Originally Appeared in Unit Circle #4

June 12, 1994
289 Triangle St.
Amherst, MA 01002

Dear Bruce,

Thank you for the telephone conversation. We certainly talked about a wide variety of topics, from sex and intimacy to politics and murder. It sounds to me that we both have been in a privileged position for quite a while. And we both have felt a sense that we had to work for the future of humanity with our time. This led both of us to the problem of war which then leads us to visualize a world of peace. You call this state Amala and I call it Neutopia. Amala is your paradise; Neutopia is mine. Does that mean we are on different islands of bliss somewhere in the Noosphere? What kind of architectural structure have the people built at Amala? I must admit to you that the word Amala has been flowing through my mind since we talked. Maybe the only way to "Creative Love 2010" is through the ways of the lovolution (a non-violent world revolution, the evolution of revolution, a planetary movement for world peace, a romantic revolution).

You write, "Although overpopulation, nuclear weapons proliferation, etc. are certainly serious problems, the major problem confronting humanity is disunity. Warfare and arm's races are but one of many harmful side effects of our disunity. Our disunity makes the search for solutions for all other problems much more difficult." The above thought resonates with me very much. For decades, I have been analyzing this disunity by trying to understand its root causes. The reason why I was committed to the mental institution back in 1976 was because I was "flipping out" on my realizations. As a student of Mount Vernon College in Washington, D.C., I decided to drop out of classes so that I could begin to focus on my own thoughts. I began to cut out articles on the nuclear arms race between the US and the USSR. I was horrified with the utter insanity of these governments. The only way I thought that war could be stopped was through love. This is when I developed my intense interest in the phenomenon of true love.

After much thought and study, I believe I now understand the reason why we are disunited. It seems to deal with the bad, that is, sexist, mythology on which the foundation of the patriarchal civilization is based. This false foundation inhibits true love from being able to blossom between people. The true love thing is an essential ingredient necessary to build a sustainable order in the world. Sorokin Pitirim writes in The Ways and Power of Love that love is "one of the highest forms of a unifying, integrating, humanizing, creative energy or power" (6). It would now seem that we are in dire need of apostles of true love.

You write, "Efforts by politicians to unify humanity at the global level (e.g. the "United Nations") are hopeless. National leaders alone cannot unify humanity. Some means must be found for permitting anyone and everyone who wants to help unify humanity." Yes, I think this is a very important idea. To build peaceful, sustainable ecocities (which is the long-term plan that, in my opinion, will save us) will take the cooperation of all people who believe in the betterment of humankind. However, the problem of the unity of the sexes is still not being addressed here. This primal unity seems essential for us to be able to develop a new philosophy of a holocracy (government of whole systems). I call this new union, a telepathic hermaphrodite, or the Gaia Messiah.

You might be interested in reading a copy of my dissertation entitled, Gaia, The Planetary Religion: The Sacred Marriage of Art and Science. (If so let me know and I will send you a copy.) It is an attempt at the re-unification of the species by tracing the pre- history and history of architecture in hopes of finding the wisdom needed to lead us into a new epoch of biospheres. In order for this to happen we need to be activists of the heroic myth, in other words, we need not only filmmakers, but mythmakers.

Back to the problem of disunity. I have tried throughout my life to form creative partnerships with various people. They have all failed because our ideas and life purpose did not form a more perfect union. The love power between us was not strong enough to unify our ideas. I was starting to believe that I had no other choice but to follow my consciousness and realize that I must work independently in my goal of creating world peace. This fate puzzled me because world peace is about forming creative alliances between people, so how could one do it alone?

You explained to me over the phone that you were having problems with finding people interested in exploring your ideas with you. You even stated that you thought that you would have to mate with a woman whom you would not be able to discuss your ideas with. You felt that you would have to seek other like-minded males in which to discuss such matters. So, what role would your mate play in your life if not that of an intellectual companion? Is she to be your traditional wife and mother? What would happen, then, is that you would fall into the stereotypical roles of the sexes which are controlled by patriarchal domination. That is simply not good since is it part of the war problem.

I, on the other hand, explained to you how I was having problems with most men still seeing me primarily as a sex object. When I try to discuss my ideas about love and Neutopia with them, they don't want to hear it and insist I keep my mouth shut. They will accept me as their lover as long as I look pretty and act sweet, but if I dare express my opinions which are in opposition to the patriarchy, they want little more to do with me. I have very much difficulty feeling erotic passion for a man without the blending of ideas. After all, isn't love the greatest of ideas? Isn't sexual love the fusion of MIND, body, and soul?

I have chosen to write about these intimate subjects which we briefly discussed over the telephone because I think this is where our social dysfunction stems from. If you want to have a successful film script, the question of intimate relationships between the sexes must be addressed. I am in the middle of reading a very interesting book by F. Muller-Lyer entitled, The Evolution of Modern Marriage: A Sociology of Sexual Relations. He outlines three different epochs of humankind in terms of geneonmical development: 1) Tribal Epoch; 2) Family Epoch; 3) Individual or Personal Epoch.

Tribal Epoch

In Nun, Witch, Playmate: The Americanization of Sex,, Herbert W. Richardson says that the Tribal Epoch was the period when ethnic loyalty and reverence for the Mother was all-prevailing. Muller- Lyer states that during this period love was simply a biological function composed of animal-like elements. This instinctual sexuality created a kinship society with mimetic conformity to nature. All life's activities and institutions were part of this kinship system. In this epoch, man had not recognized his individuality or personal love. Life was determined by the cycles of nature of which he was part. Life was temporal. Change and death were the natural cycles in his world of sensory perception. Children were raised in kinship groups. It was thought that the king needed to be sacrificed at annual fertility festivals to assure the continuation of the natural cycles. He thought that his immortality depended on the fertility of the Great Mother.

Family Epoch

In the Family Epoch, man, the king, begins to develop his "ego consciousness." The rule of mother-right is overthrown by the concept of father-right. He began to differentiate and have an autonomous calling from which he denied women. To do this, he subordinated his instincts to his ego. He became the law maker and the founder of the city and the state. Urban patriarchy was established as the king took over the Great Goddess' temple, institutionalized the concept of money as the means of exchange, declared himself and his temple the center of the Cosmos, and hired priests to carry out rituals to the king's "divine right." He thought himself free of the cycles of nature and that through his will alone he would create voluntary activity without the input of his sexual partner. Richardson writes, "The Old Testament God can be creative by the power of his will alone. It is the power of the biblical God to create alone--that is, without a sexual partner--that is the key to biblical monotheism." As king, he controlled the wealth and power. Women, stripped of their social status within the kinship system, were now under his domain totally dependent on him for her basic human needs. As man became more aware of his role in the reproductive process, and as trade made his household rich, he began to demand that his progeny inherit his wealth. To assure that his progeny received his riches, the institution of marriage was developed to legitimate his heirs. Muller-Lyer writes, "By marriage woman passes from her father's guardianship to that of her husband; she must give him a vow of obedience, exchange her name for his and from then on be subject to his will; and the woman, her whole character, was changed by the will of man." From then on, the concept of the urban city and the private property prevailed. Muller-Lyer says, "The State is the political, the family the economic, heir of the clan (193)." Woman's duty was now to be his faithful wife and to care for his household and raise his children. His duty of sacrifice evolved from sacrificing himself for the maintenance of the natural biological process of the tribe, to sacrificing himself in a holy war to protect the new social unit--the "supratribal corporate societies" of the city. Richardson outlines another stage in the development of the the Family Epoch. He calls this the rational stage. In the Old Testament preeminent status is given to all-male groups. Biological family groups were replaced with "spiritual blood ties" within male groups so that a universal community of mankind could be established. At this stage, the powerholders recognized through mathematics, logic and rational order, that there was a changeless spiritual order of the "Transcendent Eternal Truth." For them, knowledge was discovered through human contemplation in a theoretical way. This resulted in an abstract identity. The way to the holy life was thought to be through the denial of the sexual self. Holy men renounced desires for pleasure--wife, sex, and progeny--for the monastic life. The concept of sacrifice had now developed into the sacrifice of one's sexual life and personal happiness in order to manifest and bring into existence a universal community of men bound by abstract ideology, such as the "holy catholic church."

When children are born into these Christian families, which was the sole purpose of marriage, it was the duty of the parents to sacrifice their happiness in order to devote their time and energy to their upbringing. This false devotion to the transcendent God created an unhappy situation between the sexes. Muller-Layer explains, "Consequently, as both were animated by entirely diverse interests, they lived within marriage without any understanding of each other, and in a state which often resembled secret warfare wherein man was not always the actual victor" (74). No wonder men sought out extra-marital affairs with women artists and intellectuals who were more independent than their wives!

Personal Epoch or the Romantic Revolution

Yes, now we have reached the best part of the our love story which happens to be the motivating factor! In Love and Ethics Ellen Key writes, "When we have got to the point at which love is regarded with religious reverence as the necessary basis of the "sacredness of the generation," a large part of the present social rescue work will be rendered superfluous. The number of degenerates and erring will diminish in proportion as love becomes one of the means of man's bliss, not the sin that causes his fall (42)." So here we are at the beginning of a new epoch, an epoch where "society must be so adjusted as to make the happiness of the individual subserve the betterment of the species" (Key 1911, 11).

Muller-Lyer calls this epoch the Personal Epoch. The key to understanding this epoch is the struggle for the rights of women. This epoch is about the differentiation of women as they begin to gain a unique personality with "will and choice." Muller-Lyer describes marriage in the personal epoch as two independent personalities coming together for the "common spiritual life of two people" (175). In principle, it is hoped that this union would have lifelong commitment, however the marriage would be dissolvable if there were unreconcilable differences.

How I and others see this epoch is that sex would be a melting of ideas and sensuality, what has been called "erotic spirituality." Sexual fantasy becomes uplifted as it is understood that the purpose of the union is for the betterment of the entire human race, not just to the tribe or the state, but to the whole of humanity. Intimate relationships are an expression of this wholeness. Intimate encounters are conducted as expressions of this personal conversation with the planet. This planetary understanding gives the capability to experience both the self and the other as the unification of sex and love occurs. Sexual orgasm is thought of not as an end, but as the means to spiritual communion. In order for there to be a lifelong union, the insights gained during intimate encounters must be acted upon in everyday life.

Now, we have gotten down to the problem of everyday life, economics. Muller-Layer writes, "According to a general law of sociology, new stages of civilization always arise in the following way: first, economic advances are made, and on this basis then rest of the social functions likewise make decisive advances. A new economic system leads us to expect a new geneonomy" (170). I don't see how this new loving couple can survive in a capitalist world. Our society has not evolved to the point of realizing that we must work in communal ways if we wish to live in healthy communities where people are free to make spiritual partnerships.

This carries us back to the idea of sacrifice. In order for us to reach this new epoch of romantic love, we must be willing to sacrifice our current way of life for one that is based on communal values. We can see that the evolution of sacrifice has then gone to various stages: the tribal stage where one sacrificed oneself to the cycles of nature, the family stage where one sacrificed oneself for the preservation of the state, and the personal stage where we must sacrifice our personal habits of greed and selfishness for the survival of the planetary health and happiness of all creatures. This means that we must sacrifice our modern consumer's habits of homeownership, individual cars, private bank accounts so that we can move into a social system which supports our daily life needs so that everyone may become free, individualized spirits.

It is clear to me that if we are to save love, we must rebuild the world using ecocity designs. There is no union without a common vision. We also need a common spirituality which can inspire us to build the kind of world that is worthy of being called a new epoch. Muller-Lyer concludes, "Just as man in general is dependent upon the society in which he lives, so also are the two sexes destined for each other; man and woman are physiologically and psychologically dependent on one another. Such an interdependent relationship leads in itself to an antagonism that strives in every way towards a solution, a settlement" (238). These new settlements are the ideal Ecocities, the dream of building a place where free marriages based on love can be a foundation of planetary peace. Only then will we find Neutopia and Amala. Only then can our dreams become One.

This letter turned out to be much longer than I ever expected. One never knows where inspiration will lead us! Thank you for giving me this chance to write about these exciting visions.

Eye of the triangle
Doctress Neutopia

Unit Circle Non-Fiction