Hal, May-swain

At Winter Solstice one thinks of Neorxna, the 'Evergreening Neotene'-- his enduring youthful openness and creativity and his forward-looking hope and prescience lead one to look across the frozen gulf of Winter to the return of Spring.  But at the coming of May, there is Hal Twayne-son, grandson of Drygand, the Amazing Child; Hal the Haleth, fighting for the future of Wyke and Feorgen and Menning, for Life on Earth, fighting the Searuvel whenever he appears in one of his many guises; Hal the Teev of the flourishing of Ecology-on-all-Levels, avatar of the Ecological Self; and May Day, day of the manifest victory of Spring, is his day.

Swain= lad.
Neotene= 'youth-retaining one' Twayne= the twins Bil (Bilwit) and Wil (Wildiar), headman and shaman, respectively.
Haleth= hero, protector, fighter Wyke= Biosphere. Feorgen= Nature-mind, Father Earth. Menning= ecological culture-civilization.
Searuvel= the world-dominating Evil Machine.
Teev

Symbolism of the Ecologo

The Ecologo is, in the Jungian sense, a symbol of the Self, the Whole, which can be either of the Macrocosm, or of the Microcosm. But the Ecologo is specifically symbolic of the Ecological Self, in which Micro- and Macrocosm are two aspects of the whole of Life on Earth, which is why it is colored green.

The form of the Ecologo suggests the planet Earth, but more specifically it symbolizes the Biosphere, the Life-World, and this is our Macrocosm. But it also represents the Microcosm of Man, and his psyche.  Since the horizontal of the Ecologo divides this mandala in two, it can contain relevant pairs of opposites, such as Biosphere and Man.

The Biosphere's numinous aspect is Feorgen, the Life-God, Nature-Mind.

The Biosphere implies the scientific study of it, Ecology.  And the effect of ecological knowledge on Man is the Ecology movement, or culturally normative 'Ecology'.  This implies the Menning, the ecological culture-civilization.  Man has a psyche, consisting of the ego-mind and the unconscious mind, another dyad symbolized by the Ecologo, and thus their systemic wholeness together.  When the psyche is ecologized by the Ecological Self, we have the Menning-mensch-- Man psychically integrated and integrated with the Biosphere.

Numinously, on a Mesocosmic level, we have the god of the Menning, the Drygand, who in his head carries the Lodestone, which when bestowed on men, creates the Mensch. Analogous to the Drygand on the microcosmic level, and sort of the god of the Lodestone, is the Indryg, the personal guardian and advisor of a mensch.

This scheme is all rather complicated, but it might simplify things to see the Ecologo as symbolizing -- the Biosphere (and Feorgen), normative Ecology, the Menning, the Lodestone, and the microcosmic integrated mind of the Mensch-- all of which add up to the Ecological Self.

The Earth Day Emblem

In the fall of 1969, environmental cartoonist Ron Cobb presented an ecology symbol in a cartoon printed in the L. A. Free Press, and he placed it in the public domain.  It was simply a broadened upper-case Greek theta, which looks like a globe crossed by an equatorial line-- obviously it's meant to suggest Earth.  And in fact, the ancient symbol for the planet Earth is a circle either quartered by a cross, or halved by a horizontal.  But Cobb's ecology symbol (henceforth 'ecologo') derives supposedly from superimposed lower-case 'e' and 'o'-- the e for 'environment' and the o for 'organism'.  Actually, 'oe' is a next-best form of o-umlaut (o with two dots over it), which was used in the German biologist Ernst Haeckel's coinage 'Oekologie'-- when he invented the scientific discipline we know as ecology-- was it in 1866? 

On the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, the ecologo was widely used on banners, or on an ecology flag modeled after the American flag.  At the time, the word 'ecology' was unfamiliar, but soon came to be conflated with the common 'environmentalism'-- a term I always hated-- it usually meant 'pollution' (=cancer) or 'littering', to most people.  But then 'ecology', the name of a particular discipline of biological science, soon came to be used as well for the conservationist cause.--  oh, the muddleheadedness of the mass mind!

But Ron Cobb's symbol, I think, must have come out of the new awareness of Earth produced by seeing NASA photographs of the whole planet taken by high-orbit satellites in the late 60s, and then there was the famous photo of 'Earth-rise' on the Moon, taken during the first lunar landing (Apollo 11) in June, 1969.  For many people around the world, these photographs had a profound effect-- a shift in consciousness.

A 'whole Earth' flag was also used at the first Earth Day-- one of the satellite images printed on a deep blue field.  But the ecology flag had a more specific meaning.  This flag had green and white horizontal stripes with a yellow ecologo in a square green field in the upper left-hand corner, resembling the American flag.  Earth Day was an American event, after all, though I'm sure conservative Americans were provoked by this desecration of their emblem.  In 1971, a simple green and white ecologo flag was used by a 16-year-old girl in Louisiana for an Earth Day commemoration at her school, and that version eventually caught on with 'ecologists', who of course see beyond national boundaries.

Every cause needs its symbol, its banner, and the ecologo is ours.  I particularly like the curvilinear form of it without sharp corners, where the horizontal's lines widen smoothly from the middle into the inner curves of the oval, which also is wider on the sides and smoothly narrows into the top and bottom.  I don't remember if this was Ron Cobb's original version.  It seems Art Nouveau (a big influence in late 60s psychedelic art) but also Streamlined Futurist.  It has a sense of continuous flow appropriate to such a holistic symbol of interconnected ecologic flows in cycles.  More on the deeper meanings of the ecologo will follow in the next shtook.  

The Wild Equilibrium State

Only the simplest person can fathom the Deep, a hapless trickster with the wisdom of a fool.  And something new is created in the world.  Creativity often comes in a semi-conscious state, of unselfconsciousness, light trance, with naive openness.  It comes as fantasy like in the spontaneous play of a child.  The Sacred lies hidden in the Deep, in the wild equilibrium state, and he who is simple-- and clever-- might come upon something new-created there, a wondrous boon.

The Wykewyzer

Through the blessed Gift of the Drygand-- the Lodestone-- the wrong-set man of the Searuvel is charned by Will to wyrdhe into the Wykewyzer, who dwells henceforth in the holy Wyke as Edhlimann, ever working the Menning in the Samband of the Wyze.

Searuvel= the Evil machine.
wyrdhe= to evolve.
Edhli= Nature.
Samband= alliance.
further definitions on previous shtook.

Ecological Will

The Drygand charns the deep life-drives of Feorgen to Wykewyzen Willing, that rises in the soul of Man to make the Menning, so the holy Wyke can live in weal.  This is the great Maysch-making.

Drygand= heroic avatar of Feorgen the Life-God of the Wyke (Biosphere). Wykewyzen= Ecology.
charn= to turn.
Life-drive= instinctual force.
Menning= the ecological culture-civilization. Weal= peace and prosperity.
Maysch= magic.

A Little Truth-telling

The Gumar (humans) war on Feorgen (God) and his Wyke (the Biosphere).

Only the Deepings (Deep Ecologists) fight with the Drygand against this horde of the dark Searuvel (the Evil Machine).

Truth be told.