Apocalypse: the destruction of humanity’s South Pole, Eve

    I subscribe to Eric Rittenberry’s Poetic Outlaws Substack newsletter, which arrives every day in my email feed. Eric must spend a good while each day, deciding what he will publish next. He loves the old poets and writers, and there is good reason for that, I think, because the past has much to say to the future, if the future is listening. 

    This arrived yesterday from Poetic Outlaws, and I was roused to respond by something in me that seemed to have waited just for this moment to speak.

D.H. Lawrence on Vital Consciousness
POETIC OUTLAWS
DEC 26, 2023
Our consciousness is crippled and maimed, we only live with a fragment of ourselves. 

— D.H. Lawrence

Apocalypse, D.H. Lawrence’s final book, was written while he was dying. In this book, he unleashes a fierce, Lawrence-style criticism of modern civilization, and also a powerful declaration of man’s potential to create “a new heaven and a new earth” through a rebirth of the soul.

“This whole consciousness,” states the writer in the introduction, “what Jung termed 'integration', was the attainment of inner harmony and balance and a sense of living connection with the greater universe. Like Jung, Lawrence saw the human psyche poised between two worlds – the objective material universe, and the subjective inner world – with an equal need to relate to both, to integrate them for the enrichment and development of the psyche.”

In the following passages, Lawrence simply asks the reader—are we more vitally alive now than our ancestors were long ago? Is it possible to “restore the balance between the spiritual and sensual planes of existence?”
I hope you enjoy it. 

Culture and civilisation are tested by vital consciousness. 

Are we more vitally conscious than an Egyptian 3000 years B.C. was? Are we? Probably we are less. Our conscious range is wide, but shallow as a sheet of paper. We have no depth to our consciousness…

We have lost almost entirely the great and intricately developed sensual awareness, or sense-awareness, and sense-knowledge, of the ancients. 

It was a great depth of knowledge arrived at direct, by instinct and intuition, as we say, not by reason. It was a knowledge based not on words but on images. 

The abstraction was not into generalisations or into qualities, but into symbols. And the connection was not logical but emotional…

Not until we can grasp a little of the working of the ancient mind can we appreciate the "magic" of the world they lived in…

Men are far more fools today, for stripping themselves of their emotional and imaginative reactions, and feeling nothing. The price we pay is boredom and deadness. Our bald processes of thought no longer are life to us…

On and on we go, for the mental consciousness labours under the illusion that there is somewhere to go to, a goal to consciousness. Whereas of course there is no goal. 

Consciousness is an end in itself. We torture ourselves getting somewhere, and when we get there it is nowhere, for there is nowhere to get to…

Man is a being of power, and then a being of love. The pure individual tries either for sheer power, like Alexander, or sheer love, like Christ. 

But mankind forever will have its dual nature, the old Adam of power, the new Adam of love. And there must be a balance between the two. 

Man will achieve his highest nature and his highest achievements when he tries to get a living balance between his nature of power and his nature of love, without denying either. It is a balance that can never be established, save in moments, but every flower only flowers for a moment, then dies. 

That makes it a flower…

Love and power are the two divine things in life. This is what Nietzsche meant. But love is only divine when it is in harmonious relation to power: and power is only divine when it is in harmony with love.

Maha

"Love and power are the two divine things in life. This is what Nietzsche meant. But love is only divine when it is in harmonious relation to power: and power is only divine when it is in harmony with love."

D. H. Lawrence, a prophet for our time. 

Shakin' my head in wonder as I walk away, 

considering how...

"power is only divine when it is in harmony with love." 

Mind officially blown. 

Ethan

Nice. I stopped to think and wonder too. Power being in harmony with love means, in my opinion, that power should be used wisely to serve and protect love. It’s the other half that puzzled me more: “love is only divine when it is in harmonious relation to power” 🤔 Does that mean that only one who understands love, who felt love, should have access to power? To be cautious as to not put power in the hands of psychopaths?

Sloan Bashinsky

Once upon a time, a woman I had loved dearly, but it did not work out, told me that God had told her to tell me, “Adam must anchor into God for both Adam and Eve, and let God discipline Eve.” I didn’t want to hear that, of course, but it rang true, because I knew just how deeply prejudiced mankind is against the feminine, represented by Eve in the three Abrahamic religions.

The next woman in my life told me that God told had her, “All women on this planet are in a rabid war with God, and that is the cause of all wars, including man-made wars.” I told her that I thought, if what she heard was true, it was because of men blaming Eve for everything that was wrong, and why then would not women be in a rabid war with God, for creating men?

Where is Eve in what is going on in Gaza right now? She isn't there. Only Adam is there. Where is Eve in Hamas? She’s not there. Where is Eve in Israel? She’s not there. Where is Eve in President Biden and Congress and Americans backing Israel, or backing Hamas? She’s not there. Only Adam is there. 

"Bi Polar" 

the world's favorite

mood disorder

the cause of all

human ails,

including wars,

if the demons aren't counted

bi polar disorder,

the destruction of the

south pole,

the feminine,

the north pole,

he ain't been

right in the head

since she's been gone

Some time passed, and this arrived:

"Eve's Answer”

Vexing Truth

Life is Poetry,

Poetry is Life,

There's no more to say,

but that would 

make God

a really dull boy,

now wouldn't it,

Eve?

So, Eve,

What say you?

After all,

You have been,

still are, blamed,

for everything that went wrong with

hu - MAN - i - ty.

Well, do you really want to hear

what I gotta say?

Is this one of those

be careful what you ask for

pregnancies?

Well, is it?

Probably, but say

what you wish -

I s'pect you need

to be heard.

Heard?

Funny you mention ears.

Yes, ears.

Such important receptacles.

Yet filled with concrete, 

shit, propaganda, beliefs,

certainties, well,

let's not leave out

SUPERSTITION

and

RELIGION,

now should we?

By the way,

where do ya

suppose

God came from?

Or, out of?

And, 

why do ya s'pose

I made Eve

in my own 

IMAGE?

'Cause Adam was

so bored and dull -

so ... predictable

He was BORING!!!

the shit outta me!!!

That's why.

Now

Shusssssh -

Don't go round quoting me on

any of that -

I've had quite enough of

the religious right

ta last me 

the rest of forever  

 

Celeste Eve Horvath
This gave me such a sly smile while reading. Hits home in the best ways and I appreciate your view & the fact that you shared it.

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com