Dog Days of Summer 🔥 Dragon Letter 🐉 # 58

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(Thank you Florence and the Machine for the perfect song for this post (How Florence Welch was inspired to write Dog Days Are Over)

Week 2 of Low-Dose Naltrexone in the books. I’m feeling so much better and I also know this is a slow process. I’m grateful for the energy I’m starting to feel.

If you follow any spiritual accounts on social media, you’ve probably seen posts about the Lion’s Gate. It’s that time of the year.

Someone on Threads said if they saw another post about Lion’s gate they would block that person because Lion’s Gate is appropriation of ancient Egyptian closed practice.

And yet, that we are reaching and remembering that Egyptians had a practice of observing the helical rising of Sirius with the Sun at the hottest point of the year to celebrate the return of the rains to the Nile is actually quite apropos to this time.

What seasonal celebrations and rituals help you to connect with the cycles?

When I lived in Nicaragua I learned about how the Dept. of Meterology at the Nicaraguan Inst. of Territorial Studies uses the Canicula, what we know as the dog days of summer, to forecast heat and rains there.

The word origin of Canicula is connected to Sirius, the (canine) dog star of the constellation Canis Major rising after the constellation of Orion in the Northern hemisphere. This year the Canicula is Mon, Jul 3, 2023 – Fri, Aug 11, 2023.

Growing up I always watched for the dog star because Sirius rising coincided with my birthday in December. Orion’s appearance as the flute player — not the bow hunter (my hippie, star-gazing, vegetarian step-dad was a pacifist) is why I chose to play the flute in 4th grade, that and that the flute players in band were all the popular girls who I longed to be (because none of those girls were bullied).

Apparently, playing the flute doesn’t not make one popular. I have yet to figure out what that secret sauce is.

And while the rising of Sirius and the dog days of summer may or may not impact our spiritual ascension, I do think the grasping for meaning during the hottest summer in human recorded history is telling.

A couple of years after learning to origin of the dog days of summer, I watched the Connected tv series on Netflix. In the episode Dust, I discovered the Saharan dust storms typically arrive in Central America during the Canicula.

But what fascinated me is that the Saharan dust can stop hurricanes in their tracks. This was significant because Nicaragua has been hit by hurricanes and strong weather from the storms that weren’t stopped by dust. When you live in a well-worn hurricane path, dust matters.

In the Connected series episode Clouds I was forever left scarred by the idea that clouds could disappear due to climate chaos. “The extinction of a cloud. It feels like we’re about to break the sky,” lamented Latif Nasser

I’ve been studying climate change since the mid 1990s. I was particularly keen to understand the Ocean conveyor belt (aka Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation AMOC). So when I saw the reports of the highest surface temperature in the Atlantic that we know of to date and the claims that our projections of the AMOC collapse were incorrect, my spider senses were awakened.

The new projections put a collapse as soon as 2025, but more likely 2057. Is A Mega Ocean Current About to Shut Down?

But, when you combine this data with observations that the Saharan dust is reducing which helps feed Atlantic plankton and thereby sinks carbon, as well as shades Earth, a more near term collapse is plausible.

With the increase in permafrost melt and subsequent C02 release, it could be if C02 doubles to 800ppm the heat impact on cloud formation will reach the point of no return. But if other collapses like the AMOC or the reduction of Sahara dust clouds happen sooner, this could spell the demise of clouds too. We are currently at 423ppm today according to Daily CO2.

When I moved to Oaxaca and discovered the local Indigenous names were linked with clouds and rain (Mixetec Ñuu Savi — people of the rain — and Zapoteco Ben’Zaa — people of the clouds), I got goosebumps and got curious. They too, have annual practices to welcome the rains.

Human impact has changed the geological structure of the planet as well Earth’s tilt.

“It’s been proposed by some geologists that we are now living in the Anthropocene—a new geological epoch in which human activity has become the dominant influence on the world’s climate and environment.”

“Professor Andrew Cundy, chair in environmental radiochemistry at the University of Southampton and member of the Anthropocene Working Group, says, “The presence of plutonium gives us a stark indicator of when humanity became such a dominant force that it could leave a unique global ‘fingerprint’ on our planet.

“In nature, plutonium is only present in trace amounts. But in the early-1950s, when the first hydrogen bomb tests took place, we see an unprecedented increase and then spike in the levels of plutonium in core samples from around the world. We then see a decline in plutonium from the mid-1960s onwards when the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty came into effect.”

And yet, Barbie and Oppenheimer continue indigenous erasure in their films.

But the human extraction of water from aquifers has lead to planet weight shift. “The net water lost from underground reservoirs between 1993 and 2010 is estimated to be more than 2 trillion tons. That has caused the geographic North Pole to shift at a speed of 4.36 centimetres per year, researchers have calculated. The results appeared on 15 June in Geophysical Research Letters.” [Rampant Groundwater Pumping Has Changed the Tilt of Earth’s Axis]

Yet we’re all so exhausted by human fuckery on the planet that the UAP disclosure this week brought memes of indifference to alien craft and biologics being withheld from US Defense Dept.

This confluence of information this week reminded me of my colleague — former Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, former member of the Science and Technology Committee in Congress — who was was asked to sit on a panel to hear evidence of UAPs in a congressional committee style hearing in 2013.

In concluding remarks retired Minister of Canadian Defense Paul Hellyer spoke about nuclear fallout concerns from within the galaxy from his book (advise from the extraterrestrials in [Light at the End of the Tunnel: A Survival Plan for the Human Species]: [UFOs – Citizen Hearing Closing Remarks]

This article talks about how nuclear explosions could be seen on other nearby planets. But really, I think we had it backwards. [Alien Nuclear Wars Might Be Visible From Earth]

And that these government discussions don’t like to use the word alien, makes me think it’s still too closely associated with my brown siblings trying to survive border crossings.

Whether Hellyer actually listened to real aliens advise humanity on changing our ways isn’t the point. What matters is we have crossed threshold upon threshold of tipping points and we are seeing mass migrations and multiple once-in-a-century events that show us Earth is transitioning.

What matters is whether you listen when the dots have been connected for you because you don’t want to see.

This “wet” season was a month late. I spent weeks cooling my body with ice packs at night because we live without air-conditioning on purpose. I cannot regulate my own body temperature. I chose to live places that I hoped would be cool enough in the heat waves because I won’t leave my survival up to an old, overworked power grid.

During the dry heat wave with temps above 100F, I worried that I might not see real rain again. I still feel waves of relief every time it rains.

What are you holding dearly during this transition?

Whether you practice an ancient celebration of the return of rains to Nile or your own practice of gratitude for the clouds and rain, what matters is that we celebrate and fight the causes of these human-created atrocities.

None of us will escape it now… unless you believe you can jump timelines or that the aliens will save us.

What matters is how we relate with others (human and non-human) in the time that we have left.

TEN TIPS AND POINTERS FOR BEFRIENDING TIME

1. Rest in the breath while letting go of all thoughts, concerns, plans, worries, and preoccupations.

2. Be mindful of the physical sensations you feel right now.

3. Feel the good earth beneath your feet or the seat that cradles you.

4. Chant a mantra or sacred phrase again and again, with pure, undivided concentration and focus.

5. Make eye contact with another being, and feel compassion and loving-kindness for whomever you are with.

6. Smile at someone, hug someone, or help someone

7. Go outside and make contact with nature through the sky, clouds, trees, a flower, a body of water, the earth between your fingers, or any other manifestation of the magnificent natural world.

8. Read sacred worlds from the world’s wisdom traditions and scriptures.

9. Take a break, a sacred pause, an “honorable rest”—whether for Sabbath or just for an hour or two—at least once a week if not every day.

10. Listen to music, sing, dance, pray, and play.

Now breathe, smile, and relax…You have time.

~ from Buddha Standard Time: Awakening to the Infinite Possibilities of Now by Lama Surya Das

Stay wild, love fiercely. Your presence is golden.

With stardust and celestial love ✨🪐💫

xo Ixchel

P.S. Citing is a feminist and decolonial power move (/ht to Kelly Diels for making that an anthem). If you’ve gained insights and shifts from my work, please remember to cite me and share Dragon 🐉 Letters with a friend. Not citing is a form of epistemicide.

I’m on Threads (where I’m sharing my favorite TikToks and links over there too)!

Ways to work with me…

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