What was it like then to witness the transformation wrought by this construction? A geometric idea of precision suddenly imposed on a landscape, lived on and in for centuries. The land itself like a body submitted to military discipline. Or like a mind, tutored along certain acceptable pathways, so that finally all that lies outside certain avenues of thought begins to assume an air of unreality. The land of course is still there. Only now it has receded into the background. It is what you see in your peripheral vision as you speed down the highway. The complexity of it, the intricate presence of it, has been reduced now to a single word, jungle. If once you breathed its breath or slept surrounded by its dark or wakened with its light, you no longer remember. You tell yourself life has improved. The jungle is in the past. To enter it is to stray from the path, or to be pulled down into some unknown depth. It is an exotic place, intriguing but also unpredictable, uncontrolled, threatening the well-paved order of existence. Susan Griffin
About This Quote

Charles Baudelaire was writing in the 19th century, yet his poem “The jungle,” written in 1860, describes the jungle of the human heart. That is to say, the jungle of our inner demons. As humans, we live in a world that is enmeshed with our emotions, thoughts and actions. Our emotions are constantly changing and it is hard for us to understand them.

We sometimes experience sadness, anger, jealousy or fear. These feelings can cause us to act in ways that are not always appropriate. If you are experiencing these feelings often enough through out your life, you might get so used to them that you stop noticing what they are doing to you.

If this happens, it can get so bad that you begin to act like them instead of yourself.

Source: A Chorus Of Stones: The Private Life Of War

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