MODIFY OR PERISH

Even if we stop economic growth, which is unlikely, there will be a continuation of global warming, depletion of ocean fish, depletion of groundwater stock, depletion of forests and problems related to meat production. Some of these processes are beyond the point-of-no-return or will soon reach that point.  

Don't wait for companies, politicians, economists and the media. The answers may be to modify our patterns of consumption, reorganize society in bottom-up ways and generate more green technology.

FEMALE FIGURINES DO NOT PROVE MATRIARCHY

While we can support the feminist movement, the argument that female figurines prove the existence of matriarchy may not be seen as holding ground.

Certainly, tribal societies, onwards from about 25,000 years ago, made small, voluptuous female figurines. These figurines are thought to represent motherhood, nature, fertility, creation, destruction or the bounty of the earth.

Some believe the female figurines represented goddesses and as such prove the existence of matriarchal or female-dominated societies. The lithuanian archeologist Marija Gimbutas (1921-1994) did pioneering work on this thesis. She identified a large number of female figurines, mostly in Europe.

But how do we interpret their existence? Were these figurines really meant to represent goddesses? Perhaps they were made by men who in a very earthly way adored or longed for the female body. Perhaps females themselves adored the figurines and were the ones who made them. Therefore, there is no proof that the female figurines represent goddesses.

Neither can we say that these female figurines prove the existence of matriarchal societies. On the other hand, there is ample evidence that in tribal societies women and men tended to just have a simple division of labor, with women mostly collecting plant food and men mostly collecting animal food, which remains unrelated to domination by either sex.

Furthermore, agrarian societies, from over the last 10,000 years, also made female figurines although these societies are clearly patriarchal or male dominated. Male dominance arose with agriculture with men leaving the domain of hunting and pushing women out of control in the domain of plant food, although women kept working a lot in agriculture. But such patriarchal societies did not rule out the existence of female figurines, representing goddesses or not.

http://www.reclaimingquarterly.org/web/gimbutas/gimbutas1.html

Courtesy: Tom Parsons, Louk Vreeswijk and Sandra Hamilton

Tribal figurine Venus of Willendorf, about 25,000 years old

Figurine 'Bird Lady' in patriarchal Egypt, about 5,500 years old

HOW FARMING MADE MEN AFRAID OF FEMALE SEXUALITY

Why do many men fear the sexual power of women? The Indian psychologist Sudhir Kakar provides an explanation in his book The Inner World.

His theory has eight steps, cyclically connected:

1. When farming got developed, men took over the domain of plant food. This made the male group of the family (agnates) keep their land together and arrange inheritance rules accordingly.

2. When a son marries he is more or less kept away from his in-married wife because she is seen as a threat for the solidarity in the agnate group.

3.Therefore, the wife has a unsatisfactory relationship with her husband and his family.

4. When she bears a son, she gets more respect from his family, so a son is very important for her.

5. Subconsciously, she projects not only her love but also her unmet sexual desire on the son.

6. The son enjoys her love as a paradise, but her adult sexuality he feels as way too much and even as dangerous, poisonous.

7. In his adulthood the son expects the same unconditional love from women, but also deeply fears their female sexuality.

8. When he marries he will keep her sexuality away from him as it still feels as dangerous, which is functional for the agnate group solidarity.

Some versions of the Indian goddess Kali represent the deep ambivalence of men about women.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/232036.The_Inner_World

-----

Many societies have a more or similar type of kinship pattern. In catholic Mediterranean cultures the deep ambivalence of men about women is symbolized by the ‘Madonna-whore’ complex.

All along millions of years men have been going out and leaving their women behind, with perhaps the fear of female sexuality as a push factor contributing to the men’s adventurous travels, as hunters, explorers, conquerors, cowboys, sailors or warriors, and in modern society as commuters to their work.

See also: http://www.alternet.org/sex-amp-relationships/unveiling-madonna-whore-complex

 

ANIMALS HAVE NO TRAUMA

Animals don’t suffer from trauma. In all mammals under threat, massive amounts of energy are mobilized in readiness for self-defense via the fight, flight, and freeze responses, but once safe, animals spontaneously "discharge" this excess energy through involuntary movements including shaking, trembling, and deep spontaneous breaths.

But humans may disrupt this process of discharging through rationalizations, judgments, shame, enculturation, and fear of our bodily sensations. As a consequence, sleep, cardiac, digestion, respiration, and the immune system can be seriously disturbed, and an array of other physical, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral symptoms may occur.

The Somatic Experience approach facilitates the completion of self-protective motor responses and the release of thwarted survival energy bound in the body, thus addressing the root cause of trauma symptoms. Clients are gently guided to develop increasing tolerance for difficult bodily sensations and suppressed emotions.

The traumatized person is offered the opportunity to engage, complete and resolve in slow and supported ways the body's instinctual fight, flight, freeze, and collapse responses. Individuals locked in anxiety or rage then relax into a growing sense of peace and safety. Those stuck in depression gradually find their feelings of hopelessness and numbness transformed into empowerment, triumph, and mastery.

After: www.traumahealing.com/somatic-experiencing/