The Profane & The Profound: sowing sacred futures
Thank you for taking a bite. Careful with the seeds!
đâFirst shalt thou take out the Holy PinâŠâ
What a surreal season 2020 is!Â
There are conflicts nearly everywhere, and the world is On Fire.
Politicians and The Media broadcast weâre at war on many fronts, against drugs, terrorism, austerity, a plague⊠in addition to all sorts of crises, civil unrests and portent omens.
Itâs not fine at all is it.
Could we be more equipped to handle the chaos?
How do we defeat the horrors of a âLegendary Black Beast of Arrrghhhâ?
While Iâm not technically a prepper, as corrupted structures crumble before us, Iâve been thinking: si vis pacem, para bellum // "If you want peace, prepare for war"
Instead of ammunition, perhaps itâs better to focus on provisions.
What better to bring ease to combat the current trends of dis-ease, than to reclaim an instrumental tool of destruction, and convert it back to restoration and creation.
What about a holy pomegranate?
Itâs where grenade comes from; early explosive orbs resembled the many-seeded fruit, designed as a hand-held device with tiny pellets of shrapnel.
Known by the Romans as pomus granatus (seeded apple), perhaps it was the true fruit of knowledge in the story of Adam & Eve. To the Jews, the pomegranate is a sacred fruit, its seeds symbolising the 613 mitzvot, or commandments of the Torah - meaning Instruction, Teaching or Law. In Christianity, it represents Christâs suffering and resurrection. Islamic tradition orders that every single aril of a pomegranate be eaten, because one in each comes from paradise. Buddhists regard pomegranates as blessed crops along with citrus and peaches. In Ancient Egypt, pomegranates were buried with the dead to aid in their passage to the afterlife. And for the Greeks, itâs the prop for a tale of Persephoneâs abduction by Hades - an allegory that in darkness, hope springs eternal.
This one agricultural produce has various significance that itâs worthy of symbolic attention. Iâm merely surfacing a visual icon for multiple possibilities, and its natural potential to generate new ones.
From the Greek logos // λÏÎłÎżÏ - words and signs are fundamental to our being human.
Letters record our beliefs, behaviours, and meanings that make up History.
Since our journeys include quandaries, quarrels and questions, it is therefore urgent that we flesh-out our narratives.
Alphabetical spellings are curses and blessings. Abracadabra is from the Aramaic phrase avra kehdabra, meaning âI will create as I speakâ. The pen is mightier than the sword, because language is a weapon. The nursery rhyme tells us that sticks and stones break our bones, but words significantly have the power to hurt us beyond words.
To use an ancient #truthbomb:
âWatch your thoughts, they become your words;
watch your words, they become your actions;
watch your actions, they become your habits;
watch your habits, they become your character;
watch your character, it becomes your destiny.â
Did the wise Lao Tzu foresee the internet of things, with its content growth or exponential storytelling? With so much fake news and information fatigue that we canât see the wood for the trees, I sought to make sense of matters by looking at systemic roots and wicked fruits.
Though it might look like the #endofdays, on certain levels we have to be ok with the events that are unfolding currently, because thereâs still the chance to make a difference. You see, fine comes from fin or finire which means âto finishâ. If itâs not game over yet, then the beat goes on.
Hereâs to writing, sharing articles with plans for welfare (not of woe), and making the next days of tomorrows better for generations to come.
Design by SHARDCORE / âMaking art beyond good or evil.â **
Hi, Iâm Rina. I teach History & Context for art students at Kingston University and Iâm a strategist for hire. I like untangling situations by synthesising the strategic with the scholarly and spiritual. [Here is my LinkTree, and I tweet as @royalrebelrules]