When you hear the name ‘Aphrodite,’ it is highly likely that you immediately understand who it is one is speaking of – after all, Aphrodite (and the Roman goddess that she was identified with, Venus) is a popular figure even outside of Hellenic Polytheistic circles. However, unless you have delved quite deeply into the Greek mythologies, it is unlikely that you will know who ‘Ananke’ is. She is not a mainstream goddess; she is not Olympian nor an attendant of such, but rather she is one of the gods—the Protogenos or primeval gods—who are principally responsible for the creation of the cosmos and everything within it.

Simply put, Ananke is the god of compulsion, necessity and inevitability. She was born the sister-mate of the Protogenos Khronos, king of time—who is deeply identified with Aion, the Protogenos lord of eternity—and from their embrace Phanes first begun. Phanes, the primeval god of creation and generation, equated with Hesiod’s Elder Eros and the more well-known (and oft-called ‘younger’) Eros, god of love and the son of Aphrodite.

In my personal view of How The Kosmos Came To Be—based on a mix of classical sources—in the beginning, and for unknowable eons, all that existed was Khaos; the deep mists of the void. Khaos existed, and nothing else: she did not breathe, she did not think, she did not live. And yet stirring in her misty womb—perhaps over hundreds of thousands of years; perhaps for even longer—were the Protogenos gods Ananke and Khronos-Aion. Nature, of course, abhors a vacuum; and so it was the eternal pull of inevitability that pulsed together in the barely-there body of Khaos until, finally, the moment arose and Ananke and Khronos-Aion were born, tangled together.

From Khronos-Aion and Ananke’s violent, and yet utterly sexless, embrace, Phanes’ egg was produced; it grew in Ananke’s womb until the time came for it to emerge. And yet there was, truly, no way for the egg to emerge: there was yet no Phanes, no Protogenos pull to reproduce – and so they could not, did not, reproduce. It was only when Phanes hatched from his egg, deep in Ananke’s body, that they became truly, sexually formed: and at that moment, Ananke was torn apart by the immense pressure of generation, life, sex – the immense pressure that was Phanes. Thus, now, Ananke’s divinity rested with Khronos’ still, but she was utterly formless—more so, even, than Khaos.

Phanes’ arrival—his necessary arrival—into the kosmos kicked everything into action. The other Protogenos offspring that had been stirring within Khaos were instantly born – Erebos, Nyx, Tartaros and Gaia; darkness, night, the stormy pit beneath the earth and the earth itself, respectively. Phanes pulsed, everywhere: the Protogenos gods crashed together and life exploded in the far-reaching darkness of the kosmos.

Gaia, with only Phanes’ massively sexual influence and no tangible partner, produced children such as Ouranos, the heavens, whom shortly thereafter became the father, with Gaia, of the twelve Titanes. The Titanes were led by Kronos, god of destructive time, and the bi-gendered god Agdistis, who would later be castrated and become the goddess Rhea-Kybele. However, not all was as perfectly peaceful as it may sound: and the first war between the gods was not long in arriving.

After the Titanes’ births, Ouranos and Gaia continued to come together—he descended nightly to lie with her—and they produced more children, the Hekatonkheires (six hundred-handed and fifty-headed gigantes). The Hekatonkheires were so awful and terrifying to look upon that, after the birth of the first, Ouranos took it upon himself to force each back into Gaia’s womb. This caused her immense pain, and she eventually went to her Titane sons to ask them for their help. Only Kronos agreed to help.

Kronos, as is rather well known, ambushed Ouranos as he descended to lie with Gaia, and castrated him. The severed genitals of the god landed in the sea, mixing with Thalassa’s Protogenos sea-womb – and Aphrodite began to take shape. Over the course of the hundreds of years during which Aphrodite was formed, Agdistis became Rhea-Kybele, Rhea and Kronos’ Olympian children were born, Kronos swallowed all of the Olympians but Zeus, and Zeus, when old and powerful enough, waged war with the Titanes and won the reign of the kosmos.

As such, this time was not yet right for Aphrodite: the Moirai spun the threads of violence, hate and pain, and there was then no opening for a god such as Aphrodite who encompassed both spectrums of emotions and bodily states; the good (such as love, piety and friendship) and the awful (war, torture and death). And as she was growing—slowly and steadily, in the womb of deep Thalassa—the divine essence of Ananke remained torn apart. That essence resonated with Aphrodite’s own: for both are gods of compulsion, of necessity, of want and need and inevitability, and both longed for completion – Aphrodite for the wars to cease and to be born, lovely and whole, and Ananke to return to her mate Khronos-Aion, who continued to turn the heavens without her.

It was inevitable, in and of itself, that Ananke’s loose divinity would be attracted to Aphrodite’s. They drew steadily closer—Ananke filtered through Thalassa’s womb and delighted in the contact with a fellow yearning divine—until, in a burst of what truly could only be described as fate, their essences merged together. Ananke ceased to exist; Aphrodite alone never truly existed. They became one: Aphrodite-Ananke, the Protogenos, Titane and even Olympian goddess of the necessity of procreation, the compulsion of love, and the inevitability of beauty in a world created by such gods as these.

The war between the Olympians and the Titanes ended shortly after, and the time came for Aphrodite-Ananke to, slowly, be born. At this time, Phanes’ influence was still everywhere, pushing at anything and everything to create, create, create; and it was here that ‘Aphrodite’ and ‘Eros’ first met, as she was being born and he was there to urge her on (and yet he was her own child: for he was the son of Ananke and Khronos, and her essence was now so wound with Ananke’s that it would have been impossible—truly, truly impossible—to separate them; they had totally become one).

From the very first, Aphrodite-Ananke and Phanes connected. As the resonance between Aphrodite and Ananke had occurred, it occurred now between Phanes and Aphrodite-Ananke – but the end result was much different. Instead of their essences merging, Phanes wrapped himself around the child-goddess and all but suffocated her in his embrace. From this, a seed of divinity flickered in Aphrodite-Ananke’s womb—a connection—and Phanes poured his entire divinity into Aphrodite-Ananke in a tidal wave that shook the childhood from her essence and brought about, simultaneously, the rapid development of the child, or rather the children, within her womb.

She gave birth to Phanes immediately: he was now born again as Phanes-Eros, Phanes-Himeros and Phanes-Pothos – the gods of love, desire and passion. By the time that she finally reached the shore of Cyprus, Zeus immediately met her and ordered that she join the Olympian gods, perhaps recognising the Protogenos stir in her eyes and smiles, and she, in turn, asked Nerites to join her. He refused, and refused again the wings she would offer him, and the first instance of her wrath against a wrongdoer of love occurred; she turned him into a shellfish, and gave the wings to her Erotes, instead.

And, thus, Aphrodite-Ananke became known as simply Aphrodite, and her sons not as Phanes-Eros, Phanes-Himeros and Phanes-Pothos, but simply Eros, Himeros and Pothos. It is these words that even I most commonly use, due to ease, but the deity I refer to each time is the same: ‘Aphrodite’ is the mixture of the essences of Aphrodite and Ananke; ‘Eros’ is Phanes reborn as Eros; ‘Himeros’ is, likewise, Phanes-Himeros; and, finally, ‘Pothos’ is Phanes-Pothos.

When Aphrodite is discussed—as is often inevitable in Hellenic Polytheist circles; for who can truly say they have never felt anything for this goddess?—the subject of her influence is, of course, always key. She is named the goddess of beauty, of love, of sex; and even of war, grief, death. I propose, though, that we push aside these names and dub her, for simplicity’s sake, Aphrodite: Goddess of the Body.

As the daughter of Ouranos (as asserted by writers such as Hesiod, Cicero, Apuleius and Nonnus)—born of his castrated genitals plunging into the sea—Aphrodite would be, in terms of power and influence, on the same level as the Titanes; in truth, she would belong to a generation between Titan and Olympian, for she would have been born in the period between Kronos’ castration of his father and the birth of Zeus. Her mythologies regarding the time between her birth and her arrival at Olympos are not extensive: the classical writers speak only of her love for the sea-god Nerites and of her arrival at Rhodes, where she ‘was prevented from stopping there by the sons of Poseidon’ (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, 5. 55. 4). In retaliation, Aphrodite struck them with madness. Immediately thereafter, it seems, she returned to the sea and continued on until she reached Kypros, where she was met by the Horai (according to the Homeric Hymn 6 to Aphrodite) or Peitho and Eros (according to Pausanias, Description of Greece, 5. 11. 8). Finally, a child- or youth-Aphrodite of the seas is mentioned by Pausanias, as a depiction on the base of Poseidon’s statue: ‘Thalassa holding up the young Aphrodite, and on either side as the nymphs called Nereides.’ (Pausanias, Description of Greece, 2. 1. 8.)

Alternatively, Aphrodite is borne of Zeus—who is first and foremost king of the skies or heavens, and as thus can be identified with Ouranos, Protogenos god of the heavens—and Dione, whose name springs from Dios, which means Zeus or Divine One. (I, personally, would argue that Dione is the goddess of divinity, and as thus her name is so deeply connected with Zeus’ own because one of his primary influences is as guide or leader of fate—Moiragetês—and the keeper of the order of the cosmos –Kosmêtês.) As the daughter of Zeus, she would be level simply with the other second-generation Olympian gods – Apollon, Ares, Artemis, Athene, Dionysos, Hephaistos and Hermes, and as the daughter of Dione she would be on par with the other minor Titanes. As such, Aphrodite loses much of her immense power under the constraints of this myth of her birth; I, personally, choose to focus on her as Aphrodite Ourania (‘the heavenly’) rather than Aphrodite Pandêmos (‘common to all’).

As both Aphrodite Ourania and Pandêmos, it is undeniable that Aphrodite’s concerns seem more to be with the body than anything else. As Aphrodite Ourania, she holds together the atoms in the bodies that the gods adopt; without her pull, the gods would all be abstract, shapeless beings much akin to the Protogenos god Khaos. As Aphrodite Morpho (‘shapely, of the form’), she holds together the human body, too: the human form. As Aphrodite Ambologêra (‘delayer of old age’), it is she who brings about the constant cycle of cells dying and being replaced in the body, and she too is responsible for youth and the young; and as Aphrodite Despoina (‘the ruling goddess’ or ‘the mistress’), she is blatantly responsible for the body as the goddess who ‘rules’ it. Further evidence comes from the myth of Pandora’s creation: Aphrodite ‘shed grace upon her head’ – shed life upon her; gave her life – ‘and [gave her] cruel longing’ – desire – ‘and cares that weary the limbs’ – menstruation; the cycle of fertility in the female human body. Thus, it can be concluded that she who so inflames the body is responsible, too, for its continued existence; without her, there would be no shape to the body—we would all just be a random mesh of DNA strands clinging together—and, even if by some miracle the body was shaped, it would be incapable of fighting illness, or remaining fertile, or producing young, and so on.

It is as Aphrodite Pandêmos that she becomes a simple—if ‘simple’ is a word that can ever be used to describe a goddess, and a goddess such as Aphrodite at that—goddess concerned only with the matters of the heart. She becomes common to all the people; she strikes, or sends her son Eros to strike, any whom she pleases, be they god or mortal, with the shaft of desire. ‘This is the portion allotted to her amongst men and undying gods,—the whisperings of maidens and smiles and deceits with sweet delight and love and graciousness.’ (Hesiod, Theogony, 176 ff.) If you whittle her down just to Aphrodite Pandêmos, that is all she is: the goddess who presides over love as a collective, and love affairs, desire, love poetry, sensuality.

As Epistrophia (‘she who turns to love’), Apostrophia (‘averter of unnatural desires’), Nymphia (‘bridal’), Migôntis (‘[of the] marital union’), Hêrê (‘of Hera’), Apotrophia (‘the expeller [of unnatural desires]’) and Gamelii (‘of marriage’), Aphrodite becomes, well and truly, a goddess of marriage and marital love. That is, though, to be expected: she is the goddess who binds people together – on an molecular level, as Aphrodite Ourania, keeping the body together; on a sexual level, Aphrodite Philommeidês (‘genital-loving’), keeping lovers together; on a communal level, as Aphrodite Pandêmos, keeping the community together; and on a marital level, as Aphrodite Gamelii, keeping married partners together. Indeed, Aphrodite’s influence as a goddess of marriage is clearly very strong; Pausanias described ‘a cave [in which] Aphrodite is worshipped, to whom prayers are offered . . . especially by widows who ask the goddess to grant them marriage’ (Pausanias, Description of Greece, 10. 38. 12) and Aeschylus once stated that, ‘she [Aphrodite], together with Hera, holds power nearest to Zeus, and for her solemn rites [of marriage] the goddess of varied wiles is held in honor.’ (Aeschylus, Suppliant Woman, 1030.)

That, though, is still not all there is to Aphrodite. She also holds the epithets Symmakhia (‘ally’), Areia (‘warlike’) and Hôplismenê (‘armed’). Thus, with these titles—as well as her relationship with Ares, the Olympian god of masculinity, passion, war and blood—she becomes a goddess not just of love and form, but also of war. She becomes a goddess of grief and mourning—the love for those who have died—and she becomes a goddess of nationality – the love of one’s nation. As such, she, by association, becomes also a goddess of hate: hate for those that the soldiers fight, for love and hate both stir the body with equal vigour, and the body is undeniably Aphrodite’s tool.

Then there are her associations with the sea to consider. Her very name comes from the word Aphros, meaning sea-foam. She held several epithets alluding to her nature as a sea goddess: Anaduomenê (‘rising out of the sea’), Euploia (‘fair voyage’), Limenia (‘of the harbour’), Pontia (‘of the sea’) and Xenia (‘of the foreigner’). At a very basic level, she could be considered connected to the sea only because of one of the myths of her birth—from Ouranos’ castrated genitals—but with Aphrodite, nothing is only skin-deep. She holds sway over the four realms: the sky, as Aphrodite Ourania, the heavenly; the sea, as Aphrodite Pontia, of the sea; the earth, as Aphrodite Porne (‘fleshy, of flesh’); and the Underworld, as the khthonic Aphrodite Androphonos (‘killer of men’).

It is that final influence—over the Underworld—that seems so alien in connection to Aphrodite. But the connection does hold: as well as the epithet Androphonos, she is also Aphrodite Anosia (‘unholy’), Epitumbidia (‘she upon the graves’), Melainis (‘black, of night’), Skotia (‘dark’) and Tumborukhos (‘gravedigger’). Thus, one cannot deny her khthonic aspects – the question simply is how, exactly, she influences the Underworld. It is primarily because love—and therefore she; or Eros, at her command—kills; wars are never waged for anything but the love of oneself, or one’s country, or of money, or of one’s religion, etc, etc. Love is the primary force behind everything, and it is love that Aphrodite commands: thus she is the goddess of death, deadly love, and the grief for that which it leaves behind.

For me, personally, it is only when you take all of these aspects into account that you finally get the full picture of who Aphrodite is. She is a goddess of the heavens, a goddess of the earth, a goddess of the sea, a goddess of the Underworld, a goddess who keeps the body together, a goddess who directs love and desire, a goddess who rules over marriage, a goddess of the community and a goddess of war. And yet she is more than that: she influences love poetry, music, dance, festivity – she is a goddess to whom no doors are closed, and to whom there are no boundaries. All of the emotions and states that affect the body—life, hunger, desire, fury, hatred, humility, embarrassment, blood, madness and death, to name but a few—are under her command: the body is her vessel, her plaything, and, to her devotees, there is no forgetting that. If you are impious, she can literally unravel you at the seams – and although it is always better to treat gods with respect, as opposed to disrespect, I think that especially applies here!

Lyssa is madness. She is perfect imperfection, unbalanced balance, sane insanity. She is everything and nothing; she is man and god and the entire world. She does not care for trivialities such as sin and virtue – she is beyond thought, beyond emotion, beyond comprehension. She thrives in disorder, in chaos, and she nursed both Love and Strife in her manic, quivering arms. Heat and cold means nothing to her; love and hate plays no part in her world; she is beyond the whims of the other gods and yet bound by them, bound to do their will.

She is the world, the chaos, the pulsing need to live or die. Children and gods alike feel her pulsing fury. She drives sword against sword, child against child, and laughs as she dances on the graves of those who aren’t strong enough to stand against her. (But who is strong enough? Certainly not a mere human – she is Beyond such things as humanity and infinity.) She leans on the arm of War and kisses his cheeks with her blood-stained lips, then spins away to whisper to in Wisdom’s uncaring ear.

She lives: she thrives in disorder, in upsetting the balance. She doesn’t just blur the lines: she smashes them apart with her fists and her teeth, and she snaps at the throats of any who would try to stop her. She is Art, she is the Abyss. She does not stop to think about consequences, or the right way, or the greater good. She lives for herself, for her own pulsing hungers, and she does not care who knows that.

She is life, she is death; for what is living if not insanity? She nips at and kisses those who succumb to madness, who spend their days in her circling, smiling darkness. Her Maniai dance around her, cracking the bones of those who dared to enter her lair – and died for their impiety. She does not waste time with fancies; she is those fancies. She is fetishes, she is sex; she is slick, thrumming blood. She is eternal, and she is In This Moment. She breathes rot and insanity into the air, and she strokes at her dog-skin hat with truly loving hands.

She is born of Ouranos’ pain. She is the twin of Aphrodite and the Erinyes, born of blood and loss and love and hate. Aphrodite drew the dominion of love and hate; the Erinyes drew loss and blood; and she drew all and none, everything and nothing. She is not rooted to the world by material need – she seeps from the veins of one man to the next, rousing murderers and sending minds into her domain of madness. She is sent by the other gods to torture the impious; she dances between Hades, the human world and Mount Olympus, moving faster than lightning, faster than fire, faster than life.

She visits asylums and torments those who gaze upon her bloodied face, smiling and laughing at them with her jagged shark’s teeth. She is not concerned with a single mortal life; and yet, paradoxically, she is deeply concerned with those who snare her interest. She is madness, she is obsession, she is insanity, she is frenzy. She crashes her hands over the ears of animals and man alike and makes them spit with her fury – a bare sliver of the rage she feels (always feels), but enough to make their minds spin and their eyes roll. She is life, she is death: she is sex, she is despair: she is love and she is hate, and she is nothing at all.

She is madness. She is Lyssa.

Shade Throne has moved to a new, more spacious and trendy looking location. Also the old glasses are re-scripted and some new releases! The Shady Set Up Six Pack (300LD) and the Pop Music Sunglasses (250LD).

Also Kumaki Glasses Style (K_gs) moved and released new models. Thick under rim glasses Ouranos (300LD),  new goggles Feliz type B (500LD), with a new leather texture and screw type adjuster and Ares (300LD).  All models has the usual scripts you can expect from K_gs: color change, transparency change, shine on/off and 2 wearing positions.

Simply follow the links to the new stores of Shade Throne and K_gs to get the latest releases!

I’m interested in heaven.  A year or so back I was teaching Revelation in Sunday School to my students and was astounded at how similar their understanding of heaven looked to caricatures that I see in popular media outlets.  After listening to a lot of people describe heaven it would seem that they could have just as easily gotten their understanding of heaven from The Simpsons as they could have from the Bible.  

This makes me interested.  I’m not sure that I have any particularly strong views on heaven so I thought I would spend a few posts digging into what is known/said/believed about it.  I encourage you, if you are reading this, to share your opinions.  I think it would be helpful to hear what other people think.

This post will be simple.  I think a good place to start would be to look at the word itself; “Heaven”

Heaven:

Hebrew: Shamayin

                 – Definition: heaven or sky

                 – Usages from OT: astrologers*(1), compass(1), earth(1), heaven(191), heaven and the highest(2), heaven and the highest heavens(1), heaven of heavens(1), heavenly(3), heavens(151), heavens and the highest(1), highest heaven(1), highest heaven(1), highest heavens(4), horizons(1), other*(1), sky(50).

Greek: Ouranos

                 – Definition: Heaven or sky

                 – Usage in NT: air(9), heaven(218), heavenly*(1), heavens(24), sky(22).

There you have it.  Heaven, in the Bible, is pretty basic.  It either means heaven (metaphysical) or sky (physical).  There may be a problem with my syntax in trying to distinguish between the physical and the metaphysical.  So far there is no indication that the many authors of scripture differentiated, merely that our translators have for our benefit.  What do you think?  Are the words both physical and metaphysical or is the dualism unhelpful?

Matt 6:9
After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. 

Here, Jesus is trying to make us remind ourselves; in our daily prayers, where our father resides.
Life is a journey into eternity. We move into eternity when the body EXPIRES!
Jesus is showing us where OUR FATHER resides in eternity – HEAVEN!
Christ calls it his “Father’s house” (John 14:2).
According to the dictionary, these are two of the definitions of heaven.
 
heaven n
1: the abode of God and the angels and the souls of those who have gained salvation
2: any place of complete bliss and delight and peace

The Greek word for heaven is Ouranos strong’s no.3772 and it means among others, the region above the sidereal heavens, the seat of order of things eternal and consummately perfect where God dwells and other heavenly beings

The believer’s heaven is not only a state of everlasting blessedness, but also a “place”,
A PLACE PREPARED FOR THE BELIEVER (John 14:2) -  a place of BLISS WITHOUT END!!!
 
Think about it, if God (OUR FATHER) dwells in a place of peace, delight and bliss then
“… the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. ” Phil 4:7
 
This should be your confession for today
 
“And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” 2 Tim 4:18

Stay Blessed

Ô bouche béante qui de rien éructe la terre et le ciel et vomit l’amour
de toi sont nés les avaleurs de désordre
ces créateurs de cosmos
combattant l’hybris sans cesse
les résistants, ravisseurs de pouvoir et autres géants
Puis il y eut les hommes, fouilleurs de désordre
usurpateurs des dieux morts
s’appropriant divinité et pouvoir
inventeurs d’anthropomachies
luttant violemment entre eux en dégénérations
afin que leur sang mêlé à la terre régénère de nouveaux dieux
Ô ouverture du néant, chaos primordial
Ton souffle sur nos nuques se fait toujours sentir en sourdine
L’ordre établi est pour nous mirage que nul orgueil ne peut soutenir

“Tidden only oil tha’s peaked, ’tis civ’lisation an’ technology isself.  That there concorde wuz the apogee.  ‘Tis dewn’ill from new on”

Janet, (Devon Shopkeeper).

“Two hundred years from new, I’ll be doin’ me rewnds with an horse an’ cart”

Frederick, (Refuse disposal technician).

“To promote, as the ultimate goal of humanity, the pursuit of the clearly unsustainable is to perversely condemn future generations to a period of poverty, starvation and general misery followed by a forced return to sanity.”

Courtney, (new-born baby).

“Fear not the return to the past, it may be a foreign land with a bad reputation but if it was as bad as all that, why do grandparents always say it was better?  No doubt their grandparents said the same thing.  At some point, it must have been near perfect!”

Ouranos & Gaia, (God’s great uncle and aunt).

“The 21st cent’ry ‘ll luck like the 19th cent’ry, the 22nd cent’ry ‘ll luck like the 18th cent’ry, the 23rd cent’ry ‘ll luck like the16th … no sorry, the 17th cent’ry ….the…no, tha’s not right is it? The 21st cent’ry ‘ll luck like the 20th cent’ry, the 22nd cent’ry ‘ll luck like the 19th…”

Janet (Devon Shopkeeper ……. some hours later)

Cette émission portait sur les sujets suivants : 

• Ce divan qui atterrit sur mon trottoir 
  En cette veille du 1er juillet, jour officiel de la grande transhumance, Nicolas Gendron a demandé au responsable des services aux citoyens à la ville de Montréal, Marcel Tremblay, quel services spéciaux étaient à la disposition des citoyens qui veulent se défaire d’objets dont ils ou elles ne veulent plus.
• Ce que nous réservent les changements climatiques
  Même si certains de nos élus remettent en question la réalité des changements climatiques, ils ne confient pas moins à des chercheurs la tâche de prédire leurs effets. Le consortium Ouranos met en réuni les savoirs d’un ensemble de chercheurs pour prévoir les conséquences des changements climatiques à l’échelle de l’Amérique du Nord. Une interview de Nicolas Gendron avec le directeur général d’Ouranos, André Musy.
• Couleur Bazar
  Vous avez de la peinture dont vous ne savez plus quoi faire, des vêtements qui ne vous font plus, des appareils rendus inutiles…et vous vous dites que ça serait bien si vous pouviez faire autre chose que de balancer tout ça à la poubelle. Mais où trouver le nom, le numéro de téléphone de l’organisme qui en voudra ? Dans Couleur Bazar. Le coéditeur de cette publication, Benoît Proulx, nous parle de Couleur Bazar.

Pour écouter cette émission, cliquez ici cibl-2008-06-30-10-00-00 et patientez un instant, le temps que le fichier se télécharge (à noter que les pièces musicales ont été écourtées pour préserver les droits d’auteur).

Journée internationale de la Terre Isabelle Burgun

Agence Science Presse, dossier réchauffement de la planète.

Irremplaçable maison de l’humanité, la Terre sera célébrée le 22 avril prochain par la Journée internationale de la Terre. Cette journée particulière s’inscrit au sein d’une Année internationale qui lui est dévouée.

Pour souligner cette journée, l’Agence Science-Presse a rejoint : Michel Jébrak, professeur au département des Sciences de la Terre et de l’atmosphère de l’UQAM et représentant du Québec au comité canadien pour l’Année Internationale de la planète Terre proclamée en 2008 par l’UNESCO.

ASP — Pourquoi avez-vous accepté d’être le représentant du Québec pour l’Année internationale de la planète Terre ?
Michel Jébrak — Tout simplement parce que je souhaite sensibiliser tout le monde aux grands enjeux de notre planète… on n’en a pas de rechange ! Pour la journée du 22 avril, le Canada s’est choisi cinq thèmes qui dessinent la Terre: environnement, eau, énergie, ressources et risques naturels.

ASP — Les sciences de la Terre sont un vaste chapeau qui regroupe plusieurs disciplines, comment nous touchent-elles dans notre quotidien?

MJ — Le logo de l’Année internationale représente les différentes zones de notre planète:

- Rouge pour la planète profonde, qui nous affecte par ses mouvements (séismes, tsunamis, volcans) et nous fournit ses ressources non renouvelables. C’est le domaine de la géologie, de la géodynamique;

- Bleu pour l’océan et ses richesses, ses courants qui gouvernement les pêches; c’est le domaine de l’océanographie;

- Bleu clair pour l’atmosphère, avec les changements climatiques, la météo;

- Vert pour la vie.

Nous sommes les enfants de la Terre, et cela nous touche tous les jours.

ASP — Dans quels domaines scientifiques le Canada et le Québec possèdent-ils de l’expertise?

MJ — Le Canada a une très bonne expertise dans plusieurs grands domaines, tels que :

— Les ressources minérales. Nous sommes un grand pays producteur de quantité de métaux de base (nickel, cuivre, etc.) et précieux (or et platine), de produits minéraux, de pétrole, d’uranium et même de diamants — le 3e producteur mondial!

— L’environnement, en particulier dans le domaine des l’étude des lacs, aussi bien naturels que des barrages. Le Canada possède le tiers des ressources en eau douce de la planète; nous travaillons beaucoup à les préserver.

— La datation des roches : nous avons les meilleurs laboratoires du monde dont le GEOTOP à l’UQAM.

— Les changements climatiques, avec par exemple le centre Ouranos à Montréal.

ASP — Quelle est la contribution canadienne à l’avancement des sciences de la Terre et ses principales recherches actuelles?

MJ — Il est difficile de résumer en quelques lignes les travaux de toute une communauté. Savez-vous par exemple que les plus vieilles roches du monde ont été découvertes au Québec? Que la connaissance du passé récent, le Quaternaire, y est l’une des plus avancée du monde? Qu’un réseau de senseurs ausculte en permanence le fond du Pacifique au large de Victoria?

ASP — Quels sont les principaux enjeux et défis des sciences de la Terre?

MJ — On manque terriblement de géologues et de personnel à tous les niveaux; on s’arrache les étudiants alors qu’ils ont à peine fini leurs études… et les salaires n’ont jamais été aussi bons. Le problème, c’est que ça prend du temps à former un géologue, au moins trois ans, et l’on en a besoin maintenant.
ASP — On parle souvent d’épuisement des ressources. Quelle est la situation au Canada?

MJ - Le Canada a des ressources immenses, mais il a négligé de les renouveler il y a une dizaine d’années. Ce qui fait que plusieurs mines importantes ont fermé et que la production a parfois baissé. Les découvertes actuelles laissent penser que nous rétablissons la situation. Il faut comprendre que la notion de ressources dépend du prix; quand les prix sont élevés, comme aujourd’hui, on peut exploiter beaucoup plus de ressources et mieux les gérer sur tous les plans.

ASP — Pensons-nous également économie durable en matière d’exploitation? Existe-t-il un virage vert?

MJ — Oui, très net, mais pas encore assez rapide. Les compagnies font des efforts; par exemple, des compagnies québécoises ont créé un fond pour nettoyer le Nord-du-Québec des déchets laissés par d’autres compagnies il y a longtemps. Il faut poursuivre cet effort et l’accélérer. Et il faut aussi responsabiliser l’ensemble du public en terme de gaspillage, de recyclage ainsi que de comportement économe d’énergie et de ressources.

Pour en savoir plus

22 avril, Journée internationale de la Terre :

http://ww2.earthday.net

2008, Année internationale de la planète Terre :

http://www.iypecanada.org

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No hay ninguna certeza acerca del parentesco entre los diversos pueblos llamados indoeuropeos. Lo único cierto es que lenguas muy distantes entre sí comparten raíces comunes. Como si hubiese existido un gran imperio, a la manera del romano, del que se hubiesen desgajado diversos pueblos. Una lengua común, pero tal vez ningún parentesco.

¿Podemos decir que existe, por ejemplo, un gran parentesco entre los españoles y los rumanos aparte de compartir una lengua latina? ¿Es que los franceses dejaron de ser mayoritariamente descendientes de la población galo romana cuando adoptaron para su nación el nombre de una tribu germana, la de los francos?

A menudo la lengua, más que facilitar la compresión de los movimientos migratorios y la composición étnica, la dificulta, escondiendo semejanzas y diferencias. La tardía conquista de Inglaterra por los sajones y la posterior conquista danesa hizo que lo que hoy sería un pueblo latino por su lengua haya pasado a considerarse, si no germánico, al menos sí anglosajón, a pesar de que cerca del 40% de su vocabulario es de origen latino. Otras veces, el que dos pueblos hablen una misma lengua puede esconder diferencias mayores, como en el caso de pueblos con gran componente indígena de la América latina, que se consideran pueblos latinos y más cercanos a España que los alemanes o los marroquíes, lo que quizá sea una incongruencia, sobre todo si nos referimos a indígenas aimaras o mayas.

En el caso de los indoeuropeos, no conocemos ese origen del que derivan sus lenguas, aunque se han hecho muchos intentos de reconstrucción. No sabemos si se trataba de una gran civilización o de un pueblo nómada, que se fragmentó y distribuyo por todo el mundo. Si los actuales pueblos indoeuropeos hubieran pertenecido a un imperio semejante al romano, un descubrimiento de tal naturaleza provocaría un asombro tal vez no igualado por ningún otro descubrimiento arqueológico.

Lo que sí sabemos es que entre las lenguas indoeuropeas se incluyen, las lenguas latinas, el griego, las lenguas celtas, las germanas, la de los hititas,el armenio, el sanscrito y otras lenguas de la india, decenas de lenguas iranias y la de los antiguos medos (que tal vez eran los actuales kurdos). Una enumeración asombrosa, sin duda.

Se conserva también mucho de la literatura original de estos pueblos y muchos antiguos mitos. En ellos se han encontrado semejanzas importantes, que no pueden atribuirse a la casualidad, como que en la India haya un dios cósmico llamado Varuna muy sejante al Ouranos griego, que los dioses de la guerra se llamen en la India Maruts, el dios griego Ares y el romano Mars/Marte. Que el Zeus griego tenga un equivalente indio llamado Dyaus Pitar y uno latino llamado Deus Pater.

La mitología comparada tiene en los pueblos indoeuropeos un campo de estudio apasionante, aunque no dudo que algo semejante se podría decir de los pueblos semitas, aunque tal vez la unificación bajo el Islam no ha permitido conservar muchas de esas tradiciones. La mitología comparada es más un arte que una ciencia, aunque se ayuda por la ciencia de la lingüística y la filología, así como por la arqueología y la historia. Pero sus practicantes se asemejan a menudo a detectives que intentan reconstruir piezas rotas, o un puzzle del que apenas quedan unas cuantas piezas. La comprobación de las hipótesis es difícil, porque no hay manera de ponerlas a prueba en experimentos decisivos. La mayor verosimilitud se consigue al construir un edificio coherente, en el que pequeños detalles son interpretados o reinterpretados, mostrando un nexo al principio sorprendente, pero que paso a paso va demostrándose más y más plausible. Naturalmente, puede darse el caso de que un descubrimiento arqueológico confirme alguna de estas teorías, pero, casi todas ellas deben su prestigio a la elocuencia de sus defensores y al consenso más o menos amplio y más o menos cambiante de los expertos en la materia.

El filósofo Bertrand Russell decía que a menudo pensaba que la filosofía era una rama de la literatura. Georges Dumézil, que fue el mayor experto en mitología comparada relacionada con los indoeuropeos, admitía que, como suele suceder a menudo en este campo, sus teorías podrían ser en el futuro refutadas por mejores investigadores, y todos sus descubrimientos negados y considerados mera fantasía. En ese caso, dijo, tampoco pasaría nada grave: bastaría con cambiar sus sus libros de estante, quitarlos del de la ciencia y ponerlos en el de la literatura.

Le climat menace la santé publique
Mélanie Robitaille, Agence Science-Presse

S’adapter aux changements climatiques ou réduire les émissions des gaz à effet de serre (GES)? Plus le choix, les deux! Même en exécutant deux fois le Protocole de Kyoto, les changements climatiques bousculeront la vie. Il faut donc se préparer dès maintenant. Il faut aussi limiter les dégâts.

“ Il n’y a plus de place au doute, les changements climatiques sont là ” répète Horacio Arruda, directeur de la protection de la santé publique. Aux Journées annuelles de santé publique tenues à Montréal en octobre, la session sur la santé et les changements climatiques s’ouvrait avec Alain Bourque, directeur Impacts et adaptation chez Ouranos. Ce consortium de chercheurs se dédie à l’étude de notre climat changeant et à notre nécessaire adaptation à ces changements.

S’adapter. Dans le concret, qu’est-ce que ça veut dire? “ Je ne peux pas vous donner de livre de recette ” dit Bettina Menne, directrice du programme Global Change and Health à l’Organisation mondiale de la santé. Selon elle, il faudrait une entente internationale qui engagerait les pays à protéger leurs populations contre ce qui s’en vient et ce qui arrive déjà.

Mais elle-même pense que c’est très improbable. Alors il faut des initiatives nationales. Des systèmes d’alarme climatique et des plans d’intervention conséquents devraient déjà exister, sauf que partout dans le monde, l’approche a jusqu’ici été réactive, pas préventive. Par exemple, la France a maintenant un plan d’intervention en cas de canicule. Mais il a fallu pour cela la vague de chaleur meurtrière d’août 2003.

Et surtout, il faut que les plans soient adaptés à chaque réalité régionale. Rien qu’au Québec, les régions du sud-ouest ont vécu des chaleurs beaucoup plus intenses que celles de l’Est ces 30 dernières années.

Préparer les infrastructures, Jean-Pierre Trudeau, conseiller en recherche à l’Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec, affirme que c’est désormais une obligation. Mais construire plus gros, plus fort, ça coûte plus cher. Veut-on une route qui pourra résister à une inondation majeure susceptible de survenir aux 30 ans ou préférons-nous la reconstruire chaque fois? Et si ces inondations arrivent 10 ans plutôt, est-ce que ça ne vaut pas le coût de bâtir des systèmes de drainage plus performants? Des choix de société sont à venir puisqu’on ne peut pas tout faire.

Déjà, le pergélisol du Grand Nord ne permet plus de supporter les bâtiments. Jean-Pierre Trudeau raconte qu’on doit recourir à des pilotis ou des systèmes de congélation du sol sous les gros immeubles pour assurer leur stabilité. Sur la Côte-Nord et en Gaspésie, l’érosion des berges force l’enrochement ou même l’expropriation. Les glaces, absentes en hiver, ne protègent plus les côtes des tempêtes. Les cycles gel-dégel s’accentuent. Là où le terrain reculait de 1 à 2 mètres par an, ça peut maintenant atteindre 10 mètres. Dans la région montréalaise, la baisse du niveau d’eau en été menace plusieurs prises d’eau dont celle de Rosemère dans la rivière des Mille-Îles. Il faut trouver des alternatives sans tarder.

Jean-Guy Breton, le maire de Lac-Etchemin, dénonce les incohérences de programmes d’aide à la reconstruction d’infrastructures endommagées par des catastrophes : pour être admissible, on doit les refaire exactement comme elles étaient. Or, sachant qu’elles n’ont pas su résister, c’est illogique de reconstruire identique! Il invite par ailleurs les gens de la santé publique à venir au congrès de l’Union des municipalités du Québec pour partager leurs connaissances.

Pour la réduction de l’émission de GES, l’Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont est cité en exemple pour son programme Ménagez vos transports mis en place en 2002 : il met en contact des gens pour le co-voiturage et défraie 15% de l’abonnement mensuel au transport en commun.

Selon Pierre Gosselin, l’animateur de la séance et médecin-conseil à l’Institut national de santé publique, la santé publique a un rôle de prescription, mais n’a pas le pouvoir de l’action. Il est aussitôt repris par Bettina Menne, qui affirme plutôt que les intervenants en santé publique ont le devoir d’informer et de conscientiser la population afin d’initier les actions. Elle profite de la synthèse de la séance pour demander aux gens présents leur engagement concret pour l’environnement. Horacio Arruda acquiesce. Et en plus de prendre le transport en commun, il annonce : “ on est commis. On va essayer de financer toutes les études pour l’action. ” Avec tous les chercheurs en santé publique dans l’assistance, ça ne tombera pas dans l’oreille de sourds…

Les îles se sentent petites

” Quand un ouragan approche les côtes américaines, la population est évacuée à 100 milles au nord. Si on faisait cela à l’île de Sainte-Lucie dans les Caraïbes, on se retrouverait dans l’eau. ” Patricia Aquing, directrice par intérim du Caribbean Environmental Health Institute, rappelle ainsi combien les petites îles des Caraïbes et du Pacifique ont des recours très limités en cas de perturbations environnementales. Leur santé publique est aussi menacée par le climat fou. Toutes les sphères de la santé sont touchées : maladies infectieuses venant de l’eau contaminée, de la nourriture, des rongeurs, des insectes, anxiété reliée au sentiment de vulnérabilité, affections dues à la chaleur intense, malnutrition après des périodes de sécheresse ou d’inondation, et même des problèmes respiratoires causés par… les poussières transportées du Sahara au-dessus de l’océan!

Textes sur l’environnement et commentaires du rédacteur sur l’environnement