The city houses the communal soul. Restoring the city means restoring its soul, wrapping the city daily with the act of imagination. The city can no longer be limited to distinct places, for the imagination of city now encompasses the World completely, even if one lives on a farm or spends time in the wilderness. Renewal of the soul can no longer rest on a fantasy of returning to nature; renewal rests on returning to the nature of soul.  Rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repent him of the evil.  Now nature too is a psychological construction; it did not exist until the advent of the modern city. Now that city is all pervasive, we need not hold on to nature’ instead we must relate city to Earth. The city is our home, but the Earth is our dwelling place. We live on the Earth, beneath the Sky, the drifting clouds, and the Stars, and the golden Sun. The Sun lights our World and gives warmth and measure the course of day; the glow of Moon bathes the night and its changing cycles from the rhythms of the ocean and growing plants. The weather forms the season. They play of all these elements differs according to where we are on Earth, so that a city is not just anywhere, it is a particular locus of the Earth elements, an expressive play of those elements that are the forming forces of its soul. The love of God hath been shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit which was given to us. The Lord has risen indeed. The first act of imagination required to regenerate the soul of the city is the locating of the photograph within actual places of the World. Imagination congeals into the city—a complete imaginal, mythical World that grounds, sustains, and enlivens the soul, clothing it with a habitation and name. However, the city, seen through the soul, is a gathering together of elemental beings of the World soul into a particular landscape in order to be brought further into the workings of the World—as city.

Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people: for unto you is born the city of Sacramento, which is the city of sacrifice to the Lord our God, as he belongs to mercies and forgiveness. Landscape becomes art when shaped into the architecture of the city. When cities begin to all appear the same it is because the Earth has been forgotten. The concern with planetary ecology represents a similar forgetfulness of the particularity of a place, requiring a disembodied caring that leads to abstract programs and ideologies. Better to awake each morning with the small exercise of remembering that you are here, not everywhere. The ensouling of city then becomes an individual task, a daily exercise that strengthens the powers of the soul. Better city planning will not alter anything because such planning takes place in a technical World. Each individual must open the door to the World, travel through the image. How can we possibly say what might be good for a city when we have only to focus attention on the first object in sight to find that no one has ever really looked from its point of view. If we are to speak of the city, we must become unconscious of ourselves and take the side of the soul of the city. See what other people are choosing to blame. Other people who have had similar circumstances have forgiven, forgotten, and handled the same situation in a totally different way. We have to be honest and realize that we are blaming because we choose to blame. This is true, no matter how justified the circumstances may appear to be. It is not a matter of right or wrong; it is merely a matter of taking responsibility for our own consciousness. It is a totally different situation to see that we choose to blame rather than think we have to blame.   

 Why do people blame others? In this circumstance, the mind often thinks, “Well, if the other person or event is not to blame, then I must be.” Blaming others or ourselves is simply not necessary. Most of us struggle with feelings of uncertainty about ourselves. Much of the time these are not intense; occasionally, they rise like a flood, threatening to drown us in the White Squall of worthlessness. Usually, such feelings are minor in intensity and manageable in their effects. For despotically dependent persons, however, the sense of insignificance ruthlessly rules their lives. These people not only feel, but also believe, that they can have no real say in their lives. Their position does not warrant it; their abilities to cope do not include it. We have to find a way to assist the dependent person to move from a feeling that he or she can have no say to a feeling that he or she has some say. Enable oneself to be responsible for not acting responsibly. At the core of unhealthy powerlessness lies a healthy power. It is that power—that source of ability and intention, that source of significance and satisfaction—which we seek to liberate. No one can give another a sense of significance. All we can do is to resist the undertow of helplessness and hopelessness. All we can do is to encourage the flowing tide of risking responsiveness. We shift the focus from ourselves to the other, from our carrying the weight of the other’s life to the other, from our carrying the weight of the other’s life to the other carrying the weight of his or her own life. As the balance of burden shifts to a proper balancing of interdependency, what had once been a depressant turn into a source of delight.