CAN WE BEFRIEND THE ELEMENTS? (reprise)

THOSE EIGHT WORDS struck me like a sledgehammer when I first encountered them while reading a rather ponderous and nebulous work by the well-known astrologer, shamanic oracle and publisher, Barbara Hand Clow, who says her Cherokee grandfather taught her to listen to the elements and attune her psyche to the earth. After his death the young Barbara was subject to the severe traumas of growing up in a dysfunctional American family and experienced recurring contact with what she later identified as Pleiadian entities. At university Barbara majored in Jungian psychology and began delving into astrology and cosmomythology. In 1974 she married Gerald Cudahy Clow and together they established Bear & Company as a highly successful publishing house for cutting-edge, "New Age" authors.

But coming back to those eight words that had so much impact on me. Let's deconstruct and decompress that "Isaiah" quote:

Monotheism is the defining feature of the Abrahamic religions which are at most 4,000 years old (since the patriarch Abraham supposedly lived in the era between 2,000 and 1,500 BCE). Hindus believe the Kali yuga or Age of Darkness began at midnight on 23 January 3,102 BCE. In effect, the advent of the Abrahamic era (dare I say error?) occurred approximately a thousand years into the Age of Darkness when all divine revelations were subject to severe distortion and refraction. Interestingly, scholars of the Mayan calendar report that in 3,113 BCE the Earth began traversing a 5,000-year beam of density emanating from the Galactic Core, during which humans would become more individualized and egocentric. This densification and dimming of human consciousness is supposed to terminate between 28 October 2011 and 21 December 2012.


Most astronomers concur that the Solar System is approximately 4.6 billion years old, as estimated by the radiometric dating of meteorites. The Earth, according to consensus scientific opinion, was probably formed shortly afterwards. Some point at the figure 4.56 billion years as the age of our planet. Paleoanthropologists can't quite agree as to exactly when Homo sapiens may have begun to appear on Earth, but the general time frame ranges between 400,000 to 160,000 years. Let's say Homo faber (tool-using hominids) began multiplying around 250,000 years ago. Though the concept of a single Almighty Creator God has been around for approximately 4,000 years, the word "monotheism" was introduced into the English language by the Neoplatonist philosopher, Henry More, only in 1660 - less than 350 years ago.


What does anthropocentrism mean? It is the belief that humans must be considered at the center of, and above any other aspect of, reality. Monotheistic religions posit that God granted Man "dominion over Nature" - in other words, human considerations take precedence over the rest of the ecosystem. Ultimately, this leads to the dangerous viewpoint that making money is the single most important human activity on earth and that hills exist just so wealthy folks may build luxury apartments from which to gaze upon the urban sprawl below. We have seen the catastrophic results of such egotistical and myopic thinking. Stringent legislation and stricter enforcement won't solve the problem in the long run - but a radical shift in consciousness and perspective most certainly will.


Alchemy (from the Arabic Al-kimia) postulates that the Matter Universe consists of four elements - Fire, Earth, Air, and Water - and that these elements are present on the micro- as well as the macrocosmic levels. Indeed, our physical bodies are a blend of these very elements. Fire represents vitality, spirit, intellect; Earth the mineral compounds that constitute our blood and bones and fleshly tissue; Air the breath that oxygenates and cleanses our lifeblood, separating us from death; and Water (which forms 60-80 per cent of our bodies), symbolizing our emotional tides, influenced by the electromagnetic interaction of the Moon's gravitational field with that of the Earth.


When I relocated from Kuala Lumpur in early 1992 to the verdant hills of Pertak, Ulu Selangor, I soon became acutely aware of the close proximity of all four elements in my ecstatically beautiful riverine environment. Just sitting on a 500-million-year-old granite rock aglitter with embedded quartzite, feeling the hot sun on my skin, the fragrant breeze in my hair, soothed by the neverending riversong of crystalline life-sustaining waters - I felt for the first time in my life completely and absolutely at home.


It's exquisitely therapeutic to find your analytical mind suddenly and spontaneously falling silent while all your senses come alive. You begin to grasp the notion of Zen, of being totally in the here and now. In this serene state of receptivity, your body begins to pick up impressions long forgotten or usually unnoticed in the hurly-burly of urban existence. The rock you're resting on begins to tell you stories in its own distinctive mineral voice. And you begin to perceive the holographic, fractal nature of form itself - wherein the rock you're connected with in turn connects you with the entire spectrum of mineral consciousness.


Gradually, it dawns on you that the compressed experience of spacetime imposed on us by routinely accepted constraints of modern living is no more than an ephemeral veneer of insensitivity, of a societally sanctioned sensory shutdown. Our natural state is to be in constant awe and wonderment at the glorious epiphanies that abound all around us.

Henner Wenkhausen

When indigenous cultures connect with the elements through their shamans, they do so in a spirit of friendly cooperation. The very idea of combating the forces of nature would strike them as foolish and futile. How can one possibly defeat the wind or vanquish the ocean waves? On the other hand, by understanding these majestic forces and respectfully working with them, one is able to harness their might for one's own purposes. Wind and wave and solar power could free us forever from the stranglehold of voracious corporations that trade in toxic fossil fuels. Do we truly believe we can suck dry the oil reserves with impunity? Have we never considered the possibility that these subterranean and suboceanic pockets of petroleum actually serve as hydraulic shock absorbers, preventing the tectonic plates from scraping together with results disastrous to dwellers on the earth's surface?


The element Air embodies the idea of interconnectivity, communication, communion. When we consciously share breath with another, we synchronize our heartbeats and merge our energy fields. We experience a melding on the soul level, a fusion of destinies. Interesting how in our figures of speech, air features prominently as a metaphor. For instance, Malays speak of khabar angin (gossip, rumors) just as Italians call gossipers venticelli (little winds). Those with noble hearts are considered "fragrant" (wangi in Malay) while others with malicious intent are described as "stinkers" (busuk). The nose obviously knows better then the brain!


Where integrity reigns and people are naturally inclined to speaking truthfully, atmospheric pollution is a virtual impossibility. If you live in an asphyxiating hellhole where pedestrians scurry around wearing gasmasks, car windows are constantly closed with the aircon going full blast, while outside the air is almost unbreathable from carbon monoxide fumes - it's a clear sign that lying has become a national pastime.


When 100-million-year-old hardwood forests are clearfelled and set on fire by oil palm companies, you can be sure that a great many untruths are being circulated about the sustainability of monoculture cash crop plantations and the illusory profits to be made from a nearsighted biofuel campaign. Indeed, some of the biggest logging concerns and oil palm corporations have ministers as major shareholders - and that explains why the annually recurring haze just won't go away. How does it feel to choke and gag on your own lies?


Water is the Vital Essence of Life, it's chi or prana in liquid form. Moistness is an indication of fertility, sensual ripeness, warmth of feeling; and dryness suggests sterility, barrenness, humorlessness, sexual apathy. In effect, water is the element that signifies our emotional flux. The tragic situation in Malaysia wherein anxiety about water shortages is used to justify the construction of unnecessary dams even as flash floods recur with debilitating frequency reveals the unhealthy state of the nation's emotional life. Floodwaters are murky, polluted and often accompanied by waterborne diseases. What does this indicate about the kind of emotions we are expressing... or not? Are we being governed through fear rather than love?


Monotheism and the Abrahamic religions are patriarchal by definition, since these belief systems involve worship of a male deity, a Heavenly Father or Lord. A bit of research into the early history of the monotheistic religions associated with Yahweh reveals that there was a systematic excision of pre-existing Goddess emblems by a misogynistic male priesthood.


Why was the Sacred Feminine suppressed? Look at your left and right brains. The left is regarded as the logical, male brain where abstract symbols are linearly processed into alphanumeric codes - in effect, language. The right is usually associated with intuitive functions such as spatial and temporal navigation and the processing of non-verbal sensory data - in short, the "female" brain. Male children are trained to suppress their emotions while females can cry since they are "the weaker sex." Patriarchal societies are largely warlike and male children are required as cannon fodder for military campaigns. We can't be sending sissies to the battlefield, can we?


Progress is measured in physical terms, never metaphysical. Development is infrastructural, rarely cultural. Science and technology are to be encouraged; arts and humanities are best suited to girls... and effeminate boys (would you like to see your only son become a ballet dancer and move around with the arty-farty gay crowd?) Homophobic, testosteronally propelled national aspirations will neither tolerate the ambiguity of poetry nor the nature mystic's recognition of the aliveness of the elements...


But, alas, only the poet, the mystic, and the true lover in each of us can access and befriend the elements, and restore balance and harmony to the land. Legislative measures and political rhetoric demanding a scientific and technological solution is, at best, the band-aid approach to serious environmental injury. How can we avoid wholesale eco-apocalypse - if we're too goddamn arrogant to apologize to Mother Nature for constantly trying to make a quick buck by flogging off her vital organs as commodities in the marketplace? If you were a magnificent old-growth rainforest, would you appreciate being gangbanged and chainsaw-massacred by loudmouthed louts who call you ugly names like "merchantable biomass"?

[First posted 7 November 2009, reposted 28 October 2020]

THE AQUARIUS PROJECT ~ a 30-minute alchemical docu-poem on WATER (repost)

In September 2003 a friend tipped me off that Discovery Channel was looking for 30-minute documentary ideas from untested filmmakers. He suggested I submit a brief outline and try my chances. Winning entries would be granted a production team and a $25,000 budget to realize the project. I just re-read this proposal from 9 years ago and decided it was worth preserving as a blogpost. Even with a $250,000 budget I no longer have the stamina to do stuff like this. But if any young filmmaker who chances upon this would like to pick up on it....

Preliminary outline

We are watery creatures living on the surface of a watery planet and are subject to lunar influences that generate a subtle emotional tide in our interactions with our environment.

Water is one of the five elements that constitute life as we know it.

No one can agree on what the fifth element is: the Chinese consider metal as the fifth element while Hindus say it is akasha, the ether. Recently, there has even been a suggestion that the fifth element is LOVE. But everyone accepts that Fire, Air, Water, and Earth are the elemental constituents of all life on this planet.

Fire is associated with Energy, represented in the Tarot deck by Wands and in the modern deck by Clubs. Air is Communication, represented by the Sword of Intellect in the Tarot and Spades in the secular deck. Earth is Material Wealth, represented as Pentacles in the Tarot and Diamonds in the modern deck.

Water is Emotion, represented by Cups and by Hearts.

Some astrologers say that on the vernal equinox of March 20, 2001, we finally entered the Age of Aquarius, symbolized by the Water-Bearer. Yet scientists have recently warned that water shortages may be a potential cause of violent conflict in the 21st century.

Water – in all its forms and moods and guises – is the main character of my proposed ‘alchemical docu-poem.’ Water in its literal and metaphorical aspects, as the source of life and the spring of our emotions: water is a liquid analogy for the entire gamut of feelings we experience – from mirthful playfulness to unmitigated rage, from transcendental serenity to violent agitation and profound sorrow. A few years ago I wrote a polemical tract which succinctly summarizes the poetic perspective I intend to translate into moving images and sounds:

Humility means acknowledging how little we know about the universe; and humility comes from realizing that nature’s beauty and mystery are worth infinitely more than our perverse obsession with illusory fame and fortune. Being able to breathe clean, fresh air and admire the distant hills every day may not get us into the Guinness Book of World Records or the Who's Who of the Banana Republics ‑ but it will certainly get us closer to regaining heaven on earth. So stop midway through this frantic and futile feast of fools and look up at the ethereal clouds in the sky, and remember why we chose to be born on this exquisite and unique gem of a planet.  Was it to puff ourselves up with toadish pompousness and amass a hoard of dragon's gold we could never bequeath to our grandchildren? Because our grandchildren would be too busy turning into cockroaches, rats and other lifeforms that can survive or even thrive in ugly and polluted environments.

Or did we come here to experience the separation of matter from spirit, and to learn how they can be harmoniously fused again? For this lesson would teach us that the outer reflects the inner.

Where there is drought in the external reality, it means our souls are parched of feelings, love has dried up. Where there are landslides and flash floods, it means our integrity is decaying and our emotions are murky and raging out of control, bursting the banks of tranquility. And where the air is thick with greasy crud and black with factory soot, it means our thoughts are indecent (i.e., mechanical, pornographic) and our spirit is exhausted.

The Aquarius Project will address the issue of modern technology indirectly, by demonstrating the intimate relationship between murky emotions and contaminated waterways. Humans and human activities play a supporting rôle in the fluid narrative which will favor the non‑verbal over the verbal ‑ although a certain amount of language will be used to help shape the form and intent of the flow. The sad state of human emotions in an industrialized landscape is revealed in our clogged and polluted streams, many of which have undergone the indignity of being turned into drains and sewers.

Only when absolutely needed will a voiceover be used. However, text will feature as an aural and visual element in the narrative, which will alternate between linearity and non‑linearity. This could happen as bits of spoken dialog, as recitations, as song, or as direct interviews with the poet-documentator and others.

I envisage working independently with a digital videocam as well as with a professional crew to achieve a balance between the intimacy and immediacy of an experimental short feature and the technical polish and authority of a conventional documentary. As a musician, I look forward to creating part of the soundtrack for specific sequences, and using library music and live sound for others.

  

TENTATIVE CHECKLIST OF REQUIRED FOOTAGE:

• Lots of generic water shots: cloud formations, dewdrops on leaves, cascading falls, ripples on lakes and ponds, reflections in puddles, slomo sequences of watery movement, torrential downpour, drizzle, dripping faucet, lawn sprinklers, bathroom showers, wet umbrellas, raincoats, flash floods, muddy rivulets, aquarium sequences, rolling breakers, shimmering seas, speedboat wakes, etc.

• Whitewater rafters, kayakers, rubber‑tubers, waterskiers, fishermen, boaters, swimmers, kids in rivers, swimming pool sequences, bodysurfers, public urinals, sewage outlets, effluent pipes, drainpipes, monsoon drains, abandoned wells, gutters, stagnant ponds, poisoned streams, sanitation workers, laundrywomen, aquatic flora and fauna, pedestrians caught in thunderstorm, industrial carwash, glass & concrete urban gvs. 

• Archival footage or stills of severe drought (Afghanistan), destructive floods (China, Bangladesh), famine (Biafra), pestilence (Kosovo, Cambodia), street riots (Indonesia), massacres (East Timor), massive catatastrophes (Kobe, Gujarat), destitution and suffering (Iraq, Sierra Leone), poverty and neglect (Chennai, Chow Kit).

• General footage of industrial activity, environmental degradation, deforested hills, dust storms, physical and metaphysical desolation.

• Celebrants and mourners: candid portraits of emoting humans (can either be original footage or culled from magazines, photo albums, libraries, etc.) 

My preferred approach to cooking is to select and prepare the ingredients, look up the recipes of a few tried‑and‑tested dishes ‑ and then leave it to inspiration (and the random factor) to integrate and synthesize the elements, trusting that my artistic instincts will unerringly guide me to making the right decisions. This could prove a chaotic and messy process, but having emerged from a commercial background where artistic self‑indulgence must always concede to entertaining, stimulating and captivating the audience ‑ and being, incidentally, a Capricornian with a hardwired sense of internal order ‑ I have full confidence that I can come up with an immensely watchable and memorable 26‑minute docu‑poem that's aesthetically more adventurous than the straightforward documentary, but still accessible to a mass audience.

I began using a box camera at the age of 6 or 7 and have been an avid photographer most of my life. In the 1970s I had the use of a Super 8 cinecamera and made several experimental home movies which, alas, have all succumbed to the ravages of climate and time. Although I have yet to own a digital videocam, I've handled them occasionally with wholly satisfactory results. I'd like to buy or borrow a decent digital videocam so that I can gather special footage unobtrusively and at my own leisure ‑ leaving the betacam sequences to more experienced professionals. As such, I'd like to be writer, co‑camera‑operator, editor and director on The Aquarius Project ‑ but would greatly appreciate the logistical support of a competent production house.

[First posted 10 August 2012, reposted 3 May 2017]

Doomsday or Bloomsday? It's Up To Us! (repost)

Just before Christmas in 2009 I was admitted to the intensive care unit of Sungai Buloh Hospital in a semi-delirious state. Blood tests indicated an extraordinary amount of plasmodia from two different strains of malaria. My body was on the verge of total shutdown, so the doctors induced a 5-day coma while they put me on life support.

I have no memory whatsoever of my artificial state of suspended animation. It was perhaps the closest to death I have ever been. Yet for me it was a truly valuable experience: a close encounter with my own mortality that left me with vivid intimations of immortality.

It took me at least two weeks to regain my strength after I was discharged from the hospital, but during my convalescence I became acutely aware of the poignant fragility of living things - and the ephemerality of the physical world. I saw how easily continents can rise and sink, along with cities, nations, entire species.

What brought me crashing down from my usual state of perfect health was a mere mosquito bite. On a planetary scale, that compares with an oil company's attempt to drill a hole seven miles deep below the sea. To Mother Earth, that's no more than a mosquito bite - but it could prove equally lethal to all life on earth.

Nobody really knows the size of the petroleum deposit beneath the Gulf of Mexico. Unless some ingenious method is devised to plug the undersea borehole, crude oil could be gushing into the Gulf Stream for months, even years. Right now Mother Earth appears to be hemorrhaging unstoppably. Alas, her mineralized blood is extremely toxic to all life-forms - except perhaps a few strains of oleaphagic microbes.

Already, doomsday prophets have made their appearance on YouTube, pointing at Revelation 16:3 ["The second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became blood like that of a dead man; and every living thing in the sea died."]

No matter how you look at it, BP has screwed up big time. As usual, there are many who believe this colossal disaster wasn't just an unfortunate byproduct of insatiable corporate greed and hubris - but that it was deliberately engineered by a consortium of oil interests (read Halliburton and cronies) in a byzantine maneuver to secure some devious advantage. I find that really difficult to believe - that anybody could be so irredeemably evil and absolutely irresponsible. But we've already witnessed how some arrogant entities who enjoy playing god are perfectly capable of culling their livestock, and this is precisely how the ruling elite views the masses, as livestock.

Even as this potentially terminal eco-apocalypse unfolds, humans continue to be obsessed with their own petty games of ego-driven competition, oneupmanship and sibling rivalry.

Just look at the knee-jerk reactions of those who have bought into UMNO's repugnant doctrine of Malay Supremacy (which, ironically, is almost identical with the Zionist notion that the God of Abraham hand-picked the Jews as the Chosen People who shall rule over all other tribes). In suffering electoral defeat, rather than concede that their political rivals have earned themselves a turn at the wheel, these modified primates have opted to stir up racial and religious tensions in a futile attempt to scare voters into returning them to power.

While two stags lock antlers over a doe in heat, a grinning hunter with a double-barreled shotgun creeps up stealthily through the bushes and begins to take aim. In the animal kingdom as in the human, hormones and pheromones continue to rule. However, there is one significant difference: we humans supposedly have the intellectual capacity to transcend our biological and psychological drives, thereby attaining transcendental awareness - and, ultimately, cosmic consciousness.

The thrust of evolution has taken Homo sapiens sapiens to the point where we must make a conscious choice: to carry on behaving like destructive caterpillars, devouring the leaves of the very plant that supports our existence... or to accept the temporary ego death of pupation, wherein we become willing pupals/pupils of the greatest teacher of them all, Mother Nature, who will lovingly guide us to glorious butterflyhood - and galactic citizenship as mature and sentient beings.
 
As one who has long taken counsel from the natural world, I have come to appreciate a pile of moss-covered rocks far more than a $15,000 designer couch or even a $15 million gilded throne studded with rubies, emeralds and sapphires. Simplicity is indeed the mark of true mastery. All spiritual guides say the same thing - and have done so for thousands of years - but we still don't seem to get it. With billions in research grants at the disposal of leading edge scientists, no human laboratory can claim to have created an edible replica of a humble banana - what more a living, breathing, thinking, feeling creature - and I'm not talking about cloning. And yet our arrogant anthropocentrism and pathological egomania have convinced us that some almighty deity has granted us dominion over the beasts of the field and fowls of the air - indeed all the domains of nature, right down to microbes and viruses. When an outcry was raised over an animal-testing laboratory to be constructed in Melaka, the chief minister told reporters in all seriousness that God gave men the right to do as we will with animals.

The benightedness of that monotheistic and tyrannical viewpoint struck me as the very epitome of what has gone so terribly wrong with the human experiment. This spiritually retarded chief minister was really just a victim of a crude and barbaric religious doctrine designed to minimize empathy and maximize antipathy - so that rigid boundaries could be drawn between a fictitious Us and an imaginary Them. A fanatical adherence to notions of Us versus Them inevitably leads to perpetual conflict and warfare. Which, of course, sits perfectly well with weapons manufacturers and their shareholders.

Some folks who have seen James Cameron's latest blockbuster, Avatar, take cynical pride in criticizing his unabashed didacticism. I've read straightfaced putdowns of the movie by Christian apologists who accuse Cameron of depicting Mother Nature as God and corporate adventurism as the Devil. These days, whenever I see talking-head PR execs on TV trying to excuse the inexcusable, they all remind me of the corporate creep Parker Selfridge and the gung-ho killer droid Colonel Quaritch in Avatar who end up destroying the Sacred Tree in their frenzied pursuit of Unobtanium. Only goes to show how beautifully James Cameron succeeded in his mission to alert humanity to what's ultimately at stake.
    While a part of me shares the acute anxiety of those in the US (particularly folks living around the Gulf Coast) as to the eventual outcome of BP's monstrously catastrophic blowout, another part actually welcomes the disaster as perhaps the gigantic kick-in-the-butt we need to finally wean ourselves off fossil fuels that poison our habitat. Nope, going nuclear is NOT the answer either! Most so-called energy experts parrot the erroneous belief that "we are currently in an energy crisis."

There is absolutely no energy crisis. If there appears to be one it's only because we have been way too prodigal in the way we misuse energy.

Like fish swimming around in a saltwater aquarium, we have forgotten the open sea. Our myopic get-rich-quick schemes benefit nobody - least of all ourselves - and yet we won't hesitate to kill anyone who attempts to stop us.

That's right, folks, we humans will defend our lavish lifestyles to the death - even if it's the last thing we ever do. Some distant day an Aldebaranian anthropologist will describe the demise of our species thus:

"The humanoid Earthians perished as a result of their obstinate addiction to MSG-flavored snacks, fizzy drinks, toxic fumes, and loud noises."

[First posted 19 December 2017]

Statement on the Selangor Dam (revisited)

TECHNOLOGY WILL NOT SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS. ONLY HUMILITY AND TRUTHFULNESS WILL DO THE TRICK.

Selangor River rapids (Antares)

I issue this statement on my own behalf, and not as a representative of any group or organization. I am resolutely against any attempt to solve our serious environmental problems - of which recurring smog and water shortages (despite worsening floods) are merely symptoms - through heavy-handed bureaucratic schemes and club-footed technological ploys.

Never mind the goddam EIA. These multi-million-ringgit "professional" reports are a wordscreen for a lot of nasty unspeakable projects that I prophesy will soon be totally banned from this precious planet, as more and more of us awaken to the terrible truth.

What an EIA does is to soften the crushing impact of reckless "development" projects. The EIA is very much like an inventory of potential damage caused by warfare: you might lose a few toes, half your brain, most of your vision, your hearing, your sanity, etc - BUT if you follow certain SAFETY PRECAUTIONS, you might escape with only half the above injuries!

The point is: WE DON'T WANT TO GO TO WAR AT ALL! What industrialization has done to the environment is essentially a declaration of war against natural beauty and simple, honest values. That way lies a dead-end future of merciless grey grimness unfit for organic lifeforms, only state-owned androids.

Building yet another colossal dam to feed our insatiable appetite for "growth" is definitely a sign of derangement. We have been forcefed - and a few have greedily swallowed - Mahathir's "vision" of unfettered industrial development and economic expansion. But how many have dared to publicly question the sanity or wisdom of this management policy? And when a few voices in the wilderness cried out in warning, were they heeded or even heard amidst the clamor of the stock exchange and the growing traffic jams?

When water catchment areas have been rudely denuded and despoiled, and hills carved up for high-rise housing, do we expect to live happily after on this earth? Surely Mother Earth will seek ways in which she can rid herself of this terrible infestation called humanity, surely she will find ways to alert us to the grave errors of our perception, so that we can return to a loving, cherishing relationship with her (instead of exploiting her and robbing her of resources meant for all living things, and seeing her beauty as no more than booty for our taking).

KL flash flood, March 2009 (Ahmad Asmadi/The Star)

My friends, the inclement weather changes - wet months getting wetter and hot months getting hotter and cold countries getting colder - are part of the phenomenon called Global Warming. It is largely caused by human insensitivity to the miraculous spectrum of life that constitutes our biosphere. "Modern Man" suffers from acute anthropocentrism - a viewpoint focused exclusively on human need and greed - and acute anthropocentrism will eventually destroy the whole earth. Our needs are amply provided for by Mother Nature, as the wise ones say, but not our greed.

So our recent plague of environmental problems is basically an indicator of our excesses. To further abuse and exploit the environment certainly will not help - no matter how clever or inventive or EXPENSIVE the technology may be.

What will help is to reassess our management policies and national aspirations with complete truthfulness. We would immediately recognize that we have reached the point where national ego pride could ruin us and genuine humility just might save us.

Humility means acknowledging how little we know about the universe; and humility comes from realizing that nature's beauty and mystery are worth infinitely more than our perverse obsession with illusory fame and fortune.

Being able to breathe clean, fresh air and admire the distant hills every day may not get us into the Guinness Book of World Records or the Who's Who of the Banana Republics- but it will certainly get us closer to regaining heaven on earth.

Road to Heaven by Emily Mueller

So stop midway through this frantic and futile feast of fools and look up at the ethereal clouds in the sky, and remember why we chose to be born on this exquisite and unique gem of a planet. Was it to puff ourselves up with toadish pompousness and amass a hoard of dragon's gold we could never bequeath to our grandchildren? Because our grandchildren would be too busy turning into cockroaches, rats, and other lifeforms that can survive or even thrive in ugly and polluted environments.

Or did we come here to experience the separation of matter from spirit, and to learn how they can be harmoniously fused again? For this lesson would teach us that the outer reflects the inner. Where there is drought in the external reality, it means our souls are parched of feelings, love has dried up. Where there are landslides and flash floods, it means our integrity is decaying and our emotions are murky and raging out of control, bursting the banks of tranquility. And where the air is thick with greasy crud and black with factory soot, it means our thoughts are indecent (i.e., mechanical, pornographic) and our spirit is exhausted.

These are not - as an official propagandist might have you believe - the essential hallmarks of progress, the few broken eggs of omelette-making. Material comfort and spiritual distress are not the sine qua non of success. If truth be told, these are the unmistakable symptoms of acute mismanagement pulling the wool over the eyes of - or, rather, shearing the wool off - a woefully disinformed and misguided citizenry.

Don't be fooled or bullied by businessmen and politicians into believing that ideals and principles are for lily-livered dreamers and bleeding-hearts. Ideals and principles are our navigational beacons through the foggy night of never-knowing-for-sure. Businessmen and politicians prefer to bandy about FACTS and FIGURES. They call it being REALISTIC, being PRACTICAL, being LOGICAL, being RATIONAL.  "Hey, don't be so emotional," they're fond of admonishing individuals like me.

Well, my friends, if you think the world is run by walruses and carpenters... oops, I mean, busynessmen and appalliticians... and there isn't much you and I can do to change the situation - you're dead wrong! In the first place, they are not running the world - they're RUINING it! And in the second place, every bit of POWER they appear to wield they STOLE from YOU.

Now, to reclaim your POWER - and your FUTURE - and your SENSE OF MEANING and PURPOSE - all you have to do is stand your ground and say: NO WAY! YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BUILD ANOTHER STUPID BLOODY DAM JUST TO COVER UP YOUR INCOMPETENCE, YOUR INEFFICIENCY AND YOUR INBRED CORRUPTION. YOU ARE GOING TO START LISTENING TO THOSE WHO CAN STILL TALK STRAIGHT - INSTEAD OF THROWING THEM ALL IN JAIL! - AND CARRY OUT THE TRUE WISHES OF WE THE PEOPLE.

We no longer desire to be permanent debt-slaves of an inaccessible power elite ("Boss ada meeting!"). We shall no longer pick up the bill for your deadly sins. We are prepared to give you ONE LAST CHANCE to admit your mistakes (go on, say "Sorry lah!" just once with feeling) and then call for suggestions from the public as to what needs to be done about everything: our air, our water, our legal system, our police force, our news media, our housing policy, our hideous track record of moral duplicity, and our utter contempt for truth, never mind the environment!

I'm absolutely sure the very first suggestion will be: DO AWAY WITH OBSOLETE LAWS FROM THE DARK AGES LIKE THE ISA AND THE OSA. Then we can feel free at last to discuss decent, intelligent, eco-friendly and non-destructive ways to resolve our problems without being harassed by zomboid goons.

In fact, you may find we actually have very few problems in this country. I'd venture that they can all fit into a single courtroom and be tried for conspiracy to befuddle and bamboozle the public! And the most fitting "punishment" would be for the entire cabinet to live for two whole years in an Orang Asli village on RM500 a month. They will each be issued a 20-year-old 80 c.c. motorbike - and no petrol allowance.

The Orang Asli, of course, will be paid ministers' salaries during the exchange period to make up for the inconvenience of having to teach a bunch of back-biting batik-shirted baboons the basics of honest living.*

Antares

Magick River

6 March 1999

*Twelve years have elapsed since I wrote this. Regrettably, I have had to revise my earlier, overly romantic view of the Orang Asli and their role as guardians of "indigenous wisdom." This may have been true of past generations, raised on grandmothers' stories instead of low-grade TV. However, the new generation of Orang Asli - and I refer specifically to the Temuan of Ulu Selangor - are hardly in a position to teach anybody "the basics of honest living." Indeed, I'm inclined to think only a tiny handful these days have any grasp of the notion of honesty. The rot from Putrajaya has spread all the way down to the roots. To rehabilitate BN ministers we will probably have to outsource the contract!

[First posted 6 November 2011]

Namewee has joined the ecowarriors with this funky new video!

Ever since Namewee returned from Taiwan about 4 years ago - and almost immediately created controversy with his Negarakuku video - I've been monitoring his artistic output with interest and growing admiration. This young lad from Muar most definitely has energy, talent and the necessary technical skills to convey his feelings on just about everything through punchy videos and catchy numbers. I have yet to catch his first full-length feature film, Nasi Lemak 2.0 - but it's fairly high on my list of must-watch productions.

This is the first time I've seen Namewee address the bigger issues of emotional disconnect, environmental rape and human greed. And he does it with powerful sincerity. I hope this video goes viral worldwide, captures the imagination of the young, and contributes to a planetary-scale reassessment of our life goals.

Thanks, Namewee, and more energy and power to you, young warrior!

[Brought to my attention by Mary Maguire]

CAN WE BEFRIEND THE ELEMENTS?

In view of the massive tectonic shifts underway, this essay first published on 9 December 2008 deserves yet another revisit...
How can we avoid wholesale eco-apocalypse - if we're too goddamn arrogant to apologize to Mother Nature for constantly trying to make a quick buck by flogging off her vital organs as commodities in the marketplace? If you were a magnificent old-growth rainforest, would you appreciate being gangbanged and chainsaw-massacred by loudmouthed louts who call you ugly names like "merchantable biomass"?


THOSE EIGHT WORDS struck me like a sledgehammer when I first encountered them while reading a rather ponderous and nebulous work by the well-known astrologer, shamanic oracle and publisher, Barbara Hand Clow, who says her Cherokee grandfather taught her to listen to the elements and attune her psyche to the earth. After his death the young Barbara was subject to the severe traumas of growing up in a dysfunctional American family and experienced recurring contact with what she later identified as Pleiadian entities. At university Barbara majored in Jungian psychology and began delving into astrology and cosmomythology. In 1974 she married Gerald Cudahy Clow and together they established Bear & Company as a highly successful publishing house for cutting-edge, "New Age" authors.

But coming back to those eight words that had so much impact on me. Let's deconstruct and decompress that "Isaiah" quote:

Monotheism is the defining feature of the Abrahamic religions which are at most 4,000 years old (since the patriarch Abraham supposedly lived in the era between 2,000 and 1,500 BCE). Hindus believe the Kali yuga or Age of Darkness began at midnight on 23 January 3,102 BCE. In effect, the advent of the Abrahamic era (dare I say error?) occurred approximately a thousand years into the Age of Darkness when all divine revelations were subject to severe distortion and refraction. Interestingly, scholars of the Mayan calendar report that in 3,113 BCE the Earth began traversing a 5,000-year beam of density emanating from the Galactic Core, during which humans would become more individualized and egocentric. This densification and dimming of human consciousness is supposed to terminate between 28 October 2011 and 21 December 2012.


Most astronomers concur that the Solar System is approximately 4.6 billion years old, as estimated by the radiometric dating of meteorites. The Earth, according to consensus scientific opinion, was probably formed shortly afterwards. Some point at the figure 4.56 billion years as the age of our planet. Paleoanthropologists can't quite agree as to exactly when Homo sapiens may have begun to appear on Earth, but the general time frame ranges between 400,000 to 160,000 years. Let's say Homo faber (tool-using hominids) began multiplying around 250,000 years ago. Though the concept of a single Almighty Creator God has been around for approximately 4,000 years, the word "monotheism" was introduced into the English language by the Neoplatonist philosopher, Henry More, only in 1660 - less than 350 years ago.


What does anthropocentrism mean? It is the belief that humans must be considered at the center of, and above any other aspect of, reality. Monotheistic religions posit that God granted Man "dominion over Nature" - in other words, human considerations take precedence over the rest of the ecosystem. Ultimately, this leads to the dangerous viewpoint that making money is the single most important human activity on earth and that hills exist just so wealthy folks may build luxury apartments from which to gaze upon the urban sprawl below. We have seen the catastrophic results of such egotistical and myopic thinking. Stringent legislation and stricter enforcement won't solve the problem in the long run - but a radical shift in consciousness and perspective most certainly will.


Alchemy (from the Arabic Al-kimia) postulates that the Matter Universe consists of four elements - Fire, Earth, Air, and Water - and that these elements are present on the micro- as well as the macrocosmic levels. Indeed, our physical bodies are a blend of these very elements. Fire represents vitality, spirit, intellect; Earth the mineral compounds that constitute our blood and bones and fleshly tissue; Air the breath that oxygenates and cleanses our lifeblood, separating us from death; and Water (which forms 60-80 per cent of our bodies), symbolizing our emotional tides, influenced by the electromagnetic interaction of the Moon's gravitational field with that of the Earth.


When I relocated from Kuala Lumpur in early 1992 to the verdant hills of Pertak, Ulu Selangor, I soon became acutely aware of the close proximity of all four elements in my ecstatically beautiful riverine environment. Just sitting on a 500-million-year-old granite rock aglitter with embedded quartzite, feeling the hot sun on my skin, the fragrant breeze in my hair, soothed by the neverending riversong of crystalline life-sustaining waters - I felt for the first time in my life completely and absolutely at home.


It's exquisitely therapeutic to find your analytical mind suddenly and spontaneously falling silent while all your senses come alive. You begin to grasp the notion of Zen, of being totally in the here and now. In this serene state of receptivity, your body begins to pick up impressions long forgotten or usually unnoticed in the hurly-burly of urban existence. The rock you're resting on begins to tell you stories in its own distinctive mineral voice. And you begin to perceive the holographic, fractal nature of form itself - wherein the rock you're connected with in turn connects you with the entire spectrum of mineral consciousness.


Gradually, it dawns on you that the compressed experience of spacetime imposed on us by routinely accepted constraints of modern living is no more than an ephemeral veneer of insensitivity, of a societally sanctioned sensory shutdown. Our natural state is to be in constant awe and wonderment at the glorious epiphanies that abound all around us.


When indigenous cultures connect with the elements through their shamans, they do so in a spirit of friendly cooperation. The very idea of combating the forces of nature would strike them as foolish and futile. How can one possibly defeat the wind or vanquish the ocean waves? On the other hand, by understanding these majestic forces and respectfully working with them, one is able to harness their might for one's own purposes. Wind and wave and solar power could free us forever from the stranglehold of voracious corporations that trade in toxic fossil fuels. Do we truly believe we can suck dry the oil reserves with impunity? Have we never considered the possibility that these subterranean and suboceanic pockets of petroleum actually serve as hydraulic shock absorbers, preventing the tectonic plates from scraping together with results disastrous to dwellers on the earth's surface?


The element Air embodies the idea of interconnectivity, communication, communion. When we consciously share breath with another, we synchronize our heartbeats and merge our energy fields. We experience a melding on the soul level, a fusion of destinies. Interesting how in our figures of speech, air features prominently as a metaphor. For instance, Malays speak of khabar angin (gossip, rumors) just as Italians call gossipers venticelli (little winds). Those with noble hearts are considered "fragrant" (wangi in Malay) while others with malicious intent are described as "stinkers" (busuk). The nose obviously knows better then the brain!


Where integrity reigns and people are naturally inclined to speaking truthfully, atmospheric pollution is a virtual impossibility. If you live in an asphyxiating hellhole where pedestrians scurry around wearing gasmasks, car windows are constantly closed with the aircon going full blast, while outside the air is almost unbreathable from carbon monoxide fumes - it's a clear sign that lying has become a national pastime.


When 100-million-year-old hardwood forests are clearfelled and set on fire by oil palm companies, you can be sure that a great many untruths are being circulated about the sustainability of monoculture cash crop plantations and the illusory profits to be made from a nearsighted biofuel campaign. Indeed, some of the biggest logging concerns and oil palm corporations have ministers as major shareholders - and that explains why the annually recurring haze just won't go away. How does it feel to choke and gag on your own lies?


Water is the Vital Essence of Life, it's chi or prana in liquid form. Moistness is an indication of fertility, sensual ripeness, warmth of feeling; and dryness suggests sterility, barrenness, humorlessness, sexual apathy. In effect, water is the element that signifies our emotional flux. The tragic situation in Malaysia wherein anxiety about water shortages is used to justify the construction of unnecessary dams even as flash floods recur with debilitating frequency reveals the unhealthy state of the nation's emotional life. Floodwaters are murky, polluted and often accompanied by waterborne diseases. What does this indicate about the kind of emotions we are expressing... or not? Are we being governed through fear rather than love?


Monotheism and the Abrahamic religions are patriarchal by definition, since these belief systems involve worship of a male deity, a Heavenly Father or Lord. A bit of research into the early history of the monotheistic religions associated with Yahweh reveals that there was a systematic excision of pre-existing Goddess emblems by a misogynistic male priesthood.


Why was the Sacred Feminine suppressed? Look at your left and right brains. The left is regarded as the logical, male brain where abstract symbols are linearly processed into alphanumeric codes - in effect, language. The right is usually associated with intuitive functions such as spatial and temporal navigation and the processing of non-verbal sensory data - in short, the "female" brain. Male children are trained to suppress their emotions while females can cry since they are "the weaker sex." Patriarchal societies are largely warlike and male children are required as cannon fodder for military campaigns. We can't be sending sissies to the battlefield, can we?


Progress is measured in physical terms, never metaphysical. Development is infrastructural, rarely cultural. Science and technology are to be encouraged; arts and humanities are best suited to girls... and effeminate boys (would you like to see your only son become a ballet dancer and move around with the arty-farty gay crowd?) Homophobic, testosteronally propelled national aspirations will neither tolerate the ambiguity of poetry nor the nature mystic's recognition of the aliveness of the elements...


But, alas, only the poet, the mystic, and the true lover in each of us can access and befriend the elements, and restore balance and harmony to the land. Legislative measures and political rhetoric demanding a scientific and technological solution is, at best, the band-aid approach to serious environmental injury. How can we avoid wholesale eco-apocalypse - if we're too goddamn arrogant to apologize to Mother Nature for constantly trying to make a quick buck by flogging off her vital organs as commodities in the marketplace? If you were a magnificent old-growth rainforest, would you appreciate being gangbanged and chainsaw-massacred by loudmouthed louts who call you ugly names like "merchantable biomass"?