Love, we’re told, is our Truth. But how does love survive in such a savage world - Spirit made into flesh, destined to be ravished by time and Nature?
What sense is this? Are we, like in the Greek legends, mere sport for capricious gods? Or, are we of more sacred stuff, images of something w(holy)?
Our spirits struggle mightly to burrow deep within this earthly realm. Surely fiercer fires fuel our determined quest than to eternally be the butt of some cosmic joke! How we long to escape our mortality, to transcend our bodies and sensations, to become pure spirit once more beyond even Eden, beyond flesh itself! Possibly this is our Original Sin and the source of all sins to follow.
Ambivalence is not a word often invoked in spiritual thought. Animals, flesh like us, move and live in natural grace, Spirit and form embrace as one confidently frolicking in Eden still. Today, we think of them as beasts and imagine ourselves as the image of God. But there was a time when humankind was less entangled in hubris and this natural grace was truly heaven on earth. Can we again find that sense of grace, that divine ambivalence of spirit and flesh?
In the hills of southern France near a place now called Lascaux, so long ago the ice still lingered and reindeer foraged the frigid hills. Shamans, probably women, entered the darkness of the earth’s womb to inscribe wondrous prayers to the sacred Mother. It was a time of holy ambivalence, a time before our “Sin” was fully committed.
Our ancestors longed not to escape the earth, but to embrace her and the spirits that flowed over and through her. The gods they drew were not human, but spirited wild horses, powerful bison, and magnificent wooly mammoths. These creatures were not prey, but symbols of magnificence and grace, tangible proof, and embodiment of divine purpose.
In all her fury, Nature contained the code of our existence, our mortal purpose as part of Eden. There is majesty, a purity of purpose in these devotions inscribed, not for human eyes, but to send a love letter to the Womb that bore us. Smell the damp air, open your senses, and feel the excitement of spirit flowing through flesh. It is all perfect, just like then in Eden.
You bring on such lovely images of early humans and eden...take me back!