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Cut the story short !

Once upon a time they were happy from the beginning...and ever after...

Shamanism, paganism and virgin mother

I’ve read in Metro that an 86 year old man in the UK put a board behind his window that could be seen from the street. On the board was written: “Religions are fairy tales for adults” The police ordered him to take it off. He protested referring to his right of free speech. But there was a crematorium on the other side of the road.  Between free speech and respect, there is a delicate balance to find! 

 

 Are religions fairy tales? To illustrate the subject I am going to tell you what I think about the Virginity of Mary, mother of Jesus, with all due respect indeed.

  

 My intention is to share with you a little bit of wonder about human nature, through history of religions. From a rational point of view, nothing can ultimately prove that another world does exist, or doesn’t. However, human beings have been holding this belief for at least 100.000 years, the age of the oldest tombs showing evidences of the practice of rituals we know. These were discovered in about 1930 near Jerusalem. In all regions of the world, similar rituals will appear, with striking common points. The bodies are placed in the foetal position, suggesting a conception of death as a new birth; objects are buried with them, a wild boar jaw, antlers...  Weapons, food are also placed with the bodies... The next manifestations of religiosity we know are... the paintings in the caves. Here also striking similarities exist between people from different parts of the world who couldn’t have communicated. They painted mostly animals, especially bulls, snakes and deer, plants were never represented, the color red being universally the colour of the contact with the other world... 

 

 By studying these materials and comparing them with the religious beliefs held by the last tribes of hunter gatherers known in the Amazon, Africa (the Bushmen) in the great North and Australia, the researchers speak about shamanism as the religion of prehistoric times. The word shamanism has been popularized by the historian Mircea Eliade, borrowing the word shaman used by Siberian tribes to name the one who is able to communicate with the world of spirits. There is no God in shamanism, only spirits from nature. They are not above. They can become angry for being disturbed or they can help if offered something. The role of the shaman is to deal with these entities in order to secure the best possible outcome for the clan. 

  The Neolithic revolution started to happen about 12.000 years ago, when human beings started to breed animals and later to cultivate the earth. Pre historians think that it is most probably women who invented agriculture. Loaded with babies they left the job of running swiftly behind the animals to the men, and probably were the first to observe, while looking for medicinal plants, grains germinating in some pooh...  By becoming farmers, we were still part of nature, but we acquired a special role at the top of the hierarchy. Beliefs evolved similarly, with the apparition, for the first time in the history of humanity, of a God, hierarchically superior, and who was, actually, a Goddess. How could it have been otherwise? All human concerns now were about fecundity, of the earth, of the cattle, of women...  She is almost always represented accompanied by a bull, sometimes by snakes, representing the male energy indeed. Some paintings represent the Goddess, thighs open, given birth to bulls. Male Gods will appear only later, with cities...

 

 The Goddess, mother of all life, could only be a virgin. Who could have mated with the mother of all? She was a Virgin Mother. The theme of the Goddess mating with her son appears in some Neolithic paintings. They already knew about paradoxes!

   So how about Mary?  Whether we believe in a particular dogma or not, it is obvious that there is no more than a slight twist between a virgin, mother of God and a God Mother. The question of the virginity of the mother of Jesus does not matter, really. What’s important is that the Virgin Mother, her foot placed on the head of the snake, is still there for catholic Christians, officially relegated at a second role but efficiently speaking to our deepest pagan memories... I love her. I am a story-teller and in my view, fairy tales are true!

Psychic diving

 

Overwhelmed by fear I was looking at my wife and my children taken away by soldiers. I was hiding in a cellar with a narrow slit at ground level, a lookout... They were leaving, I couldn’t move... a boulder of anguish had fallen down on me; fear can squash a man, it was a mass beyond my strength... They were crying for me and I didn’t come for them. I lay on the ground, in the grey and in the mould...I would have to pay with centuries of guilt and shame before even knowing grief.

 Last time, I was a soldier...

...............................................................................................................

 According to my psychotherapist the feelings expressed through this vivid daydream are about what happened to me when I was a little child. And he congratulated me for having the courage of letting them appear in my consciousness.

 According to me, what happen to us when we are little children is part of a longer journey. I am convinced that we have many lives.             I see at least three reasons to go through early childhood events that bring about such traumatic feelings.

 The first reason is that I may have behaved in awful and despicable ways in some previous times. I am simply reaping what I have sown.

 The second possible reason is that going though any kind of pain or difficulties teaches efficiently a good deal about life. It is a harsh but worthy way to improve consciousness, knowledge of oneself and understanding of life...

 Before diving again into earthy experience, I as a soul may have decided to challenge myself in this way. I may have said “Let see how I get by in these particular conditions” Maybe I have bet something with a friend!

  

The third reason may be that I have chosen to share a little bit of pain that actually belongs to humanity as a whole at an unconscious and collective level, in order to work through it and eventually participate in healing it.

 These three reasons which, as you may have noticed, are four, may be all true at the same time, along with other reasons I am not thinking of now...

  

But, as the Buddha said, if someone has been hit by an arrow, healing the wound is more urgent that reckoning where the arrow came from. How about the healing of deep feelings of guilt, shame, unworthiness, along with fear, anger, despair...?

  

The first word that comes to my mind is a very old fashioned one: It is “Humility”. We (not only me!) are not perfect, we are not invulnerable, we are fragile, and we can be overwhelmed by stronger feelings than possible to handle... This is how we are. Even heroes don’t become heroes overnight, out of the blue...

  

Throughout many lives, we most probably have all behaved in all kind of manners...  I wish I become able to accept our human frailties and failures as part of what we are... I wish I become able to stop judging and condemning myself... and others. Forgiveness may follow naturally. Forgiveness is what heals guilt, shame, unworthiness... and allows tackling fear, anger and illusions step by step as need to be.... Gently...

  

We are all one. This is not a marshmallow way of thinking. It’s hard. I am Hitler. I am Gandhi. I am the coward running away; I am the hero giving his life. I am the priest cutting throats at the top of the pyramid; I am the sacrificed victim and I am the unconscious idiot buying things that have been manufactured by children working long hours for a misery on the other side of the world. 

At the core of every one, the same being struggles for expression. This being who is everyone has to deal with genetics, circumstances, a chain of causes and effects and a flickering flame of free will submitted to illusions. Being one we are all worth exactly the same! Socrates thought that no one does evil on purpose. According to him, ignorance is the root of all evil. We can forgive ourselves. We don’t know what we are doing. We have, symbolically speaking, eaten the fruit of knowledge of good and evil. We have eaten it too early, before we were able to handle it. No one is above. No one is better. We just take turns. We can forgive... 

 

One day I had a silly conversation, by emails. I was saying something like: “What people call love is actually an illusion, a lie. It’s nothing but desire...”
The woman I was talking with was quite indignant. She answered things such as : “No! Love is true! Love is beautiful and blah blah blah...” 

 
As if I was speaking about love! I was speaking about “What people call love”, not about “love”. If I want to speak about love, I use the word love. I don’t need four words when one is enough. If I speak about “What people call love”, my point is precisely that they take something else for love. This something else is desire and desire borrows the beautiful name of love in order to advance unknown hidden behind a mask...
Well, I was a little bit pissed off by her reaction. As if I was a cynical individual defiling the beauty of love with awful thoughts! She didn’t deserve an explanation. I was just a little bit too lazy, a bit short of patience and weary of being served this one more demonstration of human crass obscurantism and ignorance of the simplest logic.
I repeated. “What human beings call love is actually a pretext to the most selfish behaviour...”
She persisted in her indignation. “No! Love is pure! When you love you don’t seek you own interest and blah blah blah..”
She was right about love but love was presently not what I was talking about. I am stubborn like the wave that comes and comes again until the cliff collapses.
I repeated... “What people call love....”I don’t remember how long this lasted. All I know is that she would have sworn I was a horrible and cynical pervert in front of a Court if given the opportunity.

Pragmatic linguistics and dirty foot

The dull and friendly indifference that you call peace is not as good as war.

The dull and friendly indifference that you call peace is worse than war.

From a strictly logical point of view, these two sentences are equivalent.

From a strictly irrational point of view, these two sentences are absolute opposites.

And we have to admit that irrationality prevails...

Five stars welcome !

Sometimes we need help. There is nothing to be ashamed of. We are incredibly strong... and vulnerable as well, physically, and emotionnally or mentally as well. Anybody could get physically ill, ignore it proudly as long as it is not too serious, or go see a doctor without feeling this as a moral failure. Emotionally, or mentally, whatever people could say to you is ninety per cent nothing but defense mechanisms or fantasies...

 Here is a five star caravan where I've find a real welcome along with great competence prejudice-free !

 

                                                     www.thecaravan.org.uk

 

 The people who judge me and give scornful pieces of advice or looks.... should be tested with my genes and personal history. I may laugh a bit and end up with loads of compassion... ;-)