mermaidcamp
Keeping current in wellness, in and out of the water
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Undeclared Wars
September 4, 2013
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If war is declared responsible parties will do the utmost to declare a truce. Since Viet Nam the United Stares has felt the need to wage war without any declaration. Since I was a teen I have worked to influence my peers and the government to stop violent political action, no matter what it is called. I have traveled and watched the reputation of Americans enter a downward spiral that can make it uncomfortable for us to be in other countries. Most people from outside our borders do understand that the people here do not have the same democratic power that we did it he distant past. They may not know the details, but they have heard about the corporate lobbyist and commercial contributions to our lawmakers that have turned democracy into a joke.
I vote and pay taxes, lots of taxes. I have marched on Washington for peace, where I paid for the tear gas that was hurled at me. My position has not changed:
War is not healthy for children and other living things. I don’t know how healthy we might be if we had not engaged in all these undeclared wars, but I feel pretty sure we would be wealthier. We are not the most powerful country in the world if we resort to force and violence without the dignity to declare the reasons, and the goals of the use of armed violence. We are viewed as mortally bankrupt by many around the world. How can we manage to control our resources for the benefit of our citizens? How can we stop the military from invading or bombing other countries without a declared war? They have established a precident, but this is a very good time to take a U turn. If we sacrifice young lives and national security, we need to announce to the world and to the ones who are about to be killed in the conflict what our agenda is. I do not believe our agenda is coherent; and declaration of war would at least reveal what the terms are.
Soul on Paper
July 30, 2013
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Carl Jung, Leo Swiss shrink and alchemist, invited his patients to record their own visions as he did in his Red Book. He councils patients to record their visions in order to interpret the voice of the soul:
“Think of it in your imagination and try to paint it. Then when these things are in some precious book you can go to the book & turn over the pages & for you it will be your church-your cathedral-the silent places of your spirit where you will find renewal. If anyone tells you that it is morbid or neurotic and you listen to them-then you will
lose your soul-for in that book is your soul. ~Red Book; Page 216.
Today we have digital means of making art which I enjoy as self expression. What Carl is talking about here, however, is hand on paper. He tells the patient to use good paper and art supplies to document all visions. He explains that by drawing the vision the magnetism it contains is neutralized. He suggests that the expression of the detail is an important way to build self understanding. I will continue to enjoy my digital art making, but think it is time to spend more time with hand on paper. I love to draw mandalas and other geometric patterns. I wonder if I begin now if I can produce a Red Book worth saving. Have you started your Red Book?
birth chart Jung
Bigamy in Oswego
July 12, 2013
— 3 Comments
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- Oswego, KS
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- Oswego Historical Society
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- main street
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- old town
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- downtown Oswego
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- mural
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- Osage Village
My great-grandfather, Edward Scott, was the telegraph operator in Oswego, KS. His first wife, my great-grandmother, divorced him for having another family. He was born in Ohio, the son of a Civil War veteran. His mother, Maria Pendergrass moved to Kansas with Edward after her husband died. He and Sarah Helena married and had four daughters together, the last daughter born in 1905. By then Edward already had a son who had been born in 1902, with his other woman, Edna. Edna and Edward married in 1909 and lived in Oswego until he died. This must have been a major scandal at that time. Labette, where is daughters lived is very close to Oswego. I can’t imagine how he could keep this situation secret for very long. Somehow my great-grandmother was able to get a teaching job and make ends meet. She managed to get my grandmother through undergraduate school with a teaching degree before she married my grandfather. That seems like a big deal at the turn of the century. I don’t know if he saw his daughters after the divorce or not. He is one of the black sheep never mentioned.
Edward Ewing Scott (1874 – 1941)
is my great grandfather
daughter of Edward Ewing Scott
son of Olga Fern Scott
I am the daughter of Richard Arden Morse
Transformational Groups and Language
June 13, 2013
— 1 Comment
I am in a chat group with some people who have been to est training or the Landmark Forum, but I have not done that. I enjoy their point of view, but am amused by much of the jargon. Recently somebody in that group asked if others had alienated others with special transformational language. I had to laugh and think of what my own transformational groups and languages have been:
- childhood neighbors
- early childhood school friends
- summer camp buddies
- petroleum camp amigos from Venezuela
- high school choir and drama students
- hippies
- spa bunnies
- swimmers
- vegetarians
- Swiss
There are sub groups,but these are the majors. I have recently been united with my early childhood neighbors and school friends, one of whom went to summer camp with me. I have also gotten in touch with many old friends and neighbors who lived in San Tomé, Venezuela in the early 1960’s. This mostly bilingual group has a language and a culture that is unique. I am not in contact with any high school or college friends, but a small group with whom I worked in a theater company in Cherokee, NC in 1968 has been drawn together through social media. The hippies, spa bunnies, swimmers, and vegetarians all switch places and morph into the current culture. I know a few of each group from the past. I stay in touch with Swiss friends, although I have not visited for a few years now.
The language, slang, and meaning of these transformational groups imprint on us as individuals, and as a collective groupthink. We share memories that fit together like jigsaw puzzles. In the last month I have been amazed to learn some of the things my elementary classmates remember about me, and what I know about them. The past plays back like a very funny movie, missing lots of dialog and motive. What seemed insignificant is memorable, and what was important at the time has lost significance. We do have a thread of common language, and some common ideas. Although we may no longer be a group who hangs out in real life, we somehow are still transforming each other. Even learning about the death of some of our old comrades shakes the foundation of mortality, the ultimate transformation.
Coniunctio Oppositorum
June 7, 2013
— 3 Comments
The reunification of opposites in alchemy is called Coniunctio Oppositorum. The material is separated in the distillation process. In the collective consciousness imagery and music exist as powerful actors. The opposites can be soul and spirit, Republican and Democrat, or just black and white. Our individual dreams and psyches are influenced by all the opposites in the universe. It is an act of magic to distill your thoughts and ethical boundaries. It is an act of wisdom to recognize that we are each as magical as the other.
Ladders in Dreams
June 6, 2013
— 7 Comments
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- stairway to heaven
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- stairs
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- upward
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- look up
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- steeple
I have had dreams lately in which ladders and levels have been featured heavily. I have climbed them, but I watch others doing it and taking big risks in most cases. There is an MC Escher kind of set with stairs/ladders/ split levels leading in all directions. There is a need to escape the mesh of levels in order to find daylight or reality or some better circumstance. The dreams have a matter of fact nature, nothing scary or odd. There are different sets and casts of characters, all featuring ladder and or stair climbing. In the dreams ladders become stairs and vice versa.
Once I noticed the dreams with steps leading up as a theme I brought this into my daytime reality to see where and when I use proverbial ladders. I do not and did not climb any corporate ladder. I just had no interest. I own a home with a second floor, where my yoga room and bedroom are private from the rest of the world. Only two people regularly go upstairs. We need very big ladders to paint or repair our ceiling because of an atrium entry/living room. I have had repairs done lately and have been contemplating other upgrades to my home that all require ladders. I went to study soul and spirit and found that spirit is basically always upwardly mobile. Soul lives in this horizontal earthy plane, while spirit soars or climbs the stairway to heaven. With all this in mind I believe the ladders are an emblem of both care of my path, and a Jack in the Beanstalk style note to self. Knowing when where and why to go up a ladder is important information.
Climbing for climbing sake has not been my style in this life. Serving as I go along is my modus operandi. There are many paths to nowhere and stairways to nothing. This is only part of the risk one takes when deciding to climb or not to climb. Often I notice in these dream characters, who do not remind me of real people, the mindless will to climb is related to envy and pity. They solicit pity for working so hard, taking abuse along the way, then alternately solicit envy for the position they have won. I know folks who do this in real life without noticing that the ladder is two dimensional. I have unlocked no big secret here, gentle reader. Working with dreams is a technique anyone can use. Keeping a diary and writing the details will lead to more insight. There is no need to analyze deeply or search for big meaning. Dreams speak softly in very faint language. They sink into the consciousness over time.
Dreams of Symptom Exchange
May 22, 2013
— 4 Comments
reflecting
Since returning home after ancestry quest I have tracked my dream life. I think am digesting centuries of action in my nightly dramatic interpretations. My homework assignment to record dreams and notice the archetypes I find in them has not been completed in a very rigorous fashion. During my weekend with Thomas Moore we talked about dreams and did a group discussion about one lady’s dream that she shared with us. My guilt about not doing homework as the rebel archetype dominates the teacher in my chart of origin, came into focus. I fell deeply to sleep that night and did start to notice and record dreams on a regular basis while I was still on the road. I visited homes and graves, museums and city streets where the specific ancestors lived and died. I started to have some strong emotions about history and groups of the dead.
Although Mayflower ancestry is highly valued by some, I am much more excited about those who rebeled against the Pilgrims. The sooner they dissed Plymouth, Salem, and the Pilgrim way of religious fascism the more I liked them. My special pride in my one Wampanoag ancestor makes me feel entitled to some explanations. They will not be forthcoming, and I need to understand that I am the sum total of many warring factions going back in time. While Mary Stuart was burning one ancestor at the stake, another ancestor was defending her in Scotland. This is how life works. We do not just have two crazy parents, we have all of karmic history in our collective inheritance.
I have had a dream now more than once that is symbolic and clear. I enter a big building, box, loft, kind of structure, where I am joined by all kinds of other beings from past and present..maybe future also. The place is intended to heal, but the multiple streams of energy mix and collide inside the space. The beings leave having exchanged symptoms with other people, leaving with new issues, side effects and thoughts. The desire to dump one’s own faults on others who are handy is at the root of this gift exchange gone so bad. Common practice is to blame the dead, or the absent for almost everything, trying to leave with only shining and laudable characteristics. This creates a mighty vortex that fills with neediness and greed once the door to the blame barn has been left ajar. A boomerang of dreadful feelings never fails to be returned to the sender. I am no dream interpretation expert, not even a very faithful recorder in the past. This series of dreams in the warehouse health space is about healing, boundaries, and inevitability. I haves used the flower essence Mexican Hat recently, which I find to be powerful and freaky. It is blooming in my garden in a few places. Under this hat’s influence the connections to others that we wish to ignore are highlighted. This flower essence refers to boundaries and healing, exactly like the dreams. Reflection is imperative to interpret both sides of symptoms, causes, and remedies.
Magic Word
May 10, 2013
Carl Jung carved a Latin inscription above the door of his house in Kusnacht, Switzerland: “VOCATUS ATQUE NON VOCATUS DEUS ADERIT.” This means: “Called or not called, the god will be there.” To actively call and later, be still and know is the heart of meditation. The call can be music, nature, yoga, chant, movement, or poetry. The goal is emptiness gained through insight. This free time beyond the word, beyond the concept, and beyond imagination is free time with no boundaries of space and time. The ultimate reality is unlike the one in which our ego goes and does and consumes all the time. It has infinite qualities, at which words merely take a stab at defining. Words and chants are used to create liturgy and forms of reverence. Group voice has a magical quality that lifts spirit and satisfies the soul. Words and sounds resonate as well as drive the memory deeper, creating more meaningful images of past and dream life as a collage.
Rarely do direct and useful insights arrive like lightning bolts. I notice that visual cues stimulate my contemplation, but often a single word has great and continued meaning. Last week I heard the sound of a name I have often read, Hecate. I noticed that my mental pronunciation had been incorrect. Perhaps for this reason the name and her meaning came back to me a few times over the weekend. As we learned discernment between soul and spirit, her name was mentioned as the night goddess of magic. Her meaning is all about soul, in the living and the dead. She stands at the crossroads and is a guide to the underworld. At the end of our group’s time together we got to gaze into Tom’s obsidian mirror to stimulate our intuitions. The small shiny mirror was passed around from student to student as we said our goodbyes to each other. I moved about with my reflective image, finally settling on a shot of the ceiling , which was covered with acoustic tile. I gazed for a few moments and again Hecate came faintly into my mental focus. Days later I remembered the image of that cross of the intersecting ceiling tiles. This time the metaphor of my question as a crossroads, and Hecate is the ruler of the place was clearer.
All decisions are not life or death. I take from this contemplation on my own soul and spirit the idea that life is finite, but the soul is not. Hecate is a symbol of darkness, death, and magic. Called or uncalled, she will be there at the crossroads.
Living Soul
May 6, 2013
book signing
Kripalu is a yoga school and retreat center in western MA that is leading the way in yoga instruction in the US. With a long background, checkered, then revised, they had the head start on yoga when it hit the competitive mainstream of American fitness. I have several friends who are certified by Kripalu in yoga, and they are all very well versed in the whole system and philosophy. I enjoy yoga practice, but have been out of the habit of taking classes for years. I like my yoga room at home for the freedom and variety that I practice.
My reason for spending a weekend at Kripalu was to be in a workshop taught by an author I really admire. Thomas Moore instructed a group of about 40 students the difference between soul and spirit. This seems like a small technical issue, but it is much more basic. We had about 8 hours of class with him, and a special evening was offered to all Kripalu guests with his wife and daughter. The Kundalini yoga session with live band chanting was a perfect counterbalance for the intellectual work we were doing. They are quite a stunning family, described by Thomas as a kind of monastic group. Each is a monk in a certain personal way. The ladies are Sikhs with turbans and sheepskin mats, the distinctive look of the Yogi Bhajan followers. They teach Kundalini yoga. Tom is an expert in the world of religion who has his own way of practicing reverence. They radiate the power of individualization. If nothing else (and there is plenty) they teach the value of following the individual call to a specific path without regard for anything else.
The alchemy of thought, dreams, poetry, and the ritual of Kundalini yoga were all thrown into the still and worked. The distilled result is wisdom, the kind that sinks in and becomes useful over a long period of time. The time and space expanded to allow a remarkable level of teaching to take place. An artful, and soulful lesson was delivered as if they were translating directly the language of the sky. We now have a lifetime to absorb our new insights. Although in the last few years I have walked out of a couple of workshops I paid for and attended because I felt the teaching was unethical and possibly harmful, this one made up for all of that. I notice that the presence matters more than the material to me.
Gurus in Person
May 2, 2013
— 6 Comments
We can become fans of writers, teachers, artists and performers by watching and reading their work. Sometimes the personality is not even important if the subject being covered is of great interest. Teachers can impart wisdom from both a positive and a shadow style lesson. Sometimes they teach us what we want to avoid. This week I have the priviledge of seeing back to back two people I like because of the work they do. Tonight I will see Anthony Bourdain on stage with another chef, Eric Rippert. Tomorrow I will go to Kripalu to attend a weekend workshop with Thomas Moore.
These teacher/gurus influence me in completely different ways. Bourdain travels and eats on TV. Thomas Moore is my favorite author and modern philosopher. They both inspire new thoughts and ideas for me while exposing me to unknown worlds. They are both very knowledgeable and are recognized by peers as experts in their fields. They both tweet, but with completely different styles. Tonight I will sit in the audience for a show that is repeated on a tour of other cities. I am not sure if any interaction will take place, but it has to be minimal because of the ratio of audience members to talent. For the weekend I will study, meditate and absorb the vibe of Thomas Moore in an intimate setting. They will be distinct and probably incomparable experiences. I will let you know, gentle reader.
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