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Katrina Name Meaning
I don’t know why I didn’t think of this myself, but Garrett said something about looking up the etymology of Katrina, and it actually has quite a lot to it which may or may not be appropriate to relate to the recent hurricane which bears that name. From Behind The Name’s entry on Katherina, from which Katrina is derived:
From the Greek name Αικατερινη (Aikaterine). The etymology is debated: it could derive from the earlier Greek name ‘Εκατερινη (Hekaterine), which came from ‘εκατερος (hekateros) “each of the two”; it could derive from the name of the goddess HECATE; it could be related to Greek αικια (aikia) “torture”; or it could be from a Coptic name meaning “my consecration of your name”. The Romans associated it with Greek καθαρος (katharos) “pure” and changed their spelling from Katerina to Katharina to reflect this. The name belonged to a 4th-century saint and martyr from Alexandria who was tortured on the famous Catherine wheel. Another saint by this name was Catherine of Siena, a 14th-century mystic. This name was also borne by two empresses of Russia, including Catherine the Great, and by three of Henry VIII’s wives.
In case you’re not already familiar with Hecate: “In Greek mythology Hecate was a goddess associated with witchcraft, tombs, demons and the underworld.” Perhaps a connection could be drawn here to what Ran described earlier today as “New Orleans’s cultural fascination with the dead and undead — Halloween, cemeteries, vampires, voodoo, zombies”, although I’m not sure how much of that was really New Orleans’ fascination, and how much was America’s fascination with New Orleans. In any event, I find that direction of thought a touch too similar to the Christian variation of, “Those godless heathens brought this on themselves.”
And here is Wikipedia’s entry on the Catherine wheel (also called the breaking wheel), which actually turns out to be quite a gruesome torture device. Another site raves:
A seventeenth-century chronicler wrote the victim looked like, “A sort of huge screaming puppet writhing in rivulets of blood, a puppet with four tentacles, like a sea monster, of raw, slimy and shapeless flesh mixed up with splinters of smashed bones.”
Sorry, that was really gross, but still obscenely fascinating. Perhaps the most interesting meaning though is the possible Coptic, “my consecration of your name”. I’m not sure what that would even mean though. Any guesses? Other sources simply say Katrina means, “pure.”
- Otherworldly Encounters
- The Ghosts of Hurricane Katrina
- Hurricane Yakuza
- Scientology Stops Insanity?
- 9/11 Is Meaningless
- Prev: Ijtihad
- Next: Hunter S. Thompson’s Suicide Note
September 7th, 2005 at 10:27 pm
I know this isn’t relevant to Katrina’s name, but for all of you with Conspiracy Theories about either how the event has been handled, or about possible manipulation, I find this quote in a yahoo article to be extremely disturbing…
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&...908/ap_on_go_pr_wh/katrina_washington
Now, Pelosi (The House Democratic Leader) charges that he’s in denial and dangerous, but what if he isn’t in denial? What if this is exactly how Bush wanted things to turn out?
Just “interesting”.
September 8th, 2005 at 9:06 am
Aside from “New Orleans’s cultural fascination with the dead and undead — Halloween, cemeteries, vampires, voodoo, zombies” we have the news media talking about how they expect to find lots od dead bodies in the streets. From what I understand, above-ground tombs are popular mainly because of the swampland (I could be misinformed). The sea monster iamge is rather fitting though, considering the flooding.
September 8th, 2005 at 1:18 pm
Hecate, the Queen of Ghosts, leads the Wild Hunt. From here via Rigorous Intuition:
(I recently read Clive Barker’s Coldheart Canyon, which is about the Wild Hunt, and fucking brilliant. Antagonist’s name is Katya.)
I heard someone say New Orleans was at a crossroads. Wiki says that Hecate stands at a crossroads holding a torch, and the most common offering is to leave meat at a crossroads. That’s right, more meat for the light-bringer. More from Wiki:
Of course, the whole “oooh she’s a dark goddess, look out” thing is a pretty whitebred way of looking at it. Remember, she’s a light-bringer.
So she’s a mystic and a midwife, really she seems to symbolise transition between realms. Also from Wiki, consider Katrina’s timing:
Are we working under the Roman system? Are the other 2 dates still worthy of scrutiny? In the meantime, Hecate is identified with Frigg, Diana, and Artemis. Frigg is said to have woven or spun the clouds. As Diana:
And as Artemis:
So what to make of all this? Hecate really does not seem to give 2 shits for mortals, slaves or otherwise. Unless mortals do something to get her attention, she favours her precious ghosts. A fickle bitch, she may give or she may take away, all on a whim. I’ve encountered her ghosts and they’re not ghosts at all. The best way I can describe it is that they wear ghosts as clothes.
Now I don’t think Hecate causes hurricanes. Hecate is doing her own thing. When something befitting her occurs, it just happens to occur in her style. Even so, I can’t help but wonder if she, like the artifact in that movie “Sphere”, manifests her interpretation of our intent and perception. Might this be “my consecration of your name”?
What if certain earthly powers had somehow curried Hecate’s favour? Then when the August Nuke Event failed to materialise as promised, was she more than a little pissed? I wouldn’t put it past those (us?) evil bastards to somehow provoke Hecate’s destructive aspect, rather than the side of her that corresponds to perception, compassion, and birth.
Btw, thinking of crossroads and deals with the devil, it occurs to me that Led Zep, in addition to “When the Levee Breaks”, also did “Black Dog”. But do any of these connections even mean anything? The black dog and the Son (Summer) of Sam? Is the Wild Hunt a description of schizophrenia?
Whatever. Hecate is a process. She’s around.
September 8th, 2005 at 1:20 pm
“Catrina” in Mexico is Death, or its most famous personification in Mexico. Pasadas, a famous Mexican drawer of the early 20th century created this character that began being used on the popular Day of Dead people, Nov 2nd.
When someone dies is common to hear: La Catrina vino por él. Catrine came for him…
More here: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Gallery/6998/catrina.html
September 8th, 2005 at 1:37 pm
Wow, that’s all pretty crazy stuff…
Uh, you’re gonna have to give some more details on that Carlos.
September 8th, 2005 at 4:10 pm
Every year in late December all of the witchdoctors in Cuba get together and do a prediction for the coming year, to determine what spiritual forces will be controlling things.
2004 & 2005 both had the same readings - the same two gods “ruling over” both years, incluencing life on earth in particular areas:
1. Shango (war, thunder, fire)
2. Oya (death, hurricanes, cemeteries)
These gods aren’t bad of course they just do their thing as forces of nature
Accompanying these predictions were strong warnings to people:
Of course hindsight is 20/20 ain’t it. I almost moved to N’awlins years ago, glad I didn’t now
September 8th, 2005 at 6:55 pm
i visited new orleans in 1990, a week after mardi gras and there had been a snowfall and a fair number of palm trees had died and many of the homeless were walking around in shock from the cold. at that time there was an epidemic of robberies at stop lights. robbers with hammers would approach a car at a stop and break a window and grab a purse or whatever else was readily available. there was a gun fight outside the hotel where we were staying one night and the desk clerk said that there was a coulple of people killed as a result.
the tombs in the cemetary are on stilts so that when the river rises the bodies aren`t washed away. i don`t think they were twenty feet high.
i found the place to be very uptight. the people in the hotel didn`t like tourists and the meals were difficult. being stared at from a distance put`s one off one`s food.
there was a dukes of hazzard style police chase downtown in the middle of the afternoon one day. it seemed, at first, as if we were in the middle of a movie set, but as the screeching and squealing continued it became obvious that it was all too real.
the city had the highest murder rate per capita in the u.s. in 1990. i don`t know if that changed.
a crossroads? a dead end.
September 8th, 2005 at 7:28 pm
Odd thing I’ve noticed over the past 30 years has been that all the adult Katrinas and Georges I’ve personally known have been together as partners, at least for a while. It’s up to 4 pairs at this point.
September 10th, 2005 at 1:17 am
Hecate, or whatever she is, has been cropping up over the past year, both in the world and in what I’ve been reading. I paid it no mind until, due to burning the candle at both ends the past few months, I experienced sleep deprivation to the point of hallucination. Now it seems that the “dream realm” (or whatever) always lies beneath our waking existence, and our minds are there even when we are awake. But we don’t see it, like how we don’t see the stars when the sun is up (the sun is ego).
So anyway, I start dreaming while awake, and eventually begin to see this “otherworld” overlayed with “reality”. In other words, I’m hallucinating. Now there seems to be an intersection between these two worlds, and at that point I’m often greeted by a dog, not always black, but always kind of curious as to what I’m doing. I guess our comings and goings are not unnoticed. This ghost dog is real enough that I’ve even patted it, but the spell is often broken when I notice something like “Hey that dog can’t be right in front of me because there’s a real chair in front of me and they share the same space. The dog isn’t really there”. Crazy right?
Well, the night I posted about about my half-assed ufo experience, I sensed that something was trying to push through from the other side. The best way to describe it is as an electrical phenomenon, I was literally giving off sparks, not hallucinating. And it felt different from the sensation of generating my own energy, kundalini, whatever. It felt like it was outside of me, but drawn to me by my actions. I wonder if the ghost dog is watching their passage, and it suddenly occurs to me that this energy is generated by many ghosts, of which the dog is just one. I begin to interact with these phantasms (as a mob, not one would stand apart this time) and they seem pretty excited that I was talking about them on the net, and I’m like “Oh you’re those guys, fair enough.” And I’m thinking “Hilarious, they’re egotistical!” So I tell them I’m not stoking that little fire anymore and they wander off.
Then, upset at the sudden display of fake sympathy, I go and post that, in the grand scheme of things, Katrina is not a catastrophe, but a drop in the ocean of human suffering. That night, while awake, the energy is back, and this time is not a pleasant sensation at all. I recognise the ghosts immediately and they are an angry swarm, evidently not happy that I have downplayed the “event”. They try to scare me, a sensation like trying to get under my skin, and whispering “We are the ghosts of New Orleans.”
I’m starting to feel kind of overwhelmed, until I start asking them questions. Turns out they are feeding on grief, and are pissed at me for threatening the food on their table. These fuckers couldn’t tell me shit about New Orleans, only flashes of suffering, and then I see that they are something else, not ghosts, but they use the “impression” or “form” of the dead as a vehicle that enables their presence in our world. It’s as if when someone dies, their soul goes wherever, and an echo or “psychic shell” remains that can be worn by these entities as a cloak, allowing them a form of sorts in this world, but they are not that person (or dog).
If you generate enough of this energy I imagine lights would dim and headless coachmen would start slamming doors, etc. But since I’m a half-assed magician I only get the sensation, the voice and a few sparks. I ask them their number, and they are “many”. Who leads? They say “You do”. Shit, for some reason I’m channeling fucking Hecate. These ghosts are mine! But they’re not ghosts, they’re feeding off emotional energy and using that to inform their own existence. They insist that they didn’t cause Katrina, but that Hecate was summoned by circumstances surrounding the event. When I asked them to elaborate, I got only promises of power. As Hecate, I can use them. They get into the cards and perform all sorts of tricks and it’s quite interesting but hollow, I feel like I’m not really being offered anything of value and the cost is feeding on suffering. I say “See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya” and they’re gone just like that.
Now I’m not entirely sure if Hecate is good or bad, maybe someone with a bit more nous could be Hecate in a nice way, but I don’t know how to reconcile this with the whole “feeding on the dead to gain power” thing. She really does seem to be a real bitch, but maybe that’s more me than her. Oh well.
For those skeptical types awaiting the caveat, it is this: This kind of shit doesn’t happen to me that much, perhaps because I don’t really pursue it. I wander (off) the fool’s path and am in no rush. As such I don’t claim to be describing the way things are, just what I experienced. I’m shining a narrow torch beam around a massive cavern, don’t know what’s here or where I’m going. Maybe Hecate’s dog is a guide of sorts.
Shit, entities masquerading as the ghosts of dogs? Sounds like somebody needs a cat scan.
September 10th, 2005 at 4:09 am
regarding the meanings of names, i’ve been told that way back in the day there were only a certain number of names that one could be called, because there were only so many gods to be named after. apparently the naming of a child associated that child with a particular deity (or aspect of nature if you prefer), and that the rite of passage into adulthood was a matter of choosing another name (or reaffirming your birth name).
could it be that when a child (or storm) is named katrina, then the intent manifest through the will of the child (or storm or whatever) is actually hecate’s? are we little more than conduits of the consciousness of the deities after which we’re named (or with whom we identify)?
has anyone heard of this “only so many names” thing before?
September 10th, 2005 at 12:55 pm
[…] Encounters
I highly recommend checking out the comments left by Carlos about Hecate and the ghosts of New Orleans left in a previous post of m […]
September 10th, 2005 at 1:24 pm
when a child is baptised in the anglican church, as i remember the process in england, there was a list of names and spellings that were allowed. in permissive, modern society this has faded in importance and i don`t know if it was even enforced when i was a boy. i just remember the discussion between adults at the time.
i have noticed a habit recently for some to make up names for thier children. the funniest one was a girl called latrina. not so funny for the kid though.
September 10th, 2005 at 3:03 pm
Carlos, your “encounter with the phantasms”, and how they feed off fear sound earily familar to David Icke’s theories of 4th demonsional “reptilians” invading our 3rd demonsional world to feed off our negative energies. They masquerade as humans (like your entities masquerading as ghosts), and sometimes forcibly affect natural events to generate more suffering to feed off.
I’m not endorsing Icke’s theories in any way, but I found the correlation quite interesting.
September 10th, 2005 at 8:38 pm
Doesn’t matter whether you call them “reptiles” or “spirits” or “demons”, it is the same phenomenon: entities feeding off of emotion (usually negative).
On the subject of names: it is interesting that my chosen internet name is probably very close to what should be my “chosen” name, even though I selected it on a whim. Once, a random lurker on one of the blogs I frequent asked me why I chose this name, which prompted me to research it. Turns out, it fits me better than I would have thought, certainly better than my legal name.
September 11th, 2005 at 11:50 am
It turns out I’ve had one of those for years. I knew something strange was going on because bad things would happen to people who’d hurt me, and more than once someone asked me if I were a wizard or something. After years of this happening somebody I talked to about this told me I had a spirit tagging along but I didn’t really believe him. Then, not too long after becoming a gnostic, I actually saw it hovering over me. I’d just woken up in the middle of the night and it was there, though it looked like a shadow. It sort of slinked off slowly, blending in with the other shadows in the room, when it noticed that I could see it.
At first I was going to leave gnosticism because I thought that maybe the orthodox could be right about it, and that as a result of my heretical behavior I was attracting demons into my life. But then I remembered what I’d been told about my little companion. Not too long after that happened, in a interesting act of synchronicity, I’d downloaded a lecture by the gnostic Bishop Stephan Hoeller that talked about precisely this kind of animal. He’d described its appearance perfectly — down to the fact that they hover over the beds of people who are sleeping. At that point I realized gnosticism was in fact increasing my awareness of the supra-mundane world.
(I must point out that this thing had been feeding off me all those years I was a FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIAN.)
I’m not proud of this creature. In fact, the reason it glommed onto me is because I’d suffered severe childhood neglect and abuse that has crippled me emotionally to this very day. Interestingly enough, after I’d read a lot of the work of C.G. Jung, and began the process, first, of shadow exploration, and then active imagination, all sorts of weird things started happening to me personally. My cable internet service went out, my back went out, and my car broke down, all within a three week period. Clearly this spirit didn’t want me to get rid of its gravy train.
(All this got taken care of rather easily, BTW.)
It all fairness to the creature, it DID make itself useful. So I feel obligated to try to help it out. Dr. Hoeller said in his lecture that it’s the spirit of somebody who’d lived a very unhappy life and can’t move on. Maybe because it didn’t do the spiritual work it needed to when it was still alive. I don’t know. Can you be baptised for the dead, so they can be offered salvation?
I’ll keep my eye open on this, but you never know.