Arnold Arnez

Professor Alexander
COMP 37057
April 3rd, 2019

ESCHATOLOGY AND NATURE

For primitive human beings, nature itself was viewed as living and animate. In contrast to
the scientific ideas of an objective and non-conscious nature, pre-modern humanity saw nature as
being conscious and able to view the world through its own metrics. Nature-as-conscious means
that natural beings and forces could judge the way the world is and, especially, the actions of
humans within the world. Human engagements within the world could never be mediated
through human standards alone, because nature can judge human actions and react to human
actions. Human actions in the world must, necessarily, be aware of how the natural world would
think of these actions, including being in harmony with all the living world or taking the
judgment of the world against human affairs. The motifs of the natural world as being able to
judge is through a humanization of nature, including viewing the natural bodies such as the sun,
the moon, trees, etc. as having faces.
This is a part of the study of mythological eschatology, where one studies the
mythological conceptions of life, death, and judgment within world mythological and folkloric
stories. Mythological eschatology was developed by Olga Freidenberg, a Russian cultural
theorist who viewed certain signs within different mythological traditions work through a
universal system of abstracted signs, such as the communal family unit or a nature as conscious.
Eschatological meaning is related through the passing of folkloric stories and myths which is
experienced as revelatory of universal truth as well as gratifying to each individual. The
phenomenological experience of hear mythological stories is individual because one must be
open to

SYNCHRONICITY AND A-SYNCHRONICITY

SYMBOLIZED WOMEN AND ANCIENT COMMUNITIES

War was seen as an constant within the life of ancient tribal communities, who may have
not spoken the same language and would still fight for the same essential resources that would
ensure their communities’ survival. To ensure peace, these communities set up physical and and
symbolic borders to ensure a peace by not entruding in what was deemed accessible to one
community and not to others. These would be done through designated natural landmarks or by
constructing fortresses, and these could be symbolically enforced by mythological stories
designating land to each tribal people. However, this type of isolation was not inevitable since
there were times in which negotiations needed to be made between communities that might have
developed animosity towards each other or have had barriers based on language and culture. This
was especially necessary to prevent the escalation of war.
One of the practices developed was that of the symbolic gift giving. This was part of a
universal semiotic language that allowed for non-verbal communication. A major characteristic
of gift giving is its non-transactional nature. The initial act of gift-giving is that there is a giving
of a thing without the expectation of immediate return, but indicates that the giving party is
acting selflessly by giving of its resources when it only benefits the other party.
By giving the gift, one passes through the symbolic borders constructed between
communities. In ancient communities, gifts were sometimes left within the designated territory
of a neighboring community without this community knowing. This indicated that the breaking
of the border was not meant with ill intent, but quite the opposite. This allows the symbolic
border to loosen, and open spaces for negotiation between representatives of each community.
Apart from objects, women were also given as gift on multiple levels of cross-community
negotiations. Women were also seen as universal because they were fundamental to the creation
of families by birthing children and also by linking her and her husband’s family. The family
was also part of universal semiotic language that allowed for crossing physical and symbolic
boundaries between communities. For this reason, daughters were given gift to high level men
within a neighboring community because, by being a part of both communities, she offered a
familial unity between both communities. These marriages within both communities meant that
the leaders of each community had family within both communities, and these ties were amongst
the most important to humans since time immemorial.
This prevented wars in multiple ways. The husband’s family would not consider
attacking the wife’s family vice-versa because a kin-based socio-biological link. The leaders of
each community had vested interests to protect the children, grandchildren, and other kin
because of kinship bonds and the love that occurs within those. This de-incentivized war since
the leader and their upper classes had family in the neighboring community who could be injured
and killed within such a war. This also created a society where it allows more resources from the
linked communities to flow through each other, creating more prosperity between both. It also
allowed the dangers of incest amongst the community which may debilitate the community and
make it more susceptible to attack.
Screwball Comedy and Courtship
Matching people was a communal business, as finding the right pairs within the tribe would
snesure more social stability and each person’s better qualities to stand out. The way this would
be donw is through ritualized erotic duels, where two people were brought together to see if they
would court each other. The anthropologist Victor Turner was one of the main scholars in this
field and found that these ritual courtship required each person to express each one’s best
qualities on the spot, to see if they would naturally match together. This could be done through
dancing, singing, and especially through flirtatious conversation.
Flirting was amongst the most important of these qualities, as it allowed a leveled playing
field in which each could test their wit, knowledge, mental quickness, all with performances that
entertain the community and the couple-to-be. This performance would show that they would be
able to construct a stable family if they would be able to complement each other’s thoughts and
personalities. It would also allow the love they have to be entertaining as well, since each would
be able to enjoy each other’s company; sarcasm, jokes, and all.
This created positive images of early human sexuality, which was dedicated on the
complement and consent of each to come into a relationship. The ritual allowed people to
approach each, showing the importance of choosing one’s partner. Also, allowing women to
have an equal playing field within the courting ritual showed her ability to choose, to assert
herself through humorous ways, and to come to marriage that saw her individual personality as
especially necessary to ensure her happiness and create a good house. These courting rituals are
part of differnet cultures around the world, showing the cultural models for women to have equal
power to choose their life choices and partener, without giving up on their intellectual prowess or
their individuality.
This would become the influence for the genre of comedy in cinema known as the
Screwball Comedy. This genre is an extension of the cosmic erotic duel because the Screwball
Comedy incorporates the same principles of reciprocal flirtation, a strong woman who courts as
much as she is courted, and creating a relationship through comedic struggle.
 Ornamental Art and Cosmology
Ornamental art is an extension of ritual magic, where the invocation of symbols is also
the invocation of the power or being that symbol represents. The symbols that are typical within
ornamental art are those that represent the natural forces and beings around them, since these
hold the power that allow for humans to survive and live prosperously. There are 4 categories:
(1) the rocks and minerals of the earth, (2) the fruits of nature, (3) Nature’s creatures, and (4)
human dance and rejoicing.
The rocks of the earth are representative of the minerals that abound with multiple shapes
and sizes, but are able to fit together and be used to construct monuments. In ornamental art,
these would be represented by diamond shapes, which can create a kaleidoscopic view of the
stones coming forth from a generative center and showing these stones to have life and growth as
any other being in nature.
The fruits of nature are those beings that constitute plant life and are characterized by
flowers and fruits. This ornamental art style is represented by long winding colorful plants and
fruits which represent the wild brush of nature and its ability to whole swathes of area with plant
life. The blooming flower and fruit represent the peak or beauty and growth of gardens. These
are invoked to ensure fruitful growth of foods and other useful plants which would then be
harvested for the community’s enjoyment.
Nature’s creatures is the harmony between animals and plants in ornamental art. Since
animals life is dependent of plant life, both are necessarily united in their interactions together, in
all the varieties of environments that this occurs. The prupose of this art is to show the world as
animated and abounding with life in the local environment. This would be represented through
the totemic animals of a certain culture and their plants within the local environment, with both
animals and plants being expressed as colorful and active. In certain depictions, the animals may
be represented as plants, showing the animals’ dependence on the flora for food and shelter.
The last major category of ornamental art is that of human joy and fertility. Humans play
a role since they are part of nature, inescapably, no matter how much humans pretend. The
variety of human customs depicted is concentrated on those actions that promote both fertility
and joy, including dancing, movement, and even sensuality. Not coincidentally, much of this
ornamental art appears in traditional dancewear, which itself is an expression of the symbolic
invocations of life being actualized in the dances which promote sensuality, sex, and the
continual propagation of life; especially when done with a partner. Within the dances that this
ornamental dressware would be used, fluid circular motions are prioritized, since these seek to
reinforce, empower, and multiply the fertile powers of nature.
 Women and mythological liberation
In many cases in Women’s history, women were made to be objects of patriarchal
societies that did not se their individual interests or desire as relevant to maintaining a healthy
society. To cope or even conquer back one’s subjectivity, women used other mythologies within
their cultures to imagine a better future where they are not trapped by arranged marriages or
subservient roles.
Within the practice of gifting women, there is the positives of creating unity between two
or more communities who were at the risk of war until an arranged marriage between the elites
of each tribe was done. However, these marriages constitute a transactional gift, which
objectifies the woman being married off into another community. She becomes a calculate tactic
rather than a person, allowing for her to become just an object that is bought and sold like cattle.
Women also become deprived of the choice to choose their partners and to seek an
authentic and loving partner. These women become beholden solely to the expectation of their
family who have already seen her a liability until she is married off to someone with some
notable rank that will help the family advance, at the cost of her personal happiness. Within the
new family she creates with the man, she is also placed in an unequeal relationship with him,
where she is beholden to his desires and patriarchal control. This constrats starkly with the much
more egalitarian erotic comic duel, where the woman can push back against a man’s words in a
battle of wit and skill to determine if that man is someone she would be able to share a loving
partnership and create home together.
The women are also kept away from their family after they are married off. This becomes
a separation from the very close bonds she has with family, with her becoming a person who
must prove her loyalty to the man and his family to be considered an equal member of the
family. In many cases, this can cause her to socially isolate from the new family and community,
which can result in loneliness and a decreased value of life.
In the worst of cases, she is an object that must fulfill her role or be modified and
replaced for a better model/woman. Within abusive marriages, she can become genitally
mutilated to not be too sexual or as a punishment for disobeying her husband. If it becomes
worse, she could be murdered in an honor killing for going against the customs of the
community or for disobeying her husband and family.
The theoretician Propp detailed the semiotics of mythology and how myths express
abstract ideas through the use of mythical beings or the plot of the story. In certain stories of a
princess escaping an arranged loveless marriage, she and her chosen lover are aided by animals
along the journey. These animals become greater friends to the rouge couple than the society
from which they escaped. The grey wolf is such an example in Russian mythology, where he
helps the woman through her journey as a loyal friend, but become violent towards those who
pose a threat to her. The animals represent freedom itself and the non-human world is a world
that works with different laws that exemplify this freedom. In some stories, the woman wears an
animal pelt to hide her identity. The pelt becomes a portal where she is teleported to another
realm where the rules are different and she is able to escape from the society she has
symbolically teleported out of.
 Cosmic Movement
Within the ancient traditions of the world, the world-models they have similar
foundation: the categories they make of nature, are necessary to how society will function. One
of these important tasks is the relationship between humans and the sacred kinetic movements
within nature.
Sacred Kinetic movement is the belief in the different processes, transformations,
movements, and changes as having a cosmic role in nature. These matter in relation to the
survival of our species. These become symbols that are expressed within mythological stories.
Some of these categroies consisted of: (1) jumping, running, border-crossing, moving through
long distances; (2) flying, swimming , (3) sexuality and courting, (4) building, crafting, doing,
acting.
All these categories and actions were sacralized within the mythical characters of each
tribal peoples’ stories. In many cases, these were represented by the movment of celestial bodies
who would dance between each other and the earth (the sun, moon, stars). However, all of nature
engaged in a cosmic dance where the awareness of the others’ movements allowed one to
synchronize and know how to act accordingly. This means that the ancient principle of “as above
so below” was in full play as the stars effected the movement of the wind, the ocean, the birds,
the animals, and so our acts revealed what occurred above in the heavens. Certain examples of
these would be the moon affecting the tides of the oceans, or the stars being markers to the place
that one is in.
This would be incorporated into ancient humanity’s first artistic endevaors, with the
Magic, cosmology and media creation