I've been having an incredibly intense week, so I'm slightly surprised that I find myself in the dark writing now at 8PM at home. I have been making things happen this week at an alarming rate. Most exciting is the acceptance of five volunteers to commit to working with me over the coming academic year in an art therapy lab that I have set up that will include using improvisational theater techniques to work on bringing out personal and cultural narratives, as well as working on creating new myths and stories. This makes me very happy and after doing the reading about eradigms, I can see that I'm right at the now, pushing the coloring in of different parts of the collective mind towards an Earthrise myth. That's a reason to celebrate, which I think I will do by lying down, trying some active imagination in which I imagine looking out over a body of water and seeing what emerges. The last time I did it a couple of nights ago, a kind of scary but eventually benevolent Poseidon figure with slimy green seaweed dreadlocks and beard came forth and we had a nice conversation that consisted mostly of superficial small talk. The transition from fear to comfort felt like an achievement. Did I mention that Douglas is a Celtic name meaning dark or deep water? Guten Nacht, meine Freunde and enjoy the attached pic of me having my head cut off at the anime festival on Sunday.
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Thanks Douglas, Your opening paragraph poetically expressed my feeling as well about the eternal mystery and beauty of the ocean. Love: " the sea air is in my lungs, fire in my eyes."
Doug: What a great image of the benevolent Poseidon, especially in light of our group discussion about water and watery dreams last week on the call. Also, as water (especially the ocean) is typically seen as the unconscious, it seems like a good thing to be in a respectful relationship with the one who presides over the ocean. As we know from Jung's work in The Red Book, it is easy to get swamped by the unconscious and can be downright dangerous if we aren't careful. It is when we fail to pay attention that the damage can be done, so even making small talk doesn't seem like such a "small" thing....
Interestingly, I have always felt very connected to bodies of water, although I like the water's edge more than navigating it, which is fun too, although scary at times. I think there's a very elemental, spiritual, biological, and ancestral connection we have to bodies of water. It is the amniotic fluid whence we emerged to master the land. When I stand at the water's edge, on land, which is home now, I feel a sense of nostalgia, of looking at a home that I once inhabited but can't return to now except to visit for brief moments. My sense has always been that bodies of water contain that primordial maternal connection to us beings who have evolved to the land. My best creative work in the sustainability communications field has been about water, or rather, human connection to it. I did a survey of water myths and rituals many years ago and perhaps it is time to revisit.
I appreciated the short discussion today about the ice bucket challenge fad, which seemed to me a mostly ridiculous act, and in these times of drought, inappropriate. But the act of dousing oneself in water to wash away the "sin" of not donating to a charity really struck me wrong in its levity. I can't completely condemn the campaign because it was for a good cause and it was successful within acceptable social behaviors and was a great viral marketing strategy. Still, the frivolity rubbed me wrong. Although I'm not Christian, I appreciate the ritual of baptism, as I appreciate the Islamic washing of hands before prayer, as I appreciate bathing in the (filthy) Ganges, as I appreciate tevillah in the mikvah in the Jewish tradition. Immersion in water, cleansing with water, these are sacred rituals that deserve more respect than celebratory acts of wasteful use. From another perspective, I also do wholly promote the respectful and careful use of water resources for recreation. Not so much the water park, but swimming, boating, sailing, surfing, all these foster love of clean and pure water, respect for the life element.
I'm prattling on. I have a lot of water thoughts, clearly.
I leave you with an image of what for me is a sacred moment. I stand ankle deep in the Pacific Ocean, feet in the sand below, it's sunset and I watch the Earth spin Eastwards, the fire of the sun in my eyes but rapidly sinking below the end of the Earth. My feet are on Earth, but also in water, the sea air is in my lungs, fire in my eyes. I am human embraced by our Earth spinning around our small star, which is hurtling around our Galaxy in our corner of the Universe.
That is beautiful Douglas.