Changing Places

In spite of knowing,
Yet still believing.
Though no god above,
Yet god within.

There is no god in the sense of a cosmic father or mother who will provide all things to their children. Nor is there some heavenly bureaucracy to petition. These models are not descriptions of a divine order, but are projections from archetypal templates. If we believe in the divine as cosmic family, we relegate ourselves to perpetual adolescence. If we regard the divine as supreme government, we are forever victims of unfathomable officialdom.

Yet it does not work for us to totally abandon faith. It does not follow that we can forego all belief in higher beings. We need faith, not because there are beings who will punish us or reward us, but because gods are wonderful ways of describing things that happen to us. They embody the highest aspects of human aspiration. Gods on the altars are essential metaphors for the human spiritual experience.

Faith shouldn’t be shaken because bad things happen to us or because our loved ones are killed. Good and bad fortune are not in the hands of gods, so it is useless to blame them. Neither does faith need to be confirmed by some objective occurrence. Faith is self-affirming. If we maintain faith, then we have its reward. If we become better people, then our faith has results. It is we who create faith, and it is through our efforts that faith is validated.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

The point of faith is to become better people. Not to force your religion on others, but to better yourself. Not to strengthen your religion or return it to its traditions so you can glory in the past, but to allow yourself to face the world as it is now, and deal with life as it is now. Tao doesn’t encourage us to live in the past or long for some past glory days of Taoist rule, or go around converting everyone to Taoism, or to force our governments to meet some holy standards of justice. Tao tells us to live our own lives in harmony with natural forces. The “faith” of Tao is to know that if you follow its principles and move in harmony with the Tao, your life will naturally become better.

And it does. That’s the beauty of it. It works. Just as Christianity does if you truly follow its teachings, and don’t reinvent your own interpretations of it to suit your misogynistic tendencies. Just as Buddhism does, if you follow its logic. Just as Islam does, if you follow its true tenants and don’t use them as ways to control the women in your society, or enforce the power of the Mullahs over the people to their detriment. Just as any faith does, once you get past the “rules” you’re “supposed” to follow and understand the heart of what it is trying to tell you - to treat other people well, to better yourself before complaining about others, and to live your own life in accordance with what you believe, and not impose that on other people around you.

For the unified mind in accord with the tao all self-centered striving ceases. Doubts and irresolutions vanish and life in true faith is possible. With a single stroke we are freed from bondage; nothing clings to us and we hold to nothing. All is empty, clear, self-illuminating, with no exertion of the mind’s power. Here thought, feeling, knowledge, and imagination are of no value. In this world of suchness there is neither seer nor other-than-self.

To come directly into harmony with this reality just simply say when doubt arises, ‘Not two.’ In this ‘not two’ nothing is separate, nothing is excluded. No matter when or where, enlightenment means entering this truth. And this truth is beyond extension or diminution in time or space; in it a single thought is ten thousand years.

Emptiness here, Emptiness there, but the infinite universe stands always before your eyes. Infinitely large and infinitely small, no difference, for definitions have vanished and no boundaries are seen. So too with Being and non-Being. Don’t waste time in doubts and arguments that have nothing to do with this.

One thing, all things: move among and intermingle, without distinction. To live in this realization is to be without anxiety about non-perfection. To live in this faith is the road to non-duality, because the non-dual is one with the trusting mind.

Words! The tao is beyond language, for in it there is no yesterday, no tomorrow, no today.

–Hsin Hsin Ming (Verses on the Faith Mind)
Attributed to Chien Chih Sengtsan, ca. 600 C.E.
Translated by Robert B. Clarke

I am beginning to understand that there is much of the trickster in my personality. I’ve always identified with Loki, and often use humor to try and defuse situations (not always successfully, like any trickster…)

I’m currently reading Lewis Hyde’s “The Gift” right now, but I think his “Trickster Makes This World” will be in the reading stack soon. (It’s been on my wish list for a few weeks now).

Lewis Hyde

“An important part of any sacred activity is marking a boundary between the sacred and non-sacred. It’s important to build a container so the action is conducted inside sacred space,” he noted. “So, when you get to a character like the Trickster, you now have somebody who is the critic of the boundary, whose position is that all boundaries can be become too rigid and too impermeable, causing the life to dry up inside the container. So you need, both … some way to make the container and some function that is smart about how and where to break it. The Trickster is the sacred boundary crosser. And it’s not just that he crosses boundaries, he does it as a needed sacred function. If all you have is sacred forces who are maintaining their fiefdoms then you can end up with a fragmented heaven. Trickster gets a commerce going among the various sacred powers.”

Speaking of “heaven” - Hyde related in his book the story of C.G.Jung when he was a twelve-year-old schoolboy in Basel, Switzerland, admiring the glorious cathedral in the town square.

Said Jung, “I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the sight, and thought: ‘The world is beautiful and the church is beautiful and God made all this and sits above it far away in the blue sky on a golden throne and … Here came a great hole in my thoughts, and a choking sensation. I felt numbed, and knew only: ‘Don’t go on thinking now! Something terrible is coming …’”

For several days Jung struggled with the thought of whether or not God, who controls all things, could allow him to think a thought he shouldn’t think. Finally, having worked himself around to believing that God wanted him to have the forbidden thought, he relented: “I gathered all my courage, as though I were about to leap forthwith into hell-fire, and let the thought come. I saw before me the cathedral, the blue sky. God sits on His golden throne, high above the world - and from under the throne an enormous turd falls upon the sparkling new roof, shatters it, and breaks the walls of the cathedral asunder … I felt an enormous, an indescribable relief. Instead of the expected damnation, grace had come upon me. I wept for happiness and gratitude.”

Hyde said he was indebted to C.G. Jung, particularly one of his students, Marie-Louise von Franz, and their work with the idea of Mercurius. To the medieval alchemists, Mercury was the metal symbolizing duality - metallic yet liquid, matter yet spirit, cold yet fiery. Mercury was the metal uniting all the opposites. This Trickster energy was known to the Greeks by way of Hermes, the messenger god; in the Roman pantheon, Hermes becomes Mercury.

“C.G. Jung was a fabulously smart guide,” Hyde continued. “The Jungian insight is that the psyche is a community of forces and you need that whole community of forces working together. The pathology is when one member of the community begins to dominate in an individual, so some other part - your Warrior, say, or your sense of justice - gets muted. Or if we’re speaking of a group rather than one psyche, it’s when somebody begins to take over through display of one singular force. In a healthy community, every force will have a counter force. For example, Hermes steals the cattle from Apollo, but at the end of the story, Hermes and Apollo are friends. They find a way to relate. They need each other. You can’t have a boundary crosser unless you have someone who cares about the boundary. Hermes needs Apollo to be able to play with the rules and Apollo needs Hermes to keep things lively.”

To help people come back to a place where they’ve been trapped or lost requires them to become a ‘Hermeneut’ of their own life. They have to be helped to understand that there is an active learnable role to play in relating to the story you tell about your own life, the story you’ve inherited, the story you’re going to create as you live your life. Most Americans are passive recipients of the story that the media wants them to live by and only when you realize it is a story are you able to make different choices. You can interpret the story and be converted - from a passive object of commercial pitchmen into an actor living a life that you yourself create.”

Hyde said he believed a lot of Americans were “numb.” I liked the quote he used from child psychologist Donald Winnicott: “It is a joy to be hidden, but disaster not to be found.”

To explore within ourselves all the limiting behavior we’ve been taught takes a kind of “imaginative amorality,” the author said. It’s not an immorality, but an archetypal motivation in our own psyche to “play with the rules rather than observe them.”

On a day when I am not at peace with myself or my surroundings, Ascender comes along and kicks my cage door wide open. I was going to write something about how I am feeling today, but I think I’ll just link to her good wishes instead. Please click on her link below to visit all the bloggers she lists; I don’t have the time to fix all the linky love at the moment here.

Namaste, to all.

Studio Lolo tagged me with this ‘peace and love’ meme; to spread the word to send loving energy and thoughts to the places and people that need it. Rather then tagging others I hope to pass on some urls of my virtual pals who could use some of your loving energy and thoughts. Please leave some virtual peace and love to some people who could really use it right now.

Red Moon at the loss of her daughter

The Daily Warrior successfully fighting ALS for 16 years

Studio Friday is closing down. Stop by and show her some love for her dedication all these years.

Check out these bloggers who address peace and love almost everyday: 3191, a poetic justice, another poster for peace, anti-war us, Art For A Change, Art of Mark Byran, Artists Helping Children, Blog Like You Give A Damn, Blood For Oil, bricalu, Buddha Project, Change Me, Changing Places, Crafty Green Poet, No Blood For War and Profit, Inhabitat, kamurawayan, Light a Candle, Military Families Speak Out, Miniature Gigantic, Paris Parfait, Peaceful Societies, Pinwheels for Peace, Poets Against the War, rambling taoist, smile, smile, Take it Personally, The Peace Train, Treehugger, Visual Resistance, We Are What We Do, Betmo, Bloggers For Peace

Why then, have to be human?
Oh not because happiness exists,
Not out of curiosity…
But because being here means so much;
because everything here,
vanishing so quickly, seems to need us,
and strangely keeps calling to us… To have been
here, once, completely, even if only once,
to have been at one with the earth –
this is beyond undoing.

– Rainer Maria Rilke

“It is only through letting our heart break that we discover something unexpected: The heart cannot actually break, it can only break open … To live with a broken-open heart is to experience life full strength … When the heart breaks open, it marks the beginning of a real love affair with this world. It is a broken-hearted love affair, rather than the conventional kind based on hope and expectation. Only in this fearless love that can respond to life’s pain as well as its beauty can we be of real help to ourselves or anyone else in this difficult age. The broken-hearted warrior is an essential archetype for our time.”

“We set out on a path that is continually surprising — learning to be ourselves, yet also more than ourselves. As Zen master Shunryu Suzuki points out, “When you are yourself, just yourself, through and through, you are the universe. You are not this conditioned person anymore.” Then, though we may dedicate ourselves to helping this world, our well-being will not depend on the outcome. For we are becoming one with that force in the universe that is forever creating itself anew.” — John Welwood, Love and Awakening

“The soul that rises within us,
our life’s star,
cometh from afar
and hath elsewhere its setting.”

– Wordsworth

Currently reading John Welwood’s “Love and Awakening”. Good stuff, and recommended. Some quotes follow here.

Like the sun’s rays that cause the seed to stir within its husk, love’s radiant energy penetrates the facade of the false self, calling forth resources hidden deep within us. Its warmth wakes up the life inside us, making us want to uncurl, to give birth, to grow and reach for the light. It calls on us to break out of our shell, the personality-husk surrounding the seed potential of all that we could be. The purpose of a seed husk is to protect the tender life within until the time and conditions are right for it to burst forth. Our personality structure serves a similar function. It provides a semblance of security, as a kind of compensation for the loss of our larger being. But when love’s warming rays start to wake us up, our ego-shell becomes a barrier restricting our expansion. As the germ of life swells within us, we feel our imprisonment more acutely…..

The brighter love’s radiance, the darker the shadows we encounter; the more we feel life stirring within us, the more we also feel our dead spots; the more conscious we become, the more clearly we see where we remain unconscious. None of this need dishearten us. For in facing our darkness, we bring to light forgotten parts of our being. In recognizing exactly where we have been unconscious, we become more conscious. And in seeing and feeling the ways we’ve gone dead, we start to revive and kindle our desire to live more expansively….

A soul connection is a resonance between two people who respond to the essential beauty of each other’s individual natures, behind their facades, and who connect on this deeper level. This kind of mutual recognition provides the catalyst for a potent alchemy. It is a sacred alliance whose purpose is to help both partners discover and realize their deepest potentials. While a heart connection lets us appreciate those we love just as they are, a soul connection opens up a further dimension — seeing and loving them for who they could be, and for who we could become under their influence. This means recognizing that we both have an important part to play in helping each other become more fully who we are….A soul connection not only inspires us to expand, but also forces us to confront whatever stands in the way of that expansion….

While our absolute nature, as pure being or open presence, is timeless and changeless….our soul evolves and deepens through cultivating and embodying the seed potentials — for courage, strength, generosity, humor, tenderness, wisdom — contained in this larger nature. The essence of spiritual work is to realize and continually reorient ourselves toward our being, our absolute nature; and this is what leads to ultimate freedom. Yet spiritual realizations often remain compartmentalized, apart from everyday life, or become used as a rationale for living in an impersonal or soulless way. That is why, if we are to live our realizations and bring them into this world, we also need to work on the vessel of spirit — our embodied humanity. Soulwork is the forging of this vessel……If spiritual work brings freedom, soulwork brings integration. Both are necessary for a complete human life.

John Welwood, Love and Awakening : Discovering the Sacred Path of Intimate Relationship

I’ve kissed a few frogs in my day, and many of them were indeed princes.

But my favorite story is of the geek girl who is asked to kiss the frog, and replies, “Cool! A talking frog!” and sticks him in her pocket…. although lately it has been turned into a male nerd joke. When I was a female in engineering, this was OUR joke:

An engineer was crossing a road one day when a frog called out to her and said, “If you kiss me, I’ll turn into a handsome prince.” She bent over, picked up the frog and put it in her pocket. The frog spoke up again and said, “If you kiss me and turn me back into a handsome prince, I will stay with you for one week.” The engineer took the frog out of her pocket, smiled at it and returned it to the pocket. The frog then cried out, “If you kiss me and turn me back into a prince, I’ll be your devoted boyfriend.” Again the engineer took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into her pocket. Finally, the frog asked, “What is the matter? I’ve told you I’m a handsome prince, and that I’ll be your devoted boyfriend. Why won’t you kiss me?” The engineer said, “Look, I’m an engineer. I don’t have time for a boyfriend, but a talking frog……that’s cool.”

But the real story of the frog prince has nothing to do with a prince, but is about restoring the golden ball to the psyche and in return receiving what at first seems to be the burden of an awkward, useless frog to carry around. If one sits with the frog long enough (or maybe tosses it against the wall), it rewards you by becoming something magnificent. When you find “true love” for the things in your psyche that you think are ugly and unlovable, then you have truly come to self-acceptance and the rewards are indeed magnificent.

When we read fairy tales which tell the story of initially playing with a golden ball, then losing that golden ball, and ultimately recovering that golden ball, we are being told the story of the individuation process. Early in life we are, unconsciously, one with the Self, and life is golden. We lose that sense of wholeness as the Self recedes and the ego begins to realize itself - its limitations, its vulnerability, its smallness, its otherness. And then, usually at the Self’s instigation, the ego attempts, often through pain and defeat and suffering, to recover that initial relationship with the Self - the golden ball, if you will - although in a new and more conscious way. Each one of us had a golden ball when we were young, which was suddenly taken from us by fate or design, and here we are, at some stage in the process, whether we are in analysis or not, of trying to get it back. And it is possible. Fairy tales don’t lie. (Yes, it’s possible; but who’s willing to pay the price?)

“We can analyze someone for a long time and the dreams seem to discuss certain obvious problems and the person feels all right, but suddenly he will have a dream out of the blue which starts something completely new. A new creative idea which one could not expect or explain causally, has arisen as if the psyche had decided to bring up something new, and these are the great and meaningful healing psychological events. The symbol of the sphere or the ball primarily means this. That is why so often in fairy tales the hero follows a rolling apple or a rolling sphere to some mysterious goal. He just follows this spontaneous self-impulsiveness of his own psyche to the secret goal.”

You will also notice that balls, when they roll, will often take the most direct route to reach its destination, will yieldingly follow the natural gradient of the landscape, the path of least resistance, and because of its perfectly round shape, will roll as true as true can be. These are additional characteristics of the Self at work in the psyche. Jung stated that the Self, the unconscious, does not deceive us. It may use language that is cryptic and symbolic, but its intent is not to disguise its message. It communicates as truthfully as it can using the language and methods it possesses. Its roll is direct and true.

In the real world, there are some types of frogs that might be hallucinogenic to kiss:

Another possible connection to this process of liminality might lie in the ornamental carvings found on stone representations of the yokes worn during the contests. These yokes are portrayed with drawings of the Marine Toad (Bufo Marinus). Although this species of toad is inedible, its does secrete a fluid through its skin which is hallucinogenic and was probably used in religious rituals which sought to produce an altered state of consciousness. It is therefore thought that perhaps the appearance of this toad on the equipment of the ball players connected the game to the religious system which sought a momentary descent into the Other World. This connection might lie in the other-worldly, trance-like state the ball players would assume while playing, which separated them from ordinary time and thrust them into sacred time.

In the environment, frogs are also an indicator species of the health of the environment. Frogwatching has become a way to help track environmental damage and pollutants.

So you might want to check on whether your internal frogs are healthy and lovable, and maybe cool, or if they might need some loving and kissing….

I first discovered this article in May of 2003. I did a search on my posts for the word “present”, and this is the second post that came up. The first is this one on a trip to Disneyland. This seems to be around the time when I actually began to wake up from my deep depression.

Perhaps what it is really all about is simply learning to be present, to be here now, as they say. It seems trite, but once you’ve really learned that, everything else becomes so much easier. Just to be present with yourself, with how you really actually feel in the moment, seems to be what makes us most alive.

Shambhala Sun - Six Kinds of Loneliness

The experience of certain feelings can seem particularly pregnant with desire for resolution: loneliness, boredom, anxiety. Unless we can relax with these feelings, it’s very hard to stay in the middle when we experience them. We want victory or defeat, praise or blame. For example, if somebody abandons us, we don’t want to be with that raw discomfort. Instead, we conjure up a familiar identity of ourselves as a hapless victim. Or maybe we avoid the rawness by acting out and righteously telling the person how messed up he or she is. We automatically want to cover over the pain in one way or another, identifying with victory or victimhood.

Usually we regard loneliness as an enemy. Heartache is not something we choose to invite in. It’s restless and pregnant and hot with the desire to escape and find something or someone to keep us company. When we can rest in the middle, we begin to have a nonthreatening relationship with loneliness, a relaxing and cooling loneliness that completely turns our usual fearful patterns upside down.

There are six ways of describing this kind of cool loneliness. They are: less desire, contentment, avoiding unnecessary activity, complete discipline, not wandering in the world of desire, and not seeking security from one’s discursive thoughts.

(Note this is the brothers Grimm version, not Estes version)

SurLaLune Fairy Tales: The Annotated Girl Without Hands

A CERTAIN miller had little by little fallen into poverty, and had nothing left but his mill and a large apple-tree behind it. Once when he had gone into the forest to fetch wood, an old man stepped up to him whom he had never seen before, and said, “Why dost thou plague thyself with cutting wood, I will make thee rich, if thou wilt promise me what is standing behind thy mill?” “What can that be but my apple-tree?” thought the miller, and said, “Yes,” and gave a written promise to the stranger. He, however, laughed mockingly and said, “When three years have passed, I will come and carry away what belongs to me,” and then he went. When the miller got home, his wife came to meet him and said, “Tell me, miller, from whence comes this sudden wealth into our house? All at once every box and chest was filled; no one brought it in, and I know not how it happened.” He answered, “It comes from a stranger who met me in the forest, and promised me great treasure. I, in return, have promised him what stands behind the mill; we can very well give him the big apple-tree for it.” “Ah, husband,” said the terrified wife, “that must have been the devil! He did not mean the apple-tree, but our daughter, who was standing behind the mill sweeping the yard….”

Rachel Isadora

Hans Christian Andersen: The Little Match-Seller

IT was terribly cold and nearly dark on the last evening of the old year, and the snow was falling fast. In the cold and the darkness, a poor little girl, with bare head and naked feet, roamed through the streets. It is true she had on a pair of slippers when she left home, but they were not of much use. They were very large, so large, indeed, that they had belonged to her mother, and the poor little creature had lost them in running across the street to avoid two carriages that were rolling along at a terrible rate. One of the slippers she could not find, and a boy seized upon the other and ran away with it, saying that he could use it as a cradle, when he had children of his own. So the little girl went on with her little naked feet, which were quite red and blue with the cold. In an old apron she carried a number of matches, and had a bundle of them in her hands. No one had bought anything of her the whole day, nor had anyone given her even a penny. Shivering with cold and hunger, she crept along; poor little child, she looked the picture of misery. The snowflakes fell on her long, fair hair, which hung in curls on her shoulders, but she regarded them not.

Lights were shining from every window, and there was a savory smell of roast goose, for it was New-year’s eve—yes, she remembered that. In a corner, between two houses, one of which projected beyond the other, she sank down and huddled herself together. She had drawn her little feet under her, but she could not keep off the cold; and she dared not go home, for she had sold no matches, and could not take home even a penny of money. Her father would certainly beat her; besides, it was almost as cold at home as here, for they had only the roof to cover them, through which the wind howled, although the largest holes had been stopped up with straw and rags. Her little hands were almost frozen with the cold. Ah! perhaps a burning match might be some good, if she could draw it from the bundle and strike it against the wall, just to warm her fingers. She drew one out—“scratch!” how it sputtered as it burnt! It gave a warm, bright light, like a little candle, as she held her hand over it. It was really a wonderful light. It seemed to the little girl that she was sitting by a large iron stove, with polished brass feet and a brass ornament. How the fire burned! and seemed so beautifully warm that the child stretched out her feet as if to warm them, when, lo! the flame of the match went out, the stove vanished, and she had only the remains of the half-burnt match in her hand….

Artist: Basko Tamara, 14 years old, the pupil of the children’s art school of P.I.Chaykovskiy. Title - picture: The little Match Girl

For Ronni…..

“There is a very hidden aspect to most collectives that encourages oppression of women’s wild, soulful and creative lives, and that is the encouragement within the culture for women to tell on one another and to sacrifice their sisters… to strictures that do not reflect the relatedness found in the familial values of the feminine nature. These include not only the encouraging of one woman to inform on another and therefore expose her to punishment for behaving in a feminine and integral manner, for registering appropriate horror or dissension to injustice, but also the encouraging of older women to collude in the physical, mental, and spiritual abuse of women who are younger, less powerful, or helpless, and the encouraging of young women to dismiss and neglect the needs of women who are far older than they…”

“we also learn that the wild, because of its energy and beauty, is always eyed by somebody or other, something or other, some group or other, for trophy purposes or as something to be reduced, altered, ruled on, murdered, redesigned, or controlled. The wild always needs a guardian at the gate, or it will be misused…”

“When the collective is hostile to a woman’s natural life, rather than accept the derogatory or disrespectful labels that are placed upon her, she can and must… hold on, hold out, and search for that which she belongs to– and preferably outlive, out-thrive, and out-create those who vilified her…

“The trap within the trap is thinking that everything is solved by dissolving the projection and finding consciousness in ourselves. This is sometimes true and sometimes not. Rather than this either/or paradigm — it’s either something amiss out there or something awry within us — it’s more useful to use an and/and model. This paradigm allows a whole inquiry and far more healing in all directions. This paradigm allows women to question the status quo with confidence, and to not only look at themselves but also the world that is accidentally, unconsciously, or maliciously pressuring them….”

“If you are striving to do something you value, it is so important to surround yourself with people who unequivocally support your work…”

“Creating one thing at a certain point in the river feeds those who come to the river, feeds creatures far downstream, yet others in the deep. Creativity is not a solitary movement. That is its power. Whatever is touched by it, whoever hears it, sees it, senses it, knows it, is fed. That is why beholding someone else’s creative word, image, idea, fills us up, inspires us to our own creative work. A single creative act has the potential to feed a continent. One creative act can cause a torrent to break through stone.

— Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run with the Wolves

Don’t let them control you, Ronni - out-create them.

I also found out Clarissa blogs at The Moderate Voice.

Golden Compass trailer here. Looks amazing. Box set of the trilogy here. These books were one of the things that brought me through the long dark night of my soul. Lyra’s strength and courage would be inspirational to any young girl.

The sum of all fears: organized religion

With any luck, and if “The Golden Compass” turns out to be even half as wondrous as the book, it will hopefully fuel a surge in sales of the “HDM” trilogy in America and, perhaps, inspire a new literary awakening among young readers, darker and more complex and even (gasp) slightly sexual, far beyond the clever but innocuous magic of Harry Potter - which, by the way, had its share of religious bonk-jobs calling for its destruction, as wizardry is clearly the dominion of the devil. We all know what a huge drop in sales that protest caused.

But there is another note of good news from this tale of fear and whining and outcry, and it takes the form of another delightful rule upon which your soul can happily rely, as well as a heartfelt lesson for trembling ultraconservative sects everywhere.

It’s this: If your ancient, authoritarian, immutable belief system is threatened by a handful of popular novels, if your ostensibly all-powerful, unyielding creed is rendered meek and defenseless when faced with the story of a fiery, rebellious young girl who effortlessly rejects your stiff misogynistic religiosity in favor of adventure, love, sex, the ability to discover and define her soul on her own terms, well, it might be time for you to roll it all up and shut it all down and crawl back home, and let the divine breathe and move and dance as she sees fit.

And the Pullman books are wondrous — I loved reading them. Perfect for that young adult reader looking to have the courage to follow her soul.

And I have a tiger daemon

IT was lovely summer weather in the country, and the golden corn, the green oats, and the haystacks piled up in the meadows looked beautiful. The stork walking about on his long red legs chattered in the Egyptian language, which he had learnt from his mother. The corn-fields and meadows were surrounded by large forests, in the midst of which were deep pools. It was, indeed, delightful to walk about in the country. In a sunny spot stood a pleasant old farm-house close by a deep river, and from the house down to the water side grew great burdock leaves, so high, that under the tallest of them a little child could stand upright. The spot was as wild as the centre of a thick wood. In this snug retreat sat a duck on her nest, watching for her young brood to hatch; she was beginning to get tired of her task, for the little ones were a long time coming out of their shells, and she seldom had any visitors. The other ducks liked much better to swim about in the river than to climb the slippery banks, and sit under a burdock leaf, to have a gossip with her. At length one shell cracked, and then another, and from each egg came a living creature that lifted its head and cried, “Peep, peep.” “Quack, quack,” said the mother, and then they all quacked as well as they could, and looked about them on every side at the large green leaves. Their mother allowed them to look as much as they liked, because green is good for the eyes. “How large the world is,” said the young ducks, when they found how much more room they now had than while they were inside the egg-shell. “Do you imagine this is the whole world?” asked the mother; “Wait till you have seen the garden; it stretches far beyond that to the parson’s field, but I have never ventured to such a distance. Are you all out?” she continued, rising; “No, I declare, the largest egg lies there still. I wonder how long this is to last, I am quite tired of it;” and she seated herself again on the nest…..

There is probably no better or more reliable measure of whether a woman has spent time in ugly duckling status at some point or all throughout her life than her inability to digest a sincere compliment. Although it could be a matter of modesty, or could be attributed to shyness — although too many serious wounds are carelessly written off as “nothing but shyness” — more often a compliment is stuttered around because it sets up an automatic and unpleasant dialogue in the woman’s mind.

If you say how lovely she is, or how beautiful her art is, or compliment anything else her soul took part in, inspired, or suffused, something in her mind says she is undeserving and you, the complimentor, are an idiot for thinking such a thing to begin with. Rather than understand that the beauty of her soul shines through when she is being herself, the woman changes the subject and effectively snatches nourishment away from the soul-self, which thrives on being acknowledged, on being seen.

So that is the final work of the exile who finds her own: to not only accept one’s own individuality, but also to accept one’s beauty… the shape of one’s soul and the fact that living close to that wild creature transforms us and all that it touches.

When we accept our own wild beauty, it is put into perspective, and we are no longer poignantly aware of it anymore, but neither would we forsake it or disclaim it either. Does a wolf know how beautiful she is when she leaps? Does a feline know what beautiful shapes she makes when she sits? Is a bird awed by the sound it hears when it snaps open its wings? Learning from them, we just act in our own true way and do not draw back from or hide from our natural beauty. Like the creatures, we just are, and it is right.

– Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With the Wolves

Woke up with this phrase in my head this morning from my fuzzy dreams. After yesterday’s vivid lucid dreams, today’s were fairly tame, but in the last one I was enjoying an excellent dinner of steak and green beans with Tom and Jonathan and some wonderful beer. I have no idea what that means dreamwise but it was a great dinner… maybe I was just hungry.

Anyway:

Contagion

The act or means of communicating any influence to the mind or heart; as, the contagion of enthusiasm.

Emotional Contagion

Emotional contagion is the tendency to express and feel emotions that are similar to and influenced by those of others. One view of the underlying mechanism is that it represents a tendency to automatically mimic and synchronize facial expressions, vocalizations, postures, and movements with those of another person and, consequently, to converge emotionally (Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1994). A broader definition of the phenomenon was suggested by Sigal G. Barsade- “a process in which a person or group influences the emotions or behavior of another person or group through the conscious or unconscious induction of emotion states and behavioral attitudes”.[1]

I’ve always been a bit immune to this kind of emotional contagion myself, although I’m almost hyper-aware of other people’s feelings (not that this stops me from stepping on them sometimes). I get suspicious if my mood seems to be changing for no apparent reason (a necessity in people who live successfully with bipolar), and end up doing a “heart check” to see if that is something I’m really feeling or just something someone else wants me to feel. So then I get called “distant” or “withdrawn” or “reserved” or whatever and people think I am not connecting with them. But I do see what they are feeling, and perhaps even deeper than they know. I’ve often known when someone’s latest love of their life was a passing fling, or when it could lead to bigger things for them. I’m the one who will be whispering, “careful” when another is about to tread on someone else’s sacred ground, or hook into a skeleton woman they really aren’t ready to handle. And I try to put in a “yes, THIS one!” whisper when a friend is with someone who really lights up their life. But when I attempt to dampen a flame, I end up losing friends, so I’ve stopped doing that. Sometimes you really just can’t tell people anything and you just have to let them find out for themselves what a mess they are making of their lives.

And it is one of my leading clues when I’m starting to slip into a “manic” state if I find myself more and more caught up in someone else’s emotions and problems, or worse, hyping my own mania by feeding off other’s emotions until it moves into the hypo-manic state. So I tend to require a lot of quiet time, time by myself and just to reflect, not only on my own emotional state but that of the people around me. I think it’s one of the reasons I surround myself with golden retrievers, because they are so sensitive and aware of other’s moods and emotions. Their reactions help me to judge and figure out my own emotions and those of other people. If they are shying away from someone, that certainly isn’t anyone I’m going to be getting near. On the other hand, my pest control service lady just stopped at the door and asked if she should do the back yard or not, since they are re-doing the drainage for the patio today, and she ended up petting Darwin for the ten minutes she would have spent on the yard and thanked us for the therapy time.
He was really cuddled up with her, so she must have needed it.

I’ve been reading about Skeleton Woman and how she draws flesh from the beating of the heart of the fisherman, and also reading Daniel Goleman’s “Social Intelligence” where he talks a bit about this way we directly connect through the amygdalya with the emotional expressions of other people. Apparently Goleman believes there is a direct link from our eyes to the amygdala and we can pick up on other people’s feelings even before we are actually aware of what we are looking at. Pretty fascinating idea.

It seems to have evolved into a bit of a pop psychology thing right now, sadly, where people are trying to force salespeople to be cheerful good-mood spreaders, or emotionally “handle” their clients, etc… Then there are those people who can’t stand to be around others that “bring them down” and want to remain in the perpetually cheerful state that eventually drives everyone around them crazy and leads to their own mental breakdown (after which they turn into wonderful truly joyful people)… as well as the “Eeyore” types that refuse to be happy no matter what and end up dragging everyone else down with them (but who are also full of great compassion and can be wonderful friends and lovers)… developing a healthy balance for one’s own heart and knowing yourself well enough to realize when you’re in danger of “catching” a wave of fear or panic or whatever is important.

And this time of year there’s the idea that we are all supposed to be happy and jolly when in fact it is a very difficult time of year for many people who have to deal with losses or unhappy holiday experiences of the past. For me, this time of year invokes more quiet reflection and watching the emotional “snow” settle in on my heart as I think of all the people I miss at this time of year, family who are gone and the friends who decided I wasn’t going to be allowed to be part of their lives anymore. We tend to have a small party to celebrate with those friends we hold dear, and that is always a bright spot in the dark nights for me, along with the beauty of Christmas trees and lights and the thoughtful, gorgeous Christmas music. I can rarely hear or sing “Silent Night” without a few tears. But really, the inflatable Santas and lighted reindeer and Jingle Bell Rock I can just do without, please.

So please make your holidays whatever you need them to be, and don’t give in to those who try to force you to make it into that happy jolly fun time you’re not wanting to celebrate, or the drudge through all the family history with drunken relatives again if you’re not up for that. But don’t be the Grinch either. Open your heart to the things that really matter and are important to you, and connect with the deep spirit of this season in the ways that will mean the most to you.

Namaste.

Sometimes women become tired and cranky while waiting for their mates to understand them. The women say, ” Why can´t they know what I think, what I want ? ” Women become fatigued with asking this question. Yet, there is a solution to this dilemma, a solution which is efficient and effective.

If a woman wants a mate who is responsive this way, she will reveal to him the secret of woman´s duality. She will tell him about the interior woman, that one who, added to herself, makes two. She does this by teaching her mate to ask her two deceptively simple questions that will make her feel seen, heard, and known.

The first question is this: What do you want? Almost everyone asks some version of this, just as a matter of course. But there is yet one more essential question, and that is: ” What does your deeper self desire?”

If one overlooks a woman’s dual nature and takes a woman at face value, one is in for a big surprise, for when the woman’s wildish nature rises from her depths and begins to assert itself, she often has interests, feelings, and ideas which are quite different from those she expressed before.

To securely weave a relationship, a woman will also ask the same two questions of her mate. As women, we learn to poll both sides of our nature and that of others as well. From the information we receive reciprocally from both sides, we can very clearly determine what is valued most and how to respond accordingly.

To love a woman, the mate must also love her untamed nature. If she takes a mate who cannot or will not love this other side, she shall be in some way dismantled and be left to limp about unrepaired.

So men as much as women, must name their dual natures. The most valued lover, the most valuable parent, the most valued friend, the most valuable ‘wilderman,’ is the one who wishes to learn. Those who are not delighted by learning, those who cannot be enticed into new ideas or experiences, cannot develop past the roadpost they rest at now. If there is but one force which feeds the root of pain, it is the refusal to learn beyond this moment.

We know that the creature Wild Man is seeking his own Earthly Woman. Afeared or not, it is an act of deepest love to allow oneself to be stirred by the wildish soul of another. In a World where humans are so afraid of ‘losing’, there are far too many protective walls against being dissolved in the numinosity of another human soul.

The mate for the wildish woman is the one who has a soulful tenacity and endurance, one who can send his own instinctual nature to peek under the tent of a woman’s soul-life and comprehend what he sees and hears there. The good match is the man who keeps returning to try and understand, who does not let himself by deterred by the sideshows on the road.

– Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run with the Wolves

So the last few days my dreams have been full of shiny black cars. The first night I was dreaming about them, the dark man was driving and drove us into a river. But I had rolled up the windows and the car floated along until I got out easily inside some building that the river ran through.

Last night I got to drive the car, briefly, and then my husband drove it for a while. We went to a place where there was a frail young dark-haired woman, and I held her for a while before I woke up.

I guess I need to take control of the car and take care of this woman.

According to one dream interpreter:

Dreams of someone else driving your car are potent dreams. Remember, your car is your vehicle. You are meant to be the driver plotting out your course. Your car is meant to be your ticket to freedom. When someone else in in the driver’s seat it means that is symbolically the person you feel or may even wish were in charge of your life.

Look at who is in the driver’s seat. Is it a parent, a spouse, a child, a friend? How do you feel about the person driving the car? Are you happy about where they taking you? If you like the person driving the car and are happy about where you are going, this dream might point to you wishing that you handled your life like the person in the dream does. It might also be a wish for being ‘rescued’ by that person from a situation in your life that you are unhappy with.

Alternatively, if you don’t like the person driving or the course you’re on, it may feel like that person is in charge of your life, or that you feel like you’re making the same choices as someone whose life you feel is less than ideal.

Remember though, the person driving the car is a symbol. Dreaming of someone of the opposite sex driving your car can point to an animus/anima figure who you feel is in control. For women, the animus is the thinking part of the psyche, for men, the anima is usually representative of the emotions. Do you feel you are making decisions according to faulty logic or misguided emotions? This is where your feelings about the driver of the car give you the most information about the dream.

Look at dreams of cars and driving as sign posts giving you information about how you can regain control of your life and what you can do to claim your freedom and power.

Black

For alchemists, black symbolized the beginning of the process of spiritual development. Black was the color which symbolized confusion, and a feeling of despair. It might be thought of as the color of wandering in the desert, feeling like nothing good will ever happen.

But wandering in the desert allows us to give up those things we no longer need, it allows for old parts of ourselves to die off so that new life may spring up. Even the mighty oak must first spend time as an acorn lying in darkness before it can reach up toward the sky.

“Black is the color of mud, the fertile, the basic stuff into which ideas are sown. Yet black is also the color of death, the blackening of the light. And black has even a third aspect. It is also the color associated with that world between the worlds which La Loba stands upon — for black is the color of descent. Black is a promise that you will soon know something that you did not know before.” — Clarissa Pinkhold Estes, Women Who Run with the Wolves

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” — Carl Gustav Jung

“Like the sun’s rays that cause the seed to stir within its husk, love’s radiant energy penetrates the facade of the false self, calling forth resources hidden deep within us. Its warmth wakes up the life inside us, making us want to uncurl, to give birth, to grow and reach for the light. It calls on us to break out of our shell, the personality-husk surrounding the seed potential of all that we could be. The purpose of a seed husk is to protect the tender life within until the time and conditions are right for it to burst forth. Our personality structure serves a similar function. It provides a semblance of security, as a kind of compensation for the loss of our larger being. But when love’s warming rays start to wake us up, our ego-shell becomes a barrier restricting our expansion. As the germ of life swells within us, we feel our imprisonment more acutely…..The brighter love’s radiance, the darker the shadows we encounter; the more we feel life stirring within us, the more we also feel our dead spots; the more conscious we become, the more clearly we see where we remain unconscious. None of this need dishearten us. For in facing our darkness, we bring to light forgotten parts of our being. In recognizing exactly where we have been unconscious, we become more conscious. And in seeing and feeling the ways we’ve gone dead, we start to revive and kindle our desire to live more expansively.”

– John Welwood Love and Awakening : Discovering the Sacred Path of Intimate Relationship

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.” — Carl Gustav Jung

“The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.” — Carl Gustav Jung

OK, my dreams are starting to bug me, so I guess it is time to turn to Jung. Don’t know if there are any Jungians among my readers, but feel free to play along if you like.

My shrink is not a Jungian type, so it’s difficult to discuss these things with him. Anyway, this dream is from a few months back, but I find it interesting and I’ve put off posting it here for a while now:

I dreamed one morning of a dark haired, bearded man with a wolf. He gave me a map, which was actually a puzzle of some sort. I felt in the dream as if he were a man of great power. The wolf growled and chased away almost everyone else from the scene, except for three of us who were left to listen and who were given the maps. We seemed to be starting a quest to search for something, although it was not clear what we were supposed to find.

So here’s one interpretation of wolf dreams that I found:

The second category of wolf dream is quite different. In these dreams the wolf is the symbol of noble wildness, freedom from societal restraints, and elemental reliance on instincts and nature. This is the women-who-run-with-the-wolves image, and it appears in the dreams of anyone who is beginning to acknowledge the powerful and natural side of themselves. This wolf often recalls a sense of power, wisdom and life-in-the-moment. There is an almost elemental freedom that temporarily is lost to us during the socialization process; but our vivid aliveness is never truly gone. Typically when an individual begins to feel stirrings of their natural self, or a power based on aliveness rather than external achievement they may dream of a wolf that is both awesomely powerful yet strangely welcoming to them.

So, in my searching around for some meaning to this dream, I then happened across “Women Who Run with the Wolves“, which I’m currently reading. I’m finding this book an interesting introduction to a lot of what I’ve never really understood about women’s, and my own, psyche. I don’t know if this is “the map” of the dream, but it seems to be at least a piece of the puzzle.

I found this quote from the book interesting today:

Classical psychological theory tends to, by absolute omission, split the human psyche away from relationship to the land on which humans live, away from knowledge of the cultural etiologies of maliase and unrest, and also to sever psyche from the politics and policies which shape the inner and outer lives of humans — as though that outer world were not just as surreal, not just as symbol-laden, not just as impacting and imposing upon one’s soul-life as the inner din. The land, the culture, and the politics in which one lives contribute every bit as much to the individual’s psychic landscape and are as valuable to consider in these lights as one’s subjective milieu.” — Clarissa Pinkopla Estes, Women Who Run With the Wolves

I’m talking politics more and more with my shrink these days, who seems to think I ought to be working in some sort of political think tank. He seems amazed again and again that I see things at the “big picture” level that I do, and am able to piece so many things into that picture.

Perhaps the puzzle is what I do with all these things I observe and know, if there is any place for that beyond my musings here and on my political mailing list. Or perhaps it is meant to spur my creativity, to take me back to doing artwork again and being active in that area. or to push me further in my therapy work with Darwin and eventually raising and training service dogs. I really don’t know yet.

But doors are beginning to appear, and the keys seem to be close at hand.