Eros Versus Thanatos: Life and Death

The theme on this episode is the loss of eros and a sense of interconnectedness in the contemporary world. Eros is the elemental principle of connection, the touch of soul that binds us to this world but also connects us to our own essence. The feeling of eros or love is the soul's inner verification of its own genuine existence. When this elemental sense of eros and connectedness is lost, people can more easily be turned against each other, because inside they are turned against themselves.

In Greek myths, Eros is the original, archetypal source of all attractions and all connections, an essential opposing energy to Thanatos, the god of death. In that sense, each loss of eros in the world is a kind of death in life. The more disconnected we are from our own sense of Eros, the closer we are to the realm of death. Thus, this loss of the felt sense of interconnection is at the root of the current crises that can leave us feeling isolated and alone, but also feeling helpless and hopeless, not just about our own lives, but also about the future of life on Earth. The loss of eros is at the heart of both the mistreatment of the Earth and the extremes of hatred, fear and division that now permeate human culture.

The wisdom of the ancient myths also included the radical idea of “kairos,” meaning moments in which time breaks open and the original potentials of life become more available, just as familiar patterns and conventional systems are breaking down. In the dark times in which we live, kairos moments become awakened time in which we reconnect to a greater sense of the world, but also to our place in it. If we fully enter the moment when time opens, we experience an intensification of being that changes the quality of time as well as the direction of our lives.

Kairos represents the opportune moment in which everything can change, the primordial tipping point in which there is a reversal of time and a reconnection to things that are eternal. In kairos moments time breaks open and timelessness reenters the world and can pour into our hearts and minds. And it is that blessed incursion of timelessness that is needed to reconnect us to the innate sense of eros and the hidden unity and interconnectedness of all of life.

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