Welcome to a poetic and philosophic blog about the struggles of life and relationship.

“The ambiguity of life exists in every creative process. In every creative process of life, a destructive trend is implied; in every integrating process of life, a disintegrating trend; in every process toward the sublime, a profanizing trend.”(Paul Tillich, Ph.D., from The Meaning of Health, 1981)

Life cannot exist without the essential possibility and existential reality of death. Life is impossible without the daily, chaotic struggle against death... against the unremitting threat of entropy and nothingness. As Tillich again informs us, “Life must risk itself daily in order to win itself, but in the risking it may lose itself. A life which does not risk death--even in the highest forms of the life of the spirit--is a life poorly lived." This willingness to risk ourselves for greater life is the key that opens the door to the wellspring of creativity deep inside of us... that wellspring of transformative vitality that propels us through the struggle of death into the richness and renewal of new life.

"Creativity is 'the elixir of life' that heals and transforms life. Through the creative process we enter that 'sacred place,' that zone of evolution where the world lights up to itself as we light up to the world. It is here, in that 'holiest of holy' places that we are reunited with the waters of the wellspring of creativity, The Source of the 'River of Life' from which all creative energy and vitality issue forth to be manifested as new life. Through every creative act, life fulfills itself. Through every creative act, we transcend the mortality of our separate ego-self of I and enter into the realm of immortality to become one with our contextual self as Thou, as a self-realized collaborator in creation. Through creativity, we are delivered from the chaos of illness into the dynamic order of new life."
(P. Donovan & Herb Joiner Bey from The Face of Consciousness, 2006)

Please join me on this courageous venture of life and "enter into the realm of immortality," the realm of dialogue and relationship by poetically sharing with this community, your struggles to live... to "nullify the unremitting recurrences of death" through the continuous recurrence of birth. Through dialogue and relationship, the Face of consciousness is seen, recognized and witnessed. It is your Face, my Face, the Face of all life, the Face of our God. Thank you, Patrick.


Tuesday, June 8, 2010

the passage of time

but there were things
That covered what a man was, and set him apart
From others, things by which others knew him. The place
Where he lived, the horse he rode, his relatives, his wife.
His voice, complexion, beard, politics, religion or lack of it,
And so on. With time, these things fall away
Or dwindle into shadows: river sand blowing away
From some long-buried old structure of bleached boards
That appears a vague shadow through the sand-haze,
and then stands clear,
Naked, angular, itself.

- from "Trial and Error," H.L. Davis

This shows up as the Preface in the Oregon State University Press 1998 edition of William Stafford's "Down in My Heart - Peace Witness in War Time," first published in 1947.
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Tuesday, June 1, 2010

The Gulf "Shadow" Spill

"Man's task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious. When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Carl J Jung, Ph.D.

Oh, the metaphor of it all... the uncontrollable and unstoppable spewing of our own dark "shadow stuff "(oil) from the deepest well of our emotional collective (the waters of the Gulf) catalyzed by greed and empowered by the chronic suppression culturally of our collective unconscious (the shadow) for many, many years. This whole Gulf oil spill is the result of our failure as a collective consciousness to look at our shadow and give it voice. Hence, we are now forced to look at its ugly face through this metaphor. From this, we will witness the "black, tarry" nature of the egoic construct of our collective human psyche (represented by "The Corporation" or BP) squirm like a worm in the light of the sun and evade accountability and responsibility while thinking only of its own survival and gain at the cost of many lives and echo systems. As this all unfolds and as the "black tar" of our egoic greed washes up on our beeches and devastates coastal economies and echo systems, know this: IT IS YOU... IT IS US... IT IS OUR OWN SHADOW IN ACTION AS A COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS... AS A SPECIES. It just looks like oil and acts like a profit hungry corporation.

We will pay the price for this for a long time and we will continue to pay this price so long as we maintain a cultural "matrix" of deception which does not allow us to participate openly and compassionately in the shadow side of our existence. We exist as both Light and dark. When we do not integrate these two and ignore one for the other, we deceive ourselves with half truths failing to see the "wholeness" of our being and the universe. This disempowers us... makes us impotent as individuals and as a community. It makes us "herd-able" like cows as we project to the outer world (corporations, governments, saviors, religions, etc.) our power and allow those to whom we give that power to control us.

Aren't you feeling that powerlessness here in this situation? Do you like that feeling? If not, ACT and do something about it! Take your power back and face your own shadow side... the mythological dragon that needs to be faced and slain. Then, let's slay the dragon of our own cultural shadow together!
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