Lightning McQueen prologue: Playing baseball in New Mexico

In my post "There's a hole in my bucket-face! AND Harry Marsh and the Sorcerer's Stone", I recounted the 2nd half of a dream where I ended up being offered a blue helmet in the shape of Lightning McQueen (and that had been a plate or disc-type object before it transformed into a helmet).   I also concluded the post by suggesting that my dream might have been meant to be through the eyes of Thomas B. Marsh.

I didn't give the details of the first half of the dream, however, which was the baseball game itself that preceded the equipment manager offering a new helmet to wear.  But, I think a few of these details might be relevant to our ongoing discussion in relation to "Peter" and Faramir, so here is that first part, with some commentary afterward.

Baseball in New Mexico

I found myself playing baseball in New Mexico.  This was professional baseball, by the way, and I think I was vaguely aware at some point in the dream that New Mexico doesn't have an MLB team, but that didn't seem to matter.

The baseball field was fairly strange.  It was largely a desert - no grass anywhere to speak of.  Though a significant portion was also asphalt or blacktop, and resembled a parking lot.  There were also buildings and one tree that more or less one the baseline between home plate and first base, so you would have to run around those to get to the base.  Overall, everything felt extremely barren and run down.

I was on the visiting team, so we were in town to play New Mexico's team.  I also found out that I was the lead-off hitter.  Before stepping into the batter's box, I spent in inordinate amount of time choosing which bat I was going to use.  I remember being really indecisive on this point.  It turned out to be irrelevant and for naught anyway, because the pitcher walked me in 4 pitches that were way outside the strike zone.   I didn't even get to swing.

I took my walk to first base, going around the obstructions.  The first base umpire was out there, and I asked him how if he hated calling games at this ball park due to how horrible it was.  He just shrugged and said, "You get used to it."

My view to home play was partially obstructed, so I couldn't see what was going on there very clearly.  I heard a loud crack, though, and saw the ball flying extremely high into the sky over to left field.  It was at this point I realized the outfield fence was this giant wall that went up extremely high into the sky.  The hit was so high and far, however, that it turned out to be a home run.

As I rounded the bases, I became distracted and headed out to left field to check something out.  I don't remember what it was.  I lost some track of time.  At one point I turned back to the infield, and saw the batter from my team that had hit the home run about to round 3rd base and head for home.  I sprinted back to the infield and caught up to the batter.  I explained to him that I needed to go in front of him and cross home plate first, or we would both be out.  I specifically mentioned that these were 'the rules'.  I think the batter was surprised to see me there (I had literally just ran out of left field), but I believe he agreed that was the way to go.  I do not remember crossing home plate, though.

After we got into the dugout, I did leave for a little bit and go on a car-chase that felt like I was in a 007 or Mission Impossible movie, before then returning to the dugout, where I met up with the equipment manager and he showed me the Lightning McQueen helmet which I covered in that other post.

Isotopes, Starfleet, and Space Force

After waking up, I first looked up "New Mexico Baseball".  My first results were for the University of New Mexico baseball team.  I should have remembered this, because I played football against that university, but their mascot is the Lobo.  A lobo is a type of wolf, specifically a Timberwolf.  This was a little bit interesting to me because earlier timberwolves had come up over on William Tychonievich's blog.

I also just noticed that the first 3 letters of Timberwolf spell Tim.

Anyway, unbeknownst to me until earlier today is that New Mexico does indeed have a professional baseball team:  The Albuquerque Isotopes, which is a minor league team.  The name, apparently, is a shout out to the Simpsons (as in the TV show/ cartoon).  In one episode, Homer tries to stop the Springfield Isotopes from relocating to Albuquerque.  No joke.  Thus, Isotopes itself is a reference to nuclear power, originally the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant that Mr. Burns owns.

I am sure there are other potential ties to this whole theme, but my mind made a specific connection when I saw the logo for the Isotopes.  Here it is:

At the time I had the dream, Star Trek had not yet entered into the picture yet on this blog.  So, I am not sure that if I had found the Isotopes back then, this logo would have meant anything.  However, now after having written about Star Trek, and watched a few of the movies last week, the "A" reminded me of the Star Trek Federation insignia.  When I looked it up, it reminded me of it even more, and not only that, but also the logo for the United States Space Force (which appears to have mostly ripped off Star Trek).  Here they both are:

Both images have the A shape in the center, with a main orbiting body or star going horizontally around the middle, just as the Isotopes insignia has a baseball going around in pretty much the same fashion.

The Home Run

A few days later I was thinking a bit more on this home run that was hit by the batter following me.  I realized that this phrase 'home run' was along the lines of what I have been writing here, as in a run or walk home.  Just flip the words.

When I thought of this, I remembered a scene from the movie Hook.  Peter Pan has come up in this blog, and actually specifically in the context of Star Trek, where Captain Kirk quotes the Disney movie version of Peter's instructions on where to go at the end of "The Undiscovered Country". 

I am including that scene from Hook below.  At the 2:50 mark, approximately, the pirates in the stand are holding their sign incorrectly, so instead of saying "Home Run Jack", it says "Run Home Jack".  This gets Jack tapping into some forgotten memory, but Captain Hook corrects the pirates, they get their sign right, and everything is back to normal.

Also, at the 3:40 mark, you will see the home run, which appears to just go straight up into the sky and not come back down, like a rocket of some kind.

Anyway, this concept of "run home", as in the home run being symbolic or representing just that, got me thinking.

Consistent with other posts on this, I interpret that person who hit the home run to be Faramir.  His actions (which will include the Stones) seems to open up the way for people to go 'home'.  Thus, home run.

The Forerunner

But we have this character who is on first, and should be then running ahead of Faramir.  This is the person I now think of as Thomas B. Marsh, Peter, and potentially Radagast, among other roles.

The symbolism of this in the dream is actually pretty interesting, as I think about it, and is reminiscent of the role of John.  John (traditionally the Baptist, but who I think is both the Baptist and the Beloved as one person) was designated as the 'forerunner' for Jesus.  Nephi summarizes Lehi's teaching relative to John, in saying:

And he [Lehi] spake also concerning a prophet who should come before the Messiah, to prepare the way of the Lord—

Yea, even he should go forth and cry in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight; for there standeth one among you whom ye know not; and he is mightier than I, whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose. And much spake my father concerning this thing.

And my father said he should baptize in Bethabara, beyond Jordan; and he also said he should baptize with water; even that he should baptize the Messiah with water.

And after he had baptized the Messiah with water, he should behold and bear record that he had baptized the Lamb of God, who should take away the sins of the world.

According to Lehi, John would make 'paths straight' for Jesus, and prepare some things ahead for him.  I am not sure we have a good idea about everything that entails, but I think it is relevant to our discussion around Faramir and Marsh-Peter.

I have suggested or guessed that Faramir-Eonwe will come in the name of the Son, which is the same name or title as his father Jesus.  This authority would have been given to him by Jesus, and was part of why Jesus and Faramir (the Holy Ghost) would have appeared together to Joseph Smith.

As such, I think the pattern follows that he will also have a forerunner - one that has also been designated, perhaps, to make some straight paths, which potentially involves opening doors and/ or clearing a path.

This might be why in the dream he (Peter) was portrayed as the lead off hitter, and why it was so important for him to catch up and then step ahead and stay ahead of Faramir on the base path so that he could remain the forerunner as they head home.  I don't know - I am just thinking through potential symbolic elements given everything else I have written and thought through.  I could be way off on this, and even have the characters mixed up or completely wrong.  Just trying to fit things together.

Out of Left Field

It was also interesting to think of this dream element where whoever's eyes I was seeing this through spent some time out in left field.

To be 'out in left field' or 'out of left field', in American slang, means to have something unexpected, odd, or strange happen.  From the the first person perspective in the dream, to be out in left field may symbolize being involved in the odd or strange.  From Faramir's perspective, however, (or whoever the batter was meant to be), he would have seen someone coming out of left field, meaning both this person and their arrival was odd or unexpected.

It is the best I can come up with for that particular detail, but I think it probably makes sense.  It is a strange story we are dealing with anyway, so it makes sense that there are a few twists, turns, and unexpected people and events in the story.

An order to things

Lastly, this element of the 'rules' suggesting that Marsh-Peter needs to go before Faramir may not just be formality or because a forerunner is needed, but rather because that is the order that was set up, and it needs to be followed.

So, in this case, and as I have mentioned in my earlier post, it may be that Peter has the keys for this world (our Gentile world), and to leave it to go home, it would need to be in conjunction with Peter, or at least with him opening the door from this world to pass to another one.   He is the doorkeeper in that sense, holding keys to accessing 'heaven', so even though Faramir provides the means by which the journey can be made, Peter-Marsh must open the door from which the journey begins.

In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade speak, the path over the chasm or void to the Grail starts at the "Lion's Head".  The movie had an actual physical lion's head carved into the rock, but 'heads' can mean other things, too.  An origin, start, or beginning, as in a trailhead, for example.  Or a leading position or front of a line or procession, is another, which is obviously relevant to both my dream and topics I have covered here.  The Lion here can then clearly represent Peter, and his 'Head' represents the opening or start of the path that has been opened for Faramir, perhaps.

The Lion's Head phrase from Indiana Jones is potentially relevant in some way, also, given this idea of a disc or helmet being offered for Peter to wear on his head, as portrayed on the statue of St. Peter I had posted earlier.

I don't know necessarily what I am trying to say, but it just seems that given this, there is something to this notion of Peter-Marsh preparing a way or facilitating some means for which Faramir to cross void on the initial journey back to Tirion, and thus create a path for others to also follow.  It isn't well formed in my mind though on the detail of how that works, but something about it makes sense to me, enough at least to write it out and let it sit for a bit.

Turning Suns into Black Holes

My youngest son sustained a concussion at school on Monday (we had to talk about how playing football on the blacktop might not have been the smartest decision in the world...).  So, he is currently in concussion protocol, which involves him staying home from school for a few days (though he is back for a half day today), no physical activities where he could hit his head for several weeks (which means his hockey season is also now over a bit earlier than planned), no reading for sustained periods, no screen time.  Pretty much anything he would want to do, he can't do.

Yesterday morning he was stir crazy looking for something to do, and found his old little toy camera that he must have gotten for Christmas a couple years ago.  It was out of batteries, so I replaced those, and he went around the house taking pictures.

I am not sure what made him think to do it, but at at one point he started taking pictures of the sun.  I am not sure if the camera can't handle the brightness of the actual sun itself, or if there is some safety feature for kids lacking in common sense, but his camera blacks out the actual disc of the sun, while leaving the rest of the light halo around it.

Anyway, he was interested in it, and came over to show me.

The image below is a picture I took a little later just to frame it up easier so you can see what I am talking about (he had zoomed in and it just looked like a random black hole):

Through the magic of the VTech Kidizoom camera, the sun was transformed into either a black hole or a solar eclipse (new moon shining), or both.  What is this new devilry?  Again, the things I can think of are the camera can't handle the brightness so it blacks out those pixels, or it has a very rudimentary brightness limiter for safety which blacks out images over a certain amount.  I don't know.

After showing me his black shining sun, he took a few more pictures.  There are some special effects for kids on the camera where it does things like add animation, tile images, apply weird filters, etc. He apparently took a massively zoomed in picture of one of our rugs and then did a tiling effect.  He thought it was important to show me that one as well, so for his second picture he showed me this:

I already had Black Holes on my mind from the first picture he showed me, so when he came by next with this one, I thought of the "Tesseract" from the movie Interstellar.  The Tesseract was what Cooper ended up in as he descended into the Black Hole.  It was through this structure that Cooper was able to communicate through means of his daughter's bookshelf in the past.  As in, Cooper could travel through time, but was very limited in where and how he could manipulate matter as he did so.  For whatever reason, it was really only through the bookshelf that he could interact with his daughter Murph.

Here is an image of the Tesseract from the movie.  

I think it was the image of horizontal and vertical lines coming together and weaving through each other in my son's picture that first brought it to mind, as well as the color scheme itself, which seemed quite similar with browns, grays, and whites.  The movie scene and depiction is much darker overall, and it isn't really an exact fit (or as close a fit as I originally imagined), but it is just what came to my mind when he showed me the second picture, which again my brain was definitely steered toward having seen the black hole from his first photo.  

Anyway, his photography definitely fits with some recent themes, particularly that first one.

Willy Wonka's other half

Another quick thought or tie-in (among others) came to me earlier today.

Part of the Faramir story I have been working with here is that there has been a separation between him and his wife, Eowyn.

A common manner of speech in referring to someone's spouse or significant other is to call them one's 'other half'.  For instance, if a husband shows up at a party without his wife, he might say something like "I'm without my other half tonight".  Also sometimes also known or called their "better half".

Which brings me to Willy Wonka.

As a quick reminder I have associated the character/ Being of Faramir with Wonka in certain ways and for various purposes, and Charlie Bucket as Peter-Marsh (and Radagast?), for reasons that aren't fully known to me at this point.  Nevertheless, surprising little hints or details continue to support and build on this assumption.  Willy Wonka's office at the end of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is another one of these little touches.

At the end of the movie, when it appears that Charlie has done something wrong and will not get his lifetime supply of chocolate, they enter Wonka's office, and are greeted with a strange sight.   Wonka's office is entirely filled with objects that are cut in half.  Here is a still shot of the office showing a half safe, and a couple half pictures that Grandpa Joe is looking at:

And here is the video clip of them in the office if you wanted to watch the entire scene where Wonka goes postal on Grandpa Joe, but then then Charlie passes the test, and it is all cool again:

It is extremely bizarre and obviously not very practical to have everything in the office as only a half of itself (as Wonka going over to the safe to retrieve and then read the contract demonstrates).  I did a search to see if there was any commentary on if there was any reason why they did this.  Here is what Wikipedia captures:

Stuart also instructed Goff to have all the props, furniture and fittings, excluding the light bulbs, in Wonka's original office to be cut in half, to reflect the character's eccentricity.  Stuart stated, "I couldn't face the thought of ending the journey through this fabulous factory in an ordinary-looking office."

It isn't really any deeper than that - they wanted to maintain the image of Wonka being somewhat insane (or "eccentric"), so they cut everything in half.  It is all just nonsense for imagery' sake, and no more thought went into it than that.

It is in the nonsensical that sometimes we can have our best chance of finding something meaningful, though.  Particularly when people don't really have a good idea or reason for why they have done something.

So, just why did Stuart have the strange idea to cut all of Wonka's office things in half?  I mean, why did he really have this idea?  Because this character, in some ways, has been created to represent the character of Faramir, and that character is currently separated from his 'other half', or Eowyn.  It is as simple as that.

It is also interesting just how important it was for Stuart to demonstrate that Wonka was crazy.  I mean, I get eccentric, but that office is just plain nuts.  This also goes into some of the symbolism of the Faramir, specifically in the form or character of Abinadi.

Abinadi was called mad or crazy, too, by Noah ("Away with this fellow, and slay him; for what have we to do with him, for he is mad.").  As was Jesus (or perhaps Peter), at least according to the Gospel of John.  It probably won't be the last time Faramir-Abinadi will be called that, either.  I don't think it will be because everything is in half, though, but rather the opposite.  He will be whole and have the truth, but that truth (and thus he) will seem crazy to those who can't or don't want to see it in any other way. 

Radagast the Brown

A very unexpected thought occurred to me this morning, and I haven't been able to shake it yet, so I am just logging it here, like other things.

For now, as captured in previous posts, my story involves Faramir and Peter as two Beings that will make a journey off of this world, having keys regarding doorways and passages.  And I have Peter so far as Thomas B. Marsh in the early 1800's.  Given that it seems many, if not all, of these characters I am thinking through have some attachment to Tolkien's stories, it would make sense that Peter would have also played one of the characters in LOTR and/or the Silmarillion.  This thought has been in the back of my mind, but not really a priority to think through too much (Marsh himself wasn't even on my mind until Leo brought him up a couple weeks ago).

And I wasn't thinking about him this morning either, but suddenly the character of Radagast came bounding into my mind, and I needed to figure out what to do with him, or at least it seemed like a good time to think on him a bit.

Radagast has only come up once in this blog, when I used a quote that Saruman had spoken to Gandalf, and which Gandalf related to Elrond's Council.  In that quote, Saruman spoke of Radagast extremely derisively:

' "Radagast the Brown!" laughed Saruman, and no longer concealed his scorn. "Radagast the Bird-tamer! Radagast the Simple! Radagast the Fool! Yet he had just the wit to play the part that I set for him. For you have come, and that was all the purpose of my message. And here you will stay, Gandalf the Grey, and rest from journeys. For I am Saruman the Wise, Saruman Ring-maker, Saruman of Many Colours!"

'I looked then as saw that his robes, which had seemed white, were not so, but were woven of all colours, and if he moved they shimmered and changed hue so that the eye was bewildered.'

Radagast seemingly has no other role to play in the LOTR than to act as a dupe in Saruman's plan to trap Gandalf.  This is not completely true, however, in that although he unwittingly sent Gandalf into a trap, he was also responsible for Gandalf's rescue.  It was he who sent the eagle Gwaihir to Orthanc, but that just made up for his earlier unwitting mistake.

Other than that, however, Radagast has no real role.  He is one of the loose ends in the story - almost relegated to a plot device or convenience with, again, the only real mention of him being Saruman's comments about how simple and foolish Saruman thought he was.

I am not 100% sure why yet, at the moment, so will do some more thinking on this for sure, but I currently suspect that it is Radagast who is Peter-Marsh.  We will see how this one ages also, but Radagast's name itself seems initially promising once I looked it up.

Tolkien wrote in a note from 1954 that Radagast's name was actually an old Numenorian name that meant 'tender of beasts'.  Given how Radagast is portrayed in relation to his interest in animals, this makes sense.   However, in 1972, Tolkien appears to backtrack on this just a bit, and suggested that the name wasn't interpretable.

Whatever the original language or meaning of Radagast was, anyone who has read any sampling of my posts knows that this shouldn't stop us from investigating the name for double meanings in other languages.  That seems to be how the game works in a number of instances, and as I have mentioned elsewhere, it need not be limited to English-only name games.

So, I looked up Radagast.  It is surprisingly straightforward, and extremely relevant to our story here and what I have just been writing about Peter and his involvement in paths and doors in and through space.  Kind of crazily relevant, actually, as these seem to typically work out recently.  Here is what we have:

Rada:  Track, path, way (also "rad" = pass, path, back, return" and "rat" = walk, go in a line "as a road")

Gast:  Void

So, we have something like "Path/ way void"  or, more cleanly, "Path back space".  Void here is meant to signify the void beyond the world, or outer space we might think of it.

That all works pretty well, if you ask me, so I am going to chalk it up to a double meaning name.  And just like Faramir, I think this name describes a future role.  I mean, without the story I have touched on here, the name interpretation of "Path void" for Radagast makes absolutely zero sense.  But, since we have Beings travelling through space to other worlds in my story, that name definition makes a great deal of sense.

Recall that Faramir, like Radagast, has a name that people have indicated doesn't have a clear meaning.  I have translated it in a very straightforward way as "Hunter of Jewels" or "Jewel Hunter", which is also a description of his future role - to hunt for and gather the Jewels that Jesus says he will gather.

So, we also have that linkage between Faramir and Radagast, in that they both have names that are as easily translatable from Elvish as they come, but both meanings have been obscured and are not intelligible or have any meaning, really, to their stories as found in LOTR.  It is only in considering the story for both of these characters as explored here (with Radagast being Peter), that the interpretations have any real meaning.

In searching this a bit this afternoon, I also came across one additional detail related to Radagast.

Tolkien left notes (later captured in the History of Middle-earth series that Christopher Tolkien published) that suggest he had considered having Isengard be given to Radagast once Sauron was defeated.  

We actually don't know if this occurred or not.  We do know that in the final draft that Aragorn gave the valley to the Ents, who replanted trees and orchards in the valley.  It was renamed as the Treegarth of Isengard.  Given that Radagast represents Yavanna in Middle-earth (the same Yavanna who is known as the Queen of the Earth and that I have guessed is the mother of Eonwe-Faramir in Valinor), I wouldn't find it surprising if we would find Radagast there among them.

The thing I found interesting about that, however, is that Radagast taking over, or at least moving in as Saruman moves out, might parallel our future story.  At some point Saruman, who currently rules over this Earth, will get the boot.  We might see Radagast then replacing him, which is also poetic justice for how lowly Saruman thought of him.

This also makes sense in imagining Peter and his keys and authority.  Peter-Radagast would have authority with things having to do with this world, which might also be his by right, given his potential kinship with both Yavanna and Faramir (i.e., it might be that he is also family with them in some way).

So, in summary, we have Radagast as Peter, and thus two wizards - him and Faramir - working together in their respective capacities of gathering the Family of Light and creating a path or way for them to go home.  

I don't know - I have to think through it a bit more, but as of right now this could make sense.

Thomas B. Marsh, St. Peter, and the Keys of the Kingdom

In past posts I've alluded to the possibility that Thomas B. Marsh is Simon-Peter re-incarnated.  Kind of a strange thought, but I think it works on a few levels.  So let's get into it, or at least dip our toes into the thinking.

I have also attached Marsh with the character of Charlie Bucket from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and other imagery associated with that story, including the Giraffe running loose in the Catholic Church in the movie Wonka.  We are going to cover how all of this might tie into the person of Peter.  I think this might be a couple of posts, or otherwise it will get long, convoluted, and I will get tired.

Let's first start with names, as I sometimes like to look into.  What better evidence to look to in such an important matter as to that provided by Hollywood?  

Charlie Bucket in the original film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was played by the actor Peter Ostrum.  Well, I mean, there is our first clue right there:  Peter!  Case closed pretty much.  But let's see what else we have.

Ostrum, of course, is going to turn into an Elvish word, and a relevant one, and we shouldn't be surprised at this.

Ost = Fort, stronghold, city, etc.

Rum = secret, mystery

So, together we have a "secret fortress or city".  This seems like it would be a good description for Tirion at the moment - a hidden city that needs to be found.  It could also describe another city that used to exist but was destroyed:  Turgon's hidden city of Gondolin, which translates as the "Hidden Rock", interestingly enough, and might be interesting for potentially further exploration of the character or Being of Marsh-Peter.  For example, we still need to understand a bit more of how Turgon, Tuor, Idril, and company fits in with this whole mess at some point so maybe we keep that in mind for the future.  In other words, I won't be exploring that link of Gondolin and its characters with any of this right now, but it might be something that also ties in with Peter, who was also called the Stone or Rock.  We'll see if that goes anywhere, but it isn't my focus here.

In any case, Turgon modeled Gondolin after the manner of Tirion and Valinor, in my opinion, even going so far as to create two images of the Two Trees of Valinor, one Gold and one Silver, just like those original Trees.  They were even said to give their own glow.  Again, this notion of Gold and Silver in relation to Trees and Keys is important to keep in mind, I think.  These are the images that keep recurring.

But, Gondolin being modelled after Tirion allows us to, for now, keep our focus on Tirion in relation to "Ostrum" and Marsh-Peter's role involving the search for and discovery of that city.

One additional thing related to "Rum".  If anyone looked that word up as well on Eldamo already, you would have also seen that this word also translated directly to another city that is of particular interest in the context of Peter:  Rome.  Rum also translates into Rome, which contains Vatican City and the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church. 

The Catholic Church and Keys

There are almost 1.4 billion baptized Catholics in the world, which is just a staggering number to me.  For some reason I didn't realize it was so large.  I mentioned earlier that I view Catholicism and Mormonism as two sides of the same coin (though one is a couple orders of magnitude bigger than the other one), and Peter is one of the connection points that hold them together.

The following account by an early LDS apostle by the name of Orson F. Whitney used to be in wider circulation and knowledge among Mormons, but I think it has fallen out of favor.  It was captured in a book by LeGrande Richards called A Marvelous Work and a Wonder, that at one point (at least back in my day) all LDS missionaries would have on their approved reading list.  I don't know if it still is, though.  This account has to do with the concept of Keys, and the relative positions of the Mormon and Catholic Churches as institutions:

Many years ago a learned man, a member of the Roman Catholic Church, came to Utah and spoke from the stand of the Salt Lake Tabernacle. I became well-acquainted with him, and we conversed freely and frankly. A great scholar, with perhaps a dozen languages at his tongue’s end, he seemed to know all about theology, law, literature, science and philosophy. One day he said to me: ‘You Mormons are all ignoramuses. You don’t even know the strength of your own position. It is so strong that there is only one other tenable in the whole Christian world, and that is the position of the Catholic Church. The issue is between Catholicism and Mormonism. If we are right, you are wrong; if you are right, we are wrong; and that’s all there is to it. The Protestants haven’t a leg to stand on. For, if we are wrong, they are wrong with us, since they were a part of us and went out from us; while if we are right, they are apostates whom we cut off long ago. If we have the apostolic succession from St. Peter, as we claim, there is no need of Joseph Smith and Mormonism; but if we have not that succession, then such a man as Joseph Smith was necessary, and Mormonism’s attitude is the only consistent one. It is either the perpetuation of the gospel from ancient times, or the restoration of the gospel in latter days.’”

Where did Peter's Keys go?

The Catholic Church holds that they are the "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic" church.  In Mormon speak, in other words, they also believe they are the one, true church.  Their 'authority' or claims would come through Peter, and from him to Jesus.  Some scholars hold that Peter was the first Bishop of Rome (Peter's tomb is said to be directly below St. Peter's Basilica), but regardless of whether Peter was in Rome or not, The Catholic Church holds that the Pope is a successor of Peter.  I have used the official seal of the Holy See in past posts to talk about Stones and Keys:

To Catholics, in my understanding, these two keys represent the "Keys of the Kingdom", as mentioned in Matthew 16:19 where Jesus is said to confer keys onto Peter:

And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven

The Two Keys portrayed are said to relate to this binding and loosening power in heaven and on earth that Peter held, and which presumably in their view have been passed to his successors, which today would be Pope Francis.  Though not completely, I guess, as Peter is commonly said to guard the Gates of Heaven, still holding those keys.

The imagery and usage of these Keys is important, in other words.  In St. Peter's Basilica, the State of St. Peter has Peter giving a blessing while also holding the Two Keys in his left hand.  Here is that statue:

As a quick aside, I just noticed that Peter is wearing a 'plate' on his head!  Recall my dream of the Lightning McQueen helmet, and that it first appeared to me as a type of plate to which I objected there was no way I could wear that as a helmet on my head, and to which the equipment manager replied by showing me a more traditional looking baseball helmet, only shaped now like McQueen.  I just had to quickly call that out, because that was interesting for me to see right there.  And again, in that post, I had come to the conclusion at the end that the dream must have been through the eyes of Thomas B. Marsh, or Peter.  Here is part of my recounting of that dream in case you don't want to click the link and sort through the post (which is long-ish):

I was in what I guess was the equipment area and the manager began describing the helmet's features - it was lightweight, fast, and some other things about it that I can't remember.  It was supposed to be awesome.  As he we describing this to me, he was holding something that looked like a blue plate.  It was flat-ish, meaning it kind of appeared to be a helmet, but not really - it was clearly too flat to wear around my head.  I remarked that there was no way I was going to be able to get the plate on my head.

Anyway, back onto Keys, for those not too familiar with Mormonism, Keys are important to them as well, and they would also claim them from Peter.  Although not documented (which is interesting), the claim of the Mormon church is that the apostles Peter, James, and John appeared to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery and gave them the "Melchizedek Priesthood", which included Peter's Keys, by default, basically.

Here is a video that does a good job of summarizing the LDS Church's view of Keys, or at least their claim to authority.  You will hear and see from some of the members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as to their view that they hold the exact same Keys that Peter held.  At one point, you will even see President Russell M. Nelson grab on to the keys that a statue of Peter in Rome is holding for a photo op.  

This is what the story above by Elder Whitney was meant to convey:  that the Keys are important to both organizations, and that in their worldview or framework they either remained with the Catholic Church through the succession of the Popes, or they were 'lost', and had to be restored, as Mormons claim.

My own view is that neither of these is correct.  I choose Door #3, in other words.  And that door says that the Keys remained with Peter, and that they have always been his.  [Note added:  I didn't make this link with Marsh as explicit at the conclusion of this post as intended - Peter holds Keys, he was the one chosen to have them, and this was reconfirmed to him once again in the form of Thomas B. Marsh].  No leader today in either the Catholic Church or the LDS Church has them in the way they are saying they do.  They were not given to anybody else to hold, use, or whatever.

In saying this, however, I am potentially confusing the issue.  I have said before that the Gold and Silver Keys were potentially symbolic of the Anor and Ithil Stones, which Faramir and Eowyn will use, not Peter, at least in that setting.  Stones and Names as Keys.   So, if true, how could Peter hold these Keys?

I don't have a definitive answer that satisfies me at the moment.  I lean toward two factors.  First, is there are multiple Keys involved in this story.  I used the seal of the Holy See to generate the thought of the Anor and Ithil Stones, but it may be that the seal more directly relates to the Keys or authority that would be in Peter's possession.  There are lots of examples where things are 'types' or examples of other things, and so Peter's Keys are just that - similar to the Keys I am describing with Faramir and Eowyn.

Or (and potentially "and"), Peter's authority is such that even the use of Faramir's Key, for example, on this Earth would need to be done or performed under Peter's authority and his own Key or role as the Doorkeeper of this world.  All access to Heaven from this world may flow through Peter, no matter who you are (even Jesus).  This thought seems consistent with how some things are laid out in the D&C.  The Apostles (Peter-Marsh being at the head of these) are called a Travelling Quorum that have jurisdiction over all the lands that do not fall within "Zion".  D&C 107 does an interesting job of distinguishing the High Presidency or a High Council from the 12 Apostles.  They are called 'equal in authority', but have different jobs and different jurisdictions.  In a quote attributed to him, Joseph Smith clarified this further in 1835 to say:

The apostles have no right to go into Zion or any of its stakes where there is a regular high council established, to regulate any matter pertaining thereto: But it is their duty to go abroad and regulate and set in order all matters relative to the different branches of the church of the Latter Day Saints. No standing high council has the authority to go into the churches abroad and regulate the matter thereof, for this belongs to the Twelve.  (Minutes of the Grand High Council, 1835)

In other words, if my guess is right, and we are dealing with multiple worlds and Zion is not on this one, the jurisdiction for this Earth falls with Peter.  Faramir would have no right to depart or go home to Tirion without the approval and involvement of Peter to open the door for him and enable that departure.  And Peter would have no right to enter into Tirion, at least with respect to 'official business' without Faramir's approval.  In this sense, they themselves - Faramir and Peter - are also Two Keys in this whole mess, at least with respect to any sort of gathering home.  Peter's authority lies with this Gentile world, and any land that doesn't fall within 'Zion', in terms of how affairs will be managed there, including any departure from the place.  And Faramir's would include the management of the place to which they are gathered, or at least one of them (Tirion).

In this sense, Peter's traditional keys to the "Gates of Heaven" are just that:  anyone who would wish to leave this world and enter into "Heaven" does so with Peter's blessing or under his authority.

If you think about this, this notion fits perfectly well with the elevator/ rocket scene from Willy Wonka.  I am including the video here again.  Wonka-Faramir explains to Charlie-Marsh-Peter that he has pushed every button except for one - the button that allows them to break through the glass ceiling.  That button has been saved for Charlie to push.  Wonka doesn't push it.  It is under Charlie's actions (and authority) that they rise up to the sky.  Wonka could have pushed it, I guess, but that would have been against the order that had been set up.  Charlie-Peter was the one that had the right to push it, and if he didn't, the elevator wasn't going to head to the sky.

Anyway, I think that makes sense, but I will have to think on it a bit more.  It just seems like many people will have different Keys, Gifts, Authority, whatever, in this story, and so having some sort of semblance of order or being able to avoid chaos with that might be important.  Thus, there could be something to this notion of "Keys of the Kingdom" of Peter's to both belong to him and the Twelve (and not be given away to anyone else), as well as having to do with how, when, and where "Doors" are open for people to use.

However we should think about these Keys, they seem to be clearly about doors - unlocking them, allowing people to pass through them, and shutting them against others who are not to pass through.  If we here on this Earth are prisoners, then the binding and loosening aspects of Peter's Keys are extremely relevant.  To bind means "to make captive", and to loose means "to set free".  Some, many hopefully, would be set free using Peter's Door, while it would remain closed or inaccessible to others, and they would remain in captivity.  This all has to do with the gathering out of this world, and perhaps from other lands, to Xanadu.

Thomas B. Marsh and his Keys

In D&C 112, the Voice speaking through Joseph confirmed that Marsh was the man who held the Keys of the Kingdom:

Exalt not yourselves; rebel not against my servant Joseph; for verily I say unto you, I am with him, and my hand shall be over him; and the keys which I have given unto him, and also to youward, shall not be taken from him till I come.

Verily I say unto you, my servant Thomas, thou art the man whom I have chosen to hold the keys of my kingdom, as pertaining to the Twelve, abroad among all nations

The first sentence reinforces the notion that these Keys are given to individual Beings as theirs to have, and not to pass on to someone else.  Joseph was said to have Keys that would not be taken from until the "Lord" comes, which would suggest they are his even through Death.  Likewise for Thomas, I believe.  He retained his Keys and using language probably not really understood by him in his Salt Lake address, asserted that those Keys, which involved his role as "Doorman", remained his.  He went there to abase himself, and I believe the Heaven inserted some words and thoughts into his mind and mouth say that his role was still his, and that it was an 'exalted' one.

Ding-Dong! Avon Calling!

I know I need to still circle back on Thomas Marsh, but I mentioned at the very end of my post last night this word "Vo" that came up before.   Yesterday, I had mentioned NUVO, and had translated it as an Elvish word or phrase as literally "west son", which itself could mean a few different things, I suppose.

The word 'vo' had come up before on the morning of Feb. 17, so about a week and a half ago.  I had said in an earlier post that since 2022 I hadn't really had any Elvish phrases, but I have had a few days lately.  February 17 happens to be my mom's birthday as well, as random trivia.

Anyway, the word "Avon" came first, and although I understood it (or thought it, at least) to be an Elvish word, it also came across as an English word.  As in, Avon the company, and specifically a representation of the Avon Lady.  I had this specific sense of a Being associated with this word, and that this person was the Avon Lady.  This comparison became more interesting and actually funny as I have thought a bit about it since, which I will get into in just a second.

"Vovo" then came just a little bit later as its own independent word, but I ended up thinking about it in conjunction with Avon, and after a few days of noodling on it, I think it is a pretty straightforward phrase, though you never know.

Just taking the words themselves - Avon vovo - and looking at translations, I land on something like this:

Avon = Aman (the Unmarred State or Land)

Vovo = together son

Thus, "Aman together son".

My guess is that this simply means that from the perspective of the speaker (i.e., whoever is sharing these words), they will be together with the 'son' in Aman.  

It doesn't seem too complicated now, and I think that is right (and the Avon Lady connection seems to support this) but the first day or two thinking about this, I had a few different things going for vovo.  I didn't know if this might mean something like "son-son", either two sons, or the son of a son (grandson).  But I concluded that there are better Elvish words that would be used to communicate either of those possibilities (and that have been used in the past, even, in my other words), and there wasn't a clear reason why a play on words with less clear meaning was useful here.  Consequently, I've landed on something like "I [speaker] together with son in Aman" as the likeliest meaning.  

Given my previous thoughts and posts of the 'son' being Faramir and meeting Eowyn in Aman (Tirion), this would then suggest that the speaker is Eowyn.

This is where the idea of the Avon Lady comes into play, so let's turn to that now.  It has a couple interesting links and connections  I mean, first off, if Eowyn is in Aman, or Avon (I think), and Tirion is her home, then it would make sense to call her the Avon Lady in just those terms.  As I suppose it would be to also refer to Asenath in that way due to where she is now potentially.

Avon is a company based out of the US, but operating globally.   They have a history going back to the late 19th century.  Unknown to me until I looked this up, the company was started by a man, David McConnell, who was a door-to-door book salesman.  In the course of his house calls, he usually ended up talking to women who were home while their husbands were at work.  In order to try and break the ice and get in the door to sell his books, he developed a fragrance that he would give away as a small sample.  No one wanted to buy his books, however, but they really liked the fragrance.

So, McConnell stopped selling books and focused solely on fragrances.  He started the California Perfume Company in the 1880s.  The company would later change it's name to Avon.  Why Avon?  Well, that is where William Shakespeare was born, and that was McConnell's favorite playwright.  The same Shakespeare that Star Trek is so fond of also quoting in their movies (and whose play "Hamlet" the phrase "Undiscovered Country" Star Trek 6, the movie I just covered in my previous post, came from).

He then had the revolutionary idea that perhaps women would like to buy fragrances and perfumes not from McConnell and a bunch of other men showing up at their door, but from other women.  The Avon model would ultimately consist of women who would sell the products, and act as their own business owners.  They would buy the product and literature from the parent company, and then sell these products in their own way and on their own time.  The culture of door-to-door sales remained foundational for this business model.

In the 1950's, Avon developed what is known as their iconic marketing campaign featuring Avon Ladies going door-to-door and selling their products.  The slogan of the campaign was the quote I included in my title:  "Ding-Dong!  Avon Calling!".  The campaign was so successful and iconic that it ran from 1954 to 1967.  Here is an old commercial from the 50s (Note:  I replaced the original video I inserted because the video owner disabled playback on other sites like mine - this other video still captures how the commercials would end with the phrase and imagery of the Avon Lady calling at a door):

For kicks, here is another campaign from the 1970s, which shows that even though the changed the "Avon Calling!" phrase (replacing it with "If you don't know your Avon Lady, you should" - which was also kind of funny), they kept the iconic door chime/ Ding-Dong sound.  There were other campaigns from the time that also had "You never looked so good", and also still kept the door chime sound.  [Note:  Rather than also replace this video, since this one rep seems to have posted all of them but restricted views to just her YouTube channel, just click on the link and watch it there]

I don't know when/ if they phased out the door chime, but I imagine it didn't survive into the 21st century - at least I didn't find any.

Anyway, I now know more about Avon than I ever thought I would.

Let's go ahead and make some connections.

First off, I should note that Avon is not the only 'company' known for its door-to-door sales approach that I have mentioned on this blog.  The Mormons are well known for their own door knocking.   I thought it was funny that the Avon founder actually started out as a door-to-door book salesman, just like the Mormon missionaries.  Speaking from my own experience, Mormon missionaries likely have about as much success selling the Book of Mormon as David McConnell had selling his books.

Initially, the "calling" part of the slogan captured my attention.  This notion of 'call', potentially through the linkage of the Anor and Ithil Stones, has come up several times.  In my post "I'll call ya, pal!":  Linking stones, 'aliens', and a toast to Tron, for example, I recounted a dream in which a woman said "I'll call ya, pal!", and also connected some of that language like "ya" and "pal" to Stones.  

There have been other words and dreams that have all been associated with this notion of 'calling', and that this call will be between Eowyn and Faramir.   I thought I had shared the following, but in a quick search, it doesn't look like I did.  In March 2021, I picked up this short dialogue one morning:

We will attempt to reorganize that which has been forgotten
And be sure to get every persons' view on a remake
Also to be called in the night, our big, tall ether
Shining in Powers' confidence

To me Ether (I think the 'ether' above references him, even though I didn't capitalize it) and Faramir are the same Being, so someone is going to call him, and my belief is that is Eowyn.  "Power's confidence" is likely a play on words.  Confidence can mean something like "belief in", but it can also mean "secret or private communication".  That secret might be what is contained on the Sawtooth Stone, perhaps.

And, of course, in the Xanadu movie there is that song "Suspended in Time" which I spent some time on in a recent post.  I had mentioned there that the phrase "And so I appeal to you", can mean something like "And so I call to you", since a meaning of appeal is to call.

Anyway, other things also point to this 'call', and thus the notion of an "Avon Lady" (literally a Lady in/ from Avon = Eowyn) calling seemed to fit right in with these old Avon commercials, for some odd reason.

Beyond the calling, the other things that struck me as fascinating was that Avon (after its foray into book selling) was a fragrance company.  Initially, one would have associated an Avon Lady with fragrance or smells.  This concept of smells has come up quite a bit as I thought about it.

In the post "Wagon's East!"... or was that supposed to be West?, I quoted what I viewed as Saruman's words to Faramir suggesting that he go East and that the fragrance of Eowyn would perhaps guide him, or at least be something he could sense.  It was such a peculiar reference - this notion of a fragrance - that when I saw that Avon was first associated with perfumes and fragrances, I noticed it.

Recall that I also had a dream relating to fragrances, in which I saw the phrase "22 Fragrances" while recognizing that 22 was perhaps said "tutu" or "tudu", and potentially a reference to Elves (from a creative link to an Elf on the Shelf) or having something to do with fire or kindling a flame, perhaps, among other things.  That was related in the post "Artu's and Tutu's (and Mr. Potato Head)"

And of course, I have mentioned my Herbie the Hamster short story a few times, where smells and fragrances oddly played a major part in his experience in ultimately breaking out or free of his cage.

Besides calls and fragrances, I think there were one or two other things I had thought of earlier, but I lost the thread for now.  If I remember them, I'll add them in the comments.  I think just those two, however, were pretty interesting for me to play off of.

Anyway, I suppose nothing new again, but just some funny or interesting/ creative ways and thoughts to support some of the story that we've been exploring there.  Namely, there is a woman or women in "Avon" (Aman), one of them is Eowyn, and as the "Avon Lady" she will make a house call on Faramir, through means of the Stones.  This call will ultimately act as a catalyst that results in Faramir joining with Eowyn in Tirion.  

Again, I feel like a lot of these words and thoughts keep coming back to that story, but I guess that is how it goes.

The Undiscovered Country, flying into stars, Neverland, and NUVO

After I hypothesized in my previous post that STS might be a reference to the movie Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country (Star Trek 6), based on some probably dubious associations, including what appeared to be graffiti in the shape of the Enterprise on the side of the Xanadu building, Leo asked in the comments if I was going to watch that movie now as well.

I hadn't thought I was going to, honestly, and that just associating the title of Undiscovered Country with Aman-Xanadu was maybe enough, but his comment put a bug in my brain that maybe I should check it out.

So, I dutifully sat down and watched it last night.  This was my third Star Trek film of the week, having also watched Star Trek:  First Contact on Friday night.

I thought it was decent.  Undiscovered Country was the last movie featuring the original Enterprise crew with Kirk, Spock, and team, so it was a bit of a send off show.

As I watched it, I really didn't see or hear a whole lot of specific tie-ins for the majority of the movie, other than to some of the more general plot themes.  In the movie, it is peace between the Federation and the Klingons that seems to be finally in reach, but some 'secret combinations' from within both groups, and in very high levels of leadership, are trying to prevent that from happening.  This obviously fits in with some of what I have been writing here, but it fits in with a lot of stories.  Star Trek characters quote Shakespeare quite often, and many plot devices and scenarios find their way into the screenplay.  Internal intrigue and sabotage is a fairly universal story, so hard to say or claim anything special about that, really.

So, for 99% of the movie, I thought that if there was something to the STS relating to Star Trek 6, it must just be the title, as I didn't see anything really stand out specifically.

But. . . then the last 4 minutes of the film happened.

Actually really the last minute, and I flipped from thinking not specifically relevant to thinking very much so.  This was due to one phrase that Kirk used, and then the final image or scene of the Enterprise.  I will first post the clip, and then actually start in reverse order with the image, before then talking about the phrase he used.

Here is the last 4 minutes of the movie (so spoilers obviously)

OK, so working backward from the very end, at about the 2:30 mark the scene flips for the final time from the bridge to outside of the Enterprise, and as Kirk gives a final monologue we see the Enterprise fly toward a bright sun.  A bit like something flying off to the sunset, space style, since this is the cast's farewell voyage.

An interesting thing happens, though, from a perspective standpoint.  As the Enterprise 'approaches' the sun, or enters its light disk, it appears to actually fly into and through the sun.  Over a period of approximately 10 seconds, the ships will slowly start to disappear in a manner that makes it look the sun was actually not a sun at all, but a bright, shining hole in the background of space itself.  Here is one still image for you to look at, in case you skipped the video clip, that shows the Enterprise mid-way through its disappearing act:

So, at this point - literally the very final scene of the movie - is when I paid attention or saw a potential connection to what I have been writing about here, including Xanadu or Aman.  A star has now become a hole or a passage.

In my post Speech Problems:  Dream 3 of 3, I introduced a dream I had back in 2020 where I stood in front of the Sun.  Here is my brief, one-sentence summary of that dream:

In that dream, I stood in front of what was the Sun, from what I could tell.  It seemed that I was being asked to walk into the Sun, but I hesitated and looked back, not wanting to leave my family, before finally turning around and stepping in.

Furthermore, I brought up that dream in that post because the closing scene of Watership Down, where the Black Rabbit invites Hazel to join him, and they end up running into the Sun, reminded me of it.  This all part of some random points and insights regarding the Black Rabbit, associating Faramir as him, and other related themes.

Following that post, I then started down the path of Holes - specifically Black and White Holes, which would lead into Doors and Passages.  That train of thought started with the question I asked myself following that "Speech Problems" post:  "But just how would it be possible to walk into the Sun?".  I explored that question in the post "Black holes, Rabbit holes, and walking through stars".  And we've obviously covered some significant ground since relative to these topics.

So, for that reason, this scene with the Enterprise seeming to enter into this Sun caught my attention.  How could it not?

It caught my attention for another reason:  after the Enterprise enters the Sun or whatever this Bright Star is, that looks like Hole in space or a rift in the darkness, that light expands until it takes up the whole screen.  It is all white.

This brings me to another dream of mine.  I mentioned my having dreams prior to 2019 was extremely rare (at least ones that I can remember - maybe only 4 or 5 total ), but that the ones I do remember all seem somehow relevant to what I am writing here.  I covered one of those dreams in my post "Wolves", relative to Numenor's invasion and devastation of Eressea.

This dream is actually from just a few years ago, but before any of the weirdness.  It was 2017, and I was on a boat with my family.  My wife's family had held a reunion on a cruise, which turned out to be pretty fun.  One night on the cruise, I had the following dream:

I was standing on something like a sea shore looking out over the water.  It was night.  As I looked at the horizon, I could see storm clouds approaching.  I wasn't worried about the storm, though, for whatever reason.  I felt very calm.

Suddenly I had some kind of feeling, and said "It's happening" out loud not consciously knowing what "It" was.  I began to be lifted up from the ground toward the sky.  It seemed completely natural and I wasn't alarmed.   As I rose, I started to have a feeling of joy, that continued to build as I went higher and higher.  A white light started to build around me, like I was ascending into light. It became all white around me.  I felt like I was ascending to something, and was almost there, when I then suddenly woke up.

It was extremely disorienting to wake up in my bed like that, as again, I think the last memorable dream I had was from childhood.  The combination of the dream's content and emotions, and the fact that it felt real (in terms of having a dream I remembered), kind of left me lying there in a state of shock for several minutes afterward.

Anyway, the way the white light expanded and filled the screen after the Enterprise sailed into the Sun brought back that memory.

Peter Pan and Neverland

Just prior to the scene of the Enterprise flying into the star, Kirk decides to disobey orders (break the rules) one more time and take the Enterprise for a last trip.  Chekhov asks him for a heading, and Kirk replies "Second star to the right, and straight on 'til morning."

As many people might know, this is a quote from Peter Pan.  Actually, it is slightly modified from the book, which omitted 'star'.  The 1953 Disney animated film used "star", and so I guess is what Kirk is quoting, technically.  The book version of the quote comes from chapter 4, which is titled simply "The Flight".

Incidentally, the cruise we were all on that my dream occured on was a Disney cruise, so a bit of a loose link, I suppose.

The phrase itself is meant to be directions to Neverland, given by Peter to Wendy, and this is what Kirk is referring to as he tells Chekhov to set a course.  He is taking the Enterprise to Neverland.  

This phrase piqued my interest right before that closing scene (which sealed the deal for me), because Neverland has come up before in my words, and likely in the context of Faramir and Eowyn.  On March 6, 2020, there was a dialogue that included, at least as I then interpreted and still do now, the requested separation of Faramir and Eowyn as part of next steps in the current plan, but also seems to allude to a reuniting in "Neverland".  

The words were from a dream, and in the dream I saw a man and woman sitting with each other, and they looked very sad.  A voice was speaking to them, and said:

Devise we thee a really hard thing:

To separate

A voice replied (which I currently take to have been Faramir's), saying:

Does not working everyone with?

In that question (clearly some kind of broken english translation), my sense was that perhaps the initial understanding of both Faramir and Eowyn was that they would be coming to this world together, as part of a larger team in this current plan.  In other words, this was a flashback to a previous time.  That obviously changed with this request to separate, and thus why the image I saw of what I assume was meant to represent them was that of a sad couple.  This was unexpected news.

In the story I have partially captured or thought through here, that is what happened.  Faramir was born here (and is alive now as a man), while Eowyn stayed behind and went on to other adventures.  And the Anor and Ithil Stone link will facilitate their reunion.

The dream continued, and after seeing the sad couple that I now take as being Faramir and Eowyn, I voice said, "I long for my wife".  I believe this would have been present-day Faramir saying this, since he would now find himself separated.

In response, a voice said:

Clouds as a family you may enter

Neverland to fly thither

So this is where we have Neverland.  And for those who have kept on board with or followed the Faramir-Eowyn part of this story, this would be a dialogue that refers to his ascent (I think) to Tirion-Xanadu, with Aman in general likely being referred to as "Neverland".

Anyway, putting all that together, and thinking through the things I have written and thought through here, you can likely see why that last scene in Star Trek caught my attention so much.  Or, if you don't, don't worry about it!

So, was STS on the side of the Xanadu building directly referring to a Star Trek film yet to be created at that time, that would include dialogue and symbolism at the end that would be very direct references to the same place, and events, that I have said Xanadu represents?  I don't know.  I do think the connection is there, but not sure whether that was placed intentionally, or just leveraged in such as way as to guide my attention somewhere.  Either way, I thought it was interesting.

NUVO

I will close the post with another random connection from this weekend.  

My daughter is a dancer, and this weekend a travelling dance competition, workshop, and convention was in Minneapolis.  She looks forward to this thing every year.

It's called NUVO, which must have originally been an acronym for something, but I sure can't find what it is/was.  Anyway, after the first day, my daughter got a nice sweatshirt that looks like this (I am using the image from their online store, because I didn't want to completely creep my daughter out and ask if I could take a picture of her sweatshirt logo...):

The first thing that struck me when I saw the logo was the X.  There are two upward facing arrows that intersect each other to form an X.

I had the thought that NUVO must be an Elvish word, so of course I looked it up.  It is a pretty good hit.

Nu = West, or Sunset

Vo = Son

So, something like "West Son".  Pretty straightforward.  My current thought that Tirion (represented by the X) lies both Up and to the West, and that a 'son' (Faramir) will make a trip there (the shirt even mentions a tour) seems fairly well represented on the shirt logo, if I look at it in that light.

"Vo" is interesting, as well, because it has come up in some Elvish words in the past week, which I will share in a different post, because I am going to wrap this one up and hit publish.

The Wrath of Saruman-Khan and Free Willy!

Yesterday late afternoon I started to have an overwhelming desire to watch Star Trek II:  The Wrath of Khan.  I don't know why, but it was just a strong feeling like I should watch this movie.

So, late last night, with work done and kids all in bed, I went ahead and watched it.  Watching movies on weekdays or nights isn't really a typical thing for me, but it has happened a few times now in the course of writing on this blog, which is interesting.

Anyway, although I was not going in to the movie to try and watch for little things (treating it as 'homework') there were quite a few things that just jumped out regardless and I couldn't help but take note (and even a few pictures as you will see).  So, I am going to go down that path here, and it will also bring us to another movie, Free Willy, which I watched a long time ago as a kid, but have not recently.  Xanadu is even going to tie in to Star Trek in an odd way.

In any case, based on what I noticed, and the connections made, I don't think my sudden desire to watch the movie was disconnected from everything else here on this blog.

So, here we go.

The Wrath of Khan

Spoilers ahead.

The name Khan has come up, of course, in the context of Xanadu, with the poem by Samuel Coleridge first showing up over on William Tychonievich's blog.  That poem served to launch into the larger Xanadu theme over here on my blog, as after I read the poem, I googled Xanadu, found the movie, and the rest is history.

We'll get to Khan the character in just a second, but first I want to point out a few other things.

I knew I was in trouble, actually, when I noticed some things during the opening credits.  Captain Kirk is played by William Shatner.  His name came up first, and then we had Leonard Nimoy, as Spock.  William and Leonard = Willy and Leon, Willy Wonka and Thomas B. Bucket... you get the idea.  We have the two characters I have been writing a bit about on this blog the last little while represented in the names of the actors that first appear on the credits.

Actually, it would turn out the Leonard Nimoy isn't the only Lion.  I forgot that Dr. McCoy (Bones) has the first name of Leonard, as well.  The actor that played him is named DeForest Kelley.  De-foresting, however, is something Saruman was known for, so at first I was a bit concerned, but then I remembered that "De" in this sense means "Of"... so "Of the forest".  This was also a good one!  Orome, one of the Valar from Tolkien's stories, also goes by the name of "Aldaron", which means literally "Of Trees", and also "Lord of the Forests".

Recall that my guess is that JRR Tolkien himself is Orome, and that this Being also is known as Frodo, and importantly for our purposes here, Elijah.  Elijah's work is among the Dead, and as Tolkien he himself is currently dead, obviously, and thus "Bones" as a nickname works pretty well here, also, on a few different fronts.

OK, so at this point, we have Faramir, Thomas B. Marsh-Peter, and Orome-Elijah being represented by Kirk, Spock and McCoy in just the names that appear in the opening credits of the movie.  I sense big things!  And when I say 'represented', I mean by little hints and winks, not that the characters themselves are meant to be full representations of these other Beings, nor their stories have to sync up perfectly or even well, at a character level.  I am not looking that closely, or trying to make those types of inferences.

The movie starts with a simulation of a 'no-win scenario' - the Kobayashi Maru.  For those wondering if the Kobayashi Maru, a strange name that seems to stick out, might mean something in Elvish - it indeed does! 

Let's write Kobayashi Maru as Kob-yasse Maru (which is a pretty direct hit, if you ask me), we get something like this:

Kob = Gather

Yasse = Once upon a time, ago (or even far away, there)

Mar(u) = Home

The -u ending actually works out perfectly as signifying home (mar) as a noun - a place.  So we have "Gather once upon a time home".  Or, as I would then read it, "Gather to Home from long ago".  Again, a pretty direct hit with the main theme of gathering Beings to their home (Xanadu), which is what this story I have been exploring parts of is all about at the moment.

If you look online, you'll find out that Kobayashi Maru is actually Japanese... but now you know better, or at least you know it isn't just Japanese

Furthermore, the Kobayashi Maru is the name of the distressed ship.  Its crew is in need of a rescue, just as this whole gathering home in my story is part of a massive search and rescue mission, or will be.

Anyway, in the simulation, the Kobayashi Maru lies in the Neutral Zone, which is off limits.  It is also an ambush.  The captain can't in good conscience not go in and leave the distressed ship to perish, but if they do, they will lose.  Every time.  It is an unwinnable game.

Except for one person.  The only cadet who beat the simulation was a young Captain Kirk, whose solution, we find out, was to reprogram the simulation itself.  He changed the rules of the game.    Saying he does not believe in the 'no-win scenario', he found a way to win.  In fact, he flipped the scenario on is head, in creating a 'can't lose scenario'.

This solution reminded my of my commentary of the Man in Black (who I also posited represented this Faramir-type character) from Princess Bride.  I will link that post here if you want to go back and watch that clip, but in his confrontation with Vizzini, he at first admits that they are at an "impasse".  An impasse is by definition an unwinnable scenario, as it means no progress can be made.  However, to break the impasse he introduces a game in which he cannot lose, which is the wine-poison game with Iocane powder.  He changed up the situation or the rules of their confrontation.

Captain Kirk makes an appearance following the simulation, and he is seen holding a book.  The book, a birthday present from Spock, turns out to be A Tale of Two Cities.  We know this because Kirk reads the opening lines "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times".  The movie will also end with Kirk citing the last lines of A Tale of Two Cities as they launch Spock off to space, dead now but soon to be resurrected in Star Trek 3 (so don't worry!).

Anyway, if you have been paying attention to my theme of Xanadu, you will understand that this story I am exploring here is indeed a tale of Two Cities:  Jerusalem and New Jerusalem.  So, a pretty relevant book title, I believe.  As an aside, the plot of the book itself also influences the plot of the movie, with Spock's sacrifice at the end reminiscent of Sydney Carton sacrificing himself in the place of Charles Darnay, and Kirk's quote of that ending passage from Dicken's book kind of hitting you over the head making sure you understand the analogy.

Classic books and their narratives matter in this plot, and to Star Trek overall, which brings me to Khan.  When we first are introduced to Khan's digs, we get a really nice close-up of his bookshelf, which looks like this:

I will get into a few of these in just a bit.  They are relevant, and probably in more ways than I will get into here.

Khan is a genetically-altered super-man, with extreme strength and vast intelligence, who is actually very old (having been cryogenically frozen for hundreds of years).  Spock mentions to Kirk several times over the course of their encounter with Khan that Khan is "very intelligent".  High praise coming from a Vulcan.  He also has tools at his disposal that include controlling people's minds, as he did through his 'ear worms' with Chekov and Terrel (literally, ear worms, folks . . . think about that).

Importantly, he has been exiled to a lifeless desert world, and plotting revenge over this exile for a long period of time.  He blames Kirk for this Exile, and this is where both Paradise Lost and Moby Dick, from Khan's bookshelf, come into play.  In Paradise Lost, we have an account of the Fall of Man.  Satan (Lucifer) is banished out to Hell after his defeat.  In Milton's poem, Lucifer is a master of rhetoric - it is how he gains his followers, and how he tricks Eve.

You know based on past posts that I have likened the Satan-Lucifer of the traditional story of the Fall with none other than Saruman.  The Saruman we know of from LOTR, with the power of his Voice and his own exile from "Paradise", is a fairly strong fit with Milton's Lucifer and with Khan from Star Trek. I actually believe in the TV episode of Star Trek, Paradise Lost was invoked or cited by Khan, though I am not 100% sure.

What is curious, though, for our purposes, is the vendetta against Kirk.  If Kirk is meant to have some allusion (even if limited) to Faramir in this story, then Faramir had no direct hand in Saruman's demise.  What gives?  Well, two potential answers.

First, I have positioned Faramir and Saruman as the two Beings from which God (Eru) chose Faramir as being the 'chosen' one who would be sent in some capacity.  Saruman, at that time and in whatever guise he was in, would have the departed from Heaven in a sort of banishment.  Every bad thing that befell Saruman, including frustrations in his desire to rule Men (a desire he admitted to Gandalf at Orthanc, as recounted by Gandalf at Elrond's Council), he could cite back to having been passed over for Eonwe-Faramir. 

Even note that in the movie, Khan wants to get his hands on "Genesis", which is a not-too-subtle nod to the creation myth from the Bible (also on his bookshelf), but I would note that this might also mean that Saruman wants to get his hands on the story of creation itself - the story where he was passed over, and creation went on despite him, and another was chosen in his stead as part of that story.

Second, there is the matter that Eonwe-Faramir was directly responsible for the banishment and exile of Melkor at the end of the 1st age.  It is Eonwe who led the Host of Heaven against Melkor and referenced as overthrowing him.   And thus Melkor might want revenge or vengeance for his banishment and exile.

In an earlier post, 'ben', in a comment, mentioned his belief that Saruman might be Melkor as a subsequent incarnation.  I don't have a strong view of whether that could be or not at this point, but this second answer I mentioned - the view that Eonwe (also known as Michael) defeated and banished the 'dragon' (is this Melkor or Saruman, or both?), and that this dragon might want revenge for this - seems to play into the plot of Wrath of Khan.  Thus, I am thinking a bit more about ben's comment, and whether it is in fact possible that Saruman is Melkor.  I don't know, but can't rule it out at this point.

In any case, Khan's character can represent both Saruman and Melkor's motivation - one of vengeance against the one who they feel has wronged them - whether those Beings are one entity or two in the real story.  They would both have a grievance and desire for revenge against Eonwe.

This vengeance theme is where Moby Dick comes into play from Khan's bookshelf.  Khan liberally quotes variations of Moby Dick several times throughout the film, as he takes on the role of Ahab, and Kirk becomes his White Whale.  For example, at the end of the movie, as Khan is going to blow his ship up to also blow up the Enterprise (using Genesis), he says:

From Hell's heart I stab at thee; For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee

This is a direct quote from Moby Dick, and are a part of Ahab's last words as the Whale destroys the Pequod  (Pequod, incidentally, is said to be a Native American name meaning "Men of the Swamp", which also seems relevant given recent Swamp terminology).  Ahab is fully defiant and unrepentant to the end, just as Khan is, and just as Saruman, Melkor, Wormtongue, and all of their type will prove to be, I believe.

I have alluded to Faramir being the White (and Black) Rabbit, the White Stag, and now we have an allusion to the White Whale.  At least 3 different 'white' (remember how I would define 'white' in these cases as 'radiant' and 'shining', perhaps) animals that this character plays.

Khan's vengeance-seeking and obsession over the White Whale is his undoing, just as it was Ahab's, and, thus it seems, just as it will be Saruman's, I believe.  

Anyway, this is going to get really long if I don't sharpen this up and get to a few interesting highlights.  We can talk about classic book tie-ins all day, and yes those will also matter for this story, but let's get to some weird stuff, shall we?

The Enterprise on the side of Xanadu?

With both ships damaged, Kirk takes the Enterprise into the Mutara Nebula.  He goads on Khan to follow him there, where they will both be equally disadvantaged in their damaged ships.  Poor visuals, no shields, etc.  A cat and mouse game ensues.  

By the way, the ship Khan ends up commandeering for himself is called the "Reliant".  In Elvish, we would spell that perhaps as "Ril-liant" (the "i" makes and "ee" sound here).  That would translate to "Spider light" or "Spider glitter".  Which was interesting to see, because in a comment on one of my recent posts, I highlight that a song that WJT mentioned in that same comment section by They Must Be Giants seemed (to me) to be all about a Spider's Light.  The post and the comment are linked here.

Anyway, there is a scene where the Enterprise ends up going down in 'altitude' (a 3D chess move), in order to then pop up being Khan's ship.  The scene shows the Enterprise from the top, and when I saw it, I had the strangest feeling like I had seen this shape before in Xanadu.  Specifically, in the graffiti on the side of the building that would become Xanadu.   Here is a picture of the scene I am talking about from Khan, followed by a shot of the graffiti in Xanadu (highlighted by the red box):

I mean, yes, it looks like a caveman drawing of the Enterprise, but the graffiti on the side of the building isn't of the highest quality, anyway.  What was surprising to me is just how forcefully the thought came to me, like "You have seen this shape before in Xanadu".  And here it was on the side of the building as Sonny roller skates up to the building.

I then noticed a few other things about the building, including the trespassing sign and other graffiti.

The trespassing sign has the name Edmund D. Edelman.  This apparently is a real name, and a real sign on the building (i.e., Edelman was an LA Council Member in real life).  The building itself was a famous landmark in LA, that had been closed since the early 70's (and has since burned to the ground - it is no longer), so the graffiti was all real as well - it wasn't a movie prop or anything.

What made me notice Edelman's name first off was that Sonny was positioned right next to the name, and seemed associated with him in some way, at least to my probably-over-sensitive eye.  I also noticed it because it looks like the film crew realized they should hide the name, since it was a real person, and so in some scenes you will have the name covered.  Here are two different stills, one with the name visible, and then a close-up shot with the name covered:

In the zoomed out shots, you can also see the large "EL" above the sign, with the rest of the graffiti below not legible and hidden behind the sign.  El has come up before as "star" in Elvish, and even as "god" or "angelic being" in Hebrew.

Looking at the name, though, it is pretty interesting, and gives us some things in both English and Elvish.

In English, Edmund means "wealthy protector" - or Rich William... Rich Willy?  As in Willy Wonka?  Probably, I'd say.  I could have sworn I have used the phrase wealthy protector on my blog or WJT's before, but I couldn't find it.  

Edelman means 'nobleman', which has come up just in this past week in the context of Faramir.  Given that the name Sonny itself means "son" but is also a play on words for "sun or sunny", I think this all comes together pretty well, and so it is interesting to see Sonny standing there next to this name of Edmund Edelman, with both likely referring to Willy Wonka Faramir.

In Elvish, starting from the last name, Edelman literally means "Elf-man" or "Star-man", which is pretty hilarious to me.  My story involves Beings, including Elves, being born as Men in our day, with Faramir having once played the role of one of these Star-Beings/ Elves, but who is now, I believe, a Man here on this world right now.

Edmund can be something like "Out/ forth Bull" in Elvish, with "ed" meaning "out/ forth" and "mund" meaning "bull or ox".  Which is also amazing, I think!  Recall, that Asenath faced down a Being known as the Son of Baal-ox (a representation of a Bull), implying there is a Being simply known as Baal-Ox, who seems to be kind of a lead Demon or Balrog.  Part of Faramir's job is to help all that will come escape out from underneath this "Bull", I believe.  Almost a bit like in the Last Unicorn, setting free the Unicorns that have been captured and imprisoned by King Haggard and the Red Bull.  I don't know, I am just flowing with things here, people - take what you want out of it.  

I guess "Ox" doesn't have to be bad, either, I suppose, as I think about it.  The original meaning of "Trek", if you look it up on Etymonline, is "travel by ox wagon".  So, "forth ox" could literally be "Trek", based on this definition.  And Edelman would still be "star-men or elf-men".  Thus, we would get "Trek of the star-men".  Actually, I think I like this one even better than that first guess above, given the tie in to Star Trek, but I will leave both in.  Maybe they both apply.

I like those games when they work out like that.

The Undiscovered Country?

Looking at the other graffiti, there is a 3 letter word "STS" repeated all over the structure.  This was a bit of a mystery, and I thought that it probably didn't mean anything, but I stumbled upon a Star Trek thread this morning where commentators were referring to Star Trek episodes by "ST2" or "ST4", for example.  I then became aware that this is fairly common among Trekkies in how they refer to the original cast movies.  "S", however, isn't a number but a letter.  Two solutions:  Either the "S" is really a 5, or it is an S that stand for Six:  So ST5, or ST6 (Six).   It is clearly an S, though, so if it means anything (it might not, to be honest), I go with STS(ix).

The title for the film is "The Undiscovered Country".  Given that I currently view Tirion as hidden and needing to be found or re-discovered (X marks the spot), having STS as potentially representing that title literally plastered all over the outside of the building that will become Xanadu seems promising.  Further, there are several instances where the STS is actually written as either StS (with a small cross for the t), or SxS, with the X standing in for the T.  You can actually see such an instance in the picture above, with STS in black, as well as the SXS in red.  Either case would seem to further suggest we are on the right path, as I have the symbol of the X or cross relating to the door to and location of Tirion-Xanadu.

Further, the original use of the phrase "undiscovered country" is from William Shakespeare, and used in the context of death (death being the undiscovered country).  However, the Star Trek movie goes a different direction with that phrase.  It is not death, but Peace, that is the undiscovered country.  The Klingons want peace with the Federation, and a universe without warring factions is what the movie is referring to with this phrase.  This fits very well with Xanadu (and even my words "Find Peace" that I reviewed in one of my posts as a location - Tirion, representing Peace) as a place or dream where there is no war or evil.  Only Peace and Joy.

Is this making sense, in a fairly crazy sort of way?  I am not sure myself, honestly, but these are some of the things I see.

The Whale

OK, we are going to end with Whales.  I mentioned above that Captain Kirk becomes Khan's Moby Dick - the White Whale, and that this ties into other symbolism of Faramir.

Two days ago, on Wednesday, the song from the movie "Free Willy", called "Will you be there", just came pounding into my mind.  I have no memory of hearing it on the radio or anything - suddenly it was just playing in my head, and I couldn't get it out.  I didn't know the name of it other than it was the song from Free Willy.  I saw the movie as a teenager when it came out, but I don't believe I have watched it since.  I had to look up the plot to remind myself of the broad strokes of the story.

Free Willy is about a killer whale (orca) in captivity who a kid is ultimately trying to help free.  So, again, we have "Willy" here (as in Willy Wonka), and he is a whale.  And whereas I have associated Faramir as both the White and Black Rabbit, we have in the form of Willy, a Black and White Whale.  Here he is going airborne on the movie poster, in all of his black and white glory:

Obviously some symbolism in the movie premise itself, with Willy needing to escape out of captivity and to freedom, but I don't know much more about the plot than that.  I do know, however, based on the video of the song I will post at the end that there is graffiti in this movie, as the boy first finds Willy when he goes to the aquarium at night to spray some graffiti on the walls.

So I have this Free Willy song running through my head all afternoon.  Later that night, the kids did not have any night activities (very rare for us, let me tell you), so I barbequed hamburgers and we just hung around the house (it was another unseasonably warm February day).  My youngest son was already in his PJs by dinner, and was sitting in such a way as to expose that he had a fairly large hole in his crotch area that let's just say revealed he was going commando-style (no underwear).  My wife saw it, laughed, and said "You need to go upstairs and change your pants, it looks like you are trying to free willy or something!"

Just as a reminder on timeline, this is the day before I sat down and watched Wrath of Khan, not knowing or remembering that there was any Moby Dick or whale theme to the movie.

Anyway, and that is how we have Wrath of Khan, Xanadu, and Free Willy all tied up together.  With that, I will pass it over to Michael (who also has come up in connection with Faramir) to end with his song.  I actually just noticed right now that "Will" could be a name in the title of this song, so you could get something like "Will, you be there", as in addressing a person, rather than asking a question.

Oh, actually last thing as a bonus Easter Egg for our Zelda fans (since Zelda also ties into all of this as well, didn't you know).  Below is a picture from the scene where Spock dies.  He is in the room with the Warp Core, which is what enables the ship to travel at Warp speed.  On the wall, over Spock's right shoulder, you can clearly see the Triforce symbol.  After noticing it, I also saw it earlier on the door entrance to the room.  Wrath of Khan predates the first Zelda by about 4 years or so, I think.  I believe this symbol is also seen in other Star Trek movies and shows as part of the Warp or Engine Rooms.  Given that it is the warp drive is the means of travel over vast distances, maybe relevant to our story.