Heroes Not Zombies

This sculpture in the Glyptotek Museum in Copenhagen is called “Creation Fantasy”, and it’s by a Norwegian-Danish sculptor called Stephan Abel Sinding.

It reminds me of some of Rodin’s work, not least the “Hand of God“, which is one of my most favourite of Rodin’s works.

I love how the male and female bodies are emerging from, but are not separate from, the rock. It think this captures a deep truth – that we are not separate from the Earth, not separate from “Nature”, not separate from each other. But instead we emerge within all that exists, and we remain forever, embedded in everything. I think one of the most pernicious beliefs human beings have adopted is the notion that we humans are “apart from” not “a part of” Nature, that Nature is something “out there”, maybe even something to go and visit from time to time. Worse still, that The Earth and all that “out there” Nature is a resource to be plundered, consumed, polluted at will, as if none of that activity will affect “us”, we humans, because we are outside of Nature.

I hope we are beginning to move away from that terrible misconception. I hope we are beginning to KNOW that we emerge within Nature, and that we live inextricably within all that exists.

It reminds of me of the “Universe Story” – which tells how all the elements of the Periodic Table were created in the giant furnaces of stars throughout the universe, and how once the Earth was formed, all the elements which had been created in distant stars were gathered together, almost like being dealt a hand in cards. How every material substance which has ever existed on Earth has been made from those initial elements. The Earth doesn’t create new elements. She transforms what she has into every molecule, every cell, every organism, every substance which we find on our one small blue planet.

This sculpture makes me think of something else – the relationship we have between men and women. It seems to me we need to learn from sculptures like this one. For far too long we’ve built civilisations and societies on the basis of male dominance. It’s well past time to redress that imbalance and create more loving, more respectful, more mutually nurturing relationships between the sexes.

So, there’s my “Creation Fantasy” – that we are called to live by – that we humans emerge within Nature on this single planet, and that men should not dominate women.