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Hi sunbug!
I often describe myself as an ex-futurist. I got out of ‘the game’ some 5 years ago or so when it was all about AI/algorithms/transhumanism/Mars etc. and often consisted of men presenting PowerPoints on large stages totally disconnected from their bodies!!! I don’t really trust anyone who talks about ‘the future’ that doesn’t have a relationship with the collective unconscious or nature. What I’m more interested now is the effects of ancestral trauma, the role of archetypal patterns/myths and Presence.
Kristina X
You’re so right sunbug! Yes, now, in this moment, at this stage of our life, the possibilities no longer appear endless, but us – in truth – will never again be as young as we are right now. We live ‘with’ the past, never ‘in’ it. It accompanies us as an echoing, lingering memory, but we ought never to stay in it. We often have this ferocious loyalty to stewing in regret. Why? We were meant to go and get this far lost off the beaten path. To find us in this moment. Us as we are, with all our past baggage. To develop the courage to seek redemption and to question what’s beyond this temporal existence. To feel that which always is. And always will be. There’s no other way it could’ve been, nor any other way it will be. Every left turn was meant to have us turning left, no matter how much our hindsight bias tells us that we should’ve turned right.
Always love your thoughtful inputs – Kristina.
Ah, Stephen, you speak directly to my heart! And hello dear COHO friends! How are we travelling?
For someone who spends a lot (too much!) time in the realm of ‘would’ve, could’ve, should’ve, if only’ thinking, your words are like a tonic to me! One of the only ways I can get myself out of this insidious loop is by saying ‘yes’ to the situation. ‘Yes,’ without wanting to change it or make it right or wrong. When I say ‘yes’ to life exactly as it comes through for me to experience, new movements can arise in my psyche.
And to your marvellous suggestion about externalising our issues, I literally just filmed something on this very topic: https://www.facebook.com/601383828/videos/1134118324038278/
I also recently had something ‘taken’ away from me, but until I could perceive that I needed to ‘surrender’ it à la Inanna, I was in great emotional distress. And I was reminded of Hans Leisegang’s words in ‘Die Gnosis’ that “every myth expresses, in a form narrated for a particular case, an eternal idea, which will be intuitively recognised by he who reexperiences the content of the myth.”
This week I watched ‘Mission: JOY,’ a documentary about the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu’s friendship: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nlUl5yNgIE My summarising of the Dalai Lama’s words were that suffering is an opportunity testing me. And no matter how difficult, I have the inner strength to meet it. And if I can reframe the situation to liberate myself from resentment and bitterness, it becomes a new opportunity to learn, to gain more experience, and to become more useful to society. It was a reminder that I’m being put into a fiery furnace to be refined and that the suffering helps me to become more magnanimous and is a necessary ingredient for developing compassion. And the suffering is the very thing that actually helps me to appreciate joy! And the key to joy is getting in touch with my own natural compassion and living from there. There was also a part in the documentary that touched on the difference between offering comfort vs. courage – but that’s for another conversation!
Looking forward to spending the week with you all – Kristina.
Lovely to hear from you sunbug.
And yes, I did a piece on thresholds last year.
Really interesting what you write about two different mythic forms. Another way to look at it could be myths that reference universal archetypes – or in your words, a universal order – and how they’re expressed culturally – in your words, social orders. So yes, some myths are certainly specific to a place or culture (say the Rainbow Serpent, which is considered one of the most powerful ancestral beings of Aboriginal Australia), but I feel it’s the universal order that all myths are referencing consciously or unconsciously, even if they are born out of a specific social order.
Be well, Kristina.
Gosh! Beautiful! Thank you so much for sharing Robert. So many of us were wounded by relationships, but we’ll only be healed by relationships. Not sure what more I can add to your delicate, prescient post other than to say ‘thank you.’ KD
Thank you Richard (fellow pilgrim). Your comment reminds me of the Tonglen meditation practice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonglen And re: time loops, I loved the series ‘Russian Doll’ on Netflix. KD
Thank you for your comment rickkar1. Maybe instead of ‘follow your bliss’ I would offer to instead follow the trauma – individual and collective. Can we imagine our small selves as part of a bigger, collective system and so align with these vaster forces of life? Can we say ‘yes‘ to life as it is (people/situations/circumstances/ourselves)? And that this ’yes‘ also includes the spiritual dimension of life. In trauma, this ability to say ’yes‘ to life exactly as it is, is often impaired. I would suggest this as a starting point … and then just maybe … we can touch into Campbell’s words to “participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world.” KD
Here we are again! Hello dear friends!
I have just returned from Punios šilas, not just Lithuania’s, but one of Europe’s most ancient forests. And I am sitting with Campbell’s eloquent words, “The Christ idea and the Buddha idea are perfectly equivalent mythological symbols. Two ways of saying the same thing: that a transcendent energy consciousness informs the whole world and informs you. To become aware of that, and to live out of that center instead of out of this mind center, is the salvation of your life. That means putting yourself in accord with nature.”
As we enter a discussion on rituals I want to focus on our relationship, or lack of, to nature. Campbell presciently writes (and his words are massively more relevant today), “Economics and politics are the governing powers of life today and that’s why everything is screwy. You have to get back in accord with nature; and that’s what these myths are all about. Now in the nineteenth century sociological anthropologists had the idea that myths and rites were an attempt to control nature. Totally wrong. They are not to control nature, they are to control the society and put it in accord with nature.”
Spending the day with 4/500-year-old oaks, I could really sense how nature was the first ‘link’ people followed as they tried to pattern and articulate their lives. But in modernity, it’s not about returning to nature per se, but rather to befriend it and enhance it … it’s about experiencing the inner sentience of nature. Metaphorically, the sense that the forest is walking us, as much as we are walking the forest.
Along the way, there’ll always be order and disorder so that we may cultivate wu wei, a mental state where our actions are effortlessly in alignment with the flow of life. But can we learn to be still in the river of life and listen to what it asks of us? Because if we keep acting in misalignment to our true nature, we’ll keep compromising who we really are. Again and again. But not forgetting, however, that out of every disaster along the path of self-awakening, there is the potential for something surprisingly positive and life-affirming to emerge too.
Signing off with huge FOMO that I wasn’t at Esalen with the gang this year – Kristina.
Gosh, sunbug, what you wrote is just so gorgeous! I actually feel the energy of your words. A transmission in rhythm!
And I love the linking of the Trickster archetype with the left brain.
I’ve always loved the song ‘Dancing on My Own’ by Robyn and that whenever she sings the song she always feels so present and lost in the beat especially at 2:48 where she just goes for it with her dance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rje7uy78mc8
“Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul.” — Plato
Keep dancing! Kristina.
Always a pleasure to be here with the COHO community Stephen.
I’ll answer through the lens of Persephone, who brings the seeds of prosperity with her when she returns to the earth as spring. Because out of the aphotic dormancy comes the rebirth.
Working with the myth we understand why she’s obliged to go back to Hades to honour the pomegranate pact, but what the hell – pun intended – is so attractive about returning to this domain? I mean, why once we’ve gotten out of hell, would we even consider going back? It sounds absurd that after we’ve passed a tour of duty in Hades – that practically costs us our very life – that we’d voluntarily venture down again.
And to your question, when we find the upper world now turned into the underworld with the war and disharmony all around us, why would we turn our attention to Hades, to go even deeper into the darkness? But we do. And we must for the regeneration.
It’s a cyclical pilgrimage. Nothing is permanent. We have both the life giving and death making capacities within us. The bountiful harvests of Demeter’s earth, and Hades’s barren underworld, balance the bittersweet qualities of life. [Actually, I prefer the correct word ordering of sweetbitter – the sweetbitter qualities of life!]
The known and unknown, springtime and winter, war and peace, and all the many transitions in between, can coexist in the cosmos. Which brings us back to the universal laws of nature. Growth, regeneration, and abundance are born out of the cold, arid, and desolate land. Without yin, there can be no yang. And similar to feng shui too with the equilibrium of shade and sunlight, damp and dryness, solids and fluids. Diametrically different, but mutually interdependent. Each gives existence to the other.
Balance and harmony imply the tenuous presence of both energies in amounts relative to each other. The wholeness of the universe is represented when we integrate and harmonise the upper and underworlds within ourselves. We often can’t even begin to behold how time spent in the inner, wintry realm is recalibrating the one-sidedness of our surface life. Or how this time of war awakens Eros.
We’re being called to heal our relationship with both lands. It’s the rightful restitution. Persephone, like us, will always be bound to the underworld. But we must make the relationship conscious. We’re so often bound to what we don’t want to be bound to. It’s not about being unconsciously identified with our rhythmless state, but finding a thread back to the human and cosmic heart.
Looking forward to the conversation this week – Kristina.
Thank you James. Reading your note and the first word that came to me was ‘metanoia‘ – a transformative change of heart. That’s what’s required.
It’s so hard to comment on these issues with our own biases, wanting to default to a simple perpetrator/victim narrative, the fervour of nationalism, and that the complexity and nuances are almost too much for our nervous system to bear after two years of living in a pandemic.
I keep asking, “Where do we belong?” When we perceive ourselves as human beings, it’s only natural to belong to a country and culture, but if we thought of ourselves as galactic beings, we’d belong to the stars. Belonging is also about the longing to ‘be.’ And in displacement, how practically impossible that is.
Conflict from an external level is one thing. Inner conflict another. I can only comment for myself, but I feel my inner conflict from a particularly vicious inner tyrant does leave the same bombed-out fragments and damage that we’re witnessing in Mariupol in my psyche. Is this on par to the bodily suffering that we’re that witnessing in Ukraine? Or is it self-inflicted and the responsibilities for the damage lie with me??? There are no easy answers. I’m reminded of that Einstein quote, “Don’t listen to the person who has the answers: listen to the person who has the questions.”
It’s been a joy to experience the questions and questing with you in this space. With you on the journey – Kristina.
