Sunday, January 3, 2010

my current obsession with myth, mysticism, and polar express


as above, so below. -hermes trimegistus


the red book:


the red book is beautiful. and humongous. and one of those things that forces you to pause and think every few words, sentences. it is full of mandalas. and dreams. and footnotes in the translation. my lord, the footnotes!


it's an intimate record of a spiritual path.


jung begins by meeting his soul. his own. which he apologizes to over and over for having ignored, forgotten, turned his back on. like most of us, he believed his consciousness lived in his body- and his soul reminded him that his body lives in his consciousness. (read "The Field" and this makes more sense. Unless you're already schooled on the residence of universal consciousness, matter as energy, etc.)


it would appear that he believed that the natural cycle is to begin life with attainment and intention. to want things, respect, renown, those things that the spirit of our time teach us are important.


and then, in mid-life (which he counts as right past 30), we see that the holes in our hearts are always hungry and either turn inward to our own souls, to see the universe inside us and learn universal truths (which have been there all along, if the phone would stop ringing and the new television would stop blaring), or turn completely outward and consume consume achieve achieve which is always disappointing and never a teacher to our higher selves.


in my adventures in words on paper, it would appear that jung is approaching what others' for ages have approached. what so many teachings have asked us all to approach. our own godhood and potential for sympathetic love.


crowley had his holy guardian angel.

ken wilbur has one taste, big mind.

hindus seek union with the absolute with no form or being.

bodhisattvas seek enlightenment to the oneness of all things.

christ introduced the holy spirit.

the kingdom within ad nauseum


(all these things remind me of the butterfly girl in the satanic verses. a sub-plot which happened to be my favorite part.)


okay- the above list is embarrassingly abbreviated and simplified. but at the same time, a small child "gets it" while we have all grown up and forgotten play, and imagination, and magic and miracles and are no longer able to "get it."


(an aside: silas has been pondering for two weeks about polar express. he insists that the hobo on top of the train told the boy "what is, isn't. and what isn't is." quite the koan for a childrens' movie. i don't even remember what the hobo said. if anything quite this profound. but interestingly enough, i think the story follows the typical hero myth proposed by joseph campbell. but that's another blog. and i've already named it. "santa as one of the thousand faces.)


anyhoo- for the new year, i wanted to assemble people who like to debate these things. and i chose THE WORST BOOK EVER. okay, not the worst ever- but prometheus rising turned out to be an awfully simplistic commentary on consciousness. and i have failed to schedule the bitch session thus far... (please peeps- tell me when you wanna come drink wine! and pick a better book!)


and i'm going to try to get back my imagination, ability to play, and wonderment at magic and miracles. all during a raging bout of hermit-fat-winter-blue-nostalgic for warmth-slug-o-thon-seasonal affective disorder.


feel free to argue on these points. and share. and tell me if you have authored your own red book. unless you're going to tell me i'm going to hell. which is just boring.




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