The widespread coverage of the mechanical details of the Solar Eclipse alongside symbolic/mystical interpretations of it illustrates the vast spectrum of understandings that form the foundations of our contemporary collective culture.
On one hand, we operate from a modern perspective that is mechanistic, impersonal, and objectifies the world around us. On the other, most of us relate, on some level, to the world in a way that is deeply subjective, mythic, and numinous.
In our modern scientific mindset we look at our earthly home and the cosmos in a way that is far different than the way that most humans in the history of the world have regarded their surroundings. We objectify our reality by drawing a distinct, definitive division between ourselves and everything else that exists around us.
At the same time, we all descend from a view that interprets the world around us in a more numinous way. A central aspect of being human throughout history is to seek understanding, insight, and transformation through our relationship with the world around us.
Since recorded history humans have found something unifying (omnipresent), conscious (omniscient), and energetically powerful (omnipotent) existing in the world.
Whether a pantheon of Gods and Goddesses, one supreme God or a view of the universe and all it consists of as being ensouled, most of us share a common ancestral experience of our world as imbued with something divine.
While any people privilege one orientation over the other, I see both as equally valid and valuable. While I appreciate and utilize the practical application of the objectifying (scientific) perspective, I also experience the power of a ensouled perspective to support healing, personal insight, transformation and an enriched quality of life.
As I was growing up I felt pressure to adopt the that mindset that there one “right” way to believe, think about or make sense of the world. I found this perspective of exclusivity of interpretation intellectually incomplete, socially divisive, and spiritually deadening.
As a seeker of understanding, healing, and personal evolution, I have spent decades diving into ways of perceiving, understanding, and experiencing reality. I am informed by scientific knowledge, nourished by philosophical inquiry and nurtured through mystical experiences.
I find the richest and most empowered experience through living in a way that honors in balance, a materialistic and mystical perspective. I recognize that I am a creature comprised of physical as well as symbolic material. I breathe, drink, eat, warm myself and take shelter in the world.
At the same time, I regard myself as an ensouled embodiment of the elements. I experience the intake of air as a opportunity to cultivate inner spaciousness, experience water as a source of emotional cleansing, align with the bounty of the earth in gratitude and a sense of potential for manifestation, regard fire as a means of transformation.