"I just danced"
16 years ago
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Climate Change Odds Much Worse Than Thought
Science Daily: "The most comprehensive modeling yet carried out on the likelihood of how much hotter the Earth's climate will get in this century shows that without rapid and massive action, the problem will be about twice as severe as previously estimated six years ago - and could be even worse than that."
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
The Power of Myth 6: Masks of Eternity
the Quest
in your deepest identity, you are God
you are radiant of the Spirit
different masks
“I don’t have to have faith -- I have experience”
Brahman
when will kingdom come? the kingdom IS and men do not see it
relegio -- linking back to the One source
the connecting circles of Jung
labyrinth, ourobouros, wheel, mandala
camp, horizon,
spatial and temporal aspects
Alpha Omega experienced cycles: year, month, moon, day, sun, hour
home --> adventure --> home
womb tomb
Navajo pollen path the center -- beauty before me ...
my life and the great life connected
Tibet sand paintings
the images of myth are the many masks reflections of human potentialities
archetypes of unconscious in dreams and myths
clowns/ tricksters are often creator gods no sober image
reversals, spreading strife is great joy becoming not being
Jung: “religion is a defense against religious experience”
we are all of the same
identification with your own divine being
Maslow peak experience
Joyce epiphanies
aesthetic does not move you to possess (porn) or criticize (didactic)
the beautiful or the sublime (from the Latin sublimis ([looking up from] under the lintel)
the timeless moment
they are still with me
Eden was not Eden will be Eden IS
heaven is just everlasting!!!!
that’s why poetry - radiance
the Kyoto gardens
the rhythm the radiance the Christ coming thru
the harmony of being
Shiva
circle of flame dance of universe
in one hand tick of time, the other the flame of eternity
skull and new moon in hair
find the fearless burning point of becoming
Word made flesh
Goethe all things are metaphors
the sound of Om -- the sound of the universe
open fill close and then the silence
consonants are interruptions of
you don’t need to die you can become aware
The Power of Myth 5: Love and the Goddess
“the eyes are the scouts of the heart"
12th century troubadours -- the seizure of romantic love
Love in the western world
courage to affirm against tradition -- Tristan Isolde
“you have drunk your death”
“if you mean eternal damnation, I accept that”
ultimate affirmation of life
libido over credo
have faith in one's experience
spiritual life is the natural bouquet of the physical life
authentic life encompassing pairs of opposites
The Grail (what is attained by living one's authentic life) brought by neutral angels
God is Love, Love is God
Agape: love your enemies, rain on just and unjust
pluck the beam from your own eye, put up your sword Peter
Muslim: Satan as God’s greatest lover -- God asked angels to serve Man, Satan could not because of his love for God -- therefore hell is the absence of the Beloved -- he remembers the echo of God speaking
China 1959 destruction of Tibetan monasteries -- no word of condemnation, a recognition of the inexplicable ways of life, suffering inevitable -- how to bear, interpret it
be a servant unto death
Abelard at-one-ment
it is the suffering which evokes the compassion of the human heart
love is the burning point of life, the pain of being truly alive
reverence for the female
Gaia
Mother Earth magic -- she is the universe, the creation
the personification of the energy which gives birth to myriad forms (Kantian Time and Space)
planting and agricultural cultures
Nile Tigris Euphrates and Indus Ganges -- world of the Goddess
then come the invasions of herders/hunters -- killers -- warrior gods Zeus, Jahweh Jahweh: in Hebrew, Goddess = The Abomination --> patriarchy
Zeus: male female face to face
woman potent in Hellenistic times and in Virgin Mary 12th c. - Notre Dame
Luke was Greek only one who mentions virgin birth -- Leda, Persephone, ...
India: kundalini, chakras, psychological centers up the spine
Goddess as Redeemer
Madonna
Nut Iris/Osiris
the sanctity of earth
The Power of Myth 4: Sacrifice and Bliss
mythology is the song, the flight of imagination inspired by the body
the sacred place is an absolute necessity
for some, the whole earth
Chief Seattle: “we love this earth as a newborn loves its mother’s heartbeat” “the end of living and the beginning of survival”
seeds, rhizomes -- death not death -- individual not individual
Algonquin: boy's visitant, you must kill me and bury me --> maize
Polynesia: moon maiden, you must kill me and bury my head --> coconut
1) human psyche, like body, the same everywhere
2) diffusion, historical
hunting cultures: the sacrifice is a bribe
planting cultures: the death is the resurrection
the fruit of the tree
tree of life --> eternity
tree of knowledge --> duality
die to the flesh, born to the spirit
art reveals radiance and unity to which religion points
the Jesus dance -- acts of John
the lord of death is lord of life, dance, sex
“it’s a good day to die”
death/life
being/becoming
the metaphysical breakthrough of a realization that you and the other are one
marriage -- sacrificing to the relationship, not to the Other
marriage is not a love affair but an ordeal
motherhood is a sacrifice
death as return
“it’s a good day to die”
life is always on the edge of death
Sir Gawain and Green Knight
tests -- lust for life and fear of death -- courage
prologue to Thus Spake Zarathustra the young camel loaded, becomes lion, which slays the dragon, the name of the dragon is Thou Shalt, a child is born
a wheel rolling out of its own center
follow your bliss, go where your body and soul want to go
invisible hands
stumbling around looking for water when water is right there wherever you are
the sacred place is an absolute necessity
for some, the whole earth
Chief Seattle: “we love this earth as a newborn loves its mother’s heartbeat” “the end of living and the beginning of survival”
seeds, rhizomes -- death not death -- individual not individual
Algonquin: boy's visitant, you must kill me and bury me --> maize
Polynesia: moon maiden, you must kill me and bury my head --> coconut
1) human psyche, like body, the same everywhere
2) diffusion, historical
hunting cultures: the sacrifice is a bribe
planting cultures: the death is the resurrection
the fruit of the tree
tree of life --> eternity
tree of knowledge --> duality
die to the flesh, born to the spirit
art reveals radiance and unity to which religion points
the Jesus dance -- acts of John
the lord of death is lord of life, dance, sex
“it’s a good day to die”
death/life
being/becoming
the metaphysical breakthrough of a realization that you and the other are one
marriage -- sacrificing to the relationship, not to the Other
marriage is not a love affair but an ordeal
motherhood is a sacrifice
death as return
“it’s a good day to die”
life is always on the edge of death
Sir Gawain and Green Knight
tests -- lust for life and fear of death -- courage
prologue to Thus Spake Zarathustra the young camel loaded, becomes lion, which slays the dragon, the name of the dragon is Thou Shalt, a child is born
a wheel rolling out of its own center
follow your bliss, go where your body and soul want to go
invisible hands
stumbling around looking for water when water is right there wherever you are
The Power of Myth 3: The First Storytellers
the image of death is the beginning of myth
the inward darkness of the shamans, within ourselves, nightly visited in sleep
memories wake and stir when we venture into wilderness
myths as powerful guides to life of spirit
echos of the first story(s)
we too enact ritual
our body’s destiny of death
myths and rites to harmonize mind and body, how to live in this life
stages of human development same today
the transition from childhood to maturity and on to autumn of life
the task of middle age: identify self NOT with body but with consciousness which will rejoin consciousness, of which body is but the vehicle
the image of death is the beginning of myth
burial caves and animal shrines (covenant, atonement, appeasement, gratitude)
an invisible plane supporting the visible, unknown supporting the known
participation mystique: buffalo, salmon, eland, whale
recognition of dependency, the hunt becomes a ritual, ceremony, more than respect, the animal is a messenger, carrier of divinity, a model of how to live; guilt wiped out by myth, by ritual -- you are part of nature, the animal is in many ways superior
Blackfoot buffalo: we’ll teach you our dance of death and resurrection
the sacramental violations of 1880s slaughter
from Thou to It
Lascaux: temples, cathedrals/caves/wombs/tombs -- landscapes of soul -- spiritual images -- relation of time/eternal
beauty of art -- beauty of spirit, instinctual? beauty of intention, conscious, aesthetic?
initiation rites/rites of passage
Bushmen
artist/shaman/storyteller: modern artist function to keep myth/mystery alive -- Joyce, Klee, Picasso
Axis mundi
whose center is everywhere, circumference nowhere
Black Elk Speaks
And the Voice said: "Give them now the flowering stick that they may flourish, and the sacred pipe that they may know the power that is peace, and the wing of the white giant that they may have endurance and face all winds with courage."
Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy.
... as I lay there thinking about the wonderful place where I had been and all that I had seen, I was very sad; for it seemed to me that everybody ought to know about it, but I was afraid to tell, because I knew that nobody would believe me, little as I was, for I was only nine years old. Also, as I lay there thinking of my vision, I could see it all again and feel the meaning with a part of me like a strange power glowing in my body; but when the part of me that talks would try to make words for the meaning, it would be like fog and get away from me.
And I, to whom so great a vision was given in my youth, - you see me now a pitiful old man who has done nothing, for the nation's hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead. Black Elk
the inward darkness of the shamans, within ourselves, nightly visited in sleep
memories wake and stir when we venture into wilderness
myths as powerful guides to life of spirit
echos of the first story(s)
we too enact ritual
our body’s destiny of death
myths and rites to harmonize mind and body, how to live in this life
stages of human development same today
the transition from childhood to maturity and on to autumn of life
the task of middle age: identify self NOT with body but with consciousness which will rejoin consciousness, of which body is but the vehicle
the image of death is the beginning of myth
burial caves and animal shrines (covenant, atonement, appeasement, gratitude)
an invisible plane supporting the visible, unknown supporting the known
participation mystique: buffalo, salmon, eland, whale
recognition of dependency, the hunt becomes a ritual, ceremony, more than respect, the animal is a messenger, carrier of divinity, a model of how to live; guilt wiped out by myth, by ritual -- you are part of nature, the animal is in many ways superior
Blackfoot buffalo: we’ll teach you our dance of death and resurrection
the sacramental violations of 1880s slaughter
from Thou to It
Lascaux: temples, cathedrals/caves/wombs/tombs -- landscapes of soul -- spiritual images -- relation of time/eternal
beauty of art -- beauty of spirit, instinctual? beauty of intention, conscious, aesthetic?
initiation rites/rites of passage
Bushmen
artist/shaman/storyteller: modern artist function to keep myth/mystery alive -- Joyce, Klee, Picasso
Axis mundi
whose center is everywhere, circumference nowhere
Black Elk Speaks
And the Voice said: "Give them now the flowering stick that they may flourish, and the sacred pipe that they may know the power that is peace, and the wing of the white giant that they may have endurance and face all winds with courage."
Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy.
... as I lay there thinking about the wonderful place where I had been and all that I had seen, I was very sad; for it seemed to me that everybody ought to know about it, but I was afraid to tell, because I knew that nobody would believe me, little as I was, for I was only nine years old. Also, as I lay there thinking of my vision, I could see it all again and feel the meaning with a part of me like a strange power glowing in my body; but when the part of me that talks would try to make words for the meaning, it would be like fog and get away from me.
And I, to whom so great a vision was given in my youth, - you see me now a pitiful old man who has done nothing, for the nation's hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead. Black Elk
The Power of Myth 2: The Message of Myth
myth calls us to awareness of the mystery, teaches how to live in this world
not seeking the meaning of life but rather the experience of life
vivifying
Buddha: what’s the meaning of a flower?
myths are clues to the experience, the rapture, of being alive -- referents to the transcendent
God is a thought, a name for the Transcendent
Heinrich Zimmer:
the best things can’t be told (transcend thought)
the second best are misunderstood (thoughts which refer to transcendent)
the third best are what we talk about
the mask of eternity
moving from the transcendent to all the pairs of opposites
Caves of Gharapuri (Elephanta Caves)
put oneself in the middle
Christianity from Near East - awareness of pairs of opposites - man v God, man v Nature, God v Nature and vv
D T Suzuki -- “very funny religion”
nature is corrupt, must be corrected
OR nature is manifestation of divine
Hinduism, Buddhism - Japanese garden - where does nature end and art begin
cooperation and coordination with nature
instruction which will allow us to see the divine within the world AND self
hospitality -- recognition of divine identity of Other -- two aspects of the One Identity
Creation stories tell of the Presence of the Transcendent
The One Forbidden Thing
Bluebeard, Genesis -- the forbidden is where one begins one's life
blaming the serpent
kissing the cobra
snake as the symbol of new life, shedding one's skin, throwing off past
Christian inversion - a refusal to affirm life, life is evil, natural impulses sinful
Zorba: Trouble? Life is trouble.
We must say Yes.
who are we to judge -- we are here to affirm life, the eternity of this moment
the experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life
not to withdraw, return, participate
this horror is the foreground of a wonder
all life is sorrowful -- loss loss loss
Joyce -- “history is a nightmare from which I’m trying to awake”
don't be afraid, recognize that what is is a manifestation of the transcendent
i will participate in the game, the opera DECENTLY (heroically, not rancorous, the samurai must not act in anger)
teachers answer questions!!!!!!!!!!
mythology is homeland of muses -- inspirers of art/poetry
life as a poem, not prose, in accord with transcendent
mythology liberates from cultural definitions of inherited metaphors
myths throw you a line to connect with the mystery which you are
Thomas gospel: we are all manifestation of divinity, heaven and hell are within us (Upanishads)
myth/dream: symbolic images of inner conflicts
we are the source
myth must provide life models, for each time; the world changes, religion must be transformed
Middle East conflict -- stuck in old metaphors -- we must separate the truth from the temporal inflection
Star Wars: will the machine serve or dominate, the making of tools (computers are an Old Testament God, all rules, no mercy :)
Indra
here's the place to have the experience, not after death
not seeking the meaning of life but rather the experience of life
vivifying
Buddha: what’s the meaning of a flower?
myths are clues to the experience, the rapture, of being alive -- referents to the transcendent
God is a thought, a name for the Transcendent
Heinrich Zimmer:
the best things can’t be told (transcend thought)
the second best are misunderstood (thoughts which refer to transcendent)
the third best are what we talk about
the mask of eternity
moving from the transcendent to all the pairs of opposites
Caves of Gharapuri (Elephanta Caves)
put oneself in the middle
Christianity from Near East - awareness of pairs of opposites - man v God, man v Nature, God v Nature and vv
D T Suzuki -- “very funny religion”
nature is corrupt, must be corrected
OR nature is manifestation of divine
Hinduism, Buddhism - Japanese garden - where does nature end and art begin
cooperation and coordination with nature
instruction which will allow us to see the divine within the world AND self
hospitality -- recognition of divine identity of Other -- two aspects of the One Identity
Creation stories tell of the Presence of the Transcendent
The One Forbidden Thing
Bluebeard, Genesis -- the forbidden is where one begins one's life
blaming the serpent
kissing the cobra
snake as the symbol of new life, shedding one's skin, throwing off past
Christian inversion - a refusal to affirm life, life is evil, natural impulses sinful
Zorba: Trouble? Life is trouble.
We must say Yes.
who are we to judge -- we are here to affirm life, the eternity of this moment
the experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life
not to withdraw, return, participate
this horror is the foreground of a wonder
all life is sorrowful -- loss loss loss
Joyce -- “history is a nightmare from which I’m trying to awake”
don't be afraid, recognize that what is is a manifestation of the transcendent
i will participate in the game, the opera DECENTLY (heroically, not rancorous, the samurai must not act in anger)
teachers answer questions!!!!!!!!!!
mythology is homeland of muses -- inspirers of art/poetry
life as a poem, not prose, in accord with transcendent
mythology liberates from cultural definitions of inherited metaphors
myths throw you a line to connect with the mystery which you are
Thomas gospel: we are all manifestation of divinity, heaven and hell are within us (Upanishads)
myth/dream: symbolic images of inner conflicts
we are the source
myth must provide life models, for each time; the world changes, religion must be transformed
Middle East conflict -- stuck in old metaphors -- we must separate the truth from the temporal inflection
Star Wars: will the machine serve or dominate, the making of tools (computers are an Old Testament God, all rules, no mercy :)
Indra
here's the place to have the experience, not after death
The Power of Myth 1: The Hero’s Adventure
"mythology is the song of the universe"
GAIA: the whole world is consciousness, all life is meditation
we are not alone in our journey, others have gone before, "the labyrinth is thoroughly known"
two types of heroic deeds (sacrifice of life to Life):
physical: saving a life or giving one's life
spiritual: departure into unknown, fulfillment, and return
Otto Rank: The Myth of the Birth of the Hero "myths, originally at least, are structures of the human faculty of imagination" "gratitude toward the parents ... and revolt against them" "The hero himself, as shown by his detachment from the parents, begins his career in opposition to the older generation; he is at once a rebel, a renovator, and a revolutionary. However, every revolutionary is originally a disobedient son, a rebel against the father."
everyone heroic: every birth, every child, every mother
the journey: drawn into it | consciously undertaken | thrown into it
serendipity
the trials and revelations lead to transformation of consciousness
the mind is a secondary organ of the whole body -- it must serve the body, not dominate it; intellectual systems Darth Vader
will we say yes or no to the adventure of life
the myth is the expression of the inexpressible, the mysterious edge of the known/unknowable
the CENTER
heliotropism
the heart that has truly loved never forgets
But as truly loves on to the close
As the sunflower turns on her god, when he sets,
The same look which she'd turned when he rose Thomas More
CHARTRES: Campbell was invited by the bell-ringer -- the seesaw in the bell tower -- the ringer's tiny living space behind the choir screen -- a little bed, a lamp -- looking out to the black Madonna -- living in a meditation
From a distance Chartres floats on a hill above green fields
The Power of Myth
Bill Moyers' series of interviews with Joseph Campbell first aired on PBS the summer of 1988
Early on in the first episode, Moyers mentions Campbell's story of an Occidental scholar approaching a Shinto priest and saying,"I don't get your ideology" to which the priest replied, "I don't think we have an ideology. I don't think we have a theology. We dance."
Early on in the first episode, Moyers mentions Campbell's story of an Occidental scholar approaching a Shinto priest and saying,"I don't get your ideology" to which the priest replied, "I don't think we have an ideology. I don't think we have a theology. We dance."
Troubadours
NY Times: Rafael Escalona, Colombian Folk Balladeer, Dies at 81
"... Escalona, who absorbed the ways and wisdom of wandering troubadours ... inspired the novelist Gabriel García Márquez ... a singer of vallenato, the folk music of Colombia’s remote Caribbean region ... [which] goes back to the time when news, gossip and legends were passed by traveling minstrels. ... Escalona was a longtime friend of Mr. García Márquez, who once told Mr. Escalona that his novel 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' was nothing more than a 400-page vallenato."
"... Escalona, who absorbed the ways and wisdom of wandering troubadours ... inspired the novelist Gabriel García Márquez ... a singer of vallenato, the folk music of Colombia’s remote Caribbean region ... [which] goes back to the time when news, gossip and legends were passed by traveling minstrels. ... Escalona was a longtime friend of Mr. García Márquez, who once told Mr. Escalona that his novel 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' was nothing more than a 400-page vallenato."
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