700 posts in 7 years

The title's merely an expression of fact. I've been at this for that long, and this is as far as I've got. Hmmm. Does that meaning anything or not? OK, that's a loaded question, for we know that meaning is, in many ways, personal, and whether the number 700 means anything at all is an open question. There are a lot of folks who won't hesitate to tell me that a number is just a number is just a number. But, I happen to think that people who think that way just aren't thinking at all.

Seven. It plays a big role in our Western religious traditions: 7 days of the week, 7 arms on a menorah, 7 deadly sins, 7 virtues, 7 works of corporeal mercy, and 7 works of spiritual mercy; 7 miracles in the Gospel of John, 7 sacraments of the Catholic Church; 7 times 7 that you should forgive your brother for offense against you; the Sabbath Year, the Jubilee Year; 7 heavens of Islam, or the number of required circumambulations around the Kabba; 7 openings in the human head, 7 colors of the rainbow, 7 seas, 7 chakras, and 7 rings given to the Dwarf Lords in the Lord of the Rings; 7 points on a sheriff's badge; the 7 flies the little tailor killed with just one swat ... 7 upon 7 times 7 ... but who cares? Our atheist brethren shun the stories; our fundamentalist brethern shun the meaning. And in the end, it's just a number, so what? It could be that numbers may mean more than we think, just like myths (true myths) may be more real than we would like to admit.

Seven, when seen this way, appears to open the field ot every possibility. And is it not possibilites that give us hope? Anything is possible is a statement of hope. And that was the case: I had hoped to reach others, both like-minded and not, and I've spent the last 7 years trying.

Any number times 10 in numerology is the raising of "whatever" to the next level, hence 70 would be a kind of hope for hope. There's no 70 in the current equation except for the fact that my own name, reduced theosophically (those who want to know will have to ask), equals 70. I've used that as a moniker in other, more relevant contexts. In keeping the with the interpretations just offered, 70 would be something like "actualized hope", which would be me; that is, the guy who's been trying to hope for the best.

But this, as the title tells us, in my 700th post. Now, 700 is taking the previous level to the next level. I like the metaphor because it makes Life seem somehow like an adventure game ... which it, in many regards is ... and taking our logic of 7 to the next level, we're left with a kind of general priniciple, namely the Principle of Indetermination: everything's open, anything can happen, anything's possible ... the great hope that something good might come of all this in spite of everything else.

Yes, yes, I know: this is a mere intellectual, if perhaps slightly creative, exercise. But that's the point. Thinking numbers are stupid and just numbers is pretty unimaginative. What the world needs now (besides Love, as the song told us), is a good, healthy dose of imagination and creativity. I'm not narcisstic enough to think that I'm going to provide this impetus. I would like to think that I'm doing my part, no matter how small it might be. What remains is the fact that I'm confronted with a situation which I can imbue with meaning or merely ignore. Being the meaning-seeking person I am, I have chosen against ignornance. But, creativity means change; it's inherent in the concept.

In a sense, then, I'm opting for a Sabbath year, a year of rest (of sorts). Yes, for the bean-counters amongst you, it should have been last year, but that is really not the point. This post, as I have tried to explain, is the point of change. The current rhythm of posting is every three days (a matter I could address at another time), but it seems fitting, for a lot of reasons, to change the rhythm to 7 days, which is what I'm going to do. (Whereby I certainly reserve the right to violate this rhythm whenever external events or internal stimuli dictate the necessity to do so. And, who knows, I may be tweeting more, even if I'm enjoying it less.)

As of now, I'm going to post but once a week. I want a bit more time to think about what I'm going to say, and I want to think more about what I'm saying. I want to get a bit away from the mundanity of everyday life and politics and get a bit closer to the things that matter: the not-so-mundane and the what-are-we-going-to-do-about-it. I want to delve a bit deeper into self-reflexivity; that is, thinking about what we think and why, rather than making comments on the nonsense of too-much-everyday. I would also like the option of not just blogging, but also actually writing, but to do so takes a bit more time than I have had so far to devote to the words I post online.

Put another way: a regular blog cannot be much different from an editorial in a daily newspaper: a few words of "opinion" are thrown at events and circumstances on a rapidly regular basis. The Sunday paper, however, is a lot thicker, for the simple reason that it includes a lot of things that are worth (or should be worth) thinking about. We don't take enough time to think these days. Admit it: you run through your daily life, trying to make ends meet, striving to do the best you can, hoping that it's all working out, but you never really take the time to reflect. What I would like to do for the next year, at any rate, is provide you, perhaps, with reasons to reflect.

It's time to slow down. Not stop. Not reverse gears. Not turn around, just slow down. Take some time for yourself. Take some time to think about things. Take some time to act, not just react. Take some time to figure out what matters and what doesn't, what makes sense and what doesn't, what is important and what can be ignored.

I know that I need this time and want this time. My hope is, of course, that you need this time and want this time as well. The world's not getting any better. The nonsense and insanity that we call everyday life is getting harder to take. The decisions we make and the things we choose to believe now are going to impact our world, our children and our grandchildren for years to come. I don't think it's wise to merely make decisions. It is important, at least in my mind, that we decide: what kind of a world, which values should be in that world, how many others can we include in that world, and how rich that world may be. Please join me. I would love to have you along for the ride.

Hold fast to your fast fast

It's not a good sentence (the title), but it's grammatically correct. That's what's so fascinating about language: the statement can be completely correct, but it means little, and sometimes nothing at all (as in, who can forget Chomsky's infamous "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously"? Whereby I find that particular sentence more poignant than many I've heard in the latest run-up to the primaries in America.) Yes, yesterday was the the kick-off, so to speak, and tomorrow is the big day: Tomorrow, Lent begins. Are you going to fast, or are you above all that? And, if you are, do you know why you are doing it? It's all not self-evident, you know, even if you think it's clear.

I don't know many people who fast anymore, other than for dietary reasons. It used to be that everyone fasted two days a week (Monday and Thursday, if you were Jewish; Tuesday and Friday, if Christian ... tells you something doesn't it?). At least for my Roman Catholic-influenced friends, bells should be ringing. What is more, there were particular times of year (for example, since we mentioned it recently, from 11 November till Christmas, and now Lent, prior to Easter ... which is also two times, which should also tell you something).

Some people will tell you that this was because food was scarce and it simply made good economic sense. Others will tell you, well, nothing, because they have no idea or never thought about it. Most people familiar with religion don't really know why these fasts were proclaimed, and the only ones we ever really hear about these days -- and this most often in an act of belittling and denigration -- is Ramadan, the great Muslim fast of the year. In a religious context, however, it was always about being aware of one's own body (and its needs) in contrast to the Spirit which was, at times, seen complementary to the body and since the rise of the Church (and certainly since Descartes) as its opponent, if not enemy.

When seen in such simplistic terms, I agree, we should just stomp it all into the wastebasket (dustbin, for my Anglo friends). This playing off of the body against the spirit was one way of looking at things, to be sure, and it served its purpose in its time, but we should be beyond that now. Having said that, though, we would be remiss in dismissing the spirit because it doesn't fit into our materialistic worldview. Even serious physicists have acknowledged that consciousness (yes, spirit) has an important and intimate relationship with matter. Perhaps it is time to start rethinking some of the things that we simply take for granted as true.

Body and mind are not a duality, they are part of a whole that is greater than either of them, a synergy, if you will. Our mind can affect our bodies (self-healing of congenital illnesses, psychosomatic illnesses) and our bodies certainly affect our minds (ever try to solve a life-crisis when you're ill?).

Fasting -- and there are many ways to describe it -- is, if properly understood, a way of reactivating the link between the physical and non-physical. Instead of merely thinking that this is another old custom that has outlived its usefulness, perhaps we should slow down, reconsider and recognize that there were good reasons for things long before we even knew what reasons were.

St. Martin's Day

The 11th day of the 11th month of the year was for the longest time and for the shortest of times, reason to celebrate, (I'll come back to the other reasons next time,) but there was a time when today was a much bigger deal than it is today.

Oh, I know, we're (post-)moderns now and all that mumbo-jumbo, hocus-pocus religious superstition has all been superseded by ... well, by what? rational, objective, de-mythologized ... nothing. Yes, the emptiness we feel so strongly these days has something to do with the so-called "detritus" that we sent to slag heap some time ago. Old "holidays" and (what's worse!) Feast Days are well-deserved, forgotten relics of a by-gone age ... or are they?

We live in a post-industrial -- and as many like to claim, a new, information-based society (though, actually I should say "economy", since we even banned the ghost (read: spirit) of a society some time ago). All those once-important autumn, or harvest, festivals are no longer important, even though once, at a minimum, they marked the passing of the year, and above all, the passing of our consciousness from one temporal phase to another.

Today is St. Martin's Day, which I'm sure most of you don't know, so I'm here to remind you.

Saint Martin (of Tours, who died in 490), a former Roman soldier is known once cutting his cloak in half to share with a beggar during a snowstorm, to save the beggar from dying from the cold. The beggar was allegedly Jesus. Not unsurprisingly, he's the patron saint of the poor (and hence more relevant today than ever). In his honor, the medieval church mandated fasting three days a week from today till Epiphany (which I've mentioned before); that is a period of 56 days, but mandating 40 days of fasting (cf. Lent).

Here in Germany, goose is the traditional dish. (OK, OK, my vegetarian and vegan friends will have to close an eye, but I'm still working from the top of the food chain and still have my -- in your eyes -- "weaknesses".) This is because -- as the legend tell us -- when trying to avoid being ordained bishop he had hidden in a goose pen, but was betrayed by the cackling of the geese.

My goose dinner will have to wait a few weeks for other reasons, but the point of all of this is that we have a day that was meant to inspire us to stop, reflect, and acknowledge the Christian "truth" that it's good to help those less fortunate than ourselves, and to stop, reflect and give thanks (it is after all, harvest time) for all that we have.

You can think what you want about the "evils" or "redemption" of religion ... it doesn't matter, really. Any time -- and for any reason -- that we can stop and reflect on what might be good not only for ourselves but for others or that gives us pause to give thanks for all that we have is time well spent.

We used to be reminded of these things as a matter of course. It seems today that I have to keep reminding us. But, that's OK, the reason for pausing is irrelevant. That we pause, that we reflect, and that we give thanks is all that really matters.

I have no time

I have no time for
everyday platitudes
unreflected blurtings
spewed opinions
shallow observations
unthought-through comments
ambiguous meanings, and
short-sighted insights.

I have no time to
waste on prejudices
deal with inanity
wrestle with obscurity
take nonsense seriously
fight against stupidity
accept obscurity or
eschew obfuscation.

I have no time,
nor interest
nor desire
nor will
nor longing
nor yearning
nor hope
that much will change.

The time game

There a quite a few people I know who yearn for the "good old days", you know, those times when the world was still OK. Most people are referring to their childhoods, and for those I've known since then, I can tell you that the times then weren't all that great.

But, we think they were (or at least like to think they were). Our perception of them over the passage of times makes them appear that they were. Most of all, we wish they were. Hindsight is 20-20. Time heals all wounds. Or, as Heraclitus noted, Time is a game played beautifully by children.

We are, however, no longer children. The relentlessness of the seeming endless march through morning, noon, and night. Our continual obsession with the past, our total ignorance of the present, and our self-induced fear of the future haunt us mercilessly. And we think that somehow time moves unerringly from some point in the past toward that most-feared point in the future, death. Then we remember, sometimes only fleeting, how beautifully we played the game of time when we were children.

What bothers most of us and what bothers us most is the fact that it seems to be moving faster, that it seems to be slipping away from us. We invented clocks to mark the hours and somehow know that a minute then was really no different from a minute now, but it certainly seems different. We all know that as we grow older our sensation of time accelerates, and given the fact that our lives are now driven by the clock, it seems all the worst. And then we find ourselves wasting time, even (ruthlessly) killing time ... how sick do we have to get before we realize that we've that we no longer have any idea how the time game is played.

So here we are, all grown up; our own persons; doing our own thing and making our own decisions; pretending to be large and in charge, bragging that we've paid our dues and know how to play the game ... but that's a much different game we think we know how to play. Sure, there are lots of folks who can play the get-what-you-want game, the pulling-the-wool game, the talk-big game, the act-brave game, and many more besides. But the real game, the most important game of all is the one we forgot how to play.

Too bad, too sad, it was the most fun game of all.

The day the sun stands still

Tomorrow, at 16:39 UTC (or 4:39pm Universal Coordinated Time for those of you not yet in the 21st century) the sun will stop (which is what the word "solstice" actually means). In the Northern Hemisphere it marks the longest day and shortest night of the year, astronomically the real beginning of summer, but for those with other modes of time reckoning, mid-summer. Especially in places that are dark a lot, it is a day of merriment and celebration.

Solstices occur when the sun is at its zenith; that is, at its highest point, in relation to the earth's equator. Humankind has known about them for almost as long as there have been humans on this planet, and in our earliest civilizations they played a special and significant role. It was nature that determined how we calculated and counted our notions of time, not according to the averaging of the frequencies of certain isotopes of uranium selected for this particular purpose (which is how our most precise time is established.

Still, Mother Nature, the Cosmos, doesn't really care how sophisticated we humans think we are. On 30 June this year 23:59:60 UTC (midnight, in common terms), a leap second will be added to UTC in order to synchronize atomic clocks with astronomical time to within 0.9 seconds. Oh, how proud we must be. OK, I'm enough of a geek to find this kind of stuff cool, but what really fascinates me about it is what it says about us as a species. We humans have the privilege and benefit of being able to reflect upon such things, even if the vast majority of us (a) don't know that such things even exist and (b) when we do, we simply fail to take advantage of it.

The summer solstice, of course, is the counterpart to the other yearly solstice, the one in winter. That one is much more well known (though barely) because it occurs near to Christmas and the winter festivities have stuck with us longer. Occurring exactly half a year apart, they have different meanings, primarily because of the physical differences that we denizens of this planet experience at these particular times. The festivals of the winter solstice, throughout history, have been spiritual ones; the summer ones, physical: lots of drinking, dancing, cavorting, merry-making ... like in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. We should remember, however, that things are exactly opposite in the Southern Hemisphere. There it is winter that starts and they should be celebrating their spiritual festivals, but they aren't going to be doing so for the most part because Northern Hemisphereans colonized the Southern Hemisphere and decided that everyone needed to be just like us.

It's really sad when you stop to think about it: one half of the earth was moving from the spiritual to the physical while at the same time the other half was moving in the opposite direction. The earth, as it were, was really a giant, living Ying-Yang. But we found a way to change it and work against the flow of time and nature that had served the planet for billions of years. And look at us now. Now wonder the movie "The Day the Earth Stood Still" only became a cult classic. That was a film about know-it-alls who were making life miserable for others. And that's what we do best.

Perhaps, in part, because we started ignoring the days the sun stops.

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.

There's a Grand Scheme of Things

We moderns, as I said before, like to think that life started with us, but it didn't. We like to think we're the smartest version of the species yet to appear, but I certainly have my doubts. I'm not saying the Ancients were smarter or cleverer (though they did figure out that fire and wheel thing, and whether we've really improved on either is open to debate), rather they were, in their own way, every bit as intelligent and insightful as we are today. The Ancients weren't errant, trial-and-error-driven, superstitious, child-like, simpletons. They were highly evolved, curious, interested and adventurous people. They didn't figure everything out, and neither have we, and if we took them half-seriously and were not so condescending in our attitude, there could be a thing or two we could learn from them.

Some archaeologists, for example, are convinced the Sphinx is much older than the Great Pyramids. It is obvious that the Sphinx has a lion's body, and it's just as obvious that the head has been resculpted. How old could it be? Well, if the body has anything to tell us, I'd start thinking perhaps as much as 12,000 years old. That's long before most archaeologists believe humans were capable of such constructions, but there's hardly a day that goes by that new evidence does not appear that humans have been acting like humans much farther back in history than expected, at least based on what we "know". And, to come back to my Creationist friends, could it be that the world being only 6,000 years old has something to do with the beginning of recorded history? It was the so-called People of the Book who first introduced the notion. Could it be that not t-h-e world, but a, or their particular world (understood as a way of accepting reality ... much like was say today that some people "live in their own world") came into being then?

Off track? Maybe, but maybe not. One of the hallmarks of modernity is its insistence on facts and factual knowledge (even if lots of folks prefer to ignore the same if these facts don't fit into their own little "world", like climate-change deniers, etc.). One of the hallmarks of our ancient ancestors is that to them, the story was more important, for it was the story that communicated meaning and made sense of their lives and the world in which they found themselves. Our incessant appetite for facts kills meaning. Facts are like sugar calories: they're fine every now and again, but you can't live off sugar, you need other nutrients to keep yourself alive and healthy. Myth -- true myth -- provides a rich variety of intellectual and psychological nutrients that help us find meaning in this otherwise hunger-producing world in which we live.

Hardline science wants us to believe that we live in a coincidentally and accidentally, created, formed and evolved world, that we ourselves are the product of blind chance, that there is no meaning to be found and when we think we have found some, it turns out we only made it up to placate our own fears. Why we have fears and why we can make things up to placate them doesn't matter to hardline science for that is outside the purview of their interests. This is why the state of science today, the state of our knowledge, is in such bad shape. If nothing else, our ancient forebears were trying, and it would appear to me, making some progress in understanding their (read: our) relationship to all that surrounds us. Sculpting a bull because it links us to observed natural, astronomical phenomena hardly seems like a random act to me, especially when I think it could take years to finish that sculpture.

For me, given the choice, between haphazard, meaningless chance and a meaningful relationship to the world around me ... I'll opt for the latter every single time. I think we owe at least that much to those who came before us.

There's a Grand Scheme of Things?

If you recall from last time, we were standing outside looking at the eastern horizon at the vernal equinox. We notice the constellation that is there. If we did that every year of our normal lives (which we found out several posts ago was "threescore and ten" or 70 years, that constellation that we would observe would appear to move about 1 degree to the West over the course of our life. That's not very fast, but if you passed this habit onto your children and they to their children and so on and so on, at some point, someone in your family would notice that the original constellation had passed and a new constellation had taken its place. This is what is known as the Precession of the Equinoxes.

So what, you may be asking. Well, this is why I find it so interesting. I had to explain this phenomenon to you because we don't care and hence don't know. This was, however, for a very long time a very big deal. Plato, and the Ancient Greeks knew about it, the Egyptians certainly knew about it, the Ancient Babylonians and Assyrians knew about it. And, if my simple example shows, how many observations would have to be made to see the parade of constellations go through several changes?

As I told you last time, it takes about 26,000 years to go through all twelve constellations. Analogous to our own solar year of 12 months, the precession was referred to as the Great Year, each "month" thereof spanning just over 2,100 years. Since we already use the word "month" to refer to our own time reckoning, these "Great Months" are referred to as "ages" and are given the name of the constellation that serves as backdrop for that given period.

Almost everyone has heard of the "Age of Aquarius" (Aquarius is the Water Bearer), and it's to this precession that it refers. The one preceding it is/was known as the Age of Pisces (the Fish), before that it was the Age of Ares (the Ram), and before that the Age of Taurus (the Bull). And if we do the math, Fish - Ram - Bull = 3 x 2,100 or about 6,000 years ago. An interesting number in this particular context, I would think, because don't the Creationists believe that the earth is only 6,000 years old? Is there anything to this?

Did you ever ask yourself why the Bull plays such a major role in some cultures and why there are so many very old stories involving bulls? One only has to think about Crete and the Minotaur (man with the head of a bull) to whom sacrifice had to be brought and Ariadne's thread. Or why as part of his labors, Hercules was required to capture the Cretan Bull? Have you ever asked yourself why you find pictures of Moses, for example, bringing down the 10 Commandments from Mt. Sinai, depicted with small ram's horns. And why was Moses so upset with his people that he smashed the original tablets on ... yes ... the Golden Calf (a young bull)? Or why in Ancient Egypt there were actual boulevards leading up to certain temples that were lined with statues of rams? Or why is it that Jason was off looking for a Golden Fleece? And, do you really think that it's a mere coincidence that a couple of thousand years later when a young rabbi got hung on a cross that he was known for wanting to make his disciples "Fishers of Men", or that his followers recognized each other by the sign of the fish?

Yes, I know this is all just oddly coincidental. That these animals played such a significant role in the myths, legends and tales is simply a matter of accident. I don't know about you, but for me that's all just a little too much coincidence.

A Grand Scheme of Things?

Gebser's model, which has underlain the last several posts, is one way of looking at ourselves over the not-so-long span of our existence. We moderns tend to discard the past, especially the distant past, because we have been taught to believe that our eldest forebears were, well, more or less childlike and naive, not particularly bright (like we are today), and rather helpless in the face of the big, bad world into which they were thrown. This is, of course, a self-aggrandizing, egotistical, and arrogant belief. Maybe that's why we take to it and hold on to it so dearly. What I like most about Gebser's model is his insistence on (and documented support for) the fact that humans have always been intelligent (though there have always been geniuses and idiots among us) and whatever it is that we humans figured out is still of value to us today. In other words, we can learn from them, if we're only willing to take them seriously and take a serious look at all they did.

Gebser's ideas are also not new. He's not the first person to come up with the idea that change may be "built into the system", in a manner of speaking. He links his model to what he sees to be as evidence of changes in human mentation. Eons before he came up with this approach, however, the topic of cosmic change, let us say, a Grand Scheme of Things, was a highly developed science (using the word in its most fundamental sense: "a way of knowing"). Have you ever heard of the Precession of the Equinoxes? Most haven't, so let me explain it briefly, for it forms the basis of one of humankind's oldest models of change, one that might even qualify as that elusive Grand Scheme of Things.

Up front, a few basic facts and tidbits of knowledge that are necessary to understand the concept. The earth rotates on its axis, once every 24 hours (or one day). The earth revolves around the sun once every 365.25 days (or one year). The earth's axis is tilted at about 23 degrees; that is, it does sit perfectly vertically and the path of revolution around the sun is elliptical. When viewed from outside, the earth would appear to "wobble" and it is sometimes closer to the sun and sometimes actually vertical in relation to the suns's axis, and this is what causes the seasons, which are experienced most clearly in what are called the temperate climate zones. Now, this "wobble" isn't a shaky kind of wobble and if we could push a stick through the earth (like through an apple) from north to south and we observed the point of the stick from a great distance, we would see that it inscribes a circle. The fact worth noting is that it takes about 26,000 years to complete that circle.

The moon revolves around the earth, the earth around the sun, the sun around the center of the Milky Way (our galaxy) and so on. Everything out there in space is moving. We, of course, don't have the sensation that we're moving, so if we go out, say, every night at the same time and look up at the stars, we would notice that they don't always appear in the same place. They appear to be moving, albeit slowly, but moving nevertheless, but it takes a very long time to recognize that they are.

OK, so, if we went out at night on the first day of spring (March 21, the so-called vernal equinox) and looked due east, we would see a certain set of stars on the horizon. As it turns out, there are several sets of these stars, called constellations, which are familiar to us from astrology (hence the hapless pick-up line, "What's your star sign?" As most of you know, there are twelve of these signs, one for every month of the year, even though we count our months from 1 to 28, 30 or 31 days, and the astrological months always start around the 20th to the 22nd of each calendar month.

Well, you may be wondering where all of this is leading, but you'll have to come back next time for me to tell you.

Upsides, downsides, and time-compression

One of the features of the transition of consciousness that we are experiencing that interests me in particular is the rate of change. When looked at historically, we find that the efficient and deficient modes of each structure of consciousness has been shorter ... much shorter ... than the one that preceded it. I don't know why that is, but it appears that it is that way.

If you recall, I already outlined what I believe the time spans of the different structures of consciousness to be, and if we consider that our latest deficient phase is a mere 500 years in the making, well, I think you can agree that things seem to be speeding up. Could they be speeding up to the point where the emergence of the efficient as well as the deficient modes could be simultaneous? Could it be that right up front, we have to decide whether we want the efficient or deficient mode? I know that's a difficult thought to get one's head around, so I won't pursue it further. If you're so inclined, though, I invite you to think about just that "at your leisure".

This is, of course, only one way to understand the notion of time-compression. I mean, we all think that life is passing us by more quickly than we've ever experienced it before, and this applies to everyone, not just to us older folks. My children complain about "not having enough time" to get things done that need to be done, and everyone wants to know where their days went and why is my 20th reunion already being planned, and why there just aren't enough hours in a day.

Another way to think about time-compression, however ... and it's my preferred way (after all, the one just described merely depresses me at my age, and at my age, the last thing I need is depression) ... is that what we once thought over, dead, and long-forgotten turns out to be more up-to-date, current, and "now" than we ever imagined. Think about it.

More and more discoveries are being made to show that "humans" (however you may define the term) have been around, doing "human things", for much longer than we suspected. We've had to revise our "accepted anthropological wisdom". The advances made in understanding the human genome and consciousness are forcing us to rethink both biology and physics. What is surprising, however, is the fact that very ancient and long-forgotten "knowledge" is making a come-back. It could just be that the Ancient Egyptians knew more than we give them credit for. It could be that historical linguistics needs to be revised. We are becoming ever more aware of the availability of information and we are being challenged more than ever to deal with this information in a sensible and meaningful way ... and we're having a hard time doing that. Why? Because the things we are finding out are at odds with the things that we thought we knew, with what we have been made to believe is true. In other words, the very foundation of who we are is being called into question. This is a hard nut to crack, and it is one that most people will resist. Nevertheless, our future, our entire existence depends on the decisions we make now. No pressure. But if you don't know, you need to get smart fast.

So, for those of you who are so inclined, and for those of you who would like to think more, let me suggest a couple of sources: in physics, Penrose, Goswami, Greene, and Bleicher aren't a bad place to start; in biology, try Sheldrake; in philosophy, I recommend Midgley; for language and linguistics, Stan Tenen and the work of the Meru Foundation; as far as Ancient Wisdom is concerned, the best place to start is with René Schwaller de Lubicz; as far as mythology is concerned, try Hamlet's Mill by Santillana & Dechand. There's more. Much, much more, of course, but you have to start somewhere.

Start somewhere.

And that's a wrap

Well, tomorrow night -- at midnight -- things are going to change. It is then our turn to make a lot of noise bringing in our own new year. Yes, everybody gets to have one, and so do we. However, as is part of our own particular tradition, a moment's reflection on what has transpired over the last 360 or so days is most definitely in order.

2013 was a good year for bad reasons, but a bad year for the right bad reasons. We survived the year without a major international war; we had no serious economic disasters; there were no more than usual environmental catastrophes; and there were no large-scale armed revolutions. My question is why we should only be happy about what didn't happen. It seems like second-hand happiness. On the down side, we haven't resolved any of the ongoing armed international conflicts (Iraq, Afghanistan, South Sudan, the list goes on); we know we're heading for another economic disaster because jobs aren't forthcoming and benefits are being cut, and the banks are acting every bit as recklessly as they were back in 2007, when nobody saw anything coming; though no Gulf-of-Mexico class oil spills, the Keystone Pipeline is producing daily disasters, and fracking has got it down to hourly ones, and the disease is spreading on this side of the Atlantic as well; and the only real armed-violence-at-home is coming from the government(s) to the people.

Yes, pretty much a pretty normal year. And I suppose that's why I'm particularly glad to leave this one behind. It wasn't one of those years that will stick out in memory for all its exciting and emotional events. On our shared-reality plane, it was just another year. But, maybe, it shouldn't have been ...

We all know that the absence of disaster does not mean things are great. We know that we are faced with a large number of very serious issues, including the use of armed aggression at home or abroad, the survival of the planet, the fate of the 99%, inequality of all flavors, persecution, racism, terrorism, or the fear of simply getting seriously ill. What did any of us do about any of these things this year? Yes, I'm as guilty as anyone when it comes to such things.

Still, I think that both you and I know that we really can't afford to keep going on like this. We may not have had the disasters, but things didn't really get any better last year either. It just seems to me that if things are going to get better at all, in any way, then we really can't afford to just sit around and wait for someone else to make the first move. We all know that some kind of change is needed, and I am pretty sure that we all don't agree completely on what precisely and how or (more importantly, how soon. As I have been saying all along, though, talk always precedes action, and I don't hear us talking yet.

TPTB are being as loud and obnoxious as ever, but there's not a lot to drown out. Too many of us just keep our thoughts to ourselves, but we need to start expressing them and, most important of all, discussing them. Our lives are being dominated but the anonymous, removed, global, corporate Leviathan, but it need not be so. A beast that cannot be fought can be starved, and we take sustenance from that beast when we start sharing what we have with one another. Your house, your block, your neighborhood, your community ... is where we all need to start.

And, 2014 is as good a time as any to start as well. We missed our chance last year, so let's not miss it this time around. Starve the beast. Start sharing.

There's never enough time

There's never enough time ... at least not enough to really do what we want. It seems the more "advanced" our society becomes, the less time we have for things, important things, like family, friends, rest, relaxation, reflection. All our conveniences and labor-saving devices have failed us. How many of you feel like you're working more than ever, even if it's only because your mobile (cell) is on making you "on call". When I travel -- which is way too often -- I see people of all ages, glued to their devices, be they smartphones, tablets, or laptops. Some very few are listening to music or playing games, but most of what I see looks like work: lots of spreadsheets, lots of calendars, lots of email windows with long, long lists, and serious-looking PDFs. There are some Luddite-likes on board; that is, people working on paper. But these, too, often look like printed versions of what others have on-screen. Sure, during normal working hours this doesn't strike me as odd, but I'm talking about evenings and weekends. I hate it when I have to do business travel at these times, and I avoid it as much as possible. But even when I must, I certainly see no reason why that should obligate me to do business then as well. Sometimes, we simply need some time to ourselves.

You see, our modern, average work week is somewhere between 35 and 40 hours. It seems to me that if this is what we are paid for (and granted, here in Europe, many employers have general-time and/or comp-time accounts for their employees, most of which I've ever heard about have upward limits ... and oddly enough, everyone I've ever talked to was always pushing those limits as it is), this is what is expected of us. I'm the last one to advocate just letting your pencil drop at 4 or 5 or whenever the working day is over, and there may be exceptions to the rule, but what happens when the exceptions become the rule? This is what I'm seeing too much of, and it bothers me. A lot.

What I see are too many parents who are either working or going back and forth to work, so the children are too often on their own or with a baby-sitter. I see men and women consumed by their jobs and unable to switch gears for the family. I see kids who are shuffled from school to sports activities to music lessons to tutoring sessions to who-knows-where-else so they'll have greater opportunities in life. But what opportunities are we talking about? It's clear: a life of work-work-work with little family and if you end up with one, not knowing what to do with it, because you never learned how, because you never experienced one growing up.

But here's the real issue: why do we work so hard and so long? Because we need (and there are some who want) the money. We do it for the money. In the end, it's about money. The house, the car, the alma mater, the boat, the plane, the power weekend in the Caymans ... but money, well, there's are some things it just can't buy, like peace of mind, love, friendship, compassion.

Recently I read that some US law firms started offering dual career paths for incoming associates. You could choose a modest, but decent salary, a 40-hour (only) week, and no real chance for advancement; or, you could opt for the standard career path: long hours, big bonuses, and a chance at becoming a partner one day. The encouraging news was they were having trouble finding recruits for the partner path. Maybe, just maybe, younger people are realizing how ridiculous our generation has made the world. At least it's reason for hope.

A post from Prague

Traveling is fine if that's your purpose ... you know, going somewhere to see something you think might be nice, but traveling for business leaves a lot to be desired: there's all the dead time in train stations and airports; those silly, senseless security checks; sleeping in strange beds; a steady diet of hotel and restaurant food ... and more, of course. The worst part of business travel is that though you go to exciting and exotic locations (or that's how your co-workers see it), you never really get to see anything. If you're lucky, you arrive or depart during daylight hours and maybe see some of the countryside from through the bus window on the way to the airport, or perhaps the conference organizers have a dinner planned somewhere other than the conference hotel, and you see a small part of the city by night. But, you're anything but a tourist, that's for sure.

No, business travel is simply going to a lot of places you've never been.

Due to an unexpected flight cancellation by my provider airline, I was forced to leave earlier than usual for my last trip. After wrestling with my laptop on the plane and in the hotel lobby till I could check into my room, I managed to have a couple of hours of daylight and even though I had had to get up at 3:30 that morning, I was determined to at least have seen something before I left. And I'm glad I did.

Prague, it turns out, is one of the most absolutely beautiful cities I have ever seen. Oh sure, there are the ugly suburbs, old high-rise apartment complexes in need of a replastering ... the usual. But the old city, which is much larger than many old cities in other places, is still fairly large, and there is no place like Prague if you have even the slightest interest in architecture. I know for many of you the idea of a drop-dead gorgeous building is a bit of a reach, but if you want to experience it, Prague's the place to be.

The old city has a wonderful medieval feel to it. There are narrow winding alleyways, expansive plazas, and all of it is covered in cobblestone. This is nowhere to go if you are unsure of foot. The Charles Bridge, one of the city's most famous landmarks, can only be crossed on foot, but with its double row of statues, impressive view of the palace, and intimate connection to the Vltava will simply hold you fast. It's a long walk over a rather short bridge.

From capital of Bohemia and the Holy Roman Empire (Charles IV, 14th century) to capital of the Hapsburg Empire (Rudolf II, 16th century), many notable personalities have been born or lived in Prague: native sons include Rainer Maria Rilke, Franz Kafka, Vlaclav Havel; Tycho Brache and Johannes Kepler held positions there, Albert Einstein was professor in the German portion of the Charles University for a short period; and of course, Mozart had some of his greatest successes during his time in Prague. The city simply oozes with culture, learning, and inspiration. I know now why Kafka said the city has claws and keeps drawing you back. I know I'd like to go back ... especially with a little more time on my hands.

A day of reflection

May may be a merry month overall, but today at least is a good day to put the merriment aside and stop to reflect. It never hurts to reflect a bit, and I think today is an especially good day for that.

What too many people don't know any more, but today is marks the 68th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe. On this day in 1945, the Germans officially surrendered ending hostilities here.

I, for one, certainly do not gloat on days like today. Some people like to think it marks the winning of a war. Wars can't be won, they can only end. What's even better is if they never start.

The Second World War was a stupid war. Oh, sure, there are lots of folks who like to maintain that it was a "just" war; lots of others like to proclaim it was the last "just" war that America fought. The phrase "just war" is an oxymoron, like everything else that has to do with war. I'll go so far to agree that it was probably a necessary war. But wars only ever become necessary after the fact. If you do you're job right ahead of time, you can avoid wars ... at least most of the time. But, necessary or not, they're still stupid. You can't fix stupid.

For all of you who think I'm dishonoring all those who supposedly did all they did so that I can sit here and spout off such drivel, think again. I'm not dishonoring them. They did what they thought they had to do. When I was later faced with a war, I did what I thought I had to do. Other guys did other things. That's their business, just like what I did was mine. The war I was face with was even more stupid than the "big one", as my dad used to call it. This is another one of those cases where size doesn't matter.

Just so we're straight on this: all wars are stupid. It is simply impossible to have a smart war. No wars are good wars, for they always cause more problems than they solve. And, for those of you who like to believe that sometimes war is simply the last resort, well, it only is if you fail to solve your problems when you should.

You'd think after a few hundred thousand years of human history the penny would have dropped. Maybe we're not as smart as we like to think we are.

The merry month of May

Well, here we are, almost a whole week into the merry month of May.

What's so merry about it? Is this particular one supposed to be merry, or the month just generally speaking more lighthearted than the others.

I think it's just one of those quirky English turns of phrase we like so much.

We're pretty much out of time. I'm referring to us moderns. It's not the first time I bring it up, and I'm sure it won't be the last. We simply have too loose a relationship with it anymore. Maybe there was a reason for May to be merry, or for people to be merry in May.

When you get right down to it, you don't have to look very far to find a reason (or more): Walpurgis Night leads into the month, and as I mentioned a couple of posts ago, that means -- these days in particular -- most likely a dance to get into the month. Then there is the legendary May Pole. Phallic symbol or not, it raises images of mirth and frolicking, does it not? At least we in Europe have a holiday to kick start the month ... that's worth thinking about instituting every month. And traditionally, May meant it was time to bathe. Oh yeah, once a year whether you needed it or not, and May was the first real opportunity. You wanted fresh June brides, you know.

OK, it's more than a turn of phrase, there appears to be method to our standard madness.

I'm a big May fan, of course. In most years, we've got two Thursday holidays in these parts, and Thursday holidays simply lend themselves to taking Friday (as the Germans call it a Brückentag, or literally, a "bridge day") off as well. More reason to be merry. My German anniversary is in May, another reason to celebrate (and due to modern conveniences, I can take care of that bath thing any time I please).

Chance are good that even though I like the month more than most, you won't find me out frolicking. I'm pretty sure my frolicking days are over. But, there's no reason not to be a bit more upbeat than usual. Even my American friends and family can get a little of spirit of the month, I suppose, even if they have to wait until the very end of the month to get it (Memorial Day) ... unofficially, and for them, summer starts.

I can live with that.

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.