Gardening & Masonry - Eden and Babel

Between the organic and artificial. Written after reading the post 'Gardening and Philosophy' of Ruadri Laeth, in which I recalled this old idea for an article.

Newton (1795–c.1805) by William Blake. Courtesy the Tate Gallery, London.

Apollo and Dionysus

Apollo is the clarity of mind which thinks forward with sobriety. It is clear presence and focus, it the brightness of the morning sun. Dionysus by contrast is the dusk of evening and the glass of wine where intoxication and ecstasy start on their downwards path.

‘When the wheels of life are oiled by thee, they go screeching down with rattling glee.’ - Robert Burns, on Scotch drink.

Dionysus can live in the world of Apollo, but in the world of Dionysus, Apollo can find no place. It is the same as with a man constantly intoxicated can never rise up to that clarity of mind, whereas the man of clarity can entertain the Dionysian on his own terms. It is the same as with darkness and light, shade may find its place from the sun but in total darkness light has no place, that is its immediacy of occurrence shatters the darkness.

‘καὶ τὸ φῶς ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ φαίνει, καὶ ἡ σκοτία αὐτὸ οὐ κατέλαβεν’

‘The light shineth in the darkness but the darkness perceives it not’ - John 1:5

οὐ κατέλαβεν - (katalaben) meaning to not comprehend, lay hold of or seize. It shows the inability of the darkness to understand or take possession of the light, in the same sense as the intoxication of Dionysus cannot comprehend the sobriety of Apollo.

Gardening and Masonry

So also masonry has its place within the garden and yet the garden cannot exist in the dark artificial rooms of stone. As the inner rooms of the ancient Egyptian pyramids, of such impeccable masonic precision (not using mortar but of direct cuts placed immaculately to this day) is both dead and empty.

The garden is the organic nature, masonry is artificiality, it is invention without biology. Man is a biological invention, the brain has been formed after millennia and the beauty of it is not so much its complexity which is now outstripped by AI but the fundamental simplicity of it, which is beautiful. For the machine requires platinum, gold, silver, cobalt, bauxite and all number of materials in its composition and incredibly complex machines to both make and create parts for repair. Beyond this a network of power supply and internet connectivity is also required. But man, requires nothing but simple food, a potato, and through this potato can extract all the nutrients required to reproduce the brain in all its complexity.

Different kinds of Evolution

We are well acquainted with the survival of the fittest, one animal hunting another, ripping open its throat and feasting on its meat. But another form of evolution, that of mutual co-dependence and co-operation is also at work in the world. It can be seen most obviously in the relationship of bees and the pollination of flowers, each takes from the other and yet both require the other and insofar as one is the other prospers.

Further Clarity

Gardening is the cultivation of what man is and what he is becoming in the most organic and natural way. Masonry sets up artificial edifices and cathedrals which last for a time and at some point fade into ruin. Certainly one may notice the vines, trees and moss growing up and on these cold stones and represents how the artifice may help the vine to grow and adorn the stone, yet the stone has its place in the garden whereas an all encompassing stone surface gives no place for that which lives.

Eden and Babel

Man was right to build Babel and divinity was right to cause its ruin. Babel is the artifice and divinity is Eden, the confusion of languages is a loss of connection to the innate organic purposes of life and towards the cold confusion of a world of artificiality. Today as we face the imminent progress of AI towards singularity, we ought to remember that a tower built up too high will crash to the ground if meaning is not found for it, as it divorces itself further and further from the ground of humanity to the empty sky.

Hanging Gardens of Babylon - North Wind Picture Archives / Alamy