Why not more Naga statues?

Some kind of resin or artificial substance that looks like ivory.

One I bought a few years ago.

Interesting face gazing at the observer.

Another one with uncoiled tail.

Very Chinese or Kuan Yin features.

Donovan

The Sun is a Very Magic Fellow, from the Hurdy Gurdy Man album.  Have to admit I don't recall it, very pleasant though.  Wanted to put in video of Cosmic Wheels, but none of the ones posted on youtube have any decent graphics.  This song reminds me though, of my musings on the ubiquity of sun imagery or what amounts to solar worship in psychedelic music, in song names, lyrics and band designations.  One could mention songs by the Beatles: Here Comes the Sun, I'll Follow the Sun, Sun King; the Grateful Dead's Anthem of the Sun, Sunshine Superman by Donovan, the Doors' Sunshine of Your Love, Sunlight in Her Hair, Waiting for the Sun; I Can Take You to the Sun by the Misunderstood, Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun by Pink Floyd, Paper Sun by Traffic and so forth. 

Solar imagery plays a big part of psychedelic art posters and album covers as well.  The whole hippie counterculture movement could be seen as a return to some imagined solar pagan worship, from communes to outdoor festivals, nudity and food co-ops based on small outdoor gardens.   

Naga Kanya

This means daughter of the snake, and was originally a Hindu figure later adopted by the Buddhist to represent the guardians of treasures, especially concealed teachings.  Nagarjuna, of the second century, is said to have received the important prajnaparamita sutra text from the underworld nagas or snake deities.  This text became a fundamental doctrine of the new Mahayana Buddhist movement, and was published in book form in China in 868 A.D., the earliest printed book in the world.  Jack Kerouac, who tried to be a Buddhist when he wasn't drunk, especially like the Diamond Sutra, which is an exposition of these teachings. 

 

The first two above are fairly traditional representations of Naga Kanya, and are usually products of Nepalese artisans.  The third figure with both hands raised seems a little unorthodox, although still holding what appears to be a conch shell, which is fairly traditional.  The sumptuousness and vitality of it do not need description. 

A painting of Naga Kunya, less common than statue representations.

A different take on the figure, without the coiling up of the body beneath the torso.

A real colorful artifact.  All of the figures have wings, which gives them something in common with their mortal enemies, the garudas.  Normal nagas did not have wings.

The garudas are said to have enormous wingspans and were always hunting nagas.  The nagas took to swollowing stones, making them too heavy for the garudas to carry, so they gave up until they found out the secret and then started grabbing the nagas by the tail, forcing them to vomit out the stone, and off the garuda went with his dinner clutched in his claws.  Later according to one sutra, the Buddha made peace between the garudas and nagas.

More Tibetan Goodies

Ready for the gong show.  Gong ringing is traditionally used to start and stop meditation sessions in group practice.  Also many people use them to make a ringing or singing sound when the striker is rotated around the inner top of the bowl.  

Small hand held prayer wheels of many colors and jeweled inlays.  Even a red crucifix in lower right for sale.

More Tibetan style jewelry.  On right there seem to be small crystal dorjes which are usually brass and have either five or nine prongs on each end, symbolizing the thunderbolt as well as a diamond.

Some statues of Tara, who serves as a savioress in tantric Buddhism, probably the inspiration of the Chinese figure of Kuan Yin, as pointed out by John Blofeld, who studied and practiced Buddhism in China just before the Communists came to power. Some wrist malas above, and ritual choppers below on table. 

Some ritual masks, possibly of wrathful deity Mahakala.  Below appear to be some table top prayer wheels that can be turned by a sweeping hand motion against them. 

Closeup of masks.  They appear to be life size, if not too delicate could be worn in ritual dancing.

Water Snake Year

Today the Tibetan New Year or Losar begins as well as the Chinese New Year.  In both systems it is called the Water Snake year.  The two new years usually only coincide about a third of the time, for the Tibetans use some different lunar calendar calculations.  The Chinese system is easy to grasp: the second new moon after the winter solstice.  To make matters even more complicated, however, Chinese astrologers insist the actual new year begins a few days before the New Years Day celebration, this year February 4.  But most people don't seem to pay attention to that.  In Japan they get real sloppy and just consider the Western year to coincide with the Chinese year.  

The system of 12 animals and 5 elements gives a 60 year cycle before any animal/element combination is repeated.  In the Buddhist tradition, the sequence of animals is based on a legend of the order of the animals arriving to see the dying Buddha.  In Taoist tradition it is the animals showing up to meet the Jade Emperor for some reason.  The Tibetans view the last 5 or so days of the year to be full of the accumulated trouble and obstacles of that year and some kind of ritual mantra practice is done to pacify and transmute that negative energy into positive.  This is done often by practicing the Vajrakilaya ceremony, or in the Shambhala tradition, pacifying the turmoil of the mamos, wrathful female forces, using the Vajrasattva mantra. 

The "common people" often treat the Losar celebrations as a time to get pretty rowdy at times, a practice common to agricultural societies who wish to invoke the fertility of the soil and stimulate the new year's productivity and energy through their own high-jinks.  

This year being a snake year should have something to do with mysticism, reflection, and introversion, all snake characteristics.  This combined with the water element signifying travel, communication and networking.  The snake year represents a pause between the highly charged energy of the Dragon and Horse years, as it lies in between them.  It is perhaps a time to reflect on the past and plan for the future. 

Tibetan Wares

Disraeli Gears album

A classic from 1967, Eric Clapton composed the music based on lyrics by Martin Sharp...one of the first rock uses of the newly invented wah-wah pedal for electic guitar.  Mining the early Greek classics for psychedelic gold.

Country Joe - Section 43

It's amazing these guys named their group after a couple of cutthroats who made their living by murdering millions of their fellow citizens,  Joe Stalin and Mao Tse Tung ("the revolutionary moves through the peasantry as a fish through water) and nobody called them out about it.  Of course under either one of those dictators the Fish would have been quickly fried as bourgeois degenerates.  But of course the whole hippie movement was blissfully ignorant of real history and therefore supported the Communist North Vietnamese, who upon victory sent a million South Vietnamese to concentration camps. 

Elizabeth Mackintosh

A Scottish novelist who passed away in 1952, her detective stories in particular were popular for the next twenty years, after which they became almost forgotten.  Writing under the name of Josephine Tey, she created the character of the detective Alan Grant.  Her most famous work is The Daughter of Time, which investigates the supposed wicked deeds of King Richard III.  She did not believe he was hunchbacked, thinking it was later Tutor propaganda.  However just a few days ago a hunchbacked skeleton was supposed to be scientifically proven to be that of Richard III. 

Kind of gruesome...Arguments claiming Richard III did not murder the two princes in the Tower of London are examined in her book.  However most historians follow the theory of foul play at the hands of R III, who had custody of the boys.

Bird Brain II

An African Grey with quite a vocabulary.  If you talk to them a lot this is the kind of dividend you get back...they can carry on conversations with themselves for a long time like this bird named Clover.