DREAM:MONEY AND POLITICS..january10, 2010(edited Oct.10, 2011)

DREAM: I was working on a vegetable farm where an older woman( A matriarch of my Church of Christ congregation 25 years ago.) was my director. She showed me how to harvest broccoli and sent me to a large green house where the crop was ready. She gave me clear plastic bags that were six by four feet. I cut the broccoli and put it into these bags. Then hundreds of other workers arrived, mostly women to do harvest work. They did not find the broccoli they were expecting for I had already harvested most of it. A man looked at my work, approved it and sent it on down the line to be processed.

Harvesting The Good Green Stuff, Brocolli

Reflection: This seems to be a twist on the forever repeating archetype of 'the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.' My task is under the supervision of a woman, so is directed by the psychological/feminine element. This no doubt is a reminder that the archetype of the anima is what has been the primary force in shaping my personal inner development. A reminder here also that as much as I have had to react negatively to conservative religious and political thought it has been an essential part of my developing path. It is safe to say I could not have the views I have without first having the rather ultra conservative experience and belief for the first half of my life. This reminds me that a popular book like When God Was A Woman (which I highly recommend) fails to acknowledge; that no matter how much patriarchy and the Western Judeo-Christian religions can be seen as a 'cause' and a ' blame' for the 2000 year oppression of women, this was undoubtedly the 'necessary' path to the brighter hope we now have regarding equality for women and all other humans. Patriarchy and the accompanying monotheistic religions made possible the eventual age of reason with its daughter- science, and all the amazing knowledge and progress from that direction. Like most any snap shot of reality, whether an individual or a culture , it can always be said, 'this is how it is and how it got this way'. The important task is to understand and to own the process and the result and to better navigate the changes that are happening.

It a sense the dream shows me 'stealing' the whole broccoli crop. This is reference to the 'evil' instinct if nature.  Evil has always been a part of the process of life. One of the new beliefs I have come to is Evil is a necessary, logical and archetypal part of the Sacred, of God. This is how it is. It is how all humans I think experience the world but we feel a deep need to separate God from it. This is perhaps the most serious limitation of the Christ Image. It is 'only light' and has been artificially split off from any harmony with the darkness. The light' is without meaning if it has no 'dark place' on which to shine. It is considered 'all and total good' and thus forces orthodox Christianity into a dualism of God and of reality. All the evil is conveniently laid at the devil's feet.

Orthodox Trinity Painting

(The Trinity was an effort to image a 'One God' world but it did not find any real place for Evil. In our present era this has led to the psychological/spiritual need for a Quaternity image of God which includes not only evil but the feminine and matter as well. Other posts on this blog address that great need of our day with the hope that it is happening.) But post-modern people do not experience evil like that. We know it is not that clear where evil presides and that it is as real a part of everything just as good is. We more experience that Good and Evil are wrapped up in each other and both declare themselves part of an ultra unity that is now being pushed for by conscious and unconscious forces. Only by accepting this high reality of Evil can its destructive ends be better held at bay or transcended. This all leads to the conclusion that in ways still beyond our rational expression good and evil are a part of the ultimate source of all, of God.

I think Obama's Nobel speech was rather accurate in how he acknowledged the reality of evil and that sometimes we have to get our own hands dirty with some evil as we deal with it as consciously and conscientiously as we can. It all depends on what one's heart is truly like, whether one genuinely desires peace, good will and freedom for every human , including perceived enemies , or not. No one can know another's heart but with work one can get close to knowing his/her own.  (It turns out that our 'heart' is not just our ego conscious self but something beyond that, called the 'Self' by Jung.  Our ego aspect, what we generally call 'me',  is not  responsible for that larger 'Self' but can be, and when discovered is charged to be, in  responsible dialogue with it. It is in in that 'Self'  we will see the greater part of the 'evil' with which we have to do as well as the highest 'good' that we bear. Becoming aware of the 'Self' to the degree possible is the most profound  goal of human life.  It is what is being referred to  when Jesus says, ' Seek ye first the Kingdom of God.'  It is the 'treasure hid in a field' and the 'pearl of great price.'  It is the feminine 'Wisdom' of  the Hebrews  and Sophia of the Greeks and others.) I am trusting our president knows his heart rather well. That is not my high trust for many individuals in our time but I hope there are more than I see who now have a 'greater conscious knowledge of good and evil.' This is essential before genuinely moral choices can be made, by a nation or an individual. Otherwise we remain as  fish trying to sit in judgment about the morality of the water

The dream depicts me having a harvest of something that is a symbol of good health, of wellness, of wholeness yet it is something that most people tend to decline and refuse. But some people can be sold on eating and learning to like it once  convinced of how it may add to their personal health. The dream speaks of a society of mutuality where all can contribute and all can benefit from the basic gifts of the Earth. Americans, beyond our military, have yet to really be called on to directly share the physical and emotional  cost of the, mostly self inflicted,  ' war against terrorism.' This is a mockery to our so called 'support of the troops.' If we are going to continue these 'necessary wars' then it is essential  we all help pay for it, those with the most contributing the most. Perhaps a war tax, tax necessitated by two wars, is the place to start?

Wall Street Protests Of Economic Injustices In America, Oct. 2011

The harvest is 'green.' I can say confidently that I have not been motivated in any of my changes in perception and belief by monetary gain. I am very thrifty and conservative in my personal finances. I must confess that one of the original 'promises' that came to me and has been confirmed by the 'collective unconscious' has to do with large amounts of  wealth, not likely personal but real monetary exchange within the culture. It may come under that terrible category that staunch  unbridled capitalists so hate 'the redistribution of wealth'. The O.T. called such radical concepts the 'Year of Jubilee.' Every fifty years the land and wealth was returned to the distribution with which it had begun fifty years earlier. It seems Jehovah was not so sure that any humans should get to thinking too literally that 'this land is my land'. The American Indians are a good example of people who, at least when Europeans wronged them, of refusing to believe that they or any other humans 'owned the land.' These are is not pleasant thoughts to our present day kind of capitalism.

I cannot imagine any avenue where anything that has gone on with me can have any significant economical meaning but I know such has been touched on in 'visions and dreams.' Broccoli is the 'color of money' and the dream indicates that a far more than fair share of the harvest has come 'my way.' (this would be another example of 'me' not as my individual ego but as the larger  'Self'  described above. So we are speaking of matters that are not the work or the results of my personal ego but that which the ego can only become somewhat conscious of, but which is far beyond it.) My rather moderate savings and pension seem are quite remarkable, giving me a rather comfortable retirement potential. I am grateful for that level of material security and know it is far more than most humans enjoy. My 'Cadillac' insurance policy is an obscene extravagance that no one deserves when so many others live with no assurance of good medical care for themselves or their children.

America's most blessed may bring the wrath of the Sacred upon ourselves if we actually fail to end up with a genuinely reformed healthcare and insurance system. If it fails it will be an indication that we do not have an even remote care about the the 'poor and unlucky among us.' We should never then have a right to say we  resemble a genuine Christian Nation in 2010. We have seen the rich become richer by leaps and bounds the past fifty years and it seems the powers that be, whatever they are , are deeply entrenched in our political system to keep it that way. Something must change the meaning of money and wealth in America. Hopefully it will come by the will of a fair and generous people but it will need to come no matter what. Those individuals fighting any serious healthcare reform and those using power to preserve the unjust and immoral status quo, dominated by outrageous fortune, need to be recognized as playing into the hands of real and serious evil . Just watch the news and I do suggest MSNBC occasionally  for seeing the political power dynamics of the country closer the way I think they are. One person in particular is digging up the real stuff. Her name is Rachael Maddow. She is a  very bright, truth seeking, fair minded American journalist in my opinion. I think she may be a modern day Esther who is 'here for such a time as this.' But her cause looks very bleak as I write. I do not consider myself a strong party person. I think both major parties have been part of the slipping of America into the embarrassing spiritual/moral economic decline over decades. Generally it seems that the Democratic party says the correct thing. But their saying and doing are often far apart. And I believe  many of the genuine principles of Conservative Republican Politics are very important to preserve in the new balance the dream describes; including efficient use of resources, simplifying bureaucracy, seeking the genuine moral roots of social living for the post-modern world, and hearing the voices of local communities.

This reflection confirms that there is no way to separate religion, spirituality and morality from politics. One practicality any genuine spiritual belief sooner or later has to be concerned with is: What is happening in his own communities' politics. It is in politics where either a move toward genuine justice for the less powerful is happening or not. I think that has everything to do with spiritual living and likely everything to do with what the ultimate Sacred views as most important. Some of the O.T. prophets had that part right; ' Your tithes, sacrifices and worship are of little interest to me but your loving mercy, seeking justice and walking humbly with your Image of God is." ....very paraphrased.

Jim Hibbett