DREAM: WELCOME...june 12, 2010(edited september 3,2011 and sept. 15,2011)

A new high quality building was being constructed in place of an old depleted one. After the well constructed building was completed, I insisted that the new door be made to look like the one on the old building. I was wanting to make sure that people who were accustomed to coming to the old building would know they were still welcome at the new one.

Knock And It Shall Be Opened Unto You.

REFLECTION: The archetypal symbol of 'door' is universal in sacred text and also clearly alive in daily living. Our doors are not just objects but each one holds its own deeply felt meaning for us. In scripture Jesus is described as 'our door to life' and as 'knocking at the door of our heart.' I'm taking the new building to be symbolic of the emphasis of my 'new' interpretations and expressions. This dream must be spun by the archetype that also brought us the wisdom, ' you don't put new wine into old wine skins.' As I've made plain the new(to me)  religious/spiritual/psychological  viewpoints I've been led to  are not really new but avenues to realities  that have not fully found their way  yet  as applied  to our post modern world. To my knowledge, nothing  I have related can be called 'new' in the sense of 'has never been' or isn't presently  thought or stated  by others. The only thing, in my perspective, that makes my statement of them carry any potential additional significance  is the 'revelatory' manner in which I was introduced to them. In this way I own the metaphor of being a 'message in a very earthen vessel.'

 I had the sense of 'revelation' well before August' 85 but did not recognize it as such. When I would write a new article for my church bulletin in the early eighties one friend half-jokingly would ask, 'Are you sure you wrote that?'  And at times I felt in some significant way I had not been the full author. It was a 'revelatory-type' experience that placed such psychological works as 'Love and Will' in my hands and even Elton Trueblood's spiritual 'Man For Our New Age.' Also Paul Tillich's 'The Courage To Be' , and a book entitled 'Seasons Of A Man's life' where I first saw Jung mentioned. My first  specific exposure to Jung( I read of his anima concept.) were experienced like 'revelation' well before I could name such experiences. I believe this kind of 'revelatory' experience is rather common but in our culture often not seen for what it is. One unusual 'introduction'  I experienced like that more than any  is the ancient Chinese book of wisdom, the I Ching. The timing was just right for each of these and others. They somehow appeared just when I was needing what they offered. I think this can be a common experience people have when they know they are in a genuinely 'yearning' or  'learning' mode in  personal or professional life. Exactly what the person needs is somewhat 'revealed' to them in such a natural but numinous way.

I now see such reading of specific authors was preparing my internal 'wine skins' so I could more likely 'hold' the 'new wine' that would come to me through more extraordinary means beginning in mid August 1985.These 'vision' like experiences were the most 'miraculous' toned kind of revelation for me and dreams have been a consistent and ongoing path for such openings into the Collective Unconscious  to me for 30 years. I think during these times I experienced what I can only be called  'miracle'  and 'ecstasy'.

A Natural Scene Can Be A 'Thin Place' Where Outer And Inner Worlds Meet.

And I must stress that at the time it seemed these experiences were what  conservative orthodoxy describes as 'super(beyond or above)natural.'  But as I worked with these experiences and their content I came to better see that such things are a 'natural' part of the human psyche. They come from  the 'Sacred within'  us and are not intrusions  by a ' God from outside' of oneself.  This implies the close and mutual kind of relationship that exists between Human and Sacred.  There is much sense to Tillich's definition of these experiences when he says that, 'Miracle is the Ecstasy of the outer world(I recall Jesus saying  that, in the right circumstances, the 'rocks would cry out') and Ecstasy is the Miracle of the internal world."  And I am quite confident he meant  in both instances these 'Sacred and Transcending' like states of mind, so often presented in Religious text and story,  are fully 'Natural'  and not 'supernatural' ones. To some, in just the right situation and naturally prepared state of mind,  such a natural setting as the picture above has 'opened up to'(revealed)  far more than its ordinary enchantment.  I feel arrogant in saying such things but I'm simply speaking from my own experience and interpreting it as honestly as I can. It is hard for me not to sound somewhat pretentious. I had intended to never speak of such things in public but the blog development is somehow pushing me to take this more risky behavior. No one is more aware of how out of  the ordinary such things can sound than I.

Ecstasy Of St. Francis...1595 painting

With that disclaimer I will come near the close of this reflection. A 'new building' of thoughts and ideas is of little value if people don't see a way to relate to it or 'enter' into it. Again a timeless truth is that such 'new wine will not stay contained in old

Wineskin similar to Jesus' day

wine skins' but be totally lost; so precautions must be taken. C.G. Jung emphasized that a 'revelation or vision' is of little value in its initial raw 'straight -from- the- unconscious' form. Such was the crude beginning of all beautiful symbol , ritual and myth. If the ones receiving and working with such revelation are unable to make it accessible and meaningful to others then it remains useless for society.  Yet when such a connection happens it correctly seems  more like an instance of destined 'fate' rather than any individual's or group's conscious plan.

Jung believed 'making it sensible' to others is the real achievement and that is where failure often happens, no matter what intelligence is involved. 'Revelation' can be experienced by genius, fool or responsible average person; only what is done with it marks the fuller quality of the contribution.  Does this 'new building'  have a 'door' where others feel a  natural welcome to enter it? Or in other words, are the newer archetypes being generated  from the Unconscious matching up with the most deeply felt needs and values of the culture, or at least significant parts of it?

 I have no strong evidence that I have accomplished this 'making sensible' goal with my 'stuff' but it seems I have made a reasonable effort to over these past 25 years. This dream pictures me making that effort. By making the new door look like the old I am seen trying to make the new more accessible to those who are used to viewing the world  from one of the old and fading, though originally successful, social/political and religious/spiritual conventions. It is absolutely true that the same doors that have led humanity into its past sustaining collective  religions and loves  are the same ones that must be entered now to find the new  and more appropriate-for- our-time  ones. For all such doors lead to the deep  archetypes of the Collective Unconscious. 

I intuit this possibility for our day but see only spotty evidence of it being yet broadly  accomplished. It seems more like  where there is sensitive consciousness,  each culture and  religion and each individual is experiencing  the labor of the birth of a new level of consciousness and none of us  has a fully clear picture of what a changed and new world might look like. We live in a time of unparalleled need and anticipation of greater wholeness. May we each find a welcoming door to that new place.  Jim