Redtree Times

Julius Caesar and the Crossing of the Rubicon, Francesco Granacci, 1494

What are these dark days I see?
In this world so badly bent
I cannot redeem the time
The time so idly spent
How much longer can it last?
How long can it go on?
I embrace my love, put down my hair
And I crossed the Rubicon

— Crossing the Rubicon, Bob Dylan

Alea iacta est

The die is cast.

Those were roughly the words Julius Caesar uttered before sending his troops south across the Rubicon River towards Rome. The Rubicon is a river, its waters tinged red from iron deposits, that once marked the boundary between Rome and its provinces. Crossing that boundary and bringing troops to Rome was outlawed by Roman law, considered an act of treason and insurrection. Julius Caesar’s decision to follow a course of treason set off a civil war that ended with his victory and ascendance as Dictator for life over the Roman Empire.

Crossing the Rubicon has become a well worn phrase since that time, representing a conscious act from which one cannot retreat from nor reverse.

The point of no return.

It is an action of great weight, one whose consequences often reverberate for great periods of time.

It feels like certain political leaders in this world have crossed the Rubicon several times in recent years and that as a result the world we once knew may soon exist only in memory.

The masses will live with the consequences from the conscious acts of a powerful few, those who saw the symbolic Rubicon before them and chose to cross it.

What those consequences will be are still to be determined and we do have a say in that outcome. That die is yet to be cast on that future.

It will be what we say it will be if we are willing to make it so.

For this Sunday Morning Music, here is a recent Bob Dylan song from 2020 that is custom made for this post. It’s Crossing the Rubicon.