I watch the comments that are graciously posted each time a blog is posted and I am also trying to get a sense of the interest in this question of the Soul of America. Interest is minimal, so I may stop the blog and continue the writing until it is ready to publish as a book. Or, I am considering dropping posting the blog on Facebook and just continuing it on my website, http://www.robertsardello.com
Thank you, those who have commented. A comment that I want to address is one in which a person quite eagerly indicated waiting to hear what would be said concerning Indian shamans. Thank you. I won’t likely say much if anything concerning shamanism. In this working into the soul of America, the best, best writing I have found that reveals something of extreme importance regarding shamanism in relation to the writings here is Eduardo Duran’s book, The Buddha in Redface, a novel of the mysterious conjunction of the American Indian and the atomic bomb. And, the other person to read is the great Taos, New Mexico writer, Frank Waters, who lived with the Hopi for three years, was told the complete Hopi myth by elders, in their language, and then translated as “The Book of the Hopi”, one of the truly greatest of all great books. He also wrote a novel that very directly speaks of this juxtaposition of radiation and the Pueblo Indians, The Woman at Otowi Crossing.
In a later section of this present writing, the very mysterious conjunction of the presence of the American Indian with places high in radioactivity will be addressed.
1/6 of all the uranium in the world is centered around Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, f Los Alamos, where all things nuclear happen is surrounded by Pueblo, Arapahoe, Apache, and Hope reservations. The Sandia Mountains, near Albuquerque, and near Sandia Pueblo, have the largest storing area of nuclear warheads in the world. (These are major reasons why I moved here.)
This juxtaposition of the presence of the American Indian and radiation, while concentrated in this region of New Mexico, is not at all the exclusive region where this mysterious relation occurs. It also occurs in Minnesota with the land of the Dakota Indians, and in Nebraska, where the Indians there are currently suing the uranium mining companies for contaminating their water. I am very sure the juxtaposition is widespread. (“Rational” reasons can be proffered, but such reasoning is always secondary – something much more mysterious precedes any reasons conjured.)
Perhaps, it would be helpful to suggest one imagination guiding these writings, to dispel the fantasy of anything exotic in the offing. If something of this nature does find its way into these contemplations, it will have to serve the purpose of the concern with the soul of America.
This imagination will seem like a diversion. I hope you are able to entertain it.
I am sure you feel the inclining of the writing – that the soul of America can be entered only through the land, and this land, revered, honored, lived within by the people of this land, the Indian people, who are not just the inhabitants of this land, they are the land. This is just fact, and it is of great, great interest that this givenness was not perceived by the first ‘visitors.’ Nor by any after.
The imagination: There is a great imagination, a picturing of the “Ages of Man”—the Golden Age, the Silver age, The Bronze Age, the Heroic Age, the Iron Age. This picturing of the Ages of Man comes from the Greek poet Hesiod. Greek. (a hint that we perhaps have to do a ‘reverse’ imagination. Remember when I said that the Greek temples were designed to disconnect the gods and the land.)
The Ages progress from an original, long-gone age in which humans enjoyed a nearly divine existence to the current age, in which humans are beset by innumerable pains and evils – the iron age. In the two accounts that survive from ancient Greece and Rome, this degradation of the human condition over time is indicated symbolically with metals of successively decreasing value.
In the book of Daniel, King Nebuchadnasser has a dream that only Daniel is able to interpret. It is a dream of these ages:
“You, the king, were gazing and, behold, a great figure, very impressive, stood before you in a frightening vision.
“Its head [was made] of fine gold; its neck, upper chest and arms [were made] of silver; its stomach and thighs [were made] of bronze.His legs [were made] of iron; his feet, some of them [were made] of iron, some of them of fired clay.
His legs [were made] of iron; his feet, some of them [were made] of iron, some of them of fired clay.
And you saw a loose stone not [made] by hands, and it struck the figure on its iron and clay toes and it pulverized them.
And all the iron, bronze, clay, silver and gold were pulverized entirely and became like the chaff that is scattered in the summer, carried off by a persistent wind* and nothing of it remains, but the stone that struck the figure became a mountain and all the earth became full of it.
This was the dream and I shall explain its meaning to the king.”
This dream of the ages of man, interestingly, includes the substance of clay and the substance of stone.
A further, most interesting version of this image, was given to Francis of Assisi in a vision:
Francis had a vision of a woman one night when he had been praying for hours and sleep had gradually overtaken him. “His holy soul was taken into the sanctuary of God and he saw in a dream” a woman with head of gold, bosom and arms of silver, abdomen of crystal, and comprised of iron from the waste down. She was tall, delicate, symmetrical, and beautifully formed, wearing a soiled mantle.
This woman of St. Francis’ vision is Lady Poverty, who he spiritually married.
The “Ages of Man” as given in the Greek imagination pictures the gradual degradation of human beings, our sinking into pain and evil. The dream of Nebuchadnasser pictures a similar degradation, though it adds the most interesting element of stone, that is, earth.
The vision of St. Francis is one in which the completely earthly condition is actually what is sought. Nostalgia for ‘a golden age’, or for some exotic magic that will turn us again into ‘high’ beings, will not happen. Perhaps, spiritually, the opposite direction is indicated. The heart’s emptiness. Without the desire for gold silver, bronze, iron – each indicating different human accomplishments and strife.
St. Francis reverses the ages of man by embracing Lady Poverty. I propose that another name for Lady Poverty is Earth. Where we are inclined in this ongoing writing. Just look at where and how St. Francis lived. with and within Earth. Then, Earth reveals herself as Spirit. But only when she is embraced without any possibility of what can be done through self-will. We are at the end of self-will.
Take this last image of Lady Poverty as analogous to what is being revealed by the American Indian – the path through radiation, that is, meeting sure death (which we are doing, but without consciousness or only the literal
consciousness of trying to reverse the death of Earth), into radiance, the embrace of our being wholly EARTH-being. Not around or sidestepping or imagining a golden a new golden age, but a path through death, for radiation hastens death; it is an image for hastened death, which can also be heard as the death of the self-will. We need not take radiation literally as nuclear winter. Radiation in the earth is responsible for change. When met in the proper way, entering the soul of America ends those Ages only concerned with exerting self-will.
Dear Robert of friends, of lovely, of lonely . . . dear radiant earth,
Well, that’s a lot, your post here, all of a sudden. Thank you.
Wonderful lyricle writer, Lydia Millet, [may be] living in Tucson, AZ, only a few people have been enjoying her brilliant continuing contemporary work intensely for more than two or three years new in themes not easy, of How, elusions, disappearances and shifting costs of corn and rye, librarians, sweethearts, marches, Enrico Fermi. I like you on facebook; for now I am way behind in downloads, upgrades, frying more brain cells, can barely, barely keep up! Worth struggling with, speed tek gods? oh gosh, as for me, don’t know, keep trying here, it’s bittersweet, keep falling in love . . . whew, so fast it moves us, get carried not away exactly, kind of through it, like feeling tunnels curving, a lot, and fine, good, and really distracting, almost completely most of the time about 2/3 to 3/4 of a click from wipeout completely, mostly can’t tell which fraction is which, not so good, for sure! holding, holding! Oh, also, really like being here where I am too, seductives abound. Love, Mary
Please keep posting….
Thank you Robert
I find this series extraordinarily interesting.
I am a New Zealander living in Western Australia. I believe we are somewhere, all indigenous. All come from cultures where people and land were once indivisible. Except we, who are of Indo-European heritages, accepted the split, the shadow for the substance and cast land, animals, gods and devils from our own being. Depth Psychology has sought to help people reclaim some of their god and devil nature ..now we need, very urgently to know ourselves literally as part of the substance of Gaia, Earth Mother, Papa Tuanuku and in union with the creative genius of Sky Father…. It is necessary to restore the Dreaming without loosing the capacity to be engineers and city dwellers. I see it as a need to learn to hold two realities in our heart-minds at the same time, all the time. I am interested in your experience of being an American seeking to heal the split. Please continue the blog!
Best wishes Vivien Beere
Dear Robert: Please do not quit posting your developing reflections on soul and earth. Your writing is delving deeply into thoughts which are not always easily brought to the surface in order to respond. It is a privilege to be privy to a great mind unfolding a theme which is so crucial for our time. Another of my teachers, Cynthia Bourgault, is also writing of soul on Northeast Wisdom. The field around soul is energized with your writing and I look forward with gratitude to your continued sharing. Thank you.
Dear Robert, Your posts have been meditative nourishment for me since number 1 first appeared several weeks ago now. I never get tired of reading them from start to finish, every day if at all possible; they are always new in the way they work even into the very depth and rhythm of my breathing. Immediately. I never fail to share them on Facebook. Please continue to post.
Love,
Joseph
I am adding another wholehearted YES! to the others’ who are grateful for your postings. I am not much experienced with commenting/responding through blogs, social media etc but yours is one I deeply appreciate as a way to continue to be in touch with your original work & research in real time unfolding (and continuance of the “Holy Death” beginning at the gathering in July).
Robert — I join the above, hoping that you will continue your Blog. The content you are dealing with right now is wildly exciting — and perhaps the most important focus in the whole world. I hope also that you find time to include Canada in your study, especially our Inuit, who have lived for many ages in one of the most inhospitable places in the world. Canada as you know does not have nuclear weapons, but we do have nuclear fuel and reactors. Many blessings in your work —
Dear Robert,
Please keep posting! You are addressing the crucial question of our time and giving us the tools to answer it. There are groups meditating to uplift the “soul” of America and other nations, while recognizing that we live in an age of personal materialism and fearful greed projected on the national level. That being said, I have asked myself, ‘But what is the Soul of America?’ I had not thought to ask the land herself and listen with my body. As more and more of your readers do this exercise and bring the Soul of America to living consciousness, we create the field to attract the culture you speak of.
In my case: Sitting and Sensing – what I felt was the strength of our native birthland in my legs and it made me confident, determined, and loving. In that light, I know that some of the very characteristics you listed in the 3rd posting can be a first approximation of qualities that can help improve the human condition, extend basic freedoms, and give humans the pioneering confidence to embody spiritual realms in a new way. In part, the next approximation is a transmutation to a higher vibration with an orientation to common good.
I trust the cycle of Yugas and that we have turned the corner with our iron age and are starting to ascend another round. With your postings and insight we have a doorway to engaging with the new age.
Over the past year I have found myself in an ongoing reading relationship with Leslie Marmon Silko’s CEREMONY. I cannot stop revisiting it, especially the second half which directly relates to the material you are bringing up here, Dr. Sardello. After a relationship with a mysterious figure who at once is a physical woman but also clearly an Earth spirit, he seeks salvation from his PTSD and those, Indians and army doctors, who wish to capture and commit him. Here is the mysterious and relevant bit: he finds what he needs visiting a deep cave in New Mexico known to be a source of uranium (and lots of snakes). At the same time, I have found myself revisiting this powerful NY Times article about a youth movement that started the pipeline protests, which involves the Seventh Generation prophecy and a mythic black snake (symbolic in part of pipelines, they say) that would destroy their communities: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/magazine/the-youth-group-that-launched-a-movement-at-standing-rock.html?mcubz=3
The youth–and Tayo in CEREMONY–know if they stray a hair from nonviolence, all is lost.
Dear Robert,
I have just seen your series of writings yesterday – somehow I have missed it until then, so need to catch up. I use Facebook a lot, so I like to have you sharing there. I hope you are well in NM. I hope to get over there in the new year. Blessings, Jenny
RE: “Interest is minimal, so I may stop the blog..” Robert: keep writing the blog; those that can hear, need to hear, are ready to hear you…they most certainly will. There are different measurements of interest, of effectiveness. While the numbers responding may be small, the need may be great, and the results immeasurable. Besides, I’m being selfish…I’m interested : )
Excellent –I know you speak for many including me, and many who do not reply.
Again, thanks for your writings, and like others, I hope they continue. I’ve retired as an art therapist (from Howard in NM) and art teacher. I’ve lived on a 9 acre cattle farm (cows also retired) for 22 years. My children are grown. I sit on my deck and watch trees, birds, and sky. I’ve long felt an affinity for your wisdom and even now, find solace through your words in my quiet ways.