Reptiles at Yule

[smokingboot]

Someone has sent me a Yule card with a picture of Sobek, crocodile god of Egypt, across the front. He's looking very cool, in funky regalia with a crimbo star hanging from his staff. I vaguely checked it out and sure enough it seems the end of December coincides with his birthday. Time for green body paint and lying around in the heat waiting to be fed the good stuff. My kind of party!

Also sometime around now (within the past three days I think) is the date when, in 1536, the Virgin Mary appeared in or near an aztec temple dedicated to the lizard goddess, Tonantzin Coatlique. I recall seeing a painting once of the two deities merged, the Virgin Tonantzin decked out in traditional blue and white, sharp teeth and snaky tongue pointing out of scaly head. There is something sweet to my mind about how differing imaginations can blend and turn things upside down, create new visions and ideas. Keeps me buzzing, and indeed, has got me out of a most evil mood this morning (helped by Vitamin C and a very patient Larians).

Now in my head I am seeing Tonantzin giving birth to gaping-jawed baby Sobek in a stable. The donkey looks nervous. In a local card shop, the nativity crib's inhabitants are fluffy Mummy Polar Bear, Daddy Polar Bear and Baby Polar Bear in full celebration of Moneymass without having to recourse to that there dull old Christianity.

Happy Birthday old boy. If you're going to eat anybody, nab Herod and leave the lambs alone. They're feeling picked on as it is.