The Starman & The Swan People (Part II)

"Some Sanskrit mystics locate seven planes of being, the seven spiritual lokas
or worlds within the body of Kala Hamsa, the Swan out of Time and Space..."
- From The Voice of the Silence by H. P. Blavatsky.
(Link to the image above has been lost.)
(All images in this post can be clicked-on for original size.)

"While scientists are still in heated debates about what exactly consciousness is, the University of Arizona’s Stuart Hameroff and British physicist Sir Roger Penrose conclude that it is information stored at a quantum level. Penrose and his team have found evidence that 'protein-based microtubules - a structural component of human cells - carry quantum information - information stored at a sub-atomic level.'

Penrose argues that if a person temporarily dies, this quantum information is released from the microtubules and into the universe. However, if they are resuscitated the quantum information is channeled back into the microtubules and that is what sparks a near death experience. 'If they’re not revived, and the patient dies, it’s possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body, perhaps indefinitely, as a soul.'"

- Excerpt from the August 13, 2017 article: Life After Death? - Physicists Says "It's Quantum Information that Transcends from One World to Another." (Inset left: a Penrose tiling)

***

I never could wrap my head around the idea of death; even as a child. Most especially as a child. My first "dead" person was, in fact, my mother's mother. I never really understood why everyone was so dismal when Grandma died. I was, after all, quite convinced she still existed; I could feel she was still there somewhere. In my mind - my primary reality - she just, well, went away. In other words, she went elsewhere, leaving her sick body behind; which was sad (for us) but certainly not tragic (for her). And, really, if she managed to find a better place and feel well again, that was a good thing, wasn't it?

And, to this day, part of me - the part that never "grew up" - still feels the same way. The adult part, on the other hand, is unsure and doesn't know what to think. The adult part mourns. The adult part can't handle death. So, when David Bowie - our Starman - set sail, the adult was devastated and perplexed. Then, one morning - about a month later - I had a strange dream (described in Part I). Or, perhaps, my inner child had the dream. In any case, in the dream the Starman did not die; he "left with the Swan People"... which, in terms of a child's imagination, is not really an odd thing for a Starman to do. Hardly more odd than, let's say, imagining a flock of swans might carry a person to the moon. But, in 1638, Francis Godwin imagined just exactly that...  and wrote about it (inset right). More importantly, nobody even thought he was cracked; some people (Edgar Allen Poe, for one) thought he was ingenious.

(Very obviously) a young swan.

Now, had my adult self merely accepted the dream and moved on, this post would not have been necessary. Instead, "self" felt compelled to google "Swan People," forgetting that, when researching on the web, one invariably gets sucked down a rabbit hole. Call it "obsessive research disorder," a syndrome peculiar to cyberspace where information is (too) easily accessible, and what begins as innocently clicking on a link leads to a dizzying minefield of other links, each a tiny rabbit-hole all in itself.

So, the Starman and the Swan People - originally intended to be merely one (fairly short) post - somehow morphed into three separate posts. Sorry about that, but I can't seem to wrap things up in a lesser number. Could it be a Tesla kind of thing, that is, the Rule of Three? Maybe. Not that it did Tesla any good...

The Starman & The Swan People: A Dream

Swanstar - Prismacolor drawing on Bristol Board - 1976, DS
(Currently in the collection of a friend.)
(All images in this post can be clicked-on for original size.)

"I've been dreaming of David Bowie for the past few nights; they're the first dreams I've had of him since his death in January. Unfortunately, they were so vague and elusive I can hardly remember them. The only one which actually stuck is the one I woke up from early this morning, and DB wasn't even present in it. It was a short dream and different from the others in that it had this peculiar realistic quality about it similar to a lucid dream. At the same time, I felt like a sleep-walker throughout the dream; one who has suddenly woken up in a very strange place with no rational reason for being there.

In the beginning, I seemed to be milling about with a number of people in what resembled an airport type of structure. We had all gathered there for a common purpose, although - initially - I had no idea what the purpose was. At some point, we arrived outside of a glass-enclosed room which might've possibly been some variety of control center... or maybe a television news production studio... with rows of seated people gazing at glowing monitors in the semi-darkness. Suddenly, an announcement was made, and I immediately realized that this was the information that I and the others had been waiting for. Although I don't remember any physically audible broadcast, the news was somehow conveyed to all present... and it went something like this:

"It is now official. We have just learned that David Bowie has left with the Swan People."

And, that was it: the end. I woke up with the words "swan people" reverberating in my head and it seemed imperative that I remember those words."

- A dream recollection, DS, February 4, 2016.

***

It's been well over a year and a half since the Starman left us, and almost as long since I had the Swan People dream (above), so, it probably seems strange to be posting about it now. I intended to post about it last year - as evidenced by my original Music Box series menu - but, after my last Music Box post in May of 2016, the series was stalled by a number of real-time misfortunes, and, as for the "alchemy of love," well, cats and kitties, I just wasn't feelin' it.

But then, in February of this year - almost a year to the day of the Swan People dream - I dreamt about DB again. The Swan People were not in evidence, but, this time the Starman was. And, he said something in the dream that's stuck with me for months - which I'll reveal later on in the post* - but, it wasn't until I throughly researched swans (and Swan People) that I found a link between the two dreams... and some renewed inspiration!

So, in part, this post is about the mysteries of dream symbolism - specifically the swan symbol - but, it's also a tribute to the mysterious Starman himself; a tribute long overdue.


* I (optimistically) assumed I'd be able to finish this post in one part. The second dream will now appear in Part II... Part III.

___________________________________

In Search of the Swan People

The Lid of the Music Box

"As swan people, these dreamers must have been able to envision the bands as groups of swans flying together along a trail of the seasons. From my knowledge of this and the other empowering stories of Dunne-za medicines, the swan people seem to be the only ones given the vision required to direct the communal hunt. If any of the medicines are to empower the communal hunt, it must be that of Swan. People with "swan power" could look ahead and see events beginning to materialize beyond the imagination of others. They saw in the events of one season omens of seasons to come."

- Excerpted from: Changes of Mind: Dunne-za Resistance to Empire (download), Robin Ridington. Inset right: a vase - Swan Maiden - by sculptor A. G. Quinn.

” Naachin or “Dreamers,” according to Ridington, “are people who have experienced the Trail to Heaven in person. They have known the experience of dying and going to heaven. Unlike ordinary people, who die once and do not return to the same body, Dreamers leave their bodies, grab hold of a song that carries them forward, and then return to earth on the trail of that same song.”

- Another reference to the Dane-zaa from The Dane-Zaa Indians and the Vision Quest (.pdf) by David Martinez.

"The vision has this power over individuals and communities because they believe in the relevance of dreams. Unlike the western intellectual tradition that often feels like it knows more the more it debunks or demystifies things, Indigenous cultures are certain that they have a more profound appreciation for the world by presupposing that the world is ultimately mysterious, in the sense of being sacred and thereby beyond the realm of philosophic reason. Yet, dreams are a source of knowledge. More specifically, they constitute an existential encounter with an alternate mode of awareness.This awareness for the developed dreamer enables him to experience the transformation of his lived world into something mythic and superordinate...

...Because of the fundamental nature of the visionary experience, one cannot satisfactorily interpret dreams because they contain both the known and the mysterious. The visionary landscape and the lived landscape are enfolded into one another... To enter the dream world means, in this sense, to alter consciousness and enter into an implicit dreaming order—the unfolded, psychic potential of the visionary realm— that has a structural, morphological effect on consciousness.” 

- Excerpted from Stories of the Vision Quest Among Dunne-za Women, 1983, Robin Ridington. The wonderful image (inset left) is one of two featured in this post by alchemical artist Karena Karras. The other can be found in the Alchemical Swan section (Part II).

"Did you know that the beautiful Swan is one of the Native American Totems? Sister Swan gives a message of Grace.  She teaches us to surrender to the grace of the rhythm of the universe and to slip away from our physical bodies to enter the Dreamtime. Swan people have the ability to see the future as they surrender to the power of Great Spirit. They are accepting of the healing and transformation of their lives when that surrender takes place."

- From this Native American Totem page.

***

As you may have suspected, I take dreaming very seriously, but - and, as I've probably said in the past - dreams are tricksy things. The most we can say for sure about them is that they emerge from the unconscious mind and often utilize a language based on symbols. Sometimes they seem informed by recent conscious experiences. For instance, as it was, immediately previous to the Swan People dream, I had just finished (digitally) creating the Music Box panels, the lid of which (above) - although it consciously escaped me at the time - very much resembles a pair of swans making a heart-shape with their necks, as they often do in reality (inset right).

Then again, the dream was in reference to our (beloved) Starman. As It was, it was his unexpected loss to a large degree that propelled me to begin composing my Music Box series to begin with. And, predictably, not long after his fateful day, journalists often referred to his last album, Blackstar, as his "swan song." So, either occurrence may have filtered into my brain triggering the dream. But, somehow, I never really thought so, and now - after further research and a second dream - I suspect something else might have been at work...

The Language of the Birds: A Musical Interlude

The North American Wood Thrush.

"The last of the light of the sun

That had died in the west

Still lived for one song more

In a thrush's breast.

Far in the pillared dark

Thrush music went --

Almost like a call to come in

To the dark and lament."

- From "Come In" by poet, Robert Frost.

"Whenever a man hears it he is young, and Nature is in her spring; wherever he hears it, it is a new world and a free country, and the gates of Heaven are not shut against him."

- Naturalist Henry David Thoreau, regarding the song of the wood thrush (from the Wiki entry).*

***

Out here in the west, at least, where I currently reside, there are no wood thrushes... and I miss them. In late spring and early summer, they'd begin singing around twilight in the forest behind my childhood home, and the sound was both haunting and inviting... as in Frost's poem (above).

The thrush's song is also a good antidote for "writer's block". And, I'm afraid, writer's block is a symptom of whatever virus or bug I've been battling for the past few weeks.

And, so, despite having several posts in various stages of completion, I'm taking a break from blogging for a short while. Not really long. Just long enough to go outdoors and remind myself that a.) it's spring, and, b.) I actually live on a planet.

Then again, if you must know, a small, nesting sparrow outside my kitchen window advised me. While a sparrow's song can't hold a candle to the thrush's - it's too repetitious...(although no worse than pop music!) - it still knows how to get its point across. And the sparrow's point was: "Get away from that computer keyboard... now!"

Of course, there are those who would debate whether or not birdsong is even musical... scientists mostly. For instance, you'll note in the quote below that, although scientists have detected certain harmonics in the hermit thrush's song which match human patterns, they are still not convinced that birds "have music"... which is quite the opposite of my own views (see my earlier Language of the Birds post), but, then, no one ever accused scientists of having imaginations! ;-)

_______________________________________________

"Once described as the finest sound in nature, the song of the North American hermit thrush has long captivated the human ear. For centuries, birdwatchers have compared it to human music – and it turns out they were on to something. The bird’s song is beautifully described by the same maths that underlies human harmonies.

... The study shows a natural bias in the thrush towards certain harmonies, similar to those found in humans and some other birds, says Martin Braun of the Swedish organisation Neuroscience of Music in Karlstad, who says the study is an important contribution to the field.

Others remain cautious. Dale Purves of Duke University in North Carolina points out that it concerns just one species, and one component of music – pitch. “What does it all mean? That’s unclear,” he says. The study may explain why the hermit thrush song sounds melodious to our ear, but the debate over whether or not animals have music, and whether theirs is similar to ours, remains very much open."

- Excerpt from a 2014 New Scientist article.**

_______________________________________________

Well, I'll let you be the judge, but, yes, it sounds like music to me! But, then again, scientists make a living by having such "debates".

On the other hand, I defy them to listen to the Russian canary (below), without becoming at least a tad persuaded. While it's true that the little birds are trained, the point is... well, many human musicians are trained. The important thing is that the birds have the aptitude... and this tiny creature is positively orchestral!

I actually hesitated before posting the above video... I detest the practice of caging birds. But, this amazing bird was actually performing in front of a small crowd - dig on that, if you will - so I caved. Besides which, now that I think of it, isn't chaining oneself to a computer for hours on end kind of like being trapped in a cage?

And, on that note, um... see ya later! :-)

* Interestingly, also from the Wiki entry: "The male (wood thrush) is able to sing two notes at once, which gives its song an ethereal, flute-like quality."

But, naturally, if one scrolls down in the article, we find the creature, like so many animals, is becoming endangered:

"The wood thrush has become a symbol of the decline of Neotropical songbirds of eastern North America, having declined by approximately 50% since 1966. Along with many other species, this thrush faces threats both to its North American breeding grounds and Central American wintering grounds. Forest fragmentation in North American forests has resulted in both increased nest predation and increased cowbird parasitism, significantly reducing their reproductive success."

This reminds me too much of a similar sad story... that of the starlings in my article about the starling's amazing murmurations.

** For another link to a similar article, and more about the wood thrush, see this past post.

The Language of Birds & the Alchemy of Love: The Music Box

Still Life With Music Box - digital - © 2016, DS

Note: The original image posted here has been replaced with the most current version.

(Click on any image this post to enlarge.)

"At the beginning there was only Chaos, Night, dark Erebus, and deep Tartarus. Earth, the air and heaven had no existence. Firstly, blackwinged Night laid a germless egg in the bosom of the infinite deeps of Erebus, and from this, after the revolution of long ages, sprang the graceful Eros with his glittering golden wings, swift as the whirlwinds of the tempest. He mated in deep Tartarus with dark Chaos, winged like himself, and thus hatched forth our race, which was the first to see the light. That of the Immortals did not exist until Eros had brought together all the ingredients of the world, and from their marriage Heaven, Ocean, Earth and the imperishable race of blessed gods sprang into being. Thus our origin is very much older than that of the dwellers in Olympus. We are the offspring of Eros; there are a thousand proofs to show it. We have wings and we lend assistance to lovers."

- Excerpt from "The Birds,"  a comedy by the Greek playwright Aristophanes, 414 BC, found here.


"... This thought leads to another, which takes us into unexplored and perhaps unexplorable regions of Greek religious history. The chief claim made in Pithetaerus's preposterous speech to the Birds is, after all, partly true. The Birds were objects of worship to the Minoans and the early inhabitants of Greece before Zeus and his Olympian commando descended upon the peninsula. Birds were not gods; Pithetaerus does not quite say they were. Yet the bird perched on the sacred Double Axe or the pillar-tree was the Numen of the axe or the tree. The Minoans believed, as Nilson says, that the gods - or, to put it more exactly, the divine power - appeared in the form of birds. Again, the most important and wide-spread method of communication with the divine power was by augury. The birds knew the weather; they knew when good luck or bad was to be expected; they gave clear warning of the future to those who could read their messages. Could they have known what was coming so well unless indeed it was partly they who made it come? "

- Gilbert Murray from the introduction to his translation of Aristophanes' "The Birds," 1950.


"Sometimes mythological birds create more than the physical world. Cultures in northern Europe and Asia credited birds with establishing their social orders, especially kingships. A golden-winged eagle was said to have put the first Mongol emperor on his throne. The Japanese believed that sacred birds guided their second emperor in conquering his enemies before the founding of his dynasty. The Magyar people claimed that a giant eagle, falcon, or hawk had led their first king into Hungary, where he founded their nation. The Magyars looked upon this bird as their mythical ancestor...

Many myths have linked birds to the arrival of life or death. With their power of flight, these winged creatures were seen as carriers or symbols of the human soul, or as the soul itself, flying heavenward after a person died. A bird may represent both the soul of the dead and a deity at the same time. Some cultures have associated birds with birth, claiming that a person’s soul arrived on earth in bird form."

-  From Mantrik Garudika's  Bird Figures in Mythology.

"Select characters in medieval Icelandic literature are able to comprehend the language of birds. Ranging from Sigurðr’s tasting the blood of the dragon Fáfnir to Óðinn’s daily dialogue with the ravens Huginn and Muninn, numerous sources will be examined from a comparative perspective. Birds consistently offer important information to individuals associated with kingship and wisdom. The wide chronological and geographical range of this motif will be explored as well as the fascinating theoretical questions regarding why birds are nature’s purveyors of wisdom. With their capacity to fly and sing, birds universally hold a special place in human experience as symbols of transcendence and numinous knowledge; Old Norse tradition reflects this reality."

- Timothy Bourns, from his introduction to The Language of Birds in Old Norse Tradition. (.pdf)

The Hindu God Garuda. For a list of other avian humanoids, try here.

The Language of the Birds

Technically, the Language of the Birds - as it was often described in folk tales and myths in general - literally referred to what anyone might assume it did: the way birds communicate. And, to be able to understand this language endowed one with special powers, knowledge and abilities. As time went on, however, the phrase took on more occult implications. in medieval France it became the secret "Green Language" of the Freemasons and Knights Templar - la langue des oiseaux - and was possibly also utilized by the Troubadours (or Trouvères). During the Renaissance, there were apparently a number of musical languages inspired by birdsong, although at least a few of these were probably composed of simple signals in ways similar to those used by the indigenous peoples of the Americas and elsewhere.

When I first began using the phrase "the Language of the Birds" to describe my own understanding of mysticism, I had almost no formal knowledge of the phrase's history; I had initially found it in reference to a Sufi text, and was attracted to it in a poetic sense. After all, the phrase has a nice resonance to it.  Eventually, however, I began to equate it with language of the higher consciousness, specifically that of the creative muse and its role in automatism. At the same time, I began to intuit there was a transdimensional aspect to it, which I referred to as "the memory of sound". That is, while there is the physicality of sound and its effect on our senses, there are also immaterial, subliminal codes embedded in sound which effect us both emotionally and spiritually in ways that are not currently understood. In this sense, music is, in fact, magic.

To Decode The Living Matrix... Featuring the Work of Cristóbal Vila

From the video: Isfahan - 3D digital still - 2005, Cristóbal Vila

matrix |ˈmātriks|
noun ( pl. -trices |ˈmātrisēz| or -trixes )
1 an environment or material in which something develops; a surrounding medium or structure : free choices become the matrix of human life.
• a mass of fine-grained rock in which gems, crystals, or fossils are embedded.
• Biology the substance between cells or in which structures are embedded.
• fine material : the matrix of gravel paths is raked regularly.
2 a mold in which something, such as printing type or a phonograph record, is cast or shaped.
3 Mathematics a rectangular array of quantities or expressions in rows and columns that is treated as a single entity and manipulated according to particular rules.
• an organizational structure in which two or more lines of command, responsibility, or communication may run through the same individual.

ORIGIN late Middle English (in the sense [womb] ): from Latin, ‘breeding female,’ later ‘womb,’ from mater, matr - ‘mother.’

North American Wood Thrush

“As we listen we lose the sense of time—it links us with eternity…Its tones…seem like the vocal expression of the mystery of the universe, clothed in a melody so pure and ethereal that the soul still bound to its earthly tenement can neither imitate nor describe it.”
- Anonymous Twentieth Century naturalist describing the Wood Thrush

"It was dawn and as I lay there listening to the birds w/ my eyes shut I began to see a weird pattern emerging from the darkness... an almost graphic pattern similar to computer graphics... It looked like chopped meat being criss-crossed (sic) by a rapidly moving concentric ring pattern... similar to my cyclocentric* patterns but more intricate. From this emerged what seemed like another darker dimension - again filled with cyclocentric patterns but these were made of various colors of light... and some were large and whirlpooling (sic) while smaller brighter patterns emerged... all of them moving and vibrant and living and all of them revolving and forming harmonics by which even tinier glowing patterns emerged. It was as if I was delving into a series of many dimensions... but I could only glance at certain aspects (of the patterns) for milliseconds at a time (as they were) far too complex and enmeshed for human resolution...

In Search of the Transdimensional: Murmurations (Repaired, 12/2023)

I was sent a link to the above Vimeo (new link for Sophie Windsor Clive & Liberty Smith) by a friend, not long ago, which really set my mind whirling. I didn't connect it with recent work, but, in a strange way, it and my recent preoccupation with nature - specifically the woods behind my house - do somewhat go hand in hand, so to speak. The Green Man is all over my psyche these days.

Currently I'm working on an illustration for an old children's story of mine... about a wood-elf. No, I'm not referring to Tolkien's variety - as lovely as they may be - nor the pretty little Victorian fairy variety either. Without going into detail, however, I've felt oddly connected to the natural world again... in the way that healthy children generally are, and my current illustration features a bird and a beech tree. So, it's all about birds and trees... and bugs.... and, for an artist, the amazing spaces in-between.

I've heard of murmurations before... which is a rather perfect word describing a flock of starlings... but what few clips I've seen never did justice to the actual phenomenon itself, which is fairly astounding.

Starlings, of course, at least the variety one sees around the east coast of the USA, are fairly obnoxious birds, and the most scruffy, least attractive birds I've ever seen. But then, I've never witnessed a murmuration... I'm not even sure they occur here... certainly none so remarkable as the ones shown in this video of Otmoor, below. And the starlings across the pond are quite handsome in their own way, though, apparently, not terribly popular there, any more than they are here.

In any case, after viewing the video above - and really, the reaction of the women at the end is priceless -  I consulted Youtube and found two videos composed by Dylan Winter featuring some breathtaking starling formations over Otmoor, England.

Interestingly enough, Otmoor and its environs were said to be an occasional haunt for Charles Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll. His chessboard in Through the Looking-glass was said to be inspired by Otmoor and the area is known to this day as Alice's Meadow. (Note: Not only are European Starlings under attack, but apparently Otmoor was, too, till concerned citizens rallied and saved it from the bulldozers! See here.)

According to Winter's short documentary (found here) murmurations happen every day throughout the winter! Winter makes a tepid case for predation habits and social status as an explanation for the birds' behavior... but I get the impression that he's no more convinced than I am.

A predator's search strategy? Starlings maneuvering for social position...? Somehow I think there's more to the phenomenon than simplistic biological explanations. Why then do starlings take part in such remarkable displays of aerodynamics? My guess is because they can. And these displays are not motivated by biological needs but - dare I say - are inspired by needs and abilities humans can just barely understand. We do, however, engage in sports - feats of physical prowess exhibiting the capabilities of the human body to conquer limitations imposed by the three dimensions of the "solid" world. "See what we can do?" is our implication as we turn our somersaults, or fly thru the air over an ice-skating rink.

I think the birds are doing the same. "Ah, but see what we can do?" they seem to be saying. And don't you just wonder how they do it? How thousands of birds can form massive currents in the air with their bodies, synchronized in ways no human can imitate? Apparently science affords us no answers. Not even the most complex algorithm can explain what we're seeing. And, keep in mind we are only seeing these formations from one angle at a time. (!) 

The bird's odd dance has an almost alien, enchanted quality - like something you might find in one of Merriam Zimmer Bradley's Arthurian tales. I think of Lewis Carroll and his marvelous looking-glass. I think of old wives tales and folk tales featuring sorcerers and harbingers of death. I think of moire patterns and broken symmetry... I think of M.C. Escher and his tessellations.

(2023 note: see also: this Guardian article.)

But I wonder, is this a transdimensional phenomena we're witnessing... an indication of some vast organic fabric of which we can only glimpse - or wholly miss -  through  our telescopic lenses and Hadron colliders? Can the discovery of any "god-particles" really fill in the gaps in our knowledge? I've often felt that animals, and wild-life in general know a great deal more than they're able to let on... but then, perhaps, "knowing" is somehow different for the denizens of the natural world. I suspect that the starlings effortlessly and gracefully gliding over Otmoor are not thinking about or planning their activities, writing "How To" books, or uploading themselves on to Facebook. They have no need for words, diagrams or marketing strategies... they're simply utilizing elements of physical reality we have little recognition of, coupled with abilities to traverse space and time in ways that render our mass-transit systems (and mass-communication systems) clumsy and infantile.

So, here's to birds, particularly starlings - godspeed, feathered cosmonauts!

***

PS: Synchronistically, that night, after writing this post, I was watching a PBS mystery centered around the theme of Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark". From the Wiki article:

"Here is how Carroll "explained" the Snark in 1887: I was walking on a hillside, alone, one bright summer day, when suddenly there came into my head one line of verse – one solitary line – For the Snark was a Boojum, you see. I knew not what it meant, then: I know not what it means, now; but I wrote it down: and, sometime afterwards, the rest of the stanza occurred to me, that being its last line: and so by degrees, at odd moments during the next year or two, the rest of the poem pieced itself together, that being its last stanza.

In the midst of the word he was trying to say

In the midst of his laughter and glee

He had softly and suddenly vanished away

For the Snark was a Boojum, you see."


***

PPS: Regarding a comment I made on this post regarding magnetism, I happened to find this article about the earth's magnetic fields and it's effects on animals. Could our starlings be utilizing these magnetic fields for their own purposes? 

Got me. But it doesn't really rule out transdimensionalism... as I suppose one can view a magnetic field as a kind of transdimension... ;-)

***

7/20/12 UPDATE: I found this unfortunate afterword to my murmuration post on Graham Hancock's news page tonight. Guess it's a quick trip from the "invasive" list to the "endangered" list these days...