My essay The 3 & The 4: Emergence From the Unknown Future is now published in VIA NOVA: an annual publication which focusses on “Emergences of the Beyond from Lascaux to Today.”
Editor Daniela Boccassini writes “now more than ever it is necessary to keep the flame alive, on the eve of this long night that awaits us – not in an attempt to defeat the darkness, but rather so as better to understand what the sky has always proclaimed: that it is only at night that the stars become visible. In revealing themselves as emergences from the Beyond, they remind us that it is our darkness that makes them apparent to us.“
The abstract of my essay is as follows:
This essay concerns the soul of the global crisis that we are facing today. We rush to put out one brush fire after another across the world – financial collapse, literal bush fires, political mayhem, angry calls for social justice, and yes, the covid-19 virus pandemic. All these fires are appearing on the visible surface of life and we treat each of them as a separate problem to be overcome. I call this surface reality the 3. As important as they each are, underneath and connecting them all is a rhizomic layer which “carries on about its own business. It is driven by forces beyond human control…” I call this deeper layer the 4. What is the relationship between the catastrophes occurring on the surface of life and the unknown future rushing towards us from its source in the rhizome? This is the same question as ask- ing what is the relationship between the 3 and the 4 – a question that has deep roots in antiquity but now has an urgent relevance today.
