The Nature of Conflict
(From my Book: Art & Synchronicity as Daytime Dreams)“
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I have long cherished Ernest Hemingway’s prose; he stands among my most beloved authors, his voice a steady flame. Foremost among his works, and a treasured jewel in my collection, rests a cherished first edition of Death in the Afternoon.
 
From the very first moments of listening to the audiobook, I was utterly mesmerized by Hemingway’s profound, first-hand knowledge of bullfighting’s every intricate detail—his clear, step-by-step unfolding of its ancient traditions, layered symbols, and the vital roles played by every participant in that grand, ritualistic drama.
 
As Hemingway meticulously laid out the details, it became obvious that he was (or his magnificent consciousness) revealing the eternal story of mankind’s plight on earth—a narrative that somewhat mirrors the twelve major signs of the zodiac. According to the ancient secret encoded in the Great Sphinx of Egypt, the celestial story of humanity’s plight begins with the virgin birth and reaches its majestic fulfillment with the crowning of the lion. This sacred drama repeats year after year like an unending celestial movie, telling the same timeless tale: humanity’s innate resolution to being tricked by the horned dragon, achieved through the final act of piercing its heart with a sharpened spear. Only then does the rightful king (represented by a lion) ascend to rule; the stage dissolves, the trial of mankind ends, and resolution arrives all at once.
 
In the bullring’s celestial version, this sacred drama unfolds vividly. It begins with the frantic, angry, fully charged horned beast bursting from a long black tunnel unto the vast globe-shaped stage. The ritual commences: the vengeful bull’s sharpened horns tear into the horses, ripping them apart until their intestines spill across the sand—an earthly image of chaos and carnage on the brink. Only then does the Christ-like figure appear on the scene. He raises his sword, shaped like a cross, and drives it precisely between the bull’s shoulders, skillfully piercing the heart of this demonic beast, the tormentor of mankind. The beast is slain, and celebration erupts for the new king of the orb—transfigured from the hated bull of base ideas and bloody trickery into the magnificent, Christ-like ruler of the realm.
 
The imagery performed in Spanish bullfighting before 1930 was magnificently horrible—but that was precisely the point. It conveyed the true plight of humanity, warts and all: its diabolical manipulations, the bloodthirsty backstabbing for power and money, the vast battlefields that have scarred every country and nearly every county on earth. It laid bare the brutal reality of mankind’s slow decay, decline, brokenness, and inevitable journey toward the grave—none of it pretty and actually very gory.
 
The more we are reminded of this truth—whether through skillful metaphorical representation of a brutal bullfight or the conscious sweet reminder of the celestial story—the more clearly, we comprehend why we all need to grasp the grace and “power-aid” of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the rightful King who seizes the throne from the horned imposter. This remembrance lives on in simple metaphor, made viscerally understandable through the horrifying stage events of a Spanish bullfight before 1930.
 
Hemingway’s deepest concern—and (I think) the primary reason he wrote Death in the Afternoon—was the growing Spanish legislation that sought (and eventually achieved) to sanitize the bullfight by removing its most visceral scenes, particularly the bulls goring the horses. He feared the government was not acting out of modern humanitarian concern, but rather to deliberately wash from the public mind the raw imagery of carnage. In doing so, it blinded people to the true power and grace needed to confront humanity’s plight, steering humankind instead toward dependence on the state rather than on God.