premise is that in order to change your life, your results, or your reality, you must change your thoughts.

And since we’re not disembodied minds roaming around, I’ll take it one step farther, especially in our current, severely overstimulating environment. There is an awful lot to navigate logistically, technically, socially and emotionally in the world as we know it right now. It's exhausting.

We absolutely have to take care of our physical bodies which house our minds and our spirits, and learn to regulate our nervous systems, the networks of our brains. We need aligned connection and support, accountability, courage, and discipline.

“We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” -Teilhard de Chardin

Averse in any way to the idea of spirituality? How about this for a working definition?

“Spirituality is the pursuit of a mental and emotional state in which you feel at ease and at home with yourself, your place in the world and your relation to others. It is a state in which you feel in touch with your most authentic or core self and you feel connected to yourself and other people. There is an ease and a fullness to it.” --Weston at Root Lock Radio

Personally, I think that taking very good care of ourselves on every possible level while taking charge of our thoughts and reality is the only way we’re going to navigate this wild, wild passage of collective and individual experience. If you can only do one thing, remind yourself on a regular, daily basis of who is in charge of your perception.

The military is not in charge of unidentified phenomena or your truth or your reality. You are. Your thoughts create your reality.

How is your reality working for you? What kind of results are you experiencing? Don’t like ‘em? You can change ‘em.

But be prepared. Change, not to mention changing a personal paradigm, will make you extremely uncomfortable. It’s worth it though. Whether you want to change the world or just your own reality, what’s a little discomfort in the grand scheme of things?

If Unidentified Flying Objects are part of your reality, well, then, so they are.

The truth is not out there.

The truth is within.


©2021 Suzanne McDermott (All Rights Reserved)

Did you enjoy reading this? Has it given you food for thought or helped to expand your perspective? If you are able, please appreciate with a contribution here. Every little bit helps. Thanks!

This is the final part of a five part series about the story, to date, of my song, The Roswell Incident.

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

Make sure you're subscribed in the sidebar to be notified of future weekly posts.

Listen to The Roswell Incident on YouTube,  iTunes,  Spotify.

Klatatu Barada Nikto

One of the first questions usually asked when the subject of UFOs arises is “Do you believe in UFOs?” This issue of belief can be found somewhere in almost any article, book, or discussion about the subject.

Naturally, I have been asked if I believe in UFOs. I’ve always found this question curious. What else are we asked if we believe in? God. Miracles. Ghosts. Love at first sight. The more appropriate question, to me, would be, “Have you ever seen a UFO?” No. Not to my recollection. I have not.

The issues of belief, belief systems, and communication is critical when it comes to this business of UFOs.

How do we come to believe what we believe?

Oscar Hammerstein III wrote that You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught. That’s true. It’s also true that you can be taught to think for yourself, to be discerning. And, there are always those nebulous personal influences that shape us, too. Whatever we’re taught, whatever we learn, it is always in the context of and relationship to the construct of, let’s say, our collective agreed upon reality.

Not long after Roswell, I remember a fellow songwriter asked me what I really thought about the whole thing. The best response that I could come up with was that we do not have the language to describe the phenomena in question or the related experiences people have had. That would still be my response today or certainly part of it.

I thought it worth examining, as briefly as possible, what early experiences influenced a belief system that allowed me to write a song about a subject that other writers traditionally treat as a novelty, and with derision or mockery.

First of all, I was raised Catholic which inherently allows for belief in alchemical works, transubstantiation, resurrection from the dead, all manner of celestial events, appearances by beings of light in various times and locations, the sacred intelligence of light, and of course, miracles. These are just a few of the magical elements in that particular construct of belief which I think primed me to consider all sorts of possibilities. Because Catholicism also includes a wonderful panoply of symbols and archetypes, it gave me the keys to the kingdom of Western art and music which I have studied all of my life. Through the lens of that learning, it’s been tough to miss how dramatically and frequently the collective human mind shifts its perception of the world and how individuals might arrive at and then change their beliefs.

It was in kindergarten that I was first struck by a Catholic belief. I heard that god has no beginning and no end. That led to me lying in bed at night going back in my mind as far as possible into the past and then ricocheting as far forward into the future as I could stand. Then back and forth and back and forth again. Much better than counting sheep, that exercise stretched my little mind a bit and made me forever curious about time.

My father and I had a profound bonding experience when he took me to a matinee of Forbidden Planet when I was about six. Because he knew Shakespeare like the back of his hand, my father explained to me how the film was loosely based on The Tempest and pointed out the spiritual elements of the story. Naturally, what followed was a regular weekly diet of The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, and most of the old school sc-fi flicks.

In middle school, I was required to read the Stephen Vincent Benét story, By the Waters of Babylon. That story impacted my thoughts about time, language, perception, and instilled a healthy skepticism about contemporary interpretations of pretty much anything historic including art, artifacts, technologies, ideas. I'm sure that it primed me as well to write The 3 Dreams of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Later, I read plenty of Azimov, then mostly titles from the original UK series of Penguin Science Fiction including Olaf Stapeldon's Sirius and J. G. Ballard's The Drowned World.

I would say that all of these stories in whatever form presented were moral tales investigating various aspects of behavior, belief systems and the human condition.

That’s a rough sketch of what I think helped form my early understanding of flying saucers and related matters, and probably why it never occurred to me to treat that subject with a giggle factor.

Something extraordinary happened outside of Roswell, New Mexico, in early July, 1947. That much I trust is fact. I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t there. But I do trust the reports of the ordinary citizens who witnessed and reported those events. They don’t or didn’t know exactly what happened either. But they were there and they did witness and experience what some of them were able to describe on record. Now, people being people, some of them told the truth and some of them, maybe, embellished a little.

My song, The Roswell Incident is and is not about a flying saucer crash. That’s the general story but it is a moral tale about, alas, some aspects of the human condition. It’s about what happens when something already impossible to adequately explain is shut down as a result of gaslighting, outright lies and threats by an authority once trusted and held dear, and what that betrayal and the enforced compliance of silence does to individual and personal relationships. I am suddenly reminded of Ali’s line in the Fassbinder film, “Fear eats the soul.” It does.

As I write this, many people are waiting with bated breath for yet another report from the Pentagon about relatively recent sightings of these newly classified Unidentified Aerial Phenomena or UAPs. People want answers, the truth. Honestly, what truth could anyone possibly expect from the stuff of a government report? People are looking for truth from the military? Seriously?

Unfortunately, Eisenhower’s parting warning about the growing influence of the military-industrial complex was not heeded. It was probably too late anyway. Now, that the military-industrial complex is fully fledged even in the broadest popular context—that hard core military porn of the blockbuster, fear inducing, adrenalin pumping, awfully loud and expensive Marvel Universe Neo-mythology.

So, naturally, I guess it follows that many of the new crop of UFO enthusiasts would be excited about this potentially tantalizing reveal from the Pentagon. But I would be thoroughly surprised by any big reveal because I don’t think anyone there has an answer for or an understanding of the phenomena. I don’t know but that’s what I think.

That is not to say that I don’t think that the military has interfered, brutally, with particular related events and experiences, like Roswell for example, and that there are not reams of paper reports heavily laden with black redaction lines stacked away somewhere with other sad, historic artifacts lost to time. But, that’s not what’s in the pipeline today.

Whatever it is that people are experiencing and identifying as UFOs or UAPs is just as likely to be something slipping through time or another dimension or a parallel universe as it is to be visitors from off planet. The multitude of theories that people have about whatever is happening is astounding. Humans are really good at making shit up and they love to do it. And some people are honest and true. Most people are a combo plate.

Me? I have to go along with Carl Jung’s idea. Late in his life and career, Jung admitted that he risked his entire reputation by suggesting what I am about to clumsily summarize. I am by no means an expert on any of this but, in the context of my belief system and personal experience, Jung’s idea rings more true to me than anything else.

Jung’s idea is based on the Platonic Year, also known as the Great Year. Scientific astronomy defines the Great Year as "The period of one complete cycle of the equinoxes around the ecliptic, or about 25,800 years". Okay. So, there is an astrological overlay on the Great Year.

There are twelve astrological ages which correspond to the twelve astrological signs, and each astrological age, or Platonic month, lasts approximately 2,100 years. 2,100 years ago, approximately, marks the birth of Christ and the start of the Piscean age. Today, we are entering the age of Aquarius.

At the turn of each astrological age or Platonic month, Jung suggests, with historic examples going back at least to Ancient Egypt, that human consciousness shifts dramatically. With this shift in human consciousness, the archetypes and instincts of the collective unconscious shift. Because the consciousness of the individual exists in relation to the collective, when the consciousness shifts, going with the notion that thoughts become things (which they do), we essentially manifest a new reality. Nothing happens overnight. Endings and beginnings, like death and birth are messy, messy things.

Pisces, the fish, is a water sign. Jesus was a fisher of men.

Aquarius, interestingly enough, the water bearer, is an air sign.  Recently, man has learned to fly, landed on the moon, launched satellites, space probes, etcetera. Man, not a fish to be hooked but a being of the air, has become a given in human mythology over the past century.

Jung suggests that maybe, just maybe, these flying saucers, UFOs/UAPs, are a projection, a manifestation of human consciousness shifting into a new astrological age. It’s an idea. And, while suggesting this, he did make it clear, that he really did not know what these phenomena were.

When a remark he made in an interview was misinterpreted, he wrote a little book on the subject to clarify his thoughts on the matter. The book is Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies.

At the time of Christ, or the beginning of the astrological age of Pisces, there were many, many cults vying for enrollment. There was Mithraism, Gnoticism, Manichaeism, the Essenes and the Proselytes to name just a few of the incredible array of cults and belief systems milling about around the time of Christ.

As you can probably surmise, Christianity won out through a lethal combination of power plays, financial incentives, brutal violence, manipulation of archetypes, images, mythology and language.

Jung, of course, did not live long enough to experience the moment of time we are living witness to today. Jung, who lived between the mid-19th and 20th centuries, wrote his thoughts on the modern myth of Flying Saucers during the Cold War.

You would have to be living under a rock to not recognize the similarities of the last turn of a Platonic astrological month and today, when any other human being you notice walking down the same street as yourself might (and probably does) have an entirely different world view and perception of reality.

Finally, I must share my thoughts on this notion of intelligent life.

The idea that we are alone in the universe is pure nonsense. It is not logical. It’s a very big universe and we are but one rather puny species on one little planet and we have not been on this planet all that long.

The idea that we are the only intelligent life form in the universe is cray cray. However, considering that we blithely destroy all of our fellow intelligent life forms on the planet we share including the very planet that keeps us all alive, it does logically follow that this idea might hold credence in some human minds.

Personally, it goads me to no end that we dismiss the intelligence of our fellow species on Earth or force them to perform within the small confines of what constitutes human intelligence in our tiny minds to prove their own value and intelligence in relation to ours. And, with that in mind, that we spend the time and money that we do on searching for intelligent life off of the planet.

We are not so intelligent as we would like to believe. In fact, we only use a small fraction of our brains. Most of us ignore, are unaware of, or laugh at the possibility of all the other energetic systems of our rather magnificent human form. We are nowhere near living up to our potential. Definitely, I must, I am sorry to say, include myself in that category.

There is already plenty of alien life on the planet. or what some might construe as such. Just check in with Kenneth Nealson at USC. If you do, please tell him I say hi. Or you can read a Popular Science article about his work here.  If you don’t think Nealson’s alien-like life constitutes much, remember from whence the human species came.

Also remember that the world we experience is based on our perception.

What is your belief system? And how do you think you’ve arrived at yours?

Do you believe in UFOs?


©2021 Suzanne McDermott (All Rights Reserved)

Did you enjoy reading this? Has it given you food for thought or helped to expand your perspective? If you are able, please appreciate with a contribution here. Every little bit helps. Thanks!

This is the fourth in a five part series about the story, to date, of my song, The Roswell Incident.

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 5.

Next week, I'll tell you my personal thoughts about The Roswell Incident and related matters of mindset, perception, and paradigm. Make sure you're subscribed in the sidebar.

Listen to The Roswell Incident on YouTube,  iTunes,  Spotify.

After the big premier year of The Roswell Incident, I managed to tour in one way or another for about another five years. With the exception of my Christmas tours, at every set, I gladly worked in the Roswell song.

At certain folk club gigs, there would often be a man, always a man, who'd come up with an energy ranging somewhere between outrage and outright hostility claiming, sometimes waving documents in hand, that The Roswell Incident was merely a weather balloon! or Look! It was Project Mogul! I have proof! I was like, in the most polite way, Buddy, calm down. I just sang a song.

There were the many, many people who asked what became of my father. My father? My father? No, listen, I would have to explain. The lyrics state: 12 years old. 1947. That would make me... 20 years older than I actually am. I definitely do not look that old but, if I keep touring, I might. Still, what a compliment to know that I'd composed words that seemed so true.

Anyway, those people. 

Of much more interest to me were the older men who'd had some sort of actual connection to the original time and place. I wish that I could remember all of the stories, and I might at some point but, for example, there was the man who came up to me after a tea time gig at a retirement home in Florida. He told me, almost wistfully, that when he was in the service, in early July of 1947, he was on a flight from March Air Field in Southern California, to somewhere east, and scheduled for a stop at Walker in Roswell. As his flight approached Walker for landing, they were instructed to bypass Roswell altogether, and to find an alternate spot to land and refuel. No explanation. Not an easy task but they did not land in Roswell.

I found these encounters particularly fascinating, because each man made it clear that I was the first person they had ever told whatever it was they shared with me about Roswell in early July, 1947.

In 1998, I recorded a new version of the song in South Carolina, and sent it over to Eindhoven, where Ankie Keultjes produced the new track as part of my Ephemera album, with the perfect support of the late, great Ad van Meurs, Eric van der Lest, and Tonnie Ector.

At some point, touring somewhere, I think, in Wisconsin, I split a bill with the lovely and talented Terry Farmer, who took it upon himself to learn this song and record it—always a grand compliment. Furthermore, my songs are difficult and Terry did a beautiful job. Of course. After all, he had worked as lead guitarist for the surf legends, Jan & Dean.

About five years later, I received a note from Roger Nygard who produced the Six Days in Roswell mockumentary. He asked to use my performance that his crew had filmed that hot afternoon in Roswell for the outro to his film.

For those of you not familiar with this business of song, my permission involved signing a boilerplate release contract with a standard $50 compensation. As the lingo goes in the songwriting world for co-writing and publishing deals, 50% is better than 0%, so $50 was better that $0. Anyway, Roger has a winning way and nothing ventured, nothing gained. Six Days in Roswell went out on a festival circuit that Roger had blazed and cultivated a few years earlier with his flick, Trekkies.  Time passed. 

A couple of years later, I heard from a Swedish producer who had seen Six Days in Roswell.  His office assistant told me that she'd watched him sit on his office rug replaying my performance at the end of the film over and over and over again. We shared a good chuckle. The producer asked to use the music for my song with Swedish lyrics and Leah Kunkel (thank you) drew up a pro bono permission contract for me.

After another year or so, a Swedish DJ reached out to let me know that the song in question, Min Pappa, had become a Scandinavian hit and the band that recorded it, Raymond & Maria, had won a Swedish Grammi. 

Other little sparks of light exploded around the song, year after year. At the very least, there's been the annual airplay in early July, somewhere or other on earth.

A few months ago, I received an email from the sweet and generous soul, The Crafsman, who asked to use my song for one of his delightful YouTube videos. Oh, the amazing people I've encountered because of this song.

Now The Roswell Incident is 25 years old. I wonder what might happen next.


©2021 Suzanne McDermott (All Rights Reserved)

Did you enjoy reading this? Has it given you food for thought or helped to expand your perspective? If you are able, please appreciate with a contribution here. Every little bit helps. Thanks!

This is the third in a five part series about the story, to date, of my song, The Roswell Incident.

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 4, Part 5.

Next week, I'll tell you about a lifetime of experiences and ideas that primed me to write about Roswell. Make sure you're subscribed in the sidebar.

Listen to The Roswell Incident on YouTube,  iTunes,  Spotify.

On any journey, you must allow for course correction. Whether you're walking along a wooded trail, navigating wide open waters, or soaring through the air, you'll encounter obstacles and situations that require you to step to one side, tack your sail, shift your rudder, or adjust your altitude.

Sometimes it's not a rock or snake in your path, or a shift in the current or wind, or a change in the weather that makes you change course. Sometimes, it's your internal state, a reasonable thought, realization, personal experience, something you've overheard, or just a gut feeling.

Sometimes, it's a matter of, you know, I don't think this is going to work. Or, I've gone down this path so far and I've learned this much and it's just not right or it's a dead end or I definitely have to cross the river and go through a different scene to get to where I'm going.

Course correction is refinement. It's a way to sharpen focus and sometimes better define the destination and time of arrival.

Allowing for course correction helps you be more open minded to suggestion, inspiration, and your very own intuition which allows the light of the divine to shine through. Who doesn't want the light of the divine to shine through?

Throughout the process of creative wayfinding, it's best to be open to course correction because it brings the stuff of magic.

Anyone who thinks that they can exactly plan out anything, especially a creative project, is first of all, mistaken and also missing out on who and what will naturally show up. Don't you want help? Do you really think that whatever you're intending to do, wherever you're intending to go is all up to you? Well, it is. And it's not.

What is up to you, for sure, is your mindset. I'll address that more in the future. What is not up to you is exactly how you'll get to where your going.

In other words, your responsibility is the what, maybe the where, but definitely not the how.

You know that saying? "If you want to make God laugh, tell him [sic] your plans." It's true.

I am reminded of the great, Scottish mountaineer, W. H. Murray who said,

Murray is actually writing about commitment, which is the first step to a particular end, but imagine making a commitment and then not allowing for course correction. As you set out on the path of your journey, if you prepare yourself for anything, prepare yourself for Providence to intervene and be willing to change course as needs be.

What are you committing to now? Where are you planting your step next? What, exactly is the destination you imagine?


©2021 Suzanne McDermott

Did you enjoy reading this? Has it given you food for thought or helped to expand your perspective? If you are able, please appreciate with a contribution here. Every little bit helps. Thanks!