Culture's Heavy Cart

Juggernaut - The Symbol

Can you recognize a juggernaut? The other day a member of our Lucky Six Farms staff pulled a crumbled piece of paper she had found lying on the ground from her coat pocket and spread it out before me on a table. I recognized the displayed line drawing at once: it was the first-ever smiley face. No, I don’t mean the 1963 version penned by commercial artist Harvey Ball. I’m referring instead to the redoubtable image of Jagannath, Lord of the World, venerated for countless centuries in his temple at Puri, India and elsewhere. Scholars of British India were quick to give this cheerful divine visage some very bad press. In particular, they claimed that devotees would throw themselves beneath the immense wheels of his huge cart as it was pulled by countless celebrants from one place to another during the deity’s annual festival. Thus, Jagannath soon morphed into our colloquial juggernaut, transmogrifying a traditionally creative avatar into a thoroughly modern, implacably malevolent force.

Juggernaut - The Reality

It is no wonder the concept of juggernaut conveys such trendy resonance. One of the most important founts of today’s social anomie lies in a pervasive feeling of impotence, a conviction of utter personal irrelevance. Social, political, and economic powers appear too immense to offer any reasonable handhold for the individual, who is seemingly cast adrift on a dwindling raft of his own meager resources. Even organized religion, long a solid bastion of uplifting material and moral support for even the most benighted, appears to have succumbed to the ponderous immobility of its own affluence. There is, of course, a terrible irony in all this, for only a truly great culture could have finally grown so immensely powerful that it is no longer capable of providing material, intellectual, or emotional shelter to the frail, foible-ridden individual human beings who are its sole constituents.

Juggernaut - Alternatives, Old And New

My regular readers can undoubtedly see where these observations are heading. The impressive interest in and concomitant growth of both traditional and alternative spiritual paths during the last half-century provide eloquent testimony to the incredible resilience of the human spirit. We believe humanity can soar high above our hidebound juggernaut, far beyond our culture’s tragically overburdened cart. By offering reasonably-priced, pure, certified organic White Sage products - essential oil, hydrosol, smudge bundles, cones, and whole leaves - we actively cater to this trend. May all our customers and clients thereby benefit from a perennial source of uplifting energy!

By Alan Beck