Haiku for the People

 Fear kills. Masks stifle.

Distancing is unsocial.

Truth sets free. Live free.

Image by Vikramjit Kakati from Pixabay 

When the Week Lost the Moon

Today, Monday November 16, is the day the moon reappears again after being invisible for a couple of days. So ironically, this time around, New "Moon Day" happens to coincide with a new "Monday" (Moon Day) in our schedule of never-ending, back-to-back-to-back, 7-day cycles.

This weekly cycle has not always been disconnected from the lunar cycle or "month". Ancient Babylonian astronomers selected two men who were dedicated to watch for the first sliver of crescent moon just above the sunset. Every 29 or 30 days, they would see the "new moon" after it had been hidden in the brightness of the sun.

When the watchers saw the new moon they would blow loud trumpets throughout Babylon. This was to announce that the following day would be the New Moon festival. Seven days later marked the waxing half moon (or close enough), so the 8th day of the month was the next festival. The 15th day was the Full Moon feast day, the 22nd day was the waning half moon celebration, and the 29th day was the Dark Moon holiday. About every other month there would be a 30th "between" day; otherwise, the new moon would be sighted on the evening of the Dark Moon holiday at sunset, and the following day would be a New Moon festival.

Jews "On Strike"

When the Jews were captured by the Babylonians, they integrated the Babylonian festivals into their religious ceremonies. The Torah (for which evidence points to having its origin during the Babylonian captivity), declared the New Moon a sacred day along with the seventh-day Sabbaths. 

I imagine it was out of protest that the Jews declared the same festival days of the Babylonians to be religious holy days of rest from all work, refusing to serve their Babylonian slave masters on the feast days, and creating a cover story that their God had long ago commanded them to keep those days holy and not do any labor.

Reconciling the lunar cycle with the four seasons of the solar cycle has always been tricky work. The new year started with the first lunar cycle of spring, the equivalent of the month of March on our current Gregorian calendar, giving some years 13 months. The Gregorian calendar is only slightly different than the Julian calendar which took effect at the beginning of 45 BC during Julius Caesar's reign.

Dividing each year into four seasons of three months each, for a total of 12 months, has severed the relationship between the lunar cycle and the month. With that severing also came the separation of the week from the lunar cycle, and also from the solar cycle with its seasons.

The Jews followed the Babylonian pattern of lunar-based New Moons and Sabbaths until some time during the Roman rule. The Roman month was not tied to the lunar cycle, nor to the 7-day week. But at some point the Romans and the Jews agreed to a 7-day week to protect the Jewish Sabbath, which was also the early Christian Sabbath, because many of them of course were Jewish. 

When Roman emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion in the early 300's, the never-ending 7-day weekly cycle was officially associated with the Julian Calendar, but the week started at midnight (a Roman tradition) instead of at sunset (a Jewish tradition). The Romans also chose to celebrate the first day of the week as "holy" instead of the last day.

Some Jews, Christians and pagans have rediscovered the lunar-based week and have returned or at least tried to return to the ancient celebration of New Moons and lunar-based Sabbaths. However, since the New Moon can land on any day of the Gregorian week, celebrations are extremely difficult to practice without separating from mainstream society. 

The current widespread loss of jobs and small businesses may actually lead to more freedom to choose one's own calendar. And the eventual disintegration of big agricultural corporations, which will lead to more and more people leaving the big cities and returning to the land to grow our own food, may also lead to a transition back to the lunar calendar. Or maybe each household or small community will decide for themselves which calendar they want to follow, rather than mindlessly inheriting a calendar created centuries ago by the Romans.

To prepare myself for this eventuality, and to get back in touch with nature, I enjoy looking up at the sky day or night as I get the chance, to check in on what phase of the moon we are in. This evening at sunset I plan to go to a hill I've located from which I can easily see the horizon in the direction of the setting sun, then locate that thin finger-nail clipping of a moon. Knowing it's an ancient ritual gives me a sense of connection with natural wisdom, Mother Earth, the vastness of the universe, and the eternal nature of All That Is.

The Demise of Majority Rule (or, Why I'm Not Voting Tomorrow)

 A man said to [Jesus], "Tell my brothers to divide my father's possessions with me."

He said to him, "O man, who has made me a divider?"

He turned to his disciples and said to them, "I am not a divider, am I?"

Gospel of Thomas, Logion 72

We are living in the Divided States of America. With the intensely heated political tensions between those who would trump all others and those who have been biding time to have their turn, it seems the perfect moment to announce that the pinnacle of the majority-rule method of electing leaders has been reached and it's all downhill from here. Or should I say, this boulder has built up speed for decades and has finally cracked in two at the bottom of the mountain.

We know all too well the election process is subject to manipulation. I sensed this as a 4th-grader when the annual "Principal-for-the-Day" election was held, and I found out the older grade students had gotten together and elected me. I was startled but flattered. At first it seemed so innocent: "A little child shall lead them."

I was thrilled to be sitting at the principal's desk until a phone call from a complaining parent came in and I had to take the call. I had no idea what to say! Then I was told a bunch of 9th & 10-graders had run off to play in the orchard and everyone was looking to me to somehow corral them back to their classrooms!

Our education in the majority-rule method begins in the classroom, with the annual election of offices such as class president, vice president, secretary, sergeant-at-arms, salutatorian and valedictorian. Near the end of my junior year of private high school ("academy"), the time of campaigning for student body president came up. 

Although I had not been elected to any significant class offices, I developed an impressive list of ideas for the next year's student body activities and posted it on the campaign board. A lot of students got very excited about my list, promised to vote for me, and even volunteered to campaign for my election, which meant suggesting to their friends that they also vote for me.

The popular student body president who had been elected the previous year knew me well because earlier in the year he had arranged with me to look over my shoulder to see my answers on a math test, knowing I was good at math and he hadn't studied. The math teacher saw what was happening and verified that James had made the same math errors I did, and so the faculty ousted him from his post. (I got suspended from math class for a day.) 

James was also my neighbor, and he called me up the street to meet with him in his bedroom so he could help me rehearse for my campaign speech. The next day in my speech I said something about my popular opponent's inaction as our junior class president that year, so the majority sided with Joe in a disappointingly close decision. Although I don't remember this, James insisted that he had warned me not to say anything negative about Joe. I guess I thought I was just pointing out the obvious.

In 2009 I became enraptured with libertarian philosophy, which is based on live-and-let-live principles. I joined the local Libertarian Party in Georgia and by the end of the year an unusual opportunity came up to run in a special election for the Georgia State Senate seat for District 42 against Jason Carter, to be held in mid-May of 2010.

Although I had fantasies about going on The Tonight Show as the juggler who was running for office against Jimmy Carter's grandson, my main intention was to use the opportunity to teach fellow citizens about the systemic manipulation of the economy by the Federal Reserve, and what returning to sound money policies could do for the state of Georgia.

I ended up being convinced by my manager to campaign on other subjects of more interest to the die-hard Democrats. I knew I didn't have a chance to win no matter what I said or did, but my Libertarian friends consoled me anyway, saying I got an unusually high vote for a Libertarian at 8% in a four-way race, and yay, I didn't come in last! (Jason won "by a landslide", with nearly 2/3 of the votes.)

I learned much about politics in that 2010 campaign, but one thing stands out as pertinent to 2020. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), based in Atlanta, was in the heart of my senate district, and I remember going to a pre-election gathering at a restaurant nearby. A man in a position dealing with public health told me that if someone gets sick with a communicable disease, government laws give him the right to lock that person up in a quarantine cell. I was shocked by that statement, which ran so counter to my libertarian way of thinking.

With conditions being what they are in this presidential election year that will not be soon forgotten, it seems a prime time to introduce to the American psyche an alternative method of decision-making that leads to peace and harmony. There is a better way than the majority-rule method. I have discovered and participated in such a method.

As I was traveling the world in 2017 as roving Political Ambassador for Ubuntu Planet USA, my good friend Maro in South Africa convinced me that studying permaculture would be the best thing I could do for the movement. She told me about an online course available at that time at no charge unless you want a certification at the end of the course. In studying that permaculture course, I discovered the key to harmonious role selection in a democratic decision-making method called Sociocracy.

The way this works is that a group of people get together in a circle, like the Knights of the Round Table in King Arthur's Court. This is also the way the electoral college was designed to work, and would work, were it not for the fact that the electors in the college are elected by the majority-rule method. 

The Sociocratic decision-making method, which includes the role selection method, works well for neighborhood associations, communities, businesses, schools, or any organization -- even families -- that need to make decisions of any kind. A circle can be up to 40 participants, but 20 is a more optimal maximum. 8 seems to be ideal.

Here is a link to a complete description of the process, which always leads to a consensual, satisfying outcome: 
https://www.sociocracyforall.org/selection-process/.

This process could be used by several groups to select a representative to sit on a circle with a wider reach (not higher, just larger), such as neighborhoods selecting representatives to sit on a circle that would then select one of their members to represent their area of the county on the county commission circle. 

In turn this method could be used to select a county commissioner to represent the county in the state Circle (rather than "House") of Representatives. Then those trusted representatives would select the electors for the electoral college, and one of them would be selected for President of these united states.

The amount of psychic energy, mental attention, discussion and activism -- some of which has gotten completely out of hand -- that we put into a system that never works for everyone must someday come to an end. I am choosing to put my energy into a new system of democracy that will work for everyone!