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7.20.9


Seeing the Virgin: Tricksters Take it to the People

The BVM appeared recently to a family in Texas. She made her appearance in bird poop found on their truck's side view mirror. Following an accident with the truck, owner Salvador Pachuca washed the vehicle, where:

the Virgin Mary bird poop magically fell from the sky.

Family members gathered around, decided the poop was the Virgin, and called others to come see for themselves. The family feels blessed by this excremental visitation, and feel "protected" by the image. They plan to remove the truck's mirror and give the image of the Virgin Mary a place of sacred honor in their home.

The Virgin Mary has also recently made an appearance in Limerick, Ireland. At the Holy Mary Parish Church, workers were cutting down trees on the property when some noticed the image of the BVM in a stump:

One of the lads said look, our Blessed Lady in the tree," said Noel White, chairman of the Rathkeale Community Council Graveyard Committee.

"One of the other lads looked over and actually knelt down and blessed himself, he got such a shock.

( Virgin Mary 'appears in tree stump')

Thousands of people have come to visit the stump and light candles; they've also created a petition that's gathered at least 2,000 signatures to urge the church to turn the stump into a shrine. All this has exasperated the church priest, who denies there's anything miraculous going on:

However, the local parish priest last night advised people not to worship the tree. Fr Willie Russell said: "There's nothing there . . . it's just a tree. You can't worship a tree."

Well of course you can worship a tree; pagans, Wiccans, and the like do it all the time. I do it all the time. In fact, I've been involved in a conversation with a tree in my backyard for a week now -- but that's another story.

Another recent item: Mary has appeared in another piece of organic material; quartz:

The finder, Rev. Dr. Douglas Van Dyke, D.D, said in a statement "We believe this to be a miracle from God. The gemstone has a very strong, positive energy which can be easily felt by holding or even touching the stone."

The stone will be up for auction on ebay.

Other appearances by the BVM in recent months include an appearance in May on a griddle at the Las Palmas restaurant in Calexico, California where, not priests or other authorities declared the image a miracle, but masked Mexican wrestlers were among those that did. The griddle has been taken away, stored in safe keeping as a shrine to the Blessed Mother.

These appearances of the BVM's image are diverse, but, in spite of the variety of places she chooses to appear, there are some commonalities. The BVM appears in mundane objects and places; and often organic. She appears in food, trees, rocks, and, bird droppings. She appears under freeways, on windows of corporate buildings where all can see her, in proletarian items like potato chips and cheese toast.

The Virgin herself doesn't seem to be making many appearances these days. There are exceptions of course, Medjugorje is an example. However, that particular apparition is controversial; it defies conventional BVM appearances in many ways, which causes some Christians to be suspicious of what's going on in Medjugorje, even calling it Satanic.

But the images of the BVM continue, and often in the most cartoonish places, which of course, only further marginalizes an already marginalized phenomenon. But maybe this is the point. The Blessed Mother appears to the people; the folk, not the infrastructure, not the institutions of society or law, of science or academia. In fact, she defies authority; the majority of the time even her own church denies her presence by sanctioning believers and refusing to accept the visitations as genuine.

Meanwhile, in diverse cultures (Celtic, Latino, European, etc.) the BVM continues to manifest in everyday, and often earthy (trees, poop) objects.

The Image and the Entity

A word here about the images of the BVM, and the BVM herself. Or at least, a more solid, humanoid manifestation of the BVM. Apparitions of Mary at sites such as Lourdes, Fatima, Guadalupe involve Mary as a being. Aside from Medjugorje, as already mentioned, there seems to be less of these kinds of appearances, and more of the griddle/bird poop manifestations of the image of the BVM. It's as if the phenomena is trying a more direct approach in getting attention. In this way, the apparitions and images are trickster antics. After all, appearing in oil slicks, food, trees and bird poo is certainly an anti-establishment thing to do. Like aliens, who do equally bewildering things in actions and requests, (the classic pancake episode for example) the BVM's appearances avoid the authorities, preferring to manifest among the people.

This accomplishes two things: one, ensures the division between us and them continues (the "people" vs. authority) and two, it reinforces the existence of the "other" among the masses, while ignoring -- thumbing its nose at, which is what tricksters do -- the infrastructures that both deny their existence, as well as demand it make an appearance solely for them.

But these tricksters aren't having any of it. They prefer to take it to the people.

Free download! You can download a free PDF by Regan Lee and richelle hawks: UFO-Mary: Marian Apparitions and Esoteric Encounters; Visits with Mary, UFOs, Contactees and the Trickster.

Notes
Cabinet of Wonders/Damn Data
Blessed Mary in Tree Stump
"Virgin Mary Image" Said to Be Seen In Quartz
Virgin Mary 'appears in tree stump')
Flapjacks from Outer Space, the strange case of Joe Simonton and the Cosmic Pancakes...