When I walk outdoors my scientific eye takes in the evolutionary wonders of trees and their genetic link to us humans. My artistic eye sees beauty and love in a swirl of poetic visuals.
The older I become and the deeper my understanding of the problems facing our world become, the more I am convinced that the cosmic story of creation presently preached in our churches, mosques and temples has to be changed to represent both a scientific and sacred/spiritual basis.
Myth is important, but only if it serves in the preservation of the whole web of life.
Will society descend into chaos where a future world is smashed apart by climate change, resource depletion, over population and pollution? A world fueled by fundamentalist economics, fundamentalist religions and couch potato denialists all scavenging for their own tribes’ survival?
In her book “Wild”, Jay Griffiths writes about her time with indigenous Peruvian indians. When their conversation comes around to creation myths, this is what an elder said about the Judeo/Christian/Islamic biblical account of creation:
“The trouble with Genesis? Not enough cunt”.
Those words of wisdom from the Peruvian elder clarified for me what the root problem with our western civilization is, why we’ve gotten into our current mess, and, a possible way out. The answer is simple: accept the fact that women hold up half the world and bring forth into this world through blood and pain every single one of us.
One of the most powerful of paintings that expresses this alternative creation story is Gustave Courbet’s Origin of the world. It brilliantly portrays in oils what an American woman was feeling when she held up a sign to protest against the Republican party’s more fundamentalist views on women. It read: “I did not come from a man’s side. He came from my vagina.”
One doesn’t need to travel great distances to other cultures and landscapes to find clues in how to relate in a constructive, knowing way to all that is. Wherever you are, just drop down on your knees in your tiny backyard and observe what is in your patch; look up into even a single tree to find your way back through time to our ancestral connections.
Humans share 3% of the same genetic code as trees. This scientific “knowing”, if coupled with the imaginative, felt, intuitive knowledge of tree, is what allows me to experience an “unquantifiable” yet valid biophilia for life.
I, therefore, look at the crotch of trees and see cunts everywhere.
By doing so I open myself up to the vividness of the imaginative process, giving me ample fuel for art; art, that I hope helps heal our human relationship to this earth.
Art that is as expressive as this bronze dancing dakini.
About the birth of her son, author Melanie Challenger writes: “Somewhere between the appearance of the crown and my deep concentration, the pain alters. I experience, for a moment, the pulse of everything, the reason for the tides and the seasons.”
The animal visceral quality of our birth process is what should be celebrated in any creation story. A story of our original blessing, not original sin.
To honour the sacredness of the vulva is to take part in all that is holy.
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