124: IF NOT NOW, WHEN?
SUN 19 DEC 04:35 - Mooning Monthly reclaiming the common wealth.....
Happy Gemini Full Moon folks
We approach the festive season of goodwill with a measured optimism that all will be well - at least in the short term. Positive planetary aspects to Jupiter, Venus and Pluto, with a smidgeon of guiding influence from the Moon's ruling planet Mercury, dominate any of this year's lingering hangovers, the continuing Covid-19 saga being a case in point. Jupiter is key though, the planet of good fortune, and over the next couple of weeks we should welcome any lucky breaks that fall our into our path.
The Gemini Full Moon is always a favourite of mine. It's usually a great Moon under which to socialise and party (as Boris Johnson and his cronies know all too well) with historic links to pre-Christian mid winter solstice festivals the world over. In the Northern Hemisphere humans have always hunkered down with the food and drink they have gathered and fermented during late summer and autumn to ride out the coldest months of the year in varied states of anaesthetised inebriation.
This is the second Christmas of widespread pandemic restrictions but may yet prove to be an intimately memorable one. Jupiter is said to provide good fortune in both love and finance so keeping a half sober eye on the most unexpected of opportunities might unlock untold emotional and material riches.
And, at a time of year where the global consumer cultural tradition has become increasingly focused on the exchange of gifts that no one really wants or needs, it might serve us well to consider the meaning of 'wealth' as a determining factor in recent human behaviour.
Our current models of 'wealth' creation have brought us to a critical juncture in the evolution of Planet Earth and our species. Our 'wealth' (an ontological mix of well/health) is inextricably linked to our state of well being yet market economics have forcibly separated such considerations, and the well being of our planet, from the crudely reductionist 'means of production' that now dominate human activity.
In a little over two centuries, the wealth of the few has been gained at the expense of the rest (the world's richest 1% have more than twice as much wealth as 6.9 billion - 90% - of the rest of the world's population). These inequitable disparities, born of successive violent historic colonial land grabs, continue to grow. The concocted separation between humanity and the planet that sustains us widens.
In her brilliant exploration of our current global predicament "Oneness vs the 1%", the scientist and eco-activist Vandana Shiva writes, "The market has come between us and our wellbeing, severing us from our potential and needs....We must reclaim our intelligence and creativity to resist the money machine and create non-violent alternatives. We must stand firm and reclaim the meaning of wealth and the conditions for being well."
The evidence surrounds us as millennia of vibrant plurality is being bulldozed by market led monoculture. Our beautiful planet has evolved over 4.5 billion years; has sustained humanity for 200,000 years, 10,000 of which have seen sustainable farming without chemical toxins. And yet in the last 100 years plant diversity, our future medicine cabinet, has been decimated and poisoned. The common wealth of varied food producing seeds, knowledgeably acclimatised to soil and climate conditions over centuries, continues to be hijacked and sacrificed to the false idol of higher yields. (What is happening to Agrobiodiversity? - FAO report) The diversity of culture and language, the mouthpiece of our imagination, is being lost to cruel displacement in pursuit of limited resources, all upheld by corporate legal claims to sovereignty. Shiva continues,
"Humanity stands at a precipice. There is an uncertainty regarding our potential for future evolution. Ecologically, the uncertainty arises because every aspect of the dominant model of thinking and living is destroying the earth's capacity to support our lives. The erosion and extinction of our species, the destruction of soils and water, and climate chaos, are wreaking havoc on the conditions necessary to continue as members of the earth community. The extractive model of economic development and growth, of corporate control and the greed economy are not just destroying nature, they are destroying our humanity which is the human capacity for solidarity, compassion and the ability to take care of each other."
Our strength as a species ultimately lies in our collective intent to work together for the benefit of All. The decision to direct our lives in this direction cannot currently be delayed or deferred. We need to buy less (quite literally) into the prevailing economic system and challenge those that increasingly seek to assert their financial and political power over us in law.
The proposed UK 'Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill' legislation currently being passed, virtually unopposed, through the Houses of Parliament is the single biggest contraction of civil liberties witnessed in my lifetime and should be wholeheartedly resisted at every turn. (A Tyrant's Power - George Monbiot article) The British media, themselves part of the global corporation money machine, have deemed it un-newsworthy. No surprises there then.
Democracy, as embodied participation, is indisputably under threat across the planet. Corporate interests have undermined and superceded political power everywhere. They alone, have the finance and desire to influence and distort the rigged international legal framework for their exclusive benefit. They alone, have the audacity to criminalise the rest of us for refusing to accept their colonising eco/genocidal paradigm.
It is, of course, the natural motivation of the tiny, almost exclusively male preserve of corporate, economic and political power to protect its misguided interests by any means. We retreat into their prescribed world of contrived consumer distraction at our peril. They have set the divisive trap on our behalf. How long will we continue to walk blinkered straight into it?
"The world we have created is a product of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking"Albert Einstein
Under this Gemini Full Moon, we can plant alternative seeds of intent for a proper party to which every sentient being on the planet is invited. There will be no exclusive guest list. It will be created harmoniously, entirely within our means without incurring debt of any sort. There will be enough food to eat, adequate shelter, education and health provision for all. Our dancefloor: the Biosphere, the living heritage by whose miraculous, finely balanced grace humanity has emerged like a voracious cancer, will be protected from humanity's greediest, consumptive predilections to hog the limelight. Earth will no longer be reduced to an ideologically passive bank of exploitable resources for irresponsible extraction by those with the deepest pockets. It will be gratefully acknowledged for the indivisible, interconnected, intelligent web of relationships it truly is and upon which human existence depends. As such, the legal rights of Earth's biosphere to prosper and evolve will be recognised, safeguarding the rights and well being of every living being within its existential embrace to get down and boogie.
In short, our party to end all parties will celebrate and share the unifying essence that defines us all, our common 'wealth'. In reorienting our thinking into words and actions that speak only of this great cause, is to align with the bigger picture, the indisputable Truth and greater Self that will heal the nonsensical violent divisions we have foolishly created.
We need to 'fess up and if not now, when? We've got this 'progress' paradigm all wrong and need to correct ourselves before too much more of our living heritage, our inherent wealth is spent with no prospect of a returns policy.
Today is the day to think and act this way.
With love 'til next time
Mark
December's edition of MOON LIT was the last in the current format which was always intended as a year long literary project focused on the 12 new moons of 2021. Fear not, watch out for the occasional MOON LIT special edition aligned with 2022's equinoxes, solstices and cross quarter Celtic festivals in the coming year.
The final phase of 2021's MOON LIT project featured the ecologically referential, lunar nuanced poetry of yours truly. I've always written as a natural part of my creative practice and it has been deeply gratifying to receive so much positive feedback from a discerning readership capable of rigorous critique.
My rambling canticles of heartfelt devotion wound their loving way throughout the terrain of our Sagittarius New Moon Total Solar Eclipse edition of MOON LIT and remain available to enjoy here: MOON LIT 12. It might be worth one last midnight moonlit meander in that direction as we draw this chapter of our very own little literary epic to a close.
FULL MOON MARKS
EACH MONTH DURING 2021 WE WILL CHART THE DEVELOPMENT OF A SINGLE, YEAR LONG LUNAR INSPIRED DRAWING BY ARTIST AND FELLOW MOONER MARK WEIGHTON
MOON 12
32 x 24cm charcoal on paper