Essay: Celebration as Vocation

Celebration

We have this strong propensity to live with great intensity,
And not just in our childish stage but even in our golden age.
Right now we have ability for jubilant activity.
Like chimpanzees we were born wild. Our role for life—eternal child.

The word wild doesn’t always fit comfortably in our vocabulary because wildness often conflicts with civility or civilization. Civis is the Latin word for citizen -- an individual who has settled down, been socialized into the ways of a city, follows civil law and sometimes wages civil war. Some older commentators believe that an original connotation of civis referred to a straight line – the form or pattern that humans utilize most frequently in their designs of cities, maps, property divisions, roads, laws, buildings, behavior and linear time. An alien observer would probably note that outwardly as well as inwardly we seem to be a rather straight and square species.

The word wild, on the other hand, means living in a state of nature, not tamed or domesticated, not subject to restraint or regulation and preferring circles to squares and curves to straight lines. This state of nature is not a place like the states or countries that we have marked off on a map and declared to be ours. Nature is creation that came from the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago. How that happened we don’t know, but this we do know – physical scientists tell us that everything is one, alive and old; cosmologists and some social scientists are saying more – that nature is “the progressive incarnation of the Deity.”

So we’ve got a civil vs. wild discussion on the table. In a debate the burden of proof is on the affirmative. So let’s get at it. Everywhere in Nature we notice totally random, genetic mutation. Nature is wild -- turned on to difference, expansion, freedom, celebration. Every atom, molecule, cell, snowflake, drop of water, leaf, piece of fruit or vegetable, creature, you and me is unique and one of a kind. We know that in our psyche and we fight and struggle to maintain that uniqueness, because our uniqueness is both our blessedness and our real task in life.

Mother Nature doesn’t want us to be tamed, rubber-stamped, uniformed images of anyone or anything. Continuous sameness and replication is anathema in the Big Bang world. Our only responsibility is to become our uniqueness and at the same time be cheerleaders and promoters of the uniqueness of all other creatures. We also know in our psyche that we were not designed to be owned by anyone, including parents. Mother Nature doesn’t need our categorizing and regimentation nor our squared and straight-lined framing of existence. She has competently created and organized the vastness of creation long before we little creatures evolved a few short years ago.

There are two ways to cope with this issue 1. We can begin to loosen up with all of our controlling and containing structures and start moving toward what Carl Jung called individuation – honoring and becoming our uniqueness. Or 2. We can do nothing and wait for Natural Selection to run its course right over the top of us. Evolution by means of cataclysm has always been a dynamic of the Universe. Remember the ice ages and the dinosaurs? Brian Swimme along with many other scientists are telling us that we are on schedule for another cataclysm and that we ourselves are creating it.

So how do we loosen up – return to the wild? There is a dynamic of the Universe called celebration. The word means to rejoice freely, spontaneously, frequently for the fun of it. The symbol of this dynamic is wind and wind is generated by heat that in turn is generated by fire – The Big Bang. As heat moved out from the Big Bang wind was created and the Universe expanded and continues to expand right now. Physicists name this expansion out from an area of high concentration the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which basically states that heat will not stay bottled up in the same place.

We can observe this dynamic in a variety of forms. When we look into the night sky we can see the galaxies moving away from us. And the further away they are the faster they go. Parents give birth. Artists turn us on. Ethnologists who study animal behavior like lions note that juveniles are sent out from the territory of their parents in a planned manner. Young Mormons, filled with their faith, are sent off on two-year mission assignments. Some of my children love to be in the wild and take every opportunity to be there. When they return they radiate an exuberance, a deepening sensitivity to and from the wildness of the forest. It’s an exciting experience to engage in, witness and feel.

The Universe is obviously anxious to explode in the celebration of her abundance. As embedded offspring we also must be celebrants of that abundance. A major part of our human abundance is our mode of existence – our level of consciousness that creates objective existence and meaning. As Carl G. Jung stated, “our indispensable task in this great process of being is to put the stamp of perfection on the world”. We do that by reflecting on the abundance of our being and then exploding in celebration and joy.

Biologists are now telling us that we are neotenic -- hard-wired for celebration even into old age. Traditional wisdom has taught this for centuries. The Christ indicated, “Unless you change your whole outlook and become like a little child (an eternal child) you will never enter the kingdom”, which in modern language is your psyche. Helen Keller added, “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing”. Alfred Adler cautioned, “The chief danger in life is that we take too many precautions.” And then there is e.e. cummings:

“Damn everything but the circus!…damn everything that is grim, dull, motionless, unrisking, inward turning, damn everything that won’t get into the circle, that won’t enjoy, that won’t throw its heart into the tension, surprise, fear and delight of the circus,
the round world, the full existence.” Celebration is not a choice. It is our vocation.

1. What side are you on in the civil vs. wild debate and why?
2. What do you think of Jung’s concept of individuation?
3. What is natural selection?
4. Why is wind a good symbol for celebration?
5. What does the phrase “Unless you become like little children” etc. mean to you?

Send comments to kellerbook [ at ] insightbb dot com return to main menu