{"id":60856,"date":"2025-01-24T09:03:41","date_gmt":"2025-01-24T15:03:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=60856"},"modified":"2025-01-24T12:51:38","modified_gmt":"2025-01-24T18:51:38","slug":"charles-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=60856","title":{"rendered":"The Demon of Ignorance. In the long view"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yule and the Quarter Century Moon<\/p>\n

Friday gratefuls: Alan. Jamie. Frederick Posner. Mindy. Ellen. Janet. Ginny. Janice. Luke. Findlay. Leo. Gracie. Murdoch. Warmer night. Still cool. My son. Rich. Seoah. Living will. Estate plan. Affairs. Light. Dark. Tao. Light in the dark. Dark in the light. Wu wei. Chi. Ohr. Shiva. Creation and destruction. In the long arcing spiral of existence.<\/p>\n

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shiva<\/p>\n

Kavannah 2025:\u00a0 Creativity<\/p>\n

Kavannah week:\u00a0 \u00a0Appreciation of Opposition<\/p>\n

One brief shining: Two brown paper bags at a time, crunching the snow on my driveway, I moved my Safeway pickup order from the back of Ruby, into the kitchen, yes you need to do these things, keep the muscles working, placing the bags on the\u00a0 counter; after, I drove Ruby into her stall, gave her fresh oats and a quick rubdown, and returned to the house to put away my groceries.<\/p>\n

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Here is the Shiva Nataraja depicted in the style of the intricate bas reliefs at Angkor Wat<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hinduism helps me at a time like this. Tom reminded me of Shiva the other morning and I’ve stayed with that thought. Vishnu stabilizes the world; Shiva engages in constant acts of creation and destruction. Both acting over unimaginably long periods of time*, heading toward destruction, then renewal.<\/p>\n

Seen in the context of a kalpa, what is the four year presence of an avatar of the id, guided by fear and lust and greed, not unusual attributes found in humanity. Especially in the Kali Yuga, a portion of the kalpa under the destructive, yet cleansing influence of Kali.<\/p>\n

I suppose you could see this as the opposite of living in the moment. This way of understanding the cosmic cycle insists on embedding ourselves not in the here and now only, but also in the extended experience of kalpas and yugas. From this lofty perspective cousin Donald and his Clown Posse present as bit players, foils in a cyclic dance between chaos and order, a just world and an unjust world. Just as you and I do.<\/p>\n

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Here is the depiction of Shiva Nataraja dancing atop the demon of ignorance, styled in the intricate and symbolic manner of Hindu temple art.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the Shiva Nataraja I have here at home Shiva dances on the demon of ignorance. We can imagine cousin Donald beneath Shiva’s feet. I’m even willing to imagine this demon of all thing’s petty as a cautionary tale in the oh so finite history of our United States. From the next century: Never again.<\/p>\n

When we focus on the moment, we lose the breadth and depth of history, of time in the sense of kalpas and yugas. This can be a serious problem in that we may universalize what’s happening in the moment and fail to understand the much, much larger context in which all events occur. A French historian looks at the longue dur\u00e9e. The long duration of history. I prefer the Hindu version because of its cyclical nature, but my primary point this morning?\u00a0 As bad as he has been and will be cousin Donald does not write the long arc of history. None of us do.<\/p>\n

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*The Cyclical Nature of Time (Yugas and Kalpas)<\/strong><\/p>\n