issue 16: Land of (re)Enchantment
In this strange and beautiful “Land of Enchantment”, majesty and mystery surrounds us. We need only look up to appreciate an ever-unfolding cosmic drama playing out among ancient sky gods as they move across our celestial stage. We need only look around us and just below our feet to be reminded of those powerful earth forces that dramatically sculpted our physical landscape and social geography in a not-so-distant past. These primordial beings of our earth and sky may seem mostly at rest today though their influence is still present and active in subtler ways...
Here be Dragons!
We live among ancient giants. Here in the Greater World, we are literally surrounded by earth beasts of a bygone era. To the east we find the undulating spine of a great ‘dragon’ known as the Sangre de Cristo mountains. Sweep your gaze from north to west then south of our community and you’ll find the many remnants of dormant fire-breathers we know collectively as the Taos Plateau Volcanic Field. Take a stroll anywhere in the area and you’ll see their many gifts of gypsum and lichen-covered lava rocks, cobble and boulders of Servilleta Basalt generously dispersed throughout our landscape. But a stone’s throw from the Greater World is the gaping mouth of the Rio Grande Rift, a truly unique spectacle to behold and just two of its kind in the world (it’s comparable other being the East African Rift in case you want a sneak preview of what's possible here)! Beyond its dizzying depth and alluring beauty, the Rio Grande Rift offers a rare peek into a more distant and primordial past of this Earth as an ever-evolving being with a rich herstory of her own. Deep within The Rift flows the serpentine Rio Grande River, a powerful force in its own right and the lifeblood of diverse and interconnected ecosystems extending far beyond it banks. These awe-inspiring attributes of our local geography are not just features of the land, they are creatures of the land…
Dragons of the Everywhen
From descriptions of the primordial dragon of chaos Tiamat in the earliest known creation myth, the Enuma Elish, to the Feathered Serpent Quetzalcoatl of the ancient Aztecs or the Mayan counterpart Kulkulkan, to the Rainbow Serpent of the Australian Aboriginals, Taniwha of the Māori and the water guardian dragon Avanyu of our local Pueblo peoples… among most if not all ancient and indigenous cultures—and within even our modern sciences—we find the archetypal symbol of the Dragon used to describe the primordial energies and original creative intelligencesthat shaped our material world from its very beginning. Among aboriginal Australians, dragon or serpent beings reside in the Tjukurrpa or “The Dreaming” that exists in the “Everywhen”. Tjukurrpa (The Dreaming) describes a non-physical, symbolic realm that exists between the purely material world and the purely spiritual world acting as a "holding" place for images, stories and archetypal reality. It represent a "living system" rather than mere mythology as it deeply influences, shapes and gives meaning to our physical world and human experience.
Now Entering the Imagi-nation
We find conceptual counterparts of the Tjukurrpa in other cultures and other parts of the world, partly informed no doubt by the land itself. The Mundus imaginalis (Latin for "imaginal world") is a term coined by philosopher Henry Corbin to describe an intermediate, autonomous and objective realm of reality that exists between the physical world of our basic five senses and the abstract intellectual world. As a scholar and translator of ancient Arab and Persian texts, Corbin derived the concept from the Sufi idea of the 'alam al-mithal (world of image/archetypes) accessible through the "active imagination" (khayal) or the "eye of the heart". Like the Tjukurrpa, this realm is not fantasy but an ontological framework for our perceived reality; it is a tangible, navigable and objective space where visions, symbols and dreams hold true spiritual meaning as well as practical applications in our material world. From this realm our greatest mystics, poets, artists, mathematicians, psychonauts, psychologists and scientists of many disciplines have derived transformative insights which set them on inspired paths leading to personal, cultural and often world-changing discoveries. The Imagi-nation is a place within the Everywhen, you could say—not Never Never Land but Always Everywhere Land—that we are most familiar with as children though tend to abandon over time out of a sense of obligation to “normalcy” and all its many trappings. Many become successfully adapted to the rigid confines of consensus reality solely out of a want to belong, to avoid alienation, to attain personal aims or to simply get by, though at what cost?
The Great Nothing
When we regard the imaginal realm as the vital substrate of this reality, the living and fertile soil from which the very aliveness of the material world emerges, we can better appreciate its necessity in our everyday lives. Losing touch with the most vital ground of our reality can make life feel flat, pointless and vapid as if we are mere personalities in meat suits compelled by instinct and endlessly unquenchable wants trudging through the realm of the half dead, looking for that next dopamine fix. Distracted by so many expectations and obligations we may miss the encroaching presence of an all-consuming void overtaking the landscape of Imagin-nation, like The Great Nothing overtaking Fantasia in The Neverending Story. It manifests as not only a lack of connection with the imaginal realm but a general sense of apathy, complacency and narrow self-focus of our thoughts and actions. The tragedy of losing touch with this living and fertile realm is not only that we become estranged from a basic sense of aliveness within ourselves and all things or that we lose access to creative epiphanies and outside-the-box solutions… we also become susceptible to the very destructive disease of ego fantasies which have the opposite effect. Rather than supporting the ever-renewing creation of life that bubbles up from the realms of the imaginal, ego-generated fantasy seeks to control and conquer the creative purity of imagination, ultimately destroying life while replacing it with poor approximations, mere facsimile of the real thing. Simply put, fantasy is the realm of delusion—particularly delusions of grandeur—it is an us vs. them clamoring for dominance, a mentality of conquest and competition. In contrast, the realm of the imaginal is the fecund soil of creation, accessible to all of us regardless of creed, class or clout; it is an ever-flowing wellspring of creativity through which we can experience all things interconnected and interdependent, even magical and alive.
A call to (re)Enchantment
Living one’s life with a steady awareness of this realm makes for a magical, inspired, often exciting if not unusual experience. It’s as if an entire populated world exists right alongside us (because it does), just waiting to see a shining glimmer of awareness peeking through the veil between the mundane and imaginal realms. When those of the imaginal realm see there is someone to play with or who is respectfully requesting their assistance, things can get very interesting and unpredictable, in a fun way. While those who dance between worlds are mostly considered outsiders on the fringe of society, they are also sought as creators, innovators and healers. What they bring as gifts to the mundane world are very often celebrated (or terribly criticized at first then later celebrated) as pivotal in shaping culture, advances in technology and the general consciousness of the human population. There were times when the sense of co-existing with all sorts of unusual beings of the land was more the norm, though systematic targeting of specific populations over the centuries and removal from ancestral lands has greatly changed the mental and spiritual landscape of humanity. What if, through (re)enchanting our mental landscape and spiritually reconnecting with our lands and vast skies above, this dance between worlds once again became more the norm?
We are the music-makers and we are the dreamers of the dreams
In fact, many inquisitive minds across multiple disciplines are looking to the imaginal and are actively calling for a "re-enchantment" of the human relationship with the much greater world beyond the mundane in order to find not only more depth and meaning in their own lives but more viable solutions to our ever-mounting and ever more dire global issues. From earth-based technologies to new models for small community governance to therapeutic approaches and even activism… re-enchanting our world seems and likely is our best if not last hope for maintaining the true essence of our humanity. In this "Land of (re)Enchantment" issue of The Community Garden, I introduce just a few of these adventurous change-seekers and their ideas while paying acknowledgement to the many Dragons ever-present and still allied with us today. We need not only look to the past but the present and future of the Everywhen to find their encouraging and supportive presence all around.
In Truth, Beauty and Goodness,
B. Monique
Enjoy the full issue 15: Land of (re)Enchantment here.
