Inner/Relational Fragmentation—

Enactment of Cruelty

 

Hunters

The hunters are firing their guns around our house again.

They are down in the thick brush, the darker slopes.

I haven’t seen all the predator’s faces, but I find comfort

To think I know the type, on their platform like playhouses,

Covered in nets or camouflaged, in their expensive

Outfits from the sporting goods store or bought online.

Maybe flown in on featherless drones? I hear that’s a thing

For those who enjoy this sport and their military gear.

They are drawn down where the deer hide, seeking refuge

In the branches and the brambles with lingering hope

That still beats in their animal bodies.

The hunters are firing their guns. I even hear it at night

In the quietest hours. I’m awakened from dream

By their ravenous weapons slaughtering hundreds

Of fur beings, a killing spree from the sound of it,

Echoing in my nervous system traveling down the thick rivers

And branching in a million directions into the cells

Of my unconscious. It’s hard to believe I’m ever going to sleep

child-like again, while I’m too wide-eyed to ever believe

In a God of love like the One spoken of in this one last church

I still attend that doesn’t leave me frightened in my core.

But is hard to hear even the preaching of compassion

When the hunters are firing their guns in this repetitive

Shocking merciless noise. It’s hard to believe when my Heart

Is stubbornly listening to those silent fur beings

Trying not to lose their lives in a diminishing wood.

 

The Destroyer 

Predatory, Sadistic, Deceitful

Man is the cruelest animal. Nietzsche

Caring about their individual “rights” (translated as Power to act in extreme and dangerous ways), these bears have developed a shared belief. “There’s only our truth.” It need not be a coherent ideology, but it is a justification: better to injure every living creature, destroy the planet, poison the water, run over opposition like roadkill. At bottom, being halted on the destructive path equals unbearable humiliation.

A self-declared collection of victims, Destroyers claim the wind, the sea, the stars above, every creature they encounter is hostile to them. Their central revelation is, “I’m a hero (magical, powerful, extraordinary) living in a cosmos that treats me badly.” And so, there’s no love here. There’s nothing meaningful here. There’s “no point” to Mindfulness. There’s no state of Flow. There’s no Attunement.

“We are in a hostile place, and all is against us.”

“We’ll not be so foolish as to believe in anything that does not enrich us.”

Such minds never surrender (though they might reluctantly present themselves at the jail to be fingerprinted and photographed for a mug shot with a posturing glare, something to use later for fundraising). Most of us are not evil enough to understand this evil. We are too creative to comprehend the glee that destruction brings to the sadist. But we need to recognize that these bears are relentlessly Playing at Power, tearing down what cannot be gaslit.

“We deserve what we can get, and we’ll get everything. Or else!”

Why this painting:

William Blake portrayed Urizen (Your Reason) as a character in the fallen world that seeks to restrain the Heart, Body, and Creative Soul. Urizen plans in logical sequences and rationalizes, but he is grandiose, contained in his own hubris and dark impulses. He is a danger to the world. While the True and Beautiful human mind embodies a “felt sense” of living that gives rise to meaningful reflection and discernment, Destroyers replace this with jingoism or vague phraseology. They love their own endless monologues and so of course they form bombastic sociopathic support groups (not really for support but to gain an advantage). In a world that they have actively helped to dissemble, they love to hear themselves fill up the air with the sounds of cruelty and crudity.

Compare them to Visionaries who wrestle with an ultimate question. Their inquiry is founded in a desire to serve something greater than their tiny ego, “What will I leave behind in this world when I’m gone?” In contrast, if you ever could get a Destroyer to present an honest soliloquy, they would have no way to even begin to describe inner experience nor have any compassion for the neighborhood, the community, the widening circles of humanity, nor other conscious beings on the planet.

            Destroyers and their groupies are proliferating, and their reality show is the greatest threat to life on earth, especially when they are billionaires. Though they will inform you that they have been elevated because of their unique brilliance, in truth, there is nothing inherently special about “strong men,” other than they are willing to Play at Power, coarsely, without shame. To their “suckers” who emulate them, they tell terrible stories of despair and of an always approaching danger, a coming apocalypse that requires a sadistic denouement. They exploit (play with) delusional myths about success, or morality, and invite our primitive archetypal adoration of oppressors, fooling followers who are longing to be fooled.

Inside out:

Consider the Destroyer’s mind—resentful, without the gifts of Mindfulness, Flow, Attunement, or Awe. The psyche is impoverished and isolated, weak, without any goal other than gaining unquestioned adoration and dissembling anything that gets in the way. Crushing what others love is a buzz for them, enlivening, and even more so when combined with the fire of righteous (vengeful) indignation.

If you have noticed a Destroyer’s energy rising in your psyche, then allow yourself to remember that it is an energy form we all are capable of channeling. The fact that you notice it means that you already have the necessary curiosity and the capacity to step back. Inquire more about it, rather than cutting it off. Where have you seen this schtick before? Discern where it first appeared in your life, likely in your childhood, an introject of someone who demeaned you. Investigate it, but don’t get too close. It can be sticky and so is a state that needs to be treated with caution.

In its essential core you’ll find a disconnect from empathy and compassion. At worst, it will whisper in your ear to do shameful acts and drag you into a dark underworld.

Upside down:

Before he settled on the term Shadow, Carl Jung described the archetype of Woten, named after the supreme god of Germanic mythology, associated with war and fury. Arising from the collective unconscious, rather than learned through personal experiences, such archetypal energy drives war and violence. In Fight with the Shadow, Jung writes, “The repressed animal bursts forth in the most savage form when it comes to the surface, and in the process of destroying itself leads to international suicide.”

Today it seems that many prominent people proclaim their egoic righteousness and declare that they have an unshakable “moral compass” while bursting forth with savagery, pressing us all on to some form of suicide mission. Such Destroyers thrive in a society that objectifies and commodifies everything it touches. We see them in characters on the massive stage of social media; they are natural influencers: delusionally selfish, cruel, criminal.

We might recognize them in a religious leader whose clear and present abusiveness can’t be questioned. Don’t believe your own eyes! Or as a cold blooded murderer with their tortured manifestos, or the swindler who gleefully takes every bit of your life savings, the numbed out but ambitious schemer, the devious and the deviant who takes advantage of the weakest amongst us, raping or terrorizing or upending reputations, stealing identities, business profiteers who poison wells and landfills for a margin of profit, and the gang bosses on the streets or in congress who rape and pillage and lie to your face. The Jackboot. The Tyrant. The Psychopath. Modern energy forms like profiteers who massacred the buffalo, those astonishing creatures who once thundered across the North American landscape in the millions. Why did they do this? Simply to tear the Heart out of Native Americans who were so intertwined with Nature.