Thankfully - Chewed Up and Spat Back Out!

Claiming the Owl.

2026-07-18T20:04:38.727-05:00

They try to capture the spirit of the Owl,

use his mask for their own twisted or secret ways.

Falsifying the face of wisdom, noble and proud,

as they chase his shadow through hollow days.

All attempts to seize him, well, they fly away.

Like Warriors on the field in borrowed paint,

like Chiefs upon the helmets, falsely proud and tall,

they steal the cry, the feather, and the name,

then call it honor when the old gods fall.

Marketing and selling something not theirs to call.

Patriots and Hawks in jerseys bright,

they strut and roar beneath the stadium lights.

They claim the totem, wear it through the fight,

but never feel how true wings cut the night.

Only non human silent wisdom will know that flight..

Others don cheap plastic hats and dress in black,

and call themselves the witches of the hour.

A pointed brim, a cloak hung on their back ..

they chant and spin, yet the Owl still only holds power.

Winged flier above just turns their ancient head,

and watches every costume fade to dust.

No logo, team, or coven, left or red,

can trap the silent hunter’s quiet thrust.

They claim the Chief, the Hawk, the Witch, the Wise,

they brand the night and sell the flight by the pound.

But symbols slip their greedy hands and rise,...

the Owl still hunts where no pretender’s found.

So wear your masks and wave your wands,

dress up the dark in slogans, crests, and cheers.

The wings beat beyond your reaching hands...

untamed, unclaimed, for countless coming years.

The spirit flies as the claimants stand below,

forever chasing what they’ll never own.

The flight of the Owl belongs to one

that-my friend- no human will ever truly know.

Above- Image by Kev from Pixabay

Behind the scenes of history, there is something about Maria.

2026-07-06T15:28:36.095-05:00

Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia - Wikipedia

I don't know why, maybe it's just my imagination running wild with nothing else to do - but, there's something about Maria. Her eyes are like beacons telling you to pay attention, there's more to. her than that photo - her story and one yet to be written. There's twists, there are turns, and there she was a young woman still wondered about over a hundred years later. Her message was lasting, it still speaks.

Maybe it is the cry of an innocent heart wanting to live forever but knowing the end is sooner than we think.

I don't know.

There's something about Maria and the way I landed here on her story in my own path that wants to believe she wasn't assassinated along with members of her royal Russian family, the Romanovs. This is what history tells us: When the revolution broke out the Bolsheviks ordered the family to be moved from their initial exile in Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg. That was in April 1918. The family was forced to split up: Maria's younger brother, 13-year-old Alexei, suffered a hemophilia attack right before the move, leaving him weak and too ill to travel. It was decided that Maria would accompany her parents, Nicholas and Alexandra, to their new location, Alexia and the other three sisters (Olga, Tatiana, and Anastasia) stayed behind in Tobolsk to nurse Alexei back to health.

Once Alexei was stable enough to travel the remaining siblings were reunited with Maria and their parents at the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg, where the entire family remained together until they were reportedly slaughtered by the Bolsheviks.

YEKATERINBURG

Prior to splitting up and reuniting in Yekaterinburg, and because of WWI, the girls were trained to be nurses to the wounded soldiers as the royal family dedicated some of their residences to military hospitals - According to research their hands-on caregiving lasted from 1914 until the Russian Revolution in early 1917, at which time the family then was placed under house arrest , losing their freedom.

It is that hands on caregiving experience which has taken flight in my imagination as this story converges with my own ancestors, and their steps in East Prussia near Guttstadt, and in Rosengarth.

The area had been ripe for decades with battles fought over the land, spilling the blood of East Prussians and Slavs. When the Russian army marched through East Prussia, they weren't just invading foreign territory; they were stepping onto a historic battleground where their tsarist ancestors had fought and died for generations -where stories ended and some began behind the scenes of history.

It is the same area where the cold war took some nasty turns in 1961 and with the capture of a Russian double agent known as the Sniper- Michał Goleniewski, who claimed to Tsarevich Alexei, Maria's younger brother. He also claimed Romanov survivors had lived in Poland and East Prussia, that Warmia region.

1961 was also the year my father, a Korean Vet, took his Rosengarth born mother back to the homeland she left in 1929, and right...weeks- before the wall would go up and divide East and West Germany. Research has informed me this wasn't a vacation and most likely it and the photos Dad took served a purpose during those bitter cold war years.

It's hard not to wonder about it all, especially when I am stuck in bed hoping to heal a back that fights me every step of the way.

It was just a few weeks ago I was thinking about Maria, some of Dad's photos and one older lady in one..I don't know who she is, nor anything about it other than I see Maria in her.

Coincidence? Probably. Wanting to see something intriguing ? Sure, why not? And that's when I got a flash of a building I come to find out was in Guttstadt - I doodled the shape and had to research to find it but I did and was shocked when it was in Guttstadt.

Maybe I've seen it before in my research wanderings, that is more than likely but for some reason that night it stuck out - that older woman did, and so did Maria. The building is called the Stork Tower. The 14th century tower stands directly at the northeastern corner of what used to be the old walled town, right along the Łyna River. The tower had an underground prison- basically a dungeon and thick walls meant to withstand the siege of the Teutonic Knights, Polish kings, and later, the heavy artillery of the 1807 Battle of Guttstadt.

Research also told me the medieval city wall system attached to the Stork Tower featured a dedicated water gate - giving ease of access.

St. Josef Krankenhaus, the Catholic hospital, was a short walk from Stork Tower and those water gates. The Catholic church in Guttstadt during the time period the Romanov family was supposedly murdered had a strong foothold and leverage in the Vatican - it was the hometown of Canon expert Fr. Stanislaus Woywod.

Google: "Just months before the Romanovs perished, the Catholic Church underwent its most radical legal transformation in centuries. In May 1918, the Vatican officially enacted the 1917 Code of Canon Law (Codex Juris Canonici)—the first time in history that the Church's vast, chaotic web of laws was consolidated into a single, supreme legal code"

He also happened to be my grandfather's, August Woywod of Rosengarth, cousin.

Now the following is Google opinion's on the matter - "The "Conversion of Russia" Mandate: In May 1917—right between the first Russian revolution and the Bolshevik takeover—the famous Marian apparitions at Fatima, Portugal, explicitly called for the "conversion of Russia". This deeply influenced the Vatican's view of the revolution; they saw it not just as a political crisis, but as a cosmic spiritual battleground."

As for what Catholics thought - Catholicism.org state's the following: "A certain historical continuity will be reinforced if we also briefly consider that, similar to the very strong Catholic influence which had existed in early 19th-century Russia, so also a Catholic influence was beginning to grow there again in the years immediately before and after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Seeds of Russia’s conversion of which Our Lady of Fatima spoke have been planted in the past. The ground has been prepared, more than once."

The Romanov lineage was one with ties to the Catholic Church, it had DNA ties to nobility around the globe. A lot was riding on the revolution, politically, for religions and not just Russian Orthodox.

Guttstadt could easily live up to its name as a good town, for some Holy ordained protection. Isn't it?

So, yes, that is where my imagination went, piecing this all together. I started asking What if? What if Maria did get away - maybe Alexi, too. They'd take him somewhere for care considering his health, Maria had been trained as a young girl to know to do that and make sure he was safe. Guttstadt was East Europe's Vatican during that time. While Fr. Woywod was in New York by then, he was very much still a Catholic boy from East Prussia, Germany - the last German Catholic stronghold.

Maria could easily hide under those heavy habits the nuns wore - she could have stayed in the convent or with any of the villagers whose farms surrounded the area. Potato farms and horse breeders were in abundance.


1961- Rosengarth/Rozynka area East Prussia- Grandma Woywod's family.

So many chapters- stories - could be untold behind my imagination's wanderings..and all because, there's something about Maria...Did she find love? Have children? Know joy? Did she ever heal?

Blossoms and Thorns - Mary Ball Washington - 400 Outstanding Women of the World (Revised)

2026-07-04T17:38:58.919-05:00

400 Outstanding Women of the World - by Minnea Schmidt (1933)

MARY BALL WASHINGTON

(1708–1789)

The Blossoms: Mary Ball Washington enters lore as a towering figure of maternal dedication, hailed as the "Rose of Epping Forest" for her youthful charm and striking presence. Some historians paint her asa controlling force, manipulative. Marrying Virginia planter Augustine Washington in 1730, she became the matriarch of an expansive household, giving birth to six children, with George Washington as her firstborn. Left a young widow at thirty-five, she stood against adversity, transforming her estate into an enterprise. She personally orchestrated her children's found

ational education, molding George's early moral compass through religious texts and strict maxims. Her rigorous ways nurtured the boy who would become the general of the American Revolution and the first President of the United States, earning her the highest praise a mother could receive when George later declared, "All that I am, I owe to my mother."

The Thorns:Beneath the idealized image of the steadfast colonial mother lies a more complex and contested figure. Orphaned in adolescence, Mary experienced early instability that may have shaped her later insistence on control and security. Her widowhood placed her in a precarious legal and social position within colonial Virginia, where property rights for women, though protected in certain respects, remained vulnerable to economic pressure and male oversight.

Mary’s resistance to George’s proposed entry into the British Royal Navy has often been interpreted as overprotective or controlling. In context, however, this decision reflects practical concerns: the loss of her eldest son would have weakened both the labor structure of her household and her long-term security.

During the American Revolution, her circumstances became more strained. Living apart from George, she faced economic difficulties exacerbated by wartime disruption. Her appeals to the Virginia legislature for financial assistance, in which she described herself as impoverished, have been interpreted variously as evidence of genuine hardship or as exaggeration. Surviving correspondence suggests a relationship with George that, while respectful, could be tense and emotionally distant. These dynamics complicate the traditional portrayal of unwavering maternal harmony.

The Heritage: In 1933, Minna Moscherosch Schmidt’s contributors documented Mary as a flawless, saintly icon of traditional motherhood, using George's carefully curated public quotes to paint her as a passive vessel of goodness. Modern historical scholarship has dismantled this one-sided hagiography to reveal a far more fascinating, iron-willed matriarch.We now recognize Mary Ball Washington as an independent business owner who successfully managed her property for forty-six years in a society designed to disenfranchise women. Her complex, difficult relationship with George is no longer hidden as a family shame, but studied as the crucial anvil that forged the President’s famously stoic discipline and resolve. Her house in Fredericksburg, Virginia, stands today as a monument to her unvarnished legacy. A testament to a woman who was fiercely her own mistress to the very end.

Blossoms and Thorns- Hannah Duston - 400 Outstanding Women of the World (revision)

2026-07-04T16:47:07.326-05:00

400 Outstanding Women of the World by Minnea Schmidt.

HANNAH DUSTON

(1657–c. 1736)

Haverhill, Massachusetts

The Blossoms: Hannah Duston stands in American history as an unforgettable emblem of maternal fierce-heartedness and the raw instinct for survival. Captured during a brutal frontier raid on Haverhill, Massachusetts, in 1697, she refused to let her spirit be broken by the wilderness or her captors. Her reported daring midnight escape and subsequent trek through trackless forests back to safety captivated the imagination of a fragile New England colony. She became a legendary figure of frontier resilience, celebrated in the nineteenth century as the first woman in United States history to be honored with a public monument, immortalizing her refuse-to-die attitude. She was known to be brave, bold, and stoic.

The Thorns: The story of Hannah Duston is not a gentle tale ; it is a dark, blood-soaked tragedy born from the merciless violence of King William’s War. The raid on her home resulted in the horrific murder of her six-day-old infant. Driven by grief and a desperate bid for freedom, Hannah and two fellow captives launched a ruthless counter-attack while their Abenaki captors slept. Using the captors' own tomahawks, they killed ten of the sleeping family members, including six children. Before fleeing down the river, Hannah returned to the scene to scalp the dead, bringing the physical trophies back to Boston to claim a massive government bounty.

Her legacy is a sharp, jagged thorn, a testament to how extreme trauma can transform a victim into an instrument of terrifying violence out of survival.To look beneath Hannah Duston is to find a psyche completely shattered, then crudely reassembled for survival. Hannah was six days postpartum when she was dragged from her bed. Her body was still physically recovering from childbirth, and one could imagine, deeply exhausted. When her newborn child was killed before her eyes, her mind must have shattered. How could it not? Forced on a freezing march into the wilderness, she was denied the human right to grieve; her brain had to immediately lock away the horror just to keep her feet moving.

To swing a heavy iron weapon into the skulls of sleeping children requires a mind that has entirely detached itself from civilized reality. The most haunting psychological clue, however, is her return to the bodies. After initially running to the escape canoe, Hannah stopped. She turned around. She walked back into the bloodbath to systematically scalp the dead. Fear, Hate and Revenge. When she returned to society, the Puritan elite demanded a triumphant hero who would praise God from the pulpits. Instead, Hannah retreated into a profound, decades-long silence.

She refused to write a captivity narrative or capitalize on her fame. For almost three decades she lived on the violent frontier, refusing to move to safer coastal towns. She chose to stay where she could see the danger coming, hyper-vigilant, carrying the invisible weight of the tomahawk in her mind until she finally broke her silence to her church at sixty-seven years old.

The Heritage: In 1933, Minna Moscherosch Schmidt’s contributors wrote of Duston as a heroic pioneer mother protecting the march of civilization. Today, history reveals a deeply complex figure caught in the brutal crossfire of colonial displacement and indigenous resistance.We no longer view her actions as a simple morality tale, but as an interrogation of what happens to the human spirit under extreme duress. During War. Her statues in Massachusetts and New Hampshire still stand today, no longer as simple tributes, but as lightning rods for modern dialogue about frontier trauma, colonial violence, and the agonizing moral boundaries of survival.

*Author's note- personally what I see is a woman living in a time that was beyond her imagination - most likely terrified as war sheds blood all around them and then loses her baby in a brutal, much like Stalin's troops marching through East Prussia in 1945 - visceral responses grief from ignorance of war. History's broken record.

Blossoms and Thorns- Priscilla Alden- 400 Outstanding Women of the World (revision)

2026-07-04T14:18:31.773-05:00

America

PRISCILLA ALDEN

(1602–1687)

Born Priscilla Mullins

The Blossom: Priscilla Alden stands as the quintessential face of the early Plymouth Colony, celebrated for generations as a symbol of colonial grace, wit, and resilience. Immortalized in American folklore by her famous retort to a timid suitor, "Speak for yourself, John", she represents a rare flash of independent female spirit and one standing boldly in a deeply rigid patriarchal society. Choosing love over political duty, her marriage to John Alden became the romantic foundation of the colony. As a mother to ten children, her industriousness and steadfast spirit helped nurture a fragile settlement into a thriving, historic community. But, don't be naive. What she accomplished came with a lot of pain and sacrifice. It was raw. It was real.

The Thorns: The reality behind that story is much harsher. Priscilla arrived on the Mayflower as a young woman and, within months, lost nearly her entire family during the brutal winter of 1620/1621, her parents, her brother, and their servant all died. She was not alone in that suffering, but it left her in an especially vulnerable position. Life in Plymouth was defined by loss, illness, and constant uncertainty, and survival often depended on forming strong household and community ties. Her marriage to John Alden wasn’t just about romance; it was also about stability and survival in a place where no one made it on their own.

By George H. Boughton -
https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2006678318/, Public Domain,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=89852950

The Heritage Update: In 1933, Priscilla was romanticized as a passive example of "maidenly virtue." Today, we recognize her as a fierce matriarch of iron will who built a life out of ashes. As one of the very few original Mayflower passengers to survive to old age, her bloodline became foundational to the fabric of America. Her millions of modern descendants include historic figures like President John Adams, poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Marilyn Monroe all of which is a lasting testament to a blossom that refused to wither in the bitterest winter.

Blossoms and Thorns- Pocahontas - 400 Outstanding Women of the World (revision)

2026-07-04T13:38:56.247-05:00

400 Outstanding Women of the World-Minnea Schmidt (1933)

America

POCAHONTAS (1595–1617)

Born Matoaka; later baptized as Rebecca Rolfe

The Blossom: Pocahontas was the daughter of Powhatan, the paramount chief of the Powhatan confederacy, and she played an important role in the early relationship between her people and the English settlers at Jamestown. She appears to have served as a messenger and intermediary, and she was associated with the delivery of food and other aid during periods when the colony struggled to survive.

Her presence later became part of an English court narrative that presented her as an “American princess,” a portrayal that reflected colonial imagination as much as Native reality. When she traveled to London in 1616, she was received as a curiosity and celebrity, and the trip was used to promote the Virginia colony.

illustration of Pocahontas for Mary Cowdon Clarke's
World Noted Women, 1883. Hanover College

The Thorns: Behind the legends lies a life of profound sacrifice and survival. Pocahontas did not merely navigate colonial relations; she endured them, she survived them. In 1613, she was deceptively captured and held hostage by English colonists for around a year and for political leverage. A prop -bait. During this captivity, she underwent religious conversion, renamed Rebecca, and was married to tobacco planter John Rolfe, an alliance deeply tied to political survival.

Her journey to England was less a casual tour and more a high-stakes public relations campaign to secure funding for the colony. Tragically, just as she prepared to return to her homeland, she fell to a sudden and fatal illness at Gravesend still yet in her early twenties, never to see her native soil again.

The Heritage Update: In the decades since 1933, historians and indigenous scholars have challenged the myth of the "Indian Princess who saved John Smith" to reveal a masterful, tragic diplomat. The older John Smith rescue myth has been widely questioned and revised by historians.

Her legacy lives on not as a passive helper to colonization, but as a fierce protector of her people who paid the ultimate price. Her surviving son, Thomas, returned to Virginia, leaving a vast lineage of descendants who carry her resilient bloodline forward into the modern world.

Hanover College-

Blossoms and Thorns: 400 Outstanding Women of the World (Revised)

2026-07-04T12:14:39.149-05:00

Preface: The Reimagined Garden

History is not a static museum; it is a living garden.When Minna Moscherosch Schmidt compiled her groundbreaking text in 1933, she gathered 400 distinct historical figures to celebrate the global impact of womanhood. She cataloged their achievements alongside their "costumology", the garments and styles that defined their eras.

Nearly a century later, this revised edition breathes new life into her original vision. Framed through the timeless duality of Blossoms and Thorns, this collection honors both aspects of greatness:

The Blossoms: The brilliant intellect, artistic mastery, and nurturing leadership that brought beauty and progress to the world.

The Thorns: The sharp resilience, fierce rebellion, and quiet defiance required to survive and pierce through the hostile environments of their times.

By preserving Schmidt’s historical snapshots while introducing modern insights, updated biographies, and contemporary legacies, Blossoms and Thorns bridges the gap between 1933 and the present day. Wander the garden and discover how these 400 extraordinary women cultivated the world we inherit today.

Minna Moscherosch Schmidt

The original introduction to 400 Outstanding Women of the World (1933):

For what it is worth..

2026-06-19T07:31:49.404-05:00

The part of this story that brings a deep ache is not knowing if my baptism was a sham or not. I cannot locate records and only have a photo of a man identified as Fr. Patrick Peyton, somewhere in southern California in Dec of 67 or Jan of 68. My Godparents I have no recall of, Mc-wave to the Navy-Gills standing proud. I have that , photos of dad with men who very much look like Jay Sebring, Gary Powers, and William Hamling. I have a photo of a woman looking like a young Yvonne Craig standing by a young Hamling and two children with them. I have tangibles. I've researched the history - the puzzle pieces are fitting but the one thing aching my heart more than anything in this bizarre story of Foxes and Hounds is I don't know if my baptism was a ploy for whatever script they were all playing out.

I grew up strict Catholic. I ran to the stained glass windows of St. Nicholas Church in Evanston when I needed a blanket of warmth and love. I ached when a priest refused my father the eucharist while laid up in CCU and only because he married a divorced woman in a non Catholic Church. I felt the pressure to be perfect, saintly, in a world ripping at me around every turn and every time I messed up I beat my self worth into oblivion, never feeling worthy. A lot of it collapsing in at once when the church was going through a first round of CSA scandals stemming out from the very pedo rings that moved next door to me, and I became collateral damage, John David Norman -his pal from Bellefontaine, Ohio ..and ya know the direction that all heads down secret pathways and brotherhoods.

It's a lot and now when I look at my baptism photo I see a scene being played out and not a milestone in my life. An act - part of a collage known as my life. Maybe that is why the painful memories stick the most, the were truly felt deep, as pain can only exist in our core - the love most often felt fake, orchestrated for another reason - fleeting.

And now I stare at that photo -its burned into my mind's eye. The very thing I ran to for comfort during all of this storm - was it real? Was I supposed to be there? What the hell is all of this ?

I truly don't care about the back story and the possibility of whatever it all was --

It wasn't worth it. Whatever this fox and the hounds thing has been. It wasn't worth it.

There is no title

No amount of money

No pride in a lineage

That will ever tell me this - any of it- was worth it.

And it is not selfish of me to say that -

It wasn't worth it.

My Friday morning coffee thoughts...

Be well 💜💜💜

The Ark Within

2026-06-16T23:58:33.062-05:00

When you read Greek mythology do you try envision the Gods? Or the creatures leaping off the pages? Of course what we all see would be somewhat unique to each of us, wouldn't it and probably nowhere to what a child back then say with their mind's eye? Their world was in color, the one we read about them having is in black and white. Our experiences, attained knowledge, and imagination fills in the gaps.

I expect it is pretty much the same when we read about other current religions and the words they hold dear, without the same background as one devout may have, we see something different based off of symbolism we know and being with as we absorb.

Perhaps this is where lost in translation where we need to pause and consider this about ourselves and human nature, so battles do not take footing and set in, spilling the blood of the innocent in the process.

This was something on my mind today as I thought that spleen and how symbolically I feel it does represent something mankind has been in search of since word went to paper, and paper to binder. It has meaning to me for other reasons. Is it wrong to find more than one symbolism in a book that is Holy when those who are devout do not see it at the same? I know- weird question to pop in my mind, but it did.

Is it offensive? And if it is, why? Especially if there is no harm and can bring wholeness to another if the find meaning too?

I asked myself that question and before I knew it, I added an answer to another question not uttered nor thought but it made sense...

In ancient Greek, splánchna, spleen meant seat of emotions - different translations attach it to the digestive system, the core. It is a filter - a cup that cleans the toxic from the blood. So, again, I was thinking of that and how when mine was enlarged and fallen it was not longer protected by the rib cage - which looks like an Ark, hard and protective whether small and carrying something or the bow of a ship. ..

Yeah and it went from there..

The heart in which it feeds clean blood gives of the Divine light of gold, Manna -

The womb which sits below in the dark births the blossoms of life.

The thought God is within made complete sense looking at it through that symbolic lens. They no longer seemed like empty words and a way that could be used to explain to others who need some extra visuals.

Here is my post when I thought of it all -

I threw in some ancient Egyptian symbolism including Ra, as a way to see across time and beliefs. Interesting how the eyes of Ra (luck) and Horus (protection) are like night and day with Ankh in the center looking like a spine with a head. Do you see it? How many symbols, religions and eras did I just marry in these blog post?

Maybe I need to see symbolism right now, I am not sure -I am still absorbing quite a bit and working through a hell of a lot, as the last 6 months show playing out on my blog. My life feels like a prop that was created for something else, written by someone else - if you are unsure what I mean , its all buried here on this site, one way or another.

It's a lot. And that little girl in me is still crying, I fear she will be for some time and it will come out in ways other will not understand - anger-fear- resentment- bittersweet melancholy- and sarcasm will be there. It is a lot to let go of as it was woven into my foundation. The thing is, I don't see her sitting in a corner cowering, I still see her sitting there in a hospital bed, scared, watching the clock because that's all there is for her...

What happens to that part of me when I get go - where does she land? Where does she go? Will anyone be there to comfort her? This time?

I want to love people again. I want to be useful and out there helping neighbors like I once did,it helped to make life make sense - it's just very hard right now - I feel shattered. Heck, I don't even know if my christening photo is legit- I mean the Rosary Priest? Or was it a farce like a lot of those things we're learning about was during the cold war and spy games. When I was a devout little girl, was I allowed to be under that roof? What would have happened if I did die one of those times? Catholic,well ya know, ...

Questions I need to let go of- I know. I'm not a traditional Catholic like I once was -perhaps it's now a freedom I don't realize yet about choosing to return, not feeling like there are no other options or never were. Something until now I was never allowed. I was born into a system/organization, running amok, behind the scenes. I don't hate - that takes more energy than I honestly have right now.

But what happens to her -where does she go when you let go? She's afraid of the dark.

Image by Pheladi Shai from Pixabay

Creation Never Ends - it is Infinity, Eternity

2026-06-04T10:59:37.346-05:00

Real? History? Creation? Evolution? Duality? A new book for the Bible, btw who said it was done? Maybe the next chapter still needed to be discovered , written. Or, perhaps I am just a woman dealing with chronic illness and stuck at home with a child's imagination still yearning to be safe. Who knows, you decide.

Mom grew up near Roswell, when it happened -less than a handful of years later she was struck with polio and learned what an iron lung was -

Same decade my Dad, the Battle of Nottingham, somehow not getting a dishonorable but returning to head off into basically a warzone with his little mother.

Mom strong bloodline linking back to every friggin' major event in history and her people were right in the middle, or caused it.

Dads stronger central Europe bloodline of warriors back to pagan Prus - throw in the surrounding elements from the results over wars of land - it built a sturdy stock, prepared, and ready. Including fighting to the death with mom's family - quite literally.

Those two lines come together in the midst of our government playing with mind control held together with paperclips.

We have Wright and his wives and apprentices popping up all over the world after their time spent in Spring Green banding together through acceptance, openness, and spirituality -expressed who it organically surfaced - *yeah, you figure that one out.

Now imagine a large cauldron - taking all those mindsets, cultures, dna into a large pot and stir it up - will it produce the best of each, the worse - or in the middle? Hey - while at it toss in some of that crash site stuff...vitamins? food? hmm.... Starseed? When did that term appear? Star child? OMG. My mom wanted to name me Starlynn. Dad insisted on Eva Marie...True story.

What did our parents do, Kubrick?

I need to check some things... St. Therese, the flowers start with seeds.........

Flash -Soylent Green, movie...

You Decide

Rose image above by: LMoonlight- Pixabay

From Russia with Love? Time will tell.

2026-06-04T00:20:46.391-05:00

The last month has swallowed up my existence. It's hard for me to find the words. My mind is still calculating all the info I have found. And it's hard to breathe.

It's been building over the last 6 or so months, I've felt it- but it really has been in the last three weeks the floodgates have opened. My little reflections of history and how the fit into my life, my traumas and even my smiles, opened up a world that is, well, surreal. My father left clues, many, and they tell a story about our history -what his eyes saw, and what to watch our for -a love letter not only to me , but also all of you.

It has been playing out on my Facebook page- there's too much for my fingers right now to type out and quite frankly, I do not know how to format even that first paragraph of introduction. I thought it was my childhood in California, and then Evanston, IL. But, I was wrong- it goes back further than that and not even just with the birth of my father, but further and I am unsure what those shoes looked like walking it, but there's a path loaded with deep imprints. My father lived a covert life -beyond the military, beyond an alphabet agency or any of one of the many operations they've had, especially during the cold war.

I don't know what to do with all of this but to me, his message is clear.

Mow it down, baby girl, mow it down. When Daddy was president of his local UAW working at Mark Controls in Evanston -I remember two distinct things about his leadership -don't pretend to be anything but who you are and do not bow to the corporate office and everyone needs to know about the things that have a direct impact on each member- his leadership was to be a force, but one that brought everyone to the table. During contract negotiations once the guys all left straight from the factory -they had a shower facility there and they were wanting to clean up. My father told them not to, that they needed to show up in that Chicago high rise at the company's attorney's office in their work clothing and with the grease of hard work on their skin. That was who they were. Plus they left some stains on the pristine white chairs and table, a reminder in case anyone forgot. That was my dad. I am his daughter.

So, as I find a way to tell this story over however long it will take- it begin in my mind with this photo, my father, a small man baby sitting on my sweet grandmother's lap. She is in the floral dress with a dark hat on. I think it was taken in Evanston, IL in the 30s.

Like I said, a man baby -even then a large presence. A man baby that would travel the world, join the USAF and then take my grandma back to Rosengarth, East Prussia the late spring and early summer of 1961. Yes, a trip made right before the wall went up, when stasi were thick, and Gary Powers was in Russian hands after his plane crashed in their territory. I'm learning a lot, and it came from going through grandma's photo album capturing the details -the clues he left.

1961- Spring/Summer trip to Rosengarth East Prussia (Rozynka, Poland as we know it today) and then Dortmund -a sample.

Yes, pigeons.

and then a few years later he is in Burbank, California with who appears to be Gary Powers and Jay Sebring, and friends, living it up.

All of this happening before I was born in 1967 and soon after was baptized by someone identified on the photo Fr. Patrick Peyton with two very at attention Godparents named McGill. Thing is, I understand now that the operations being run back then were all about mind control and creating illusions - top it off with Daddy leaving clues, well,you figure it out. One key tidbit is he should have had a dishonorable charge for the guys and him swiping passes to go out and end up in a bar fight where he got gangrene - they called it the Battle of Nottingham. He spent a lot of time in military hospitals healing from that and then that all happened. Did I mention he collected bluebirds?

But now I have more questions to all of this -Klara Keuchel, aka Sr. Wilfreda popped up in my searches, my personal ancestry ones and then I noticed some other things, including a photo -a few- that have me scratching my head and led me to Russia - I did already know I do have some slav in me, my dads side is heavy Eastern Europe/Germany - I have since learned about the baby networks after WWI and how children or pregnant woman were protected by the ethnic immigrants for a chance at life - meaning sometimes paperwork was changed, adoptions were not logged as such. And I am learning this was happening back in Evanston during those years. Sr. Wilfreda traveled the same yr my father was born -she landed in the Evanston area and was from the village next to Rosengarth, where my grandmother had lived until 1929, and grandma's maiden name is Keuchel. And then- I saw this photo.

I do not know who they are,but I do know, they look like me and my father- 1957, I believe.

Then I did this -I inlaid my photo , my dads and my son. I finally look like someone other than them. The darker skin, olive and that woman in the center? She's in other photos and I do not know who she is...

She is in this photo from 61, dad resting his hand on her- my grandmother on the bench between her siblings.

What's going on right? I can see it all happening back then, we know it did and I know what life was like after WWI for the people where my grandparents had lived, it makes sense and I am good with that- but when I tried to pinpoint who it could be in the lineage, some surprising names popped up - my grandmother's mother was a Gerigk and from there..well - and while Gerigk does make history as having someone on the wrong side of WWII - the name pops up through the connected to names like Penquitt, and Rehaag. I really don't want to say where it all took me, just yet - but it was significant and definitely would explain some things in that album like this - completely out of place- positioned to stand out.

England.

He wouldn't have left these crumbs unless there was a reason -

I know my father and he knew I would ask why?

Who?

What?

Where?

When?

I've always been that way...

Turn the page -

2026-05-26T09:34:27.071-05:00

We're the architects of the next chapter - we can take the teachings found in the prior ones-hold on to the core which resonates and helps us spin the gears of evolution - we do it rough and jam up the works or we work together to keep time's clock ticking. Listen to your core - your spiritual heart exists there.

Modern spiritual traditions share a deep, interconnected history: Judaism grew out of ancient pagan roots, Christianity and Catholicism evolved from Judaism, and Islam built upon both traditions. Together, they heavily shaped our current understanding of spiritualism.

And yes, AI made the image because I can't and need visuals for my posts - I do all of this voluntarily and on no budget because I don't have anything to budget. If someone wants to help me with that, great- must appreciated but until then tech provided us a knife - and I am using to cut a child's plate of food...finding hope in what others call horror, so, for now, the nightmares of war loom a little less.

Complan all you want while using an AI driven social media that a mere simple person is trying to be creative, and healing - using what they have to work with....

Us vulnerable are used to that

I am working on the next podcast - but for now....I do also have a lot of research gathering on my Facebook - it's quite a story.

From Chaos to Monarch - WTF was that? #mkultra #monarch #johndavidnorman #jaysebring #rosarypriest

2026-05-20T19:19:36.451-05:00

Reach out if you can relate-

May 10th - I don't know what to tell ya #rodserling #mothersday #monarch #whatever

2026-05-10T13:44:00.005-05:00

Powers? Sebring? The Big Genie -My Dad, Alfred John Woywod

On this day, May 10th- (Facebook post)

I'm just going to spew it because I need to process it and make sure I am looking at it in a balanced way and not making it fit because our minds tend to connect our surroundings like that- so- here we go and I will add to it as usual in the comments, and please remember to do your own research, Google summaries are for that guidance only and require verification -

30 yrs ago it was the week my Father died - heart stopped while taking a shower - woke up to my mom screaming- dad on the flooded bathroom floor , his 6'4" 250lbs hit the toilet tank and broke it- I made it to the bathroom to see my then husband pounding on his chest, screaming AL, and I witnessed my father's eyes roll back in his head. That bit of safety I felt in his presence, vanished. My Daddy was gone. He was buried after doing the full Catholic 2 days of torture wake - right before his b-day May 12th, which that year was Mother's Day.

Further back on the timeline forming my life, on May 10th 1960 this happened (Google): ... "the U.S. was in a state of diplomatic crisis following the capture of CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers on May 1, 1960, when his U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union. Just three days prior, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had revealed Powers was alive and captured, ruining the initial U.S. cover story that it was a missing weather plane"

Now today - May 10th. I decided to watch a video on Youtube drinking the coffee I shouldn't be as it is not low hist, to relax. And, yes, you read that right. I was drawn to one featuring former spies buried in Arlington and had John Kiriakou, also a former spy - that video and keywords mentioned by Kiriakou (Elvis, May, California, Air Force..etc) triggered those file tabs of mine in my mind and I looked.

He was in California at the same time as all the weird stuff surrounding my parents and my foundation. He worked at Lockheed..IN BURBANK. Then I found a video where his son was speaking and said he was a test pilot in ROSWELL - Mom's territory --

What do I do with this?

And is that him? That face, the profile - kinda like flattish, wide cheeks, big guy, like dad -standing there with Sebring?

I'm not losing it -you see it, right?

Happy Mothers Day

Dear America - What Do I do? It's your problem too.

2026-05-10T04:06:00.007-05:00

What Do I Do With All This?

I posted a rougher draft of this earlier on Facebook, but it needs more space. If you’re new here, scroll back through the last few months. The story doesn’t make sense unless you see the whole thread.

It’s real. It’s from my heart. And somehow, it feels like it’s bigger than just me.

My father’s side carries military brass, UAW leadership with shady edges, Catholic rosaries, and German grandparents , one of whom wore that moustache until the day he died. A general uncle. Godparents flipping off (sarcasm) Mickey Mouse at Disney. And a profile that fits every wild MKUltra rumor you’ve ever heard: highly intelligent, risk-taker, could win a bar fight. Coincidence? Maybe. But I have receipts.

My mother’s line is pure American chaos: Henry VII descendants with knights, witches, patriots, rapists, brainiacs, and secret society ties. Quakers, Peale connections, Roswell and White Sands proximity. She knew Jay Sebring in his early years. When I watched the documentary months ago, a woman named Elle Elliott appeared , same maiden name as my mother, same doppelganger look. My brother was obsessed with Dances with Wolves. I felt it in my bones.

Then Chicago. Evanston. John David Norman and his Navy buddy from the same Ohio town as Norman Vincent Peale. Strong secret society connections on that side too. That “buddy” groped and molested me as a child.

I was sick for years, doctors with no answers. A nurse once pulled me aside and warned me never to let a male doctor take me into a room alone or remove a catheter without a witness. I was a little girl.

As a pre-teen/teen I broke. Swallowed a bottle of pills while watching Trapper John, M.D. I survived, told my mother. Her response: “Don’t tell your father. It would kill him.” Then she shipped me to Los Angeles to an older sibling who put me on a factory floor , underage, enlarged spleen, on medication, medical file in hand. The owner of that business? His surname links to the same circles around Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin, right now-today.

Catholics, Germans, military, secret societies, Hollywood, Scientology-adjacent threads, rich and poor, left and right , they all thought they were damn 007.

And for 58 years my family has told people I was lying about being sick, that I was exaggerating, that I wasn’t disabled. Gaslighting on an industrial scale.

So I’m asking , world, whoever is reading this:

What do I do with all this?

1-800-Therapist? Seriously? Don't say let go, let God...we've been saying. that for decades, pay attention.

So, how are those Epstein files coming?

Satisfied yet?

“This is raw source material from someone who lived it. Names, places, timelines, and connections are here. Do your own homework and verify.”

Above Image by Sara Castellano Frutos from Pixabay

The Little Girl I Carry: Safety, Fog, and Fifty-Year Funerals

2026-05-07T21:04:00.004-05:00

I think I have been searching for safety and love my entire life - I had a handful of people like Dad and Grandma Woywod who I felt safe and loved by but I think I am realizing it was in a tornado of trauma and maybe I don't know what it really feels like. Wow, what a realization, huh? And it all came about from unraveling my childhood as best as I could on these pages of the blog and on my Facebook account. It was just easier for me to throw findings and notes on there and keep them organized under topic/person on posts. I am doing all of this from the comfort of my bed and have been. Chronic illness and winter's gift to those who are bestowed both, time -lots of it, long blinks towards clarity - nah, that's an overstep, too many answers are lying in graves dead and buried, the funerals are close in my head, fifty years long.

It's a lot. It's been a lot. I'm a tired lady carrying a little girl in her that needs love. If that makes sense. All she ever wanted to know was the one question she asked throughout her...our...my..life, Why?

If any of you reading this found yourselves born into intrigue, trauma and mystery and you've spent your entire life walking through a gaslight you're trying to figure out on who controls, you'll get through. It will be tough. There are more us than people are willing to know.

I don't have hate towards people - disgust towards systems? Hell yeah.

I don't even hate those men who stole my childhood with their personal touch - I hope the child in them lost can now rest in peace.

If I hurt anyone along the way on this path of life - I hope they find forgiveness. I honestly do not know, the fog is blurred by the memories etched in.

Government and those organized against - You Have Collateral Damage littering our Nation. Get better cleaning crews. And yes, conspiracy theorists, that is a hint.

I'll still unravel and add more as I find it- but know I am doing this for the next person - they are out there.

Evening Coffee Thoughts - I still believe Everything Happens for a Reason - ask God.

Be Well 💜🌹💜🌹💜

#mothermaryhearourtears #ourchildrenarenotforsale

Monarch?

2026-05-07T03:47:00.002-05:00

Going down these rabbit holes has brought some clarity to my younger years, but it has also left me with new questions. My social media has become a running archive of notes, thoughts, links, and observations gathered from years of quietly researching from home and trying to make sense of pieces that never quite fit together.

Lately, I keep stumbling across references to “Project Monarch.” Google summarizes it as a “conspiracy theory alleging a secret CIA mind-control program involving trauma-based programming.” Even typing those words feels surreal to me because years ago I would have dismissed the subject outright.

But then I look at the photos.

I look at the old California pictures of my parents from the 1960s. I look at the baptism photo that came straight from Grandma Woywod’s album, still attached to the page after all these decades, with “Fr. Patrick Peyton” written carefully across the back. I look at other photographs that appear to include people connected to worlds I later learned more about , names like William and Frances Hamling of Greenleaf Publishing. Then there is the photo of my dad at a Burbank bar near the studios, a photo that appears to include Jay Sebring. That one especially stopped me cold because my mother once told me she had known or met him.

Those photos became tangible anchors. Without them, I probably would have convinced myself to stop digging long ago.

My childhood was surreal, it felt like an out-of-body experience before I even knew there was a word for that feeling. Some memories remain painfully sharp. I can remember tiny details most people would overlook in passing moments: a crack in the wall, the way sunlight filtered into a room, what I was wearing, the feeling in the air. Other stretches of time feel distant, fragmented, fogged over, or simply gone.

Which brings me back to Monarch.

The discussion surrounding it claims it emerged after MKUltra and focused on children, layering complex trauma onto developing minds, then monitoring behaviors or placing subjects through further conditioning meant to compartmentalize memory, redesign personality structures, or create psychological triggers for later control.

It sounds absolutely insane to even type those words.

But I have the photos.

I have spent years researching.

And I was positioned inside circles of intrigue from the moment I was born.

That does not mean every theory online is true. It does not mean every missing memory equals programming or every strange connection points to some hidden operation. But it does mean I cannot simply laugh these subjects away anymore either.

The photos are real.

The people were real.

The environments were real.

The trauma was real.

I was there in California in the late 1960s. Later I attended the open lab school at Central Elementary in Evanston during the 1970s, where I was learning what I called “2e2 Math”, algebra concepts, at eight years old. My neighbors in the apartment building were Mike and John, and yes, I am 99.9999% certain the “John” who would appear there was John David Norman.

Thank God I have those California photographs because I cannot imagine trying to put these pieces together without them. Without tangible evidence tying places, people, and memories together, the doubt alone would probably stop me before I ever allowed myself to ask the questions in the first place.

I know a lot of weird things have happened to me over the years. I also know I can sometimes read people, especially survivors of CSA and severe trauma , with an accuracy that has startled even me. Maybe it comes from hypervigilance sharpened through survival. Maybe trauma survivors recognize things in one another that others miss. I honestly do not know.

One moment especially has never left me.

When doctors first had me on Gabapentin, my emotional guards felt lowered in ways that made me uncomfortable. During a DV and SA support group meeting, a new woman arrived with a friend she had driven there. Out of nowhere, before I could stop myself, I blurted out that I was sorry for what had happened to her when she was sixteen, that she had been gang assaulted.

The room went silent.

She stared at me in complete shock and asked how I could possibly know that because she had never told anyone there. She was not even the person attending the meeting , she had only driven her friend.

That moment still unsettles me because it was not vague intuition or some broad statement that could be interpreted afterward. I knew specifically what had happened to her. The words came out before I could stop them, and the reaction in that room made it clear I had touched something deeply real and deeply hidden.

I have gone over that moment in my mind countless times trying to explain it logically. Was it hypervigilance? Pattern recognition sharpened through years of trauma and observation? Was I unconsciously reading cues most people overlook? I honestly do not know.

It wasn't a first for me, nor a last.

What I do know is that moments like that force me to confront questions I never expected to be asking about trauma, memory, intuition, survival, and the ways human beings carry pain beneath the surface.

And I also cannot fully dismiss Monarch.

Because honestly? It makes sense to wonder whether programs like MKUltra simply vanished without follow-up curiosity or continuation. Governments, scientists, intelligence agencies, and researchers have rarely been known to stop pushing boundaries simply because the public became uncomfortable. Human beings are obsessive by nature, especially when power, psychology, war, behavior, and control intersect. If experiments were conducted during one era, it is not irrational to question whether later generations explored related territory in different ways.

That does not automatically validate every story attached to Monarch. It does not prove every internet narrative or survivor account. But it does explain why I cannot completely turn away from the subject either.

So if you see me wandering into these darker corridors of history and speculation, now you know why.

Above Image by SIP_Vienna from Pixabay

Where Friction Turns to Wine

2026-05-02T02:45:00.005-05:00

The laughter, the debates, the drama and the freedom of expression after suffering and surviving the oppression of war. Hope was born in those conversations that turned into the media we consumed and built our today's upon.

Crowded streets, a odor only Paris knows, simple but cared for food and attitudes abound. All the friction sounds exciting, at least to me. Think how easily our today could be polar opposite had say Hemingway had a headache that morning and stayed home. What would we have missed out on?

Epicenters have that power. A hub of converging energy. The goal wasn't to agree, it was to grow. That alone forgave those differences, eventually.

Could our world of chosen corners handle stepping back to that - days and environments such as The Dome in Paris?

I'm not sure and I am not sure why this is on my mind, but it is - maybe I just needed to step away from1947 California for a bit.This week I shared a lot of new information, which was also a lot for me to absorb with my life connecting to so much of it and I was kept in the dark to believe somehow I deserved all of it - it's hard not to feel sorry for myself, I've tried, it's hard. I have to grieve something that I am still missing some links but it's impossible at this point to deny it is all happenstance. I literally grew. up believing I was a freak of nature with all those medical issues, the various csa abusers that seemed not related, but now look very much related - it's a lot..

Could you see me going to counseling with this one? Hello, padded room time."But I have photos....... "

A little Parisian cafe with welcoming Art Deco curves and golden amber glows...and a good debate to. work out some pent up frustrations, turning vinegar into wine. Yeah...Cest si bon...

Today was a me day- I needed to step away from the chaos of twisted greater good for a bit..

Can We Just Shake It Out?

2026-05-01T02:43:00.006-05:00

Talking just love and light when the world is imploding is not working -

Dwelling on the world imploding, yeah, have fun with that- even I take breaks from the morbid.

Wanting complete control over the other side is only perpetual pain -each of us has stories and experiences that are beneficial for motivation and to serve as warnings of wisdom.

We are all walking around this Earth encased in our own body of spectrums - so many at once- Mental, health, physical, Emotional, learning..and on and on, similar but unique.

We're never going to convince one another of absolute allegiance and nor should we.

We have to be comfortable with that while also respecting we all have passions where those individual experiences have built our own expertise, we all will have moments where we stand our ground on certain things - it makes for some excitement and opportunities of growth.

When I advocated at IEPs I was firm on all conversations in that meeting were child/student focused - Free Appropriate Public Education in the Least Restrictive Environment, period. I didn't want to hear about admin and teacher battles - those woes did not get placed on that child. I was firm. It's things like that, each of us have within -for me it's respecting the little girl in me who is going to do her damndest to protect that next child and accepting that sometimes I may fail.

I believe everything we do, create and stand up HAS TO BE CHILD FOCUSED and towards growth. Period. YOU FOCUS ON THE CHILD BY SUPPORTING THE PARENT. We can hash it out, believe me, I've sat at tense damn Thanksgiving meals - I'm alive and never pretended not to be. 😊

We can do this even if we do not like one another - the country is huge, you don't have to be neighbors, and if we got our acts together we could make it easier to move by balancing the playing field - duh.

OK - my before bed thoughts after taking in a day of surreal history - and then wondering how much of it. is actually real or had it been visited by Team Snow White.

Sweet Dreams 💜💜💜

#mothermaryhearourtears #OurChildrenAreNotForSale

The Lilacs and Innocent Light

2026-04-30T15:52:00.002-05:00

A post I shared this morning on social media..well, afternoon, I just woke up after an allnighter due to dysautonomia. Fun times - but anyway, when I woke up the following happen and I thought I would share it here since...yeah..since..

I am sharing it as is so anyway who happens to be following these wild stories knows where I am at in the process -

Ora Murray left this world, brutally ,about 4 yrs prior to #elizabethshort #BlackDahlia and she was known as the #whitegardenia - She caught my attention, especially when I saw she was from Oregon, visiting her sister in California, while her husband was stationed in Mississippi - a cursory search showed some others mentioning #Chicago , a natural pull for me right now and because #short having been in Chicago where she supposedly questioned people about this murder- Suzanne Degnan, a little girl torn apart and flung from existence. Allegedly when Short did this she pretended to be a reporter - Elizabeth was murdered soon after and when returning to New York - it's all very interesting, isn't it?

Maybe Short was questioning people, maybe conducting an investigation, and after returning to LA, all information needed was gathered---time to disappear? Put on a show? IDK why I thought that - 2 birds 1 stone came to mind. i could be totally off my rocker, it wouldn't be a first.... but it's starting to nag at me, like a movie or book one might be engrossed in -

So - that's today's assignment and we're going to remember Ora in my posts, and also that little girl from Chicago, that keeps coming to the light...Suzanne Degnan.

That little girl's photo literally gave me intense chills - so, here we go. Time to give some attention... and then I saw where that precious child is buried in the very same cemetery as my own Daddy, All Saints in Des Plaines - Wow, tears are flowing....

#mothermaryhearourtears

Now you know what I will be doing tonight..

A Short Rabbit Hole Filling In.....

2026-04-30T01:21:00.019-05:00

I had to do it, Elizabeth was haunting me. This past weekend I spent a lot of time and emotional energy digging into the story I spent most of my life avoiding for some reason. I think I figured out why. Behind those eyes were intense pain and getting a summary of what was published it felt like I knew her, and always had. Her story had elements the whispered my own, from my childhood where I was ill, and in spite of it worked with more trauma being placed on daily. I felt that ache. Maybe I've always have and that is why I turned away the first time I learned about around the age of 8 or 9.

Jay Sebring-

I was an old movie fiend even back then in the 70s - I loved film noir, Cary Grant (my first love), old Hitchcock movies, even the Ziegfeld Follies - Esther Williams with her water ballet of synchronized dancing - to a little girl, as a toddler when living in Hollywood land and had no problem taking my 18 month old legs and running towards an ocean and the waves - well, it was magical to me. Old movies felt natural to me so when one came on my mom started telling me about Elizabeth Short. Discussing murder in the house was no big deal either. Mom was a ferocious reader and some of those book covers most woul call traumatizing. I've explained before about Helter Skelter and mom going on and on about knowing Jay, the hairstylist. So, yes, for me it was normal. Even then I didn't understand why Elizabeth's story bothered me so much, but it did, and I turned it off and avoided it, somewhat, since.

Those eyes this weekend wouldn't allow me to turn away. Couple that magnetic pull along with all the research I have been doing into mid-century America and fringe groups with interesting human beings, well -it called out to me that all is not as it seems - actually none of it.

I started seeing a young man in pain in those eyes and that photo -deep pain that had nowhere to go, and they didn't understand it all. I felt their soul feeling like a ping-pong bounced around trying to find home. But that young man felt like a child crying - and I had to.

At first I had AI remove make up, female accessories and give Elizabeth a haircut, timely for the era - but then I wanted to be sure there were no alterations in bone structure - lip placement, so I went old school and just took the original photo, erased what I could myself, which was just her hair and earrings, and then I just placed
that face on top of the AI version with the short hair and it started making sense -all of it. The short relationships, the comments from people at the time that they were a tease, aka -wouldn't put out. There were mentions that they were unable to have sex, and that Elizabeth just used people. I saw a medical condition society still makes jokes about and from ignorance -which is something I know about even if not the same thing - mine deals with connective tissue within my body, Elizabeth's dealt with the essence of their being's expression of gender.

I saw someone trying to survive in a constant state of hypervigilance in a world of men returning from war,hyped up on surges of adrenaline and pain, their own PTSD. No doubt that during those days, in that era.

How does one navigate then. How could they cover it up? How could they find others who would understand? That's mind boggling to think about because back then being intersexed doctors chose your path before you ate solid foods. Furthermore, in Germany Hitler's mad scientists were obsessed with topics like these, they made for painful experimentations and death. We were doing our own, and it wasn't just the Kinsey Report.

I realize there is not actual proof and the autopsy may negate this, but I also know how records can be manipulated, altered or just flat out lied in, my medical records have fallen victim to such things and our documented history is filled with it, and especially with some of the massive covert operations of the time and since - Jeffrey Epstein and that circus is a prime example. So, if anything allow this theory to prove - the answers are not as simple or blatant as it may seem.

For instance did you know that Chicago was an epicenter of the LGBT movement for civil rights? I had no idea and I grew up in the area, I didn't know until I started down this mid-century trek. The person who started was Henry Gerber-

In 1924 Henry Gerber formed Chicago’s Society for Human Rights. He had arrived in America only a decade prior. He was born in Bavaria as Joseph Henry Dittmar on June 29, 1892. According to the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame: "From 1920 to 1923 he served with the U.S. Army of Occupation of Germany and during this time, he came into contact with the German homosexual emancipation movement. He subscribed to German homophile magazines and was in contact with Magnus Hirschfeld’s Scientific-Humanitarian Community in Berlin. In 1924, Gerber returned to Chicago and was hired by the post office. Gerber’s return to Chicago was amidst a backdrop of urbanization and an emerging gay subculture.

Following what Gerber had seen in Germany, he felt the need to establish an organization to protect the rights of gays and lesbians. With several friends, Gerber formed an organization which was later incorporated as The Society for Human Rights, a nonprofit corporation in the State of Illinois. The organization published a newsletter, Friendship and Freedom, which was distributed to its small membership."

I never knew- until this week and for some reason when I read it I was reminded that I had also read about Short spending time in Chicago more than once. At least this is what is said when Steve Hodel and his interview with Paul Veglia in 2017 as published on the website The Black Dahlia in Hollywood.

"She purchased a bus ticket to Indianapolis, and then it was on to Chicago, where she stayed at the Park Row Hotel from June 24 until July 12. She also stayed at the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago with Jack Chernau.

While in Chicago, Elizabeth became interested in the Suzanne Degnan murder. William Heirens, a young man from the area, was accused of killing the young girl and dismembering her body. The Los Angeles Examiner reported: “In Chicago, Freddie Woods, 23, who described himself as a “friend” of the slain girl, revealed that she was “fascinated” with the brutal slaying of six year-old Suzanne Degnan, which took place in Chicago a year ago. Woods said he met Miss Short last August when she was in Chicago for 10 days. She told him she was a Massachusetts reporter covering the trial of William Heirens, who was convicted of the Degnan kidnaping and slaying.”

It almost sounds like Short was undercover, or pretending to be, why - I don't know but is it surprising considering the time, and all that was swirling, or a sign of someone trying to fit in or start again. Who knows, but it's interesting. But then in the sidebar on the same site you will see another statement that has been reported elsewhere:

"James Neemo was an usher that worked at the CBS studios in Columbia Square on Sunset Boulevard near Vine Street. He worked directly under head usher John Egger. Egger said he saw Beth “at least twenty times” at the radio studio. She always came alone, except once when she was with a man who identified himself with his badge as a Chicago police officer. Beth usually waited in line to see a broadcast, but this time she was allowed in with the man through a side door as a courtesy to the officer. He said she came to see the Jack Carson show on either January 2 or January 8."

Now it gets interesting, doesn't it? Chicago at the time was a hub for many things, military wise, and otherwise. Project Paperclip was taking off and German scientists, many from Hitler's regime, were either one their way or here in America to make a switch and use their expertise for our efforts (I know, weird) and then Chicago was also in the middle of a pulp science fiction scene growing rapidly with Ziff Davis and then also with William and Frances Hamling and their Greenleaf Publishing in Evanston. The infamous child pornographer and abuser John David Norman was at Northwestern (according to his draft card) pumping up those radio skills - and Northwestern was bursting at the seams with returning service members utilizing their GI Bills - oh, and then we also have a young Hugh Hefner doing his own self publishing from an home in Chicago. Interestingly enough, the Hamlings, Norman, and Hefner would land west in California, in areas like San Diego, Los Angeles and Palm Springs - Already over that way was Chicago born Walt Disney with his empire growing and Sidney Sheldon getting his mind prepared to write novels we wouldn't be able to put down. This doesn't even include all those science fiction writers and then artists like Edmond Teske. Some of the largest names heard the call to "Go West" - and they did. Furthermore, they did with their eclectic mix of lifestyles, some considered on the far end of fringe.

In the land of sunshine the Chicago creatives often moved in the same circles or at least ones that easily connected to others. Elizabeth moved in the same circles, or did their damndest to do so as they reached for the stars. One person Elizabeth knew well, at least well enough to say in his home for a bit, was theater owner Mark Hansen. Actually many of those former Chicagoans also knew him and moved in the same circles. There they would meet up with the like minded such as avante garde artist Man Ray and one of the main suspect in her murder, Dr. George Hodel. Hodel owned that house that has become eeirly a visual symbol of her story even though we don't know what happened there, and if anything did.

The house is known as the Sowden House after its original owners. What I found interesting in researching this is who built that home, Frank LLoyd Wright, Jr. -just call him LLoyd. Lloyd was very good friends with Teske. Teske had actually spent time at his father's place in Spring Green, Wisconsin, Taliesin. There the talented artist documented the building of minds happening before him and became good friends with LLoyd. Teske had actually stayed at he Sowden House and Lloyd's other and first building there. the Taggart House.

Rumors have been flying that Elizabeth possibly sat for Teske, but there's no evidence of that, yet. It's also worthy to note that Jack Parson and L.Ron Hubbard were known to run in some of the very circles, the year prior the pair conducted a series of rituals in which Parsons believed he was attempting to invoke or manifest “Babalon,” a divine feminine figure from Aleister Crowley’s Thelema system. Central to the working was the concept of the “Scarlet Woman,” a human counterpart meant to embody that force. Parsons believed the ritual could call forth such a figure in the physical world , what he later interpreted as the arrival of Marjorie Cameron-and ultimately lead to the creation of a transformative or “magical” child.

Now enter Man Ray's art- no doubt bondage and more was a highlight.

Google image search result on Man Ray

Can you imagine all these minds coming together? Science fiction, erotica, surrealism, in an air of suspicion where everyone back then was spying on one another? Sidney Sheldon sitting back and taking it all in, organizing thoughts and creativity, mixing it up? The Wright's and their organic ways and openness for all walks of life? The military and slurry of alphabet agencies - not to mention movie stars like Cary Grant, a very good friend of Sheldon's and who was known to spy for England.

https://charlesmatthews.blogspot.com/2019/06/dream-wife-sidney-sheldon-1953.html

It's a lot. I know. My head is still swirling from taking it all in and trying to understand it all and how they came together, all of them. As it is, anything I suggest in this is fluid and theory but you have to admit, it's one hell of a story. I want to make sure all understand that as I know how things get twisted along with motivations, we all do but when you add on things like L Ron Hubbard and Scientology we know that a few decades later they had their own project, Operation Snow White, where they infiltrated government offices and it was reported they altered, changed, or destroyed records. What could a group with such intent do in today's world? Especially one of wealth and are our techno wizards? We'd never be able to trust documented history if they decided for the rest of us to delete history. Are they? Have they? Will they? Do you trust the answer?

I guess it's up to each one of us what we decide is important enough to care about and use our best judgement. For me, right now -Elizabeth pain IS important and always has been - because no matter who Elizabeth was -what happened to that life we've been told was literally ripped into two pieces, blood drained - despite that -when I look into the eyes of that picture, I see duality, hidden. I see a young man, and I know in my gut there is more to all of this than meets my eyes.

From NASA

For instance, out in those sands surrounding California and beyond, Parsons along with Hubbard and also Frank Malina, that had been working on their own projects, together, to take mankind into outer space. Those efforts caused heartaches, loss friendships, and hurt feelings. Parsons would end up accusing Hubbard in a bad financial deal and Parsons losing his life managed by perfectionism, every aspect, blown to bits from supposedly dropping some chemicals. As for Malina, he and Parsons had it out as it is said Parsons turned him in for communism, and Malina ended up leaving the country -

The story is far from over - Elizabeth's and even the connections to those highly intelligent swirls controlling the vibe of society - Malina reaches us today but this time through Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell and her sister. The sister is married to his son.............

Article

And Elizabeth's eyes -both of them- holds a chapter in the story of US.

It's late - there may be typos fixed after initial publishing - feel free to contact me if you see anything glaring.

Trilogy of Duality -

2026-04-29T12:03:00.002-05:00

Trilogy of Duality -

My heartfelt words / AI's emotional expression

On a person born with two identities

One in life , the other in death

Art evolves....

People erase it before it forms

Coffin.

A Short Rabbit Hole Widens

2026-04-26T03:54:00.009-05:00

*This essay explores overlapping historical interpretations and cultural context surrounding two unresolved cases; it does not assert definitive conclusions.

Marvin Merrill is the name Alex Baber, co-founder of Cold Case Consultants of America, has suggested may be identified in the Zodiac Killer's infamous coded letter. A name that echoed back a couple of decades to Elizabeth Short's, the Black Dahlia, tragic end and investigation but was never charged, much like a handful of other men.

Elizabeth, like most young single women back then had a slew of men wanting to date, and who did date her. Soldiers returning from wars and her being a beautiful young woman it was only natural. Add to it all she was a traumatized young woman, with a chronic health condition, and a very dysfunctional family situation, for her those dates were most likely shots at hope towards a future of just existing to survive while she tried to reach for the Stars.

Marvin was one of those young men -

He was born in Chicago and was in the Navy and served as a medic. According to reports in Okinawa in 1945, he was reportedly buried alive when a makeshift hospital cave collapsed. The reports went on to say he needed to claw his way out. Needless to say it is not surprising that experience left him with "recurring battle dreams" and "startled reactions". He ended his military service with a medical discharge. He was able to use the GI Bill benefits to enroll at USC, and work towards a medical degree.

Reading all of that, one can begin to see pieces of a larger puzzle taking shape. It is one that may help explain the world Elizabeth was moving through in the weeks before her death.

The first reason I have is the Zodiac's targets were couples, surprise attacks, and usually with a gun and/or knife. They were quick, as quick could be in those situations and in some reports words likes sloppy were used to describe the assaults. There was no cutting off of body parts, or moving the victims from one location to another.

I think there is another explanation -

Skip Merrill was another alias he was known to use.

He was into art - surrealism. So much so that post her death, some years later, he popped up in Wellington, Kansas, of all place, and started a Wellington Art Foundation. Interesting, isn't it all - and even more so is what is around Wellington- Near there at the time was Beech Factory Airport: Approximately 36 miles.

Cessna Aircraft Field: Approximately 38 miles. McConnell Air Force Base: Approximately 40 miles. -- Boeing Military Production: Boeing’s Wichita facility was critical, manufacturing bombers like the B-52 and helped to continue to support military needs throughout the 1960s. Quite frankly, it was a hub -and known as the Detroit of Aviation. A whistle call to Navy and Air Force enthusiasts and perhaps others who have business to handle . This broader Cold War landscape, the military research, behavioral psychology, and intelligence programs like Project MKUltra all formed part of the cultural backdrop of the era, whether directly connected or not.. but, I digress....

It was the fact that he was an artist which made me dig a bit deeper and mainly because back in the days when Elizabeth Short was reaching for those Stars in Hollywood a bohemian art scene was taking off, along with society being entertained with science fiction all around - and it was growing.

Margolis told the Kansas newspaper that he was an artist who had studied under surrealist Salvador Dalí - most likely not accurate but while living in Hollywood 1946, he socialized within the local theater community. Elizabeth and him, according to reports, shared an apartment with Marjorie Graham, an actress at the Vagabond Mummers' Playhouse on Sunset Boulevard. It wasn't a longterm arrangement, less than two weeks. As for Elizabeth, she did know quite a few names, or at least made sure to be where they were, in the theater and arts community. It was her obsession to be part of that crowd in hopes to be discovered -

Even with Elizabeth's connection to that world, my first thought went straight to other suspects- a main one, George Hodel, the doctor many believe was the murderer, including a member of his own family, his son, and his close friend, the famous surrealist Man Ray who created the following in 1939, the decade before Elizabeth's murder. It's striking to see it knowing that her body was left for discovery, in pieces, just like this piece of art. She suffered extensive postmortem mutilation, including a surgical bisecting of the body and facial trauma consistent with severe blunt force. The surrealist imagery associated with artists such as Man Ray has often been compared, retrospectively and speculatively, to the staged nature of the crime scene.

Hodel was friends with Baron Ernst von Harringa, according to Hodel's son, Steve. His son goes on to link Harringa with the occult-bohemian milieu that included Jack Parsons and, Hubbard. It was a world where avant-garde art, ritual magic, sexual experimentation, and intellectual rebellion often overlapped.

As it happened, just months before Elizabeth Short’s murder, Parsons and Hubbard had conducted the infamous “Babalon Working,” a series of Thelemic rituals intended to invoke or manifest the divine feminine, an event that, whether symbolic or sincere, illustrates the psychological and cultural atmosphere moving beneath postwar Los Angeles.

Yes, it is a lot to take in, and this represents only a small sampling of what Jack Parsons and L. Ron Hubbard were involved with in the 1940s. When considered alongside the surrealist imagery associated with artists such as Man Ray, and the broader cultural world of postwar Hollywood, it begins to sketch the environment Elizabeth Short moved through in her final months. She was a young woman seeking acceptance and stability in a city defined by ambition, instability, and fragmentation, while also navigating health challenges and a lack of consistent support. Taken together, these elements may help form one interpretive framework for understanding the circumstances surrounding her death. However, none of these connections have been formally substantiated or confirmed by official investigative findings.

As for Margolis, he too appears as part of the wider postwar landscape, an individual shaped by wartime experience, possible trauma, and the difficult transition back into civilian life. Like many of his generation, he moved through artistic and social circles in a period defined by instability and reinvention. In reconstructing these overlapping lives decades later, it becomes easy to imagine a kind of narrative closure or psychological arc being imposed on fragmented histories. But that remains interpretation rather than established fact.

As for the Zodiac killings two decades later, they unfolded in Northern California, far from the postwar Hollywood world Elizabeth Short inhabited. Marvin Merrill’s life had been rooted in Southern California, yet the timing raises its own questions. By the late 1960s, California was moving through another cultural rupture, counterculture, experimentation, psychological research, and the fading shadow of covert government programs. Haight-Ashbury had become synonymous with altered states and social upheaval, while Louis Jolyon West, better known as Jolly West, remained an influential figure in behavioral research. Meanwhile, Project MKUltra was nearing its official end, with many of its records later destroyed under orders from Sidney Gottlieb in 1973. Whether any of that has bearing on the Zodiac murders is impossible to say , but it remains part of the larger psychological landscape of the era.

A Short Rabbit Hole

2026-04-25T19:03:00.004-05:00

I've avoided those haunting eyes for 50 years now and ever since learning about the horror those eyes faced the last moments of her life in January of 1947. For some reason, those eyes - their depths - screamed to me an ache deep within her, one I knew. The sadness has always been overwhelming.

Then -this week- happened. I was continuing my research on those paths that I have been walking in trying to understand, absorb and bring balance to all those others victims whose stories have touched my soul through family and professional endeavors - It's extremely hard to explain all of this so be patient with me.

Today we're focusing on Elizabeth Short as she's going to return us back to my last posts discussing our twisted efforts at a greater good in post WWII America. How those operations and projects by those to whom we entrust our collective citizenship control us in unseen ways- and how those visions and efforts were shrouded in layers of unhealed trauma of their own.

Elizabeth is one of many tragic souls whose lifeless body was dumped to be forgotten.

She's been in the news quite a bit, or at least has been chatter on social media sites as a discovery was made in the Zodiac Killings, identifying a killer after finally solving the code. Alex Baber, a self taught and propelled crime investigator cracked it - and I believe him. Baber is the co-founder of Cold Case Consultants of America. Baber argues the code points identifying the name of "Marvin Merrill," which was a known alias of someone who was looked at and known to Elizabeth, "Marvin Margolis."

Before I dig into Margolis on here, I want to say I feel history has maligned Elizabeth, as it often does with women, especially those without a pot to piss in nor some great impossible feat they somehow accomplished - a vast majority get thrown into the Scarlett pile.

In 1930 she as a young girl still under 10 years old not only watched her parents lose everything to the Great Depression, but she also had to grieve the death of her father, he vanished. She watched her mother be the sole breadwinner raising her and her four sisters. Elizabeth also carried an extra burden as she had to deal with chronic illness since childhood- severe asthma that caused her to have to seperate from that family base and spend time over the winters in Florida staying with relatives. But, when all was said and done ,Elizabeth as a sophomore in high school had to dropout because of her health issues. After dropping out she took jobs in Florida to help out the family, mainly in the service industry. So, yes, too sick for school, but able to be shipped off to Florida and work. That brought tears to my eyes, most likely the tears she herself was unable to shed anymore because survival doesn't always allow for that -

Depression, war years building and busting open and there she was a young girl grieving the death of her father, working in Florida because of her poor health and all while she should have been excited about proms, football games, and boys. She never had a chance.

Try to remember that this was in a time when women were forced to take the brunt of responsibilities stateside even though they made far less than any man would for the same jobs. Many lived without knowing how their next meal would happen, now imagine a young girl navigating that. -and also remember while not intentional, all the time, those with chronic health conditions also carry the blame in families for being costly and not productive enough. They learn to expect less, feel they deserve less - especially back then. A date meant a meal. These women were also exploited and used up as they tried to survive and live.

So now that I've set the foundation I feel she deserves - we move forward to California, keep in mind Hollywood was not the poison that took her life, it was the stage upon which predators recognized vulnerability.

In 1942 a letter arrived - Daddy was not dead. He staged his disappearance and vanished across state lines but now he wanted to touch base. I can only imagine for a young woman like her, 18yrs old at the time, a magical fairy tale was coming true - the parent she thought was dead, reached out, all the grieving and the only ifs could stop.

She headed to California - to warm weather and a father who greeted her with a cold and drunk heart.

Shattered.

A beautiful young woman tossed around when she could barely breathe - everyone telling her how striking she was, her face, those eyes, but never saw her - the person - the soul.

She didn't stay at her father's long before she had to fend for herself, even though not to disappoint her mother and grandmother back East, she wrote fantastic reviews of her time in the of reaching to the Stars. Maybe she didn't want to hear how yet again, she failed - or was a burden in some way, shape or form.

Think hard about it all - what would you have done in her shoes?

Who would you become?

She, well, she became the Black Dahlia --

Next post I will concentrate on the men around her, the life she fought to build, and the violence that turned her into legend

Postwar Shadows, Bunny Ears & Basement Dreams in Evanston. pt 1 #johndavidnorman

2026-04-17T14:37:00.003-05:00

I try to imagine myself a very young adult walking the green grass near Lake Michigan, post our WWII victory - taking that all in after coming from the sands and sauna air of the southwest. Can you imagine being that young student walking the grounds of your new home, new school - with all of that swirling. Nevermind the fact that your school, Northwestern University, was a crazy hub of veterans on GI Bills and others moving forward with disembarking service nearby - all those memories, those dreams, those tears - all that trauma suffered, life changed forever, all that fear -never able to erase what you now knew. Each life passing by carrying their own versions experienced by a system built from different life lessons - all trying to absorb an impossible.

That was the tail end of the 40s for kids stepping towards the rest of their life, as it was for a young Oklahoma man who made it to Evanston, Illinois by way of a few years in Houston interning at the radio station housed at the Rice Hotel. John David Norman's hard work on productions known like Experiment in Radio had actually paid off. They paid off via scholarships like one from the Houston Committee of Constitutional Government, whose parent organization was Committee of Constitutional Government who at the time was chaired by Norman Vincent Peale.

Welcome to Progressive Evanston.

I spent a significant chunk of the 70s and my childhood in Evanston. I knew it well, at least the streets, alleys and gates I could pass through while the streetlights remained off. I've come to learn even more and what those conversations may have been about beyond the windows I passed.

They would have been many of the same windows my father and his brother passed in their youth, same streets, same houses. In mid to late 40s Evanston they would have been in their high school years attending St. George High School for boys, also in Evanston. In their adventures one of the homes they most likely passed was on Fowler and occupied by William Hamling who was toiling in a basement with his own endeavors- a publishing company, but not your typical kind. His publications would cater to a niche audience of a burgeoning science fiction fan base, one who wanted more than martians and spaceships - they wanted to crawl into erotic imagination, for adults only. The world would come to know it by the call letters in it's phone number, Greenleaf Publishing.

I found out about Greenleaf yesterday and only after a news blurb appeared on my feed - it was about a newsstand in Chicago and a car that went through it's doors. I immediately thought about that newsstand in Evanston on Chicago Avenue and Main, the one I passed every day of my world back then I wondered to myself if today they were owned by the same person - and yes, they are... So, yes, this rabbit hole was kicked open by that - I know. Weird.

In five minutes from there I knew about Greenleaf Publishing - which then some of these puzzle pieces started making sense or at least, are taking shape.

Evanston is and was a hub. Surrounding it is Chicago, Great Lakes Naval and then too Fort Sheridan, along with O'hare and Midway airports within range. Quick access to Canada- over those lakes - it's a natural site of defense, sitting on a lot of wealth - it is a healthcare center and science and tech leader in many ways. It was the heartbeat of innovation, production, education and faith - all rural roads took you to the Yards.

Norman was at Northwestern during this time- there is no explanation why that summer he was in Philadelphia 1948 however the GOP, the DNC and the Progressive Parties held their conventions there that year.

Now, back to Norman. That young man he was and the infamous pedo ring leader he would become grew up in a family where his older brother was a pilot but not just any pilot, rather one affiliated with Chinese National Airways Corp. Now, like most reading this, that meant nothing to me until I looked in further and found out those pilots and those planes took part in covert missions during and after the war - often connected to OSS which turned to CIA.

https://www.cnac.org/norman01.htm

Norman's brother would have been one of them, the ones who flew in the shadows of pilots like Capt. Julius Barr who took part in harrowing escapades as a pilot to Eastern world royalty - including Madame Chiang Kai-shek and as an "air chauffeur" for warlord Zhang Xueliang.

https://www.cnac.org/barr01.htm

An interesting bunch of characters and what many now call war heroes. And yes, if you are like me - you caught something , that last name, Barr. It is and has been repeated quite a bit in stories and history connected to covert operations, pedo rings, Epstein and beyond. I noticed it too, especially since knowing that Donald Barr, former OSS officer to CIA cheerleader of Jeffrey Epstein at Dalton as a college drop out Math teacher. It kinda smacks, doesn't it? Even if I don't know whether or not they are related, it stills feels like a period at then end of a sentence.

https://chewedupandspatout.blogspot.com/2026/02/1-1-jeffrey-epstein-alphabet-math-weird.html

Then....

One twisted - rare - little detail about Donald Barr now makes sense more than ever before , doesn't it? He was a science fiction fan and author - remember Space Relations...??

Before I leave you for a small break in writing -

I want you to remember that in this same span of time, mid to late 40s, Project Paperclip, Bluebird and MK Ultra, were either in the making and or being utilized with Paperclip utilizing Hitler regime scientists to our own liking -

But also take in that beautiful meandering drive down famous Lake Shore Drive where Bunny ears were about to be erected in the decade to come signifying his, Hefner's, accomplishments. He was still busy self publishing from a kitchen table in this Chicago home - all happening at once in Union and Mob fighting Chicago.

To Be Continued.