Day 2

It’s time to get up. It’s time to get up. It’s time to get up in the morning.

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Before breakfast:

I wanted to show “the cross” to the same family member to whom I’d shown the 4 hearts. She agreed and so I did.

She had a visceral reaction of “pulling back”.

Her Christian theological boat had sunk long ago.

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I noticed other boats on the river.

For many other travelers as well, their perspective on Christianity and its symbolism is such that they had become either: indifferent, leery or angry, possibly irrevocably so, and could not tolerate Christianity’s institutional failures.

They see its theology as incomprehensible and/or merely as a corrupted system of social control.

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Some few travelers seemed able to steer their boats effectively around, between and with the other vessels.

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Still other boats contained people whose interpretation of Christianity is defined such that any genuine exploration outside of well defined and established boundaries makes one either the devil or “his” unwitting minion.

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That makes for tense and uneasy sailing. But then again no one said this would be easy.

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Jung’s perspective seems to fall somewhere in the middle. In Christianity there is something of exceptional value, but that it had lost its vitality and had grown obsolete. In order to retain its value it needs to be able to change.

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In this quote, Jung presented his perspective on Christianity’s dilemma. “If Christian doctrine is able to assimilate the fateful impact of psychology, that is a sign of vitality, for life is assimilation. Anything that ceases to assimilate dies.”

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He further indicated that for some people this change, if it occurs, will be a welcomed and much “longed-for regeneration…”

For others, this change “appears as a hostile , destructive attack…”

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For me, the following quotation corroborates Jung’s views of the value in Christianity and its need to expand and reorganize in some way.

Eckhart Tolle in his book The Power of Now states: “The way of the cross… is the old way to enlightenment, and until recently it was the only way. But don’t dismiss it or underestimate its efficacy. It still works.”

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I think that is how I began. The way of the cross. Suffering and surrender.

It used to be thought that an alcoholic had to lose everything, or be in “late, late stage” alcoholism to realize they needed to get sober.

Then people started figuring out they didn’t have to lose everything, just most everything, to realize they needed to get sober.

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Although my addiction is not to alcohol, I was fortunate to begin getting “sober” probably at the “late-early stage”.

The point is that we don’t need to wait for the suffering to overwhelm us before we can get started. Nothing stops us. It’s just that as human beings we are often only truly motivated by pain.

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I know that was certainly the case for me.

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This quotation from the Christian mystic Meister Eckhart summarizes this process very well: “Pain (suffering) is the fastest horse to wholeness.”

I don’t think this means we need to seek out suffering or wallow in it, just that if you are alive for more than 20 minutes, you will experience it.

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That was a lot of thinking before breakfast. Time to get something to eat.

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I found this to be a very nourishing breakfast:

“The root of all evil is duality, separation, objectification. The essence of all goodness is the urge to resolve duality into unity, which we experience as love. According to the creation myth taught by the Pythagoreans, in the beginning a cosmic egg, representing the Oneness of potentiality, split in two halves, representing the primal duality…

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(This photo is not from the book. I took the photo in my basement.)

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…What arose from the egg was Eros, or love.' When the One divides itself, the impulse that arises is to reunite, and that impulse towards unification is love. Without evil (separation) there would be no love (reunion). Good and evil arise together.”

- Jesus and the Lost Goddess, Freke and Gandy pg. 168

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Separation and reunion.

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It’s starting to get late. Time to pack up the raft… …and push off.

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Opposites that arise together

HOT COLDSPIRIT MATTERWAVE PARTICLEFEMALE MALE“WE” “ME”COMMUNITY INDIVIDUAL

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HOT COLD

SPIRIT MATTER WAVE PARTICLE

FEMALE MALE

“WE” “ME”

COMMUNITY INDIVIDUAL

Another quote I came across, well after making the symbol.

“Because psychology basically depends upon balanced opposites…” - Man and His Symbols, C.G. Jung pg. 47

“Psyche-ology” literally means the “study of the soul”.

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The river soon merged with another river. A

confluence.

Other symbols that convey the idea of the relationship of opposites.

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Yin and Yang

The Yin-Yang symbol is the relation between light and dark.

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Yin and Yang asastronomical observation

It is the pattern or graphic record of shadow as the earth revolves around the sun through the course of a calendar year.

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I find this to be a tremendously fascinating fact. I had always thought some Chinese guy drew this in the sand because it looked cool.

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This river now merged with another.

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Star of David

The Star of David is fundamentally a symbol that incorporates the union of 2 triangles, as this next slide more clearly demonstrates.

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Intersecting triangles

“…the very interesting aspect is that this alternative image of God is not originally “Jewish”- as most people believe - but belongs to the mysticism of all five world’s religions, and is always associated with the human heart.” -Remo Roth

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Intersecting lines

It was like I was paddling into a deep dark forest. I began to see familiar objects in a different light.

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Intersecting circles

The farther I paddled into the forest the more unusual connections became visible.

Connections that had been made by others but that I had never been taught to see.

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The “fish”.

The union of two circles produces the “fish”.

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It’s unbalanced, isn’t it?

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If one paddles on just one side, one goes around in circles.

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It seems that it needs to be “fishes”.

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“We [Westerners] are like sort of geniuses with a great number of insupportable character traits. This is sad but so it is, and it probably accounts for the fact that we have such a one-sided idea of the deity. For an unbalanced condition always harbors a feeling of inferiority, a feeling that he has deviated.”

- Nietschze Zarathustra, C.G. Jung pg. 1080

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It felt like I had gone into some strange territory. Others had been this way but the way was hard to find and my hope was and is, that the river I was on would not run dry and that others could follow.

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Monad: The One behind the Many

The One Essence from which all manifests.

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The monad (at the bottom) from which the “multiplicity”

of appearances arises.

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“Expanding” Consciousness:

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The process of moving from our “pinched up little hearts”…which experience tremendous separation, towards the peace of reunion with ‘the good that has no opposite’.

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On the river there were some serious critters chasing me along

the way.

This next slide is kind of an intense photograph of what it was that kept (and keeps) me from allowing my “heart to crack open”.

The photograph is from the National Geographic and the slide contains a line from a poem by Dr. Rebecca Parker.

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I (We?) would rather die than change.

I know that for me when confronted with that choice the decision was not all that clear.

Dying is easier than changing? That’s ego/fear raising it’s fierce, relentless and ugly head.

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It gets a bit complicated but I like very much this quote by Andrew Harvey: “Any transformation in nature costs a lot; every resurrection is proceeded by a crucifixion. I think when people intuit what will be demanded of them – not by a sadistic, cruel God, but by the law of growth in the universe – they become terrified. They see that living for God will involve a kind of death.” 58

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I know this is all quite intense and that is why I’d like to paraphrase an observation by Mark Twain.

It was something to the effect that change had confronted him many times during his life and he was proud to report that he had fought against it every single time!

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Another perspective related to change is offered through the term “resistance”. The author Steven Pressfield in his book, “The War of Art” does a wonderful job in my opinion, of characterizing “resistance”.

“Resistance is not out to get you personally. It doesn’t know who you are and doesn’t care.” “…Though it feels malevolent, Resistance in fact operates with the indifference of rain…” pg. 11

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“Resistance’s goal is not to wound or disable. Resistance aims to kill. Its target is the epicenter of our being: our genius, our soul, the unique and priceless gift we were put on earth to give and that no one else has but us.” - pg. 15

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“Resistance has no strength of its own. Every ounce of juice it possesses comes from us. We feed it with power by our fear of it.” - pg. 16

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“The following is a list, …of those activities that most commonly elicit

Resistance:”

“The pursuit of any calling…” “The launching of any entrepreneurial

venture” “Any diet or health regimen.” “Any program of spiritual advancement.” “Any course or program designed to

overcome an unwholesome habit or addiction.” “Education of every kind.” “Any act of political, moral, or ethical

courage…”64

That’s quite a list. Let’s get some lunch.

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I hope I am not eating nor feeding you bologna sandwiches!!

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Alright. Time to get back on the water.

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As you may or may not know, the Oracle at Delphi instructs us to: “Know thyself”.

Gnosis means “to know”. “Budh” means “to wake up, be

enlightened”. Science (scientia) means “to know”. “Sapiens” of “homo sapiens “ means “wisdom, discernment”.

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A mirror seems like a reasonable symbol of that quest to “Know

thyself”.

At first I bought a large 8 inch diameter mirror.

That way one could see one’s entire face.

Too big. Couldn’t get computer paper large enough.

After some searching found this…

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…a small mirror

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Ultimately, this worked so much better because all that is then visible is the “eye” which limits the viewing to just one person. No room for the judgments of others. Just oneself and the “Big dog-mystery”.

“No one can go through the fire for me.”

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Illusion of graphic illustration “floating”

No one really notices this but it is supposed to look like the design and frame is “floating”. Ooh. Aah.

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Illusion of “floating” mirror

Because of my interest in magic as a hobby I thought it would be “cool” to suspend the mirror so it would look like it was also floating. Notice the space between edge of mirror and edge of paper.

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Eye in mirror

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At some later point, I was reading about Egyptian pyramids.

“pyra” means fire “mid” means middle Pyra-mid means “fire in the middle”

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It occurred to me to take the cross symbol and “pull up” the middle vertically and this would very easily create a pyramid.

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Add “eye”

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A very similar symbol to the one on the back of the dollar bill.

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This seems like a bit of a stretch, but with the light or “fire” illuminating the graphic design from behind, then the fire is indeed in the middle.

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I know this brings up ideas about the Illuminati and the Masons and all of that stuff.

I don’t really know anything about that and wonder whether it is considered sinister only because it is not an overtly Christian symbol and therefore inherently suspect.

If these ideas are rocking your raft, rest assured they rocked mine.

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That was another big day. I needed to rest.

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Reflections around the campfire:

It may seem like I think I am doing all of this by myself.

In some ways I am, i.e.: “no one can go through the fire for me.”

But in other ways it is impossible to do this by myself. I need others. I guess that is the basic nature of the two-hearted river. It is really a journey of paradox: A, not A. B, not B.

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The huge number of people I have gratitude for:

My wife, parents, brothers, children, in-laws, extended family, my son’s birth family, friends, classmates, sponsors, co-workers, dozens and dozens of writers, the spiritually inclined through the ages, support group members, students, clients, mentors, bosses, counselors, and I know it sounds corny but just kind of everybody who has spent time on the earth has directly or indirectly taught me how I want to live and/or how I don’t want to live. 87

End of Day 2.

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