Father Earth?

faith is the underdog

oh but fear is a lie

(Rachel K Collier)

What I am going to write is by no means a professional analysis. It is just a flight of personal pensées, concerning the state of the world’s most prominent religions.

I had been thinking for a while to grade the world’s religions according to my standards and personal beliefs, and it’s about time it came out. Only, I haven’t done the research, so I write only about things in as far as I know about and understand them.

The thing that bothers me most about institutionalized religion is that it is almost always, if not to say always, a patriarchic hierarchy that is presented.

Come to think of it, the whole world is in fact made up of patriarchies, from the capitalist state system, the former communist states, religions here and there, and even the family system revolves around the good paterfamilias.

Is there some reason why all authority is represented by the male sex? Do men have something women lack?

I am just thinking, I am not the ultimate philosopher, I am just trying to figure some things out on my own.

But it strikes me as remarkable that perhaps the world is very diverse, but on one thing they all seem to agree: you have to have a penis in order to be allowed to state your opinion and be valued for it.

So the talking penis, should we pay all that attention to it? Should we say it is there, as psychoanalysis does, it is a presence, while women are by these standards regarded as lacking it and therefore marked by an absence, a form of emptiness if you like.

And there we go, we’re back to good old psychoanalysis. What can we say about things and no-things from this point of view?

I guess I will have to go back to the ontogenetic, developmental point of view of how things come to be, going back once again to the good old notions of the mirror stage and the Oedipus.

In the beginning, there was nothing. Everything was emptiness. No… that is the Bible. Sorry.

In the beginning, there was the mother, that’s more like it, in the beginning there was the mother who made us feel safe and embraced and treasured and, how shall I say, smug in the wooly cotton brains of infancy. There is a softness and a feeling of being provided for. There is peace, nirvana, faith.

But then, as I have come to see and describe it, the devil makes it’s entrance. The devil who preaches death, and the fear of it, and that makes us believe we should indeed always fear for our lives, if we do not listen to his voice and authority. We begin to doubt the mother. Is the mother good enough?

Let’s say the opposite of the mother is like a father. I am not saying men cannot be nurturing and caring, and cuddling and rocking, but for the sake of our structural view, which may as well paint the general resulting picture, we could say the devil represents the male force within our souls.

It is the minding and the mind, it is no longer the carefree state of oblivion and no-mind, nirvana that was before.

Emptiness indeed.

So in the Bible as well, it is said that the devil seduces us from the garden. I think this is a very mystical teaching, and to me, it is not about hating women at all. But let’s go on with science here.

Being seduced and sold to the preachings of the devil, the human divine soul capitulates and gives up its faith in the presence of the mother. It says indeed, the mother is not good enough, I need more, I need to be sure I will survive.

So there are people who are filled with this fear, this fear that can be as irrational as people having a bank account with nine zero’s or more on it, who are still thinking they will die if they do not have more. The fear is very deep, it is a basic human fear really.

So having capitulated, surrendered to the convincing solicitations of the devil, we say, then what shall we do? And then, following the formation of this mirror ego, we come to the stage of the Oedipus. The thing, the something, that is chosen over the nothingness, is what Lacan calls the Name-of-the-Father. It is in short society. The social world filled with roles and opportunities, routines and ways to gain riches and security.

We do not, like the animal and perhaps the Buddhist monk, trust that nature provides, no, we try our best to be tough and laboring, all for the security that we will not die. No longer is it the mother that provides, but it is the father, it is the something, the word if you like, the state and the law. The noise of the penis.

I believe that this identification with a social role and identity is fueled by an unrealistic fear, a fear that exists only within our heads, where we are convinced all the time of disaster being upon us by the fearful instance of the ego, capturing our soul like a slave to work for its master.

Hell, psychoanalysis is even wondering about a master signifier, a word to rule all words.

It says there is none.

The master is an illusion.

To me, the only master is the ego.

Fear is what rules the discourse.

I do not believe this fear is realistic, and I do not believe it is real.

I believe it is a deception.

Therefore, I do not believe we need society, the system.

Therefore, I am more prone to identifying with the Buddhist monk.

Heaven give us our daily bread. Nature provides.

The Tao as a way of faith. As a way of no-thingness.

So the system is a father to the human soul. It lives on the fear of death, dying and disaster. And religion is part of the system, it aids the state in keeping people afraid and docile, frozen in fear, doubt and unknowingness.

I have written about this before, about the preachers of darkness, and how they are doing the devil’s work, keeping the authority of the father firm and stable in its saddle, throne and driver’s seat.

So the father is comfortable, everyone believes in him, and it is what we should do. Believe men, because men make sure we survive this life.

However, leaving the mother behind, I believe we do lose something valuable, something important, which in times before was given more gratitude, grace and recognition.

We leave behind the world, we leave behind nature, the planet, Gaia.

We leave behind the reality of the many systems and ecosystems, the many birds and bees and fish and bison and trees and minerals and resources that in fact are the true providers of our health, well-being and survival.

And obeying the law and slaving for capitalist cunnings, we are raping, torturing and definitely killing our mother, who is, as far as I know, crying for her children to return to her and come home.

Some do return to nature, but for ages have we forgotten the ways of living with her.

That is why it is so important for me to make a conservation effort, not in idle scientific mind, but in full recognition and appreciation, in favor of the people we call primitive. The people from the Amazon, the tribes we have not yet made contact with. For they do believe that nature provides, and they do live in faith, thankfulness and celebration of the mother rocking them and holding them in a loving embrace.

Not suffocating, like the father’s.

So what I am all about really, is about anarchy and the ways of the soul. Having faith in our hearts, and in the inspiration of the day. And providing ways for the day to work, to live, to move, to speak and to share its blessings with the human being, just as it shares its ways and inspiration with the animal soul.

I believe we need to make contact with the Way again, things as they go, and things as they come all in the right time and order. We need to have faith, faith in life itself and in the Great Mother that is our planet Earth herself cradled within the female womb of the cosmos.

I believe in truth, there is more of a matriarchy to life, than there is reason to believe in the system and the ways of the father anymore.

The father needs our attention. He wants us to work for him. To sell our souls to him.

But we should say no. We should come to see that his is the way of death, if not initially then surely after all this time and with the observations we can make today.

The observation that religion is all about war, capitalism is all about starving the poor, and the state is just the death of our life and freedom.

What joy is there in the ways of the father? There is only fear, and the system is thriving on it.

We do not dance amidst the trees of the forest, we do not set out on a walkabout, just to prove that the Way provides, we do not exercise our faith. We do not stand strong, and we have no roots in real life.

We are living in fear and delusions, victims of the raging of the mind. And letting it rage forever more, we say yes to this madness and we listen to another madman’s cunning about how he will make sure we do not die.

We are reassured by the priest, by the imam, that the way to eternal life is in war, it is in suffering, it is in sacrificing our souls and sanity. We are reassured by the capitalist, that the way to our meager daily bread is to make feasts and orgies for him. We are reassured by the general that we will not die if we kill the other man first.

And we say yes, we say yes to this insanity and cunning every day, because we are so certain we will die if we do not. We say yes because we are afraid. And we are afraid, not because the mother is not good enough, but because our minds are overshadowing and shouting over her sweet oblivion, her nothingness, her embrace and loving presence.

I do believe we need meditation, I do believe we need patience, I do believe we need courage and to stand up against the cunning preachers of fear, out to steal our souls away from the natural world.

We should stand with the forest, we should stand with the jungle, we should stand with the rivers, the air we breathe, the birds, the bees, the fish and the bison, for they are our mother, not cunning, not trying to enslave our souls, but just to feed them, and provide for them and asking nothing but our joy and ecstasy in return, our exaltation and amazement, our love and celebration of all of her wonders and sweet intelligence.

Nature is the only system that works.

Sometimes I see it like this.

Nature has been developing and evolving, growing and ripening for eons and eons, and then she brings man on stage and she says look at me, am I not all that you could ever want and more? How can we not love our mother? How can we not love our source and creation itself?

And, selling perhaps a sad and tragic psychoanalytic joke… is a penis worth more than the whole of creation?

Is the Father worth more than the Mother?

The system more than the Earth?

I hope the devil is worth sacrificing your soul.

As for eternal life however, I do not believe that is up to him.

I believe eternal life is all around us to begin with.

And how could we not be part of it?

Or could we?

Should we?