Heroes Not Zombies

As the river flows over the rocks in the forest around the Bracklinn Falls I stand and wonder about the relationship between the rocks and the water.

I can see the rocks set the boundaries of the river and channel the direction of flow for the water, but I can also see how the water sculpts its own path leaving the rocks far from untouched as it pours down the hillside.

This got me thinking again about that continuous interplay of two essential forces in the universe – the diversity generators and conformity enforcers of Howard Bloom’s “Global Brain”.

That same idea is captured with a different set of metaphors in Thomas Berry’s fabulous “The Great Work”, where he talks of “wildness and discipline”.

I recently came across yet another set of metaphors for this process in David Wade’s “Crystal and Dragon“. In this latter book, David Wade describes the patterns of Nature (actually you could say of the Universe) and Culture which emerge from these two, apparently opposite, forces. Think of how a crystal forms, with a set of rules, which are strictly enforced in a disciplined way to produce the structure required to allow the growth of the crystal. Then think of the patterns of flow which emerge in the creation of clouds, waves and waterfalls. The former containing a certain predictability, and the latter retaining an apparently chaotic randomness. In one section of his book he compares Islamic art to Taoist art, the former known for its beautiful geometric patterns, and the latter for its freehand ink drawings of clouds, waves and water. Interesting then to think of the strict and detailed rules of Islam, and the Taoist focus on constant change, flow and uncontrollable nature of Life. In Chinese culture this force is represented by the Dragon.

So, the crystals of conformity enforcement and discipline, and the flowing Dragon of diversity generation and wildness……and what an astonishing Universe is produced in the process.