Abstract

The world is becoming strange to itself! This strangeness is the result of 1, the surprise of becoming increasingly self-aware of our human embeddedness in the evolutionary unfolding of the Cosmos and 2, the terror that this new consciousness inspires in many today. Giri's reflections on roots and routes is an important step towards articulating the multiple and rhizomic nature of this strangeness. In the Hebrew story of Adam and Eve and their awakening, they are surprised to find themselves naked. That story points to a similar surprise and terror as Adam and Eve stepped out into a strange world of the 'natural'. To cope with this strangeness and surprise, human beings awoke to culture and so the Western story of the struggle between culture and nature was born.