Don't Panic
Dearest friends,
Hang on. Here we go.
Pandora, as told by the poet Hesiod in Greece around 700 B.C.E., was the first woman. Zeus had Hephaestus make her after Prometheus had stolen fire and given it to Man, who, interestingly, were all men, reverent and gods-fearing and, at the time, immortal. Her name is from "pan", Greek for "all" and "doron" meaning "gifted." So, our "all gifted" first woman became famous for opening the box, which was actually a jar (until some 16th century transcriber messed up that detail), unleashing "countless plagues" on humankind. Sounds strangely like the Eve and the apple story. Keeping in mind that all this was written down by men. Apparently, Man needed punishment and women were the ones to bring it.
Pandamonium was the name scientists gave, jokingly, to the element #99 discovered in 1952 during Project Panda, the secret code name for the first hydrogen bomb detonation. In the coral from the decimated Enewetak Atoll in the South Pacific and in the air above, this synthetic, highly radioactive element was detected. Today it lives on the Periodic Chart as Einsteinium, but it has no use, no value, just something to study in nuclear labs. It glows and decays rapidly.
We just had the warmest November in recorded history. Carbon dioxide is at its greatest atmospheric concentration in 800,000 years. Greenhouse gases trap heat today at a rate equivalent to four Hiroshima bomb explosions per second. An iceberg dubbed A68a, the size of Delaware, broke off the Larson C ice shelf of Antarctica in 2017 and is approaching South Georgia Island in the South Atlantic. It could run aground this month.
Pandemic comes from the Greek "pan", "all" and "demos" meaning "people". Us, basically. All people. ALL PEOPLE.
Pando is the name given to a forest in Utah of quaking aspen trees that are all genetically identical. These trees, all 47,000 of them, share a 13-million-pound root system. It's the heaviest living thing. It's cooperating, organically, naturally and researchers suggest it may be up to 80,000 years old. Maybe.
Pantheism is the belief that reality is divinity, that all things are a manifestation of God or that God is immanent. There is no separation from the divine and me and this snowflake or that iceberg or this bug or that meteor or.... The word was invented to discuss the 17th Century philosopher Baruch Spinoza's notions of a rational approach to the common glory of our existence. (Check him out. Great stuff there). But this concept of totality of mind/body/spirit/natural world can be traced through ancient pagan religions to modern East Asian theology. One can't read Thoreau or Wordsworth without feeling this resonance. Einstein himself stated in 1929, "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the harmony of all that exists."
So, it's the holidays. AND we are on the cusp of a remaking of the human adventure. We have a woman as a vice president and just a step from the top job of filling in for the oldest elected commander in chief. There are more women in Congress than ever. There are more top jobs in the new administration filled by women, and the culture of strong, brilliant women guiding us forward is a pivot for humanity. Look at New Zealand and the way its leader has managed the pandemic and having a baby. It's time the millennia of misogyny ends. Moms should rule the planet. Men have done a fabulous job of mucking things up -- nuclear weapons, climate change, children in cages, global disease...
In the Pandora story, there was one thing left stuck on the rim of the jar -- "elpis", the Greek word for "hope." It remained in the jar and now it's time. Hope is the plan. Greta Thunberg can be our avatar moving forward. With women activists, with moms on the team, everything is possible. This holiday season hug everyone you love but, mostly, hug your mom. She sang to us. She read to us. She tied our shoes and made our food. It's time to recognize her divinity and our own and do what the aspens do. Work together. Save the planet y'all. We can do this. I know, I know, enough with the preaching. But, it's the time of year to reflect, to take stock and begin anew. Optimism is the only option. 2020 will recede in the history books as a bitter, brutal time. 2021 is what we make it.
Blessings my friends,
Oh yeah, buy art. It's the best present. Seriously.
Mostly though, hugs.
Love wins every time.
B Mac
P.S. Hug your mom again.
P.P.S. And support all those fighting the good fight to recognize the untapped power of the gender I'm not. They are stronger, and wiser. It is true.
P.P.S.S. Don't blame the pangolins.
