The Search for a New Mythology (2)

 Adam and Newton: The Apple and the Fig

 

The current age desperately needs a new mythology. We’ve inherited ways of looking at the world that no longer work, that are unsustainable and have toxic consequences. We still live under the influence of paradigms that are centuries or millennia old, paradigms that are unable to provide us with the insights and tools necessary to lead a life in balance, a life worth living.

Two primary myths dominate and structure Western consciousness in unhealthy ways. The first comes from our Middle-Eastern heritage. Whether religious or not, Christian, Muslim, Jewish (or not), we have grown up influenced by the worldview of tribal enmity adopted by warring desert peoples thousands of years in the past. Beyond the irrationality of original sin and the pervasive guilt (or outright child abuse) this doctrine has instigated, much of Western culture continues to give allegiance to a mythology that 1) ignores the science of the day –  evolution, global warming, systems theory, the insights of psychology, etc.,  2) denies any central role of the feminine in creation… 3) feels threatened by nature, and 4) is hostile or indifferent toward the living earth.

There may be historical reasons for this – periods of strife with older goddess and earth-based cultures with totemic and animal deities – but millennia steeped in this mythology has damaged our relationship to the feminine, the earth, and our bodies. And it limits and suppresses the possibility of sacred communion with all the non-human aspects of creation.

 

The Judeo-Christian god is not here. “Our Father” lives somewhere else, neither on nor within the earth. He inhabits an abstract zone called heaven, and – unlike the great mother, Gaia – he’s unreachable and unattainable within life. Our interaction and union with God (the source of everything sacred) happens in an after-life, only when we have left this sensuous world behind.

Over centuries, as this mythology came to dominate the Western world, the earth and all things earthly became unsanctified, foul, dis-grace-ful. Physical, sensual reality – instinct, sexuality, the body, and pleasure… everything that makes up our primal experience of life – was judged to be dangerous and evil. The Great Mother’s qualities and beingness – soiled and dirty – were turned into epithets. Crusades and jihads were launched; primal peoples slaughtered; witches, druids, and homosexuals burned at the stake. The old gods of indigenous or matriarchal cultures that represent a fecund and fertile life and a connection to our animal powers were – like Snake – detested and turned into villains, while others – like Pan – became incorporated into images of Satan, the horned and cloven-hoofed demon.

 

The second guiding myth of modern times is scientific rationalism. Galileo, Copernicus, the Renaissance… The battles of the 16^th and 17^th centuries led to a dividing up of territory – the Church became ruler of spiritual life and matters of the soul, while science was given authority over the physical universe. Though quantum physics has left the intellectual revolution of the 1600’s far behind, we still live in a psychic and linguistic world defined by the theories and discoveries of Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes, and others.

In this cosmology, the world is no longer dirty or evil, but it’s dead — ultimately a grand and complicated machine. It is a mechanism – like a clock – and mechanisms lack sentience, intelligence, and soul. These qualities are reserved for humans only, whose destiny and proper role is to mold and use creation for their (our) self-interest. The cosmos — defined as physical reality — lacks consciousness; therefore, it cannot be sacred. The rest of existence – plants, animals, the biosphere (and oftentimes primal, non-civilized peoples) – is comprised of lesser life forms, and their rights and welfare carry less weight in our calculations. Nature – no longer Source – becomes resource, and it has value only to the extent it serves and is useful to humans.

 

In this mythology, reason is the highest faculty, a faculty that precedes and defines existence itself: “I think, therefore I am.” Rational thought is what makes humans special. All other forms of knowing the world – sensing, feeling, empathy, imagination – are secondary or even suspect. Sensory life, possessed in common with the animals, is judged as base and primitive. The world of feeling – unmanageable and unsettling – gets in the way of rational discourse. And imagination is, of course, unreal and a waste of time. Stop dreaming and pay attention!

Within this paradigm, the standard of knowledge and pre-eminent form of thought is scientific examination, based on objective, repeatable experiments. Experiments must be objective, for they concern objects, parts of the machine. The scientist must remain a neutral observer, uninvolved… separate, disconnected, and unrelated to the world “he” is exploring. Being neutral requires disengagement. He/she cannot participate, be involved, be part of the process. Trained to live in the head and not the world, like the detached and distant deity. “he” stands above and outside the interactions of all the dead or lesser parts of creation that judgement is passed upon. This “objective neutrality” has long been the prescription for teaching at most universities, and we – whether walking along a trail in the wilderness or crossing a crowded city street – are mostly attuned to an internal dialogue and living in our heads

Run with me back to the Garden

We’ll eat its fruit and dance a jig…

Forever free, unashamed, unpardoned.

Of Adam’s apple and Newton’s fig

        … to be continued.