Whenever it is suggested that the Earth and all of her other-than-human creatures may be ensouled, many people reasonably ask why it is, then, that most individuals never experience this ensoulment. Accordingly, Geneen Marie Haugen tells the story of a thought experiment crafted by Richard Tarnas, one that invites us to imagine that we ARE the universe.
Haugen points out that this is "an extravagant stretch of almost anyone's imagination, especially to imagine oneself as a deep-souled, subtly mysterious cosmos of great spiritual beauty and creative intelligence." Here, in this act of imagination, "You, as the intelligent ensouled universe are approached by two distinctly different suitors who embody radically divergent ways of knowing, and who presumably want to know you." Accordingly, "the two suitors have contrasting approaches, and you have choice. Would you reveal yourself most fully to the suitor who regards you as inferior, controllable, and lacking in purpose, or would you reveal your trembling depths to the suitor "who viewed you as AT LEAST as intelligent and noble, as worthy a being, as permeated with mind and soul, as imbued with moral aspiration and purpose, as endowed with spiritual depths and mystery as a suitor?"
Haugen goes on to ask: "If the world seems vacant of mystery, without intelligence or feeling, lacking in purpose, absent of psyche, might it be because we step into the world with heavy feet and dulled senses, our imaginations hijacked by corporate advertising, inane 'entertainment,' mindless screen addictions and media-manufactored fear?"
Photo: One of the La Sal peaks looms above the fog; Canyonlands National Park, UT; December 2, 2013
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