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“Should we take the unconscious literally, then it too becomes a husk that

that constricts the psyche and must be seen through, deliteralized... Psychologizing

is in danger when it forgets that literalism is inherent in the very notion of idea.

Then we begin to see ideas rather than seeing by means of them.”

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- James Hillman, Re-visioning Psychology (1975)

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To flatten the Earth,

one may employ

literalism, lack of imagination,

or heavy machinery

to similar effect.

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Every living thing

needs air to breathe,

else it become

- not dead -

but nothing but.

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Every living thing

is nourished by the

same water that

will flood the engine

and rust the gears

of the machine.

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The Anima Mundi,

all curves and folds,

circles and sines,

infinitely enveloping in

her surface area,

gives profligately,

receives all and sundry.

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The Flat Earth,

clad in stucco and steel,

strip mall and maize

planted fence row

to fence row,

takes without receiving and

exhausts without giving,

burns the past so

as to hasten

its encounter

with a

brick wall

future.

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It is not that

the poets delight

in being enigmatic:

they simply recognize

that to grow a garden

one plants seeds

rather than ball

bearings.

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To flatten the Earth: As agriculture has become more industrialized, larger and heavier tractors and combines are used to till, harvest, and apply chemical pesticides and fertilizers. The weight of these machines compacts soil, vastly diminishing the amount of air pockets within the soil that provide surface area for microbial life as well as space for the water and gasses essential for sustaining the complex soil ecology. Furthermore, compacted soil cannot "receive" water, and much needed rain during times of draught will lead to runoff and erosion rather than hydration. Industrial farming is caught in a vicious, soil-destroying cycle: the more the land is compacted, the more it needs to be "broken up", which ultimate leads to even greater compaction.

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not dead - but nothing but: "Now, we have not symbolic life, and we are all badly in need of the symbolic life. Only the symbolic life can express the need of the soul.--the daily need of the soul, mind you! And because people have no such thing, they can never step out of this mill--this awful, grinding, banal life in which they are "nothing but." In ritual they are near the Godhead; they are even divine." (C.G. Jung, The Symbolic Life, 1939)

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The Anima Mundi, all curves and folds: From the alveoli of the lungs to the intricate folds of the golgi apparatus organelle, life facilitates the exchange of nutrients, gasses, waste products, and minerals by maximizing surface area.

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planted fence row to fence row: United States Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz (1971 - 1976) aggressively promoted policies that removed government safeguards for small farmers and exhorted farmers to "plant fence row to fence row" and "get big or get out." Radical shifts in policy and technology have reduced the percentage of Americans living on farms from approximately 90% in 1800 to less than 1% today.

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burns the past: The unbridled use of fossil fuels.

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