the dharma blog

the central american indians thought that the northern lights were evil spirits, walking around in the sky with glittering robes on. seeing them was extremely bad juju. cortez’s landing (and with it the fall of the aztec empire) was preceeded by an extremely rare account of the celestrial event over teotihuacan. (courtesy this guy)

He came dancing across the water
With his galleons and guns
Looking for the new world
And a palace in the sun.

On the shore lay Montezuma
With his coca leaves and pearls
In his halls he often wandered
With the secrets of the world.

And his subjects gathered ’round him
Like the leaves around a tree
In their clothes of many colors
For the angry gods to see.

And the women all were beautiful
And the men stood straight and strong
They offered life in sacrifice
So that others could go on.

Hate was just a legend
And war was never known
The people worked together
And they lifted many stones.

And they carried them to the flatlands
But they died along the way
And they built up with their bare hands
What we still can’t do today.

And I know she’s living there
And she loves me to this day
I still can’t remember when
Or how I lost my way.

He came dancing across the water
Cortez, Cortez
What a killer.

i’ve always thought of the northern lights as something good. kind of my feeling about all astral beauty: not necessary to life on this planet but beautiful. the moon and the stars: what purpose do they serve to human beings? something to ponder at night. something to remind us of how small our earth is. something to remind us of how close somebody is that we love. aurora borealis is like that, but less frequently seen.

nonetheless, and trying to avoid the much-mocked liberal hysterics of the last week, the freak appearance of the northern lights all over the upper midwest last night is an interesting coincidence as we look toward the next four years of dubya.