August 16, 2020

03

Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell said two things (apiece)
that pertain to us and our work
of transforming our relationship with ourselves
and living a life in accord with who we are.

Carl Jung:
"There is within each of us another, whom we do not know."

"We are who we have always been, and who we will be."

Joseph Campbell:
"Where you stumble and fall, there lies the treasure."

"What you seek lies far back in the darkest corner
of the cave you most don't want to enter."

These four statements constitute
the full scope of the work that is ours to do,
which is, transforming our relationship with ourselves
and living to incarnate/bring forth The Other,
who is our True Self,
The Face That Was Ours Before We Were Born,
within the context and circumstances of our life
in the world of time and space--
the here and now of our normal, 
day-to-day, existence.

Your assignment is to meditate,
ruminate,
contemplate,
consider,
reflect on,
play with,
dance with,
muse on,
walkabout with,
live with...
these four statements
in your imagination,
and let them take on a life of their own,
leading you down paths you would never think 
to explore,
showing you what they have to offer,
and what they have to ask of you--
just allow your thoughts to run off with you
and follow along, 
not knowing where they are going...

Do this over a long period of time.
Come back again and again to these four statements
and what they have to show you 
that you have yet to see.

The statements will not run out of things to say to you,
to show you,
to ask you,
to require of you.
And they will always be a doorway, a threshold, to you
through all the stages of your life.

–0–

02

Our opinions are killing us.

We have opinions about everything.
If physicians allowed their opinions
to color their living
the way everybody else does,
everybody else would be better off
staying away from physicians.

Police are now partisan in New York.
If you don't wear a MAGA hat,
don't expect police to be much help there.
And if you wear a Black Lives Matter tee shirt,
you are soon to be in need
of a physician without opinions.

We got here by being asleep at the wheel.
By being Absent Without Leave from our life.
By not being aware of how our opinions
were carrying us away,
kidnapping us,
hijacking us,
commandeering us,
shanghaiing us
and making us captive
to their narrow point of view
and their absence of grace and kindness,
compassion and bigness of heart.

And we became snarly,
surly,
grouchy,
crotchety,
bad-tempered,
ill-natured
and unsafe to be around,
like that (snaps fingers).

All because we have opinions 
about everything.
And, with us, opinions are facts.
The way we see things
is the way things ARE!!!
And everything SHOULD BE
the way we want things to be
RIGHT NOW!!!

OR ELSE!!!

You can look this up,
or trust me when I say,
opinions (ours and everyone else's) are the cause
of all of our troubles yesterday,
today,
tomorrow
and forever.

And, if you think that is just my opinion,
well, that's YOUR opinion.
 

–0–

01

The work is always the same
over time and place.

Wherever we are,
whenever we are,
there is the work to wake up,
be aware,
see what is happening,
do what is called for
in incarnating our Original Nature,
within the context and circumstances
of our life,
with sincerity,
balance and harmony,
energy, spirit and vitality,
in the service of justice and equality,
compassion and peace,
grace and kindness
all our life long.

The old saw goes,
"When Good stands up to be Good,
Evil stands us to be Evil."
It is an unending cycle of life,
like the coming and going of the seasons
and the rise and fall of the tides.
It means Good cannot quit being Good
just because it is tired
and needs a vacation.
Evil doesn't sleep.
Good has to be on its toes.
All the time.

We can rest in peace
when we are dead.