By Leila Kincaid
“I would like to believe that out of this struggle will be born a generation that will be able to look upon the world with clearer eyes than those that preceded it; that they will be able to transcend the isolation in which humanity was entrapped in the time of its derangement.” ~Amitav Ghosh
Humanity is caught in tangles. The Oxford definition of tangle is, “twist together into a confused mass.” Indeed, we seem twisted together in a tangled mass on this planet, poised to self-destruct unless we radically transform the way we live. Will we transform or self-destruct? What are the mechanisms by which we can change so that we do not perish as a species? How can we transform our world so that we are not doomed to exist in this tangled web of racial and sexual violence, inhumane economic inequality, unfair access to clean food, water, health care, education, and human rights among other horrors? Through a multi-storied journey since the beginning of time, human beings find themselves perched over an abyss of self-destruction. How can we untangle ourselves from the lineages of dehumanization found in patriarchy, colonialism, conquest, capitalism, sexism, racism, and the oppressive forces of fascist totalitarianism?
I believe that it is through a species wide confrontation with our own mortality. Through a process of facing and accepting the fact of our mortality, and by having what some call a symbolic near-death experience (like Sean Kelly in his Becoming Gaia), humanity can heal and overcome the tangled rifts and depths of our collective psyche that has caused malformed ways of being as a collective on planet Earth. The fear of death leads to coping mechanisms, mostly unconscious, that manifest in dysfunctional power dynamics whereby one conquers, subdues, rapes, enslaves, and dehumanizes the other. Jamie Lorimer describes the derangement of the Anthropocene era, in which humanity currently finds itself, as one which is characterized by reductionism that leads to climate destruction, exploitation, and creates “transcontextual tangles” (Lorimer. P 188).
Perhaps the only way to untangle ourselves from this Gordian death knot is through collective psychological, conscious processing of our own fear of death, by facing our thanatophobia, humanity can untangle the fatal webs that are strangling the life out of us. We can reinvite the sacred into our daily life, relationships, and language. We can recognize the Godhead in others in a Buberian I and Thou dynamic. We can celebrate and affirm our birthplace in the Cosmos and our home on Earth. We can use death as an advisor, as Yaqui Indian Don Juan Matus taught Carlos Castaneda, and allow death to stalk us, informing our every breath, every second, every thought of our life, so that we live more consciously, lovingly, purposefully (Castaneda. 1974).
Adrienne Marie Brown says in her essay, Dream Beyond the Wounds, that we can “find the wounded places in” our communities, “where thinking and action are stagnant” and “bring the medicine of imagination.” She says that we can ensure collective survival through interconnectedness”. Kelly echoes her call, and so many others agree that only by reclaiming our oneness with the planet, with our mother, Gaia, and by realizing and affirming our connection to each other as a global family, can we overcome that which divides, harms, oppresses, and dehumanizes us and transform our world. While some write nonfiction admonitions, others, like Ursula LeGuin, show us how to imagine a utopian world like the one she dreams into being in her spellbinding Always Coming Home. There are so many people, so many resources available to us to help us learn to embrace our fate as mortals, love each other, claim the planet as our home, and transform the world! The great elders of the Incan people of South America invite us to become Earthkeepers, making a sacred oath to embrace Gaia as our sacred Mother, and join together as a family that takes care of her and each other (Viloldo. 2000). How can we invite art and spark our imaginations (individually and collectively) to reclaim our birthright as creators of reality, and contribute to dreaming a new world into being, in the wisdom of the shaman of indigenous peoples studied by so many, including Mircea Eliade, Alberto Viloldo, Michael Harner, Dr. Angeles Arriens) that is based on love?
Bibliography
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Brown, Adrienne Marie. Dream Beyond Wounds. "Dream Beyond the Wounds." Ding Magazine., accessed Jul 2, 2022, https://dingdingding.org/issue-2/dream-beyond-the-wounds/.
Buber, Martin, and Ronald Gregor Smith. 1958. I and Thou. New York: Scribner.
Castaneda, Carlos 1931-1998. 1971. A Separate Reality : Further Conversations with Don Juan. London: Bodley Head. https://ciis.on.worldcat.org/oclc/10169892.
———. 1974. The Teachings of Don Juan : A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. New York: Pocket Books. https://ciis.on.worldcat.org/oclc/1036960893.
Eliade, Mircea. 1972. Shamanism: archaic techniques of ecstasy. [Princeton, N.J.]: Princeton University Press.
Ghosh, Amitav. 2016. The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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Lorimer, Jamie. 2017. The Anthroposcene: A Guide for the Perplexed. Social Studies of Science, Vol. 47, No. 1 (February 2017), pp. 117-142 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.
Villoldo, Alberto. 2000. Shaman, Healer, Sage. New York: Harmony Books.
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