Meet in In-N-Out

Doors, keys that lead to them and open them, the people who keep them, and where they lead to seems to be a theme right now, at least from what I see.

About a week ago, I had a riddle regarding doors come fully formed into my mind, very randomly and suddenly.  Meaning, both the question and the answer came pretty much simultaneously - I didn't need to think about it.  It was a very short riddle, and went something like this:

Q:  What can you both walk in to and out of at the same time?

A:  A doorway

The answer seemed obvious, and is based on a matter of perspective of an observer in order to be true.  As an individual would walk through a doorway, from the perspective of the room they were leaving, it would be said that they were walking into the doorway.   However, if there was, at the same time, a person in the room that the doorway led into, from their perspective, the individual in question would be walking out of the doorway, or emerging from the doorway.

So, a matter of perspective.  Each observer if asked what the individual was doing at the time they were crossing the door threshold would give a different answer - one would say "in", and the other would say "out" with respect of the 'direction' or action the individual is doing by walking through the doorway.

At least that is how I understood the riddle.

In any case, the riddle felt familiar, and I had a sense that this must be a well known one, or I picked it up somewhere.  I did an online search, but that came up empty.  I even looked back through the Hobbit and at Bilbo and Gollum's riddle-duel to see if I had picked it up from that, but no luck there either.  So, if anyone has heard that riddle or something like it before, let me know.

Even though the riddle was an unexpected thought, by that time last week, I had already been putting some thought into doorways, portals, Rabbit Holes, Black Holes, etc., so it isn't like passageways or doorways weren't at least somewhere in my  mind and could have explained why the riddle came to me.

The description of and 'in' and an 'out', however, also brought me back to a short, cryptic phrase from almost 3 years ago, in the spring of 2021.  On March 20, I got a short phrase that simply went:

She will meet in In-N-Out

Recall that in the days prior to this, I had been getting other short phrases which I now assume are from a dialogue involving the Stone Couriers and Abraham-Tom Bombadil at his hidden digs in France somewhere.  The post where I place the Couriers in France is all the way back from September as "Rolling the Stone:  Who were the couriers and where did they go?", and I dive into a bit of their dialogue in the post actually immediately before that one, "Exploring what happened in the time following Sawtooth, Part 2:  Stone on the move".

In that dialogue, I highlight that on March 13 it seems that the Couriers, after following some pretty specific instructions, arrive and are welcomed at a hidden oasis, as it were.  They then seem to engage in a dialogue which I only get snippets of starting in March 18.  So, March 18, 2021, there is the commentary that simply says:

To be gathered
To be counted

We should find it not necessarily random that "Dead Reckoning" is coming up right now.  To "reckon" is to also "count" or to make an accounting of, and there is a specific group that will be counted here - that group I have referred to as the Family of Light.  They will be gathered and counted... i.e., Reckoned.  This would be a 'good' reckoning, obviously; one we would want to be a part of (vs. a reckoning of another sort).

That narrative is pretty straightforward.

Later, on March 22, was the commentary about 'paths' and that these paths had been 'wrought' by Asenath. 

Designated as the paths that Asenath wrought.

To 'designate' means to appoint, but it can also mean to 'name' something.  This might be important to keep in mind for somewhere down the road.  This idea of 'names' and what they have to do with paths and destinations.

In any case, squarely between those two dates is the statement I quoted earlier with respect to In-N-Out, and a woman who is said to meet there (I apologize for the review of what I wrote earlier, but I thought that context might be helpful to review).

We are talking about a gathering.  That is the story, keep in mind.  In all of the weirdness, links, connections, strange references or analogies, and anything else I am writing about on this blog, it doesn't have to be any more complicated than knowing that a family is going to be gathered home, to safe and holy places.  

It is in that context, therefore, that I think we should also think about this clue or reference of In-N-Out.  And I am going to tie it to this theme of doors and locations.

So, about In-N-Out.  For those not in the US, In-N-Out is a popular hamburger fast food chain in parts of the country.  If you run into someone from California, there is a greater than zero chance that person may be something of a religious zealot when it comes to the chain.  And I really like their hamburgers, too.  For Spring Break vacations over the last several years, to escape the Minnesota winters we have headed to warm places - either California or Arizona, both of which have In-N-Out's (alas, Minnesota does not have any...).  My daughter likes it so much that she declared she didn't want to go on any vacations where there was not an In-N-Out nearby.

So, like I said, they can develop somewhat of a cult following.

There is an interesting thing about In-N-Out, however, that might be of relevant to us and this story:  Trees.

The iconic symbol of In-N-Out is the palm tree (you will find palm trees all over), and most restaurants will have two palm trees planted outside in such a manner as to form an X.  Something like this:

The cross tree symbol comes up in merchandise, stickers, etc., as well associated with the chain:

And you know what I am going to say now - we have seen this symbol before.  This X formed by the crossed palm trees is reminiscent of the crossed keys that have come up:

Somewhat interesting (for me) as I thought more about this riddle over the last couple of days, is that in my post last week titled "X marks the spot (OR Travelling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy!)", I went a step further and not only thought of the X as a set of keys, but also as a symbol representing both a door and a location.  "X marks the spot" as from when someone would look at a map.  Traditionally, this has been used in movies, cartoons, etc. with buried treasure.  Someone gets an old pirate map, for example, and hidden treasure is located at an X marked clearly on the map.

It seems that this concept is actually what gave the founder of In-N-Out, Harry Snyder, the idea to plant trees in a cross.  He watched a movie called "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World", and in that movie there is hidden treasure located under 4 palm trees that had grown together in such a way as to form a "W".  Interesting, right?  Not an X, but a W.

Anyway, Harry liked the idea, but rather than a W and 4 trees, he wanted just an X formed by two trees.  This happened in the 1970's.  Later in the 1980's, Harry's son would add bible verses to cups, wrappers, etc. (a practice that they still do today, by the way), and the symbol of the crossed palm trees was assumed by some to also have Christian meaning.

As I was just writing the above, I was reminded of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, where Indiana is shown in the opening scene telling an archaeology class that "X never, ever marks the spot", only to later be in a library in Venice, where he is forced to admit, in that instance, that a giant X did indeed mark the spot.  Here is the clip of the library for kicks:

This might not be a complete throwaway clip, either, for what we are talking about, as I just realized right now in watching it as I pulled it up to post it here.  There are actually some pretty interesting themes!  What we see is the  X becoming a hole or passageway that they descend into (Rabbit Hole?).  How was the hole or passageway formed?  3 knocks.  Where else do we see 3 knocks occur in order to gain access to a place or receive passage?  For those who have been through an LDS endowment ceremony in a temple, you would find this at the Veil, where an individual who wishes to enter the Celestial Kingdom (Aman-Valinor) is first introduced with 3 knocks (I believe we can also look to the Masons for this type of symbolism in their rituals as well, if I am not mistaken).

Anyway, that was unexpectedly interesting!  Those are a kind of fun.

So, X marks the spot, and this brings me back to In-N-Out and the riddle and phrase from earlier.

Besides the actual fast food joint, there is another place in which two trees existed, and were even said to 'cross' after a manner.  That place is Valinor.  The Two Trees have been the subject of past posts, for example when we discussed Ungoliant killing them and sucking the light from them.  And though they didn't physically cross in terms of their trunks, it was said that their light would mingle with each other twice each day.

The Count of Time and the Years of the Trees began with the first light of Telperion. One "day" lasted twelve hours. Each Tree, in turn, would give off light for seven hours (waxing to full brightness and then slowly waning again), so that at one hour each of "dawn" and "dusk" soft gold and silver light would be given off together.

   -- Tolkien Gateway, "Two Trees of Valinor"

  

Also of note in the above is that Time, or its counting or reckoning, began with the establishment of these Two Trees (specifically Telperion, related to Galathilion or "Mellow-G" which has come up before).

Thus, it might be apparent where I am going with this, in that the place that In-N-Out is meant to represent in this statement is none other than Valinor.  This is the X.  Further, the riddle of a doorway and its connection to In-N-Out I think further supports this notion that there is a doorway or passageway that leads to this place.  The In vs. Out aspect also might support this Black vs. White, or opposing characteristics of this doorway depending on what side of if that you find yourself.

The "she" mentioned in the phrase (as the one who will meet), I believe is Eowyn.  So, we again have this reference to Eowyn meeting someone in Tirion, with that someone being Faramir.  The "Time" concept of the Trees is interesting, and it might also mean that Eowyn will be meeting in "Time" as well, having been in Eru-Place prior and as such potentially sitting outside of or in a different relationship with Time that we currently experience (a notion that might be supported by that dream I recorded of viewing Time all at one time, found here).  This last point is not really understandable (by me at least) so I just throw it out there for now.

To summarize, then, we still have the basic story elements of Tirion (Valinor) as the primary X or the gathering place (X marks the spot of a hidden treasure).  There is also a doorway or passageway required to get there.  A door (at least this door) requires a key, as well as an authorized doorman-usher who holds that key.

I am not sure anything 'new' necessarily in this post, but just interesting to again see symbols and references that would seem to support or reinforce some of these story themes that have come up in these posts.  Meaning, I feel there is something to the direction we have gone with this thinking.  So X marks the spot at In-N-Out (Valinor), apparently.

Another interesting thing to call out:

In his post "A cross between two antlers, and the Liahona spindles", William Tychonievich mentions seeing a Stag with a cross between his antlers sitting within a bomb at  restaurant he had been at.  I obviously see a story in this that maybe others don't, and left  portion of that story in his comment section.  Here is what I said, after bringing up stags as having to do with doorways, as CS Lewis had the White Stag lead the Pevensies back through the wardrobe:

In other words, following a Stag, much like the White Rabbit, might get you to where you need to go. You may not need to know where the X is, just follow the one who does (they might even have a liahona in their possession).

This was meant to be a not-too-obtuse reference to the role of Faramir as the White Rabbit.  In my story, Faramir leads a group of people back home - to Tirion-Valinor, which I have just used In-N-Out to symbolize.


So, it was pretty funny to go back and read William make a point that the restaurant he was at served no hot dogs, but they definitely served burgers. He said this as a play on words for the name of Francis Berger, whose blog (which includes both a post with a reference to crossed keys, and a stag with a cross in his blog art) he had referenced (i.e., Francis Berger = Frank Burger). Here is what he wrote:

What such a symbol could mean on a restaurant wall, I had no idea. (They don't even have franks on the menu, though they do sell burgers.)

That phrase could be said, very accurately, of In-N-Out as well. Just a thought I had.

And I was going to end there, but I am going to actually include the other Indiana Jones clip as well.  This is set earlier in the movie, and would be the part I mentioned where Indiana Jones is telling his class that X never marks the spot.  I am including it because I thought it was relevant for our story here.  I was going to list out a few things I noticed and why I thought interesting, but maybe you can check it out for yourself and see what you take away from his monologue.

I will just note that much of his experience over the remainder of the movie will challenge his assumptions, sometimes quite literally with the X marking the spot in the library.