“Three or four thousand years ago the gods began a migration from the lakes, forests, rivers, and mountains into the sky, becoming the imperial overlords of nature rather than its essence. As divinity separated from nature, so also it became unholy to involve oneself too deeply in the affairs of the world. The human being changed from a living embodied soul into its profane envelope, a mere receptacle of spirit…”
Charles Eisenstein – Sacred Economy
I read somewhere that gods once represented that which was uknown to man. Hence a god of the seas represented theat which was incomprehensible about the seas. Browsing this list of Greek Gods confirms this. It was an agreement that outlined a relationship of sacredness with the world. It was an agreement created and upheld by people.
Today, most expressions of religion send shivers up my spine or red alerts in my mind. I am all for freedom of faith, but when I see systemic organization and people clumped together it leaves the domain of the sacredness of spirituality and comes down to the domain of the mundane social.
There is plenty of religion present in Romania, both in the cities and even more so in the villages. People here cannot grasp that we are not affiliated with any religion. We’ve literally been asked here in the village (by relatively modernized middle aged people) how will we die … what will happen without religious authority present in our lives. We’ve been invited to join a church twice.
Our next door neighbors are religious … out of habit and fear. The church is an economic burden … if you don’t pay your yearly dues the priest won’t provide a funeral service for you when you die (hence the “how will you die” question). People here are generally poor, so paying the church is done difficult and is done reluctantly.
It seems that every Romanian village has a church, sometimes numerous churches … they seem to be well kept buildings, very ornate … lots of superficial gold … and silly costumes (the higher up you travel in the religious hierarchy the more gold you see and the siller the costumes become). I was thinking about Charles Eisenstein’s above mentioned quote the other day … and we shared our thoughtd on it with our neighbors.
Romanian villagers generally abuse (usually not consciously) their lands, their forests and their animals … and there is very little sense of community (what is left is a zero-sum system of social barter/exchange). They live near a potential of abundance most people of the world could only dream of … and yet they don’t recognize it … let alone appreciate it. They go to their golden church on Sunday and then come back to abuse the land.
Indeed, misplaced gods.