Finding Conscious Activism
I go back and forth about the working title for my current manuscript. At first I called it Fire and the New Consciousness: Finding a Path to a Conscious Activism. It morphed into The Uninvited Guest: Finding a Path to a Conscious Activism. The first had an introverted tone to it; the second was more outgoing, like an intruder in a dream who announces something new. But now in this lineup is Eden and the Serpent: Finding a Path to a Conscious Activism. The subtitle remains steady, but the title itself shifts.
I contemplate what this means. The foundation of the book is the needed shift in consciousness if we are to survive on our planet. My personal struggle to “shift” in the face of outer events is the centerpiece. The intrusion of a new neighbor, an “uninvited guest”, precipitates this story, like the serpent in the story of Eden. I search for a path of activism.
But the serpent is a bigger force than an intruder breaking some old stasis. The serpent necessitates a suffering of the opposites, like the creation of the world from the former heaven of Taoism.
The new consciousness is like the new heaven of Taoism, that which is beyond duality. The former heaven is more like Eden. Then there is the in-between: in this case, my book.
I was once criticized in a public presentation in which I discussed Eden and Lilith, the name given the serpent. The confronter, a fellow presenter, felt this myth of Eden ignored the evolved consciousness of First People’s of the North American continent.
Was he correct? But then myth is like the concept of “model” in scientific thought: it only illustrates a pattern of truth. It is not the truth. For these last years, Eden follows me around like utopia tasted, lost, and searched for once again.
The book is a caldron for me, a place my own motives and actions cook back into me. It returns me to myself, a soul retrieval. There is so much soul loss in our current situation with Earth and her changes, both individually and collectively. Choose your own mythic way of understanding it, but life will never be the same again. We have been kicked out of paradise and confronted with the facts of the situation, the knowledge of good and evil within and without in our actions toward each other and Earth. Now, we have to go forward.