33: THE MAGIC NUMBER

“Since the most ancient of times numbers and numerology have been believed to conceal secrets and messages. For some, numbers have very special significance, with the ability to conceal true meaning from all but the initiated. To some, certain numbers can convey that something of particular importance lies within the text under their study. Such numbers needn’t even be written to convey the presence of a hidden code within a sentence or paragraph, only that the sum of letters included adds up to a particular number.
No number holds more esoteric significance than “33.” The number three is significant in all major religions. There is a Trinity for Christians, and a Triple Goddess for the ancients.”

“In the written words attributed to Shakespeare, to Francis Bacon, to Spenser, Dante, and others we can find hidden code words and paragraphs that use this number to alert the initiated reader that something important is connected.
In the works attributed to Shakespeare there are many phrases and passages referencing the number 33. Julius Caesar is stabbed 33 times. The body of work shows a mastery of numerology. The number 33 reflects the interface of the familiar world with the higher spiritual realm. In Hamlet, the Ghost is represented in the first scene with an entrance described in a sentence with 33 characters. And Horatio addresses the ghost in 33 characters as he leaves. “Stay: Speake, speake, I charge thee, speake.” In Julius Caesar, the ghost of Caesar visits Brutus in a passage that starts with a 33-character sentence, “That shapes this monstrous apparition.” Brutus recovers from the shock and addresses the ghost in a 33-word sentence.”

“From Iraq through Phoenicia to Phoenix Arizona, whether by design or coincidence, the 33rd parallel passes through some very significant places.
The ancient city of Babylon was very near the 33rd-degree latitude line while modern Baghdad is on the 33rd parallel. This area was once thought to be the Garden of Eden. Heading west, the line passes through Damascus, Beirut, and onto two Templar castles one exactly on the 33rd latitude the other at 32.71. The light of the sky is embodied by the Sun with the solar year divided by the sun’s cycle of 11.06 years, equaling 33. The Sun, defined as a circumference of 360 degrees divided by 11, equals 32.72.”

Crossing the ocean, the 33rd parallel brings us to Charleston, South Carolina. This city is the original site of Scottish Rite masonry in U.S. Charleston’s Fort Sumter is the location of the first shot fired in the Civil War as that state succeeded from the Union.
Coincidence or not, Dallas, Texas, was of course where President Kennedy was assassinated. Not only is it on the 33rd parallel, but also the date of 11/22 adds up to 33. During Kennedy’s administration Papa Doc Duvalier of Haiti was upset because aid from the U.S. was cut off. He claimed to put a curse on JFK, which caused his death on the date of those powerful numbers.
While writers on this subject often include Roswell, New Mexico, we’ll go on to Phoenix, Arizona. This was once the center of the Hohokam culture. The largest site, known as Snaketown, was only five miles from the 33rd parallel and the observatory called Casa Grande is five miles from the line as well. Here this advanced ancient culture built 500 miles of canals irrigating 25,000 acres.”

“Despite the reputation given to such beliefs by organized religion, science in modern times has come to understand the concept of a body clock, the effect of the lunar cycle on animals, and most likely people, and the reality of circadian cycles. Ancients might have known this as well. There are 33 vertebrae in the spine. In India, it is believed a vital energy is needed to awaken the spiritual energy located at the base of the spine. This coiled-up energy is known as Kundalini, and through Yoga energy it ascends to the brain and beyond. Both Hindu and Tantric arts seek this awakening.”

“The spinal column is often referred to as Jacob’s ladder, or the Serpent. It is also compared to the caduceus symbol of Mercury, Thoth, and medicine. Did the ancients also know there were 33 turns in a complete sequence of DNA? Could the Caduceus symbolize the two intertwining snakes apparently reflected in the 33-sequence, double helix DNA ascending a vertical pole, which could be the 33-vertebrae spine?”

“When the two threes are put together facing each other they offer a design that is said to represent the ancient Hermetic maxim  ‘as above, so below.’ ”

 “The heavens mirror the earth; the spirit reflects humankind.”

Photo Narrative featuring Writer Royal Young on location in Great Neck, New York

Excerpts from the article, “33: The Magic Number, Why Is This Number So Important To So Many?” by Steven Sora, Atlantis Rising magazine, March/April 2015 Issue #110

https://atlantisrisingmagazine.com/article/33-the-magic-number/

Photographs by Michelle Gemma

 

 

last quarter moon

The LAST QUARTER MOON occurs on Tuesday, October 2, 2018, at 5:45 AM EDT.

On Tuesday morning, the Last Quarter Moon is exact, when the Sun in Libra squares the Moon in Cancer.

“The Last Quarter Moon phase points to some sort of crisis of consciousness. After basking in the awareness symbolized by the full light of the Moon at the time of last week’s Full Moon, we disperse our knowledge and come to a point when we need to sort out what works for us–and what doesn’t–in preparation for next week’s New Moon, when something new is born once again. This is not the best time to start a major project, as the decreasing light of the Moon symbolizes a descent into unconsciousness. It’s time to begin finishing up the details of that which was conceived at the last New Moon. What revelations did you have last week? What did they mean for you? What can be done now?”
https://cafeastrology.com/thisweekinastrology.html
Kodak 5063 Tri-X film
Photograph by Michelle Gemma

Seventeen Seconds

1.   “A Reflection”
2.   “Play for Today”
3.   “Secrets”
4.   “In Your House”
5.   “Three”
6.   “The Final Sound”
7.   “A Forest”
8.   “M”
9.   “At Night”
10.   “Seventeen Seconds”

Photo Narrative
“Seventeen Seconds”
featuring Model: Titus Abad
all Photographs by Michelle Gemma
Eolia Mansion at Harkness Park, Waterford,  CT  USA
Photo Captions  from the album “Seventeen Seconds” by the Cure (1980) Fiction Records
I picked up this album in 1992 at the Heathrow Airport in London on a trip with my friend Matthew Hannan, on our way back from a visit to Megen Cox in Scotland.
An important trip as I brought a camera along and shot my very first roll of film, almost completely damaged by the airport x-ray. But the remaining frames, developed with assistance by Matthew Mclaughlin at the first Greenman Collective at Alice Court in Pawcatuck, Connecticut, led to the cover shot for Green, the Red Beard, a book of poems by Hannan, on Hozomeen Press.  Full Circle, here we are, together again at PortFire.

“There is a Light that never goes out”

SCRIPT  FOR  MICHELLE  GEMMA  PHOTOSHOOT

featuring Model: Alycia delosSantos   as my Leo for the forthcoming series: “Personal Universe” (an astrological study of the zodiac featuring twelve models portraying their sign)
today’s locations: House of 1833 in Old Mystic  and the Mystic Hilton in Mystic

“There is a Light that never goes out”

3 PM: arrive at the House of 1833:

You are my Leo goddess queen, and you are invited to the Mansion for a party and you are the honored guest.

We are going to get you dressed up in a fur coat ; in a beautiful vintage backless burgundy dress and you’re ready!

 

You’re ready for the honor,  for the party ; to celebrate and be celebrated!

You show up to the Mansion as expected: you stalk around waiting for it:: you go room and room and it’s empty:

no one is there: the fireplace is not lit.

You change outfits hopeful that the party is about to start:

we were just a little premature:: more stalking; as in leonine prowess::: “what is going on?”


— Nothing


So we go to the hotel for the party:

4 PM: arrive at The Mystic Hilton
There are lights there are people: there is a fire:::

 

You can dance
You can see people and be a lioness.
I keep thinking of the Smiths lyric:
“Take me out tonight
Where there’s music and there’s people
Who are young and alive
Driving in your car
I never never want to go home
Because I haven’t got one anymore”
So this is the triumphant realization of our arrival at the hotel:: we are seeing people and we are happy and at peace!

 

 

 

You have fun then at the end we wrap you in velvet swaths and you retreat to your den to relax and to dream:::::

“There is a Light that never goes out”
all Photographs by Michelle Gemma

Long Day’s Journey Into Night

 

“The fog was where I wanted to be.”
“Halfway down the path you can’t see this house. You’d never know it was here.”
“Or any of the other places down the avenue. I couldn’t see but a few feet ahead.”
“I didn’t meet a soul.”
“Everything looked and sounded unreal. Nothing was what it is.”
“That’s what I wanted—to be alone with myself in another world where truth is untrue and life can hide from itself.”
“Out beyond the harbor, where the road runs along the beach, I even lost the feeling of being on land.”
“The fog and the sea seemed part of each other. It was like walking on the bottom of the sea.”
“As if I had drowned long ago.”
“As if I was the ghost belonging to the fog, and the fog was the ghost of the sea. It felt damned peaceful to be nothing more than a ghost within a ghost.”

featuring Model: Kathryn O’Reilly
all photographs by Michelle Gemma
Photo Shoot for Aquarius:
Personal Universe series
24   August  2018
Bluff Point,  CT  USA
Eve of the Full Moon
script:  Eugene O’Neill, Long Day’s Journey Into Night excerpt:
https://michellegemmaphotography.com/
https://michellegemmaphotography.wordpress.com/

The Balance of Power

The woman is perfected.
Her dead
Body wears the smile of accomplishment,
The illusion of a Greek necessity
Flows in the scrolls of her toga,
Her bare
Feet seem to be saying:
We have come so far, it is over.
Each dead child coiled, a white serpent,
One at each little
Pitcher of milk, now empty.
She has folded
Them back into her body as petals
Of a rose close when the garden
Stiffens and odors bleed
From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower.
The moon has nothing to be sad about,
Staring from her hood of bone.
She is used to this sort of thing.
Her blacks crackle and drag.

 

a new photo narrative featuring Model: Jane Alice
as my LIBRA
for the new series: Personal Universe, an astrological study starring the model stable of Michelle Gemma (2017-2018)
Photograph by Michelle  Gemma
27 July 2018
Stonington Boro, CT  USA
Full Moon Lunar Eclipse

https://michellegemmaphotography.com/
https://michellegemmaphotography.wordpress.com/

featuring the Poem:
Edge      by      SYLVIA PLATH

 

 

 

 

“Return From The Sea”

The Captain has been on a long sea voyage to find his fortune, having left behind his beloved.
He has anxiously awaited his return home.
He knows that his beloved has paced away many nights at the Mansion up in the Widows Walk, craning a look through the telescope: hoping to see a ship , any ship, any movement.
Movement is life.
The sea has movement but it can betray the visible truth because there is so much movement in the sea.
The sea waves back at you, is hopeful.
The Captain has arrived at the Mansion.
He enters each room and looks around.
Then he walks upstairs to get a better look. The Widows Walk has the best view. Plus there is a telescope: he will find her…

“Return From The Sea”
a new photo narrative starring Writer: Royal Young
Text and Photographs by Michelle Gemma
25 June 2018
Spicer Mansion
15 Elm Street, Mystic, CT  USA