On Tuesday evening, I watched the 1964 TV show “Rudolph The Red-nosed Reindeer” for the first time since I was 9 or 10 years old. What a time machine! For a few precious moments I was a foot shorter, my hair in tangles, wearing my scratchy pink pajamas, watching the tiny television in our basement apartment to the rhythmic creak of Mom’s rocking chair. I still love the Christmas season, and yes, I wear a Santa hat almost everywhere I go, but it took that flashback to remember just how giddy with excitement I used to be during the most magical time of the year.

The time machine took me other places, too. A time when bosses – Santa, the elf overseer, and Rudolph’s father, the lead reindeer Donner – were angry, isolated men whose wives nagged at them to eat and tried to smooth over the feathers they ruffled. A time when “good work” meant a factory job, being happy producing goods for no wages for the world. A time when only boys played sports or could get picked for Santa’s sleigh team. A time when only people of northern European ancestry were represented, even in fantasy stories.

But also a time when things were changing. Instead of raining more authoritarian abuse on their heads, Comet tells the reindeer fawns: “I’m here as your coach, but I’m also here to be your friend, right?” Not quite the note we’d hit today – I see our culture swinging back toward structured, safe authority figures as we learn the balance of compassionate leadership – but a positive step nonetheless. And the message that misfits, too, have their place, was a nice break from the monotonous Levittown mentality of the 1950s.

If I were to write a Dayton version of “Rudolph,” I’d make him the kid with the hippie hair and an artist’s vision who no one can quite understand. The Island of Misfit Toys? The latest Occupy encampment. Christmastown would be Stivers School for the Arts, of course, and Santa the president of the school board. As for the Abominable Snowman, instead of yanking out all his teeth and shoving him off a cliff, we’ll find out he was only chasing people and roaring because he had a bad cavity, and good old Hermey the Elf Dentist will save the day by figuring it out and helping him feel better.

Yeah, this version’s not likely to delight a nation of children for decades to come! So I’ll stick to my day job. Happily, the generation that grew up on Rudolph helped make it possible for me to be a freelance writer instead of a factory worker, and I’m free to play with both reindeer and misfits. Marvelous misfits like you! How would things look in your version of “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Daytonian”?

It’s pretty much universal. No matter who I talk to – lifelong D8N residents, far-flung friends and family, and anybody living or working here now – when I tell them I moved to Dayton from California, they ask: “Why??”

It’s complicated. “I followed a boy,” I’ll say. I needed out of my evening-shift job covering & editing & posting stories on Mexican gangland killings and car crashes and other horrors for a small-staff California newspaper. It took a wonderful Dayton native to come along, sweep me off my feet, and help me  take the leap into freelancing from a new home base: the Miami Valley.

The reasons I stayed? When that boy and I decided to be “just friends” and I could have gone anywhere – Portland, San Francisco, Austin, Boston, Berlin, Beijing – I needed some time to save up cash. After a whirlwind year of travel adventures and hard (but unpaid) work helping lead a camp at the annual Burning Man festival, I also needed time to focus on building my business.

And then I started noticing four very good reasons to stay in Dayton.

1) The cost of living. Way, way cheaper than any of those other cities.

2) The weather. I grew up in Massachusetts, and survived coastal California’s months of fog and ridiculous lack of decent thunderstorms, and Dayton is an awesome blend of what’s best about both regions. We’ve got actual seasons. We’ve got summer storms and winter snows. But neither the heat nor the cold are as vicious or lasting as what I knew back East.

3) The opportunities. Well, good-paying jobs are still tough to come by in southwest Ohio, but freelancers have clients around the world. And I have a distinct advantage: I don’t need to charge New York prices! The real opportunities in Dayton are its incredible business and arts networks: thousands of small businesses and nonprofits and churches committed to making the lives of this region’s people better, as well as hundreds of museums and parks and libraries that reflect a deep, rich culture worth investing in.

4) All my new friends. Artists. Churchgoers. Grad students. Actors. Investors. Young families. Chefs. CEOs. Dancers. Writers. You don’t have to live in San Francisco to meet awesome people, after all!

What makes you glad to have the D8N region in your headlights when it’s time to head home?

Mayan elder’s cross-country pilgrimage involved visit to Serpent Mound

Late on the afternoon of Oct. 29, Mayan elder Hunbatz Men carefully climbed the first steps of a steel observation tower overlooking the ancient Serpent Mound in southeastern Ohio.

The site was Men’s second stop on a cross-country sacred journey this fall, leading from Manhattan on Oct. 26 to its culmination today in Los Angeles, on 11-11-11.

“I’m very happy to see you here,” Men told the crowd of about 600. “We see something wrong with this crazy time, this crazy civilization. Mother Earth is in a bad situation. But many of the people here with the crystal skulls, they are bringing the light and the knowledge. Today, we bring the cosmic knowledge.”

The crystal skulls are famous in New Age circles as ancient Mayan or Aztec tools, with ancient secrets programmed into their crystalline matrices by humans or, some say, aliens. The skulls are expected to release their information as humanity enters a new era of harmony. Scientists and archaeologists say the skulls they’ve examined can be traced to German workshops of the late 1800s, and don’t reflect the artistic styles of the South American civilizations. Still, thousands of believers gather every year for ceremonies honoring the skulls and connecting with fellow visionaries of a more peaceful future.

Hunbatz Men works closely with The Cosmic Mysteries School of Kentucky to engage people in that visioning process. His tour is timed to coincide with other New Age consciousness-raising events celebrating the alignment of today’s date in the Gregorian calendar, and involves teachings on Mayan prophecies.

Rainbow of perfect timing

Gesturing to the winding, grassy curves of the quarter-mile-long snake effigy built some 1,000 years ago, Men said, “The snake, for the Mayans, is the symbol of the Milky Way, the symbol of cosmos. Coming back again is cosmic culture. We need to be happy for that. Peace is coming in that way.”

Hundreds of voices cheered as Men stepped back down to lead a ceremonial trek around the mound. Carrying smoking bundles of sage, playing rattles and drums, wearing sacred garb and chanting, he and 13 guardians of the crystal skulls led a winding line of people bundled against October’s chill. As they rounded the ancient village site at the open mouth of the snake, a brief sprinkle of rain passed over the plateau and a breeze kicked golden leaves across the sky. A few minutes later, a rainbow – the Mayan symbol of renewal and divine favor – emerged in the east.

“When we saw the rainbow, I just couldn’t help but break into tears,” said Roxana of Nashville, Tenn. “There’s a lot of nature traditions that say a light, gentle rain with the sun is a blessing from the heavens, a reminder of the divine within.”

The “divine within” and “worldwide transformation” were the predominant themes at the gathering, the second stop on Men’s cross-country pilgrimage with the crystal skulls. Besides an early afternoon teaching on the changes happening around the Earth, visitors and guardians led drum circles and dances, invited people to touch and pray with the crystal skulls, sang Native American songs and invited new connections. Seekers of all ages were drawn to the event, from hoop spinners in colorful garb to parents taking part in drum circles to white-haired veterans of the ’60s. Many traveled long distances, including one group of 15 from Cleveland, more than four hours to the north.

‘Absolute joy’

“Supposedly, the Mayan calendar ended yesterday, and this is the first day of whatever else,” said Satya, one of the Cleveland group, referring to the Oct. 28 conclusion of the ninth and final cycle described in the Mayan calendar. “The combination of the Serpent Mound and the holy grounds, having a Mayan elder here with the crystal skulls, that’s why I’m here.”

Mallory, also of the Cleveland group, said she came for the experience of “downloading the absolute joy of the energy of the skulls, while being in community. People are awakening more and more to themselves every day – how we can live, and how we’re choosing to live.”

What that life will look like depends on how much attention we pay to the natural energies around us, Men said as the group came to rest around a tree surrounded with the crystal skulls. Facing the setting sun, Men led the gathering in several minutes of toning “eee” – “This is the word for Maya to activate the body” – and “awhll” – “This is the word for the other dimension, to draw energy in.”

Symbol of sacred knowledge

“In this sacred place, the initiation is ready,” Men said. “The Christians say the snake is the devil. No! It’s the symbol of knowledge. We’re entering a New Age, not a darkness, not a time of bad ending. The Maya don’t believe this. Remember the spirit of the tree, the spirit of the cloud. The rainbow came in to move your seven powers. You’re going to wake up.”

The Cosmic Mysteries School of Kentucky invited donations and prayers, encouraging participants to ground in the positive energies of the gathering in order “to let Earth know we’re remembering the sacred knowledge.” For more information, visit www.cosmicmysteries.com/journey.

All images courtesy Ria Delight Megnin. View more photos from Serpent Mound here.

The trip’s highlights…

Oct. 26: New York City

Oct. 29: Serpent Mound, Ohio

Oct. 31: Cahokia Mounds, Collinsville, Ill.

Nov. 3: Sacred Circle Medicine Wheel, Crestone, Colo.

Nov. 7: Ceremony in Sedona, Ariz.

Nov. 11, 12, 13: Crystal Skulls World Mysteries Gateway, Los Angeles, Calif.

Nov. 13: Mayan Prophesies seminar, Los Angeles, Calif.

For details, donation options and more: www.cosmicmysteries.com/journey