Matricide

Ancient traditions and beliefs placed planet Earth at the centre of creation, generating all forms of life in generous abundance. Traces of this subsisted in the myths of Gaia, Cybele and Isis, and in other more primitive legends. Earth was the mother of all things but, at some point, her male partner took precedence. The god in the sky, whether sun or thunder, was upgraded as master of the universe. It was a time of military conquests and world empires, of powerful rulers with a god at their side. Several millennia had passed, the whole planet had been cut up into different colours and powerful lenses were scrutinising outer and inner spaces, when god was declared dead by Friedrich Nietzsche and man’s animal origins were theorised by Charles Darwin. It was the end of an era and the dawn of a new perspective. The absence of a universal dominating power, other than impassive neutral gravity, gave man the total responsibility of his own destiny, and humanity was the patient fabrication of a particularly favourable planetary ecosystem. More than a century later, most humans are still worshiping pies in the sky and massively poisoning their earthly creator, their only source of subsistence. Eschatology remains the tool of power hungry demagogues, but it is also the people’s opium: analgesic and addictive. And the natural environment seems increasingly controlled and anthropomorphic to the urban majority, who can and are encouraged to ignore it completely. Nietzsche and Darwin rightly diagnosed an ideological demise but they did not predict the ensuing nihilistic chaos.

The wheel has turned and humans are back where they started from, before male hubris took control. They are just a species among a myriad others that have all evolved together. Take out one element and the structure is weakened, take out hundreds and thousands and it is bound to fall apart. Mother Earth has all there is to nurture and bring joy to all living beings. The sun, the moon, the planets and stars only help to make that possible. Their likenesses clutter up the heavens, whereas our blue paradise is so far unique. When it breaks down there is no substitute.