Monthly Archives: March 2024

Gardening in Eden

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“Paradise; … boring???”

Well yes, but, … well, not at first no, but time was strange there, everything seemed endlessly repetitive.  Well, … at least until the end. 

Then boredom ceased being an issue.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution. Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

The Ides of March, 2024

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Once more, the ides of March approach, or really, a date in the modern calendar associated with the Roman concepts of ides, calends and nones (the Romans having had no concept of a seven day week until well after the start of the imperial period).  And with the approach of the somewhat imprecise ides in the month of March, Martius to the Romans (originally the first month of the Roman year, later relegated to the third month, as it is now for us), one special ides in March comes to mind.  The ides of March which since 44 b.c.e., has been associated with the assassination of Gaius Iulius Caesar by a group of Roman senators, to most of whom he had been both kind and forgiving, and which was led by Marcus Junius Brutus, possibly his illegitimate son.  

Caesar, as he has become known to history, was never a Roman emperor in the sense we’ve come to associate with that title.  At that time, the title was a battlefield honorific granted by Roman soldiers to outstanding military leaders in a given battle and represented by the award of a crown of woven grass.  Caesar had indeed been granted such an honor, but at the time of his murder, his title was “dictator”, an honorable elected position rather than the pejorative term it has become in modernity.  It was a title originally granted for a brief period during times of existential crisis and combined all aspects of governmental power in one person, but following expiration of that term, the former dictator was held to account for his actions and might well be condemned for them.  The Romans had no use for official impunity, as we do today with our various forms of “immunity” for official acts by government officials in the executive, judicial and legislative branches.  Unlike prior dictators, which had become more and more common and included older contemporaries of Caesar, including his uncle-in-law Gaius Marius, and Marius’ mortal enemy, Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, Caesar had been named dictator for life after having rejected the title of Rex (king).

Caesar was a complex and enigmatic figure, a genius on many levels and with respect to a broad range of talents, among them of course, politics and military matters, but also many areas involving non martial pursuits, and he was a populist like Marius, rather than a member of the aristocratic elite of the time, who referred to themselves as the “boni” (the good), much as they do today notwithstanding the reality that they disdained the populace, much as do today’s elites.  But born relatively poor, he did not hesitate to abuse his military commands to generate profits through the sale of captured populations into slavery, not an uncommon pursuit in antiquity (and his legal right as a proconsul).  Slavery then had nothing to do with one’s race.  His charisma was legendary, on a scale with that of Alexander the Great, or of Napoleon, or Charlemagne, and his success was translated, after a series of civil wars, into an empire by his grandnephew Octavius, whom he had adopted as his heir, and whom we know as Augustus.  Gaius Octavius Thurinus is considered the first emperor of Rome.  His official title, however, was “princeps civitatis and subsequently, prínceps senatus”, meaning first citizen and first senator respectively.  And of course, later, by his own request, “augustus”.

Gaius Iulius Caesar, whose father bore the same name, has been gone for 2,068 years.  I always wonder on the ides of March what the world might have been like, had he not been murdered by a crowd of cowardly (dozens attacked one man, alone and unarmed) and jealous political adversaries who Caesar had pardoned, jackals who considered themselves (or at least claimed to be) patriots. 

My apologies to jackals everywhere.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

A Strange (but Continuing) Divine Colloquy: Some suspect bipolarity (but they’d be wrong)

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Anu, a primal deity antithetical to Yahweh (some call him An), still has at least some followers, although perhaps, they’d fit comfortably in an antique telephone booth.  Well, antique thousands of years after Anu lost favor (the latter observation is frequently made by Yahweh).  Still, Anu, Anshar’s son, seemingly enjoys toying with Yahweh, enjoys taunting him, especially since he taunts him from within Yahweh’s mind, a place even Yahweh cannot reach or erase (as he has erased so many other things). 

What an awesome sort of hiding place.  Yahweh knows that Anu is somewhere in his mind but his mind is so convoluted and filled with fantasies, contradictions and psychological complexes that it’s impossible to find anything there.  It frustrates Yahweh constantly and causes him almost as many migraine headaches as do the constant prayers of his subjects.  Damned whiners!  Well, most of them are damned anyway.  Predestination.

“Damned”, thunders Yahweh, as another unsolicited message escapes from deep within his restless and feckless ethosphere:

“So, …” taunts Anu, “you’ve seemingly come a long way from your metal working days Yah (a sort of nickname Anu uses to annoy Yahweh), but back then you were pretty much a straight arrow, albeit with a metal head.  A “metal-head”.  Get it!!!   Wow.  But look at you now.  A long time since your “Yaldabaoth” days.  Or even your days as one of my cousin El’s 70 club, albeit a pretty junior member of that exalted group.”

Annoyed, Yahweh responds to the conversation in what would have been his head, had he one:  “Shut up!!!   Lalalalalalala?  I don’t hear you!!  And, anyway, you don’t exist, at least not any longer.  Who worships you now???”

Anu laughs, although not with real mirth, rather in a sort of teasing parody:  “Well, yeah, you’ve been pretty thorough wiping out the old gang but regardless of whether or not anyone else remembers me, I’m in your head.  Always have been, always will be.” 

“Always, always will be” Anu snickers in a sort of sing song, repeating himself.  “And I know, even if most others have forgotten, that you and Yaldabaoth are one and the same.  Yaldabaoth, Yaldabaoth, Yaldabaoth, Yaldabaoth!!!!  I like that name even more than Yah!”

“Damned agnostics!!!” responds Yahweh.  “And when I say ‘damned’, they’re damned and they stay damned, damn it!!!!”

Anu laughs.

“Shut up!!!” shouts Yahweh, although an observer might wonder at whom he was shouting.  “Lalalalalalala?  I don’t hear you!”

“So” says Anu, “I hear that all those old propaganda texts you had written for your exaltation are being taken apart by humans who claim that they’re obviously incoherent and, … well …, full of male bovine feces.  And that trend seems to be resonating as their fallacies become more and more clear.  You may be joining us sooner than you think and I’m pretty sure you’ll not find your welcome all that satisfying.”

Red in the face (or he would have been, had he a face) and sneezing thunder, Yahweh petulantly replies, full of contrived confidence but in a manner reminiscent of recently deceased Tommy Smothers: “Oh yeah!!!!”  He then launches into a sort of diatribe, although at whom, an observer would not know (although some might venture a guess):

“My faithful followers, and they are legion, especially in the United States and Palestine, errr, I mean Israel, will never, ever, ever, ever change their minds about me, no matter what facts say.  Facts can’t really speak you know, and they’re easily buried in metaphorically ineffable mysticism where contradictions don’t matter, in fact, they’re cool.  Contradictions make me even more credible. … Or else!”

Anu was the father of Enlil, grandfather of Nanna and great-grandfather of Inanna, also, the great-great grandfather of Bilgamesh whose name Yahweh’s followers and others had perverted to “Gilgamesh”.  They enjoyed perversions, many perversions, myriad perversions, albeit usually they enjoyed them subtly, and quickly and loudly denied and attributed them to their victims if discovered.  They were good at that.  They had an awesome example. 

Lately Anu has been reading a book (a quaint habit he’d picked up millennia ago), a book by someone named Neil Gaiman, a book about a battle between elder divinities seeking to return to prominence and a new group of divine wannabees.  It reminded Anu of the sort of successful revolt Yahweh had managed to orchestrate when he overthrew his dad, the Canaanite god El, and along with him a great many of the other divinities native to what humans had taken to calling the Middle East (although cardinal directions make no sense, being spherical).  Yahweh had tried to wipe out all other divinities and had, to an extent, appeared to succeed, but the Hindus at least had defied him and many others, including Anu, had merely gone into seclusion.  And others had confused him.  And now, a growing number of humans were rejecting the concept of any divinities at all.  Not good that, thought Anu, finding himself uncomfortably in agreement with Yahweh.

Anu wondered on whose side that fellow Gaiman was.  Evidently his book had been perverted by an outfit called, of all things, Amazon, which had sort of converted Gaiman’s book into an audiovisual format.  That made Anu think of Yahweh and his adherents.  They loved to pervert things.  He wondered if they were involved with that Amazon project.  “Could be” he reflected.  “Could be.” 

That Gaiman fellow had some interesting ideas in his book on how to revive dormant deities.  Anu was studying it to see if he could somehow emulate some of the characters involved.  Of course, that would be difficult from his current habitat in Yahweh’s mind.  Yahweh was too paranoid to sleep.  Anu would have to find some way to provoke and trick him.  If only Bilgamesh were around.  Or Inanna, or any of the old gang.

Maybe they were, …

Somewhere.

If only he could contact a friendly trickster deity like that Anansi Gaiman seemed to worship.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution. Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Transcendently Distasteful Realities

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After deep reflection and introspection, he finally concluded that he did not really believe in anyone, not even in himself.  As long as interests coincided, loyalty was a possibility albeit not a certainty, but once they clashed, regardless of shared interests, loyalty evaporated into hazy rationalizations.  And that made sense. 

That was logical.  No one was safely reliable.  No one could always be counted on.  Love made no difference, it was, by its nature, always potentially ephemeral and always frailly ethereal. And when dissipated, love all too frequently morphed into something very negative, something akin to hate or at best, disdain.

Disquieting?  Of course.  Sad? Terribly.  But to expect otherwise was to delude oneself, something most of us did frequently, indeed, almost always.  When we find reality discomfiting, we usually ignore it and delve into our own personal fantasies, … and not the fun kind.

There were people he could almost count on but he admitted to himself that “almost” was a positivist way of presenting a negative, and dangerously so.  And it applied to himself as much as to anyone, and not just with respect to others, it applied to him in his roles with himself as well.  How strange.

It applied to us as individuals but also to us as collectives which explained much of history, not the fake narrative Pablum we’re taught and force fed daily, but the reality of what’s been and why.

He wondered if this day, a day where realism seemed ascendant, was a very good day, or a very bad day, and the answer was a confusingly emphatic: “yes”!
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.