CONTINUATION OF VICTOR GREENTREE'S TALK AT NORTHERN HILLS UNITARIAN CHURCH IN 1989:

I do not want to suggest this is the only means of changing people's consciousness. Most of us here in this room are involved in, or have been involved in, various spiritual disciplines to increase our awareness. But I think we need to take two factors into consideration for future actions. First, I believe if we are actually going to change things, we need to begin increasing our base outside of the relatively small group that we might label "new age". Second, I am convinced that in the next twenty-five to thirty years environmental issues are going to become the number one concern of our societies. This summer's drought was just the beginning. Look at what we have: cancerous world population growth, the ozone layer, the greenhouse effect, destruction of the rain forests, the pollution of the oceans, the melting of the polar ice caps, toxic wastes, massively ever increasing urban waste disposal, precarious nuclear plants, on and on and on. It seems almost every day now when I pick up the newspaper, some scientist or group has come out with some new bizarreness. Perhaps you saw the article in yesterday's newspaper about the "silvering" of the evergreen forests in the Appalachian range and speculations as to what is causing them to die. With so many possible disasters staring us in the face, the odds are that one of them at least is going to explode, and then I think we will see an era of radical social change. I think we need to position ourselves, start preparing for such a possible time. We need to have some positive alternatives to offer the world. A radically new calendar is both a revolutionary and non-violent means of transformation.

What should the nature of this calendar be? What is the way we wish societies to be? And I think everyone in this room will agree with me we would like human beings to live more in harmony with the earth. So, we need a calendar which is going to promote this harmony, encourage it. We want a calendar which is attached to nature's cycle of seasons, in which we cause remembrance and observance of the sun's yearly cycle, and the cycle too of the plants and trees and of the animals. For, is their cycle not our cycle too? Do we not go through our own seasons of life, death and rebirth? Can we not then have a calendar which is a projection of our own lives? This calendar would honor the sun's yearly journey, world-wide. It would honor renewal in the spring and death in the winter, world-wide. It would create in the minds of men and women a conscious memory of their contacts and interactions with their natural environments, world-wide. It would make this observance a concrete, legitimized institution, world-wide.

But the year's cycle is also divided into smaller segments called months which honor the moon. These, too, need to be celebrated--as we need to be reminded of our connectedness more often than four times a year. How should we name our months? I believe that we need to use two very good ways. The first way, the way of the Lakotas, for example, is to name each month for the weather's effect upon society at that particular time. For example, the Lakota Indians called January, Moon of Frost in the Tepee, May, Moon when the Ponies Shed and October, Moon of the Black Calf. This is humanistic, a naming which focuses upon what one observes in the life of the tribe as the year progresses.

The second way of naming the months isn't man-oriented but spirit-oriented. In it the month names are based upon the activities of the earth at each specific time. If we go out into the woods or fields in our particular neighborhood during the time of such and such month, what do we see? What plant stands out at that particular time as being the dominant power? Is it the blooming Dogwood or Redbud signaling spring, or the gold quaking Aspen of autumn? What do we observe? The month would then be named for the dominant plant to which it corresponds. That is the system of the Tree Calendar, a copy of which you have been given. In it, we honor the elders, The Old, Old People, the oldest living things on the earth. For, to see a tree, roots bound deeply in the ground, lasting for three or five hundred years, is to know an ancient wisdom beyond us and of which, we must acknowledge, we are a part.

As you can see, there are five seasons: pine, cherry, rose, aspen and cedar. And twelve months of 30 days: birch, rowan, alder, willow, hawthorn, oak, holly, hazel, apple, grape vine, ash and ivy and a five day intercalary period: elder.

The Tree Calendar is identical in form with the Egyptian calendar, and similar to the Mayan one which also had a 5 day intercalary period but 18 months of 20 days. The Tree Calendar's origins go back to the Neolithic stone age in Mediterranean Europe--a transition period from hunters and gatherers to farmers and animal domesticators, from Shamanic religion to tribal--but it was adopted by later bronze and iron age peoples, including the Greeks in their Eleusinian Mysteries having to do with the legend of Kore and Demeter. The version that we have--the one I have given you here--is from about 100 BC as used in northern Europe. Therefore, the trees in it aren't local Cincinnati trees but the trees of that particular area and, in order to use the Tree Calendar here--and for all groups to use it in their particular regions of this planet--we, and they, must go out of doors at each season and month of the year and observe the specific tree which is dominant at that specific time.

One big advantage of both systems of naming the months is that they allow for, encourage, local autonomy and diversity. In other words, the world-wide Tree Calendar would be a general principle which unites us into one, and within it, is all the individuality, color and multiplicity which makes human nature and our earthly environment exciting and interesting. Another big advantage is that these namings require awareness. The names of the months are not archaic or theoretical or abstract. They come out of our human experience, out of making direct contact with our lives and with the earth environment which immediately surrounds us and enfolds us. They, in other words, make us more alive.

So, if you will, let us imagine some future era in the next millennium. At a sacred site on the earth, say Machu Pichu or Jerusalem, we are celebrating the first day of the month, Beath, and all the nations of the world have sent representatives to make an offering. The ceremony is viewed by everyone on the planet through the miracle of satellite television. As each representative files up and lays a bough of his/her tree on the altar and says his/her earth blessing in his/her particular language and custom, we shall begin to have, not one tree, the birch, but a glorious array of trees that represent not only the unity, but the entire spectrum of the earth's profundity. What a grand sight that will be, to see the people of the earth honoring their planet in this way!

As a part of this new calendar, how might we number the years? What year is this presently? Many would say that time began with the creation of the earth 4.6 bill. years ago. Others, when the universe itself was created, which scientists now calculate as being about 15 bill. years ago. Or, should we think of our calendar in terms of man, himself, when his time began? Should we perhaps start at the dating of those ancient bones unburied in Africa of our first ancestors: 2.5 mill. years ago? All these answers are valid and perhaps need to be used on differing occasions. That is, there are times when we need to focus upon the earth, others when we need to focus upon the universe and others still when we want to focus upon our own species. These three focuses could then be designated respectively: 4.6B, 15B and 2.5M.

We need to add another factor. We need to include the overwhelming psychological importance of our species recorded history. "The first significant contemporary historical and sociological documents in man's recorded history" (Samuel Kramer) were produced in the city of Lagash in southeastern Sumer around the second half of the third millennium (2500 BC), that is, 4500 years ago. But 4500 is an approximation. I believe therefore that we should begin the calendar on the year that it's accepted world-wide. That means that this year, and all years prior to it temporarily would be labeled 2.5M/4500. The first year that it is accepted would then be 2.5M/4501 followed by 2.5/4502. After it is accepted, the back years could be re-numbered accordingly. For example, if the calendar were accepted 45 years from now, this present year would then become 2.5M/4455, or 15B/4455, or 4.6B/4455.

So, in the year 2.5M/4500, I welcome you to the New Calendar Society (NCS). I believe that our most needed attribute in carrying out, as they say, "this momentous task" will be faith. What we attempt to accomplish is really stupendous--the acceptance of an entirely new system of time keeping that supplants 400 to 2000 years of history, depending upon whether we date our present calendar from Pope Gregory or Julius Caesar. If we are to succeed, we need to keep in our minds always an image. First, we need to imagine the Roman Empire or, say, England in the 16 or 18 hundreds, and then we need to remind ourselves of how differently human beings think and live today. Then, we can have the faith to know that, someday, human life on this planet will be just as different from our present attitudes and ways as those ancient tableaus are to us now. We need to remember that the present is controlled by institutions and individuals but the future is controlled by ideas, technology and, mainly as I shall explain in a moment, evolution--and the future always wins. We need to remember that a new calendar reflecting one, unified spiritual whole, the earth, is consonant with our future consciousness. Ultimately, NCS is not a political or spiritual organization. It is a most meaningful image of the new world order, a catalyst and channeler for the stupendous transitions that are coming.

Most of you probably don't know that once before in fairly recent history an attempt was made to institute an entirely new era of time keeping--in the germinating, idealistic ferment of the French Revolution, when, once and for all, a republican form of government was to end the rule of monarchs. For a few brief years, decreed by the Revolutionary Convention in 1793, France had a calendar that was almost identical in form with the Egyptian and the Tree Calendars. As in the Egyptian and the Tree Calendars, there were 12 months of 30 days and a 5 day intercalary period. The year began on the day of the autumn equinox and the months had names like Brumaire (fog) Floreal (blossom) and Thermidor (heat). The remaining 5 days were named: Virtue, Genius, Labor, Reason and Rewards, respectively. And the years began with the first year of the French Republic which was also the first year of the calendar's use. The idea for the calendar probably originated in the Celtic background of France, or Gaul, as it was known in Roman times. The French Celts, or Gauls, had adopted the ancient Neolithic Tree Calendar. But the French Revolutionary calendar didn't last very long. As it turned out, it was an impossibility to have a different calendar from all of one's neighbors and the French Revolution as a basis for counting years just wasn't relevant to other countries, nor were the names of the months, based upon French climate conditions.

The French Revolutionary calendar was way ahead of its time. It was too advanced, too radical. It was beyond an 18th century level of consciousness. And this fact adds to the pleasure, friends, in knowing that the time is now here. But, you know, when I begin talking to many people about a New Calendar Society and a new calendar, they are skeptical because they don't understand it. They think it is a far-fetched dream of utopia. Their minds judge it from the point of view of our present level of consciousness. They see it as just another political movement and therefore quickly shift to all the political and social forces that will oppose it and thus make it an impossibility. But when I talk about a new calendar, I mean something much, much more than an innovative time keeping instrument. The calendar is but a manifestation of an entirely new era that we are entering--and our task as an organization is not proselytizing but to identify, gather and organize those advanced individuals who will guide this planet into its next evolvement.

In his astute book, "The Global Brain", Peter Russell traces the evolution, not of plants and animals, but of something larger and grander: the entire universe. He points out that, from the creation of the universe 15 billion years ago (the Big Bang), it, along with the earth as a part of it, has undergone 4 evolutionary leaps: from a void to energy, from energy to matter, from matter to life forms, from life forms to self-reflective consciousness (man). He says we are now about to undergo another, 5th, evolutionary leap. "Human beings will become integrated into some form of global superorganism. ... this superorganism will not contain a few million individuals, as occurs with bees, ants or birds; rather it will be comprised of the whole human race." His argument, based upon his background in the sciences, is put forth by other prominent thinkers. Teilhard de Chardin concluded "that humanity was headed toward the unification of the entire species into a single interthinking group." And eastern philosopher, Sri Aurobindo, saw our "spiritual development leading to a final, complete, all-embracing consciousness which would occur on both the individual and collective levels." Russell then says: "Yet the evolutionary trends and patterns we have looked at thus far (that is, the 4 evolutionary leaps and their processes) suggest a further possibility: the emergence of something beyond a single planetary consciousness ... This new order of existence will be the ultimate effect of the continued integration of humanity, and in this respect humanity will be its platform. Yet it will not be happening to humanity. Rather, it will be happening at the planetary level, to Gaia" (the Earth).

What Russell is talking about here, I believe, can be explained in terms of Jungian psychology. Jung instructed us in the collective unconscious, the knowledge that all groups and races of the human species possess through some means of genetic memory. This knowledge, told in religions, stories and myths, is contained in archetypes--one of the most important of which is the mandala, or circle who's energy radiates from its center. The calendar, which is in fact a wheel of time, is but a form of the mandala. And so I think what this evolutionary leap means is that AN IMPORTANT ASPECT OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS IS SURFACING AND BECOMING SOMETHING DIFFERENT: OUR COLLECTIVE SPECIES CONSCIOUSNESS. The calendar is much, much more than a calendar. It is a manifestation of a true understanding of our identity.

It is a recognition, finally, that this is one planet, one earth and that we are one planet, earth, and not a bunch of nations. This unity, oneness, shall affect our entire outlooks. It is not a concept or idea but our new being. The symbol of this oneness is the mandala--which is who we are individually and collectively, and what the whole earth and indeed the whole universe including us is. This is the calendar that I mean, a manifestation of our new being. And this attitude will pervade everything, so that the calendar is inseparable from us, or from the ways we live our lives, or the social and legal institutions that we form to confirm our intentions.

What is even more profound, as Russell says, is that the change will happen on a planet level. That is, rather than being just an expression of the human race, the earth, itself, as a concretized form of the universal rhythm, will act as a single living being and the new human consciousness will be synonymous with this. If this fusion of human/planet is to occur, we are going to have to regain an important area of our awareness that has been lost. These days, we often speak of "higher consciousness" but, because perhaps of the urban and technologic milieu we have wrapped ourselves in, we no longer have much touch with our surroundings. When we speak of consciousness, it is all internal, of mind. It is meditation, imaging, a cosmic force. We can no longer SEE the forces of the earth. We can no longer drink the earth's liquor of healing energy and knowledge. We cannot SEE the spirit of a tree or the sun, or HEAR the voice of wisdom in a mountain. Recently, there has been a great awakening interest in shamanism. Yet, we have made shamanism exclusively a search for power within, vision journeys, and forgotten the shaman's intimate knowledge of the earth. But listen to the words of the Dakota Indian shaman Lame Deer:

Everything as it moves now and then, here and there makes stops. A bird as it flies stops in one place to make its nest and in another place to rest from its flight. A man when he goes forth stops when he wills. So the god (Wakan) has stopped. The sun, which is so bright and beautiful is one place where he has stopped. The moon, the stars, the wind he has been with. The trees, the animals are all where he has stopped, and the Indian thinks of these places and sends his prayers to reach where the god has stopped and to win health and a blessing.

This is the awareness that modern people must regain if we are to live in harmony with ourselves and each other. No wonder we have so many ecologic and environmental disasters blankly staring at us. How can we plan to live in unity rather than warring at the final moment of the final hour to stave off extinction, when we no longer have the sensitivity to be aware of what is true?

So, this 'spaceship earth', which is identical with the calendar, which is our collective mind, has a strong nature component. The calendar is a symbol of our awareness, of our sensitivity, of our glorious spiritual bonding with the gods and goddesses of the forests and oceans--with the trees who stand for its months, with the sun who's yearly path of shining adventure it traces, with the moons who follow one another with a regularity that defies man's most creative machines.

This, as I understand it, is the 5th leap in the evolutionary process: a consciousness that is as much the earth's as ours, and a new way of living and being that is reflective of that consciousness.

One last point: as we know, there are many earth calendars from which to choose: Buddhist, Mayan, Native American and so forth. It is my feeling that most of these present certain drawbacks, mainly that each is too closely tied to one particular historical culture and therefore likely to be questioned by other cultures. But this is the most important point, what we must keep in our minds to guide us. At this stage, it is much, much more important to the advancement of humankind that we bring into world-wide manifestation a calendar which honors and respects the earth in a general, archetypal way that we know to be correct than that we choose the "right" calendar.

This is our present goal: to establish a relatively small but politically forceful earth-wide network comprised of local groups of super-intelligent people in every country in the world. To contact and enlist "our people", we must use all the modern marketing tools available to us. We must use the media. We must organize an advertising campaign like none before it. To be successful, the campaign must have a clear, straightforward image of what it is selling. This is crucial first to our own cohesion and identity and later in our revolutionizing political efforts with society--our message must be easily and forcefully communicated. Although the Tree Calendar can never be as palpable as Charmin toilet paper and as clear as the 3 'M's on Scotch Tape, we must very quickly at the beginning of this campaign come to a clear agreement as to what this product is and we must adhere to that without all of the dissension and petty ego rivalry that seems so often to mar human attempts for improvement. Forget the question: "Is this the 'right' calendar?" It's a bad question. Instead, ask yourselves a good and useful question: "is this a calendar that I would like to use and that I feel comfortable in supporting?" And, if you can answer yes to that question, help us by making the Tree Calendar manifest, both as an operative means of celebration in Cincinnati and the beginnings of a revolutionized world.JOIN THE CIRCLE

GO TO CALENDAR PRAYERS