Logos

I have, for a long time been developing my awareness of the lay of the land as normal people see it.  I’ve actually never seen it directly myself, because I’ve lived most of my adult life in a state of anomie.  But somehow I have become very aware that others generally make the assumption that I have lived a very normal life.   According to principles of normality – which have had to be explained to me – one lives a long period of time getting nurturing from parents and adult figures, and this is a period of emotion and attachment.  After this, one breaks free and begins to think in a very abstract and moral way.

The problem with me is I’ve had to do it back to front.

Right from a very early age, my whole life was structured according to very abstract principles.  The structure of society was incredibly militaristic.

Then this sky god abandoned us and the structure disappeared.

I was capable of robotic conformity but not capable of being in touch with the concrete aspect of existence or the emotional side.  Both of these had been repressed (in the better sense, diffused, but not in any social sense) during the 15 year war.

So, whilst most people had had a lot of nurturing and upbringing, I was left without those deeper inner resources, and had to actively work, to develop them.

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I realize that people do not understand that it is necessary for me to live my life back to front.  It’s just the necessity I have, because I have a back to front character.

An you were right – I do associate immanence with the symbolically masculine side of things, simply because I have had to fight a fucking war to restore my access to immanence, with people blocking me all the way.  Rightfully, and normatively, immanence SHOULD BE the feminine side of things.  But in my case, abstract attitudes and reasoning were bequeathed to me.  They were a product of the Rhodesian situation.  And boy, did the death of the old sky God traumatize me – but mostly indirectly, through my father’s trauma, since he was most deeply affected by the lost of the ideals he’d risked his life for.  I get the impression that when his brother was KIA, he simply told himself that the sacrifice had been worth it, for the country and for Christianity.  But then in 1979, there was a sudden turn of events.  There had been a media blackout, so that we didn’t even know we were losing the war until we were told a few months prior to the handover to black rule.  That is when my father went out of his mind....the death of the old sky god.

Ever since then, we have been in a mode of mourning and recovery.

My writing of my memoir was an attempt to start again by attaching myself to a different sort of God.   I kept the sky god out as much as possible, because he was the source of trauma.  I had to rebuild.

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Nowadays, I have completed the circle and I have found my center in this dying and decaying God who finally accepted me after 15 years of petitioning.  So I’m not going to make any sudden moves.  I don’t want to suddenly open old wounds or enter the field of trauma.

I don’t think I have anything to lose in associating with you because as you have divined I have actually found my center and my maturity.   Above all, I understand where these back to front attacks come from.

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On another level, you have simply pointed out to me what I intuitively knew – that I am biding my time until it is safe to make an ascent up the mountain again.   It’s not safe right now, but your thinking was conventional on this point and not in tune with my traumatic history.

The shamanic trip is really about understanding one’s own traumas and catering to them in a developmental way.   These wounds become the basis for the active pursuit of a particular god.

Now, you were saying I should embrace YOUR God, but I have already known this God from early childhood, so I actively avoid him.

This is not “feminine” avoidance (which is there I think the mistake creeps in with most people) but active, masculine avoidance.

I know EXACTLY what I’m doing and why I have to do it.

Most people annoy me when they treat me as if I don’t know what I’m doing or as if it were passive and unconscious.   That is the exact opposite of what is true.