
“ . . the accelerated and unprecedented
aggression against Mother Earth, namely the environment, especially since the
second half of the twentieth century.” Forum for a New World Governance [HERE]
“Tennessee
Official Says Complaining About Water
Quality Could Be Considered 'Act of Terrorism.’ ” [HERE]
"Fracking is exempt from
federal regulations to protect water quality , . .” [HERE]
One
of the TED GROUPS themes, was:
"Will
humans ever be reintegrated into the holistic, interconnected universe in which
we exist?"
This statement, or question is essentially
flawed. It suggests, or makes a dualistic statement, that "humans"
have been inhabiting a separate, aparheid-style universe, into which they must
be "reintegrated". According to most
systems of mysticism, All is One, and God, or the Gods, is/are All
Pervading. Thus within the Body of God, Hitler, Nagasaki, Hiroshima, the
Concentration Camps, and all the atrocities, must exist as well. Or, must we
accept, that it is logical - that a separate universe exists for so-called Evil - . . .
and we can inhabit our Purer than the Whitest Snow Universe without any
shame. Watching Marie Louise von Franz, in her filmed series, The Way of The Dream - we can see, a la the Jungian perspective, evidence
of this titanic fault line in so-called Western conscious, not to mention its
more unsavoury fundamentalisms in the Religions of the People of the Book. We
do not want to admit that this collective shadow exists until it is too late
and it erupts into some form of genocide. Humans have always been integrated
into the holistic universe . . . warts
and all. Samten de Wet
just thought of
throwing a work of Art, into this discourse, from an English novelist, Mervyn
Peake. In his novel, Mr Pye, Mr Pye
struggles with growing angel wings, when he is good, and devil's horns when he
is bad. The two poles are eventually reconciled. Read the book. A similar
fusion takes place at the deepest levels of alchemical imagery - when the Rebis
appears - the Divine Androgyne. We also see the Androgyne in Hinduism, and in
Tibetan Buddhism another form of reconciled dualism - the YAB/YAM. Recently, I
posted an interview with Jacob Needleman where he talked about
"psychological starvation" of the masses. The vacuity of theological
& ideological discourse suppresses these deeper layers of the psyche,
wherein, we may perchance, find images that are healing, and reconciling, and
reintegrating. Of course, the last word also brings us to dis-integrating . . .
and we see so many manifestations of this process in the world today, e.g. the
wide spectrum of liberation movements, pulling away from the centre, even in
Spain. Again, from mythological material, we have dismembering and
re-membering. After all, Jesus said Forgive them for they KNOW NOT what they
DO! As a Buddhist I see this as ignorance - avidya . . not-seeing, not knowing.
This mass nescience is one of the greatest problems of the day. In order to
advance into the future, we have as C.G. Jung said, to DIG ! In the Biblical
image - we have sold our divine birthright for a mess of pottage . . . this
material shithouse, is also devoid of imagination. The world is suffering
because of a lack of imagination in solving the problems before us. The writer
Jules Cashford outs it this way:
“It is impossible to define Imagination since the only definition we
can make is that we are far from it when we talk about it. It is perhaps a
power so ultimate that only its own numinous images can call it forth, as
though we have, as it were, to ask the Imagination to imagine itself. We might
say that whenever there is numinosity – a coming alive of divine presence –
literally, the “nod” or “beckoning” of a god – whenever an image becomes
translucent to a reality beyond itself, we are in the presence of Imagination.
The images that come towards us – as divinities, daimons, soul-birds, angels,
geniuses, muses – are all figures who bring messages from afar or beyond, from
the heights or the depths – the realms where consciousness may not go, yet on
which it rests and through which it grows. “Wisdom first speaks in images,” W.
B. Yeats, says.”
The woven ideas above, may bear some fruit if amplified.
Samten de Wet
Sources: MERVYN PEAKE
Jules Cashford,
The Myth of the Messenger, ARAS Connections, Issue 3, 2011
Yeats, W.B. Essays and Introductions, The Macmillan
Press, 1961, London, p. 95.
""Nature
and human beings are not separate. You can be sure that when the land and
creatures are wounded by humans, that those humans are copying their own
psychic wounds into the earth and animals as well; what is wounded and without
thought, wounds others..." from essay "Massacre of the Dreamers, in Untie The Strong Woman" Dr Clarissa Pinkola
Estés
"The wounding of land and creatures reaches to the dream world... and
beyond it to impoverish the dreamers as well. Yet there is still time to
intervene... but the time is right this instant..." ibid Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estés
George Monbiot, The Smith and the Devil, January 1,
1994
Christian Van Minnen