photo by J. StarWell looky here - what's under the Epiphany Tree?

Why bless my continent! France and Australia left us eco-gifts...and a path.

I'm so embarrassed...all we gave them was more global warming and a big lump of coal - kinda redundant, but I didn't choose the gift list. Darth did.

And just when you thought the Holiday gift pressure was over....

Naaah.

January 6 - aka Epiphany - is the last day of the twelve-day feast of Yule (in Pagan tradition) or (in the tradition of Yule's younger sibling) the last of the Twelve Days of Christmas as celebrated by Rome and the Anglicans.

Up until the mid-70's, Epiphany - January 6th - was also the start to a helluva eight day bash, culminating in the Octave of Epiphany on January 13. Rome pulled the plug on this party in 1970, and the Anglicans followed robe in 1976.

Sorry I missed the party - they canned it before I was old enough to go.

Which is a bit of bummer, seeing as the eight-day celebration began - as only a just Universe would have it - on my birthday.

Now how's that for auspicious?

In contrast - or perhaps through divine levelling - my Epiphany augury for today was...er.....a do-over.

Twelfth Day dawned with clear air and leaden skies here near the shore of the largest estuary on the Pacific Coast of the Americas - aka the San Francisco Bay. After getting up to turn up the heat for the day, I rolled myself back up in the covers and waited for the traditional "wake up! what do you think this is, your birthday?" call from my parents, carrying on the tradition my mom's father shared with her over the years. One of the kitties - Rain - sprang into bed with me, sprang over my head to his place at the top of the bed - and peed.

 Happy Birthday from Rain.

Happy Blowback. Turns out clever Rain learned behavioral mod all too well. His eponymous meta-communications in past were extinguished by a quick re-visit to the scene of the deluge (always furniture - with fabrics), followed by exile for a few hours in a cat cage (with food and water, of course). Here in SF, the miracle of row housing acoustics give Rain quite an echo chamber in the garage....so we've used the back deck for post-peeing detention.

The same back deck Rain eagerly explores (with the other kitties) every afternoon - except when it's too cold, wet, or windy. As the last three days have been. The three days Rain and the other kitties here have been trying to remind their silly biped he's forgotten about the back deck.

Clever observant fellow that he is, Rain started my Twelfth Day off with a rude surprise in response to my careful, purposeful efforts towards a completely different goal.

He thought he knew what response he'd get. I'd thought the same thing.

We were both wrong.

We'll do OK here - Rain's been released from his improvised detention (aka cat carrier on the shower floor), and I just used up the most recent trophy from my latest contribution to the Anti-Icky-Poo trust fund generation(s).

And I went back to bed (guest room) so I could wake up and restart my birthday.

A do-over.

Kinda like sending out for a second chicken if the first one's guts gave the wrong augury.

The big blue skin of ecosystem we all inhabit on this planet knows how to give a really great do-over - and we know of five that were real blowouts. From the invites and hints the folks at Gaia House have been dropping, we're on track for a sixth big do-over Real Soon Now.

Of course, in science every thing has a fancy name. What's the good of spending years in school if you can't give perfectly ordinary things fancy names?

The fancy name for the sixth big do-over is Anthropocene.

And the fancy name for Gaia House's do-over is mass extinction.

A whole new name for blowback.

Hey - you thought the new year was gonna be easy? At least you didn't start your birthday with Rain on your bed.

Now we all know Darth and the Shrub Lord and Gramma Nancy and Dirty Harry have been playing peek-a-boo with global climate change.

Is it real? Is really just a good thing? Is it really something that several billion dollars a year to burn more diesel and spray more lymphoma-creating Round-up can't help? You mean giving the money to ADM and Monsanto and Cargill isn't the answer? Who knew?

Anyway, we all know that while our corporate-owned "leaders" play the 21st Century version of Holocaust Denial, the planet is suffocating under the carbon gases from centuries of (largely European/US) industrial waste. Hell, clever homo industrailis has been so good at putting out crap over the last few centuries we've even changed the chemistry of the ocean - all of it.

Screw it - who cares if the seas are too acidic for coral reefs and plankton? What did plankton ever do for us - except for fish and oxygen....

Oh - never mind.

Here in Amerricuh, we know so much that most of us don't have to bother hearing how furriners solve their problem. Hey - when you're the richest country in the world, with the best schools and hospitals and roads and trains, who cares what the Frogs or a bunch of kanagaroo-huggers do?

Theological aside: The anticipated impact of global climate change will fall most heavily on those in states voting "Red". Is this an example of divine justice, or merely natural selection?

Since the five Lords of Media are every bit as corrupt and greedy as the Four Pols they own, Americans without regular access to foreign press could easily conclude global eco-problems are every bit as hopeless as Big Carbon and Darth say they are. So - the only option is to give up, go shopping, and build nuclear reactors. Right, Westinghouse?

Fortunately for the whole planet, NOT!

This year I'll be looking with you all at the increasingly obvious forces tipping us towards the sixth great extinction - and the increasingly obvious paths to a livable, sustainable future of abundance and health.

Much of what we see will come from other nations - a global solution to global peril.

A re-do for the eco-politics of despair.

This week I'm looking at France and Australia.

Why France?

Well aside from being the ancestral home of Freedom Fries, the French have an ancient tradition of noticing what they put in their pie-holes, and even thinking and writing about it.

To be fair, we 'merricuhans have the same tradition. Why, the distinguished man of letters and natural theologian Dan Quayl pondered these issues deeply one morning as he strained to pass the previous day's Happy Meal and wondered why the toys always looked so edible. Anyway, upon long thought, Erasmus Quayle came forth with the doctrine of equivalence. Anything created in a vat is just as natural as anything grown in the ground.

Prof Qualy sent out for more Happy Meals and BigAg went to the races - using Wise Dan's Doctrine of Equivalence to proclaim that lab food - GMO's made from other critter's DNA - were every bit as healthy as the non-Franken Foods.

And now America's farmlands are covered with Monsanto's mutant corn and soy.

So what does this have to with the pesky French?

Well, they didn't drink the Kool-Aid (couldn't find the Burgundy flavor) and don't recognize Monsanto Dan's Natural Philosophy.

The pesky Jose Bove - fresh out of the pen for torching a Mickey D's (or two) is forcing the issue by threatening to starve himself to death if his government doesn't uproot the latest GMO corn mutants from global Big Ag.

And Mr. Bove probably can fast for a bit - so he has time to win.

Vive La France - and the rest of the planet.

And Down Under - what's up with them?

After years of joining every other nation in the UN and refusing to enforce the binding International Law and Treaty forbidding Japan's annual whale slaughter, this year Australia is sending an official vessel to join Greenpeace and the Sea Shepherd Society - and joining them in demanding the Japanese fleet end the murder of these creatures and their communities.

Now what can America learn from that?

Bon Appetite - and Happy Twelfth Night