Just Saying...

Joseph Campbell believed that "...each of us has an individual myth that's driving us, which we may or may not know." This forum is for assistance and inspiration in the quest to find your own personal mythology.

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CarmelaBear
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Just Saying...

Post by CarmelaBear »

This thread is free of a set topic, and it is a place to say whatever comes to mind. One might read it later to decide whether it should be altered or removed or forgotten or saved.

~

First entry is what came to me in a dream only a few minutes ago. In the dream, the space where I was located was built of re-purposed materials. Walls were made of brick broken in an earthquake. They had been crushed and remolded. Twisted metal had been either melted down or welded into new shapes. All the paper and cloth and wood was recycled. I sat at a window, looking out on a landscape of re-drawn boundaries. The plants, animals, rocks and sand had undergone molecular and genetic re-design. Clouds in the sky gathered in groups of exactly six and moved southeast as they turned into long wispy strands and disappeared, one by one.

There were swirls and mixed colors and the look of jumbled up elements everywhere. I was told that what had been done could not be undone. It was the aftermath of a terrible destruction. A lad passed by and muttered, "They did the best they could with what was left."

Then, I was awake.

~

Much of the past has been destroyed forever; people forgotten, lessons and wisdom obliterated by nature and by the intervention of human conduct---a force of nature like no other. We are the best that nature can do with what she has made of this place and this time, and what she has done with us. We are her children, and we have never been so many. We talk and write a lot, and we say little that is not re-done and either copied with small errors or transformed into something else.

She is waiting for me to say something, and I decide to recount the dream she sent me. In the dream, the place and time felt strange and unfamiliar. It was far away and foreign. I was not myself.

~
Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

Roncooper
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Post by Roncooper »

That is a very interesting dream. I'm not good at dream interpretation, but it appears to be full of meaning.
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. -Isaac Newton

JamesN.
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Post by JamesN. »

Here are a couple of clips from Joseph's many lectures where he talks about Dreams that you might find of interest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv3T6DhGouY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E8pRLtJjLs


Cheers
:)
What do I know? - Michael de Montaigne

CarmelaBear
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Post by CarmelaBear »

Campbell talks about the message of the unconscious and how there are personal dreams that speak with the language of the unconscious, which is best interpreted by the dreamer. Another type of dream breaks through with a message that goes to one's fundamental confrontation with the harsh reality of death.

The dream I had related to things I had recently read about genetic re-design methods that are now being perfected. People have been speculating for a long time about the implications of being able to change genes to eliminate certain illnesses, to choose the characteristics of babies and to alter the physical status of living organisms in some way. The capacity to do these things is very close to becoming very real, and the implications are starting to get scary. I think the climate change issues, together with the new genetic breakthroughs could appear in my dream as a jumble of elements, written on the dream-scape like a cartoon. It wasn't scary. It was weird the way dreams are always freakish. The unconscious makes only pictures of twisted figures and melting clocks.

Campbell suggests that the dreamer interpret their own dreams, and mine was easy to interpret. In addition to the implications of change and disorder, there are the sets of six clouds, moving southeast and disappearing. They represent relationships with actual and symbolic siblings. The pessimism of the accurate observations of my life by others is remarkably overwhelming, but the clouds dissipate as they move in a dismal direction that favors the east, where my elite education took place, and where I associate the last part of the dream.

If Gloria Steinem read the account of that last part of my dream, she would know what it meant. To us, it's obvious. One only has to read the text of something I wrote about my mother for Ms. Magazine's June, 1975 issue to have a sense of it. It is meaningful, but it is only profound if I take Gloria's advice to women everywhere. She wrote that we should take ourselves seriously. She and I know better than most that we sometimes go overboard with the serious part, and we both need to appreciate the joy of life.

It was another bliss dream. They are gifts from the unconscious to remind me to lighten up and just be in the moment, where the clouds go away and everyone is off the hook for being anything less than absolutely perfect in every way.

~
Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

Roncooper
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Post by Roncooper »

Carmela,

I agree with your earlier assessment of the human condition. Many people in power are selfish and greedy, and without honor. Those who do have good intentions are incompetent. They do their best, but they are not up to the task. Unfortunately they pretend they are.

For me civilization is young, only 10,000 years old, and in another 10,000 years we will be much better at being human.

I think we make a difference. Things change slowly, and we may not see the change, but we help it along.

I believe God has a plan for us. As a Panentheist, I get to say that. I also believe that we are just starting out and things aren't very clear.

For comparison, I put it this way. Imagine you woke up one morning and decided that you needed cats to build jet airplanes. So, you get a book about aerodynamics and you set down with Smokey ans Fluffy and you start to read. After a few minutes you look to see their response, and realize that this is going to take a long time.

This is the way I see human evolution. We must push for change but we must also dance.
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. -Isaac Newton

CarmelaBear
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Post by CarmelaBear »

I like dancing. I can do that. Anything more complex requires special help from some power higher than the one that provides a monthly pension.

~
Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

CarmelaBear
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Post by CarmelaBear »

Roncooper wrote:Carmela,

I agree with your earlier assessment of the human condition. Many people in power are selfish and greedy, and without honor. Those who do have good intentions are incompetent. They do their best, but they are not up to the task. Unfortunately they pretend they are.

For me civilization is young, only 10,000 years old, and in another 10,000 years we will be much better at being human.

I think we make a difference. Things change slowly, and we may not see the change, but we help it along.

I believe God has a plan for us. As a Panentheist, I get to say that. I also believe that we are just starting out and things aren't very clear.
None of us knows enough to do more than what we do well, and most of us don't ever become really good at much of anything. Democracy or a democratically elected republic is a favored system in the west precisely because we are sure that as a collective, we make our best decisions. When many people guess how many jelly beans are in a huge jar, It is possible that absolutely no one will guess correctly, but the average guess is either spot on or within +/- 2 from the exactly correct count. Our collective wisdom turns out to be similarly correct.

There is systemic bias and there is individual and group bias in every society. We choose cell phones over landlines, and whole economic blocks fall like dominoes in response to our choices. We prefer white and grey cars over black and green ones. Our motivations are often entirely outside the realm of reason and we are responding to unspoken dog whistle signs and signals and metaphors and art and dreams and so on.

I have moments when I know exactly what I would do if I had political power. I would carefully dismantle a system of mass incarceration and economic and social inequality that has failed everyone in ways that are tragic for some and shameful for others, and I would work to find ways to find balance in a society that is falling under the weight of dependence on fossil fuels and manufacture of goods that require wholesale destruction of our most important planetary resources, including spiritual and human resources. If there is no place for me in the system, I can continue to be an outside observer who can bring a critical point of view and just enjoy the ride until the fenders fall off.

Finding a path is a challenge, but finding bliss in whatever happens is easy. Have I mentioned how glad I am to be here, at this forum?

~

I was not familiar with Panentheism. It makes total sense to me. I might adopt it, too. I so want for there to be a Great Spirit. As for a plan....I am trained as a lawyer, and this universe is not a plan that would stand up under a challenge. Remember "Q" in Star Trek?

~
Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

Roncooper
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Post by Roncooper »

Carmela wrote
I was not familiar with Panentheism. It makes total sense to me. I might adopt it, too. I so want for there to be a Great Spirit. As for a plan....I am trained as a lawyer, and this universe is not a plan that would stand up under a challenge. Remember "Q" in Star Trek?
Here is a talk by Alan Watts that I posted a few years ago. It introduces Panentheism to the western mind. Of course it is his version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLD0ZxWUBVk

If you are still interested, I can refer you to a book or two on the subject that I enjoyed.
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. -Isaac Newton

CarmelaBear
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Post by CarmelaBear »

Roncooper wrote: If you are still interested, I can refer you to a book or two on the subject that I enjoyed.
Yes, please.

~
Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

Roncooper
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Post by Roncooper »

I enjoyed this book by Vivekananda called "What Religion is'"

https://www.amazon.com/What-Religion-Sw ... 804&sr=8-2


Nandu called Vivekananda a genius, and I agree.

I also noticed they have a Kindle version of "His complete works," for $5.

The other book is more traditional and down to earth. it is by an American, Dr. Frank Morales, who became an ordained Hindu priest. His is now called Sri Acharya.

https://www.amazon.com/Sanatana-Dharma- ... ana+dharma

I enjoyed both.
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. -Isaac Newton

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