Merging Memes: Smoke Signals and Honey Bees

One of my earliest posts (back in February) was about Smoke Signals. In it, we began looking more closely at the synchronistic implications of the Norway Spiral and the ramifications a shut down internet would have on the spreading of information. Obviously, smoke signals were a method of communication in and of themselves. But, I have begun to see non-man-made smoke signals as correlating to communication as a whole.

If you're reading this blog, you're probably on a quest for truth (be it spiritual, political, self-actualizing, whatever). I would wager a guess that the internet, the proliferation of information and the access to instant communication has benefited you on your way.

So, if there's anything to this connection between smoke signals and our modern society's electronic interface, we should look closer. Because there was a BIG smoke signal that started last week in Iceland. And it shut down modern man's system of metallic air ships. Or perhaps you hadn't heard.

Now we have the head of the CIA coming out this week and warning of a cyber-attack in very loaded terms when addressing a group of 300.

Central Intelligence Agency director Leon Panetta told 300 Sacramento Metro Chamber Cap-to-Cap delegates that the next “Pearl Harbor” is likely to be an attack on the United States’ power, financial, military and other Internet systems.“Cyber terrorism” is a new area of concern for the CIA, Panetta said. The United States faces thousands of cyber attacks daily on its Internet networks. The attacks are originating in Russia, China, Iran and from even hackers....“The next Pearl Harbor is likely to be a cyber attacking going after our grid…and that can literally cripple this country,” Panetta said. “This is a whole new area of threat.”

Funny, I thought they already had their "New Pearl Harbor." Think they wouldn't do it again?

The name of the photographer who snapped that volcano shot (on the 17th) is Lucas Jackson. (Sort of reminds me of the band Luscious Jackson). Also funny that RedIce just posted an interview with Lucus (who we had talked about in the first Smoke Signals post) to follow up on his view of the reoccurring spiral shape as portent of coming cosmic calamity. On a more positive note, it seems smoke is also on the minds of the SyncWhole crew.

Wow, I hadn't thought about that band in years, but I just searched them, knowing there had to be a sync since they popped into my head. What do you think was the name of the last Luscious Jackson album? Wouldn't you know it:

Thank you universe. That's a perfect segue into the next part of this. In the post "Lady Gaga and The Killer Bees" we first looked at the use of honey as poison and the bee as symbol of femme fetale. And we even connected it to the double "M."

After that post, I saw an ad for this book on the subway:

Not only is the author's name Mary B. Morrison, writing under the name HoneyB, but her book is called Married on Mondays. Bees and Ms. Interesting.

I pointed out in that other post that I believe there is a positive and negative side to all of these patterns (as there is to all of life) and that my girlfriend's name, Melissa, comes from the Greek and means "Honey Bee." What I didn't know until recently, is that my mom's name, Deborah, comes from the Hebrew and also means "Honey Bee." Assuming there's no unintended underlying Oedipal weirdness, I think that's pretty cool. Two very positive women in my life who can show me the good side to this meme.

Plus, BM is also medical shorthand for "bowel movement," and those are pretty nice too. :)

Mostly kidding; sorry ladies.

Seriously though, there are many positive aspects to the honey bee thing.

However, other day I was on the phone with my friend Rammer (an awesome artist, go check him out) and he had just seen the movie Kick Ass. Apparently, in this movie the characters are talking about wanting Count Chocula cereal, but can't find it and end up with a HoneyBee cereal. Then, while the kid's mom is in the middle of eating a bowl of her HoneyBee Cereal, she has a brain aneurysm and dies! What is with this repeated theme of poison honey?!?!?

I had a paranoid little thought later that night while making dinner. I looked at the honey I was adding to the stir-fry veggies and rice (ooh so yummy you missed it) and thought: There's been a lot of talk over the last few years about "colony collapse syndrome" and "disappearing bees." What if there's something wrong with the bees and it's going to carry over into the honey? What if the repeated theme of bees and death are a kind of smoke signal?

Or, what if all the reoccurring Osiris symbolism (you know the god of grain and death) is a synchronistic confirmation of all our worst fears about GMO foods and/or the Kissinger/U.N. "food as weapon" doctrine. Food for thought.

Rammer also informed me that a debate broke out between the folks at grinding.be and VigilantCitizen. Now I don't want to get between the transhumanists and the ultra-religious as they fight - perhaps the truth is somewhere between their two camps. Whatever. What they were fighting over was the meaning of the Black Eyed Peas song "Imma Be." Rather, they were bickering over the video.

But, however you wish to interpret the video, it's no stretch to realize that, in the song, they are singing "I'm A Bee."

Last night I speculated to Melissa, my honey bee, who is also a dancer, that perhaps there is an innocent repetition of this theme by the performers since bees communicate through elaborate dances. If you were a Lady Gaga or a Beyonce or a Black Eyed Pea and you sang and danced for a living - and as a way to communicate through your art - a bee would be an appropriate symbol for you to adopt.

She agreed, but then told me that I had just reminded her that she heard the Erykah Badu song "Honey" earlier that night. She pointed me to the lyrics:

Fly free baby, fine with me

I'm in love with a bumble bee

Ooh Slim boy, you killing me

But you so sweet to me

You know, the Erykah Badu that had just created a bit of a stir by filming her latest video at the location of the JFK shooting. The "stir" is that she's naked in the video. I don't care about that. Look deeper.

On the video, for Badu's track Window Seat, the singer drives to the Plaza in scenes consciously aping the famous grainy Zapruder movie footage of the assasination, and begins with familiar radio commentary of Kennedy's fateful visit and Badu wearing a scarf in the style of Jacqueline Kennedy.She then walks down the route that Kennedy took, while shedding her clothes (with the video pixilating her genitalia). By the time Badu arrives at the point where Kennedy and Texas governor John Connally were struck by Lee Harvey Oswald's[sic] bullets, she is naked and – after what sounds like a shot being fired – falls abruptly to the ground as if struck. The video then shows a blue graphic that appears to seep from Badu's head.
Badu said she shot the video in one take at 3.30pm on 13 March [3/13], with a hidden cameraman following her.

See, now it gets a bit scary. Did I mention that the double M - in numerology - would be 44?

I was over at Jake Kotze's blog and noticed a link to the slow-emanations blog with the post subject "88." Since I have been looking at the 88 for the last couple months I took notice. The entire post is a single, yet beautiful, image of a Tarot-like 88, the blogger is from North Carolina, and above his info reads "MIRRORRORRIM."

Then, while I was at grinding.be I took special notice of another post simply featuring one image, Sunset over Asheville, North Carolina.

This struck me since that's where Obama, the 44th president, just made headlines - by hiking.

It's a bit strange that a neo-con site like Drudge felt a link to a photo of two people they dislike hiking was important enough to merit a headline. It's not like it was a photo of them hiking at Bohemian Grove. Well, it's strange only until you start incorporating lessons from people like Steve Willner. If you're not listening to his "Cracks in the Wall" series, you're missing out.

Many synchromystics, and anyone with a keen eye, have noticed the importance of the word "Woods" this year - mostly using the Tiger Woods story as vehicle. Note also, 2010 is the year of the Tiger. So, when I saw the Obamas in the Woods, I took notice.

There was another headline for a non-story, in which Obama's senior advisor went on Leno and revealed the "secret" that "Obama loves Pie." That made me laugh because Steve often says in his audio series that the culture creators "love Pi." But then, who doesn't?

Anyway, the Drudge "Woods" headline links to a single photo, among a gallery of 389 (8+9=17, making 317, the number of Osiris' death.) The photo caption reads:

President Barack Obama, right, watches as first lady Michelle Obama jumps as they go for a walk on a trail off the Blue Ridge Parkway near Asheville, N.C.

Not only does the Blue Ridge remind me of the Norway Spiral, it also reminds me of Chris Knowles' look at the Stairway to Sirius, which would be enough to bring all these elements together in northern Europe. But when you toss in the word Asheville while Europe is blanketed in the stuff?

When Obama doesn't go to the funeral of the murdered Polish president because of a giant cloud of Ash - But goes instead to a place called Asheville....

Well now you've got a serious smoke signal. And a genuine mystery on your hands.

Bread and Circuses

Lately I've been wondering why all this Osiris symbolism keeps coming up on the logos of modern grain companies. I mean, it is the year 2010, right? I'm currently entertaining a few possibilities:

• The marketing chaps are incorporating forgotten-on-one-level symbolism to hit you in the powerful subconscious.
• The mystery schools and/or secret societies are honoring their gods through the companies they control
• The graphic designers are tapping into a collective consciousness - where symbols are universal and timeless
• And, my personal favorite at the moment: That, much like the consumption of psychedelic plants (like Mushrooms and Cannabis, each with their unique experiences perhaps brought on by a union with the plant consciousness) the eating of grain imparts another type of plant consciousness: The consciousness of the grain. One that is translated or understood by the human brain in terms of Osiris-lore .

I had updated the last post with the inclusion of this logo for a bread company which combines the Omega(End) symbol with an image of grain: the very two things Osiris was said to lord over.

I later noticed this same motif reoccurring on the logo for Ronzoni. The company name is framed by a golden "Z" made out of grain ("Z" being the last letter or end of the alphabet).

In all fairness, it could be that Ronzoni chose to emphasize the "Z" because it is considered a "power letter" in marketing circles.

Having previously worked in the pharmaceutical industry for many years, I recall the debate caused by the marketing departments giving all new drugs similarly spelled names so they could cram as many Vs, Ws, Xs, Ys and Zs into the brand name as possible. Basically, they felt the end of the alphabet had huge psychological power and signaled concepts of strength. Also, when an end of the alphabet character won't due, a hard consonant will suffice. They wanted their drugs to seem powerful and effective so they gave them nonsensical Seussian names and confused the crap out of all their patients. ...Of course the pharmaceutical industry has no concern for the masses, they just want to sell them drugs. Whatever it takes and all that.

The drug companies share the same ethics as Farmville's parent company Zynga (who also managed to shove a "Z,"a "Y," and the hard "G" coming off the "N" to make a corporate name that sounds like something out of a pulp space opera). Zynga CEO Mark Pincus was quoted as saying "I knew that i wanted to control my destiny, so I knew I needed revenues, right, fucking, now. Like I needed revenues now. So I funded the company myself but I did every horrible thing in the book to, just to get revenues right away. I mean we gave our users poker chips if they downloaded this zwinky toolbar which was like, I dont know, I downloaded it once and couldn’t get rid of it. *laughs* We did anything possible just to just get revenues so that we could grow and be a real business…So control your destiny. So that was a big lesson, controlling your business. So by the time we raised money we were profitable."

Nice huh? Click here to watch a video of him saying it.

Ronzoni could be borrowing from another famous emphasized "Z" - that of Verizon. Besides the canted red checkmark/box to go with their Nazi colors, they even invoke the Solar cult. The company said the name was meant to combine the words "Veritas" and "Horizon." Veritas means truth, something no modern telecommunications company can rally behind since they got in bed with the NSA. (Just a reminder kids, Obama's first week in office he signed off on keeping those wire taps in place).

But the word Veritas becomes more interesting when combined with "Horizon." Since Horizon comes from "Horus is Risen," we have our Solar cultists reuniting with their Nazi iconography. Remember, the canted swastika was meant to be a Solar symbol.

So "Veritas" and "Horizon" = "The True Horus is Risen." Or we can take that as "The True Sun God is Risen."

I just googled "Hitler and Egypt" and came across a site which details "Adolf Hitler's strange interest in Nefertiti." There's a funny sync with a link to their gallery of presidential portraits over an image of Nefertiti and Akhenaten's daughter.

It's funny when you consider that there are people (some of whom I respect highly) that are openly debating whether our current President is more like Akhenaten:

...or if he's more like Akhenaten's son, King Tut.

See Freeman and Chris Knowles, respectively, for examples of the two sides of the argument.

Now that Obama has come into the mix, let's bring in the other half of our famous pairing. That's right - We're going to the circus!

But this circus isn't all that fun based on a symbolic and/or conspiratorial reading of its poster. This is the closest variant I could find online (I saw a similar poster in the subway and stared at it for 20 minutes). When I see the words "Greatest Show on Earth" I immediately think of politics, because that's all it is folks. A big show.

Does this circus poster reveal anything about the future of politics in America? Man, I sure hope not.

• The 2010 Tiger lunges towards(?) the Blue Lady up in the stars. Isis is that you?
• A giant elephant (symbol of the GOP) looms large, ready to stamp out the current ringleader, a black man in a top hat.
• The man stands next to the word "Lincoln" - a top hat wearing president that Obama often gets compared to.
• His foot rests on the word "Omaha" with a river (a line on the map) running through the bottom of the "h" making it look like a "b" - making the word "Omaba," a not-very-difficult anagram for Obama.
• Though he is the ringleader and presumed conductor of the train, he is exiting it, perhaps being "thrown from the freedom train" if you're into MK phraseology.
• This ringleader is being chased, or followed unsuccessfully, by clowns.
• Meanwhile, motorcyclists ride to the ringleader's right. They ride next to the word "Denver" - a city brimming with conspiratorial context.
• They are dressed in the Nazi red-black-white uniform, have flames painted on their bikes and are raising their arms victoriously.

I hope I'm wrong, but that's what it looks like to me.

Currently, Ringling has three tours going on. This one, Funundrum is their Blue Tour. They also have a Gold Tour called "Illuscination" (read what you want into that loaded name). The third is the Red Tour and it is called "Zing Zang Zoom." Not only does it have the triple "Z" - it also contains OZ embedded in "Zoom."

I know what you're saying, that's nonsense. Well, wouldn't you know it, the site for Zing Zang Zoom features a yellow brick road. And where does that yellow brick road lead?

Between two doors atop staircases that look like pillars, into a wormhole, surrounded by a clock or time device.

Now, if you haven't already, watch Jake Kotze's classic look into the 9/11 Stargate. And don't forget, it's a one letter slide from NY to OZ alphabetically.

*My apologies to Jake. He disabled embedding on his vids so I had to find an alternate source.

(Seems a few others have re-uploaded his vids)

No intention of being devious, just think everyone needs to see these sort of videos.

Please check out Jake's blog.

"Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses." (Juvenal, Satire 10.77-81)

Circumpunct Breakfast: Masonically Delicious!

Perhaps the hardest part in pouring through the digital data of the internet and the synchro data of the universe is trying to figure out what is genuine and filtering out the contrived. This becomes especially difficult when we enter shopping arenas where most of the images we see have been focus-grouped and test marketed for the highest psychological impact.

Freeman likes to point out the "Princess/Warrior" programming that fills the toy isles at our local Target. In that respect I think he is very very correct. The last time I was there, I found obvious MK imagery on the girls toys:

Everything from the standard butterfly motif...

...to "alter" language on a box for everyone's favorite mind control slave, Barbie.

When I turned to the boys aisle though, it got a bit more interesting. Yes, there's tons and tons of "warrior" programming - every boy's toy has guns and battles. Do you want to be a cloned Storm Trooper fighting in Star Wars or put on a badge and join Lego's Space Police? Either way, it seems someone is assembling you into a fighter. So, when I see things like this next to all of that, I have to wonder where all of it is heading.

Are the Lego designers simply fans of the TV show Stargate: Atlantis or is there a larger meme being circulated? Mind you, the mystical "Gateway of the Squid" can only be opened by using one of the 5 illuminated triangles that come with each of the Atlantis sets.

This of course comes after that fun Playmobil playset where you can join the Egyptian army and fight under the banner of the golden-capped pyramid and the all-seeing illuminated eye of Ra.

And in that, my biggest issue is the promotion of militarism, not so much the Masonic overtones. But those Masonic elements are getting hard to ignore. Let's go back to Target and see what else we can buy there. How about a box of cereal?

What do you see? I see Masonic tracing boards.

And I made a video to prove my point.

Enjoy:

In the video, you see this image on the back of a box of Honey Comb cereal:

Here's a close-up of that panel:

And now the side of the box:

So, we've got real-life mystery schools encoding their rites onto cereal boxes and now here we have the fictionalized (but blatant) promotion of secret societies and elite families... and you too can obtain their knowledge and power if you figure out how to decode their symbols!

A sad little cereal sync: When I was making that video a few weeks back and collecting the elements for this blog post, the news broke that Alex Chilton of The Box Tops had died. That was back on 3/17 also known as St Patrick's Day or St Osiris' Day if you will - bringing the Lucky Charms and the Egyptian god of death and cereal grains all together.

So as we surf this strange mixture of fact and fantasy, and we encounter all these images used by mystery schools, along with a heavy dose of Egyptology - what are we to make of all of it?

Why do ads like this pop up on the internet?

As I said at the onset, trying to separate the contrived from the genuinely wondrous is an ongoing struggle. Sometimes I wonder if we are being used like a giant computer, being fed all this information and imagery, perhaps by the mystery schools themselves, so that we'll come up with the answers to the questions that have plagued them for so long. Other times I think we might be presented with these secret societies so that a finger can be pointed when needed - that these guys are nothing more than future scapegoats being set up for another round of witch-hunts.

And sometimes, when I come across items such as this post at the Daily Paul, where someone had shared this video (which I just noticed was uploaded by YouTube user "globalbeehive") I wonder how much of it is simply a giant marketing ploy:

As more and more websites look for deeper meaning in pop-culture and the everyday - are we at risk of paying attention to the details that are placed there and confusing them for synchronicity? Now I say that with the caveat that I believe strongly in synchronicity. The name of the YouTube user is a good example of the unplanned. But again, we must learn the difference. Marketing teams now toss around terms like "Viral Marketing" and "Social Networking Potential" along with very elaborate Guerrilla Marketing concepts.

While I don't think the Norway spiral was a giant contrived ad for breakfast cereal, as I watch spirals appear on all of these General Mills products - I have to wonder why. I mean, the company had chosen to use a leprechaun (a little green man=alien=Osiris) as a mascot for a "magic" cereal grain that is supposed to tie in with Druidic mysticism. That's the surface idea, not even part in question. Just step outside the situation for a second, pretend we didn't all grow up with Lucky Charms, and consider that that's a pretty odd marketing tool to begin with.

As we begin to consider all the secondary meanings behind all of these substances - the milk, the grain, and the honey - this gets weirder. All of these, and especially in concert with one another, seem to echo ancient hallucinogenic cults. But first, let's look at the marshmallows:

From Wiki:

More recently, in late 2005 another different kind of marshmallow was added, the "Hidden Key". It is a solid yellow marshmallow that resembles the shape of an arched door (similar to the shape of a tombstone; flat at the bottom, flat sides with a round top). When liquid is added to the cereal, the sugar inside the marshmallow dissolves and the shape of a skeleton key "appears" as if "by magic". The new tagline for this is "Unlock the door with milk!"

In 2008, yellow and orange hourglass marshmallows were introduced (along with a new contemporary for Lucky named the Emerald Elder) with the marketing tagline of "The Hourglass Charm has the power to Stop Time * Speed Up Time * Reverse Time".

Again with the arched doorway, the tombstone, the skeleton key, my favorite "unlocking the door with milk" and of course Time Control/Travel.

So what power does the new "swirled" marshmallow grant?

Is that a synchronistic clue to the true nature of the Norway Spiral? Or is it just an idea cooked up in a board room? I don't know.

As people talk about a 2012 awakening, I keep thinking about the fact that we've been down this Aquarian road before. The 60's and 70's pushed the idea, not merely of psychedelic use and the astrological transition into the Age of Aquarius, but that this was a very real thing. That humanity was changing. That the world was changing. Even the scandals harkened to an Aquarian rising of truth. Watergate? Water Gate? Look at that Lego set again. Is it contrived? Again, I don't know.

Surely some of it is, if Barbie is any hint:

And surely some of it isn't. Where does this one fall? Here's a box of Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies, with a water-wheel logo and the slogan "Prepare for departure." Consider these interesting factoids found on the Pepperidge Farm website:

In the 1970s, Pepperidge Farm bread travels aboard the Apollo 13 and Apollo 14 space flights.

Goldfish® snack crackers blast into space onboard the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1988.

So now we've got spaceships tossed into the mix. Anything else? Oh yeah, what about those psychedelic cults - don't they fit in here? You bettcha.

A few weeks back, I wrote a post on honey and bees and I made mention of Terence McKenna's "Food of the Gods" and a myth reprinted within. That was the myth of Glaukos and I think you might find it interesting:

"While Glaukos, the son of Minos and Pasiphae, was still a small child, he died from falling into a jar, a pithos, filled with honey, while he was pursuing a rat, or a fly; the manuscripts are uncertain. Upon his disappearance his father Minos made many attempts to find him, and finally went to diviners for advice on how he should go about his search. The Kouretes answered that Minos had among his herds a cow of three different colors and the man that could offer the best simile for this phenomenon would also be the one to know how to restore the boy to life. The diviners gathered together for this task, and finally Polyidos, son of Koiranos, compared the cow's colors to the fruit of the bramble. Compelled thereupon to search for the boy, he eventually found him by means of his powers of divination, but Minos next insisted that Polyidos must restore the boy to life. He was therefore shut up in a tomb with the dead body. While in this great perplexity, he saw a snake approach the corpse. Fearing for his own life should any harm befall the boy's body, Polyidos threw a stone at the serpent and killed it. Then a second snake crept forth, and when it saw its mate lying dead it disappeared, only to return with an herb which it placed on the dead snake, immediately restoring it to life. After Polyidos has seen this with great surprise, he took the same herb and applied it to the body of Glaukos, thereby raising him from the dead."

-Axel W. Persson, The Religion of Greece in Prehistoric Times

Now look at this other HoneyComb campaign. BeeBoy?

Funny, if you go to BeeBoy.org, an otherwise uninteresting piece of cyberspace, where a woman presents her case study on BeeBoy "the boy raised by bees" - the first video to come up, named "portrait" starts with the words, "Day 17."

Terence McKenna comments on the Glaukos myth:

"Polyidos is clearly 'the man-who-has-many-ideas,' and Glaukos simply means 'blue-gray.' ...It is well known among mycologists that the flesh of Stopharia cubesnsis and other psilocybin mushrooms has the property of staining a bluish color when bruised or broken. This blue staining is an enzymatic reaction and a fairly reliable indicator of the presence of psilocybin. Glaukos, the youth who i preserved in the jar of honey, seems symbolic of the mushroom itself."

"The fact that Glaukos, the blue-gray one, fell into a honey pot (whose shape suggests the bucket-shaped graves of the Natufians) and was preserved there until the time of his resurrection seems highly suggestive. Herodotus mentions that the Babylonians preserved their dead in honey...The motif of cattle is present in the story in the bizzare section concerning the simile of the three-colored cow and the need to demonstrate linguistic facility as a precondition to being able to find the lost child. And the serpent, familiar from the Genesis story of Eden, makes a cameo appearance - and once again proves to have accurate and secret information concerning plants. ... All the motifs of a barely remembered mushroom cult are there - themes of death and rebirth, cattle, serpents with herbal knowledge, and a blue-gray child who is preserved in honey."

Ah, the blue-gray child. That combination sure makes me think of a lot of Atlantian theories and the ever famous "Greys." Sounds like something you might find in a lego set:

I think this territory clearly sits on a crossroads where contrivance and genuine mystery overlap. Did these ancient hallucinogen cults gave way to the mystery schools and, if so, are they honoring their traditions on our morning breakfast boxes? Are the graphic artists tasked with designing them simply tapping into a creative collective consciousness? Or is this all a scam to get us to pay attention to commercial products?

That's for each of us to figure out. Don't take my word for it, or anybody else's.

I like BeeBoy's advice:

"Look inside for answers."

UPDATE 1:

Just found out that Target's mascot is a dog with the circumpunct over one eye.

Siriusly.

UPDATE 2:

Just did a little freelance gig, making a flyer for a supermarket, and found this interesting logo for a bread company.

I like how it incorporates the Grain and the Omega symbol.

(Omega often associated with Death or "The End")

Remember, Osiris was the god of both the underworld and of grain.

Kiki & Lala: The Blue Bird of Happiness

Jake Kotze did a wild post on blue birds and much more, and it brought this video back to mind. In it, the Sanrio characters Kiki and Lala, known in the US as "Little Twin Stars" (Sirius anyone?) have a little adventure incorporating psychedelics, flying saucers and musings on the nature of the universe. You know, kids stuff.

Funny thing is, much of the psychedelia revolves around a spot over Kiki's right-frontal lobe - a spot that I have had repeated dreams about for the last few months. Most of these dreams involve information being shared with me from an extra-ordinary source. In one of the dreams, I discovered a chip in my brain that was receiving transmissions from Sirius, the twin stars themselves. Now, I don't believe I actually have a chip in my brain or anything, but these dreams were all very powerful and left me extra aware throughout the day. Take from that what you will. I'm not sure what to make of it either.

The video is in Japanese, but luckily I live with a beautiful girl who is able to translate for me. And now for you. Join me on this trip of loaded language and imagery. Here goes:

After brief intro with an unhappy penguin sitting on a mushroom, he wonders what happiness is. The Little Twin Stars fly in over an Amanita mushroom and offer to tell the classic story of the Blue Bird of Happiness.

An old lady asks Kiki and Lala to find the blue bird of happiness for her sick daughter.

Lala asks "What is happiness?"

Kiki says, "Bread and Butter, Fashion, Cake, Singing and Dancing, Playing as much as you want..."

That sounds so good that they agree to go find this bird. Ah, but where to look?

The old lady tells them to start across the river. (Harkening an Aquarian beginning to their journey)

But they don't see a river when they look out the window.

The old lady says, "What's wrong with you? You aren't seeing things as they really are."

So she gives Kiki a hat with a stone in it to help him see.

She tells him to turn the stone slightly.

The old lady turns into a beautiful young woman in blue (shades of Pinocchio's "Blue Fairy") and asks, "Can you see things clearer now?"

She explains that when you see things as they really are, you can see time clearly too.

(Reminds me of a time I saw music coming out of a speaker)

Next, all the animals start talking and not-completely random things come to life. Like this milk spirit and this bread (grain) spirit. (See the Circumpunct Breakfast post for more on this).

Also joining the ranks are the sugar, fire, and water spirits.

Nice globe the cat has there.

The blue fairy turns back to an old lady and says she cannot join them on their quest. But the light bearer comes and she'll show them the way. ...By taking them all on a flying saucer!

First shot of the flying saucer? Flying over white rabbits of course!

Next they go to a dark forest of the memory or the past. They find the blue bird there by remembering their grandparents and manifesting them. Essentially raising them from the dead. The grandparents say that they live forever - "in your memory." (My thoughts exactly)

The cat is a bit of a nasty bitch and tells the trees that Kiki and Lala are bad and wish the trees harm, which they do not. The trees want the bird back, but are defeated by the fire spirit.

Then, suddenly, the blue bird turns back to normal - they don't know why - and they decide to move on to the next locale: A creepy old castle that is basically the night world.

Once there the cat runs off to be a bitch again, but first climbs our spiral staircase. She then tells the night queen that Kiki and Lala are there and how bad they are.

Kiki and Lala and gang find a room of ghosts and get attacked. So Kiki uses his stone (gets stoned?) and scares off all the ghosts. But this light bothers the night queen so she asks him to turn it off.

He makes a deal with the queen and trades her his cool hat for:

A key!

He attempts to use they key but gets sucked through the key hole sorta like that famous Winnie The Pooh shot the boys at the Sync Whole are so fond of.

On the other side of this door are germs of the heart, a powerful metaphor. These germs make everyone depressed, sort of a Blue Bunny effect.

Only the milk spirit is unaffected, instead loving her germ and rendering him useless. Another powerful metaphor.

The germs combine into a big monster that looks a bit like the new amorphous Kraken in the "Clash of the Titans" remake. It then eats everyone.

The monster is so powerful as to frighten even the queen. The cat redeems herself by taking the magic hat and diving into the monster's mouth where Kiki can use it again. Here's another Pinocchio, or even Jonah and the whale, nod. ...Maybe dark night of the soul?

The stone makes the monster explode, everyone is safe, and it's the cat's turn to do the Pooh pose.

Now tons of blue birds fly over head, all on their way to the land of dreams.

Our cast follows them into something that looks like the Norway Spiral and behaves like the holodeck from StarTrek.

But, when our group leaves this land of dreams with a cage full of blue birds for the old lady and her sick little girl, they find all the birds turn black.

They're told "No matter how beautiful/vivid/precious a dream is, when it's over, it's over."

Now, I'm sure this story goes on, but that's all that's posted online. And to be honest, I'm okay with that. I like that ambiguity.

It leaves us to find the true blue bird of happiness for ourselves.

Good luck on your quests.