The Gold in the Green

I’ve been wondering about what’s up in Australia at the moment. In the space of a few weeks there has been the 5 year old girl dropped to her death from a bridge by her father and then flooding in North Queensland and fires in Victoria. Most tragically have been the deaths of children. Now at one level there is nothing new about any of this. There have been floods and fires and the murder of children since the beginning of time. That’s true. And then at the same time there are larger patterns of meaning, synchronistic events. One of the guiding ideas of Jung’s is that archetypes transgress boundaries. They happen on the inner and outer world at the same time. Astrology is one way to see the patterns. So let me just rave impressionistically as I do.
I have been thinking about Australia as the being the place of something new. Astrologers writing in Europe and the US have noted that when a new planet is discovered it’s like the consciousness is ready to engage with a new energy in a more conscious fashion. And synchronistic events emerge to confirm this. What’s different in Australia is that our culture (white people) has been forming on a new continent whilst these new energies infused the wider consciousness. Uranus was discovered very close t o the “discovery of Australia 1781. Neptune was discovered in 1846 and heralded a number of changes that others have written about (sorry folks this is an impressionistic sketch not a complete essay) and has also been linked with the birth of cinema. Surprise surprise the first full length movie…not the U.S, England, France…no Australia. 1906 we produced an 80 minute film on Ned Kelley! A Trickster Outlaw…no surprises really, remember Uranus/ Prometheus is a rebel. I loved the Ned Kelley story as a kid. I will try and see if I can do a more in depth natal chart for Ned. I bet there will be a strong emphasis on Uranus.
What does it say that it’s Australian cinematographers (more then actors, directors and producers) that often less well known and celebrated but who are acknowledged widely in the industry. We intuitively have a different way of seeing, a different aesthetic but we are less effective with selling this vision or articulating its difference. These are just off the top of my head reflection, feel free to disagree.
Pluto was a more recent discovery (1930) and coincided with the splitting of the atom and its enormous destructive power. And it was Japan who copped the full force of this destructive energy. The bombs were dropped by the U.S. Yet it was Australia who under threat from Japan not the U.S. We are like the little brother who is in fight and holding there own despite being out numbered and at the last minute big brother rushes to our defence. Who knows what would have happened. Would the war have reached Australia and then dragged out for years? We don’t know as the fight was finished by the big brother and his big guns. Our history is intrinsically connected to the Atom Bomb and its enormous destructive power. Yet we haven’t had to deal with it in the same way. We have kept our hands clean. Japan may want to forget its role as aggressor but it can never forget the destruction that happened on its soil. The U.S will always carry the mixed feelings of ending one problem through the creation of a much larger problem. Yes the argument goes, better them then the Nazis, and yes it was just a matter of time before another country developed the technology yet history will never forget that it was the US who unleashed Hell first, twice. And we did allow atomic weapons to be tested here and as usual it had destructive effects but this has been covered up or ignored.
I am yet to explore this further but Jung had a vision in 1939 of a Green and Gold Christ. I cannot help but think his vision is synchrocisitically linked with the Atom Bomb as it was in 1939 that Einstein first proposed building an atom Bomb. Is it the World psyches answer to the opening of hell?
As an aside also in 1939 Germaine Greer, John Winston Howard (lest we forget) and Philip Adams were all born. What a strange trio all carrying pretty damned powerful energies into Australia and the world.
Back to Jung: he saw the green and Gold as an alchemical vision of Christ and yet didn’t develop it further in his writing. Or at least not explicitly. It’s implicit in his working through the meanings of the Christ symbol and its relation to alchemy etc but as far as I know he never mentions a green and gold Christ anywhere.
I have spoken publicly of this and how somewhere along the way Australia has identified with the Green and Gold Colours even though they don’t appear on our national flag. I think they connect t o Golden wattles or some other flowers. I would like to write a book or do a PhD on this Green and Gold Christ as being the basis of an Australian Alchemical Ecological Christianity. A Christianity that acknowledges and in a fashion marries Archetypal Astrology. Opposites can marry. Christianity and Astrology are rooted in other lands and other cultures. They have never fully rooted in our culture especially not Christianity. And we are the worst off for it. There is this great gaping hole at the centre of our psyche. My intuition says that for us the alchemical “Gold” which the alchemist sought and which has become a metaphor for being our spiritual essence or Self in Jungian terms will be found not only through the inner journey but through the outer ecological journey, the green. I am convinced that this can be our gift to the world. Remember deep ecology was cofounded here by John Seed an Aussie (No coincidence with that name!!). It was articulated and named by a Norwegian. Australian are notoriously better at practice then philosophy to the annoyance of our intellectuals who continue to look longingly at Europe or the US for “greener” pastures.
I feel like my task is to join up the dots in a different pattern so the pattern can unfold. It is unfolding but slowly and it’s not seen that clearly. To be is to be seen. In Australia it’s like we still haven’t been seen. Our potential hasn’t been seen, not by ourselves or the world. We keep waiting for others to notice us but I think we have to see ourselves first. To see the pattern of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto working mysteriously in the background and the future role that a Green and Gold Christ can play. To envision a new alchemy of body, soul, ecology and cosmos.
So again I want to circle back and reflect on this loss of children and the destructive elements
Hell and its Fury is what the headlines of the Australian newspaper had yesterday quoting Kevin Rudd who had poetically worked Shakespeare. Its poetic and it carries layers of meaning. Hell hath no fury like a women scorned said Shakespeare. Hell as it came to be imagined in the European Christian terms is an underworld place where souls are eternally tormented “Where the fire doesn’t go out “said Jesus. Pluto has been linked to a feminine earth goddess who is returning with fury. Some believe this fury emerged In Nazi Germany. We, as in Western world have repressed this aspect and now its back . In Australia we can ignore the implications of human destructiveness. We don’t have a Nagasaki, Hiroshima or an Auschwitz t o reflect upon. The massive destruction of the aboriginal people happened in the bush and desert all across the country and was not located in one central place. The bush is part of our mythology and our soul. It’s the great paradox that we love it and yet we have destroyed it at an unbelievable rate. Maybe these recent fires are connected to global warming maybe not. But they are being linked in our minds. Its really like we have unleashed hell, we have scorned nature ( and the aboriginal connection to her) and she is pissed off. And child murder or sacrifice??
It sounds like a huge stretch but I can’t help but think of rebirth which inevitably emerges out of such destruction. This is the way it’s happened in nature for millennia. But right now it’s taken on a wider meaning. The whole world and perhaps especially Australia is seeking a rebirth. Flooding is so obviously connected to birth. In Re-birthing they talk of the “ring of fire” as the babies head is close t o emerging from the birth canal and under extreme pressure.
To have flooding and fire together? And Child Murder. Are they linked? Is this the destructiveness that will herald a rebirth? Then there’s the grief that has been unleashed. Genuine grief. There was genuine widespread shock and grief when the little girl was thrown from the bridge. And genuine shock and grief at the fires. So close together.
And as every therapist knows grief always joins up. Whatever grief has been locked up in our psyche about our treatment of indigenous people, the land, each other. I hope it’s been unlocked for many people. Could this be the tipping point?
Bradford Keeney the American Shaman has told how indigenous Shaman all around the world have spoken a similar prophecy for the Western world. It’s something like, unless there is a flood of tears there will be a flood of destruction. I for one am praying that we can open to gold in the green before it’s too late.