Groundhog Day redux

Though I've been accused of it again, I'm not going to bash Americans and their quaint customs. I did that already. OK, it really wasn't a bashing, but just about anything I say these days is taken by one of my fellow countrypeople as offensive. I wonder why they're so thin-skinned?

Personally, I think pseudo-holidays are fun. The only thing similar to Groundhog Day in these parts is Siebenschläfer (lit. "seven sleeper", that is the rodent glis glis, or the fat/edible dormouse (the Romans raised them and considered them a delicacy) ... not necessarily the one who told Alice anything, but perhaps), which is on 27 June (and if it rains on that day, it's supposed to rain for the next -- who would have guessed? seven weeks). But Siebenschläfer isn't as hyped and overdramatized, and it certainly was memorialized in film, as Groundhog Day.

OK, maybe because I was born and raised in Western Pennsylvania where groundhogs are not only cute but tasty (and that's for all you who rumpled your nose at the Romans) that I think it's kind of fun to pretend not to believe the nonsense, even though most people do.

It's OK, you can face up to it. Sure we don't "believe" any of this superstition, but when the day comes, we do stop and try to find out what's what. For most people, Phil's shadow or Siebenschläfter rain, tells the story. And don't give me any of that we're-all-into-science-and-not-superstition stuff. Didn't the US Senate just recently pass a resolution that disavowed the science of global warming? As if legislative votes had anything to do with any kind of reality known to the everyday person.

But inspite of all the denial, when it comes right down to it, when push comes to shove, when we have nothing less to raise as arguments, these are your elected representatives -- the "upper" house, no less -- and according to rules of democracy (which you all also claim to love so dearly and love proclaiming so loudly), whoever wins the election represents everybody, because, well, that's how the system works. Live with it. Should the world turn on its head and America fall to being just another failed empire, you'll all be guilty of whatever the new bad-boys on the block will want to accuse you of. If you don't believe me, just ask the Germans; they have some experience with this sort of thing.

And that's what I love about Groundhog Day. It keeps coming around again and again and again, and just as Bill Murry is a different person each time around, till he changes at heart, he really remains the same. And so is it with any and every empire that has ever plagued the earth. Oh, don't get me wrong, there is good in everything and good can come out of everything, but for the majority of people who have ever lived, we haven't been given the clean end of the stick. That, however, can, and should change. But, to effect that change, we have to start thinking (and acting) differently than we have before. We have to change at heart. Can you?

It's that time of year again

To the pagans of ancient times, the end of April and the end of October were special times: this was their celebration of the beginning of Spring and Autumn, the start and mid-point of a year, the celebrations that had to do with balance.

We don't think like that anymore. One day is like the next, one season like any other, even if we all have our personal preferences. We live by the clock, not by the sun; we are aware of the time of year, but never of its significance. We moderns are so arrogant, we have no idea how ignorant we are.

Prior to the railroads, we lived by the sun. We arose when it was light and retired when it was dark. Our days in winter were much shorter than those in summer, and we acted and interacted accordingly. Now, we have not only standardized our "time", we forcefully distort (e.g., Daylight Savings Time), regardless of what it costs us financially, personally, or even spiritually.

OK, I outed myself: I'm old school. The particular numbers on a clock, the position of the clock's hands don't really mean a whole helluva lot to me. It's not because I don't care, not at all, but rather because it doesn't matter.

Six in the morning? Some people get up, others continue to sleep. Twelve noon? Some people are looking for (or enjoying) lunch, others are back at work or waiting. The evening news comes at five, six, seven or eight ... it doesn't matter. We pay little attention anyhow. The news only tells us whether we can move into evening-relax mode or have dinner or, well, whatever.

But for me, today, Walpurgisnacht (Walpurgis' Night) is always special. It is a forgotten holiday, but a traditionally mystical-magical day (night). We have retained part of that magic in May Day Dancing and festivals, but of course not in America, because May Day is also the "communist" Labor Day. Our modern, sterile, ignorant-of-tradition, and ignorant repression of the natural cycle of nature have obscured and thereby made meaningless the inspiring beauty and enlivening of nature's rhythms.

In truth, I feel sorry for all those contemporaries who can only live in a clock-determined, clock-driven world. I am saddened by all those who cannot escape their self-created prisons of time. I am disheartened that I cannot make clear to them that they have enslaved themselves to an illusion we call time.

Many people that I know are enamored by and love their radio-controlled watches and clocks, because, well, you really know what time it is. That this "absolute time" is a mere average of 11 different "nuclear clocks" should give us pause to wonder just how exact and precise an average really is. If nothing else, it is a fixation on a detail that merely obscures the bigger picture: the wonderful and wondrous cycles of nature.

This is what I think of on this particular day of the year. Not because of the absurdity of our modern obsessions, but because of the respect it gives me for those who came before and who understood.

Yes, that's our modern malady: we know, but we really don't understand.