Long Night of Brahma

The Art of Strategic Retreat

Today I woke up looking forward to the next installment on ecosophia.net and was concerned to see that John Michael Greer is taking a break from posting until at least March. If you’ve been following his Q&A’s then you probably have a good guess what that’s related to, and of course the community around him is praying for his family and hoping for the best.

JMG usually takes January off but decided not to for the past couple years because he felt that people needed a steady voice to guide them through the maelstrom. He has a point. Anti-establishment protests are growing around the western world as the elites who are obsessed with poisoning and enslaving us appear to be in a desperate struggle for survival. The “kind and caring” masks have fallen off revealing the naked authoritarianism underneath and citizens are rejecting what they see. I don’t imagine that a power structure this top heavy with psychopaths is going to go quietly, but it will be gone soon enough and just like every other revolution there’s no guarantee what will come after it will be any better.

JMG has also put significant effort into imagining a future worth having, because if our collective focus only goes toward dumping the current glob of systemic parasites then we are no better than the Marxist mobs tearing down statues in order to prop up an empty secular religion run by their corporate masters. It’s likely that we don’t have a lot of choice in what replaces this mess, but like Merlin guiding the young warlord Arthur we can still have a positive influence on the situation and learn to play intelligently with the cards we are dealt.

It’s true that we do need all the help we gan get in this endeavor, but perhaps JMG’s time off is also something that we can use to gain more independence and discover the inner guides who will show us the way rather than entirely rely on external sources that are sadly far too temporal. Carl Jung had incredible insights during his retreats that forever changed the course of psychology. Eliphas Levi went from a political rabble rouser to having a profound influence on modern occultism after a stint in prison. I’m currently going through the Laws Of Human Nature by Robert Greene and the Retreat is such a reoccurring theme that it’s got me wondering if it might have been the original inspiration for Joseph Campbell’s Mono-myth.

I’m also just emerging from a bit of a retreat myself, not because I’m trying to solve the world’s problems but rather at some point I realized that becoming a more effective person requires me to gain perspective on habits and relationships that are no longer useful. One concept that helped tremendously during this period was the long night of Brahma, a period of nothingness lasting so long (hundreds of millions of years) that it’s difficult to comprehend, followed by a new day of the same length. Occultism borrows heavily from other ancient traditions, but contemplation of the vastness of creation and it’s counterpart deserves a place near the top of our list of underutilized concepts.

If creation itself needs a strategic retreat every once in a while then setting aside a period my own tiny incarnation to digest my experiences seems less like an annoyance and more of a welcome necessity. When it is time to reengage then I can choose the proper battleground and act boldly, letting the solid internal foundation support my renewed efforts.

If you are able to do so please direct positive thoughts, prayers, and good energy to JMG and his family at this time. It’s a good reminder that he won’t be around forever, neither will you or I, and we ought to get on with the work of initiation so that we can continue to help others who will never know our names long after we are gone.

‘Ike aku, ‘ike mai. Kōkua aku, kōkua mai. Pēlā ka nohona ‘ohana.