What do yellow bathtub duckies, ancient mythical sea-monsters and nuclear pollution have in common? A lot! Let me tell you.
We can start with duckies. On the 10th of January 1992 a vicious storm hit a container ship sailing from Hong Kong to California. Four containers opened and went overboard in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean (45°N 178°E). Twenty-nine thousand cuddly bathtub toys were released into the wild. Within weeks ducklings started to appear on beaches in California; in few months they washed up in Indonesia, East Australia and eventually in South America. But this group was just 2/3 of this duckling flotilla which took a southerly direction. About ten thousand duckies went north, towards Alaska, and then Japan. Three years later considerable numbers made it through the Bering Strait and soon froze solid in arctic ice drifting slowly towards the North Atlantic. The first ducks reached the Atlantic in Year 2000. In 2003 they appear on the eastern shore of Canada and the US and reached Iceland and North Scotland. A number of them hitched Gulf Stream near the American shores and arrived in Cornwall and Devon (the South West Coast of England) in 2007. In 15 years this flotilla of rubber duckies made it all the way around the world.
These rubber ducklings are just a modern reminder of a deep wisdom preserved in ancient myths and biblical allusions. Some of the oldest creation myths tell us about the world being created inside of the stomach of a sea monster (Like a Jonah in the stomach of a great fish). Often the monster of chaos is vanquished, split up, divided, pulled apart and a habitable world is formed between its two parts. In ancient imagination the world was like a giant bubble floating inside of a monster body of watery chaos. This ancient cosmology (understanding of the world), as mythical and unreal as it might look, has some profound consequences. For instance the world, especially our habitable world, might look large and almost endless, but it is not infinite! In fact it is quite small and very tightly interconnected. Little rubber ducks can make it around the world in less than 15 years. Anyone can figure out the consequence of the poisonous radioactive pollution leaking, say, from Fukushima. A bathtub toy in the ocean as well as ancient mythical monsters bring us the same trivial but needed message: It is shortsighted to pee into water in which we take a bath!
You see, It ain’t necessarily so! Some myths look ridiculous (especially when taken literally), until we discover their true metaphorical meaning. Come this Sunday to search for this ancient wisdom: some aspects warn us, some bring us meaning and spiritual transformation. Thankfully It ain’t necessarily so! It’s so richer, more important and interesting. Come to celebrate!
We can start with duckies. On the 10th of January 1992 a vicious storm hit a container ship sailing from Hong Kong to California. Four containers opened and went overboard in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean (45°N 178°E). Twenty-nine thousand cuddly bathtub toys were released into the wild. Within weeks ducklings started to appear on beaches in California; in few months they washed up in Indonesia, East Australia and eventually in South America. But this group was just 2/3 of this duckling flotilla which took a southerly direction. About ten thousand duckies went north, towards Alaska, and then Japan. Three years later considerable numbers made it through the Bering Strait and soon froze solid in arctic ice drifting slowly towards the North Atlantic. The first ducks reached the Atlantic in Year 2000. In 2003 they appear on the eastern shore of Canada and the US and reached Iceland and North Scotland. A number of them hitched Gulf Stream near the American shores and arrived in Cornwall and Devon (the South West Coast of England) in 2007. In 15 years this flotilla of rubber duckies made it all the way around the world.
These rubber ducklings are just a modern reminder of a deep wisdom preserved in ancient myths and biblical allusions. Some of the oldest creation myths tell us about the world being created inside of the stomach of a sea monster (Like a Jonah in the stomach of a great fish). Often the monster of chaos is vanquished, split up, divided, pulled apart and a habitable world is formed between its two parts. In ancient imagination the world was like a giant bubble floating inside of a monster body of watery chaos. This ancient cosmology (understanding of the world), as mythical and unreal as it might look, has some profound consequences. For instance the world, especially our habitable world, might look large and almost endless, but it is not infinite! In fact it is quite small and very tightly interconnected. Little rubber ducks can make it around the world in less than 15 years. Anyone can figure out the consequence of the poisonous radioactive pollution leaking, say, from Fukushima. A bathtub toy in the ocean as well as ancient mythical monsters bring us the same trivial but needed message: It is shortsighted to pee into water in which we take a bath!
You see, It ain’t necessarily so! Some myths look ridiculous (especially when taken literally), until we discover their true metaphorical meaning. Come this Sunday to search for this ancient wisdom: some aspects warn us, some bring us meaning and spiritual transformation. Thankfully It ain’t necessarily so! It’s so richer, more important and interesting. Come to celebrate!
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