"When the great concrete megaCity chokes the globe from pole to pole, it shall already have, bedded in some hidden crack, the sacred seed of its own disintegration and collapse."
____ David Rudkin, Penda's Fen
What we have paved over feels safe, secure, permanent, habitable, civilized. Already a majority of people feel uneasy in the countryside or in open land, without sight of buildings, shops, and the full panoply of urban living.
When a civilized place is abandoned by people, the green world takes it back again. The first tough weeds quickly force their way through the concrete, splitting the man-made amalgam of civilization, and soon the wild seeds of life celebrate their return by germinating unchecked until the stone is covered with green.
The prospect of ending or decay is greatly dismaying to people who feel that it means the end of life as they know it. And they are rightfully fearful, for the enemy of life is stasis. The seeds of renewal are always mysteriously buried within the thick of decay and corruption, ready to spring up when all seems lost.
At this time of the year, when the trees look disheveled, when growth stops, we may feel the loss of a personal thing and cross the threshold to depression. Yet the roots of renewal lie in the contemplation of the way in which this year's leaf mold on the forest floor will become the rich earth for the next year's glorious growth.
The urbanization of the soul has become in many ways like a 'great concrete megaCity' that petrifies the living impulses of our natural heart. The lesson of this season is to welcome the elements that free our soul into wider ways of living, to burst out of the urban soul into the great expanses where renewal can clear all the impedes our way.
"What is static or decaying in your current life? Commune with the fruits of this season and find out how you can welcome change in."
[From: The Celtic Spirit by Caitlin Matthews]
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