spring

The guardian has an interesting article relating the rise of depression to the emergence of the individual self.

Certainly we feel better reconnecting back to the earth, and spring brings new life and warmth

Depression is really a question of scale

I can't take care of the world but I can take care of this stretch of river.

we / the earth are going to die
but not yet
(not that I can always aspire to this)

this morning was so misty each tree was dripping with moisture, looking up the clouds were visibly thinning, then the sun burned through,  it was beautiful. I went paddling yesterday, might almost have swum (but not quite yet :-)

Is it denial to feel joy? I don't think depression makes us function well.

Comments

[David M Boie]

Medusa X and Fellow travellers:

I agree that depression stinks, yet similar to my occasional flatulance, I have a bizzare attraction to the smell...

Hueristic Question -

What are we, as a human family, truly after and interested in? Ecopsychology seems to be diverging from some of the most basic understandings of the psychology of the human being.

What be up with that?

On this site appears a celebration of depression... in conventional psychoanalysis, there appears awareness that people become attached to (and relatively comfortable with) negative feeling states - almost like going to a lousy movie and becoming angered that one spent ten bucks, yet unwilling to leave because "I spent my hard earned money on this!!!"

We invest in negative feeling states, and then are reluctant to cut our losses.

I suspect that there appears a idea that few of us could recon effectively with...

What if the Earth were "holographically" predestined to come into a state of Beatitude, with flowers blooming, no sexual repression, smiles and joy abounding on every face... no buildings, no roads, perfect weather, no need for a work ethic... in short, to modify Thomas Berry's phrase with lingo from A Course in Miracles, "...the Happy Dream (of Earth)"

Now what if we found out that a prerequisite for undoing the repression and attraction to the death instinct that keeps this Happy World from manifesting involved: developing utterly non-judgemental attitudes, completely revamping our ideas about what forgiveness entails, admitting that we are addicted to drama, and appear in fact grateful for the suffering of Mother Earth, as it gives us a way to be "in the Right" concerning ecological orientation against the greedy capitalists...

Repression splits the mind and makes us sick... Negative feeling-states are the Death of the Earth, and when we indulge in them thinking we are helping this planet, we give evidence of how fucked up we are...

Humility and what little Reason we have demand that we develop a faith both in our Fellows and the Earth Mother... little boys and girls bite the nipples of their human mothers, and yet are still loved and cared for... they are working through some pretty rough narcissistic guilt, as are humanity as a whole, and projecteding it outward as hatred toward the mother, and yet she understands and loves regardless...

Yes, the Earth aches with Birth Pangs... She longs to have unrepressed, God-intoxicated children walking softly on her bosom... Making Love with her skin as we dance to the Music of the Spheres...

I can only imagine the intense pleasure she felt under the feet of Avatars as tender, sexually adept, loving, and charismatic as Gopi Krishna the goat herder, the Pampered Buddha Guatama, and the sexiest "man" who ever walked the Earth, Ye'She (or a the West calls him, and literally "swears" by his name, Jesus Christ.)

I apologize for the post I left a few years back, I had much of the same ideas in mind, but my resentments toward my own mom had me projecting callousness and disregard on the Earth Mother... viewing her as cold, harsh, and unloving... the post from before had a gnostic "blame-y" flavor, masked by a sharply aggressive intellectual edge, as does this one at points....

I resonate mightily with Thomas Berry's Dream of a happy Earth, and yet in order to have Joy to share with Earth... I must surrender to a larger vision than my ability to extrapolate can fathom. In loyalty to Creator and Creation, and feeling (however dimly) my desire to pit Mother Earth against Father-sky, and visa versa, a desire embrace the mother and kill the Father - and with (since at least the Council of Nicea) rampant Judeao-CHristian bastardization of Jesus' emphasis, story, teachings, and true Passion, this path of working for a divorce between Heaven and Earth appears quite seductive....

May I remember to ask for help as I negotiate this maze of misunderstanding....

Please help, Medusa

D

[Chris Duggan]

Depression is often characterised by thoughts of death and dying, elements of life which are shunned by most modern thinking. I have started using the word EGOCIDE to explore the link between depression as a deepening process ( a la Peter Wilberg) and the development of a "self as big as the earth.