And humbly she continues:
You say growth was my Holy Grail
Yes it was and it failed
It couldn’t last I do agree
But in the middle of the hustle
You cannot really see(…)
This is your ancestor speaking
The relatives you know so well
Forgive us I beg you
For sending you to hell [1]
It is indisputable that humanity has brought catastrophic trouble to our planet and thus to itself. Our existence seems to be increasingly influenced by questions such as:
What are we doing to the earth?
or:
How can I minimize the pain of this earth with my actions or by denying things or making sacrifices myself?
Anyone who feels strongly connected to nature and the earth will automatically experience her pain and joy. Such earth-related emotions are likely to only increase as humans become more concerned about the ecocide that is taking place everywhere.
The Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht (1953) has coined new terms for such earthly soul stirrings. Western languages have, so far, lacked words that indicate that there is an undeniable connection between the state of the earth and our own mental and emotional situation. Central to the new vocabulary is the word solastalgia, the phenomenon of “feeling homesick while you are still at home”, that you become confused because the foundation on which you live is gradually being destroyed, that your home is no longer your home because it is drastically affected, even destroyed: solastalgia (solari = comfort; nostalgia = longing for old times). In the Dutch language, terms such as comfort woe and comfort algia are already doing the rounds.
Albrecht devised his vocabulary to express aspects of the symbiocene (symbiosis = living together kainos = new), a new era in which man lives in complete harmony with nature and in service to the world. The symbiocene comes to replace the Anthropocene, in which man was all determinative and dominant over nature. From an earth destroyer, man becomes an earth creator in it, for example by producing food forests.
Earth creator and earth destroyer are terms that appeal to me. But they are also confrontational. When and how often am I a destroyer in my actions both little and great? How often and when am I an earth creator? And what is the relationship between the two? How many alibis do I have to give to be a destroyer? How embarrassed will I feel if I leave this earth mainly as a destroyer to our children and grandchildren, from whom we borrow the earth after all?
In all of this, a Rosicrucian needs a step further, an extra dimension. Who strives – and we take the Biblical Book of Revelation for a moment – for a ‘new heaven and a new earth’, is first and foremost an earth creator in himself. He is aware of the radiant force that always seeks contact with the human being from a higher dimension. This requires a special adjustment and attitude to life, an attunement of heart and head, a purification in complete devotion, in short: transparency for the mind. Then pure intuition (the new earth) awakens, and natural intuition becomes secondary. Our insight is clarified. Then also the pain of our solastalgia is broken through and transparent. Then it gives space to our earliest memory, to our origin, which is also our destination.
Yes, then we will really see the world as it is.
A memory
A sickness came over me
whose origins were never determined
though it became more and more difficult
to sustain the pretense of normalcy,
of good health or joy in existence –
Gradually I wanted only to be with those like myself;
I sought them out as best I could
which was no easy matter
since they were all disguised or in hiding.
But eventually I did find some companions
and in that period I would sometimes walk
with one or another by the side of the river,
speaking again with a frankness I had nearly forgotten —
and yet, more often we were silent, preferring
the river over anything we could say —
on either bank, the tall marsh grass blew calmly,
continuously, in the autumn wind.
And it seemed to me I remembered this place
from my childhood, though
there was no river in my childhood,
only houses and lawns. So perhaps
I was going back to that time
before my childhood, to oblivion, maybe
it was that river I remembered. [2]
Louise Glück [3]
References:
[1] Nynke Laverman wrote this song originally in English Your Ancestor | Nynke Laverman
[2] Louise Glück , Winter Recipes from the Collective, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2021
[3] Louise Glück (New York 1943) is an American poet who was awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize for Literature, for “her unmistakable poetic voice that makes individual existence universal with austere beauty.”Her work is discussed in LOGON volume 2 (2021) episode 2, page 16 acc. under the title: An overwhelming reality – LOGON
