space for the sacred
an inter-faith garden design
jayme melrose
ineffable@riseup.net
nov 28, 2006
table of contents
intention
the garden
introduction
the pathways
thematic organization
the center
elements
entering
in the East
in the South
in the West
in the North
in the center
throughout
somewhere
things omitted
signage
general
entering
in the East
in the South
in the West
in the North
in the center
throughout
somewhere
works cited
intention
My intention is to design (and manifest) a garden that offers possibilities for sacred experiences. Using a combination of plant, path, sculpture and sign, small pilgrimages can be made through a multi-dimensional space of life and symbol. Labyrithine paths weave towards a center dome which offers a space for a multiplicity of worship and practice. Symbolism, iconography, and reference from many spiritual traditions guide the pilgrim through diversity and unity.
The design as follows can be used freely by anyone with good intentions, in piece or in entirety.
Before manifestation, consultation with the local spiritual communities should occur to insure that the symboligies and arrangements are conducive to everyone’s engagement. Ideally, a community design process is used to bring all interested persons and groups together. It is important for everybody to be given the chance to name themselves, to be represented and with their own voice; instead of speaking for others, lets allow people to speak for themselves. Through the sharing of process and discussion education, understanding, and community can be fostered. The communal investment of love and time will make the garden sacred above everything else.
It is my hope to manifest a garden that offers glimpses of the sweet sacred in each of the represented spiritual traditions, fostering affection, understanding, and accessability for ‘Others’. I wish for it to be a space where people can go into, talk to god/God/Goddess/etc, be inspired, shed tears of joy and/or sorrow, engage directly and indirectly with the sacred, and be in community.
Some things may be problematic, such as overt references to sexuality and queerness. I hope everyone can take a position of acceptance, embracing diversity. Let’s work with love; let’s all name ourselves; let’s love and honor what we love and honor, and work towards creating beauty. Holding this in mind, dialogue between groups during the community design process, hopefully, can organize the garden according to the needs of the community in a way that eliminates problematic conventions, or places them into a contextual distance. Anything knowingly omitted should be acknowledged at least. I pray that all parties involved work from hearts brimming with creative love.
In the building of the garden, the least amount possible of petroleum energy should be used, including material transportation. (Petroleum energy is ideally used only to retrieve or contain energy already invested, such as welding recycled metals into a functional long-term use.) As much as possible use biological resources, native species, natural patterns, renewable energies, and recycled materials. I hope for the local Indigenous community to be involved, especially, perhaps, with siting and aligning the garden.
Creative Commons, some rights reserved. Email me and respond, suggest, expand or critique. Please pass on to anyone you know who might help create such a space. How wonderful would it be to have more and more across the nation, all regionally variable!
the garden introduction
What constitutes a sacred place? Where does one find such a space? Mircea Eliade describes in his “System of the World” that a) a break occurs in the homogeneity of space, b) this forms an opening for c) connection to higher forces of the cosmos, forming an axis mundi, d) around which the known world turns (37). In the colloquial, there is daily life, oft called the mundane, the profane, the daily grind; our bodies can numb and our senses shut down.
The healing traditions of yoga, massage, dance, etc., speak of opening ourselves up to breathing, sensing, letting go, and experiencing. Through opening connection to ‘source’ is possible. I think of whirling dervishes, of moments in the forest, of the alter during mass; these moments or places of connection form an axis mundi, an axis around which the world turns. This sensation or realization of deep connection is sacred experience. And then, inevitably, our gaze is re-directed back outward, to the mundane, profane, daily grind.
This description of the world appeals to me in how it positions sacred experience as a circular part of life, not only horizontally but vertically as well, directing our gaze up and larger, then back down and out, to return around again. This description also allows for polysemy: the process may be experienced in either primarily a space or time context, and as either a communal or personal experience.
The physical layout of the garden will accentuate Eliade’s description of the world. The garden is shaped as a circle, with four main gates aligned to the four directions. These entrances are ‘guarded’ by large sculptures of recycled and welded metal that act to break the homogeneity of space/time. On and throughout these, guardian symbols from many different faith traditions can be incorporated; gothic gargoyles, Japanese temple-guarding dogs, fierce Hebrew cherubium, and the cute little dudes from the movie Princess Mononeke are some possible examples.
These creatures and the gates serve the dual function of guarding the sacred space from ‘evil spirits’, and warning the pilgrims to shed their egos and defense mechanisms. Shedding the ego (the outward sense of self we hold on to, the projected face of who we hope the world sees us as, the stories we tell of ourselves and others to make sense of ourselves, also called our illusion) is also a reoccurring theme in spiritual discourse. The recycled metal sculptures can play with metaphors of scraping the ego away as we pass, as though our egos belong with the constructed and produced elements of the world as do metal and modernity. I imagine these metal sculptures as jaggedly peaked and made of many pieces, emphasizing the idea of breaking or splintering.
The quest for the sacred finds a long history in humanity. “[B]orn of desire and belief,” (Morinas, 1) people have been known to traverse great distances on pilgrimages to in “pursuit of the ideal” (Morinas, 2). Throughout this paper I will refer to guests of the garden as ‘pilgrims’. In doing so I may run the risk of preemptively glorifying the garden, but, if the garden is indeed manifested through a community design process, it has the potential of being a community repository of spiritual ideals ( Morinas, 5) and the people journeying through can be called pilgrims by proxy.
Passing through the ego-scraping forest of metal and guardians, a few meters must be traversed before the garden opens to the pilgrim. For both entrance and exit, this acts as a liminal phase of pilgrimage, of the time of being in between, or in transition. This buffer zone between the sacred and the mundane allows people some time to process and prepare for the steps beyond.
An undulating border of hedges obscures a clear vision of the center dome to where the pilgrim is drawn. The hedges frame the circle of the space. Passing through them the garden opens to us, an expanse of color, texture, and path. In their vibrancy the plants create air inspiring us to deepen our breathing, further opening our chests, lungs and hearts. The primary goal of the garden is to encourage people to open themselves up, if even for a moment, to a heightened awareness with greater mindfulness.
the pathways
From the four gates, the paths curve inwards. Though neither a proper maze nor labyrinth, the paths allow for circumambulation, guided wanderings, and a process of moving towards the center. The garden’s layout is based on the chlorophyll molecule. As the building block of all life, plants have evolved the ingenious capacity to translate solar radiation into physical manifestation that creates the atmosphere we all need to survive, as well as the food that all creatures use either directly or indirectly. In the garden layout the pathways are the connections between, intersecting where the component molecules are situated, marked by labeled tiles or stones embedded in the earth.
Figure 1. Diagram of a chlorophyll molecule, Figure 2. Diagram of garden layout,
taken from (http://metallo.scripps.edu/promise/chlb_s.gif) Based on chlorophyll molecule.
The inspiration for using the chlorophyll molecule came from Starhawk’s book, The Earth Path, in which she offers a new ontological story based on our scientific knowledge of the evolution of life on the planet but told as a creation myth in which the Goddess (creativity incarnate) is playing with elements as though drawing pictures in the sand.
Placing the magnesium atom in the center loosely connected to four nitrogen, and supported by carbon combonations, the magnesium began to vibrate when touched by sunlight, creating a transference of energy into the connecting atoms. None other but this twelvefold symmetrical pattern seems capable of such energetic translation (Lawlor, 5).
In mythological thought, “twelve most often occurs as the number of the universal mother of life” (Lawlor, 5). This idea existed long before the technology was created to visually experience this miraculous construction, revealing the possibility of “geometrical knowledge as innate in us” (Lawlor, 9). This layout fulfills a number of patterns I was inspired to use, such as mandalas, Islamic geometric patterns, labyrinths, and concentric circles. Using the chlorophyll inspired shape concentric circles are imbricated, as well as the idea of a matrix, or interconnected web which is not linear nor hierarchical.
The essence of sacred space in many ways is cosmography, the mapping of the cosmos. As Eliade describes in the iconic function of sacred space, “sacred spaces are natural maps that provide direction to life and a shape to the world”, especially the existential (530). As Steve Higgins pointed out when speaking of Buddhist mandalas, external forms are analogous to internal states and process.
The circular mandalas of Buddhism are echoed throughout India, Tibet, Islam, and medieval Europe through the form of a circle and a square divided into four quadrants showing difference, interrelation and unity (Lawlor, 16). They are most often symbolically cosmological, representing the organization of the elements of the cosmos as a unified whole.
This garden then is an attempt to create a cosmic map that incorporates elements of multiple known cosmologies, both spiritual and scientific, ancient and modern. The framework of the chlorophyll molecule encased in a circle reflects the ‘squaring of the circle’, sacred geometry of number and pattern, scientific knowledge of molecular constructions, and ancient wisdoms.
Overlaying the chlorophyll-inspired layout is a medicine wheel theme.
The garden is divided into four main quadrants aligned with the four directions as is the medicine wheel. The organization that I have used for the medicine wheel is based on West Coast Indigenous cultures that I have experienced; organizations differ widely even throughout North America; again, consultation with the local Indigenous populations should occur to choose the most appropriate correlations.
The organization that I have chosen to work with is: North – winter, dreaming, Indigenous and ancient UK traditions, white, stone, alder and tamarack, and moss; East – spring, Asia, bright, wood, yellow, ginko, and poetry; South – summer, chaos, vibrant lushness, Pagan, Wiccan, and ancient European traditions, corn, red, berries; and West – autumn, black, Western traditions and the Abrahamic three, elder and apple trees.
thematic organization
The four gates allow for the garden to be loosely organized into four main sections though not distinctly divided.
The path leading in from the East will highlight some of the wisdoms and traditions of Asia; the South will play with the fecundity and fertility of Goddess worship, of systems theory, postmodernism, and of Dionysis; Apollo, geometry and the Abrahamic three will be referenced in the Western quadrant; and in the North, stones reminiscent of Inukshuks and ancient European megaliths will be combined with cosmographical indicators.
This paper provides a list of elements and quotes that could be incorporated into the sections. The precise organization of these will need to occur with the help of a community design process including consultation with local religious communities, and according to the space and resources available in the particular context. Further details of the four quadrants will be discussed in the Elements section, supported by quotes within the Signage section of this paper.
The pervasive theme throughout the garden is the dialogue between duality, paradox, and unity.
Western thought is based on a dualistic framework of oppositional binaries. They are ingrained within the very structure of European languages; henceforth I will speak primarily of English, though this problematic structure is not confined to English, nor only to Europe, or Western thought. Our symbolic order of language creates meaning through oppositional logic: the normal hinges on not-normal (Epstien, 10), black has its partner white, from birth we are divided into male and female; a thing can only occupy one position at a time; it is either male or female, subject or object.
These sets of binaries pervade our language and form relations with each other that result in a hierarchy that discursively posit rich, rational, white males at the top and poor, intuitive, colored women at the bottom. Feminism, ecofeminism, postmodernism, and queer theory, to name a few, have taken aim at this symbolic arrangement and presently much reconstructive work is being done. These emerging discourses, as well as systems theory, are working towards creating discourses that allows for multiple subject positionings, so as to avoid the flattening of our complex reality.
Many Indigenous creation myths do not over-simplify reality into oppositional binaries, but rather embrace multiple possibilities simultaneously. For example, in a creation myth of the Keres, as told by Paula Gunn Allen, tells how they were ”All of it and only a small piece of it” (36). This embracing of both possibilities may appear to the western mind to be a paradox, contradictory, and nonsensical. Many eastern philosophies in fact use paradoxes as tools to aid their students in their journey to enlightenment, of grasping the great ineffable unity beyond the dualistic illusion. (For example,“What is the sound of one hand clapping?” is a commonly known Zen Buddhist koan.)
The mystical experience is “precisely an experience of the loss of subjecthood, of the disappearance of the subject/object opposition” (Irigaray, qtd in Moi, 136). With the loss of subjectivity/subjecthood, “[t]ouched by the flames of the divine, the mystic’s soul is transformed into a fluid stream dissolving all difference” (Moi, 136), allowing us to grasp the cosmos as a unified whole of which we are simultaneously all and a part.
It is my thesis that a transition from an ‘either/or’ mentality to a ‘both/and’ mentality (Riley, 479) is necessary for the human species and planet to survive, considering our present technological and planetary situation.
As Thomas Berry so eloquently articulates in his beautiful book, The Great Work: Our Way Into The Future, we are in danger of undoing 67 million years of planetary co-evolution; it is our Great Work to transition to the ‘Ecozoic Era’, living lovingly in complex interdependence (10). Berry uses language very similar to systems theory to explain our interconnected reality, free of the subject – object oppositions that allow us to exploit that of which we are made.
Through using quotes as guidance, and religious/philosophical symbology that reveal the interconnections and mystical experience, I hope to help people see that our world is indeed ‘both/and’, complex, interdependent, and sacred to the very core.
the center
At the center of the garden, where the magnesium atom of the chlorophyll molecule resonates with energy, is a circular pad, encased in a dome. The pilgrims have made the journey to the center, taking whatever route they have chosen, and the arrangement of the symbols have hopefully helped to lead them from the dualistic disconnect of the mundane, towards the mystical interconnection of the great unity symbolized by the circular center. Here is the axis mundi.
The garden’s center is a circular pad mosaicked with flowing Islamic geometry, and encased with a dome of ornate wrought iron.
The center of the dome is open, representing “another door or window, accessible only by a ‘ladder’ or ‘rope’ by which our being is suspended from above, and through which one can emerge from the dimensional structure” (Coomaraswamy, 6). The portal frames the sky, and embedded within the design in the iron are stars, constellations, planets, indeed, the cosmos.
The dome is held up by 12 pillars, reflecting again the twelvefold pattern of the universal mother (Lawlor, 5). Nestled amongst the pillars are four benches made of cob (a mud, sand, straw material) that can be sculpted into beautiful organic forms, representing the four directions/seasons/elements/aspects of life.
In the center of the circle there is a large, black, square stone; on top sits a round cob hearth with four openings to cast light and heat, and a smooth, shallow dish above. The stone is to represent Earth, manifestation, ancient stone alters, and the Ka’baa in Mecca. The hearth atop represents the light, heat, heart, and fire of spirit, as well as the Eternal Light so important to Judiasm and Christianity. The fire possible in the hearth allows for fire to be honored, food prepared, and the power of transformation observed. The shallow dish that crowns the hearth can be used as an offering dish, an alter, to hold water, or as a warming plate for the people who may use the hearth for creating food. This alter and hearth can be also for Hindus for the “Agnihotra, or burnt offering…[which is] an interior self sacrifice, in which the heart is the alter,the outer man the offering, and the flame the dompted self” (Coomaraswamy, 6).
Returning to Eliade’s System of the World, the pilgrim has found a break in the homogeneity of life in entering the garden of the sacred, created an opening in themselves in which communication with cosmos can occur, the act which creates the axis mundi. This axis is represented in a physical form to aid the pilgrim’s connection. The concept of transcending duality is embodied in the circular dome which represents One, the place of transformation.
As Joseph Campbell writes “the essence of the image of the axial point or pole that it should symbolize the way or place of passage from motion to rest, time to eternity, separation to union; but then, also, conversely, rest to motion, eternity to time, unity to multiplicity” (194). In this space/state we can bring our disparate parts together into integrity, allowing us a deeper understanding and connection to the complexity of life.
It is hoped that the design is multi-functional, allowing space for ritual, gathering, and/or practice for many spiritual traditions. I have imagined the circle to be 3.5m in diameter, with the center stone being less than 1m across, allowing room for a number of people, space for dance, chi gong, meditation, and rest. The sculpted hearth should have openings to many sides, casting heat and light in a circle.
elements
The following list of elements is not intended to be complete and concrete, but negotiable and to be added to. Any elements omitted from the garden should be added to the list of things omitted so that they are not rendered invisible and unacknowledged.
general:
∑ 2 silver hoops that form ellipses over the whole garden from east to west, like the rings of Saturn, to inspire the sense of turning, orbit, axis.
∑ labyrinth-inspired layout. In this design, the garden layout is inpired by the chlorophyll molecule.
∑ tiles embedded in the pathways indicating the molecular component of the chlorophyll structure
∑ overlaying pattern of the medicine wheel, using the local pattern, color, element, season, animal, direction correlations
∑ childrens area with a good open and dynamic place to play that is outside the garden, but located in a way that does not exclude and separate, but honors and facilitates.
entering:
∑ ego-scrapers and guardians; break in homogeneity. The four gates can be swathed for a private ceremony. Chinese demons more in straight lines, so make sure the ego-scrapers are aligned to prevent clear trajectories into the garden.
∑ Fierce Herbrew cherubium.
∑ koma-inu: Japanese temple guardian dogs
∑ mythic Japanese warriors
∑ Chinese guard dogs with orbs held in their teeth
∑ gargoyles
∑ liminal zone between gates and the garden.
∑ the cute little dudes from the movie Princess Mononeke, whose heads click sideways
in East:
∑ Torii: traditional Japanese gate at entrances to Shinto (and sometimes Buddhist) shrines, usually Kamakura vermillion
∑ Temizu-ya: Japanese style carved stone basin with flowing water for cleansing hands and mouth
∑ rakable pebble zen garden area, with bamboo rake available
∑ shishidoshi: deer-scaring device: a piece of bamboo hinged on an axis, into which water pours; when it fills, it snaps up, hitting a rock making a sharp noise; it empties, and the process begins again.
∑ Ishi-dourou: large Japanese stone latern for the garden
∑ Nepalese prayer flags strung for the wind to carry on their prayers
∑ prayer tree to tie wishes on paper or fabric to
∑ Hindu temples face eastward because the gods come from the west.
∑ a reference to Mt. Meru/ Mt. Kailas/ Mt. Sharapada/ Phang Rinpoche: Precious Jewel of Snow; mountain sacred to Jains, Buddists, Hindus.
∑ Ginko tree
∑ an Asian lotus, (blooming of course).
∑ a Borobadur Buddha, and a map of the stuppa's mandala shape
in the South:
∑ 'Venus figurines'
∑ Dionysis references; the African Goddess Oshun;
∑ Quetzalcoatl- the plumed serpant of the ancient Aztecs
∑ full moon references
∑ medicinal herb garden
∑ lush and chaotic flower gardens, vegetables too
∑ a corn patch, perhaps the Three Sisters: corn, beans, and squash. Heritage varieties.
∑ (SouthWest corner, playing the transition) Egyptian Goddess Nut. egyptian eye, papyrus patch
∑ Greek symbolism plays on the western border as well, especially through Dionysis.
in the West:
∑ Mt Sinai, with a 'Burning Bush' planted at the base!
∑ Illusion to Adam's Peak, where Chrisitians and Muslims believe Adam stood 1000 years on one leg as penance (Molyneaux and Vitebsky, 41)
∑ minaret
∑ minora (and the connection between minaret and minora)
∑ Water
∑ a Wudu for Muslims to wash hands and feet.
∑ Serpent: play upon the dual meanings of temptation/evil and wisdom
∑ an apple tree
∑ Symbology that plays upon the connection of the Abrahamic Three: Judiasm, Islam, and Christianity.
∑ A book: The book.
∑ Roman symbolism
∑ 'Venus' figures again, the traditions of ancient Europe
∑ an Elder tree with the compost pile beneath it
∑ illusion to the Holy Grail
∑ some sort of monolithic church-spire/skyscraper, complimentary to the minaret, but taller (not because its better, but because such constructions are usually trying to be taller).
in the North:
∑ cosmological observatories, nature, stone, winter, Dreaming, moon
∑ color scheme of mainly green, greys, and whites: moss, stones, lichen, ferns.
∑ solitude
∑ a marker which points to the constant North Star.
∑ stars mapped somehow, perhaps a the sky as it would appear at solstice could be mapped throughout the northern quadrant using thin and tall poles with stylized stars atop.
∑ Megaliths, reminiscent of Stonehenge or Carnac
∑ Two standing stones with a circle stone in the middle; Men-an-Tol, near Morvah in Cornwall, England, (Molyneaux and Vitebsky, 57)
∑ Grove of alders
∑ heather
∑ tamarac or larch trees
∑ Spiral embedded in earth
∑ Medicine wheel in stone enbedded
∑ Totem pole
∑ Maple trees – scarlet Japanese maple (if possible), sugar, or big-leafed.
∑ a story of the local Native spirit creatures –serpant, little people, etc.
∑ cultures of reference: Indigenous, Celtic, ancient UK
in the Center:
∑ Axis mundi.
∑ Dome: map of cosmos within dome
∑ Portal hole in dome through which sky is visible and also provides metaphor of the eye of God, the ‘rope ladder’ to the door from which spirit can emerge into the spirit plane
∑ North star indicator
∑ alter made of stone and earth
∑ A hearth.
∑ Fire.
∑ Omphallos.
∑ Ka'baa.
∑ Shabbat.
∑ Meditation.
∑ Commons.
∑ Kaleidescope on a pole for people to look through!
∑ Symbolic hole in the floor, inspired by Anasazi people who built such holes, believing their ancestors emerged from them (Molyneaux and Vitebsky, 30)
throughout:
∑ frames through out the garden. Window frames on posts, and suspended from frames.
∑ cosmographical images from different cultures.
∑ golden mean: fibannocci spiral
∑ conversation between order and chaos, duality and paradox, Apollo and Dionysis
∑ body parts correlations
∑ safe cozy sitting spots throughout for different views and ambiances.
∑ signage indicating that this is a lgtbq positive space.
Things omitted
While not all things can be included, the omission of elements can render them invisible, causing great harm. Learning from feminist discourse, things we knowingly omit, for whatever reason, can be listed here to acknowledge to give honor and render visible.
The following is a list of things I have knowingly omitted, and/or wished that I could have included.
∑ amphitheatre, meeting grounds.
∑ community gardens
∑ sphinx
∑ flock of doves
∑ holy cow
∑ bees
∑ womb enclosure for people to be birthed from
∑ sweat lodge
∑ sauna
∑ lake
∑ river (for people to float little candle-boats down)
∑ orchard
∑ working farm that provides food for those who maintain the garden.
∑ vinyard
∑ cultivation of sacred herbal allies.
∑ Many Indigenous belief symbols: (local communities should be contacted)
∑ Hotsprings!
Signage
General
acknowledgements and thanks:
Dr. Meena Sharify-Funk. Steve Higgins.. Dr. Rhiannon Bury.
Kili Akua, my beloved honey
entering:
«…a puddle that reflects the sun,
a piece of paper with my name on it.
I am surrounded.
I surrender.
All that I am I have been;
All I have been has been a long time coming;
I am becoming all that I am…
The spittle the surrounds the mouthpiece of the flute,
That which is not heard but felt…» (Saul Williams, Release)
«The body, the temple, and the universe being thus analogous, it follows that whatever worship is outwardly and visibly performed can also be celebrated inwardly and invisibly» (Coomaraswamy, 1978).
«What we call the beginning is often the end and to make and end is to make a beginning./
The end is where we start from…/
We shall not cease from exploration and te end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started/
And know the place for the first time.» ( T.S.Eliot, Four Quartlets)
May the forest be with you.
«Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again» Joseph Cambell
«To those of aberrant minds, the place is just earth, stone, water, and trees.
To mistaken intellects, it apprears as solid, innanimate objects.
To practitioners, apperances have no intrinsic nature.
To those of pure vision, it is a celestial palace full of deities.To those with realization, it is the radieant luminosity of innate awareness.» ( Jamgon Kongrul the Great)
«it is only in the end that I am beginning to see» (Michelangelo)
«Nature of this Flower is to Bloom». (Alice Walker)
in North
-maybe not so many words; perhaps some signage to contextualize the standing stones and star maps, but otherwise, silence.
«Dreaming –the time beyond memory when ancestral being roamed the land and formed its features» (Molyneaux and Vitebsky, 6)
in East
«Thirty spokes unite in one nave,
And because of the space between the spokes, we have the use of the wheel.
Clay is molded into vessels,
And because of the space where nothing exists we are able to use them as vessels.
Doors and windows are cut in the walls of a house,
And because of the space which is empty, we are able to use them.» Tao Te Ching
«Bit by bit a narrow path was formed beneath
the apple orchard's trees and when you asked
whose first steps does that remember
your question was my treasure.» (Shimazaki Toson)
Emptied of prayers
for the life to come
or even for this one
my heart is filled
with the falling cherry blossoms (Tomiko Yamakawa)
in south
“A healthy ecosystem might be one that is characterized by co-operative and interdependent relationships among its members, and that it is diverse and complex enough to be resilient, to maintain itself in the face of change. Energy and resources are spread through the system so that diversity can thrive.” (Starhawk, 31)
EVERYTHING IS COMPOSED OF A SUBATOMIC FLUX OF WAVELETS AND PARTICLES, CHAOS AND PATTERN. BOUNDARIES ARE FLUID. POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS. UNRELATED SEPARATENESS IS AN ILLUSION. INTERCONNECTEDNESS IS REALITY. PROCESS IS ALL. REVISE YOUR PERCEPTIONS, CONCEPTS, AND LIFE ACCORDINGLY. ANY QUESTIONS? (Spretnak, 21)
“A healthy, balance ecosystem, including human and non-human inhabitants, must maintain diversity. Ecologically, environmental simplification is as significant a problem as environmental pollution…Therefore we need a decentralized global movement that is founded on common interests yet celebrates diversity and is opposed to all forms of domination and violence.” (King, 459)
“Systems don’t change from within,” I heard the forest say, “Systems try to maintain themselves”. (Starhawk 29)
“I figured that the forest, being a complex system itself, ought to know. But I say, ‘The forest told me,’ is already to create a simplified frame. It’s a frame I find useful: it’s a way of perceiving that’s comfortable for human awareness and allows me to hear something I might otherwise miss. But it is also a simplification of a larger framework, one that might perceive me and my mind and my question and the forest around me and the moment that includes my long-term relationship with that particular spot as a whole in which my mind and the forest’s mind are not separate being talking to each other but one process that together produced that insight.” (Starhawk, 29)
Bachelard's monumental work and the descriptions of phenomenologists have taught us that we do not live in a homogeneous and empty space, but on the contrary in a space thoroughly imbued with quantities and perhaps thoroughly fantasmatic as well. The space of our primary perception, the space of our dreams and that of our passions hold within themselves qualities that seem intrinsic: there is a light, ethereal, transparent space, or again a dark, rough, encumbered space; a space from above, of summits, or on the contrary a space from below of mud; or again a space that can be flowing like sparkling water, or space that is fixed, congealed, like stone or crystal. Yet these analyses, while fundamental for reflection in our time, primarily concern internal space. I should like to speak now of external space. (Foucault, para 8)
“The margin of abundance is the free gift of the sun’s energy, which is constantly showered on the earth, the only true margin of profit that exists.” (Starhawk, 32)
in west
“Know thyself”
“God is an intelligent sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.” (Jose and Miriam Arguelles)
Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are. (I Corinthians 3, 16-17)
-please consult local community for input: Islamic, Christian and Jewish.
in center
“(It should be pointed out that, ideally paramita practice is based on enough understanding of interdependence that the practice is nondualistiic. Therefore, the question of giver and receiver of generosity or discipline does not arise, There is simply one spontaneous field of action)” (Gross 169).
«-an interior self-sacrifice, in which the heart is the alter, he outer man[/woman/self/ego/defense-system] is the offering, and the flame the dompted self» (Coomaraswamy, 6)
“Now it is of the essence of the image of the axial point or pole that it should symbolize the way or place of passage from motion to rest, time to eternity, separation to union; but then, also, conversely, rest to motion, eternity to time, unity to multiplicity.” (Joseph Campbell: the place of transformation II –194)
throughout
rumi poems
haiku poems
poems!
somewhere
“When discipline is well established, responsible and generous action is spontaneous and joyful, rather than onerous” (Gross, 170)
"Our strategy should be not only to confront empire but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness - and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different than the ones we have been brainwashed to believe.
The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling - their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability.
Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them.
Another world is possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."
Arundhanti Roy (2001, quoted in Rebick, 257)
«As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. This is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don’t' know we don't know.»
Donald Rumsfeld, US defense minister, 2003 (qtd in Starhawk, 2004)
Real democracy is not about power in numbers, it is about collaboration as an organizational system. Real democracy includes the right of the minority to a remedy, one that is unhampered by the tyranny of a complacent or aggressive majority. Its collaborative decision-making engages everyone in the process; decisions are not handed down by leaders “empowered” to decide for everyone. It is a negotiated process that creates trust and consensus because the solution belongs to everyone for all their own reasons. The process empowers the community, creating unity and strength for the long term. Because land is seen as a fundamental part of the self, along with family and community, it requires and insures sustainable practice in its practice. (Armstrong, 1999)
50,000 nuclear warheads
tucked away, it drifts
in indigo space:
our
earth (Kato Katsumi)
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