The Virgin and The Whore…

Yeah we’re going to the roadhouse and we’re gonna have a real…. good time.

There’s only one town in all of North America named Magdalena. It’s in New Mexico. Population 800 but they have an Astronomical Lyceum. Not many small towns can say that. Story has it that the Indians stopped chasing the Spanish soldiers after they saw a face appear on a peak like a paraidolic vision.

"The Lady on the Mountain" is a rock formation on Magdalena Peak overlooking Magdalena. Spanish soldiers saw the profile of a woman on the west face of the peak. A priest with them was reminded of a similar peak in Spain called "La Sierra de Maria Magdalena", so he called the New Mexico one "La Sierra de Magdalena". The pass to the south of the peak became known as Magdalena Gap, and when a town grew up it received the same name.

That’s not quite the story behind Magdalen College in Oxford, England. Or at least that’s my best guess. I wouldn’t know. I just type stuff cause they woke me up on EST instead of PST. Legend has it that Jesus met Mary Magdalene at a well. He was thirsty. He asked about her five husbands and she offered him water. In the desert you see, water is a precious gift. Was that before or after the 40 days of wandering the desert? I don’t know the chronology. It’s all sort of parables to me. Clean water is a beautiful thing anywhere. That’s part of why I am sort of obsessed with the idea that America doesn’t have clean water. Obsessed. Not possessed like Legion. Think about it. The most powerful military in the world. The most wealthy nation in the world. The most exceptional nation in the world that keeps going for that perfect union …. and yet cannot deliver clean water. Or clean food without chemicals. Or homes for the homeless. Or lift its poor out of poverty for decades. That’s my non mathematical proof of the System’s existence. In another blog post, I mathematically proved beyond a shadow of doubt that the System exists.

Here’s the psychological trick. I can make myself proud about America, it’s so easy. And I can also say America’s lost its greatness. And I can say that one after the other and you’ll agree with both sentence. You won't ask: which is it? Is America great or has it lost its greatness? You can’t say both things and both of them be true.

Unless you’re Catholic and then realize that they named Mary both the Virgin and the Whore. Both are true. Mary the Virgin is the Mother not the Child. Isn’t that interesting? I never quite understood it until I finally figured out one possible explanation for it. With a very foggy mind, I was reading the work of Christian mystics. I had come to understand myself a bit better by then. I had a life essence, I had a brain and I had an ego. The life essence is simple, it is that which arrives at the time of conception and that which leaves at the time of death. After it leaves, the body and brain are just organs, bones and muscles. Some Christians call it the spirit. Some call it the Holy Spirit. To me it’s an untouchable, invisible essence. And because it’s untouchable, it’s a Virgin. Ah… I said to myself. Finally… it makes fucking sense. Why the fuck didn’t you say that from the beginning?

The ego covers the mind in a veil and through it the Virgin sees the world, lives and has her being. Every time the ego speaks to someone it changes based on the person it is speaking to. That’s why the Ego is the Whore. Think about it. We don’t speak to our wives the same way we speak to a child. Or to a stranger. Or to a host. Or to a parasite. Or to someone possessed. And that’s why Magdalene.

Ah you say and what about the middle Mary. The one without a name. That’s the brain. It comprises of everything else. Memories, logic, reason, rationality, illogic, madness, passion, trauma, wonder, imagination, moods, feelings, emotions, thoughts, desire, cravings, hunger, vices, virtues…. Some of it bleeds over into Magdalene.

Life Essense —> Brain —> Ego.
Mary —> Mary —> Mary.

From the Virgin to the Whore.

We are all Virgins and Whores. Some of us more than others. Sometimes the veil of the Ego is very strong. It doesn’t allow the “Witness” or the “Observer” or the “Virgin” to express itself the way it does in an innocent child. That’s all there is to it. The rest is bullshit.

And for what it’s worth I am not Catholic, although I did go to a Catholic school run by missionaries. I wasn’t a boarder in the sense I didn’t live at the school. I was a “day” student.

Magdalena is known as the "Trails End" for the railroad spur line that was built in 1884 by the New Mexico Railroad company. High up in the mountains in Afghanistan is also a road that is called Trail’s End. I know about it because that area experienced an earthquake recently. I may have blogged about it. I no longer recall. My memory is only 2 days or so. For me there is no past or future. The future is a set of outcomes that haven’t happened. I can’t step outside of time. I don't have the timelines. All I can do, and what I do tend to do in this blog posts is map trajectories. Here’s where we are, here’s the direction we’re taking, and if this continues here’s where we’ll be headed to.

My existence is robotic and I prefer it that way. The reason I prefer it to be so is simple: they can’t offer me choice, volition and the ability to control my individual timeline. It’s probably because I may be in institutions. And institutions have their own timeline. And that bleeds into a national or international timelines. If they can’t disclose those to me, regressively, they can’t truly offer me volition or choice. If they did offer me the ability to control my own timeline and therefore destiny, it could alter things institutionally and that would have its own knock on effects. Ergo… I type and stay in the now. I make no plans. Plans are not that difficult to make with the help of AI. If a politician doesn’t have a detailed plan, they’re being lazy or they’re telling you that they’re part of the System. If that’s true then why vote?

I think someone said.. both Democrats and Republicans are two wings of the same bird. I think it’s a decent attempt at analogy but it’s probably worse. It implies that they can steer the bird. It’s better to simply start using the word System. We’re in a System, the system fucks us over and the System decides the destinies of each person, institution and the globe.

In 1883, about 2.5 miles (4.0 km) south of Magdalena, the Kelly Mine opened in the community of Kelly. The Kelly Mine produced lead, silver, zinc and smithsonite until the markets collapsed. Kelly's population reached nearly 3,000 during the mining boom. The last residents of Kelly departed in 1947 and it is now a ghost town. The Kelly Church still stands and is the site of periodic festivities.

The "Enchanted Skies Star Party" in early fall brings astronomers and astro-photographers together under its very dark skies.