Just coming to realize that every lullaby draws is effect through the interaction of the child’s breath with the one that holds her.

It’s a kind of synchronized serenity…

If I had time to go in search of it, I’m sure there must be an interesting quote from Shakespeare on the dangers of certitude. Once I’ve locked reality to meet my assumptions, I’m no longer able to admit any wider possible aspect within reality that challenge those assumptions, and in effect, the power of my bias begins to work unconsciously. The bias becomes a lens whereby each and every piece of incoming data must meet the demands of given prejudice.

I’m saddened by the overt racism that is leaking from so many quarters in these days of suffering in Haiti. Do you see what I see?

A great post on this over at Cultural Mythology…

My friend Marty has launched her Write America project in 2010. Its a wonderful process where she finds an interesting, odd, tragic, or just plain weird news item from a different State each week and uses the story as a writing prompt for either a short story or a poem.

She’s three states in now, so you’ll want to catch up!

Getting notice that another has thrown the foul flag at you, claiming that you are “out of line” provides a great opportunity to do a little inventory work.

Is the issue at hand being brought up because responses were inappropriate or because the information delivered does not fit in the others expectations?  And then, if we can be honest with ourselves, can we admit that perhaps the answer is most likely in the gray area that includes a little bit of both possibilities.

Often times emotional responses can be viewed as out of line simply because the anger, disgust, passion or whatever that they contain is more than the other party is willing to allow for.  Does that mean we should not be emotional?

Often times simply responding in a manner that is not the other persons expectations is to step out of line, but in these cases it’s the line that the other is using is simply to try and control the interaction. Do you remember the amount of energy that was spent by the adults in Elementary School teaching the students to stay in line?

Yet, I’m struck by the fact that all innovators must step out of line.  I guess I’d go so far as to say that everyone called by the deep pull of what Jung calls individuation must, by it’s very definition, step out of line.

Hmm…where are you in relationship to the ordered lines that want to herd you these days?

In many ways the concept of denial is a catch 22, for as I often hear explained when working at a therapeutic boarding school, it’s kind of like this:

When you’re in denial you don’t even know your lying to yourself

In many ways that’s a really good descriptor for the way all unconscious processes work, including projection (when we see the fault or blame for something in someone else…or all the exceptional qualities for that matter as well).

To claim the psyche is elusive is an understatement.  The challenge is to provide consciousness to with some experiences that will open out to the reality of the unconscious process that are always taking place.  Otherwise the danger is that wildly incorrect assumptions as to one’s role, capacity, identity, or relationships can lead to what we might mildly term as a derailment.  Life will in effect come off the tracks.

So…I wonder how I’m lying to myself today?

I wanted to share with all of you that I’ve been busy as of late writing a variety of posts in my role on the leadership team at The Family Foundation School.  I’m truly blessed to work with such a talented group whose mission is to help troubled teens and their families find a new beginning when things have “come off the rails.”

As I’ve focused my content here over the last six months on the topics that are most interesting to my personal journey and growth, it’s been an interesting endeavor to apply all that I’ve learned over the last two years from a business perspective on behalf of the school’s web presence.

“…and the white knight is talking backwards…” The Jefferson Airplane

I asked “can you point me toward Camelot? I’ve heard the round table might yet be restored.”

At first the man hesitated, then added “perhaps, if only in our dreams.”

I shuddered at his dismissive tone and chose instead to join my daughter on the carpet, wooden toys in hand. The need to remove Excaliber from the petrified attitudes that darken our days is feeling like an overwhelming task being yet again postponed, put off on the next generation, and by example, those that will follow them.

Dare not let our dismissiveness breed dismissiveness…

“Perhaps what matters in our life’s development is not that we reach a goal of perfection buth that we expand our field of awareness as much as possible as we follow the path of our problems.  Perhaps what matters is not so much the reaching of a goal but the conscious journey on the labyrinthine path.” Edward Whitmont, The Symbolic Quest, pg. 307

Somewhere during the last two years I ran across the expression that “our problems are but the toys in the sand box.” While I can’t trace the source, this snappy little quote has stuck to me like a burr nestled into a sock after a walk in a meadow.

As of late my challenge has been to gain acceptance with the behavioral patterns of avoidance that can seemingly turn every goal on it head and lead me astray from my intentions.

From another perspective, these changes in direction can be seen as a needed compensation for the gradual unfolding of wholeness.  How can one know one’s tendency to avoid if not through the consciousness of its occurrence.  So back and forth, side to side, in and out, and back and forth again.

But to follow the winding path mindfully, now that opens up something of completely a different order.  Fused into the experience of the here and now is a real game changer.  In many ways the goal I thought I was seeking is no longer around the next corner.  It joins me in the shared unfolding.  Regardless of direction, being present, …let’s call it presence, yes?  Presence is the sought after, after all…

“Fairy tales present images of soul. For this reason it is recommended that when reading a fairy tale you not give yourself over to immediate critical reflection. Do not allow yourself to be irritated by seemingly “impossible” absurdities – for example, the transformation of a frog into a prince in “The Frog King.”. Rather, open yourself again to the world of these images and give yourself over to their effect on you. They speak for themselves…” Theodor Seifert, Snow White, Life Almost Lost, pg. vii.

As I journey along the various boundaries of the unconscious, I find the above advice to be not only fitting for reading fairy tales, but for encountering the wider life that Jung has coined the symbolic life.

Such a perspective has the powerful and unsuspecting ability to challenge our strict modern consciousness with an inversion that at first can be startling. The world again comes alive with the beautiful colors of the imaginal.

The following maps this wider inversion analogically: “Fairy tales, then, do not depict individual life histories or experiences; rather, these life experiences can be fitted effortlessly into the structure of fairy tales.” ibid, pg. vi.

Where will you find some inversion today? And what question have you for the mirror, mirror on the wall?

I had my first Shakespearean moment back as a junior in high school when I was struggling my way through King Lear and came upon the words of Edgar:

“Men must endure / Their going hence, even as their coming hither; / Ripeness is all.”

These lines have been interpreted in a stoic way, emphasizing the drudgery of existence, the need for ‘resignation, fortitude, suppression of emotion.”

It’s funny how the alchemical power within the image grabbed hold of my young imagination. Instead of stoic fortitude which seems to stress waiting for the storm to pass, these line has always held out a powerful message of hope for me.  Within our struggles to find ourselves and/or meaning, the need to persist against and endure would be meaningless if it were not for the ripening that is occurring.

Like fruit, the soul thrown into the storms of life gradually matures until that exquisite moment of ripeness occurs.

Have you bitten into a perfectly ripe pear recently?