In the days of my youth, so long ago now as I look back into a different century, there was a poet who is best called a troubadour. His name is Donovan and he coloured the mid 60s with his music bringing a gentle pastoral element to the music of the day.
One of his later releases was called Hurdy Gurdy man. Quite unlike anything else. He sang
Throne like a star in my vast sleep
I open my eyes to take a peep
To find myself beside the sea
Gazing in Tranquillity
Tis then when the Hurdy Gurdy man comes singing songs of Love.
Histories of ages past
Unenlightened shadows cast
Down through all eternity
The crying of humanity
It was an era when love coloured the world. Of course if you were unlucky enough to find yourself in Vietnam it is unlikely that this was the strongest impulse you felt.
As we step into the new millennium we are entering a new era in the life of humanity and Life on Earth. Still under the shadow of the last century, and millennium, the old values are found to be simply lacking in worth. The Biblical era is ended. It ended with the three actions of the Second World War, the persecution of the Jews, and the atomic bombs which fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as nails in the coffin of the Biblical era. All of these are referred to as The Holocaust. Indeed that term was first used with reference to the atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nakasaki and later applied to the dreadful deeds of the Nazi regime under the direction of their insane megalomaniac leader.
Now that book is firmly closed and in its place the many texts of other faiths come to the fore. Oral history is found to be surprisingly accurate and new sources of inspiration are found for the race. This is nowhere more strongly demonstrated than in the super-hero movies from Marvel and DC. No longer depending on the declarations of obscure men and women but now the classical virtues of Justice – as opposed to revenge – of Patience and Persistence and Indefatigability of the human spirit, and the Defence of the Weak. These are shown in larger than life images in blazing technicolour on screens that fill the entire field of view accompanied by triumphal anthemic music as Justice is seen to prevail once again and order is restored to the Universe.
We no longer need a book of time when we have our own souls speaking directly to us. As the prophet Bob Dylan sang in the earlier century, ‘Look out Babe the Saints are coming through, and its all over now, Baby Blue’.
