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 

Comments: 0   Views: 157   Group: General   Tags: druid, humanity, politics, love

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.

Comments: 0   Views: 125   Group: General   Tags: druid