idol

Large carved idol, Tahiti

from Australian National Maritime Museum on The Commons

• 1 older comment, and then…
• LitterART said:

  
  
  DREAMTIME!
  
  * DREAMTIME * Boundary between Wilderness and Civilization
  
  " . . . But neither does the relativist fulfill these longings. He stands on the walls of the city and as he looks out into the wilderness, his eyes reflect the sadness that he does not know how to fly . . ."
  
  Beyond the city walls lay unpredictable encounters with wild things, including other humans. Hans Peter Duerr argues that for the medievals the boundary between wilderness and civilization was permeable and often-crossed, like a low fence. In the country, at least, invitations to the wild lay at every turn. Strange animals roamed there, and at night the vast panorama of the skies opened up. Even the blossoms of the yew tree under which one might fall asleep were mild hallucinogens. An afternoon's nap might turn into a trip to the Venus Mountain. But now the animals the yews and the vastness of the night are gone, and the Venusberg is the stuff only of opera. Sometimes the wild is deliberately eradicated, as for example when our civilization deliberately chopped down the ancient world's sacred groves. The wild potentials that remain are pushed behind what Duerr describes as a solid, steep prison wall.
  
  Greetings from Austria
  
  LitterART | litterart.wordpress.com