Samhain Winter Moon
Friend Mark Odegard mentioned the website Out of Eden Walk. It is now listed among my links under the category Ancient of Trails. Here’s the map showing the route for this seven year jaunt. The website is worth seeing.
“If you want to walk fast, walk alone. If you want to walk far, walk together.” — African proverb
Samhain Thanksgiving Moon
The last two nights the Thanksgiving Moon has hung like a pale lantern behind the clouds. The moon draws out of me such tender feelings, yearnings. Maybe it’s the corollary of the old lover’s cliche, we’re seeing the same moon tonight.
What crosses my mind are all those long ago relatives, bearers of my genetic markers, on the trip out of Africa. They may have moved on nights like these when the moon was full. Or, would they have huddled around the campfire, wary of predators who saw better in the gloom?
In either case they would have looked at the same moon unchanged from the time they began to move on that most ancient human trail. Unchanged, that is, until July 20, 1969, a hot night in Muncie, Indiana when my flickering black and white pulled in the live–live–signals of Neil Armstrong setting a space-suit (space-suit!) boot on the lunar surface.
What a journey, if you think about it, from that trek across northern Africa, up into what we now know as the Middle East, to that boot touching down on the eons long undisturbed (by other than passing meteoroids) moon. Even now when we look at the moon it appears the same as it did then. Really, it’s only our knowledge that has changed, not the way it looks at night.
It pleases me to think of those, my people, in this season of the year, somewhere perhaps in a temperate latitude after thousands of years of journey, feeling a November wind chill in their face and what would become my Thanksgiving moon overhead.
Fall Samhain Moon
T. S. Eliot Little Gidding V
“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
The hurry of last week has receded and today is an outdoor day, raspberries and fertilizer. It’s chilly out there, but physical labor adds its own heat.
The end is in sight for both MOOCs, Modern/Post Modern with only two more weeks and ModPo with four. Like the course I took last year on Greek Myth both of these have been excellent. The interactive discussion forums and the video lectures in small, accessible chunks work well for the at home classroom. The reading in all three has been challenging, definitely college and post-grad level material. Did I mention that they’re free?
The Great Course’s cd and dvd classes, taught by professors of proven teaching ability, are excellent, too. The lectures in these courses are longer and in more depth, but I have not found the spur to do the reading as I have in the MOOC’s. That’s me, of course. And, there is no interaction at all. An advantage is that you can do them over any time frame and in multiple venues. The MOOCs require a computer screen. These are not free.
Though I am at heart an auto-didact and can develop my own reading plans, I appreciate these compressed experiences where an expert in a field alerts you to current issues and literature. They’re a quicker way in to a broad foundation in a discipline and for an overview of what might have additional interest.
Over the years I’ve pursued in particular the history of ideas, ancient history: Rome, Egypt, China, mythology, philosophy and literature. In literature I’ve tended to focus on the classics and on the classical tradition. These broad areas have fascinated me for a long time. I plan to challenge myself over the fallow time with calculus. Kate’s promised time as my tutor.
I suppose I could gamble or drink or run naked through the streets, but, hey. Each to his own? Right?
Lughnasa Harvest Moon
The singularity is near. Can we prevent the takeover of the machines? Will technology devour us, turning the master-slave relationship upside down in Nietzschean irony? Life with intelligent machines has become a reality already. Are we too late, doomed to follow our lemming-like path of one more gadget to disaster?
Doubt it. First. Depictions of the apocalypse have been failing since the notion first muscled its way onto the human imaginal stage. We’re very good at predicting the end and equally talented at forgetting that it never happened. In the Hebrew scriptures there was only one way to tell a good prophesy from a bad one. Did it foretell events? If so, good prophecy. If not, bad prophecy. And prophecies of the end time have, so far at least, been wanting. As proof, I offer the fact that I’m writing about
them.
Second. Events do not occur in a vacuum. That is, even if a singularity event or its near cousin came to pass, it would have been preceded by other advances outside of its ambit and the fact of its occurrence itself would shift matters in ways unpredictable. These interacting variables would almost certainly create a less dire circumstance than techno-gloomy gusses anticipate.
Third. Remember Malthus? He had a simple idea about food production and the carrying capacity of the earth. He bet we would return to subsistence level agriculture once the population outstripped the food supply. Hasn’t happened. Why? Agriculture advances, logistical advances, economic advances. Simple ideas tend to leave out the complicated world in which we actually live.
Finally, will the end come? Yep. It will. There are astrophysical forces at play in the solar system that will finish off life on earth and after that earth itself will be absorbed as our chief ally, Sol, expands into a red giant. Will humanity have figured out how to live among the stars by then? My guess? Yes.
My sense is that we muddle along more often than anything else. And the singularity will be a curiosity of our era. Remember 2012?
Lughnasa New (Harvest) Moon
While snipping wild grapes off the vines that have overwhelmed a front rank of amur maples along 153rd, I was in pure paleolithic mode. Hunter/gatherer. No hunter, though the squirrels may drive me to it, but gatherer. Yes. These vines grow here. They grew here before we came and produced well for several years along the six foot section of chain link; though now that has receded, for reasons I cannot discern.
The climbers on the amur maples had a bountiful yield this year. It made me think our property would have been a stop on a seasonal swing looking out for grapes, blueberries, maybe raspberries, too. We have wild raspberries, but they’re less inviting to harvest and our cultivated ones are bigger and sweeter. But these grapes are here because they like the location, have found it congenial. Their plan for continuing the species includes many, many fruiting bodies in certain locations and this year our front was one of them
With a harvesting basket and small pair of grape shears I worked my way across about 15 feet of width and up to about 6 feet, snipping many clusters hanging within inches of the ground. The September sun, no longer fierce at 9:30 am, beat down enough to warm me, a breeze whisked away the sweat. Going paleo all the way, cave man.
Lughnasa Moon of the First Harvests
A slower day today. We both needed a little less activity. Nice to be able to ratchet back and not worry about it.
Did spend an hour plugging the new credit card number into those accounts that need it. Our card got stolen by someone who bought a hotel room and flowers. A romantic thief. A bit of a hassle but not too bad.
I’ve also been reading Jean Jacque Rousseau for the Modern and the Post Modern MOOC. Kant, too. Kant’s essay What is Enlightenment began the course. It contains his Dare to know idea. That is, trust your own reason and act on it.
The two Rousseau essays are very interesting, one on the arts and sciences which I plan to give more time here at some point, argues that the arts and sciences represent culture at its most decadent, at its furthest remove from the state of nature. It’s a very interesting argument.
The second, which I’m reading right now is on the origin of inequality. Here a couple of quotes from it:
Nature speaks to all animals, and beasts obey her voice. Man feels the same impression, but he at the same time perceives that he is free to resist or to acquiesce; and it is in the consciousness of this liberty, that the spirituality of his soul chiefly appears…
(Henri not Jacques)
It is by the activity of our passions, that our reason improves…and it is impossible to conceive why a man exempt from fears and desires should take the trouble to reason.
The first language of man…was the cry of nature.
…as to adjectives, great difficulties must have attended the development of the idea that represents them, since every adjective is an abstract word, and abstraction is an unnatural and very painful operation.
Summer Moon of the First Harvests
Every birth brings new royalty into the world just as each birth brings new divinity into the world. Not many will have the definite opportunity to move on up to, say, King, though. I suppose the excitement from a monarchist’s point of view is that steady governance now stands assured for three generations in England, barring trauma or disease. So in some sense this birth is equivalent to a presidential election in the U.S. in that in presages a peaceful transfer of power from one leader to another. Important.
Though how important in a constitutional monarchy may not be so clear. A curious form of governance those. Kings and Queens with their power checked by elected leaders. Better than the reverse I’m sure and better than the prior arrangement, too. Still, it does make me think of sinus cavities, appendix and the coccyx.
Summer First Harvest Moon
Tom Crane, Mark Odegard and I passed over $13.00 each for a senior citizen ticket to the show Maya! at the Science Museum. This show offers a thoughtful approach to this complex and still often misunderstood culture, especially its classic and post-classic periods. The show combines technology from a tabletop computer to a museum goer manipulable microscope to excellent effect.
With areas on astronomy, the underworld, making a living, the ball game, architecture, religion and daily life the exhibition offers up to date scholarship in a diverse number of areas. Sprinkled throughout the exhibit are actual artifacts, plaster replicas and photographs to supplement the label copy.
In fact my only criticism of the show is the display of the artifacts. They are often set back in a case with a lot of shadow making the artwork difficult to see. Also, not all of the artifacts seem carefully selected. But this is a trivial point.
New information to me was the impact of enemy civilizations on the decline of the Maya. I had known before about crop failure, drought and environmental degradation. Although, come to think of it, I do recall an argument about rebellion by peoples selected for slavery and ritual sacrifice.
Maya culture is not dead; it lives on in Central America and the Yucatan. There is today a revival of interest in Mayan culture among Mayans. This is good to see and receives some treatment in the show.
I’d say 4 stars.
Summer Solstice Moon
It is now the spring, then summer, then winter of our discontents. We have had the Arab spring, now the vinegar rebellion in Brazil, the dislocation of Egypt’s president, widespread disruption in Istanbul. There are those who say China’s population boils just below the eruption point. We had the tea party rebellions here as well as the Occupy movement.
I’m not smart enough to know if these protests have some deep underlying connection, one feeding them in a Geist’s subtle movement, but I have my own experience of rebellion and protest. People rebel for noble reasons, pacifists against war, for self-interested reasons, being draft eligible during a war, for ideological reasons, to support the masses, for the thrill of it, for the fun, for the sex, for the party, for the rock and roll. And for various combinations of these reasons.
And, I think, increasingly because they can organize with greater ease. When the main means of communication were leaflets handed out or stapled to telephone poles, phone calls from landlines, or mass meetings, getting folks to one place for an event had more steps, entailed more volunteers, demanded more discipline. Now an e-mail can go out, a twitter feed, a facebook posting and all those connected can convene. If they do, and I’m sure they do, use the old organizers trick of having each person contacted invite two more, then all you need is the grain of wheat on one corner of a chess board to see how vast crowds can become. Fast.
It may be, just might be, that there is something in the water these days that says we’ve had enough. Of authoritarianism. Of despotism. Of ham handed religious pronouncements substituting for policy. Of the rich gathering in more and more while barricading themselves in enclaves of glass and steel. Of the rich putting cordons around privilege and assets. It’s bound to get noticed at some point, isn’t it?
Whatever it is, I find it hopeful. When people finally decide to act, politicians will learn the truth that all governments get their power from the consent of the governed. Some choose to give away their power because of fear or religious belief or ideological commitment, but push people far enough and those bandaids over the cancer of elitism and oligarchy will get ripped off.
That’s not to say that protest and rebellion are without their costs. It is no accident that the conservatives among us fight to ensure order against frivolous assault. The break down of public order is a dangerous moment, as much for the protester as for the protested against. And revolutions don’t have a wonderful track record of ushering in utopia. Far from it. But I consider these actions against the leaden weight of tradition and scorn. Whether in a particular instance they achieve the goals they seek may not be so important as demonstrating again, and again, and if necessary yet again, that no government can ignore its people, allow the unchecked aggregation of wealth and influence, without peril.
This is, I suppose, why that poster boy of the Tea Party crowd, Thomas Jefferson, wrote the following words, which we celebrate tomorrow:
“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
Spring Bloodroot Moon
Today is the much nicer day of the next three. Tomorrow the high will be 46 and windy, Monday 41 with ice and snow. Today it is 53 and sunny. I chose walking over museums today.
Before leaving I ate my first and last breakfast at the hotel. Their main breakfast is a buffet, served for the many students staying here. The coffee was weak and served in tired blue plastic mugs. Jack Reacher would have scored the coffee very low. A group of 18 students from Germany didn’t seem to mind the coffee though.
Outside the wind was mild, though the temperature in the morning 
was in the high 30’s. I saw people in shirt sleeves but I stuck with my hat, Chilean fjord special muffler and my Ecuadorian coat. There were a number of people out enjoying the sunshine when I passed the Willard Hotel.
(apparently my Android takes self-portraits. This one showed up in my pics today.)
Those of you who watched House of Cards would recognize the Willard from the scene where Clean Water held its fund-raiser on the steps, then crossed the streets with trays of food for the striking teachers. Up close it looks like money and power compressed into architecture.
About a block from the Willard and right next to the Whitehouse–how did I not remember this?–is the department of the Treasury. Keep the nation’s finances right close by the Oval Office, I guess.
Michelle’s garden is on the south lawn and visible from the fence 
where we all gathered, gobsmacked by the presence of this icon of politics and American might. The Whitehouse has been the home of all U.S. presidents except for George Washington though Truman vacated for four years while it got a top to bottom rebuilding.
Onward to the Mall, entering the green west of the still not open Washington Monument. It’s having repairs and rejiggering of its foundations due to a 2011 5.8 earthquake whose epicenter was in Virginia.
Walking along the reflecting pool on my way to the Lincoln Monument I saw a very large Irish Wolfhound, gray and stately, walking its people, unfortunately too far away to meet.
At the monument there were a lot of people though not the crush I’ve experienced at other times. This is a moving place as I’m sure you 
already know. It is, as it says right over Lincoln’s head, a temple. Immersed as I am right now in Greek and Roman mythology it’s easy to see the architect and sculptor’s reach back to those ancient worlds for adequate ceremonial features. He was and is a giant in our history and this haunting building makes that place clear.
A brief thought passed through my head that this was a monument for the ages, then Ozymandias came in its wake and I realized I was a citizen of Rome at Rome’s peak. London at the height of the British Empire. Xi’an during the T’ang empire. Edo during the Tokugawa era. And the glory of those cities now lies in the past, a memory, not a present fact. So it will be with Lincoln and Washington, D.C. itself.
After the Lincoln Monument I went by the additions to the Vietnam 
Memorial, two statuary groups, one three men, the other three women, and wandered on to come upon what must be the most jingoistic of all our monuments and one built under the reign of George II, George W. Bush. Nothing against the vets of WWII, among them were both my parents and an uncle, but this monument reeks of American exceptionalism and the projection of US power. With George W.’s name on it it will forever be linked, as I’m sure he intended, with his misguided efforts in Iraq.
This is an example of the unintended consequences of the use of power. No one can or should compare the US WWII effort, the last ‘good’ war’, with the ill-advised and deceitfully sold war against the Iraqi people. This monument will itself stand as stone and metal irony on just this point.
In case, though, all these monumental treatments of liberty and 
freedom seem ill-advised, I found this on the back of a truck parked on the corner of Constitution and 15th, just two blocks from the Whitehouse. There is always someone who would take freedoms away.
By the time I trudged my way back–I figure 4 to 5 miles round trip–this guy had exhausted himself. A lunch at the Elephant and Castle then a long nap. Woke up refreshed and ready to go back to the PRB show tomorrow.