Are the Caduceus and the Rod of Asclepius Just Signs of an Accidental M*A*S*H Up?

The Caduceus traditional symbol of Hermes

The flag of the World Health Organization,
with a rod of Asclepius

I was drinking a Mercury cider a few weeks back and wondering about the staff that Mercury was holding in his (what appeared to me) right hand.

"Mercury had essentially the same aspects as Hermes, wearing winged shoes (talaria) and a winged hat (petasos), and carrying the caduceus, a herald's staff with two entwined snakes that was Apollo's gift to Hermes.

A rooster, also known as a cockerel or cock

He was often accompanied by a cockerel, herald of the new day, a ram or goat, symbolizing fertility, and a tortoise, referring to Mercury's legendary invention of the lyre from a tortoise shell."

The caduceus is in the left hand on the cap

I kept thinking that the rod Mercury was holding was a sign on the medical profession and healing, which it kind of is today, but it was the Rod or Staff of Asclepius that is really meant to be the true staff of healers, not the caduceus.

"In Greek mythology, the Rod of Asclepius is a serpent-entwined rod wielded by the Greek god Asclepius, a deity associated with healing and medicine.

The symbol has continued to be used in modern times, where it is associated with medicine and health care, yet frequently confused with the staff of the god Hermes, the caduceus."

Too much Mercury can
harm an unborn child?!

"The Hippocratic Oath is an oath historically taken by physicians.

It is one of the most widely known of Greek medical texts.

In its original form, it requires a new physician to swear, by a number of healing gods, to uphold specific ethical standards.

The Oath is the earliest expression of medical ethics in the Western world, establishing several principles of medical ethics which remain of paramount significance today.

These include the principles of medical confidentiality and non-maleficence.

Although the ancient text is only of historic and symbolic value, swearing a modified form of the Oath remains a rite of passage for medical graduates in many countries.
Hippocrates is often called the father of medicine in Western culture."

"The two-snake caduceus design has ancient and consistent associations with trade, eloquence, trickery, and negotiation.

Tangential association of the caduceus with medicine has occurred through the ages, where it was sometimes associated with alchemy and wisdom.
The modern use of the caduceus as a symbol of medicine became established in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century as a result of documented mistakes, misunderstandings and confusion."

Statue of Hermes 

"In some myths, Hermes is a trickster and outwits other gods for his own satisfaction or for the sake of humankind.

His attributes and symbols include the herma, the rooster, the tortoise, satchel or pouch, winged sandals, and winged cap.

His main symbol is the Greek kerykeion or Latin caduceus, which appears in a form of two snakes wrapped around a winged staff with carvings of the other gods.
In the Roman adaptation of the Greek pantheon (see interpretatio romana), Hermes is identified with the Roman god Mercury, who, though inherited from the Etruscans, developed many similar characteristics such as being the patron of commerce."

So, Mercury is the patron god of financial gain, commerce, eloquence (and thus poetry), messages/communication (including divination), travelers, boundaries, luck, trickery and thieves; he is also the guide of souls to the underworld.

Maybe something to ponder next time I'm drinking a Mercury cider and the TV show M*A*S*H comes on the tube and I see that caduceus of the "medical" corps associated with the show?
But the truth is I hated this show and rarely watched it when I was growing up and I still have an aversion to it to this day, although I can see some of the sarcasm for what it's worth now that I'm an adult, but it's a show I'll always remember calling out, "CHANGE THE CHANNEL" then ever I heard that theme song playing on the TV as a kid.

And old habits are hard to break I find;-)  

Historians agree that Hippocrates was born around the year 460 BC on the Greek island of Kos.

I also saw this news story the other day about the Greek island of Kos -

Magnitude-6.7 earthquake rocks Greece, Turkey, killing two people on island of Kos

"A powerful magnitude-6.7 earthquake has killed two people, injured about 200 and caused a small tsunami after striking near Turkish and Greek tourist destinations in the Aegean Sea.
The quake, which struck at 1:31am local time (8:31am AEST), was located off the south-western coastal city of Marmaris in the Mugla province, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).
It was close to two tourist hubs in Turkey, Bodrum and Datca, and the Greek island of Kos in the Dodecanese Islands archipelago.
On Kos, a wall collapsed on a building dating to the 1930s and crushed two men from Turkey and Sweden who were at the bar in the building's lower level.
Hundreds of revellers were in or near the popular White Corner Club in the old town of Kos when the building partially collapsed.
At least five other people were seriously injured as tourists and local residents scrambled out of buildings, some even leaping from balconies.
Five of the injured were being transported by helicopter to a hospital on the island of Crete, officials said."

What I find fascinating in the above news story is the 6.7 magnitude earthquake hitting Hippocrates home island of Kos and killing two people.

And harm none?

"67 is a bitch"?

The Bitch's Shadow
""Sixtyseven is a bitch." Silverstein insists that 67 is not just the number of a red-light district police officer, but it is also a significant reference to Bruno's memory system.

This can be verified by checking Yates' wheel.

The deity representing number 67 is none other than Circe and her "invention" is, appropriately enough, "fascination."

To the argument that this reference is very intentional on Joyce's part, can be added the fact that one of Bruno's major works on the art of memory is Cantus Circaeus, or The Incantation of Circe (1582)."

Maybe Mercury is trying to deliver a message to the world in these potentially harmful times?

Cheers.

Chameleon Eyes?

My eye taken on my iPhone

I watched the movie 'Two Hands' the other night and I couldn't help noticing the amount of actors in the movie who had, or appeared to have had, green eyes like I do ... some whose eyes actually seemed much greener than the eyes in my head.

Spontaneous Combustion? I Am Heath Ledger Depicts a Soul That Burned Too Bright?
For the past fifty years of my life, I must admit I have been fairly oblivious to eye colour, apart from the fact that you either had blue, or brown eyes, or for people like me, you had "hazel".
It took me fifty years to realize that my eyes were "green".
I remember my grandmother puzzling at the dinner table one night staring into my eyes and trying to figure out what colour they were.
My grandmother called my mother over (who has blue eyes) to ask her what colour she thought my eyes were.
They both looked into my eyes for ages wondering (and I felt like a total freak BTW) and finally came to a mutual conclusion that my eyes were "hazel", even though my grandmother was pretty sure they were green.

From that moment on I was convinced my eyes were hazel, because the consensus from school was you either had brown, or blue eyes ... but I was someone who had hazel eyes according to a confused family consensus around the dinner table ... and who was I to argue?
From that moment on, to me my eyes were hazel ...whatever the f#ck that meant.
People (usually girls) would often stare into my eyes and ask me what colour they were, and I would reply "hazel" not having any clue what colour "hazel" was, but if my mother and grandmother stared into my eyes puzzled for what seemed eternity to me and came up with hazel, then who was I to question their wisdom?

Eye colour

It wasn't until I read Christopher Knowles' post about agent Scully from the TV show 'X-Files' having green eyes associated with alien hybrids(?) that I actually learned that green eyes were real.
Which was when I took the photo of my eye in the mirror to really determine what colour eyes I had.

And yes, they were green.
The fact that Chris had referred to green eyes being associated with alien hybrids didn't really impress me, it was the fact that I found out that only 2% of the world population had green eyes that really impressed me.

Mariel McClorey who played
 Helen in 'Two Hands'

Mariel McClorey in 'Two Hands'

Like Courtney Rhodes wrote in this excellent article about green eyes -
Learn About the Origins of Green Eyes
"Only 2% of the world's population have green eyes or about 140 million people.

Why do so few people have this trait?

The answer boils down to genetics.
Until 2007, it was believed that there was a hierarchy of eye color.

Brown was dominant over green, which was dominant over blue.

You received two genes for an eye color, one gene from each parent, and whichever was the dominant gene would express itself.

Therefore, two brown genes would obviously express itself as brown.

A brown gene and a blue or green gene would express itself as brown.

 A green gene and a blue gene would express itself as green.

And only a combination of two blue genes would express itself as blue."
I wanted to know what put me into that 2% of the world's population.
And from watching the movie 'Two Hands' I wanted to know why there seemed a disproportionate ratio of actors who appeared to have green eyes over the rest of the cast.

I was especially taken in by the eyes of Mariel McClorey (an actress I had never heard of before) because she has my eye colour and throughout the film the colour appears (to my eyes) to change to the point that I'm not sure what colour her eyes are.
Which takes me back to my childhood with my grandmother staring into my eyes and wondering just WTF colour my eyes were.
Which is probably a big reason to this day I can't stand people looking into my eyes.
Because it makes me feel a bit like a circus freak when I can tell people are fascinated by my eyes for some reason.

Green eyes?

Two sets of Green eyes?

But, "there have been records of people with green eyes originating around the Caucasus mountains, which links Europe and Asia.

Several passes through the mountain range made it a strategic region or military and trade (silk road)."
According to my Ancestry DNA results I have 3% of my genes as Caucasian, so is that enough to give me green eyes in life's genetic lottery?
I've also got 18% Irish and 19% Scandinavian genes.
Or is it something else in my genes that give me green eyes?-)

UPDATE: Now my DNA results have been modified by AncestryDNA and they tell me I have 40% Scandinavian  and no Irish genes?!! 

And with only 2% of us having green eyes my question is why is green eyes associated with jealousy?

Scenes from the movie 'Two Hands'

Rarest Eye Color in Humans

Shouldn't the rest of you be jealous of us?-)

I have to admit though that it's blue eyes like Paris Jackson has that mesmerize me.

I nearly bought this magazine the other day because of those eyes.

Nice try Vouge, but I didn't.

I saw this post on Paris Jackson's Twitter feed when I started writing this post and it was addressed to Nahko Bear and my WTF meter lit up, because I've kept running into Nahko every year for the last four years, as he loves the same part of the world that I do.

I even bought  Nahko's latest album this year at the Byron Bay Bluesfest, because the universe keeps throwing us together for some reason (probably because we are the same height?-) and his was the last act I caught this year.
It was a great way to end the festival I thought.

Nahko Bear at the BBBF in 2016

I might just be in this photo shoot, too:-)

Easter MOONday at Bluesfest, 2017

'Nahko & Medicine for the People' at the
BBBF Easter Monday, 2017

So, my advice Paris is to talk to Nahko about the Byron Bay area and get yourself out here soon.

But don't take my word for it, follow your heart ... and Nahko.

Find the others and all that stuff.

I'm pretty sure Nahko has brown eyes

UPDATE: July 30th, 2017 ... I have bought that Vouge magazine since I started writing this post over a week ago ... damn your haunting cover shots Vogue ... and Paris does mention wanting to go to the Byron Bay Bluesfest in that magazine article.
I still think blue eyes look hotter than green, but you know what they say about the grass being greener on the other side?
Well, maybe it's the same when it comes to eye colour, too?-)

The one thing you might not have noticed about Ivanka Trump's eyes
"It would be fair to say that Ivanka Trump is something of a chameleon, what with her role as former executive vice president of The Trump Organisation and running the White House as assistant to her father, President Donald Trump.
However, rumours are now circulating to suggest that the 35-year-old is employing a cunning strategy to help her manipulate her father's supporters.

Last year, journalist Nell Scovell suggested Trump's eldest daughter wore various shades of contact lenses, depending on which public appearance she was scheduled to be attending."

Scovel Your Way Out of the S#it?

The Alpine Way Tragedy and Other Uphill Battles in Life

This story will give your tear ducts a good work out.

I was reading the news headlines over at the ABC news site this morning and saw the above image of Wendy Huskins sitting on a chairlift seat which I knew instantly was a chair like the one I spent a good half hour on sitting by Lake Jindabyne in April last year.

The chair that I sat in by the lake last year

Thredbo disaster 20 years on: Pain lingers after horror of snowfield landslide

The story was about the Thredbo landslide tragedy that killed 18 people 20 years ago today.

Top Elevation 2037m?! 
'The Shining'?

In the article it states that each year, Wendy Hukins shares a schnapps with Oskar Luhn at his memorial chair overlooking the lake at Jindabyne.

I had no idea these chairs around the lake were memorial chairs for the Thredbo disaster victims and I certainly didn't know who Oskar Luhn was until today.

Looking back through my snaps of the days that I was in Jindabyne, I see that this was the same chair I sat in.
I even mentioned this chair in an old post I wrote last year about visiting the town, because I found a weathered book that someone had left beneath it - 
What is it with Pop Culture and Aliens?

I would have taken it with me if it wasn't damp and weathered, but I just left it where I found it.
I sat by the lake the day before I walked up Mount Kosciuszko (Australia's highest point), which I wrote about in this post last year -
On the Road with Corvids
And I thought that it was rather a synchronicity for me to see that Wendy was wearing Purple boots in the photo above, because the next day when I walked Mount Kosciuszko was the day Prince died.
It was in my Jindabyne motel room that I found out about Prince's passing.

Sometimes It Snows in April
I caught the chairlift from Thredbo on the day I walked to the top of the mountain and while I remember the news stories about Stuart Diver being pulled out of the rubble alive after three days and being stuck next to his dead wife, but I couldn't remember much else about the tragedy or how many others died in the landslide.

I didn't go into the part of Thredbo where the memorial plaque was, and I didn't even know that there was one to be honest.

My view of Thredbo Village from the chairlift in 2016

I did remember looking at Thredbo on the way down on the chairlift and wondering where the avalanche had taken place in the town and just where and what Stuart Diver was doing now.
Turns out that he was probably there in the village that day.
I read this news post today about Stuart's life since the tragedy and found out that he lost his second wife to breast cancer not long ago, too -
Torah Bright Says Stuart Diver Is The Glue Holding The Thredbo Community Together
And I watched the two '60 Minutes' You Tubes about Stuart in that Huffington Post piece and I can tell you that they are well worth watching ... but you might want a few tissues handy.

I saw the movie 'Batman vs Superman' on one of the nights that I was in Jindabyne, but Stuart's story is one of a real-life Superman with all that life has thrown at him.
If I'm ever down that way again, I'm going to seek out Oskar's chair at Lake Jindabyne and toast a drink to him and all of the others who passed away that day.

A sign I saw while walking to the summit
of Australia from Thredbo