XXXV 24th January 2005
We made a small change in the order of our 4 year cycle by placing spring wheat after winter wheat instead of barley, as a result of advice from our suppliers. A supplier, whether of grain, or herbicide, or fertilizer, is the best consultant a farmer can have. If intelligent and concerned, as all of them generally are, he or she passes the day talking to a queue of farmers purchasing supplies; inevitably every one mentions the weather and also what is happening in his field and how he proposes to remedy this or that - week in and out. Listening to information from every corner of the parish, or outside, the supplier becomes a factotum, often wiser than the professors. In 1820 an agricultural labourer found a giant grain of barley in his cart, after returning home for supper; he planted it, replanting the resulting crop next spring and producing a new strain which was taken over by a local clergyman and named ʻChevallierʼ which became famous. It was not yet thought proper for a new plant to be named after a mere labourer.
We do not dismiss the notables or professors who, working by observation and science, are backing agriculture with good science. The enormous increase in the use of synthetic fertilizers during the Second World War, we are told, stemmed from scientific discoveries in production of nitrates from air, or by combining nitrogen and hydrogen by means of a catalyst - in daily use today. Even if some objections are raised with justice against excessive use of chemistry, one cannot forget that it results in great increase of foodstuffs for people and that it fed Britain during the war. The knowledge stems from all sources, some very unexpected. We are watching: everything in Leszczyn, including the passage of Venus over the sun, and maybe shall move slowly towards a more ecological production; while still learning by listening to our fertiliser and herbicide suppliers.
An Idsanist Movement which is organised with assemblies of a hundred linked to a locality, and having a Sunday meeting for discussion of meaning of the times and of policy for life of each member can be the treasure to him. Hundreds will act as earliest assemblies or as the Greek polis did, asserting their views on local as well as wider activity; drawing together all its members - in a meeting, the skein at the Attica its home. A Hundred comes together, wherever, to reinforce human nature to prevent an individual being absorbed in mass society of a large state. The Greeks thought of a polis as an active, formative unit, training the minds and character of the people, and since then small communities throughout Europe acted likewise; so will a Hundred, being a part of the social evolution. Its members are working within a society, still in process of change - to influence the praxis of action within it. The weekly skein in Attica, can deal with subjects proposed by the membership in this spirit - and many more:
- Subjective: influences on man
- Creative thought: establishes movement forward
- Idsanist: Hundreds in own region
- Physical: towards formation in the Hundreds of a new social awareness
- Emotional: the sway and creativity in new renaissance
- Intellectual: the flood and the free reach of knowledge
- Spiritual: Awareness of 4 motive forces and of self
- Action: work team for world at large
- Reaction: opposition to external pressures
- Individual: awareness of self
Any individual concerned with views of modernising society can start a Hundred which will be registered with the Centre of Idsanism and become a member of the Movement. The Attica building, where the skein is held, is the centre of the community of a Hundred eventually to be established as its freehold. The form of Attica expresses in itself the philosophy of the movement, and whether a new building, or not, it will aim at being beautiful. It will contain an assembly hall, an office and the Attica Library with research area. Its freehold, owned by the Movement, will have the interest of the Hundred retained in it. It defines, like a temple, in its bricks and mortar the love in which it is being held as the place of intimate friendship.
The funds needed, will come from donations and yearly subscriptions of 100 kg of wheat in its area. In Leszczyn it amounts today to 15 Euros. The formation of a Hundred will be registered at the Leszczyn Centre with a Number, which will become its name and its symbol. The freehold of the farm may become the foundation stone of the Movement.
The skein will be an expression of Movementʼs involvement in the structure of society. Held on the free day, arranged not to interfere with membersʼ other obligations, it deals mainly with evolution of social change: acting like a free and independent vital elan, bringing its own principles for our time. Idsanism finds the world not serious enough and aims at making its members earnest and involved in the joy of seeing the change. Those who remember for instance the momentous change in the mid-century from classical to modern architecture, the dismissal of classical embellishments for true requirements would see the parallel today.
Enough has been said to imagine a massive philosophical fantasia arising out of the holding of skeins by the members. Women and men travelling between them, exchanging new visions, equally at home in every part of the continent and supporting each other with joy, actuality and audacity, will make it not an auspicious time for the dignitaries of terror. The hostility of American terror impresarios will not anymore touch the young, the intellectuals, the idealists and many other practical women and men who suddenly will find support in the people at large, making them laugh at the scare-mongering exaggerations of the terror crowd and think with optimism of the next dayʼs fare.
The New Set of women and men will set foot on the common high-road. “Laughter belongs to man alone” as Rabelais said and they will mock, ignore, ridicule, rib, poke-fun at, lampoon, parody and spoof the War on Terror Makers with their screaming police sirens and breathless news announcements; until the world wakes up to see in the stealing or conniving with truth of their mock-terror resolutions only one aim: to line their pockets. To make the world more serious can be fun too. It seems that the new Renaissance may be a carnival at large.
