On Beliefs and Being Wrong: An Occupy Discussion with a Homeless Guy Named Zack

  This is a philosophical discussion, at the above link, which touches upon the lack of sustainability of most of our current cultural models. Treading more lightly and reverently upon the Earth is being thrust upon us, you could say, and our species will be ever more receptive to it as we run out of other options.

I was going to blog about Imbolc, the festival associated with candles, lactation, pomegranates, and beer.  Around the Mediterranean the pomegranate, and the myth of the marriage of Persephone, is the dominant pattern. Farther north the ewes begin to lactate, demonstrating that lambs are on the way, and still farther north there is burning of the Yule greenery in great sparking bonfires, to spite the darkness.

Days are in fact getting longer, and though the worst of winter in our own area is yet to come, we have hope. Jimmy the sun Prairie Groundhopg, or Punxatawney Phil, will prophesy the sort of winter yet before us at this season, at the full moon.

Already the Year of the Water Dragon has begun in Asia, at the new moon.  But really,  Zack is on to something...I think? here's a quote from the link above.

Z. No, not at all. I’m talking about what’s being called a "resource-based economic model"(9), a holistic social and economic system in which the planetary resources are held as the common heritage of all the earth's inhabitants. It is a system in which all goods and services are available to everyone without the use of money, credits, barter, or any other form of debt or servitude(10). After all, that’s mostly the system we’ve had for about 95% of human existence(11), and one which was most nobly expressed in some of the Native American Indian cultures(12). Some people, like Steve McDonald, are envisioning that we are now entering a period in our evolution that some are calling “Neo-tribalism," where “we begin to see the Earth as one complex living system with its own intelligence, and ourselves as an integral part of it all. Now the tribe is humanity itself and our sacred land is planet Earth. There’s a trend towards a non-interfering minimalistic lifestyle that’s in harmony with nature, while maintaining all the advantages of our high technology.”(13)

Q. Wholly shit man. I like the sounds of it, but that’s some utopian stuff. But, given our whole discussion here today, I’m open to being wrong. I will look into this thing you call a resource-based economic model and try to get my head around the idea of a world without money.

Hey Zack, gotta run. It’s been enlightening talking to you man. You are so “righteous” dude, ha ha.

Z. Are you sure about that? Keep in mind that I’m just a homeless bum. I could be totally wrong about everything we just discussed.

Off I go in search of a meal and a cardboard box or tent to sleep in. By the way, can you spare any change?

“Where there is recognition of right there must be recognition of wrong; where there is recognition of wrong there must be recognition of right.” Chuang Tzu 2 

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The Archdruid Report: The Blood of the Earth, or Pulp Nonfiction.

"It’s not often remembered these days that the literal meaning of the word "apocalypse" is the revelation of something hidden. The term got its modern meaning because most of the prophecies that have been so labeled claim to reveal one hidden thing in particular, that is, the imminent end of history; but there’s another sense in which the word is even more appropriate, and that sense seems worth exploring just at the moment. The presence and popularity of apocalyptic beliefs, I’ve come to think, reveal something important about any society in which such beliefs occur.

"Apocalyptic thinking, after all, doesn’t come out of nowhere. It has an extensive history behind it, a point I tried to make in my recent book Apocalypse Not, but it also has roots in the collective psychology of any society in which it becomes popular. Epochs awash in apocalyptic beliefs are also full of intense social stress, but there are stressful periods in which very few people spend their time feverishly getting ready for the end of the world. What seems to do the trick is a particular kind of stress—specifically, the kind that happens when the narratives a society uses to make sense of the world no longer work."

John Michael Greer is the Grand Archdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America

Bonus info: disinfo's link to the chart of US Congressional income by percentage

'It just costs too much to run for Congress today for anyone who’s not fairly well off to do it. And that’s no coincidence. As income inequality goes up, campaign funding from rich donors also goes up. This creates an arms race that effectively precludes anyone who doesn’t have either money of their own or access to wealthy donors from running. And that means that Congress has fewer and fewer members with any real connection to the working world.'

John Greer's point is that science fiction is becoming ever less speculative and ever more close to our actual life experiences-- as fellow Druid ahm puts it, 'we are living inside a fantasy rpg!'

Greer:

"By this point, though, I suspect that you, dear reader, are wondering about one detail. If we’re actually stuck inside the pages of a trashy fantasy novel, as I’ve suggested, and all the details of the setting and the plot are in place, where is the protagonist? Who is the hero or the heroine who will turn the pages of the long-lost Gaianomicon, use its forgotten lore to forge a wand of power out of the rays of the Sun, shatter the deceptive spells of the lords of High Finance, and rise up amidst the wreckage of a dying empire to become one of the seedbearers of an age that is not yet born? Why, you are, of course."

Helgaleena says,

in that case let us all sit cross-legged and hum the sacred names of the deities of our choosing and keep out of trouble. In the southern hemisphere they are harvesting and in the northern hemisphere they are hibernating until Imbolc. Let us wrap ourselves in to ox-hide like the king-maker-seers of Tara and try for insight.

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Beautiful Painted Arrow part 1

Bio-dynamic agriculture and Joseph Rael's perceptions have many traits in common, most importantly the connection of all levels of existence through the cultivation and consumption cycle. We help the plant achieve its 'nirvana' by consuming it in the most mindful way.

http://helgaleena.wordpress.com/2011/12/26/gardeni...

http://helgaleena.wordpress.com/2011/12/26/teachin...

Beautiful Painted Arrow part 2

As in Anthroposophical education, the entire body and all the senses are used to learn. Once a young child has made this connection, all other learning can proceed in the most effective manner. All the beings and planets are connected and we are what we eat. That is what it means to truly be humans.

Now as Jupiter turns direct, it is time to expand our intentions for the unfolding year, spiraling out into the longer days as solstice has passed.  Mindfulness in every facet of our incarnated existence is ancient, and it is universal. We fall into illness when we forget that we are, as Carl Sagan put it, "made of star-stuff"-- that it is as important to think of the consciousness of the foods we consume as it is our own, that there will always be planetary influence upon us at every level, and that the lunar tides are merely the closest and most obvious tides, the solar radiations the most ubiquitous and pervasive radiations, and the spaces between molecules just as vast as those in the cosomos.

When you click on the links to the videos of traditional mystic Joseph Rael, you will hear things that are so familiar and yet so outlandish at the same time.  And he doesn't give a flying corncob whether people think he's high, and he's not trying to get laid by groupies; he is gentle and humble and matter-of-fact about listening to the sounds of squash, not making a Frank Zappa joke.

But I think you will conclude, as I have, that the planet will be much improved if we all learn to 'call any vegetable', even just one.

Those who have studied the principles of Bio-Dynamic agriculture, or the Waldorf school system, or the movement art known as Eurythmy, will easily note the echoes of Rudolf Steiner's practical theosophy for the European mindset.  Less focus has been placed upon North American traditional agricultural practices because the teachers were so thoroughly displaced from their ancestral settings by the colonizers. Survival depended upon nomadism and vagabondage for a crucial century in most areas.

Just as manuring began to ameliorate the depredations of slash-and-burn upon the Old World, so can true mindfulness of all levels of consciousness, of ourselves, our crops, and our domestic animals, begin to repair the 'factory-farming' myopia that leads us to produce foods full of misery and empty of nutrition.

There are cycles. Compost and mycelium need to return essential componds to the soil; algal mats need to remove excess from the water and return it to soil.  Fires will turn excess acidity back to ashes.  And humans can be part of it in many ways. Time to choose them.

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Objectification, Worship and Power-- Ennobling 'Things'

I have been working upon manuscript which deals with the liberation of ghosts from bondage even beyond the grave,wrought by the will of another. The happy ending is finally achieved when the spirits realize they are free to remember another identity outside the bondage state.

Part of the binding of the victims' spirits involved reducing them to household appliances and furniture. Another part required stripping them completely of their previous identity as humans through loss of name, which in magical tradition is a puissant means of creation, or in this case, destruction. All of this was rendered evil because it was achieved through force.

It occurred to me as I lay with my beloved, and he called me 'his throne', how different the outcome of the villain's impulse to subjugate could have been. I am happy to be my beloved's throne. It in no way diminishes my many other identities, as mother, editor, artist, and ArchDruid. The vicitms in the story were denied all other identitites except for furniture, and there's the rub.

In mystical tradition, inanimate objects also contain spirit, each as worthy as our own incarnate human version, but invisible to us as we go about our daily lives. We can ennoble our pets and our other life companions by treating them with love and respect, honoring the divinity in them as much as the divinity in our fellow sentients.

In other parts of the world, household and business machines, such as taxicabs and assembly lines, are given ceremonial blessings and these blessings are renewed seasonally.

'Thou shalt have no other gods before me', and similar monotheistic pronouncements, can exist in harmony with such practices when one remembers that the Universal Life Force, or whatever other name you prefer, is everywhere, including these objects.

Ceremonial worship is essentially the bestowing of love and attention of a positive nature upon objects. When the Wiccan heroine of the book I was editing blessed an athame, consecrated a thermos of herbal tea, or filled an area with incense or salt, she was performing actions of love. She was invoking the harmonic aid of the world around her to lessen suffering. Whether it is in a High Mass, a Buddhist temple, or a kinky bedroom, worship is a healing, and the healing is received when the worship is gladly accepted.

It is hard to tell, in our incarnate limited bodies with their attenuated senses, whether inanimate objects such as an idol, or a taxicab for that matter, is gladly accepting our worshipful attention. WE can only judge by the feeling of satisfaction we may have after the service, or after we gaze down at a well-scrubbed kitchen floor.

When it comes to being my beloved's 'throne' I can be much more expressive of my acceptance, and this ennobles us both. When it came to the villain in the book I'm editing, he got pleasure only out of the victims' sorrow and discomfort. This degraded him as well as them, and rendered them 'stuck' in the wrong plane and going the 'wrong' direction, once they were disembodied by death. 

Once I am disembodied, I don't think it will matter to me so much whether I reincarnate as an angel or as a chair. There are shiny 'thrones' both ways! the victims of the madman on the other hand had to remain as ghosts. They made the living humans uncomfortable and the physical spaces they were 'stuck' in unusable. They were very glad to be angels instead, as soon as they realized that they could.

Being 'stuck' had cut them off from love. With the oriental greeting 'Namaste', or a bowing motion, one offers love and worship even to a stranger one has just met, because they too are a part of the universe. When there is involuntary bondage, exploitation, or degradation, that is a desecrating of a part of the universe, a cutting it off from love.

How different the villain's character would have been if instead of forcing human beings to be objects, he had treated objects as nicely as human beings! It's quite common, after all, to value things in our cultures. We want money and many things, and to display them to others for their admiration and our own. This impulse does not have to be bad for us because it springs from love.

A lonely person like the TV character Pee-Wee Herman begins to imagine that his household furnishings, the food in the refrigerator too, is alive and willing to be his friend. And though we might label this crazy behavior, it is not in a mystical sense false. And so he takes good care of his things, because he wants his inanimate friends to be as happy as he is when he is well cared for.

Humans can be fooled into involuntary bondage for a while, but eventually they usually will get up the nerve to realize it must stop before they die of it. That is called revolution, and it only frightens those who have been getting reward or pleasure from degradation of fellow beings in some way. When they stop this, or are stopped, their fear of change will ebb away from them.

We also see a large number of humans acting out of sympathy for beings with less ability to be understood, such as animals and plants and geographical locations. All these so called 'lesser' entities would benefit from worshipful treatment instead, just as much as our fellow humans would. Every material object has the potential to be a sacred ritual object, because they are all portions of the same Universe.

Recently I read an amusing Twitter post from a young man-- 'None of the gals I know are into golden showers so I tape pics of boobs on the toilet and it's all good.' In my view, the next step should be for him to give thanks to his toilet for accepting his piss. Maybe he'll give it a nickname. It should aid him in his quest for the happy fulfillment of his fantasy, until that ideal shower partner comes along.

By the way, Helga is not THAT sort of 'throne'. I believe too strongly in compost.

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http://philipcarrgomm.wordpress.com/2011/11/21/thi...

This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor…Welcome and entertain them all. Treat each guest honorably. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

Actually, it's a bit of a dodge because the Englishman Philip Carr-Gomm, head of one of the modern Druid Orders, is quoting a famous Sufi, Jalaluddin Rumi, about being human, when I had promised to blog next about BADGERS.

One of my fellow Arch Druids of the Reformed Druids of North America recently brought to my attention the Honey Badger. It has been on the Internet recently with this slogan--

http://laughingsquid.com/honey-badger-dont-care/

Honey badger is known for its thick skin and its taste for venomous puff adders and wasp larvae. It is a symbol of both endurance and tolerance. To get through 'this being human', we need to cultivate our inner honey badger sometimes.

I am living in what is known as The Badger State, Wisconsin USA. Those 'badgers' were actually the rowdy, Cornish immigrant miners who ousted the local Native population in order to gouge out open pits for lead ore, fueling the munitions industry that led to US independence from the Crown. They were lead poisoned and brain-damaged and drunkenly belligerent and beat strangers and their own families indiscriminately; hence they became known as 'badgers'. Our state took the local mustelid for a mascot. That is how we transmuted darkness into a plucky red and white shirted sports icon. In the spirit of aerobics I will show you the 'Badger dance', which has the potential to help keep nerds and geeks trapped in cubicles from developing too much body fat due to their metabolism switching off from inactivity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedd...

The original dance has spawned many re-enactment videos which can be seen on Youtube. The three basic 'katas' or positions, used in techno clubs around the globe now, are 'badger,', 'mushroom', and 'snake'.

Here is a terribly murky clip of the Milwaukee duo The Gothsicles leading the Badger Dance live.

One rises from one's ergonomic chair, bounces with arms out to the sides either upon the balls of the feet or at the knee or both, then when the interlude 'mushroom, mushroom' is reached, one keeps legs still and creates a 'cap' with the arms.

For the third, 'snake' kata, there are two schools of thought. One is the walk to left and right with one's limbs making suggestive diagonals. I prefer to bend at the waist with hands in an elevated prayer posture while gently jogging in place, symbolizing retreat from the 'snake'.

However you perform it, the Badger Dance promotes both endurance and humor. It is both simple and silly. That is why it is suitable for humans.

To bring this post full circle, you will note that the Neolitihic chalk monument Carr-Gomm favors, above, could be doing this dance. The Mevlevi Order founded by the Sufi saint Rumi is also known for meditation dancing. Theirs is solemn whirling in place, meant to connect the practitioners, as well as the audience, with the 'music of the spheres'. source: http://asecretforest.typepad.com/

This SoulGarden of ours is based upon the coming to grips with that larger universe, and its 'Astro-Weather', is it not? Dancing and moving is an essential part of achieving this understanding.

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