Red-emption, The Great Wave, The Final Countdown, and Astronauts in the Ocean

The Wright family was spread out over a few different places over the last several days.  My wife had taken my oldest son out of town (out of the country, actually) for some hockey-related activities.  My two younger kids really love Wisconsin Dells, the self-proclaimed "Waterpark Capital of the World", which is only a few hours away from our house, so I took them there for a few days over a long weekend.

Anyway, we all got home yesterday afternoon.  Here are a few odds and ends - just lumping them into one post ...

Red-emption

While out in the Dells, I published a brief post with my guess on William Tychonievich's dream about a red book.  I was just going to do a short comment on his blog, but my mind was working on some things so I wanted to have it here as well.  In that post, titled "Unhenned:  A book about Israel", I made reference to the color 'red' as it was used in Words of Them Which Have Slumbered and how it seemed to tie very well to this notion or guess of William's Book involving Israel (the 'unhenned').  I then made specific mention of a play on words around redemption:

And then all sorts of examples of red are given, ending with a play on words even regarding the redemption (red-emption) of Israel.

I wrote that post and the mention of red-emption on July 8th, so Monday.  We got back home yesterday afternoon on Tuesday, and then this morning, the 10th, I walked into the kitchen and noticed a hockey magazine laying very prominently on the counter, closed so it was just the cover that I saw.  My oldest son must have put it there after getting back home, or pulled it out of a pile somewhere and had been reading it early this morning since he was wide awake due to the jet lag.  Anyway, here is the magazine cover:

The Florida Panthers recently won the Stanley Cup, and here we have our Red-emption word play front and center announcing this.

The player is holding the Stanley Cup, and I thought this was also a fitting thing to have here with Redemption.  William dreamed of a Ruby (which is Red) being lowered into a Cup (though the cup was gold in his dream, while the Stanley Cup is silver).  I have guessed that this Ruby may represent the Sawtooth Stone, and have gone so far based on other images, dreams, and symbols on my end to guess that this Stone is actually Red in color, not just figuratively 'red' in terms of part of the story it tells.

This all fits well with the name of the Stanley Cup, since the Stone itself was found at Williams Peak, with Stanley, Idaho being the gateway or town that you would use to access the hike to that Peak.  I have also highlighted in the past that the name Stanley means "Stony Field", with Stan itself meaning "Stone".

The Great Wave

So, we've been out to Wisconsin Dells a few times before, and when we go out we stay at the same resort each time.  A place called Glacier Canyon Lodge at the Wilderness Resort.

My kids really like their wave pool, so we were hanging out there early in the evening of that first night we got there (July 7th).  As I was in the wave pool with my kids, I looked up and realized that the wave pool we were playing in was called "The Great Wave".  I knew this before in the sense that it wasn't like suddenly I was aware of its name, but just that it struck me at that time that this was the same description commonly used for the Wave that buried Numenor.   I have Numenor on my mind these days, so I guess this was a natural connection to make.

It is this term that Faramir uses in describing the wave to Eowyn at the Houses of Healing.  Actually, he uses the phrase "Great dark wave":

"It reminds me of Numenor," said Faramir, and wondered to hear himself speak.

"Of Numenor?" said Eowyn.

"Yes," said Faramir, "of the land of Westernesse that foundered, and of the great dark wave climbing over green lands and above the hills, and coming on, darkness inescapable.  I often dream of it."

It is interesting that it was dark storm clouds coming over the distant mountains around Mordor  - something in the sky above - that reminded Faramir of this Wave.

In any case, as I looked at this sign some interesting things stood out to me.  Here is the picture:

The wave itself looks like it is set to completely submerge what looks to some flowers and plants.  I looked at it and saw a representation of Numenor about to be covered by this wave.

Strangely, there is a completely black star that is on the left hand side of the oncoming wave.  I am not sure why it is there in terms of why the artist thought to put that star there.  For me, though, this may be another callout to Numenor, which was said to be both in the shape of a 5-pointed star, as well as being populated by the "Dark Men" who would go West in their assault on Heaven, at least from my own words (or my interpretation of those words).  My own view is the star-shaped nature or description may have been figurative or clue that Numenor was actually among the stars, or would have been seen as such (meaning a celestial body) by those on Middle-earth.  And here we have that dark star sitting in the heart of the wave.

Or that Dark Star is representative of Faramir's dream - with its symbolism of darkness coming on and drowning the the green lands as represented by those plants and flowers in the image.

In addition, my view is that the wave that buried Numenor still surrounds that world, and I've used Jupiter's Moon of Europa as an example or a world surrounded by water and ice - more on this in a second.

Lastly, we see that a Red Fox is coolly riding over this wave.  Again, I am not sure why there is a fox here in terms of the animal of choice to be riding a wave?  Anyway, for our purposes, the Red Fox, as a predator, has come up before on this blog, in one specific instance I used the example of needing to shoot a fox who was setting up shop next to my chickens.  In that example, I mentioned that I went ahead an literally skinned the fox.

I closed that post in suggesting that perhaps bagging that red fox was a good omen, in saying this:

Maybe a good omen, and tables turning at some point on a Predator?   A red fox is far from being a camouflaged Chameleon, so perhaps disguises and the ability to blend in will go away, and we will see it and them for what they are.

First, the image of the fox is commonly seen as a symbol of Satan, for a few reasons I guess.  This ties very well to the Numenorean story and this image of the fox riding the wave.  Sauron was the 'Satan' of his day in Middle-earth:  the leader of Evil.  He came to Numenor as a Chameleon, completely disguising his intentions as well as his actual physical form in plotting and executing the overthrow of Numenor.  His physical appearance was described as 'fair'.

However, just like my fox, Sauron was 'skinned' in the aftermath of the Great Wave, losing his previous ability to adopt a fair form to hide his evil nature. 

Thus, I thought it relevant that this Red Fox is riding this wave, thinking he is so cool with what is going down.  Of course, Sauron was surprised when he himself was also destroyed and skinned of his form, so I think if you fast-forward this still image above the wave pool, the Red Fox isn't looking so cool atop that wave.

And, looking forward, my own view is that the Red Fox of our day is Saruman, having stepped into the void of Sauron's defeat long ago in our world, and remaining in that spot ever since.  Even more sinister than the Evil Lords of old, because he himself remains without any physical form at all, having figured out perhaps that this is the best disguise of all.  My view (and hope) is that this disguise is also revealed in its own way in our day, and we can see our Enemy clearly.

The Final Countdown

Sauron's ultimate success in the Second Age, and a damage that has not yet been repaired, was the destruction of the Straight Road as a highway for Beings to return Home.  While I am still sorting through details and storylines in my own mind, this seems important, as does the need to repair this breaking.  In order to return Souls home, and to evacuate this world (for a time), a Highway in the Great Deep must be built or rise up again, and Numenor is an important part of this.  It must come back, for reasons that aren't completely clear in my mind right now.

Anyway, I mentioned in a previous post that my son became very attached to The Final Countdown song.  This song has to do with people saying farewell to Earth, and travelling out among the stars.  It was the process of writing this post just now, in referencing my earlier example of the moon Europa as an example of the potential fate of Numenor, that I realized that the band that sings that song is called Europe.

Funny.

Astronaut in the Ocean

And finally we come to what is likely a significant parenting fail on my part.

The day before we left for Wisconsin Dells, I took the kids to the store to pick out some snacks and treats for the trip.  While driving there, my son initially made the standard request right now for me to play "The Final Countdown".  I say 'initially', because he quickly corrected himself, and said "No!  Actually I want to listen to..." and then started singing some lyrics to a song I had never heard of.  My daughter heard what he was singing though, and said "Oh!  Astronaut in the Ocean!  Yeah, let's listen to that one!"

I found it and started playing it.  From the very first beats, my thought was that this song doesn't seem like it is going to be appropriate for an 8 year-old.  It just seemed like it was going to have explicit language all over the place.  As it turns out, we luckily landed on the clean version on Spotify as I was trying to sort this all out, so no inappropriate language or situations.  There is definitely a version that has a few more choice words.

So, my natural question was where in the world have they heard this song before?  My son said he heard it on one of the iPad games he had been playing.  So there is likely my parenting fail.  My daughter insists that she has only heard the Kidz Bop version.  I am not sure where the truth lies here.  I may need to investigate some more....

In any case, the song was striking for the title alone to me.  Part of my story, as even mentioned in this post, is based on Oceans, Great Waters, Seas, etc. in various stories as actually being references to Outer Space.  And here we had mention of an Astronaut being in the Ocean.  Seemed to line up pretty nicely.

Here is the song in case anyone wants to listen.  The official music video even ends with Neil Armstrong's first step on the Moon, which has come up before as well in this overall story arc: