Uncivilization.
What does it mean to me?
To make something out of it, I must first lift the shroud on civilization a tiny bit. It is funny: We all talk about being "civilized" and being proud of it. What does that mean?
We do not fart or burp in public, we do not have sexual intercourse in public, we do not go nude, there are restrictions on gestures and obscenities, we MUST go shopping, we MUST have this and that (try telling your employer you have no TV nor personal computer nor radio or even a newspaper abonnement and you get a picture). It is smiled upon being religious or believing anything, Christianity as well as Muslim belief, and laughed at being witch or druid, shaman or whatever. It is even worse with Buddhists, for they are instrumentalized by the wellness industry (as are Taoists). There are taboos and restrictions everywhere and yet we live in the most liberal of societies, meaning, you will not be persecuted for trespassing, not as gravely as could possibly be. Latin "civitas" meaning citizenship, controls by social measures the individual. It is commonly feared being tauted as antisocial, and we are led to believe that "the system" is right and righteous. While it has succeeded in providing the minority of middle Europeans and Americans with a relatively long period of peace and prosperity, it was achieved by a grave price to be paid, and we lived on a loan.
The European union, for instance, was founded in the belief of its stability. Do not take me wrong. If countries collaborate with each other, that is a good thing. Open frontiers might be disputeable, but for the most part, we benefited by it. The concentration upon economical profit of the few, however, has led to a financial crisis that might as well be a death blow towards the whole system. This is so because the union achieved rested upon economical values alone, and no union of the actual people. This is so because of the belief in the almighty financial standard set by bankers, brokers and other wizards and high priests of economy. Do not get me wrong: I am no dewy-eyed dreamdancer most of the time, but there´s one thing I might ask (as a man with a historical approach to ontology) to illustrate the culprit.
We postulate a sacral meaning in archaeological finds of, say the bronze age, when the ritual tool might as well have been, say, an umbrella stand. What, then, would following cultures postulate when they excavate the interior of a bank, pompous and megalomanic as is? With all that marble and brass and glass and fancy furniture? Just asking.
This system, however powerful, has reached its limit. Nothing wrong with that, shit happens, and it has happened before in history. What actually IS wrong, is that the whole bubble that´s now bursting was built on lies in the first place. And although I do not want to offend anyone´s beliefs, it was the predecessor of Mammonism who set the groundwork for the methodology of lying and advertising. I daresay the example of Galileo Galilei might do as an illustration. Nothing wrong with modifying opinions. If I´d learn the Earth were round while I thought it a disc my whole life, I´d have a discussion, and maybe then modify my opinion. That this is not only due to the almighty Enlightment movement, anyone can learn from the works of Platon and other philosophers, where there was a culture of discourse BEFORE the time of Galileo Galilei, and the manuscripts were available at that time. What did the church (I am talking church, not Christians) do? They burned him. I guess there are many kinds of problem solutions, and this has to be one.
Another example as to advertising is that most Christian churchs are built upon the sites of ancient pagan temples (The Kölner Dom in Cologne is an example). Many Christian fairs have a pagan background, as chrismas (Jul) and Easter (Ostara). They were chosen for a recognition effect. Then unique selling points were created. And negative stimuli were established.
I want to emphasize that I do not speak against Christians (once more). I only use this to illustrate the point, and Christianity is in the same treadmill as any belief other than that in the superiority of the economic system. Jesus himself threw the merchants out of the temple in Jerusalem, and we might at that. And Jesus was a man who spoke his word in a world where this was not wished for and where one could be punished far more gravely than we can nowadays. So my respect goes to Him and the God he stands for, even if it were for these things alone.
But all this does not work anymore, for we simply cannot tell the truth from the lies by rationalism alone, for rationalism in itself is (partly) a lie. We are not exclusively rational beings, and the so-called ratio we employ is just a disguise for our greed, our hate and envy, and those seem to be the pillars on which the system rests. These pillars have been tauted as "Evil" by cultures and myths ever since the first story was told.
If that is so, we have - as rationalists, and true rationalists at that only one option:
To postulate that we cannot know and tell the truth by secondary reception through opinions and the force-fed propaganda of a system built on lies.
If that is so, and we want to think on, we have no choice but to ask what value is still current.
I have chosen the path to go back into myself, into the woods of my soul, into the twilight. Any truth, I found out, has to be simple enough to be reduced to the max. What does that mean? First I have to ask the big questions:
I was born. What was before?
I live. Where am I headed?
I love. How do I make the most of my life and my love?
I die. What will be then?
It is a question of fear. Man is but another animal, but an ill-equipped one with no claws or decent teeth, but with an abnormous degree of self-reflection. And hubris, by the way. And we know that we will die. All culture is based upon that fear, all religion and all myth is based on the passing of life and the coming of death, and Mammonism feeds on that fear and its more complex subdividions.
- being not loved
- having no sense in life
- having no income and material prosperity (ultimately the fear of starvation)
- becoming sick and therefore weak
... and so forth.
If we as individuals work on our fears, we rid the system of a means of control over us. I am an ugly, fat, balding bastard with a funny stature, and yet I am loved by a beautiful woman:**ggg*. I have no TV, no playstation, and my bike is soon on the verge of collapse, but if I can´t afford it anymore, what the heck, I love hiking, too. I cannot afford hiking boots, so what, I´ll make myself some mocassins or walk barefoot.. When hiking, I know some plants to eat, fruit and other natural edibles to collect. I have a strong and deep belief, and I know my soul is far older than this life, I now know it to a degree that can only be described as exstasy. I am a poet, and while I am afraid to die, I am not afraid of Death anymore. I love life a lot, but there can be rest behind the dead, blank, wall... and I suspect there is a garden of twilight behind.
And even if all that were idle thoughts, I would simply refuse to do as told.
And I am angry at the system, for it shits on everything that is holy to me. Friendship, courtesy, love, respect, care, the soul, and even the body.
I want to fight it, for it is the Grey, that I will fight, "Vrtreach the Cursed", omnipotent though as it seems. Is there hope?
There are many of us out there, not only in the the dark mountain movement, but bushcrafters, storytellers, craftsmen, artisans. And we have dreams, and life, and virility, for we are not entirely bundled up by the system. We can always discover the wilderness within, the world of myth and creativity. "Die Gedanken sind frei!" (Thoughts cannot be restricted).
But what is that wilderness within? How could we possibly retrogress? Shall we live as apes in the trees, feeding on bananas?
To me, there is darkness, a darkness different from the twilight within, but generated by it through misinterpretation. It is a challenge of the collective soul that we must face. There are helpful psychological properties we can rely on, though-we must not go without guidance.
To me, the figure of Telesphoros in the Jungian interpretation means a lot. C.G. Jung had a distinct opinion towards spirituality. He estimated belief and spirituality as crucial for the mental and physical well-being of the individual. The current crisis of meaning in post-everything society can also be a chance. The Telesphor to me always has the function of a psychopomp. He is the eternal child, guiding the path into the deep and the twilight, "playing a board game like a child, the kingdom of children", and he leads the way "to the land of dreams". We all have this land within our souls. The otherworld is always connected to our world via the chord of our sould, and it has never ceased to commune with us-it was us who ceased to listen. It is still there, in the woods, in the experience of deep flow in forest environments:
D. Flow (Csikzentmihalyi) involves high-stakes outcomes, high intensity, intrinsic motivation, balance of demands and abilities, merging of awareness and action, absorption into the activity, present-centeredness, healthy loss of ego (or ego-boundaries), and self-transcendence. It is a primary characteristic of optimal mental health, and Flow is characteristic of many nature encounters, both nearby and wilderness-based. Mitchell shows its connection to mountaineering and, presumably, many kinds of wilderness experiences: "The mountains offer the antithesis of alienation; they offer the potential for flow." Goleman argues that meditation fosters Flow and uses this concept to explain a variety of effects and experiences of meditation.
Since I take Flow and the concept of Sartori, as well as the term Eucharist / Eu-Kairos
and the Druidic concept of the Awen as being if not identical, but motivated by a similar experience, and all those concepts offer strategies to reach it, and strategies there are, important to master the crisis, for this experience is a direct link to the subconscious. To reach it can rid myself of all the lies I have been force - fed, of all the names society forces us to fight upon. One could say I follow the psychopomp, the eternal child-and it is a very actual inner child, as you can see in this blog;-)- into the deep, symbolized by the cauldron of virility, the dark and fertile Earth. No lies here, but the real cake. To become uncivilized, we must follow our inner child and let loose. We must listen to the wizard in ourselves, the sage, the warrior and the dragon as well as the beast, especially the latter. We have been told our inner animal were evil. And that might be the case if it were about ravaging. But the Hornéd God is NOT the devil burning and roasting souls in the purgatory. The substance of the latter I very much doubt, if one pope can simply uncreate it, and there are so many lies, I simply cannot tell if either concept be true. What I CAN tell, however, is the unpersonal experience of ultimate inspiration by flow / satori / awen / eucharist / eu-kairos / meta - kairos, and from that cauldron an endless flow of myths and stories, of essays and pictures and knives is flowing, of feelings, psychic and corporeal sensations. By allowing them, I feel much more whole than I have ever felt before, and I feel capable to love. I love people, I love the Earth with all her animals and plants, I love the stars. This is the way of the Hornéd God, gentle as a stag and treading lightly upon the Earth, the lover, but also the hunter, and the prey at the same time. He, in turn, is but a spirit of the Earth, embedded in the law of the universe, and do I understand a black hole? There certainly is the ONE. But this GOD is so grand I cannot begin to imagine his grandeur, and I can imagine a lot of things. But I must not. I must not give it names, as long as it is there for good. I CAN talk to spirits, and I will not burn in hell for it. They are smaller, more intelligible entities, items of the Law of the universe that I can understand. To me, there is not "Thou shalt not make images of the Lord, your God", but rather "Thou cannot". And it is not that "thou shalt not have other Gods other than me", but "thou cannot". With terror I look into the abyss. The void between the stars dwarfs any human concept of hell and heaven at the same time. And at the same time it dwarfs the feeble efforts of a mad system, and even my fears, and even my death. And , here finally comes the culprit, I can allow my soul being a part of it. And with that power of the otherworld, the virile essence of the eternal cauldron, the abyss of inspiration, I can forge the sword that will not be the doom of tank and rocket, but the doom of the idea of tank and rocket, of whip and credit card alike.
And forging this sword I will. I will put on "that mask of burning gold" (W.B. Yeats) and the mantle set with stars. I will forge the blade in my spine to even finer delicacy, and I will allow my dragon to spread its wings. And fly. Above the ground and deep into the Earth, the rich and fertile soil. In forests deep will I wander as a stag, as a fox and a hare. I will feel the lust of the running deer and the fury of the wild boar.
I will allow my lust and my rationalism, my anger and my love. I will be giggling and crying and dancing and fighting and making peace. I will destroy, and I will heal.
Thus, or so I believe, the curse can be broken.
