August 2007 sermon notes

Lammas - astronomically, it is Wednesday

definition from our modern day arbiter of truthiness, Wikipedia. At least, the definition as of yesterday:

In English-speaking countries, August 1 is Lammas Day (loaf-mass day), the festival of the first wheat harvest of the year. On this day it was customary to bring to church a loaf made from the new crop. In many parts of England, tenants were bound to present freshly harvested wheat to their landlords on or before the first day of August. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, where it is referred to regularly, it is called "the feast of first fruits". The blessing of new fruits was performed annually in both the Eastern and Western Churches on the first of August.

In the British Isles, the custom of giving the First Fruits to the Gods evolved into giving them to the landlord. Lammas is now the traditional time for tenant farmers to pay their rent.

Neo-pagan movement, "Wheel of the Year." 8 holidays, or "holy days". 4 quarter days, solstice and equinox. 4 cross-quarter days: imbolc Feb 2 running out of food beltane Mayday fertility rite lammas aug 1 first harvest samhain oct 1 last harvest

To set the mood, my first reading will be my adaption of a medieval poem set during an English Lammas fair. It mentions the herbs gathered during this season. The plot is timeless; it features an estranged couple describing what it would take before they were willing to get back together again, by sarcastically give each other impossible tasks. Reminds me of when Trish or I have to communicate with our ex-spouses.

You'll have heard of it, thanks to the singing talents of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel.

Reading: Scarborough Fair

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So, why would anyone want to celebrate Lammas?

Arguably, the first question ever asked was, "What's for dinner?" asked by one paramecium to another. The answer was, of course, "you are", followed by a burp.

Humans share food. Other species co-operate in hunting, but do not share the kill. Think about your cats and dogs. They may eat from the same bowl, but how they look at each other. It's speculated that if we taught monkey's to communicate, the first question it would ask us is, "Why are you sharing your food?"

There are two kinds of people: those who divide things into categories, and those who don't. I'll now declare my allegiance to the second. By describing where food came from, by answering the question "What's for dinner?" in several different epoches of humanity's existance.

The past 100 years

The past 10,000 years

The past 100,000 years.

The past 100 years, we've had industrial agriculture From about 10,000BCE to recently featured pastoral agriculture The preceding 90,000 years, there was no agriculture at all.

In other words, the whole concept of a "harvest" has changed dramatically.

So, back to the beginning.

Scientists are still arguing about what differentiates Homo Sapiens Sapiens from competing humanoid species like Homo Sapiens Neandertalis. And there's lots of work being done on when. But I like round numbers. So, lets say that about 100,000 years ago, about 100,000 people who we could recognize as humans were living in sub- Sahara Africa. What drove them to leave their Garden of Eden?

It was a combination of the ice ages and the Sahara basin. During the ten thousand years of an ice age, the Sahara would flourish as a grassland, and humans would migrate north. Then for a thousand years, the icecap would recede and the climate dry out. The grass would die, and so would the animals living there. Since there were already humans occupying the lands to the south, humans had no choice but to push northward, into the Fertile Crescent and then onto Europe and Asia, and then eventually across the Bering land bridge into the Americas.

In other words, for 30-50K years, the Sahara acted as a giant pump.

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What was life like for those wanderers? Here's what life was like for 90% of the past 100,000 years no farming, no food storage, no "stuff". "ice ages" in central/southern europe hunter-gatherer cultures, spread around the world about 3-5 hours of work to gather enough food Paleolithic, Mesolithic

"What's for dinner?"

rotated 5-6 camps food gathering dependent on location shellfish, migrating animals, tubers

no stuff. amber and obsidian was traded long distances

So, what happened about 10,000 BCE? The last ice age ended. The polar icecap receded. Trees grew across Europe, trees that would not be cut until iron could be smelted. The great migrating herds died off. And humans had to look for another food source.

estimated about 10,000 humans wandering around in Europe. Hungry humans. Humans looking for a new answer to the question, "What's for dinner." And the answer became, "grain".

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Why did they? Legends about inventions. Inventing the wheel, domesticating animals, creating the first pot, mining copper, inventing bronze. Here's my theory about why agriculture was invented.

A few days after a windstorm about this time of the year, hunters stalking animals. animals drank from shallow pool in which some grasses had fallen. Animals lurched around. Humans killed the animals, went back. "You try it. No, you try it." Beer!

And so was born the world's first shamen, to be quickly followed by the world's first hangover.

Over the next few thousand years, several more breakthroughs independently happened, and were diffused in various places around the world. The term "mesolithic" "meso-" meaning "middle", has been coined to describe the time period when tribes transitioned from paleolithic hunter-gatherers to neolithic farmers.

1. We don't have to wait for a windstorm. We can cut the grasses ourselves, and dump them into the water. 2. Better yet, how about someone invent special pottery, so we can control the fermentation. 2. Hey! We don't have to wait for the grass to grow, we can sow it ourselves.

My second reading will also be familiar to folk music fans, courtesy of Steve Winwood and Traffic. Interesting how our most modern music has roots in the past. Maybe it has to do with our fascination with beer.

Reading: John Barleycorn

Archaeologists are able to measure the adoption of innovative technology. With no written history, we can only guess at what gods or goddesses the neolithic societies worshiped, or how they worshiped them. It's sort of a running gag that when something unexpected is found at a dig site, the default explanation for it is "religious purposes." But by digging in trash heaps and exhuming graves, by carbon dating, by looking at tree rings, we can get an idea of trade routes and the transmission of new ideas.

In the paleolithic era, circa 90,000 BCE it took about 10,000 years for a new, more efficient way of "knapping" flints to go from Anatolia, in modern-day Turkey, to the Iberian peninsula. Flint is important because it will hold an edge, but the right kind of rock is a relatively scarce resource, We call it the "Stone Age" because flint axes were used to kill large animals, to scrape hides, and start fires. You can see how a tribe would have a competitive edge if it was able to make multiple tools out of a single hunk of rock.

In the mesolithic era, circa 15,000 BCE, it only took about 1,000 years. for a new, more efficient way of firing pots to make its way across Europe. Better pots mean larger pots. Larger pots mean that you can actually start storing food for longer periods of time.

But around 4000 BCE, it only took 100 years for a new way of increasing the alcohol content of beer to sweep across Europe. Instantaneously (by archaeological time), a new large "beaker" or fermenting pot appears everywhere. The "Beaker People" used to be thought of as a conquering horde, like Atilla the Hun. But modern scholarship now tends to think of them not as a racial group, but as one of the first forms of cultural imperialism, The twin technologies of improved beer and copper weapons -- an unbeatable combination.

And copper weapons brings us to the subject of warfare. You might ask, what is the connection between the harvest and killing?

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Here's what life was like for 90% of the past 10,000 years

Neolithic cultures cereal cultivation, 8-10 hours of work stockpiling meant warfare.

There are three movies that show warfare in the three great epochs.

Remember "2001", with the apes screaming at each other, until one kills another and they all run away? That's two hunter- gatherer tribes fighting over who gets to gather food from a particular area.

Remember "300", with the two armies fighting to the last man? That's two agricultural tribes fighting over who gets to take the other side's stuff.

Remember "1941", with aerial bombing? That's two industrial agricultural societies fighting over ideology.

Neo-pagans have made a great big deal over how paleolithic matriarchal societies were peaceful and lived in harmony with nature and didn't oppress one another And how mean old patriarchal neolithic societies came along and invented war and the oppression of women.

It's a nice facile story, but scholarship has shown that life isn't that simple. Both forms of governance can commit atrocities. But there is a kernel of truth in the dichotomy, and it comes down to genetics. Males, with their generally stronger upper body strength, are better at organized conflict. Add to that the fact that 90% of all young males are expendable, and you have a recipe for societal aggression.

If you're tied to the land, you:

1. acquire stuff

2. have to defend the stuff, meaning a non-farming class.

It now becomes a viable strategy for your tribe to send a war band of expendable males out, and try and acquire another tribe's stuff. For the first time on earth, a farming community has the ability to stockpile food and goods, which means that someone else can come along and take it. For the first time on earth, slavery becomes economically feasible. It doesn't make sense for a migrating tribe to keep slaves, because they compete for food as the band travels. But they are certainly useful to help grow crops.

What if a tribe decides not to go a-viking, ? Well, you're still going to need a warrior class, to fend off other tribe's warriors. There are some indications, based on the types of injuries found in graves, that not all of the tribes who adopted "Beaker People" technology actually engaged in aggression.

worldwide population climbed to about 100 million by 1000 BCE 99% farmers Why 1000 BCE?

It's about this time that we pass from pre-history to history, with the invention of empire. Emperors want to know how much stuff they have, and thus is born accounting, and from accounting comes writing, and from writing comes literature. The earliest literature consists of the codification of oral traditions, so the ancient myths and legends are written down.

Egypt and Sumer, then the Indus river valley and Yang'tse river valley cultures, locked in their past. But the nature of agriculture remains the same for about another 2,000 years. It isn't until the coming of the industrial revolution that the way farmers grow food, and harvest food, changes.

Harvesting is a time of celebration. We're storing food, we won't die this winter. Lammas is the first harvest, Samhain is the last harvest. The next three months are going to be a busy time. But let's throw a party first.

My third reading is a description of a Lammas harvest party by one of my favorite authors, Thomas Hardy. Please ignore any wincing noises coming from Trish for the next few minutes; she suffered from an overexposure to Victorian writers while she was getting her Ph.D. in English.

Reading: Woodbury Hill Fair

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We're now down to the last 100 years, and the answer to the question "What's for dinner?" explodes with possibilities. Just look at the grocery store. But as I hope I've shown, how that question is answered determines how a tribe lives its daily life. Here are some interesting statistics, courtesy of the USDA. I'm going to focus on the United States, not because I'm ignoring the rest of the world, but because unless something drastic happens, the rest of the world is going to do thier darnest to emulate our lifestyle.

Remember, 100K years ago, there were about 100K humans, living in Africa. Then at the start of the Neolithic revolution, 10K BCE, there were about 1 million spread worldwide. 100 thousand compared to a million sounds like a lot, but over 90K years, that's less than a 1%/year growth rate. During this time, no one farms.

After 9000 years of agriculture, about 1000BCE, its estimated that worldwide there were 100 million people. We're up to 1%/year growth rate. About 99% of the population farms, and 1% don't.

Jump forward to 1900. At that same rate, world population has climbed to 1.5 billion. In the US, about 40% of the country works on farms, growing food for the other 60%.

About this time, mechanization and petroleum-based fertilizer and insectides come into use. Today, worldwide population climbed to about 6.5 billion. If you've seen Al Gore's documentary, you know where the population curve is going. Expotentially up. We're up to 5%/year growth.

2002 DoA farm census - 3million farmers, 300million population, about 1%

2 million farms, 3.5% of total area "farm" means more than $1000/year only 1/5th make more than 75%

For the first time in human existence, most people don't farm. Their survival does not depend on the yearly cycles of nature. What does this dramatic transformation mean for our souls?

The next part of the service starts when I stop talking. Instead, I invite you to reflect on your personal experience with food, with farming, with harvesting, with preserving. Here are some sample questions, to get you thinking.

Harvesting - What have you harvested this summer? What seeds, both actual and metaphorical, have your planted?

And preserving - Think about the fruits that you have gathered this year. How can you keep them sweet in the store of your memory?

This Wednesday, Lammas, is the first harvest. How does your garden grow? How will you answer the question, "What's for dinner?"