Viewing posts by Thexalon
One meaning of the season of Beltaine not often understood by modern folks, who are used to food just kind of appearing at restaurants and groceries, is that historically by this time of year it was not uncommon for people to be running low on food or even be starving. In a well-managed home where nothing had gone wrong, there was food into the spring, but this was really the season where you found out whether last fall's harvest was going to be enough to keep you going. And to make matters worse, food preservation techniques weren't what they are now with refrigeration, so rot was a real problem. This all meant that around this time of year, an average person was eagerly awaiting fresh vegetables, and the Beltaine celebration is in part about seeing the signs of fertility and growth that tell us that we'll be able to eat fresh food and won't starve to death in the next few months.
In the first installment, I laid out the general case for money not really working for its intended purposes. In this, I'm going to go far more in-depth on why money doesn't really do what classical economists think it does for a key component of what an economy is supposed to do, namely getting goods and services to the people who need or want them.
This song started with a simple observation: Despite all the trouble with Covid-19, my daffodils were still blooming right on schedule, trees were budding, birds were migrating back to the area, and the world was still warming up. This gave me a comfort that I badly needed, and I wanted to share that comfort in song form.
Today is Saint Patrick's Day. I know many pagan-y type people don't like this day, because they believe it celebrates an end of paganism in Ireland (something Saint Patrick did not in fact accomplished), but there's a reason it's important to many Irish-Americans, and I hope this song captures that reason well.
