Lou Gold wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 10:54 pm
AshvinP wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 9:58 pm
Lou Gold wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 9:44 am
Actually, I found the image rather interesting because the confusion of a plantation with a forest is already an application of a mechanistic efficiency model (here focused on industrial lumber production), which is already a significant departure from the forest soul as a living interconnected reality. Yes! The trees are still living but the ecosystem and living conditions have been vastly reduced by seeing the trees as objects/products. To see the extremes this industrial model can and has been carried to one need only look at the factory farmed living cows, pigs and chickens in
Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations -- CAFOs.. I don't think that what has been lost here is so much the human soul connection as the human animal connection, a topic that is well treated by the eco-philosopher David Abram in his
Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology.
Lou,
Do you see how the complete focus on the outer forms of these things is ignoring the soul dimension, both animal and human? It is true the industrial model does not account for any of these connections either, but the question is, how do
we start accounting for them in our own experience without intellectual models of how the world 'really is'? Cleric was using the image as a
symbol to illustrate a point about our relation to the perceptual world we see around us, but the point is lost or, at least, completely obscured from view if we instead choose to focus on the outer nature of the image itself, whether it is a plantation, natural forest, etc.
Ashvin,
Thank you for joining into what I worried might be a side trail to your main theme. I surely grok the uses of symbols. One of my most profound perceptual experiences occurred simply by walking along (in a non-altered state) reciting, "Everything I see is a symbol of consciousness." By the time I entered a modern supermarket the transformations had become as strong as what I remember of my decades-earlier LSD adventures. Definitely an, "OH WOW!" One way to describe this state might as "mindful" but it need not be spectacular or extraordinary, it can be ordinary and fully engaged in the present moment. But, YES, perceptions relate to models and meanings relate to stories and practicing awareness of inner and outer life in balance in the present non-VR moment seems essential. I'm not a Buddhist but I find the
"Ten Love Letters to Mother Earth" of Thich Nhat Hanh to be a stellar example of engaging with life/death, inner/outer, past/future as fully engaged in the present moment.
Lou,
Not a problem. All side thought-trails can lead back to Zion if we try hard enough
I think this will be the most challenging issue for people, especially young people - the question of what it means to be "proactive" in the world and "take a stand" against the forces which threaten to continue fragmenting us from each other, from Nature, and from the Cosmos. Even as I sit here now, there is a distinct feeling that all I can see around me is solid, concrete, actionable, useful, etc., while my ideas, even the most well-reasoned and holistic ones, lack efficacy in the world. When we get to the level of soul-forces, most of which escape my conscious intellect, forget about it. There is a sense that my logical reasoning, perhaps even my Imagination, is powerless in the face of the 'mighty' sense-world. My most conscious thoughts about the Cosmos feel weak and feeble, let alone my mostly subconscious imaginations, inspirations, and intuitions.
Yet there are dire circumstances all around the world, and within my own culture and communities, so it seems the only logical options are to market my own ideas, advertise them, write books, join an activist group, form a political action committee, take to social media, and perhaps even take more extreme measures in the sense-world. It has already proven the greatest challenge for people to resist these tendencies over the last 100 years. The monstrous forces which erupted in the world wars, the communist revolutions, the genocides, etc., are still with us and bubbling ever closer to the surface. To turn inwards and look into the soul-spirit depths seems the most unhelpful thing at a time like this. This is the mental habit we need to break and it is much easier said than done. For every post we write here, 90% isn't read, 90% of what is read is not understood, 90% of what is understood is understood in the most abstract way, etc.
One thing I have noticed is that people of all metaphysical and spiritual persuasions are looking for shortcuts and easy fixes. Take John Michael Greer, the Archdruid. He is eloquent, brilliant, insightful, and very spiritually-oriented, but anything that speaks of grinding out a better world through the gradual climb of our own spiritual evolution is equated to "myth of progress", while his quick magical fixes are the way to navigate the collapse. We
know this is not the way the Cosmos works when we encounter it. I check the weather each day because I know, no matter how much I say, "it is all manifestations of Consciousness and I am One with this Consciousness", there is no willing the storms away, and I suspect magical rituals will not do the trick either, at least not in any overall healthy and productive way.
The only way which
makes sense to my Reason is the one born of patience, persistence, clear thinking, gratitude, and good will, yet my senses, reinforced by our sense-based enviroments, keep telling me none of these things have real power in the world. Who am I to trust? It will take great and constant vigilance to navigate this minefield. Yet I can at least take heart in the fact that others have done it before me and others are doing it with me, including right here on this forum.