Putting Money Where The (Hungriest) Mouth Is, Or How Athens Is Feeding Her Poorest

I am happy to be able to post some very good news today from Greece, which actually cheered me up immensely: basically, a scheme has been initiated enabling the poorest in Athens to be able to shop for the necessities of life - all for free!

I actually heard about it on the BBC news this afternoon, but am happy to post the opening to an online story "No cash, no cards? No problem" on the subject by Kathy Tzilivakis for the Athens News:

At first glance it looks like any other supermarket. Housewives, senior citizens and couples with young children busily browse aisles stacked high with brand-name products, filling their shopping carts with cornflakes, fresh milk, eggs, canned foods, frozen vegetables, soft drinks, diapers, shampoo and cleaning supplies.

But look closer, and you'll spot the difference.

There are no cash registers. Not even a debit card machine. In fact, all money transactions are prohibited.

"You can't buy anything here with money," said the store manager, Panos Lendaris. "We're not allowed to take any money."

Thanks to a joint corporate social responsibility venture between Europe's largest retailer, Carrefour, and the municipality of Athens, some 200 jobless and working poor in Athens are now doing their weekly grocery shopping for free at the new Sofokleos St supermarket. The products lining the shelves are surplus stock that have been provided free of charge to Carrefour from its suppliers.

"Caring for those people who are deprived of even the basic necessities of life is a central pylon at the municipality," said Athens Mayor Nikitas Kaklamanis. "The creation of this new grocery store is evidence of the benefits that can arise when local government cooperates with the private sector and when the guiding principle is social welfare and progress."

The 200 recipients are entitled to shop for between 100 and 350 euros' worth of products at the Sofokleos St supermarket every month. The amount, which has been set by the municipality's social welfare office, depends on the recipient's financial situation. Low-income families with three or more children, for example, are entitled to spend the maximum 350 euros each month.

You can read the rest of this heartening - yes, heartening, you read that right! - news story here.

Pan's Labyrinth Revisited - Plutonian Goat and The End of Innocence

It's true that Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth (or El Laberinto del Fauno) has now been out for a bit (released on my beloved one's 26th birthday - October 11, 2006), but it suddenly struck me how well the central mythical creature - Pan (or 'the faun' if you're sticking to the Spanish) - hinted at the Pluto in Capricorn ingress later this month.

Goatish Pan (Capricorn), in this film, is a creature of darkest (Pluto) fantasy, and while he reveals himself to the young heroine, Ofelia, from the depths of a crumbling well in a bid to help her 'reclaim' her kingdom as a fairy queen, he bars her access (Saturn - ruler of Capricorn) until she has successfully passed three arduous tests.

Named for the drowned, mad-driven lover of Hamlet, I associated Ofelia with the sacrificing, emotional, mystical element of water. While Pan, to me, was a creature of deepest, darkest earth.

Having come out of the highly confusing, chaotic frustration of the recent Saturn-Neptune opposition, it was interesting to think of this dynamic mirrored in the movie. Pan and his call for Ofelia to return to her kingdom as its rightful queen (the past, monarchs, Capricorn, Saturn) both challenged the depths of Ofelia's imagination and fantasy (Neptune) and demanded sacrifices (Neptune) of her in the brutal 'real' world of general Francisco Franco's fascist Spain.

But more overtly, Pan's mission for Ofelia - to reclaim her kingdom through ordeals, facing even death - seems to me to have been a remarkable metaphor for our imminent plunge into a Capricornian Underworld. Not to mention that the struggle between Franco-allied soldiers (Saturn) and Spanish rebels (Uranus) also could be deemed a prescient representation of the upcoming opposition between these two planets.

But why am I talking about a film that is a less-than-a-recent release (and, therefore, out of sight, out of mind)? Well, it just happened to come up in an intense conversation with a cousin of mine this afternoon, a conversation chiefly concerned with the impending paradigm shift in civilisation, the collapse of our current economic model for living and the dire threat posed to humanity's survival by global warming, earth changes and over-population.

The world of Pan's Labyrinth, like the one we, the audience, are living in, is a dangerous place. The threat of death and annihilation is all around. The environment is harsh and unwelcoming. The authorities and powers that be (Capricorn) brutally suppress (Pluto) democracy, civil rights and self-expression.

But even though the crises and horrors mount in the film, Ofelia eventually triumphs - albeit paying a heavy price.

So, it remains for us to confront our collective fears of extinction (in the film's instance, Ofelia's voluntary journey to the Underworld), resist attempts by the powers that be to strip of us of our freedoms and accept the possibility of a sacred, new world that is both terrifying and magnificent.

In this way, we can work with the Plutonian and Capricornian energies to willingly die to our old way of life, and emerge (become resurrected) into the new.

Når Vi Døde Vågner...

... better known in English as, When We Dead Awaken, is the last play written by the great Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen.

I have yet to read it, but have been fascinated by the title ever since I first heard of the play, given my own consuming need to engage with death, transformation and meaning.

Just for fun, here are some quick facts about When We Dead Awaken.

• It was published in 1899 and first peformed in 1900 in Sttutgart.


• Some have attacked the play as being a mere 'echo' of Ibsen's earlier, superior works, due to the lack of realism of its characters and its exaggerated symbolism - something he had apparently rejected as an approach in his writing.


• It is also said to be Ibsen's most dream-like play, suffused with existential yearning, regret and, perhaps, transcendence - though the work apparently does not answer its seemingly most urgent question: how can we 'awaken' in this life, in which we are encouraged, in so many ways, to remain in a state akin to death?

Borrowing from Wikipedia's synopsis of the play:

"Arnold Rubek, a celebrated sculptor and his wife, Maia, find themselves tense and ill at ease while traveling. Maia finds herself drawn to Ulfheim, a brutal hunter who contrasts sharply with her cold, withdrawn husband. Rubek, for his part, encounters Irene, a beautiful woman from his past. Awakening memories, desires, and an acute existential crisis in Rubek, Irene leads him to a mountaintop. As they approach the summit, both are killed in an avalanche. From the valley below, we hear Maia singing exultantly."

So, you may ask, what am I getting at? Why is this play on my mind and why am I blogging about it this evening?

Put simply: I was thinking about Awakening with a capital 'A' and how, in a myriad of different forms - and from a truly diverse set of sources - there is more and more talk of it.

Indeed, whether we like it or not, humankind seems to be rapidly reaching some kind of turning point in its collective history.

And if we tune in to the slightly-less-mainstream news analyses and reportage of day-to-day events, gussied up by the usual number crunching and token quotes, we find that people are heralding a dramatic shift in how we are to experience each other, time, our planet, our understanding of the universe and even, for those open to it, God.

Time, itself, is apparently changing. I say 'changing' to cover the various claims that is speeding up or slowing down or due to stop altogether. Linear time, that is. Once it does - and depending on whom you read or listen to, it could be October 28, 2011 or December 21, 2012 - the world's 'time' counter restarts from 'zero' or we enter a multidimensional, 'timeless' state or both or neither.

And this comes about either through a cataclysm such as pole shift, or a catastrophic global economic recession (eg. when Peak Oil is reached or Global Warming speeds up to such an extent we have to discontinue unclean energy even before we have the necessary technologies in place to continue our way of life), which sets of WWIII (Armageddon) for resources, or wave upon wave of different energy vibrations (which affect us and, hence, the earth - which is an extension of our consciousness).

Or all of the above.

What most seem to agree on, though, despite disagreements on how the 'awakening' will manifest, is that a grand paradigm shift is on its way - a breakdown of the dualistic, left-brain perceptions of the world, and a rise of a feminine, diversity-embracing perspective and a new awareness of the staggering interconnectedness of life.

And it makes sense that religions such as Baha'i, which stress the dawn of a new unity, knitting together our diversity, are growing steadily.

Awakening.

I wonder how this will all shape up. Lately, nothing at all seems certain. Life seems very fragile, and things I took for granted regarding the future seem like dreams.

Perhaps this is all a dream we are dreaming collectively, and we're about to be (rudely?) awakened.

Will those now alive - my parents' generation, my generation, and all those younger and still being born - have to live through a global conflagration? A physical, economic and societal breakdown (and hopefully rebirth)?

And will our awakening - that we are all one and interconnected and interdependent - be born from an ultimate calamity, or arise in spite of it, or merely concurrent with it?

Or will we awaken and avert or ameliorate a calamity?

Is This the Kind of 'One World' We Want?

Lynn Hayes of Astrodynamics (http://astrodynamics.blogspot.com/index.html) has mentioned positively a number of times the movie Zeitgeist, which can be viewed in its entirety here:

http://zeitgeistmovie.com/index.html

The first part is very, very interesting from an anthropological/theological/metaphysical point of view, deconstructing the figure of the historical Jesus to trace the story of the Christian saviour back to the sun god myths of far older, earlier civilisations.

The rest of the movie is concerned with deconstructing the events that shook the present age - namely the 9/11 attacks, leading to a broader analysis of the true (economic) masters of our time.

Watch the movie and decide for yourselves.