THE WEAVE A DIALOGUE ON CHESS AND CHESS HIS/HERSTORY, FROM THE ART BELL WEB-SITE. Mark Borcherding - 04:31am Apr 6, 1999 MST (#503 of 505) dare to dream upon your own star Leonardo & Chess, If you take Leonardo's diagram of a person the popular one with arms & legs in positions. The outer arms and legs touch a circle and the inner arms and legs touch a square. If you turn the square unto a chess board then the center four squares of the chessboard (a,b,c,d) (2nd pyramid giza) go from stomach area to right above the knee. The very center of the chessgrid would be directly on penis or vagina. The center of the circle would be around the belly-button "navel" about where E&F meet A&B. "ABCDEFGHIJLK" = 51 + 12 letters + 1 = 64 What happens when we mirror our numbers: 15 + 21 + 1 = 37 37 + 27 = 64 Jan Newton - 10:47am Apr 6, 1999 MST (#504 of 505) Mark, was there a particular reason why you put the letters into the chess grid in the way you did? Mark Borcherding - 01:13pm Apr 6, 1999 MST (#505 of 505) dare to dream upon your own star Ref 504 ... Jan, I placed the letters in that order because that is how they were in the digram in a "Flower of Life" book I just recently got. It did not mention a chess board but I counted the squares in their grid and it was 8x8. Did the order have any significance to you? Notice the pattern forms a Celtic cross or mandala and there are two sets of 8 squares one set top to bottome and the other set left to right and this means the 4 center squares are used twice. This would be where the 2nd pyramid is on the chessboard that Philip pointed out. Vickie Ramirez - 03:26pm Apr 6, 1999 MST (#506 of 517) O Music! In your depths we deposit our hearts and souls. Thou hast taught us to see with our ears, and hear with our hearts. Hi Jan, RE post 498: I am a Gemini. I am curious to see how we balance out, too. Neat info about the other chess history group you have contacted. Synchronistic! Just finished reading both of Katherine Nevils Books; The Eight and The Magic Circle. Just could not put them down. Ilumani Mark Borcherding - 06:08pm Apr 6, 1999 MST (#507 of 517) dare to dream upon your own star Ref 506 Ilumani & Jan "Katherine" = 46 "The Eight" = 46 [mirrored] = 64 = 8x8 "The Magic Circle" = 71 [mirrored] = 17 and 71+17=88 Guess I have a couple more books I need to read :) Jan Newton - 08:30pm Apr 6, 1999 MST (#508 of 517) Mark, until I read Neville, other than learning the fundamentals of the game, that was the only contact I'd had with The Game and its Herstory. I recently re-read "The Eight", and had even more appreciation for the depth of Neville's research than before, when I was a "Chess Ignoramus"! Vickie, thanks for the info. I left the little chart I was making up with our "match-ups" at the office; I will post on it tomorrow, I think. Mark, when I looked at the chess grid/letter post, I got a "funny" feeling about it, but I can't explain what it is or what it means; only that I tried to figure out a different way to put the letters into the grid that makes sense to me, but I haven't been able to do it yet. The letters aren't "comfortable" with where I'm putting them, or something like that. I was doing it at the office to boot, not conducive to "mental" endeavors (this is not a joke!). By the way, what is the story involving a horse and Set and Horus? I don't think I'm familiar with that one. One last thing, this may not mean anything, but then again, you never know. While I was researching the Mittani, the Hurrians, and Urartu, I came across an entry in a encyclopedia about the Hyksos. I vaguely remember learning about them eons ago in high school sophomore Ancient History. According to this entry, the Hyksos, whose origins are apparently yet unknown with any precision but suspected to be "from Palestine and Syria, ... were a Semitic people with a nomadic life style", had a temporary but lasting influence in Egypt in founding the 15th dynasty (1674-1567 BCE). They were later overthrown by a revolution of native Egyptians. The entry goes on to say that the Hyksos "came to have lasting influence on Egyptian military technique, as horse and chariot were introduced". Well, knock me over with a feather. This is a much later date than what was put forth in the 1990 Scientific American article I sited a few posts ago, which set forth the domestication of the horse and use of the horse in wheeled vehicles for agricultural purposes as early as around 4000 BCE!!! I can't imagine that it would have taken over 2000 years before the "jump" was made from using horses for agricultural purposes to using them for warfare purposes. So, somebody is wrong on their dates. However, that's not the primary reason why I mentioned the Hyksos. It's the similarity in the name "Hyksos" and "erkhos" that struck me right off the bat, especially because one of the few things I did remember about the Hyksos was their association with horses and chariots. I wonder if the Hyksos were actually peoples from the region (or descendants of people from the region) that encompasses modern-day Armenia, and not a Semitic people at all? Anyone an historian on ancient peoples out there? Jan Newton - 08:56pm Apr 6, 1999 MST (#509 of 517) Sorry folks, very tired tonight. I misspelled the proto Indo-European word for horse. It should be "ekhos", not "erkhos". Looked up "horse" in the venerable Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary circa 1977, and this is what it says: [ME] hors, fr. OE; akin to OHG hros horse]... and then it goes on to explain what a horse is and different usages of the word. ME means Middle English; OE means Old English, and OGH means Old High German. I found it interesting in light of the 1990 article I'd read. However, I also checked the definition of chess, which referred me to "check", and under check it says: [ME chek, fr. OF eschec, fr. Ar shah, fr. Per. lit., king; akin to Gk ktasthai to acquire]. I found that entry interesting too, because I thought the ancient Greek name for chess was zatrikion, played on a round board, but I could be wrong about that. Philip Mistlberger - 11:41pm Apr 6, 1999 MST (#510 of 517) Mark, re 503, the link between the 2nd pyramid and that part of the grid is interesting as this hits exactly on the location of the kundalini (serpent) base in the Indian yogic system. And, since the 2nd pyramid has been linked to both Isis and the planet Venus, its tie in with the Skakti/kundalini serpent force is natural, as Shakti is a form of Isis/Venus. Thus, the 64 grid plotted on Leonardo's "man" verifies one of the symbolic meanings of the 2nd pyramid. I don't know if this has been mentioned here, but both Georgia and I were born on the same day (both Pisces). A couple of fishes for the chess BBQ. Jan, tell me the truth. You must be hiring someone to do all this research. You seem to have enough material for a trilogy, never mind one book. Mark Borcherding - 06:03am Apr 7, 1999 MST (#511 of 517) dare to dream upon your own star Philip and Georgia that is neat, Pisces the fish. I was reading last night that the symbol for Christ was the Dolphin and was changed to the Fish by the Greek Orthodox Church. On the chess - giza grid: 1 Great Pyramid Earth orbit 3 Balance (Male+Female) 2 2nd Pyramid Venus orbit 2 Female 3 3rd Pyramid Mars orbit 4 Male "earth venus mars" = 58 58 + 1+2+3 = 64 = 8x8 Chess connection Interesting that Venus is called the "Morning Star" and people feel this relates to Christ as well. "Christ" = 32 so if we have a male and female then: "Christ Christ" = 64 "Chess", "Love", "Venus" all equal 18 5 + 18 + 18 + 18 + 5 = 64 Notice we have three 18's one for each pyramid and two 5's one 5 for male and one 5 for female. The 5 symbolizes the pyramid 4 base points + 1 capstone and it also symbolizes the 4 directions (east,north,west,south) and 1 center (balance). Note as well 18 = 9+9 so there is a male and female 9 and look what happens when we add the 5+9 = 14 which refers to 1 center/capstone & 4 directions/base points again. 9 = 4 + 1 + 4 (144) Jan Newton - 10:03am Apr 7, 1999 MST (#512 of 517) Pisces!?! I thought you were both Aquarians!!! Are you sure you're Pisces? I know, you're both cuspers! You realize, of course, that that screws up my entire estoric theory about our "signs". Oh well, back to the drawing board. Philip, I have been obsessed. I have been a researching maniac. I have been everywhere. Wait until I post about the Indus Valley connection I found, it will knock your socks off! Got to run but while I have it right in front of me I wanted to post the following information from Gerhard Josten: The next meeting of the IGK will be held in Hamburg, Germany during November 99. If you want more information and about membership e-mail me and I will give you the particulars. (I don't know if it would be against the rules to post that info here, and I don't want to get into trouble - that's a switch, hey?) Going off to the bookstore to see if I can hunt down a copy of "The White Goddess" by R. Graves, which R. Calvo was kind enough to turn me on to... "The Weave" has an enormous wealth of research from scholars from all over the world. The Weave is a journey guided by the words of many fasinating and intelligent people. This is also a fun journey. The humorous, and often cleaver, play between friends makes it a pleasure to read. Wonder through the labyrinth of The Weave and enjoy. Isis

Here We Go!

The concept for Goddesschess first arose in 1999 but, as with all things, there was a beginning. A group of people had gathered at the old Art Bell website (when he was still going full-tilt as the host of "Coast to Coast" on late-night radio, featuring folks like Major Ed Dames - "remote viewing" anyone?) to post on the message boards hosted there. We met under the topic "Is Chess The Game Of The Goddess?" started by Isis in December, 1998. We were a free-wheeling group and because most of us knew hardly a thing about chess or about "board games studies" (or about the "proper" way to go about such research), we wrote about anything and everything that we thought might contain a clue to the object of our quest - the origins of chess. We therefore discussed religions (0ld and new), archaeology, anthropology, geography, etymology, linguistics, migrational patterns, the evolution and history of the horse and dog, ancient trade, and more esoteric subjects such as goddess symbolism, mythology, what Isis calls "the old switcheroo" (that is, where males are substituted for females in subsequent iterations of history), magic, child sacrifice (gulp), and lots of other stuff. Looking back now, yeah, some of what we wrote could, I suppose, be viewed as controversial but we were so wrapped up in what we were doing we didn't notice the clouds gathering around us, and we never did child pornography (that's a joke)... After three or four months of happily posting to each other - and having attracted a group of "regulars," it slowly became apparent that, because of some host problems that began cropping up with increasing regularity (such as disappearing posts and, later, outright censorship of some posts and then the banning of certain people from the forum for violating arbitrarily imposed "rules"), we should move our discussion to a friendlier environment and also - if we could - save what we had already posted. To make a long story short, after much behind-the-scenes emailing and planning, Goddesschess went online at the old "Xoom" hosting site on May 6, 1999, thanks to our original webmistress, Vickie "Terpsy" Ramirez. It initially contained only the successfully-rescued posts that had been made at the old message board. For several months thereafter, we all continued to post (except those of us who were banned) at the Art Bell message board. Terpsy would gather up the posts and publish them at our "back-up" Goddesschess site on a regular basis. We called those posts "The Weave" because of how the discussion and themes seamlessly wove themselves into a beautiful whole. It wasn't long after Goddesschess first went online that it expanded to include articles about women in chess, articles discussing whether and why men were "better" chessplayers than women, chess poems and Chess Patronesses, which pays homage to some of the female chessplayers from the early 20th century. In August, 1999 I traveled to Las Vegas, Nevada to see some of the FIDE World Chess Championship knock-out matches at Caesar's Palace. That opened up a whole new world for Goddesschess. Working into the wee hours of the morning in my hotel room on a laptop computer I borrowed from Isis, I wrote and wrote and wrote. Those posts are preserved at Goddesschess; they capture my first exposure to "big league chess." That event was won by GM Alexander Khalifman, and I think he was a wonderful world chess championship for the year he reigned under the former FIDE system. We added articles from around the internet that at the time captured the flavor of that first FIDE knock-out championship event. (Click here and scroll down to the heading "Tournament Chess" and underneath to "Vegas Views", and the articles that follow). Eventually the Art Bell message boards shut down, and so several of the posters migrated to a new forum at Delphi, where we set up home under the name of "Chess, Goddess and Everything." In time, due to some philosophical differences, the group split and a new discussion group formed at Delphi called "On Chess," which is now the "Goddesschess Discussion Group" because these days the posts there have very little to do about chess, per se, but are all about archaeology, anthropology, migration patterns, climatic changes that impacted ancient societies, and things like that. But - we're circling in closer and closer to our target - the origins of chess. We just utilize a universal approach to the subject matter - I believe in academic circles it's called a cross-disciplinary approach - and we do not restrict ourselves only to studying ancient board games. We study just about everything, because we believe clues to the origins of board games (and chess) are everywhere. Soon, we'll be celebrating our 8th anniversary online. There aren't many websites older than Goddesschess but those that are, are venerable: The Week in Chess; Chess Cafe, to name a few. But those are chess-centric sites. Goddesschess is chess-centric, with a twist. Today, we are bringing Goddesschess into the 21st century by starting this blog. Where it will go (or if it will go) is anyone's guess. People are too busy to post at message boards, it seems; blogs are the thing right now. Tomorrow - who knows? What you can be sure of is that, at least for the next 30 years or so, Goddesschess will be online - somewhere!