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| Tombo, no-one opens a theological can o' worms like that and says 'done for now' ;-) I am delighted by your writing, and monsieur Swift's, in equal measure. Important point I feel; "On the whole rationality vs. spirituality thing I have to say that I don't think that either one of these perspectives on their own is enough to give a complete understanding of the world." We modern people look at spirituality and rationalism in a polarising fashion, I find this to be a core error (I'm being brave) in modern thought. Since the Church proclaimed that 'Nature' was profane, and later Darwinism and reductionism set us on the current path of material inefficiency and confusion, we have tried to remove ourselves from the world we live in. ( I hate the word 'nature' what else is there in existence other than 'nature', how can we define it as an object?) A few here know me to quote Native American words, this is no glib Mr Woo Woo new age gaffe, I am honestly punched in the head and heart when I read their words. I also feel their wisdom has been stonewalled by irony and sarcasm born partly from hatred, and partly from flakey New-Agers claiming 'spiritual' ground, albeit flakily. Not so long ago, (many today) these Native American people exhibited an incredibly harmonic and efficient way of life. I believe this to be largely on account of their 'rationalism' and 'spirituality' being indivisible, co-dependant, displaying a near flawless wisdom, respectful (in a way we can only pretend to understand?), reverent, and harmonious relationship with the Earth/Universe. This is in stark contrast to our hard atom-based scientific thought, and wholly abhorrent to many who claim to be of a 'scientific' mind. I'm not suggesting that the Shawnee, or the Sioux or the Seminole had direct 'vision' of the future being chewed up by the white race, I'm not saying they didn't either, but their wisdom was born from a reverence that may be rooted partly in hardship. They didn't 'beat' the seasons with air conditioning, but rather beat in tune with the cycles and circles of life, death and regeneration. How can we imagine that our 'rationalism' is worth more than harmony? Surely the ultimately rational mind knows that reverence for nature is also reverence for life, without which we fall into our pits of ego, war and want? I consider a peach, I can cut the dermis, investigate, slice and dissect the pith, take the stone and pulverise it until its infinitessimally small pieces give up their secret under an electron microscope. But then how does it taste? "The old Lakota was wise. He knew that man's heart away from nature becomes hard." - Standing Bear Reply | with quote |  29th June 2003ce 21:35 In reply to: ...here's the second bit (TomBo) |
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