A Piercing Of the Veil - A Change In Consciousness

William Blake's The Tyger, Hemingway's A Clean Well Lighted Place and Our Cosmic Reality

TECHNOLOGY AND THE RISE OF A CULTURE OF DEATH

There are many examples throughout literature and art of the veil of consciousness being pierced - in fact it is difficult to read great literature without seeing the veil between our everyday consciousness and reality being so pierced.

However it is the poetry of William Blake which I think of this morning for several reasons.

The Tyger

Launch Audio in a New Window

BY WILLIAM BLAKE

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 

In the forests of the night; 

What immortal hand or eye, 

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies. 

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat.

What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp.

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears 

And water'd heaven with their tears:

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,

In the forests of the night:

What immortal hand or eye,

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Blake, William. "The Tyger." ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Songs of Experience. ​​​​​​​Facsimile reproduction of the 1794 illuminated manuscript, published by The William Blake Trust and the Tate Gallery, 2009, in ​​​​​​​William Blake: The Complete Illuminated Books.

One is that William Blake’s life coincided with the rise of technology as a major force - as he lived amidst the growing reality of those Satanic Mills in our lives.

Blake lived contemporaneously with tormented cultural figures like Mary Shelly - author of Frankenstein - with Lord Byron - tortured poet and father of the tormented Miss Ada Lovelace - godmother of the computer algorithm - and with the equally tortured poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.

The further we may peer into the history of these times when all of these fascinating humans lived contemporaneously in the 19th century - amidst the rapid growth of technology and the growing force of it in our lives - the more we see parallels between their lives and our own.

Arising in our lives along with technology was a concomitant rise in a new kind of consciousness of being - in some way protected and cocooned in the comforting - or smothering - effects of technology.

And with this a kind of new age authoritarianism also rose in our midst leading to the American Civil War - to the ascendancy of the tyrannical mind set of the Gilded Age - and through to today - when we find ourselves trapped by a kind of techno fascism or techno feudalism.

We might either see this new way of life as either a culture of death - or as a culture of increased safety and convenience we may actually prefer to earlier times.

Either way we cannot escape this dichotomy between a veiled - cocooned world - of perceived increased safety and convenience - and a world which seems dead set on wiping out our human nature and these unalienable rights we dare to entertain.

The greater the rise of technology the greater the rise of an existential crisis in consciousness.

THE SMOTHERING, COCOON OF TECHNOLOGY & CONSCIOUSNESS

Many of us have grown up with increasing comfort and convenience in our lives - with the growth of convenience industries all around us.

The internet, cell phones, communities where services are provided all around us - being able to work from home - with food and services delivered to us - instantaneous communication with the world.

This world easily can be compared with Hemingway’s A Clean Well Lighted Place - one which paradoxically makes us feel even more lonely and cut off from a meaningful life.

Surrounded by these conveniences we have grown to expect they will always be there - we grow dependent on them - grew softer and weaker - cocooned by convenience and instant gratification.

THE DICHOTOMY - PIERCING THE VEIL

The problem here is that this runs counter to the nature of the human condition and the human spirit.

Inevitability the reality of the human condition catches up with us.

The reality may be brought home by any number of the unexpected consequences of life - illness, accidents, breakdown in relationships, encounters we cannot explain or other circumstances which break through the reassuring comfort of the convenience cocoon model.

No matter how strongly we invoke and maintain this ideal safe and cocooned environment something comes along to shake it up and to threaten our little world.

Since the rise of technology in the 19th century we as humans have been feted with convenience and cocooned with a comfortable assurance that the very nature of life has changed.

It may seem as if we have finally achieved the dream of centuries - that we have finally reached an all powerful system which keeps us safe from the kinds of constant choices and threats our ancestors faced.

But as I remarked above something inevitably occurs which shakes loose our moorings and which forces us to confront the real circumstances we are in.

Ultimately there is no safe - no unchanging and predictable world which can hold us in a cocoon like - womb like state - of safety and convenience.

The womb like state is one we eventually feel compelled to break free of - as we would expect from our biological and psychological reality.

In reality - despite the power of this cocoon - we and the world are constantly changing and there is no way of insulating ourselves from this inconvenient reality.

21st century humans live in this cocooned reality - believing they are safe and sound and healthy and oh so fortunate to be living in this world of instant gratification.

The problem is that this represents a dichotomy - a stark contrast between the real world of constant and dynamic change - and the fake one in which we are cocooned.

There are many situations which clue us in to the gap between the real and the fake - birth, death, illness, encounters with nature and those inevitable unexpected changes and intervening occurrences.

But in ways we cannot predict or quantify or ever prevent we inevitably come up sharply against our real circumstances.

And one of the things happening now which illustrates this is the great solar storm of 2024.

With natural events - such as the great unexpected majesty of nature - we see what is really in control here - and it is not us.

We understand that the forces of nature are such that we may live in synchronicity with them and adapt - but that we cannot live in opposition to them as if they did not exist.

In other words there is a fundamental contradiction in human consciousness between the real and the fake - and this schism - this fracture - causes untold psychic pain.

We can try to run from it and distract ourselves from it but it rises in our consciousness, in our dreams, and in our art, in our spirituality and creativity - despite our best efforts.

It is at moments when reality intrudes to pierce the veil of our cocooned fake world of safety and convenience that we have the opportunity to see our true circumstances.

For no amount of civilized comfort and safety can hide the real facts.

We are born to constant change and into an unsafe world where every thought, every choice, every relationship, every act is consequential and has effects in the real world.

We are born to be involved in the great three dimensional dance of constant change - of being challenged and of either deciding to interact successfully as a dancer or to hide away and cushion ourselves like frightened children.

What the solar storm and other things which pierce the veil make clear is that by hiding ourselves away - by cocooning ourselves in the womb like spell of technology and modern convenience - we live as if constantly drugged - constantly living a lie - constantly trapped between the Scilla and Charybdis of realty and rejection of reality.

This basic fracture between truth and reality is not something which can be bridged by wilderness vacations, by jogging, by playing golf or tennis - or by participating in reality occasionally and then taking a break from it.

In other words our civilized reality is a thin veneer over the hard truths of the real world - a plastic and glass - well lit illusion - that we live in a world of sheltered safety and convenience.

And the hubristic illusion that we are all powerful and that the real powers may be kept at bay by a utopian technologically advanced cocoon world.

In confronting these dichotomies we come face to face with the inconvenient truth of our human circumstances and are then faced with a choice.

Do we divest of this technological illusion which has in fact brought us up sharply against the inconvenient truth of our human reality?

Do we accept that every civilization has collapsed and caused terrible pain through the papering over this thin veneer - providing the illusion of safety and convenience - veiling the actual facts of reality?

Do we cut ourselves off from what is in fact a three dimensional and exciting dance with the constantly changing reality of our lives in the real universe - from the reality of our own dance through this universe of perpetual change?

Do we accept that civilization means we essentially pay protection to a cabal of mobsters which exists to help us maintain this illusion of safety and convenience - that they themselves might fatten their own wealth and power at the expense of our own?

Or do we recognize that living an illusion is not worth the cost and that it is precisely in living a life as a dancer - making constant choices and decisions to interact with reality in a synchronous and cosmic dance where our truth lies?

The answers lie within the framework of our own individuality and in our own ability to be in a synchronous relationship to the cosmic dance - or sheltered from it by the equivalent reality of a life of lies and compromises.

And as I return to repeatedly - the real life we have access to - marked by that cosmic dance we are in fact perpetually immersed in - the recognition of which is perhaps invoked by the understanding that we are beings with these unalienable rights conferred by our creator.

And as Thomas Paine observed - these are not American rights - but an expression of the dreams and aspirations of all human beings.

Human consciousness is changing and as it does the concomitant changes in our lives will continue to be dramatic and either terrifying or enlightening - depending on our own awareness and perception of these events.

We are at a crossroads now where the fear which has kept us cocooned and at odds with our true nature - which allows tyranny to rise and attenuate any possible attainment of freedom - is rejected and diffused as if it never existed.

At this juncture it is natural to ask what will replace this systematized and civilized order which still surround us?

The truth is we do not know - and face the future as an unknown entity and as an adventure of spirit and consciousness.

Unknown - until we get in touch with our own inner wild and conscious spirit - that which faithfully reflects back to us the uncompromising and basically compassionate and loving nature of both our creator and ourselves.

And as great teachers like Jesus once taught - it is the dichotomy between our own inner conscious reality and whether we choose to live the real cosmic dance offered by our creator or if - instead - we choose to live a life of lies - one which precludes us ever piercing that veil which cuts us off from our real power and agency.