The Fog of Culture

Rasa Olesen

Tacitus wrote of FEMALE DRUIDS while describing the brutal slaughter of the Druids by the Romans on the island of Mona in Wales. In his account, he speaks of women known as Banduri, female Druids, who defended the sacred island and cast curses upon the black-clad invaders.

Tacitus also observed that among the Celts there was no true distinction between male and female rulers, noting the formidable power and authority Celtic women possessed.

According to Plutarch, Celtic women were nothing like the women of Greece or Rome. They took part in the negotiation of treaties and wars, stood within assemblies, and acted as mediators in disputes and quarrels.

— Holisticum Lianna Heitmann

Turkish-Cypriot psychoanalyst Vamık Volkan describes cultural identity as a kind of shared “second garment” that we unconsciously wear. We rarely notice this garment in ordinary life, but when our cultural “tent” is shaken through migration, exile, or displacement, questions of belonging and group identity can suddenly become emotionally urgent and deeply felt.

Living in another country involves more than learning a new language or adapting to new customs.

~ Charlotte Hoffman

The mind can shift in a flash of lightning. An insight arrives, a pattern becomes conscious, and we think, ‘Ah, I see it now. I am therefore free.’

But it doesn’t happen that fast for the body.

I am trying to be as faithful as possible to my own evolving process. Sometimes my process is radically out of balance — my spiritual knowing is far beyond my body’s capacity to incarnate it.

— Marion Woodman

It’s interesting how our minds, bodies and vision of reality is so strongly shaped by the society we grow up in. Once established it’s very difficult to change its assumptions.

We belong to a culture created out of a masculine, martial sense of threat coming from nature and from feminine perceptions of reality. Our response is to overcome those threats and to kill or imprison them. It’s anti feminine, we know that, but it’s also anti life and pro death. The source seems to be male insecurity of being erased.

Refusing to even consider equality or power sharing with women is a natural outcome of this vision, and so is the destruction of nature. The follow-on effects are extensive. Quick cheap food that destroys our health is one example out of many.

We live in a current manifestation of a cultural mindset that has a long history. No political or financial reworking of the system is going to give it health or extend its life. It’s a suicidal system. It’s out of balance with our bodies, with nature and with Reality.

What we regard as ancient history and the mists of time are a flash in the pan of Eternity. We still have a lot to learn, for example what the feminine mind knows and contributes. Our Western Mindset is strangely resistant to that. It’s our tradition, but as our culture disintegrates we have might a chance to rebalance ourselves.

A cultural identity can orient us well or badly to the natural world which is where we could get a good education if we’re capable of paying attention. We have some impediments to get over in our culture because we tend to ignore everything we can’t use. Seeing everything in terms of profit/loss has some drawbacks. Not noticing that everything has a soul is one of the most serious ones.

Make a Wish, From Ars, Artis.Arte.

We embody earth consciousness, which speaks a language we have forgotten. Any culture or individual who speaks this language we’ve become deaf to is suspect.

We notice a surge of North Americans moving to other countries right now, but they vette those countries based on cost of living, as if their vision of reality is the only one and not even under consideration.

Over half of them return home because they can’t change, they can’t entertain another way of being. Not having an army or superior numbers to overwhelm and make that culture conform there’s nothing else to do.

This raises a question for us — can we change, can we grow beyond our cultural blindness?

Jana Brike

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