Revelations

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind..."

-- from Meditation XVII by John Donne

Carol_Noble,

Every country has blood on their hands, the history of humanity is full of horrors, what we visit on each other. That shouldn't stop us from trying to do right in any way, but no country is without taint of some sort. The # of civilian deaths incurred during the Iraqi occupation, the 'drug wars' going on in Mexico, the many Palestinian settlement camps around the Middle East where the people are living in abject poverty, the centuries-long genocide of the Muslim peoples by Muslims, the horror reign of Idi Amin, Canada's Residental Schools for the natives...to be able to look at these truths, these horrors, and still be able to function as a human being, still be able to see what is good and noble and worth fighting for...

Revelations, to reveal.

I like Alan Moore's riff on it

I also like Rob Brezsny and Tom Robbins' idear that we are going through an apocalypse of the imagination, where the forces of order and stasis are sucking the life out of us, out of the world, where life becomes merely pragmatic and efficient...I think Ray Bradbury's writings hint at this as well...

September 11, 2001, revealed, for me, yet again, what universe has been showing us for a long time now: that a country can never act without affecting someone else, that we are all interconnected, that we all sink or swim with each other so, to survive, we HAVE TO WORK TOGETHER.

The Dalai Lama, after September 11, went on a world tour. He hung around the USA a lot...I think, to try to spread his ideas and to try to get people to CALM DOWN and stop being so anxious -- anxiety and an urge to make the world completely safe can end up with a worse world.

Or so it goes.

Passages from *The Kolbrin that mention The Destroyer, which seems to be something of an archetype... but of exactly what, is quite debatable.

* * *

Men forget the days of the Destroyer. Only the wise know where it went and that it will return in its appointed hour.
The Kolbrin, MAN:3:1

They will be eaten up in the flames of wrath and consumed by the breath of the Destroyer.
The Kolbrin, MAN:3:6

Thus it was in the Days of Heavenly Wrath, which have gone, and thus it will be in the Days of Doom when it comes again. The times of its coming and going are known unto the wise. These are the signs and times which shall precede the Destroyer's return.
The Kolbrin, MAN:3:7

The Doomshape, called the Destroyer, in Egypt, was seen in all the lands thereabouts. In colour it was bright and fiery, in appearance changing and unstable. It twisted about itself like a coil, like water bubbling into a pool from an underground supply, and all men agree it was a most fearsome sight. It was not a great comet or a loosened star, being more like a fiery body of flame.
The Kolbrin, MAN:5:1

* * *

*Cannot verify exact translation.

Revelations

9:11 And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.