I've always found it by turns wonderful & puzzling that our planet's moon should just happen to be, when viewed from earth, the exact relative diameter of the sun (well, 96%). (At least for now—check back in 50 million years.) On most planets, a moon would either engulf or barely speckle the sun as it seems to pass before it. It's a very strange coincidence.
It’s apt that this comes so soon after the announcement of the Artemis II crew, since one consequence of our disenchanted cosmology is that the space race, rather than being a mission rooted in wonder, is largely a contest for who can establish the first beachhead to mine the Moon, Mars, and local asteroids for resources--not terribly reverent things to do to gods and goddesses. MJ Rubenstein lays this out in brilliant detail in her recent Astrotopia. One can only hope, I suppose, that Barfield will turn out to be correct and our current epoch of withdrawn participation will give way to a new reciprocal consciousness in which our cosmic fascinations will regain a sense of religious awe.
Powerful reflections! Your writings are in themselves proof that this final participation is, to a great extent, already our reality. Maybe the rest of the world needs a little more time before it's ready to listen to Roland's words, but it will get there eventually.
This piece reminds of the first --- and still the most beautiful --- philosophical literature I encountered as a young adult, Erazim Kohák's (1984) The Embers and the Stars. If you have never read it, I hope you'll consider finding a copy. This excerpt is from the beginning of the second chapter:
"The night comes softly, beyond the powerline and the blacktop, where the long-abandoned wagon road fades amid the new growth. It does not crowd the lingering day. There is a time of passage as the bright light of the summer day, cool green and intensely blue, lowly yields to the deep, virgin darkness. Quietly, the darkness grows in the forest, seeping into the clearing and penetrating the soul, all-healing, all-reconciling, renewing the world for a new day. Were there no darkness to restore the soul, humans would quickly burn out their finite store of dreams. Unresting, unreconciled, they would grow brittle and break easily, like an oak flag dried through the seasons. When electric glare takes away the all-reconciling night, the hours added to the day are a dubious gain. A mile beyond the powerline, the night still comes to restore the soul, deep virgin darkness between the embers of the dying fire and the star-scattered vastness of the sky. "
I recently had a conversation with a group of well educated people and I asked if any could imagine some kind of good spiritual future for all of humanity beyond the physical death of our bodies. None of them could imagine such a far fetched notion that humanity had within it any capacity for a shared glorious spiritual destiny. It makes Gregory of Nyssa’s thoughts about epektasis all the more stunning.
It seems to me that the beauty you experienced in the eclipse was the beauty of epektasis manifesting in the mid day of our mechanistic and nihilistic day. If our Christian imagination can return to that of Gregory’s then we might just see beauty as the transcendent sign which proleptically draws us forward by enchantment.
My immediate impression is a sense of movement towards hopefulness, and an tangential echo of Karol Wojtyla’s “Love and Responsibility.” To call something out is to achieve a real, if only potential, freedom from it. Encore!
In a foreword to a later edition of Saving the Appearances (or perhaps it was Poetic Diction, I can't remember which), Barfield clarifies that he does not see 'final participation' as in any sense an inevitable state that humanity is destined to reach. Rather like an adult could willingly remain in the psychological state of adolescence, humanity could choose to remain in the dead, mechanical, meaningless world that we have created for ourselves.
Where I think Barfield is perspicacious (as opposed to Heidegger) is in his contention that humanity can't go back to 'original participation,' and that, even if one could, one wouldn't really desire it. The world of original participation was rich and alive, but also constrained in many ways. Humans were in subjection to the gods and their rulers, who were often in league to oppress them. The terror at eclipses was a sign of this sense of subjection to cosmic powers.
The Incarnation and Christ's resounding declaration that "you are gods" (the title of a very good book, by the way) inaugurated the possibility that humans could move from being cringing subjects of the gods to being their peers or even their judges ("know ye not that ye shall judge angels?"). Key to this is, of course, freedom, and the consequent discovery of the dignity of every individual human being. In his discussion of the tears of Peter, David has written profoundly on Christianity's role in bringing this new consciousness of human dignity into being.
Grief over what we have lost — communion with the spirit world in nature — is salutary, just as is remembrance of one's childhood innocence. But just as there is an original innocence, so is there one on the far side of experience.
I've been thinking about this for a few days now. I actually think the alienation/exploitation/mechanization is a result of the existential dread all human beings feel naturally. I think it's more along the lines of Ernest Becker than Heiddeger. The holy awe is so uncomfortable that humans (at least in Europe) have invented the fiction that the natural world is devoid of meaning and everything is mechanistic. But underneath, the endless grasping for power over and profit from the natural world is - in my opinion - an attempt to distance oneself from our own helplessness in the face of nature. For ultimately, our individual lives/egos will be "eclipsed," as it were, by the inexorable power of the natural world, e.g. our own bodies devoured by the passage of time. That's my theory, anyway.
A truly excellent essay, David. As someone who was led to God through the beauty and awesomeness of the natural world, and experienced a deep communion with it--as told in my memoir Pilgrim River (sorry, gratuitous advertisement)--I will even say your essay is a masterpiece. BTW: are you familiar with Annie Dilliard's essay "Total Eclipse" from the Atlantic in 2017? Her experience was very similar to yours, albeit without the deep philosophical reflection. Thank you for sharing this.
I'm utterly floored by this reflection. It is beautiful, and heartbreaking, naming our deep estrangement, our exile from our exile. Can we ever return to Eden if we deny we are even missing it? I think of the opening of Laudato Si, where Pope Francis points to St. Francis's intimacy with all creation (Brother Sun and Sister Moon) as the key to a new ecological perspective. It baffled most readers.
A not so brief question: is there any sense to you that the "mechanistic" theologies of modernity (manualism or neoscholasticism) are equally disenchanting? As if they are trying to beat the disenchanters at their own game? And can, at least for Christians, a recovery of patristic, incarnational theology and spirituality perhaps reacquaint us with a world that is still achingly sacramental at its deepest level? That all of creation, and therefore each particular creature, is a sacrament of the divine presence, if only we had the eyes to see?
I've been writing an essay on disenchantment to prepare for a longer possible book on sacramentality, and so your reflection is timely for me personally. I can't help but think the same spirit whispering to me might be whispering to you. I beg of you to publish this, so it can reach a wider audience, and for me, selfishly, so I can reference it. You've given me, yet again, a great gift of piercing insight and beauty. Thank you.
I've always found it by turns wonderful & puzzling that our planet's moon should just happen to be, when viewed from earth, the exact relative diameter of the sun (well, 96%). (At least for now—check back in 50 million years.) On most planets, a moon would either engulf or barely speckle the sun as it seems to pass before it. It's a very strange coincidence.
When I saw the eclipse—this is absolutely true—three eagles flew right overhead once the light returned.
I naturally interpreted this to mean that the republic would fall and three emperors would arise in rapid succession.
It’s apt that this comes so soon after the announcement of the Artemis II crew, since one consequence of our disenchanted cosmology is that the space race, rather than being a mission rooted in wonder, is largely a contest for who can establish the first beachhead to mine the Moon, Mars, and local asteroids for resources--not terribly reverent things to do to gods and goddesses. MJ Rubenstein lays this out in brilliant detail in her recent Astrotopia. One can only hope, I suppose, that Barfield will turn out to be correct and our current epoch of withdrawn participation will give way to a new reciprocal consciousness in which our cosmic fascinations will regain a sense of religious awe.
DBH never fails to deliver. Thank you for all that you do.
Powerful reflections! Your writings are in themselves proof that this final participation is, to a great extent, already our reality. Maybe the rest of the world needs a little more time before it's ready to listen to Roland's words, but it will get there eventually.
Have a happy and blessed Pascha, Dr. Hart. Χριστὸς ἀνέστη!
This piece reminds of the first --- and still the most beautiful --- philosophical literature I encountered as a young adult, Erazim Kohák's (1984) The Embers and the Stars. If you have never read it, I hope you'll consider finding a copy. This excerpt is from the beginning of the second chapter:
"The night comes softly, beyond the powerline and the blacktop, where the long-abandoned wagon road fades amid the new growth. It does not crowd the lingering day. There is a time of passage as the bright light of the summer day, cool green and intensely blue, lowly yields to the deep, virgin darkness. Quietly, the darkness grows in the forest, seeping into the clearing and penetrating the soul, all-healing, all-reconciling, renewing the world for a new day. Were there no darkness to restore the soul, humans would quickly burn out their finite store of dreams. Unresting, unreconciled, they would grow brittle and break easily, like an oak flag dried through the seasons. When electric glare takes away the all-reconciling night, the hours added to the day are a dubious gain. A mile beyond the powerline, the night still comes to restore the soul, deep virgin darkness between the embers of the dying fire and the star-scattered vastness of the sky. "
I recently had a conversation with a group of well educated people and I asked if any could imagine some kind of good spiritual future for all of humanity beyond the physical death of our bodies. None of them could imagine such a far fetched notion that humanity had within it any capacity for a shared glorious spiritual destiny. It makes Gregory of Nyssa’s thoughts about epektasis all the more stunning.
It seems to me that the beauty you experienced in the eclipse was the beauty of epektasis manifesting in the mid day of our mechanistic and nihilistic day. If our Christian imagination can return to that of Gregory’s then we might just see beauty as the transcendent sign which proleptically draws us forward by enchantment.
My immediate impression is a sense of movement towards hopefulness, and an tangential echo of Karol Wojtyla’s “Love and Responsibility.” To call something out is to achieve a real, if only potential, freedom from it. Encore!
This is beautiful -
including moving, personal perspective on panpsychism.
In a foreword to a later edition of Saving the Appearances (or perhaps it was Poetic Diction, I can't remember which), Barfield clarifies that he does not see 'final participation' as in any sense an inevitable state that humanity is destined to reach. Rather like an adult could willingly remain in the psychological state of adolescence, humanity could choose to remain in the dead, mechanical, meaningless world that we have created for ourselves.
Where I think Barfield is perspicacious (as opposed to Heidegger) is in his contention that humanity can't go back to 'original participation,' and that, even if one could, one wouldn't really desire it. The world of original participation was rich and alive, but also constrained in many ways. Humans were in subjection to the gods and their rulers, who were often in league to oppress them. The terror at eclipses was a sign of this sense of subjection to cosmic powers.
The Incarnation and Christ's resounding declaration that "you are gods" (the title of a very good book, by the way) inaugurated the possibility that humans could move from being cringing subjects of the gods to being their peers or even their judges ("know ye not that ye shall judge angels?"). Key to this is, of course, freedom, and the consequent discovery of the dignity of every individual human being. In his discussion of the tears of Peter, David has written profoundly on Christianity's role in bringing this new consciousness of human dignity into being.
Grief over what we have lost — communion with the spirit world in nature — is salutary, just as is remembrance of one's childhood innocence. But just as there is an original innocence, so is there one on the far side of experience.
I've been thinking about this for a few days now. I actually think the alienation/exploitation/mechanization is a result of the existential dread all human beings feel naturally. I think it's more along the lines of Ernest Becker than Heiddeger. The holy awe is so uncomfortable that humans (at least in Europe) have invented the fiction that the natural world is devoid of meaning and everything is mechanistic. But underneath, the endless grasping for power over and profit from the natural world is - in my opinion - an attempt to distance oneself from our own helplessness in the face of nature. For ultimately, our individual lives/egos will be "eclipsed," as it were, by the inexorable power of the natural world, e.g. our own bodies devoured by the passage of time. That's my theory, anyway.
What an exquisite meditation. Perfectly lovely.
A truly excellent essay, David. As someone who was led to God through the beauty and awesomeness of the natural world, and experienced a deep communion with it--as told in my memoir Pilgrim River (sorry, gratuitous advertisement)--I will even say your essay is a masterpiece. BTW: are you familiar with Annie Dilliard's essay "Total Eclipse" from the Atlantic in 2017? Her experience was very similar to yours, albeit without the deep philosophical reflection. Thank you for sharing this.
I'm utterly floored by this reflection. It is beautiful, and heartbreaking, naming our deep estrangement, our exile from our exile. Can we ever return to Eden if we deny we are even missing it? I think of the opening of Laudato Si, where Pope Francis points to St. Francis's intimacy with all creation (Brother Sun and Sister Moon) as the key to a new ecological perspective. It baffled most readers.
A not so brief question: is there any sense to you that the "mechanistic" theologies of modernity (manualism or neoscholasticism) are equally disenchanting? As if they are trying to beat the disenchanters at their own game? And can, at least for Christians, a recovery of patristic, incarnational theology and spirituality perhaps reacquaint us with a world that is still achingly sacramental at its deepest level? That all of creation, and therefore each particular creature, is a sacrament of the divine presence, if only we had the eyes to see?
I've been writing an essay on disenchantment to prepare for a longer possible book on sacramentality, and so your reflection is timely for me personally. I can't help but think the same spirit whispering to me might be whispering to you. I beg of you to publish this, so it can reach a wider audience, and for me, selfishly, so I can reference it. You've given me, yet again, a great gift of piercing insight and beauty. Thank you.
luminous & lovely — thank you david.