For whom the bell tolls

"For whom the bell tolls" is a well-known and much used phrase in the English language. In 1940, Ernest Hemingway wrote a novel with that title, and he, in turn, took it from John Donne's Devotions upon Emergent Occasions,"Meditation XVII" which was published in 1624. Yes, the notion's be around for a while.

For most people in most places, tolling bells are a rarity. Oh sure, on Sunday you hear them a lot, but otherwise? In the little town I live in here in Southern Germany, however, you get to hear the bells a lot. There is a single small bell rung once at a quarter past the hour, twice at the half hour, three times and a quarter till the hour, and four times at the full hour. The the large bell chimes in tolling the hour itself. And, this goes on 24 hours every day of every year, that is, 365 days normally and 366 times in a leap year, for a grand total of 144,50 and 144,936 times, respectively. And this doesn't take into consideration the other times the bells are rung, such as before and after worship services or mass, the 3 o'clock ringing when someone in the community dies, or especially the three-minute continuous ringing at 7:00 am, noon and 6:00 pm (or 3 pm on Saturdays), which marks the starting, middle, and end of the workday.

The churches do the ringing (we have both Protestant and Catholic churches here), but it's not a church thing anymore. Pope Sabenius is credited with having the bells ring to mark the passage of the hours. They had always called to prayers and to mass, but this was something different, this was, as Gebser put it, the haptification of time, concretizing it, making time physical. I suppose the idea was to make us more aware of time and what we're doing with it.

We're only granted a limited amount of time during our sojourn on the planet, that's for sure. We were supposed to have learned, in school and elsewhere, that rare resources should be used with extreme care, but just like we're destroying our planet as a whole (like we had another one we could move to), we tend to waste most what we have the least of. We humans are simply downright weird like that.

So, when all is said and done, each and every time we hear a bell toll, we should think of Mr. Donne. We needn't ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for each and every one of us, and it should remind us of how precious time and life are. Too bad we hear them anymore. Well, I do, I must admit, thousands of times a year.

The cycle of life and our lives

As a kid, I remember the family going down to the orchard at the main crossroads not far from our house, taking along our own cider jugs to buy gallons of freshly made cider (and drinking what we could while we were there) because that was the only time of year you could get it. After all, they were local apples and they didn't ripen until fall. End of story. Now, you can get any kind of apple juice you want any time you want it, and so it's not special anymore. Not much is special anymore. And when nothing is special, nothing is appreciated. When nothing is appreciated, nothing is valued. It simply diminishes our lives.

Another important, and for me, favorite, time of year is the late summer/early fall when the wine is harvested. Of course, that's only really significant to those of us who live in wine-growing regions, though I'm sure that each region has its own special products or customs. At any rate, it is at harvest time that we get new wine, and along with it, the local bakers start making onion and other quiches, because that's what you eat when you're drinking new wine. We only get them at that time of year, and there is a deeply satisfying and enriching feeling when you have them because you know that you haven't had them for a year and it's going to be another year before you get them again. These are aromas, tastes, sensations and feelings that happen only in 12-month intervals.

That our lives plays out in cycles is nothing new. The Ancients knew it and in fact entire civilizations endured for millennia based primarily on this simple principle. Don't get me wrong: I have no intention or desire to "turn back the clock" (an interesting phrase in itself) to an earlier age. I'm not making the case that there was a time when things were simply better. What I am saying is that recognizing and acknowledging the cycles of life enriches our individual lives. It's really very simple.

To be sure, globalization is taking its toll. We're so overwhelmed with everything anytime and anywhere that we can't tell the difference between what is and what is not, what is meaningful and what is merely mundane. We don't mark our times, our pathway through the year. We aren't aware of the cycles of nature and we're the poorer in spirit, if nothing else, because of it.

Strawberries and asparagus

Sometimes it makes me sad when I think that we moderns don't know much about anything anymore, especially things that were related to the year and weather and celebrations and whatever. Oh sure, folks more closely linked to the land, like farmers, have more awareness of such things, but not in any formalized way. There was a time when everyone knew about it because that was the method used to mark the journey through the year.

When I was in Wroclaw a couple of years ago in early June, we had strawberry pierogies for lunch (along with other types of pierogies), and they were eaten with a thick strawberry milk (almost like a milkshake) sauce. Not only were they outstanding, I recall how passionately enthused our Polish partners were that it was "strawberry time". They only ate strawberries when they were in season and that was the season, and they were ecstatic. And it's an enthusiasm that's infectious.

Just a few days ago, we had asparagus for dinner; the last of the year. The Germans generally eat white asparagus and you only get it from mid-April to the 26th of May. That's asparagus season. It's not really eaten at any other time of the year. It's always a meal with new boiled potatoes, asparagus, Hollandaise or butter-lemon sauce, and some kind of a meat side, like a Schnitzel or dried smoked ham or perhaps grilled salmon. It's an exciting time of year because it's asparagus season (and strawberry season, so most desserts and cakes have strawberries in or on them); it's special.

Now, you can get strawberries the year round, and you can get white asparagus the year round, but I don't really know anybody who buys or eats them other than "in season". I'm sure there are enough people who do or the stores wouldn't be offering them. You can have just about anything you want any time you want, but the result is that nothing is special anymore.

Special things at special times make for very special feelings. When that's gone, life becomes mundane and monotonous. Everything simply becomes everyday. And that's sad.

Good Book, bad behavior

The Good Book tells us that the span of our lives is but "threescore years and ten" and, if we're lucky, another 10 on top of that (cf. Ps 90:10). That's not a lot of time. Now, we could be foolish enough to take the statement literally and then point out all the cases above and beyond and go on about how wrong the Bible is, but that would be missing the point. This statement was made a couple of thousand years ago and given that the current overall life expectancy for the US is just under 80 years (#36 worldwide), it's still valid enough.

To the Ancients, you should know, numbers had more significance than as mere placeholders, as they are to us today. Different times, different ways of thinking. Seven was the number of knowledge, both secular and spiritual. Any number to the first power (that is, times 10) was a spiritualization of that number's meaning, so 70, in a sense would be something akin to deep insight, perhaps wisdom. Eight was the number of material satisfaction, hence 80 would mean something like having come to terms with the world. No, there are no extra-deep, esoteric secrets here, rather a simple, at the time, perhaps, generally accepted principle of life: we're not here for long at all, it might not be such a bad idea to make the best of it, not just materially but spiritually (or intellectually or psychologically, if you prefer) as well.

To me, however, the real point to keep in mind is 70 or 80 years is really no time at all in relation to the world as a whole or the entire cosmos. And here, it really doesn't matter if the world is 6,000 or 15,000,000,000 years old (whereby the latter number really hammers the point home): our participation in the Grand Scheme of Things is orders of magnitude less than the total; at best it is more or less a bit-part, walk-on role in the Greater Cosmic Drama. No reason to take ourselves too seriously, on the one hand, but on the other, we should never forget that we really don't have much chance to get a handle on that bigger picture anyway. For as smart as we allegedly are as a species, we have to overcome a significantly small window of opportunity on what's going on, and most of us don't ever even try.

There's another passage in that Good Book that's always been one of my personal favorites: "To every thing there is a time, and a time to every purpose under the heaven" (Ecc 3:1, of which, by the way, the Byrds did an awesome cover, "Turn, Turn, Turn"). Not only is there really "nothing new under the sun" (Ecc 1:9), it keeps repeating itself. We go over the same territory, through the same experiences, have the same learning experiences over and over again, and nothing seems to change. As I've said before, as a species, we're slow learners. In this case, too, we could conclude that there's nothing we can, nor need bother to do, because it's all going to come back around anyway. But, as above, that would be a terrible misreading of what we're being told.

There are a couple of reasons why things happen over and over again. Take the seasons, for example, they go through the same rhythm and sequence year after year. The same is true for the months of the year and days of the week. We need to sow when the time is right and reap when the fruit is ripe. Whole civilizations were built upon this very simple principle (e.g., Ancient Egypt), but there are other things, very human things that could be different, that don't have to be repeated, if we would put our minds to it.

In both cases, we end up with the same result: we start thinking there's nothing we can do about anything, it's just the way things are. And while it often looks that way, the real secret lies in being able to determine what you can and what you can't change.

And now what?

Yes, and now what? Good question. If I only knew.

For those of you who may not be aware, the number 7 plays a significant role in our lives. In the Middle Ages, a child became an "adult" at 7 because s/he could distinguish between right and wrong. Later, we moved decided that 14 was the age at which an individual could decide about his/her own beliefs as s/he had reached the age of reason. Even later, we decided that one was actually an adult when one turned 21, and a lot of places think so even today. Humans are, it is true, subject a 7-year cyclic development pattern, and in our tradition, we have 7 days of the week as well. In the Ancient World, there were (and still are) 7 visible planets ... the list goes on and on, but I believe you get the point.

What many more of you may not be aware of is that each individual's year is divided into 7 phases as well. It starts when you're born and it stops when you die. These aren't biorhythms in the true sense of the word, just phases that, surprisingly enough, are analog to the phases we experience in our 7-year developments throughout life. If I were to give you "key words" to associate with each of these phases, they would be (1) Action, (2) Consolidation, (3) Transition, (4) Stabilization, (5) Creation, (6) Harmonization, and (7) Rest. It is an interesting exercise to reflect upon one's own life in terms of these key words and one's own development over the years. It is also interesting to think about when one did what in one's current life and how those actions/deeds/accomplishments reflect those key words as well. Be that as it may, I have found that these cycles play a unignorable part in my own life, and as fate would have it, I have just entered my own 7th cycle for this year as well. I don't know about you, but I find myself in dire need of recharging my physical and mental batteries starting 6-7 weeks before my birthday. And that's where I am right now.

In all this talk of change, lately, I believe it is time for me to make a few changes myself. Besides begin in need of a bit of rest, I feel the very strong need to start bringing a few things together, harmonizing them if you will, in general. What this means in very practical terms is that here, where the Celtic New Year is upon us (a mere coincidence, I can assure you) -- after all, it is Halloween (which is hardly a holiday in these parts, though I know my American friends and acquaintances will be outdoing themselves), which marked the transition from the light to the dark part of the year -- I shall be slowing down a bit.

For the past couple of years, I've been posting every second day. The next post, however, and those that that follow will be in three-day intervals for a while ... at least until the end of the calendar year (and isn't it interesting just how many "calendars" we each have). I need more time to think. I want more time to reflect. I feel it; there is reason for it; it makes sense (to me); so, I don't see why I should fight it.

I hope all of you who have been true to my blog thus far will continue to be so. (You are part of a very small -- but as I like to think, very select -- group of individuals. You are, of course, free to share these posts with whomever you may please.) I thought it only fair to let you know of the change.

As our good friend Heraclitus was fond of saying, panta rhei.

Boing!

I don't know if you hear it, but yesterday at 11:02 UTC Spring sprang. Looking outside, you probably wouldn't know it otherwise, if I hadn't have told you. Some of us were thinking it's today, others were sure it was tomorrow. I mean, none of us is far off, it's always around this time, but the astrophysical time-masters have been tracking the data and if anyone knows just when what out there is supposed to be somewhere, they're the ones to ask.

We made it! Winter is officially behind us.

Of course, when I look out the window and when I think about being outside, I'm not thinking spring, official or not. That's the thing about something being "official". I'm not sure it means a lot out here in reality where just about everything of significance is anything but "official".

Really, when my kids were born, that were some of the greatest moments of my life, but none of those births were "official" until they had been registered. Or when their birthdays come. It's past midnight, and anyone and everyone can -- and should -- wish them a Happy Birthday, even though it's not "official" till at least their birth time comes around, but hey, who's counting? The same is true for anniversaries, both happy and sad (such as weddings, engagements, and, yes, even deaths). What is real, and when we choose to remember is necessary and important, and it's never really "official".

Things have certainly changed since the times when I grew up -- as well they should have, some of it for the better, of course -- and I have to admit that one of the things I hear less about these days than then is how "official" things are. When I say that winter is "officially" behind us, it really doesn't carry that authoritative tone that it did when I was young. That's good I think. Part of the consequence is that a lot of young people have less respect for authority than we were encouraged (required?) to have. I don't think that's a bad thing.

You see, in my day, people were shown (not necessarily given) respect by virtue of their position: the policeman, the pastor or priest, the teacher, the mayor or governor or ... oh, the list goes on. These were, and are, of course, "official" personages. But, most of those people today are people somewhere around my age, and I have to say that associating respect and position just doesn't cut for me. It didn't do a lot for me then, and absolutely nothing for me now: each and every one of these officials have shown us quite clearly that money and power and advantage were more important than what their "official" position actually required. So we have scandal after scandal after scandal and it doesn't strike us as odd that there is nothing respectable about scandals. It is now up to each and every "official" person to show, demonstrate, and prove that s/he is worthy and deserving of our respect.

Yes, it's "officially" spring, but it's not acting like it. So, I'll keep waiting.

Spring ahead

Did you know that there is not just one season called spring? No, I don't mean that there's a spring in the Northern Hemisphere and half a year later there's one in the Southern Hemisphere. We've got a tilted earth and there's simply not a whole lot we can do about that. This is what we might call the beginning of cosmological spring, for that's how our particular corner of the universe has been put together.

No, I'm talking about the "other" spring ... the meteorological spring. For whatever reason, whoever came up with our calendar simply refused to acknowledge that the seasons, like the signs of the zodiac, and all that stuff nobody likes to think about anymore all start around the 20th or 21st of their given months. Spring "officially" starts at the spring equinox, that day/time, if you will where we have equal periods of light and dark (more or less ... it's not all that precise). In the spring, the sun is making it's yearly journey north (for those of us upon this side of the world), and at some point, it crosses the so-called celestial equator, whereas in the fall, at the autumnal equinox, the sun is heading south again ... like lots of us in the North would like to do in the winter. That whole snowbird idea was around a long time before we thought of calling it that. Oh yeah, this year it will "happen" on March 20, 2013 at 11:02 UTC (or just after 5 am for those of you in New York).

When you stop to think about it, we're pretty much out of touch with nature and the natural cycles of things. I mean for millennia, literally thousands of years, day began when the sun came up; it ended when the sun went down and that's when night started, which ended when the sun came up again ... well, you get the picture. Actually, if we really wanted to get technical (which I don't) the sun doesn't rise or set at all, the earth turns and it looks as the sun is rising or setting. Some metaphors sit very, very deep. Others not so much. So now a "day" begins and end at "midnight" (which is the completely wrong word when you think about it), and months start on their first, but the actual seasons, well, they still follow pretty much the same old pattern

Pretty much. Weather people, regardless of how chaotic their subject matter may inherently be, are still trying hard to force a bit of order onto that chaos, so they've come up with meteorological seasons. It's simple: March, April and May constitute spring; June, July and August make up summer; fall consists of September, October and November, and winter runs from December through February. Very neat, very orderly, very much out of rhythm, but, hey, who's paying all that much attention anymore?

So, in a sense, spring has already sprung. It sprang ahead of itself. It's already spring, winter's over, aren't we glad? I suppose, but it doesn't feel that much like spring yet. I'd say winter is dragging his feet. I wonder if the sun has some heavy burden that's slowing him down? Oh well, for some of us, we've still got almost a week to go.