Tuesday, December 22, 2020

Christmas Parol 2020: Two Faces of our Planet Earth

 Christmas Parol  2020

Two Faces of our Planet Earth

Indigenous  hanging chandelier by Dr Abe V Rotor

The Pristine Face of our Planet Earth in acrylic on wood scrap by the author 2020

Light in the air, swaying with the wind;
Heavy in the air dull, still;
Pristine, natural in the absence of man, 
Defiled, dead, can't humans feel?


 The Defiled Face of our Planet Earth in acrylic on wood scrap by the author 2020

Indigenous art, ecological in message, this piece of art tells to viewers looking up to this hanging parol and chandelier.  No candles, no light, no chime,  except the natural radiance and music of the pristine face of our Planet Earth.  

So rare today this happy face beams, so commonplace the sad face shrouds cities where more than half of the world's population of  7.7 billion souls are ensconced in the so-called Good Life, the "ultimate" aim of civilization.  

What is the Good Life in the current Corona Virus pandemic? Good life in global economic depression?  Good life in widespread poverty?  Good life in inequity and injustice?  Global breakdown of institutions, from marriage and family, threatening to destroy the pillars of human society? 

What is the Good life in science and technology gone wild?  Good life in the explosion of knowledge, grain and chaff mixed up? Good life in erosion of values? Good Life in the failure of governance - local, regional, global? 

We have yet to learn from "the glory that was Greece, and the grandeur that was Rome," and the Dark Age that enveloped the world thereafter. We have yet to learn from the Renaissance that followed a millennium after.  If only man's rationality can save him from his own destruction. 

Light in the air, swaying with the wind;
Heavy in the air dull, still;
Pristine, natural in the absence of man, 
 Defiled, dead, can't humans feel? ~

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