Conscious Reflection

I had to take this photo through a dirty plexiglass viewing pane at the YanCheng Safari Park.  I am satisfied with the quality of the image simply because it allowed me to use the photo for this blog.  It isn't a photo for the family photo album.  For me, the photo is simply an excuse for conscious reflection.

"Our lives are an invitation to conscious reflection, a challenge to bear witness to a large symbolic drama which courses through history and through individuals.  While the deeper intent of such intimations may puzzle, even frighten the ego service to those great energies we call the gods obliges a more respectful relationship than that which we have more commonly lived." (Hollis, Mythologems, pp 17-18)

That there are things happening on the collective level that suggest a larger symbolic drama, larger than the drama being enacted within each of us, is not doubted by anyone.  The posturing of minor powers with access to military armament that is more powerful that the weapons of any war in human history, the dance done by the major powers as they broker deals to undermine as many of their opponents as possible while the collective voices of the scientists warn of the repercussions of treating our world as a thing rather than as a living entity speaks loudly of humanity's rejection of its own humanity.  Collectively we have sold our mothers and our children and the voices of the elders for the latest baubles.  There is little room for hope, for harmony, for finding a way out of the mess that we have created.

It is in this cauldron of modern man that I find myself somehow in search of not only myself, but in search of pride in being human, being an actor in dramas shared with gods and goddesses.  And like this little guy, holding on for dear life.