The Dollar

Some thoughts on the Joachimsthalern.

Yep! The Joachimsthalern.

If things had been a little different we might be saying bet your bottom joachimsthalern or shopping at the Joachimsthalern Store. Believe it or not we get the English word "dollar" from Joachimsthalern.

Back in the 16th century a little valley in Czechoslovakia called Joachimsthal established a mint and made silver and gold coins. They were widely distributed and eventually the Joachimsthal truncated to the “Thaler.”

Over time other European countries patterned their currency units after the "Thaler" and the name evolved to "Taler" and eventually "Daler" in the Nordic cultures.

When we declared our independence from Great Britain, Thomas Jefferson was against tying American currency to the British pound so he wrote that our currency should be patterned after European currency, not the British Pound and the unit would be called the dollar.

Now you know.

Turkey, the bird.

Turkey is a traditional dinner today for many Americans. It is a carry over from the pilgrims and their original feast of Thanksgiving when the native bird was plentiful in the wild.

So why do we call it Turkey? There is a reason and as happens so many times, the all-American bird got its name somewhat by mistake.

The tale begins with the British Empire which had stretched itself into Africa during the sixteen hundreds. Along with diamonds the British exported a wild eatable bird back to England, but in order to get the shipment to the British Isles the cargo was routed through Turkey and supposedly that's how the big bird got its name.

When the sharp eyed settlers spotted a similar winged bird strutting through the American colonies, they called it...Turkey.

Scientists who study these sort of things tell us the bird that lives in Africa, that was imported to Europe by way of Turkey, is not the same bird that is native to America.

Actually we probably ought to call our bird " Meleagris". that's what the turkey is known as in scientific jargon, and that comes from the Greek. In fact, one of the earliest mentions of the Meleagris comes from Aristotle. Just think, if the bird had first been exported from his country we could be sitting down to a Greece dinner with all the trimmings.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving

The earliest record of any observance of Thanksgiving within the territory that now comprises the United States, was held by the Popham colony settled in Sagadahoe, Maine. That was in 1607.

They did not celebrate the whole day like we do now, then it was just an observance that took a few hours.

The real origin of Thanksgiving as a whole day set aside for prayer and rejoicing is attributed to Governor Bradford, The first governor of the Massachusetts Colony. In gratitude for a plentiful harvest in 1621, he proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving, to be observed on December 13th.

History tells that Governor Bradford also sent out four hunters in search of game and it is here, in 1621, that the turkey makes an early appearance in celebrating the day. The hunters were reportedly more than successful, they bagged so many wild turkey's it was enough to feed the little colony for a week.

Through the years a thanks-giving was celebrated if there was sufficient reason. Some years there were two celebrations, and other years there was none.

The Continental Congress recommended eight days of Thanksgiving, divided and celebrated in various months, but they were only recommendations, for state governments were far more powerful then and the idea never caught on.

General George Washington issued a couple of proclamations for a Thanksgiving during the revolutionary war, but it was not until 1789, as President, did he issue a proclamation appointing November 26th, as Thanksgiving day, eventually it was celebrated on the last Thursday of November.

Washington's proclamation, incidentally, was the first ever issued by a President of the United States.

Service

Helping to solve a global or national or even a local group problem by individual action seems so insurmountable at times that we often shrug our shoulders with a resignation of helplessness.

There is a way through the constant abyss of need.

Within the human spirit there is an intrinsic, yet often-obscured desire to be of service. Service can be defined as “instantaneous response to need”. We see it all the time in selfless acts of courage when heroic action is spontaneous in saving a life or some other act of bravery. Philosopher Joseph Campbell calls it “a moment when you and the other are one” and nothing could change it even to the point of death.

Somewhere deep within our soul being we acknowledge that we are individuals existing in the illusion of time and within an earthly density of a created and collective oneness. We are individual drops in the amniotic ocean of being. We are the individuation of the indivisible. We subconsciously, spiritually, know that life experience is not singular, but collective and somewhere in our awareness we know that if even one of us minutely achieves, all of us do.

Response to need is a simple process, but difficult to sustain on a daily basis when we have to contend with the duties of living, myopic worry and the ego’s constant harassment for self-aggrandizement. There are ways around the ego’s chicanery, but not many of us choose to be a mystic and master the art of meditation and its precipitate subjugation of the ego self.

So, how to be practical in the request to help?

One way is to believe that “thought” has a power or energy. Good thoughts have positive power and bad thoughts have negative influences. These thoughts, these pieces of energy, can be sent by the mind, in the envelope of good will, to any recipient and it will have an impact. Religions would call it prayer, but holistic physician Dr. Larry Dossey, in his book “Healing Words” calls it a general sense of well being for another and has proven the power of positive thought with scientific experiments.

Our sending energy does not have to be specific, but should have the imprimatur of well-being. Since we are part and parcel of the creating Source, we can leave the specifics of the solving to the omniscience of unconditional love, but the power we create and send through graceful thoughts becomes a free will energy to manifest as solutions, compromises and accomplishments.

Another way to answer the call to help is to do so within our sphere of influence for that too will affect the whole. To the observant not a single day passes without numerous opportunities to serve. There’s the story of the little five-year boy who wanted to help an elderly neighbor whose wife just died. Upon returning home his Mother asked what did he do to help. The child replied, "I sat on his lap and helped him cry".

Service is as simple as that. Poet William Wordsworth wrote, “…Even the daisy by the shadow it casts, protects the lingering due drop from the sun.

Opportunities abound in each moment for us to be of service. Seeing them is important. Feeling them is even better for empathy is often a greater motivator than intellect. Perform each act of service with the unconditionality of the Source, and the exponential component of service will then manifest for the greater good of all.

Mark Twain

I had a conversation with actor Hal Holbrook a couple of years ago. We were discussing his portrayal of American humorist Mark Twain. Holbrook said when he was first doing Twain in the 1960’s he had a hard time looking old enough to be Twain. Holbrook is now in his eighties and said he has a hard time looking young enough to be Twain.

I’ve always like Twain’s The War Prayer which Holbrook does exceedingly well. Twain wrote it around 1905. It was rejected by his publisher and then found after his death among his unpublished manuscripts.

Twain apparently wrote it as an opposition to the Philippines War of 1899-1902.

The whole story is too long for this post, but its essence is not. The story is a messenger from “The Throne”, shows up in a small church that had been praying for victory and safety for their young who are going off to war. The messenger says God wants them to know the unmentioned results, the unspoken part of the prayer, that must follow victory in war.

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

(*After a pause.*) The messenger says, "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!"

Twain ends the story with this line. “It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.