Waking Chimera:

Discussion of Joseph Campbell's work with an emphasis on the personal creative impulse as well as the sociological role of the artist in today's global community.

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JBurden
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Waking Chimera:

Post by JBurden »

Waking Chimera:
Tapping into the Energy of Creativity


As the foreboding beast of ancient Greece the Chimera has also been used as a label for the force of wild fantasy. That uninhibited illusion which free of worldly constraints overtakes the individual into flights of fancy. Like the monster of the myth this force can be fearsome and alarming. For many of us usually navigate through our lives with the firm grip of the ‘rational mind’ in total control. In this mode of operating we can successfully construct skyscrapers, spaceships, and it has even enabled us to split the atom. It’s easy to see why the ‘rational mind’ has enveloped the consciousness of so many cultures.

Rationality may be able to assist mankind into incredible achievements but what about the ignition itself of these endeavors? The urge for such undertakings are conceived in the depths of those unexamined waters of the psyche that we call madness. Indeed some of the greatest artist and inventors of all time were driven by this same mania. Waking Chimera is an eruption of boundless creativity and it doesn’t answer to our rational authority. When an artist is being attacked by Chimera and in the mist of creative outflow they may forget all worldly attachments. Food, water, sleep, even sex can’t hope to tempt away the focused direction of one compelled by this lunacy.

The ‘rational mind’ is useful but beware of its shadow. For when left unassaulted and unchallenged it becomes a tyranny of oppression. This mentality has the side effect of containing and constraining the imagination to the mere mundane. Chimera is the rebellion against this system. She rips open the mind with her craws and burns away its control. Out of these wounds flow the energies of life and in that pool of blood the artist is reborn.

It’s from this psychic violence that the creative intelligence emerges. This is the realm in which mythology discovers its clothing. It is here that the transcendent mystery adorns itself with the apparel of symbolism and the trappings of words and rituals. This is also where humanity uncovers its genius. Our talent as a species dose not lay in the manufacturing into reality of our ideas but in the brilliance of the imagination’s unpredictability and potential. From here we find that mad aspiration towards unbelievable goals and seemingly unobtainable dreams.

However, Chimera doesn’t have the power to grant us our wish. She merely opens up our vision to the possibility. Her attack liberates the stored energy and resources deep within ourselves and with the sound of her roar at our back we take off towards a destination unknown and path uncharted. A person in this state can appear to the rest of us like a fool or a madman…and maybe they are…or maybe they are just on their way to a party that hasn’t been planned yet but for which they are the guest of honor.


James Burden
www.mythicmeditations.com

jufa
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Post by jufa »

Regardless of the story told here, the path taken in seeking the knowledge, and logic for behaviour patterns, I find nothing in anything I read where psychologist, psychiatry has ever solved fundamental actions which is the core root for all such insanity of man thinking.

I have found the deeper one digs into the thought waves of, and paths which prompt cause and thus effect in man demonstrating the truth of him/herself, the more the researcher finds him/herself expressing insanity of thoughts and logic proven to be just as irrational as those who are called insane.
Never give power to anything a person believe is their source of strength - jufa
http://theillusionofgod.yuku.com

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