She suddenly took off a shoe and with one sharp, stocking-clad toe casually scratched the calf of her other leg with the exquisite balance of a flamingo, holding the teacup perfectly steady and not spilling a single drop into the saucer.(page 274)
Is inductive science voyeurism that betrays the sacred? On the last page of The Temple of Dawn is another quote that links Ying Chan to the forest.
..after returning from her studies in Japan, Ying Chan's father discovered that she had benefited little from her stay, and he tried to send her to the United States..Ying Chan had not agreed and had chosen to live in her residence in Bangkok surrounded by flowers.
She is a flower who attracts the toxins of the jungle? 'Toxin' is the root of intoxicated, and Byron said, "The best of life is but intoxication."
In a forest these two aspects are part of the whole scene. A forest is a place where the chthonic universe of dead matter supports the living - and even.more obviously, the associated peatland and wetlands (see prev.)
There is a strength through decadence (decay) that is associated with terrain that is left to itself.
Kemp and others in 'Collapse of Civilization' have been talking about Covid and the excuse it gives governments for authoritarian regimes, and I happened on a free paper called The Light that comes off that area.
The problem I find is that we live in a civilization of information; then one has The Light and other sources that supply counter-information. Life is literally too short to be reading all this stuff!
What's needed is something that's not 'pure information', and the article that hit me was on Terrain Theory and Antoine Bechamp.
Modern Western medicine is based on germ theory..Germ theory posits that we become ill when infected by microorganisms in our external environment..
Terrain theory forms the basis for most ancient healing systems..and is based on strengthening the environment of the host so that the disease cannot flourish.. If a fish is sick, Terrain theory says you should clean the water that the fish swims in. Germ theory treats the symptoms of the fish..
Bechamp was a lifelong rival of Pasteur.. Pasteur enjoyed greater commercial recognition and he was credited with the bacterial discoveries that catalysed medical advancement.. Microbes and pathogens were identified and drugs and vaccines were created to combat them.
But we now live in an environment where bacteria and virons are themselves resistant to drugs; in other words, it's impossible to eradicate the environment. All you can do is change it. Who is hubristic enough to say they change it for the better?
If we live in a logical, inductive universe (of the Western male mind), there exists another universe that is imagination, flow, elegant and feminine - associated with the moon.
Terrain Theory could be a way of getting back to that place in that it is nor inductive and rational - the two things that lead to male dominated industrial corporations and pharma.
What the theory says is that germs exist in the body which has a strong immune system. They're endogenous to the cells of the healthy body. Why do germs exist? Because the environment isn't sterile and is in fact dirty involving contact with animals etc.
'Cow pox' appears to have been the first use of inoculation that protected Man against the deadly small pox. Western Man developed some immunity to diseases via exposure. In other words, dirt and exposure in a terrain are toxins that also supply antidotes.
Disease is bad but, like in an ecosystem, a moderate bout can supply some protection. When Western Man came into contact with indigenous people who had no exposure to diseases like malaria, they had no immune-defence.
Terrain theory advocates a universe that the is balanced - predator-prey - and that does not contain man-made, denatured products like pesticides (and numerous chemicals that may disturb our internal systems, natch.)
In essence, that means living in a world where common dirt of the fields and forests - dead matter, the chthonic substance that gives strength - is strong and toxic, in the sense of supplying poisons, aromatic herbs, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.
That universe can be intoxicating owing to the fact that it is not governed by human will or mind or any agency except unthinking rhythm.