When I woke up this morning, my eyes immediately went to the dehumidifier that Holland bought and put in our bedroom, saying it would help my struggling lungs that feel the weight of the PNW's humidity - it appears to be working: there has been a "moisture draw" & I'm not gasping for breath, this morning.
While my coffee brewed, I checked in with my cousin by Messenger, to find out if she's out of harm's way: the flooding I have seen taking place in West Virginia is worrisome, knowing she is there.
Drinking my morning joy juice and scrolling through my FB Groups that I have been ignoring lately … I came across this interesting post by The Book Nook:
What caught my attention was (1) secret scientific experimentation with human DNA (2) deceptive trickery involved - as ancient as Earth's secrets (3) apparent reality of the fantastical (4) mention of immoral bloodline still being used today in secret Science Labs - no doubt funded by our government - as was the case, that came to light following the 2019 covid madness.
As I read the Book Nook review - I had to know for myself if this was a real woman … or was this book a cleaver fiction? My research led me to believe this immortal bloodline is real; even though this woman did die - and horribly, she is still alive: in petri dishes, in medical science labs - here in America, and in all probability globally. It's actually kinda ghoulish what [doctors] are doing with tiny bits of her body, passed around like scientific candy. It should, by moral right, be illegal to use the dead like science is doing. It smacks of nazism.
{{The Book Nook
~8 AM
I kept having to stop reading this book because it was too much. I'd get to something so monstrous that I'd set the book face-down on my chest and stare at the ceiling for a while. And then, every single time, I'd pick it right back up. I could not stay away from it. That's the strange power of this thing: it disturbs you and it holds you, at the exact same time, and it will not let go.
Here's the fact that started it all, and it still makes my skin prickle.
Somewhere in a lab, right now, a woman who died in 1951 is alive. Her cells are still growing, still dividing, still working - decades after she was lowered into an unmarked grave in Virginia. They're in the polio vaccine. In cancer treatments. In IVF, gene mapping, the space program. If you gathered up every one of her cells ever grown, they'd outweigh a hundred Empire State Buildings.
Her name was Henrietta Lacks. A poor Black tobacco farmer. A mother of five. Thirty-one years old and dying of cervical cancer when a doctor at Johns Hopkins sliced a piece from her tumor without ever asking her - and changed the course of medicine forever using a woman who never once got to say yes.
And that's where it goes from remarkable to disturbing.
Because her cells built an entire industry - sold by the vial, worth millions, saving countless lives - while her own children grew up in poverty, unable to afford the very medicine their mother's body made possible. For over twenty years they had no idea she was "immortal." Then scientists showed up and started taking their blood too, poking at Henrietta's grieving kids without ever really explaining why, treating a whole family like an extension of the lab.
You read it and you feel this slow, rising heat. The casual way real human beings were used. The way race and poverty decided whose body could be taken and whose questions could be ignored. It is not a comfortable book. It's not supposed to be. It should make you angry. It made me angry.
But here's why it's profound and not just upsetting. Rebecca Skloot spent ten years refusing to let Henrietta be reduced to a specimen. And the beating heart of the book is Henrietta's daughter Deborah - who barely remembered her mother, who ached her whole life to know her, and who was terrified and heartbroken trying to understand how pieces of her mama could be frozen and bought and shot into rockets while she couldn't even get a straight answer about who Henrietta really was.
That's what wrecks you. Not even the science and the ethical issues. But Deborah. A daughter just wanting her mother back, in a world that remembered the cells and forgot the woman.
So yes - read it, even though parts of it will genuinely unsettle you.
Especially because they will. It's one of the rare books that's disturbing and unputdownable and important all at once, that changes how you see medicine and consent and whose lives we quietly decide are worth less. ~FB
&
Henrietta Lacks was an African-American woman whose cancer cells are the source of the HeLa cell line, the first immortalized human cell line and one of the most important cell lines in medical research. An immortalized cell line reproduces indefinitely under specific conditions, and the HeLa cell line continues to be a source of invaluable medical data and research to the present day.
Born: Aug 1, 1920 (Roanoke, Virginia)
Died: Oct 4, 1951 (Baltimore)
~google search}}
This just kinda fits in with the Cussler-Fargo ancient vibe I'm working my way through, at the moment … which also touches on covert government secrecy, the fantastical closely linked to reality, immortality, & secret scientific quests.
This fantastical story of a woman with an immortal bloodline, also brought to mind another thought; the Nephilim of ancient days: is it possible that this woman's ancestry goes all the way back to the passage in Genesis 6, where Scripture tells us that Fallen Angels were taking human women, for sexual relationships. The result of those unions were a hybrid being called the Nephilim. The Nephilim were giants, also recorded in Genesis 6:4: “There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of ancient times, men of renown.” We know that when Angels' feet are on the ground - their heads rise above the clouds: they are massively huge. Cherubim are recorded to reach the height of 15 feet. We also know that by the time of the recording of King Og of Bashan, giantism had fallen to a height of 9 to 13 ft. (his bed frame was recorded at 13-1/2 ft. long by 6 ft. wide). So, it is logical to assume that the ancient immortal bloodline could be housed in a normal-size modern woman, of our time on Earth. It may sound fantastical, but so far Scripture has not been found faulty by logical, rational, thinking minds: it has been 100% spot on since the beginning of Time, as we know it, on Earth. Where did Henrietta Lacks' people come from? Who were Henrietta Lacks' people? Did Henrietta Lacks come from a semi-immortal legacy? What makes Henrietta Lacks' blood so special?
There are myths that record giants among every ethnic group of peoples on the Earth. There are myths that record oversized apes that strongly resemble human beings - as well as creatures that have both human and animal attributes such as Faun, Satyr, & Pan - half man, have goat; Lamassu & Minotaur - half bull, half man: Mermaids & Mermen - half human & half fish; the asian half elephant, half human … half snake, half human; Cynocephalus, Duamutef, Penghou, Werewolf, & Anubis - half dog, half human; Centaurs - half horse, half human; Narasimha, Sphinx - half lion, half human … just to name a few, that I can remember: these hybrids represent hands between worlds & entire civilizations have been built around them: human and animal, life and death, civilization and wilderness. And in Scripture, we are told not to worship them … fallen angels are fallen because they crave & demand worship that belongs to Elohim, alone; they had been corrupted by Lucifer & also blurred the line between devine (sexless) & human (sexual), hence the offspring, Nephilim = immortal mortals.
On another note, Holland & I have talked about this subject over the past week, ever since I started reading this book; asian kings ruling through immortality rumors, & that some believe the bipedal creature described as Yeti is half human (Abominable Snowman = Tibet; Sasquatch = PNW).
This is how my mind works: 1 thing can trip a whole avalanche of things that "fit".
After both of us had finished our coffees, Holland suggested a drive - also some target practice. He revels in gunmanship - it's a primal urge with him & his pals. Perhaps they are driven by ancient vibes, too. But, I go with him on these shooting forays because it makes him happy … and because I am just vain enough to want my husband to be proud of me. I was, in my 1st marriage "a crack shot" - I would like to attain that edge, again, in this marriage.
Olequa Heights is about 700 ft. - give or take; about the same height as KM Mountain, which is not actually a mountain at all, but just a steep hill between 2 small hamlet towns of Wahkiakum County.
The drive was relaxing.
The scent of Fir was strong - and I loved it.
The landing was far above everything below: and we looked out over the landscape … and talked about our future. I shot several rounds & Holland alternated between encouragement & praise; my shot is getting better, and we both feel good about that. It was a good Day in the woods.
Coming down off the 700 ft. hillside, we could see that others had started enjoying the area, too: we passed several parked cars, saw a campsite among the pines, watched dirt bikers tear up mudded tracks - and viewed 3 real mountains as we crested the gravel roadway:
I did laundry; and got busy again with my Fall project:
Today was a very good, very relaxed, very loving Day.
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