Chalupas - Edible Sun Shallops

Notes

-- there's a recipe in my Betty Crocker Cookbook for chalupas.  It had a nice photo so I tried it.  It's delicious, if you are ok with fried food.  I looked up the word, chalupas.  It's boat and I'm guessing it's similar to the word, shallop.

Shallop: like Sun Shallop in the Goddess Embroideries from Russia...  I was fascinated to find a game called, Lotteria , from Mexico.  It's full of mysterious images, and one of them is labeled, La Chalupa.  It's a picture of a beautiful woman in a canoe filled with fruit and flowers.  I made a guess that this game dates from a time when THEY KNEW pre-Christian culture.  Because I feel certain that La Chalupa matches up with the sun shallop.  I keep thinking about the water beneath her canoe...

There was an old belief (maybe Old English?) that evil can not cross water.  It shows up in the The Lord of the Rings movies several times...  suppose people once thought that water is life (in Europe, not as today's slogan from the protest at Standing Rock, North Dakota.). What would be the most ancient word that we can find for "river"?  I keep coming back to "mer" - sea...

I mean this stuff about the sun shallop explains why Santa flies through the sky in.a sleigh.  Right?  The sleigh is the sun shallop, I think...  which tells me that THEY KNEW.  What I want to know:  what did they know about pagans?, and when did they know it?  I found a quilt covered in red and white Auseklis in a resale shop.  It was stuffed with polyester, so it was not very old, maybe 1940's, but the design and color told me that someone who made quilts knew what these symbols mean.  How could they not know?  This quilt said something loud and clear about apotropaic magic - attracting the abundance and holding off misfortune.

I'm seeing a coherent story pretty much wherever I look.  I hope I can write a book about it.  Maybe just a booklet, a picture book, something easy - I am intimidated by the work involved.  I want to write an explanation that ties together most of the art of the 1700's - 1800's... a grand theory of European pagans hiding in plain sight all over the place.

But the more I think about it, the more I notice problems with pagans.  Hidden underlying problems at the root of the environmental crisis.  Too much fertility at the expense of the natural world.  Culture wars (family values vs. freedom, and USA politics of conservative vs. liberal) based on assumptions that go back to European pagans.  Not to even mention the Natzis and their misuse of the sun sign/swastika.  I would have to write about the problems and it's a big subject that I want to avoid.

--I'm thinking that I need to update what I wrote about the Taraskon.  Maybe I was wrong what I said, maybe the Taraskon is not a recipe for a drug.  I'm thinking now that the Taraskon is really more of a fertility wish.  The Taraskon has both breasts and a very phallic tail, you know, human fertility, plus symbols of crop fertility...

Taraskon Ayahuasca

here is a list of things I'm thinking about that relate to the Taraskon dragon of Spain and Provence.
some are true, some are guesses

1.  I think the Taraskon is a recipe for a drug mixture.
  So, when I look at a picture of a Taraskon, I see the head of a lion or old man: shaman and dandelion  opium...  body of a bull - future scrying by inspecting the insides of an animal cooked for a feast...  shell of a turtle suggests a cave mouth where the scorpion lives...  pointed spikes on the shell suggest an arrow poison...  six furry legs - what has 6 furry legs other than the bumble bee, so maybe bee sting is an ingredient?  And the Taraskon has the tail of a scorpion, so I ask, What would happen if I combined opium and scorpion sting?  Please don't try this at home!  It may be possible to find out without getting stung nor poisoned.

2.  I think that dragon fire is the same thing as shaman barf.
I recall that when a shaman uses ayahuasca, it's necessary for the shaman to throw up.  I wonder if the barf could be collected and dried, with the powerful chemicals still intact?  Horrible or bio-active?

3.  Taraskon might be a flood dragon.  I ask, what did the Taraskon do in the years before Saint Martha came to town?  Maybe sometimes the dragon would make terrible floods, while other times there would be years of abundant crops.  I notice that in some versions, the dragon has breasts (milk) and carries grain (bread.)

4.  Two cities are named for this dragon, Tarasque in France and Teragona in Spain.  The Ancient Romans named a large region of Spain, Taragona.  I believe these are places where dandelions grow especially well, and the dandelion opium was easiest to obtain.  For comparison, there is a city in Turkiye named Afyon - literally "opium."

5.  If I am correct about the dragon, these ideas may explain other things.  Here are some other things:  *. dandelion opium maybe a part of the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
*. chicory opium may be the Blue Flower of German literature
*. chicory opium might explain some of the designs found in Isnik tiles.  There's a tile with poppies and chicory in a Berehynia design.  I'll get you a picture sometime later.
*. Saint George and the dragon might actually be Jarillo, the god of wine fighting opium.
*. It's my guess that an explanation for the Tarantella dance may come into this also, but I don't have anything yet.  I think dancing and drumming keep your shaman alive when poisoned.  The dance was named after a spider but I think it was really about scorpion stings.  And I have no proof.