After the Future

The following is excerpted from The Open-Source Everything Manifesto: Transparency, Truth, & Trust published by Evolver Editions, an imprint of North Atlantic Books.

 The circumstances underlying this manifesto are stark and compelling: We are at the end of a five-thousand-year-plus historical process during which human society grew in scale while it abandoned the early indigenous wisdom councils and communal decision-making. Power was centralized in the hands of increasingly specialized "elites" and "experts" who not only failed to achieve all they promised but used secrecy and the control of information to deceive the public into allowing them to retain power over community resources that they ultimately looted.

In the beginning, there was the commons. Over vast stretches of prehistoric time, tribal cultures evolved in tandem with the natural environment. They did this without creating private property or hierarchical relationships of control and dominance that led to consumption of nature as a resource. Open-source culture provided for community sharing and community development. With the rise of patriarchy, empire, and systems of egoic control and empowerment, this open-source approach to community was destroyed. Over the course of the last centuries, the commons was fenced, and everything from agriculture to water was commoditized without regard to the true cost in non-renewable resources. Human beings, who had spent centuries evolving away from slavery, were re-commoditized by the Industrial Era.

The corruption of the commons led to the loss of integrity between and among individuals, organizations, and community. Artificial paradises made up of objects and possessions were substituted for true community based on authentic heart-to-heart relationships. Secular corruption is made possible by information asymmetries between those in power and the public. In the absence of transparency, truth, and trust, wealth is concentrated and waste is rampant.

We, Homo sapiens, were in harmony with the Cosmos and the Earth during earlier centuries when indigenous wisdom prevailed. The evolution of social forms and technology toward ever-greater levels of complexity is part of our human development toward deeper consciousness and self-awareness. The technosphere, as José Argüelles and others have realized, is the necessary detour that takes us from the pristine biosphere to the psychically collectivized state of the noosphere.

Chláirseach

From the beautiful, enchanting music of the fairy harp to the sacred singing of the choirs of angels, Celtic literature, especially that of early medieval Ireland, has many references to a spiritual or supernatural dimension of music. Referrred to as the Celtic Otherworld, music is often featured prominently in this sacred dimension. There are many examples of fairy harpers, the songs of mermaids, the power of the saint's bell, the singing of angels in Heaven, musical trees, and so on.

The enchanting, alluring music of the Celtic Otherworld is portrayed as being heard from a dimension not of this world, that is, as something beyond ordinary reality and one's normal, everyday life experience here on earth. In some cases, beautiful, ethereal music is heard, yet no musicians are seen, for example the haunting, ghostly music heard from an empty monastery at the moment of birth or death of a saint. In others, a mortal may be "abducted" by the fairies (sidhe= pronounced shee) or angels, taken to the Otherworld, or Heaven, and then returned to earth with special musical gifts. There are many descriptions in Celtic literature of music having a powerful, and often highly unusual effect on the listener. These references are widely distributed, being found in early tales, myths, the Saints' Lives, folklore accounts, ballads, poetry, place-lore and proverbs, and even early law tracts, in both Christian and pre-Christian contexts.

One example of a gifted fairy harper, featured in a Christian context in this instance, is from the 15th century Accallam na Senorach (Colloquy of the Ancient Men). Here, the fairy musician Cascorach puts St. Patrick and his clergy to sleep with his sweet, beautiful music. Upon awakening, they engage in a lively debate, St. Patrick discussing the power of this music with his fellow clergymen, Brogan:

    'A good cast.....of art was that....,' said Brogan. 'Good indeed, it were,' said Patrick, `but for a twang of the fairy spell that infests it; barring which nothing could more nearly than it resemble Heaven's harmony.' Then says Brogan: 'if there is music in Heaven, then why shouldn't there be music here on earth? ....as it isn't right to banish minstrelsy.' Patrick answered: 'neither say I any such thing, but merely teach that we must not be inordinately addicted to it.'

St. Patrick seems to be clearly acknowledging the great beauty and power of the bewitching fairy music, yet also cautions the others about it as well, implying that - in his view as a Christian - a possible danger is inherent in the `twang of the fairy spell'. In other words, he is warning his fellow clergymen that this type of music could possibly lead one astray, and not necessarily to the Christian Heaven. The mere fact that this anecdote is included in this literature shows that the powerful effects of the "fairy harp" were taken seriously in earlier Celtic society, and that even clergymen were not immune to it!

ancientquest

Transit of Venus

The Return of the Divine Feminine

by Ishtar Babilu Dingir

I’m sure regular readers of this blog will not have missed the high magical symbolism of the major events of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, so conveniently timed for the return of the Divine Feminine, Venus, as she makes her double pentagram in the heavens and comes in close enough to the Earth for a kiss. We are celebrating that transit tonight (11.00 pm ~ to 4.00 am in the UK) in the Venus Temple which some friends have lovingly created for this occasion, and I hope you will join us in Spirit.

Last night, children lined the labyrinth of the Tor with lit candles, providing a huge and meandering spiral of golden lights going up to the beacon on the summit which was lit by the Glastonbury Candle.  The full moon was behind the Tor, about to go into eclipse. There were many who stood for hours with their candle, in honour of a Queen of this Earthly realm.