Gilgamesh, the archaeology and healing of the soul

 

Some people think of previous ages as less civilized than the age in which they live; they think of people from the past as being different from people today, less open-minded, somehow less "civilized". However, human psychology doesn't really change, it can be modified, but it remains substantially the same in any era. People in the past dressed differently than we do, they didn't have modern appliances, their weapons of war were not as destructive as ours, some people lived in terrible poverty, but the soul of these people is not different than our soul; people from the past share our human concerns, emotions, desires, joys and fears, prejudices and insights. All of this is a prelude to saying that The Epic of Gilgamesh has an almost contemporary quality to it, Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu are people that could be alive today, they share our emotional life, they share our psychic/soul life. 

When we first meet Gilgamesh —this epic was written 4000 years ago and Gilgamesh may have lived around 4000 years ago— Gilgamesh is living an unreflected life; he is a ruler, both arrogant and powerful. We know that other people, his contemporaries, didn't approve of some of what he did; he is the king, the supreme leader, and this is commented on and it is mentioned that there is some disapproval of him. But life changes, and psychological and spiritual change is often caused by suffering; suffering makes us think about our life, it makes us reflect on life. And this is the experience of Gilgamesh when his friend, Enkidu, dies; this is when Gilgamesh becomes more than a character in an ancient text. 

It is suffering that makes Gilgamesh "one of us"; what is of interest for us is Gilgamesh’ s story, it describes his psychology, his psyche, his soul, and his response to suffering. When his friend Enkidu dies Gilgamesh experiences grief and sorrow, he knows the transience of life; he must reflect on the meaning of life when he is thrown back on himself. In his grief Gilgamesh searches for meaning, and his search continues until he finds an explanation for his grief, until he finds a meaning for his loss and how to deal with it.

To live without meaning and understanding is to continue one’s suffering. In The Epic of Gilgamesh we are reading something that pertains to our own existence; indeed, this epic is a four thousand year old version of our own existential journey to a meaningful life. The subject of The Epic of Gilgamesh is the archaeology and healing of the soul.

 

30 March 2023, November 2024

On impermanence

 

The thing is to accept (and even like) the very thing about life that upsets one the most because we are moving irreconcilably to death. And that is the impermanence of life. We can't freeze life to when we were most happy. We continue on and on and then we reflect on the past, on when we were happy but, perhaps, didn't know it. We weren't self-conscious in our happiness. It doesn't work that way; we think back, we're nostalgic creatures, and we fix on a time when we were most happy, or we think we were. We fight our emotions and ideas of self-reproachment, we beat them down! Why are we even having them? Because self-reproachment is an act of depression and we live with more or less mild depression all of the time. And we remember the past and wish we could live on an island of unself-consciousness and unreflected happiness. Is it a hallucination? Does it make any sense? We are sad, we grieve for what we had. We hate impermanence. And we are too old to suffer more impermanence, more change. What to do? What to do? 

                                                                                        16 April 2023

Labyrinth at Rosedale-Queen Mary Road United Church on Terrebonne Avenue in NDG

If, one summer day, you wander along Terrebonne Avenue in NDG, you might find yourself at Rosedale United Church where there is a labyrinth that is open to anyone who wants to walk there. It is a truly incredible experience, it removes you from everyday life and you find yourself in a world of archetypes. There is something about walking a labyrinth that immediately alters one's consciousness; the bigger issues of life, one's place in the universe, take over one's thinking. Life is seen for what it is, a journey, and on this journey there are many twists, turns, reversals, new beginnings, success, failure, and redemption. This labyrinth is free, open to the public, and one of the places in this City of Mary--Ville Marie--that I highly recommend.