Olive Branch: Peace By Changing Moods, Thus Logic, From Conflict, To Life.

Athena competed with Poseidon for possession of Athens. Poseidon claimed possession by thrusting his trident into the Acropolis, where a well of sea-water gushed out. Athena took possession by planting the first olive tree beside the well.

The court of gods and goddesses ruled that Athena had the better right to the land because she had given it the better gift.

Why are olive branches brandished to extend offers of peace? What does the olive branch represent? An Olive Branch consists of a meager branch to which are attached pretty silver-green leaves… illustrating life, and promising olives. Olives fed people, and those fruits also provided them with oil, the main oil of the Mediterranean region. The Olive Branch thus reminds people of the logic of agriculture, sustenance of trees, no less, spanning generations, providing the means for life… The exact opposite of the logic of war.

Olive tree branches above the Mediterranean Sea (Italy).

There are logics, and they are always entangled with moods, overwhelming emotional systems tied in to the underlying neurobiology itself.

This is true even in the foundations of physics: moods rule. For example, the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics claimed that the observer was the creator of reality. That overbearing mood had enormous consequences on the entire mentality, itself a logic, entangled with emotion, of the Twentieth Century.

Thus, there was no real reality, that Copenhagen mood claimed, only created interpretations, and, thus, implicitly, the Leader created the world. Ever since, Leaders have been ruling… disowning We The People of responsibility, and the desire to partake in information, let alone decision. 

However that entire logic, and the mentality attached to it, has just been revealed by a French physicist  to be erroneous. [1] 

The logic of this entire civilization, and the emotional roots it is entangled with, thus has to be changed. Back to real reality, instead of wishful thinking masquerading as real.

Athena’s Owl, symbolizing wisdom, surrounded by olive branches. Silver coin, Athens 200 BCE, French Coin Museum.

Changing logico-emotional systems of moods is what the Olive Branch does. Beethoven was aware that moods have to be changed forcefully to reestablish joy, and that, without it, nature’s breast was out of reach. As Ludwig put it in the 9th Symphony Ode to Joy:

“O friends, no more of these sounds!

Let us sing more cheerful songs,

More songs full of joy!

Joy!

Joy!

Joy, bright spark of divinity,

Daughter of Elysium,

Fire-inspired we tread

Within thy sanctuary.

Thy magic power re-unites

All that custom has divided,

All men become brothers,

Under the sway of thy gentle wings.

Whoever has created

An abiding friendship,

Or has won

A true and loving wife,

All who can call at least one soul theirs,

Join our song of praise;

But those who cannot must creep tearfully

Away from our circle.

All creatures drink of joy

At nature’s breast.”

A civilization is not just a bunch of buildings, a court, an army, and a few verses. It is, first of all, a collective mood. Forceful changes of logics is how one gets one’s smarts up high enough to survive.

The Olive Branch symbolizes the change of logic. From conflict, to the essence of life. [2]

At some point, the logic of conflict has to change to the logic of life. Waving an Olive Branch reminds us of life.

Now the Olive Branch needs to be brandished, not just to other People, but to Planet Earth Herself.

Patrice Ayme

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[1] (Michel Devoret is 66 year old, thus working at Yale University, escaping mandatory retirement in France.

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[2] The Bible captured later the Greek Myth. Olive branches are held by the right talon of the US Eagle, in the 1776 CE Great Seal of the USA (the left hold a fasces of arrows…)

 

Tags: Athena, Olive Branch