While Washington recedes into it’s back rooms, Mother Nature has taken center stage. The week began with an awakened Mt. Redoubt volcano in Alaska and proceeded to record floods along the Red River. As this map shows, much of the nation can expect some level of flooding during the Spring runoff.
At the turning of the seasonal page it’s interesting that the politicians can’t hold the attention of the news cycle. It almost a relief to have the economic uncertainty displaced bigger forces which we have no control over.
In the midst of these stressors, Earth Hour was celebrated last night, gaining a great deal of attention in the blogosphere. Regardless of where you stand on global warming, reconnecting to the planet is clearly a task of our historical moment. It’s one of the possible values of moving out of the industrial society and into the information society.
One things for sure. I feel more related to the soil under my feet than the political systems that surround me. While our Presedent is rattling his saber toward the Afgan mountains, in these hills, the sap is running in the maple trees. I can sense it.
“At times I feel as if I am spread out over the landscape and inside things, and am myself living in every tree, in the splashing of the waves, in the clouds and the animals that come and go, in the procession of the seasons. There is nothing in the Tower that has not grown into its own form over the decades, nothing with which I am not linked. Here everything has its history, and mine; here is space for the spaceless kingdom of the world’s soul and the psyche’s hinterland.” Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams and Reflections, p. 225-226.
When Chris Brogan asked his readers to state their three guiding words for 2009, I offered water, fertilizer and sun. I was inspired by Beth Kanter and the effort she gave this task, so I’m going to break out three posts in succession, one for each word, to better focus my intent.
If our goal is to keep a garden productive, watering strategies become paramount. Water from the earth, water diverted from a nearby stream, water from the sky, all these are different sources that can be tapped to accomplish the goal. Often times water is understood as a symbol of the unconscious, and likewise it can be in found at a variety of outlets.
From within the earth: I often sense that the messages that come through dreams are sourced from the deep wells of being, or as Jung would say, the collective unconscious. Often times this water makes it to the surface only to recede again if we do not do the work to translate the images into a format that will stick in consciousness. Getting our dreams down in a narrative format fixes them in a way that they can be useful and developed. It takes some work to keep attention directed to these images so they can be useful.
From other streams: often times we discover sustaining imagery from the life streams of others, whether that be in conversation, books or the digital trail many are blazing on social media platforms. Reading needs to remain a priority while working to be a content provider.
From the sky: I like to consider how synchronicity impacts my existence as the rain that falls from the sky. There’s no reason that a certain random post in twitter will be there and have a certain effect in my life when they do, but they do. Many farmers in arid climates will put rain barrels to catch rain coming off roofs…that’s how I think of using the hundreds of feeds that bring information to my reader each day.
To take the “from the sky” image it to an entirely different level, here’s the tale of the “Rainmaker” that Carl Jung loved to share (as found in The Earth has a Soul, ed. by Sabitini)
The streams in these parts, tilting West out of the Catskills into the upper reaches of the Delaware River, love a hard rain. Throw down a couple of inches of rain per hour in any of these high valleys and a funneled momentum soon unleashes fury eager to carve away soil, tree, rock and especially any false human claims.
Winding out of Livingston Manor is the Willowemoc, which translates from the native Indian tounge as “the kettle that washes itself clean.” Much like the similar statements which flow out of the I Ching, the ancient Chinese text that assigns images by hexagrams to the forces and processes of Nature, these streams and rivers articulate messages from a voice beyond the human frame.
The hexagram “working on what is spoilt” encourages man to do what is necessary to remove the maggots from the sacred vessel. And the Willowemoc, when it moves to flood stage seems to both chastise us and show the way.
My family lives along a small feeder stream to Hankins Creek. A mile downstream from us construction workers are busy running a 30 inch natural gas pipeline from Hancock to Port Jarvis. They’ve descended on our area with more than a touch of arrogance, riding on a huge budget with the most powerful equipment at their disposal.
I chuckled driving past yesterday watching them scratch their heads as Hankins Creek unleashed its power, wiping out the temporary gravel ford they built to get their equipment across the water. The spirit of the creek mocked them for underestimating its power.
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