At the end of an old street named Phan Chu Trinh, in the ancient city of Hội An, there is a very old banyan tree.  This banyan tree held a secret for many many years, until one day, that secret was revealed.  The banyan tree had, at the foot of its trunk, a miếu (a tiny brick shrine made of stone).

This shrine held within its protective shelter, a stone tablet roughly around three feet tall, two feet wide, and about 6 inches in width.  Its face was engraved with many characters, but the engravings are faded and difficult to read.

At first, the brick shrine looked to have been erected in an open area, but then over the centuries, a banyan tree grew near it.  after countless years, the tree grew around the shrine and eventually encapsulated it.

It was so well-hidden that even the elderly living around the area confessed that although they knew of its existence, they had actually never remembered seeing it completely revealed, until around 1998, when the local government sent an arborist to cut back the roots and trunk of the tree to reveal the shrine.

The stone tablet had words on it, but much of it was worn and difficult to make out.  Of the few words that could be read, nobody knew what it meant, so I did what any taobabe with a modicum of an artistic bent would do.

I created a clear layer above the tablet and I retraced what I could see with white so it would be a bit clearer.  Since I am illiterate in Chữ Nôm, I apologize if my tracing is incorrect in any way.  I am not able to determine if my strokes are in the correct order so that the words make sense.

This is the result of my tracing:

Continue reading “Star Chart Stone Shrine of Hội An”

(Continued from The Original Asian Zodiac 2: The Moon Calendar)

Lunar Calendar

Over 100 years ago, Albert Einstein said time was a relative construct of mankind.  Certainly, if we talk about a calendar system, that is the truth.  The current Asian Calendar (I call it Asian because it is spread throughout the Asian continent) used to be purely a lunar calendar, which is an astronomical calendar, as opposed to a mathematically derived calendar, such as the Gregorian calendar.  Let me give you an example.

In the Gregorian calendar, January, March, May, July, August, October, and December have 31 days.  These months will always have 31 days no matter what happens in the skies, because the Gregorian calendar is mathematically derived and insists on 31 days for these months.  It is not based on the appearance (or lack thereof) of the moon.

This is not the case for the lunar calendar.  A month may have 29 or 30 days in different years, and the difference depends on the motion of the true Moon, which is highly irregular…to say the least.

Continue reading “The Original Asian Zodiac 3: The Math…It’s Always the Math”

Last time I touched upon the night sky, I spoke about the Vietnamese constellations and the various shapes that we saw when we looked up into the sky.  Today, I’m going to switch back to more familiar ground, the western constellations that we are familiar with, to address a situation that has been unfolding at a fast clip. The sudden fading of Betelgeuse I am … Continue reading Orion’s Fall

It’s very difficult to determine the age of a woman.  She can look 20 and be 40.  Conversely, she can look 60 and be 40.  Given this huge age discrepancy, how would one go about the process of deducing a woman’s real age? Well, one way to make that educated guess is to look at the friends she hangs out with.  If she is in a … Continue reading Whatchamacallit Wanderer

(Continued from Intergalactic Voyage Extraordinaire) So!  You’ve managed to snag a seat on a voyage into the cosmos.  Congratulations! After the first few days of excitement, however, you will find that things will have settled down to a dull roar.  The daily and nightly routine, perfectly maintained by the ship’s crew as a means to allow for the human body to adjust to the fact … Continue reading Through the Endless Void

Ever since we found out about Trappist-1 and her seven dwarves, my bags have been packed and ready to go!  Heck, not one, or two, or even three brand new worlds to save and introduce freedom to, but SEVEN of them! We’ve got seven flags on seven poles to stick into each and every one of those blasted spheres.  If they don’t stay upright, we … Continue reading Intergalactic Voyage Extraordinaire

Just a quick recap of today’s Schumann Rez, and it looks  as if it rocked off the chart.  I mean, look at that white streak that just jumped into uncharted territory.  Holy cow! I wonder what that means. Everything seems to be quiet on my end, but that doesn’t mean that nothing untoward is occurring elsewhere in the world.  A quick check on the traditional … Continue reading Holy Cow!

There are days when I feel normal, and there are days when I feel out-of-sorts, even though I am one of those people who do frequent and regular meditations. I can just imagine how it is for those who don’t meditate at all, and are unaware of other methods to discharge negative energies and ground themselves.  I have always chalked it up to just being … Continue reading Goddess of Frequency 5: Force Shield