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

DREAM: SHOE LACES ..march 21, 20109edited september 3, 2011)

I was at the Harding Graduate School Of Religion(Now named Harding School Of Theology.). I have never been there but always wondered if it is a stimulating and creative place to study the Biblical record. It is a Church of Christ  institution in Memphis. I've always been aware that it is on Cherry St. which is the street of my childhood address in Alabama. I was sitting with my brother Gene on the front seat. He was concerned about a bad rash on his feet and had his shoes off. I was suggesting some kind of home remedy for him to try. The man from the School stood up and was welcoming us. I kept wondering if I had met him years ago but was not sure. He seemed rather cold and aloof. Then, much to my surprise, he mentioned me by name as being present and he told a story that I felt was pure fabrication. He said, " When I first met Jimmy Hibbett I asked him if he was a Hibbett Sporting Goods person who sold converse shoes? Then Jimmy, seeming to not have understood me, exclaimed ' I'll tie your shoes.' "

 REFLECTION: I can't help but see a repetition of some archetypal gospel material.  John the baptist is pictured as saying, ' Im not worthy to even unloose his shoes.' So 'untying ones shoes' was an act of  humble service the dream has me saying I most eager to do for others.  The 'tying of shoelaces' is also  a sign of service bordering on 'washing one's feet.' I was attending to caring for my brother's weary feet. Also the kind of alarm shown by those Jesus congratulated for attending to the needs of 'the least of these' comes to mind. I am startled at hearing my name and without any thought suggest that I will be glad to ' tie a stranger's shoes' if that is needed. I guess the dream is intended as an encouragement that in some ways I have 'unknowingly' identified at times with these timeless archetypes and modes of service. We all have our good moments. It is always dangerous and surely not truthful to claim or think that anyone in all ways and at all times perfectly demonstrates such positive archetypes of good behavior and innocence. I think we make a grave mistake by believing that  even Jesus did. As soon as we do that we give up much of the potential of being 'like him'. For example we destroy the possibility that he could also experience, as I did in the dream, doing good of which he is unaware, the whole point of the 'serving the least of these' story that he told. Only humans can have that nice experience. It is very important to me that Jesus was, in that way and all other aspects of the human experience, just like us. By letting Jesus be truly human we still honor him and his amazing enlightenment and we also make our connection with him more real and effective. Only by his being fully human can it best and innocently happen that 'The Christ' in practical and unrecognized ways  'live in us.' To me, this is a Bible School lesson, based on the gospels, presented by the dream source. I guess the dream is also saying, It's OK(despite the gospel story that warns of thinking too highly of oneself) to 'sit up front', especially if you are hard of hearing or have hurting feet.

Harding School Of Theology

The dream scene being at a prominent place of my religious heritage which I have never experienced is of interest. I have found need and reason to discard significant parts of my religious heritage and even of the broader orthodox views and interpretations of the Christ story. Perhaps the dream is reminding me there are many good and wholesome things in my heritage that I am not at all aware of. My guess is I would be  appreciative of the Religious Department of Abilene Christian University as I  would of the Harding School in Memphis, but I certainly do not know that. The dream acknowledges that I can be grateful and even proud of many aspects of my religious heritage. That is after all where I became familiar with and formed through the treasured gospel stories that are hinted at in this dream. Jim

DREAM: GLORIOUS MANDALA, SYMBOL OF THE SACRED...march5, 2011

I was standing in front of a very white bright wall. on it was about a six foot perfect colorful circle. The circle was filled with bright  pastel colored areas that showed all movement toward the center. These were like glass gas lights and the bright white background light was shinning through them.  I knew it was lighting me up also. It was a beautiful sight. Voices were calling me to leave but I refused. I feared if I turned away from the light it would leave and I did not want that.

This Mandala Is Similar To The One In The Dream

 REFLECTION: This is a mandala. Jung  concluded such figures  are the most dynamic of any symbol of the Self, of the Sacred. I've had many many mandalas come to my consciousness via day and night dreams. Mandalas have been perhaps the most common  stained glass and painting  designs in places of worship through the centuries.  This is not by accident or just a pretty design when it arrives spontaneously to human consciousness.  Such designs are found all through the ages across all cultures, religions and in modern day dreams. Jung found them to symbolize the goal of  human spiritual/psychological development.  They are a product of the collective unconscious and demonstrate our human need for beauty, order and to have the conscious opposites of human to find the path to be united and whole again. Here are some examples of famous religious mandalas: 

Tibetan Mandala , 17th century

Notre Dame Paris, 13th century

Strasbourg Cathedral, 14th century

For several years after Aug  1985  I spontaneously drew mandalas nearly every day. It was a very therapeutic activity. It did not feel like it was 'me' doing the drawing or look like anything I had ever done before. These just rather came out of me.  I was doing that both years that I taught school in  85-87. The one in the dream is unlike any in my previous dreams or drawings. The kind of colors and the shapes inside of it are new to me. It did  not have straight lines inside. All the lines are  circular curves,  like puffy and cloud shapes. And the colors run the full range  of the visible spectrum from violet to red. Interesting that this dream comes on transfiguration Sunday.  Today's sermon was on the transfiguration and the  'glory of God.'  The mandala well parallels how most of us imagine the brightness around Jesus in that story. And my response was to be  mesmerized and speechless. I surely did not want to leave this 'glory.'  

DREAM: SNAKE AND GRADUATION.. february 12, 2011(edited september 2, 2011)

1. I am holding up a six foot long rattle snake by the tail. It appears to be dead. 

2.I am in a large graduating class.  I am on the top row second from the right on bleachers. We are in black robes. We are waiting to move to another area for the ceremony. I am called away to clean up some kind of mess. As soon as I leave for this task the whole group is instructed to begin moving to the new location. I realize I may not be able to catch up with them and still have my place but I know I have to take care of the 'mess' regardless.

Adam and Eve and Female Serpent at Notre Dame in Paris. 13th Century

REFLECTION:

1. One of the first 'visions' at Park Point in NW Houston in August 1985, was of an Adam and Eve figure. They were together holding the living serpent in their hands. I was captivated at the sight and noted how different this is to the Genesis version of Eden. They seem to have the snake under control. I thought of the snake as female more than male.(I've just this moment  noticed that this 13th century image at Notre Dame in Paris shows the serpent as female. This no doubt was consciously done by males seeking to further implicate the 'female' in the 'original sin'. They may not have anticipated that instead it can strongly support  the importance of 'female wisdom'. ) Snakes have been an ongoing appearance in my dreams throughout these years. Sometimes very threatening and nearly always frightening. Most often the snakes have actually been harmless in the dream. The more ancient religious myths suggested the serpent as a symbol of Wisdom and that is what it claims, however negatively interpreted, to be in the Genesis  Story. 'She' pointed the couple toward a higher 'wisdom' which could only be had through the dangerous adventure of becoming more fully conscious and thus more fully human. The Eden story stresses Adam and Eve separating themselves from an arbitrary command of God but fails to show clearly how necessary this courageous step was to become more fully the humans that God placed in them to potentially be. This is the great paradox of the Eden story that has unfortunately usually been interpreted only half way.  Orthodoxy  has totally demonized the serpent along with the woman in the Eden story and our cultures have been the poorer for both directions of thought. I realize that this process of initial demonizing was politically necessary  for patriarchal male interpreters. But it is way past time that we revised that kind of effort to exclude such  'feminine wisdom' and certainly to fully accept Woman as Man's mutual partner as well as an essential half of the image of God.

This water snake reminded me of Eden while fishing  recently. 

 As a child I recall a 10 foot rattlesnake skin that was mounted on the old Florence. AL courthouse wall. I was reminded of this recently on the Remembering Florence Facebook page. A picture of it was posted. I once watched my uncle kill with a shovel a large five foot timber rattler at Bailey Springs , our lake place when I was a teenager. Ironically I heard the cry 'snake , snake' from the hill top where my uncle was challenging the rattler while I was intentionally looking for a water snake I had seen earlier that day. I was stunned by this 'coincidence.' This was a strong example of  what Carl Jung  termed as 'synchronicity.'

 All of this to suggest that the Serpent is a very living image in me and likely all of us at a very deep level. It is one that startles but it is also one that needs to be included and embraced. It needs to be carefully handled and enticed to give up its secret Wisdom. No doubt the story of Moses' rod turning into a snake indicated that the Egyptians would take this as a man who had access to Sacred Wisdom. The dream description says the snake 'appears to be dead.' I doubt that it is. As part of Sacred myth and psychological life the snake never dies. It will always be resurrected. An ancient image is that of the circular snake eating its own tail. The serpent has to do with that which is ageless and even suggests eternal life. In this dream I felt very comfortable holding the snake and was not joyful at the thought of it being dead. This shows I know at a conscious level that the Serpent and what it represents is very important to psychological/spiritual wholeness. My Houston image was indicating that it requires both man and woman to harness Wisdom. This can mean the external wholeness of mutual biological man and woman. It can also mean individuated personal wholeness that includes man or woman finding and making conscious their interior counter sexual aspect....'anima and animus' in Jungian terms.

2. I'm pictured as one who has met the requirements for graduating along with many of my peers. Here is yet another dream speaking of my being at the 'end' of a process or stage of development. I am 68 years old and have survived three heart attacks. So I would expect to be nearly my final psychosocial/spiritual state of mind. But I am held back from the ceremony that recognizes the achievement. This is because there is a 'call' for something that is more important for me to do. I've never been big on graduation ceremony. I did not attend either of my Master Degree graduations. I guess I felt there was something else I preferred to do which I considered more important. But ceremony has its important place . It helps individuals and their communities  have a sense of 'mission accomplished.' There are times when we need to pause and 'see' from where we have come and to appreciate all the forces and persons-human, psychological and Sacred, that have made the project possible. I do presently feel somewhat 'up in the air' in my outer  life. I'm not sure what the 'mess' is that needs to now have my attention. I have a basement 'mess'* still going on which is highly symbolic for what has been the activity of much of my adult life at the inner/spiritual/psychological level. But outwardly and inwardly things for me seem quite settled. Such dream images like this have little challenging effect on my inner Spirit,  until I give them reflective attention and 'spend time' with them. I could panic now for fear that I am missing the 'ceremony' of completion that my peers are headed to without me. But the dream cautions me to simply do what is in front of me to do. Today that likely means to " cut some studs out of the basement wall so the men can have room to grind the floor to place the I Beams and dewatering system", do a 'thorough house cleaning' , go to 'fitclub for exercise', Complete my order of a refurbished High Def. TV for my bedroom. These are the external 'messes' for me to attend to regardless of what others may be doing or may expect me to do.

Another 'snake dream' on this blog named 'Snakes Not All Bad' is found here:
 http://jhibbett.blogspot.com/2011/11/dream-serpents-not-all-bad-april-22.html

*Note: Since this dream I have managed to fully take care of the mess in the basement. It is now structurally sound and little chance of water ever seeping in again as it has for 35 years before. I wonder if putting so much of my inner life material on the blog is also a part of the 'mess' I needed to clarify and take care of. I notice I have nearly 90 posts now. Together these give a good overview of the spiritual/psychological development I have experienced over the past three decades. September 2, 2011 Jim

DREAM: GOOD WORD FOR CLERGY and CHURCH...april10, 2009

 I'll try to capture the  main images. It is having little meaning to me initially. All of it has my presence as an ordained but hesitant pastor. In each sequence I have the thought that all of this is a very strange world to me. I’m at a convention of church people, mostly clergy. We are in a large gymnasium type building. Most of the time I am sitting high at the top with others as spectators. The program  never got started. I was trying to hang a green and white religious banner on the wall behind me. It kept wrinkling and falling. Finally I sort of got it placed. At one point I was trying to get back up to this same place. Once I was hanging precariously from the wall which had iron cleats to hold and step on while climbing. I was aware of my thumbs condition and that this was very unsafe. For a short time I was embarrassed that I was only wearing underwear and a t-shirt as I made my way through the crowd.

Then while leaving with this large mass of people a blind man reached out and held on to the front of my coat for guidance. I recalled that the same man had done this before. He recognized me and took liberty to use me without asking. I mumbled something awkward like, ' needing a little guidance?” which I then felt was a crude thing to say. He was quickly done and at his destination. We both said a farewell.

Help Them To Bring Us A Genuine  'Word From The Lord."

Then I was with a small group of young clergy in a home. I felt I had been here once before (I think I've had a dream of this before). They were all quite human and dressed in their robes. Some male some female. I was aware and somewhat marveled that there are so many bright and normal people who want to be pastors. They really want to stand Sunday after Sunday and give sermons to a group of local people who still have a significant need and place a high value on them for such services. I was most positively impressed with one of the female pastors. She was very pretty in her designer robe. She was bright and confident and I could sense was genuinely caring. I thought, 'it would be good to have someone like her for a pastor. I bet she knows how to preach the gospel well'. One of the men was big on 'personal evangelism.' He was talking about us all going door to door. But I noticed he was all plan, paperwork and theory. But I never saw him leave to actually do it. But he was very pleased with himself.

A final image was a monstrous square empty warehouse. I or at least my eyes were in the upper corner looking out over the expansive hollow empty building. It must have been many stories high. It was empty and someone asked 'how many chicken and beef dinners could you put in here?'

REFLECTION: I’ve not the energy to try to make much sense of this. It elevates my conscious evaluation of the importance of pastors and the role they serve. It confirms that I am a reluctant clergy and am in strange waters as an ordained person. At least I occasionally am of some help to a fellow traveler , like the blind man. I show enough good sense to observe and not be always expressing myself in such settings. 

Reaching For Jesus' Cloak

Without my understanding of the nature of 'archetypes' I would be embarrassed at the references in recent dreams where I am pictured in a similar 'role' as Jesus in the gospel stories. For example the blind man(a frequent image with Jesus in the gospels) is  clinging to my coat. This is surely a spin of the archetype of  the bleeding woman who touched Jesus' cloak. It seems the dream source wants to make clear that archetypes of the Collective Unconscious are  always breaking into our dreams and outer reality and are potentially a part of every person's behavior. This awareness offers another way the  Christian theme of  'being like him' can be realized and understood. I felt a real strong liking for the one female pastor which made me know how important female presence is whether as clergy or not. I felt protected when in my underwear. It was like no one really saw me in my nakedness. They were focused on other things. It seems to say we need not be embarrassed of our weaknesses nor our wounds. We are sometimes 'covered' from unkind forces or people who would  use these as a way to attack. And we should do the same for others. We all need to have 'each others back'   as a strong value. The warehouse image seems  hopeful  that goods and services are being prepared, most likely for people in deep need for them. I think perhaps it is for such 'good works' that the churches are most needed in today’s world. But relying on 'private' programs should never be used as an excuse for not changing political policy and systems to insure that our country takes seriously the needs of the poor and marginalized.

There was nothing in the dream that seems to picture clergy in any full and total grasp of the message they are charged to bring, the gospel.  Surely  how the gospel message of any faith is to be translated into any given situation is something that clergy must search for on an ongoing basis. It can never become a task that  we can do it like our forebears did it.  For clergy it is also true that one  'must work out his/her own salvation with fear and trembling.'  Also, the banner I was hanging up had no clear words or understanding on it yet  indicating uncertainty about  the form of the gospel message seeking to unfold in me as well. There was an exception I noted, the one clergy woman I sensed  'knew how to preach the gospel'. I'll not try to say anything more about that but I am glad it is there. Overall the dream encourages, without over estimating, the role and purpose of the clergy and the churches, mosques, synagogues etc that sponsor them. As long as there is religion there will always be clergy to help as guides, visionaries and hands on ministry, that is  if religions are to stay alive and in touch with the archetypes needed for their own time.. And clergy are just as much at risk of getting lost from the needed  message as their hearers. But hopefully some  among them will be able to find and  speak a genuine 'word from the Lord'.

DREAM: MAKING WAR...december 3, 2009

As I begin recording this I see no value or any way it promotes or improves my conscious perceptions. I mention this for this is so typical of dream material. As was mentioned in the previous dream , dream material often at fist appears as trash rather than anything that aids in one's perception of the presence of God.

DREAM: This was a military training dream. With several others I traveled to an Army base to receive training in the use of very large long range guns. I drove myself and another participant there. We managed to pass the place up, called in for directions and then circled back to the guarded secure sight. I crossed a wide river to finally get there. We were told to just follow directions and not work hard to understand, just do as we were told. No one was mean or harsh with us. One my former elders at Clear Lake Church o f Christ  was a key person there. He and the rest were dressed in army camouflaged fatigue. There was some mention that we may stay in some civilian homes for the evening. One of those possibilities was at the elder's  home.I went  there knowing there  was nothing to fear. At one point we were picked up by army personnel and rode on open small tracked carts into the underground gun area. We were introduced to the actual guns. We were given a small lens apparatus that we attached to the gun sight. I managed to crack a lens cover but it was replaced for me. I could see in the very far distance across the water the target area we were to shoot at. I hardly let myself think that the purpose of all this was to kill other humans at that target sight, probably without ever actually seeing them face to face.

ASIDE: David Rhode wrote in The New York Times [December 12, 2001] about the bombing of the village of Mowshkheyl in Paktika province.  At 4 a.m. on Sunday morning , December 9th , the American planes struck just as families were preparing the daily predawn meal that is part of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. A day earlier, a group of "Arabs" had passed through the village on their flight from Kandahar. The bomb released hundreds of smaller bombs that sprayed the area with shrapnel, reported Bibi Hawa, aunt of a 6 year old girl paralyzed by the attack, hospitalized in Ghazni. The girl, Palwasha, has a tiny shard of metal which neatly severed her spinal chord. The girl's mother, Rose, was struck by shrapnel which tore through her abdomen. The hospital doctor spoke about other injured dying. Thirteen people were killed and more than 40 were injured, said Bibi Hawa.

Bibi Hawa and her 6 yr old niece

REFLECTION: As I reflect I am still quite at a loss to see how or why this dream asks to be taken seriously by the conscious mind processes. I will stop at this point and come back to it later. It is obviously about something that represents the most inhuman activity that is so common not only in ancient barbaric humanity but right now among the most educated and supposedly enlightened humans and nations among us. This is about the premeditated , high cost, high tech effort that humans are making everyday to kill each other with as little conscious thought and regret as possible. This is about war.

Interestingly, the dream does not show any horrors of war with the bloodshed and screaming of raped women and burning children. The dream is much more the way most of us in the West experience war. It is planned, supported and positively heralded by respectable kind, innocent and even very religious people. Prolonged war can probably only be continued by a culture who has turned off its full 'understanding'. Well meaning people have to cross a very wide 'river of unconsciousness' to get to and maintain the 'stomach for war.' We are truly told to not seek to 'understand', just get in line and support our righteous cause. It is essential that a full description of the 'enemy' never be attempted and to be strongly repressed. When supporting war we wear 'camouflage' in order to prevent ourselves from being fully conscious of ourselves and our willingness to kill our fellows. Religions are frequently a strong supporter of the inclination to war. I was in a large southern Baptist church during the prelude to the Iraq war. As 'America' was sung by the choir beneath a cross pictures including x15 fighter jets were shown screaming across large screens. No doubt hearts surged with patriotism as if Jesus had given the command. 'Let's go kick some Iraqi ass.' The Old Testament stories featuring a warring Jehovah when taken literally and without the discriminating intellect become solid anchors for making war with the 'infidels' or those 'gone whoring after other gods.' No matter how evil some individuals have become , even their leaders, it is still regular people trying to live this human life on whom war is waged. That means it is for the greater part very innocent men, women and children who are being killed. The poorer the nation the more likely the more innocent is its general population. War can only be sustained by staying unconscious of the daily life of the actual enemy. We don't have to look at the target but can sit with cozy friends 'across the water' and make plans to pull the trigger. The 'lens' through which we could become conscious gets broken and that is all the better to those who must keep the war going. War is truly an 'underground' activity for it depends on keeping oneself and ones countrymen in a continuing state of blind unconsciousness.

Interestingly there are no females in the dream.. It is ultimately love not war that is the goal of the 'anima.' So she is totally missing. Somehow it has become from the beginning the male psyche that is most able to suspend consciousness and find every noble reason to make war. Perhaps the experience of childbirth places into woman a greater consciousness that humans are humans no matter who their mother is. What have forever been considered 'female' dispositions which include nurturing, peace creating, meaningful compromise, transcending selfish tribal boundaries easily become lacking in human males, especially when they are functioning as a group or team. There has always been and still are men who are genuinely happy warriors. General 'Patton' in the movie stands on the still smoking smelly battle field and describes the human horror that has just transpired. He pauses and then confesses, ' My God I love it.'

The great fear of seriously being a non-war person or nation is that 'just because we withdraw this unconscionable activity in no way means the enemy who desires our death will ever take such an attitude.' So we must get him before he gets us. This is why it is so hard to 'pass up' the opportunity to make war. So far humanity, including America, always 'comes back to it' as a primary way of relating culture to culture. The U.S. president George W. Bush put in motion an attitude of the the 'right to initiate unilateral war' that has never existed as policy of our nation. He soberly told Congress and the nation, in the long build up to the Iraq War, invoking the image of a mushroom cloud that, ' in these days we must attack the potential enemy BEFORE he has attacked us. We must be willing to make the pre-emptive strikes on Potential Enemies. This is the only way we can have a safe America."

The dream suggests the place to start in making the world less instead of more war prone is like all other threatening matters of evil: become consciously mindful of what war really is , of who and how it really harms. Stand ,in your mind, in the humble homes of the ones your guns would kill and 'see' the innocents weep over evil that they have nothing to do with destroying their lives. Stand at Dover, as the President recently did, and see our service personnel bring back the bodies of young men and women. Men and women whom we have sent with the words, 'please kill them for us." Since Viet Nam it has become harder and harder for Americans to wage war because of increased consciousness but those gains can be lost if the real images of that war and present ones are not kept at a higher place of consciousness than we now seem willing to face. People who live 'across the water' are literally one trigger pull away. Drone, unmanned planes, deliver bombs on selected sights in  Afghanistan and Pakistan month after month by a human trigger finger in Nevada. And  the average American  does not give it a serious thought or have  any serious negative feeling.  To wage war without weeping  is a thoroughly inhuman activity and can only harm our souls and that of our powerful and beautiful nation. This truly shows that on-going  war requires the 'collective unconsciousness' of those who wage it.

Mass Burial Of Civilian Casualties Of War.

Like every true advancement in human spiritual evolution a less war torn world begins with those who are willing to look at the reality of war honestly for what it is and does. To literally 'hold it in consciousness.' That honesty will make it much harder to make plans to pull the trigger and to instead  begin the virtuous genuinely determined search for ways to solve conflicts between nations and religions before they become war. That must be an essential possibility if the human species is to survive long into the future. Jim Hibbett

DREAM: MOTHER AND EROS...april 17, 2010

1. The dream begins when I with some family am walking through a nursing home. An old woman with us falls to the floor and dies. It is not an endearing sight. We seem to feel very little warmth toward her even as she takes her last breaths. Then on a T.V. screen a very pleasant endearing face of my step mother, who I called Mama Gene, appeared.

2. A finger drew, like on a sand board, a vertical rectangle. Then the finger drew a horizontal line across the rectangle making two squares. It now looked like a window.

What do I choose to see?

REFLECTION: This dream I find so unpleasant to work with. The first dream feels very dark and shadowy for the first part of it. The face in the T.V. sharply contrasts with the dying woman. It brings to my mind an aspect of my childhood that is very unpleasant. I did not have a positive attraction to my step mother. I don't think I blame myself for this as much as I just wish I could have felt a stronger attraction. It seems like the chemistry was simply not there. I was thirteen when Daddy announced to his family he had found a new wife. I was caught by surprise for I had never met her until he had decided to marry her. His conversation with me about this left me with frightening and lonely feelings. I had not emotionally identified with women well following my mother's death. Aunts and sister in laws had been around me but I did not accept much affection from them. I was surely experiencing confusion and sadness. I was still very much grieving my mother's death.

The dream is making me more aware that I did not identify Mama Gene's physical self, her human body, as emotionally inviting or attractive. Most would say that she was a pretty woman but I had no sense of desiring or pleasantness about touching or being touched by her. I know that is different than how I had experienced my mother. I can recall liking to lay my head on her lap and her touching me with her hands and hugging me.

Me and Mother and oldest Brother, Rufus

 All of that seemed to leave my world when she died. What I am now realizing is that what was missing was Eros, one of the aspects of well developed love.  I had experienced Eros but associated it with only one woman, my mother. Fortunately  I was bodily connected with my Daddy. His physical being was a pleasant sight and I easily hugged him and accepted his affection.  So I am grateful that  Eros was appropriately alive in  my relationship with him. Of importance I recall the night mother died that one of the first things Daddy said to me was something like, " Life will never be the same for us. But  I will try to be both father and mother to you." That reminds me that for several years Daddy would don an apron as he cooked and served me oatmeal each morning for breakfast. I'm confident he was fulfilling that promise to me and am sure he never wore an apron before or expected to. He also put my bunk bed in his bedroom for several years after mother died. He did an outstanding  job in my opinion.   Im sure he was hoping  my and Mama Gene's experience would be very positive for both of us. The lack of Eros in what 'should' be a close familial relationship is I think somewhat of an empty or 'death' experience, or was for me regarding my stepmother. It certainly interfered  with the other aspects of love, such as Philia, being experienced in our initial relationship. It resulted more in a toleration of her presence rather than an enjoyment of it. It restricted the amount and quality of eye contact I offered her.

The first part of the dream has helped me see that the discomfort I had with my step mother was the absence of Eros. Once, my Dad asked me to try to be more appreciative and connected to her. I was relieved that it was observed and acknowledged that I was not feeling warm to her but I sensed there was little I could do to change that. I did, after a few years, come to appreciate her but it remained more a matter of will than of heart. I 'knew' she was a good woman and did many good things for me. I increasingly chose to express gratitude and to include her, but more for my Dad's happiness than a feeling of Eros toward her. I think I am saying something here about my own shadow even as a very young man. Our barriers to love are always a part of our shadow side. My behavior and lack of warmth toward her was not fair and likely caused some level of suffering for her. I am not proud of this reality.

Daddy, with Mama Gene's approval, received  a 10 year old girl Nancy  as a foster daughter when I was about 15. I also was unable to identify positively with her at a body visceral level. Her physical presence also was not a pleasant experience for me. I now know the missing element was again Eros. I feel even worse about this. I first acknowledged my rejection of her after my 'visions' of '85. I did my best to get word back to her then that I realized I had not been receptive to her being in the home and that I deeply regretted it. I had been given the opportunity to have a sister but had been unable to enter into that relationship in ways enjoyable for her or me. If anyone would have reason to not like me, she is the person. I gave her nothing to like. I can best explain that by the lack of Eros making its presence known and available in my heart for her.

The T.V. screen image of my step mother was one that makes her seem very attractive and warm. I am drawn to it in a way that I was never drawn to her actual bodily presence. It gives me a contrast of the difference in Eros being active and present or not. If I had 'seen' her in real life as I do on the TV of the dream I would have been drawn to her physically and we would have had a more joyful experience. A 'screen or window' has much symbolic meaning in dreams. It generally signifies the possibility of 'seeing' reality in a more fully conscious way. It means the opportunity to move into another world view, to become more enlightened, to even be 'born again.' Given another opportunity to live with a new mom or sister I would be open to looking for and willing that Eros make its appearance in my heart. As a child I knew of no such possibility or potential to hope for. I do not blame myself and certainly not these two female persons but I am sad that it could not have been different.

I recall what I now recognize as the presence of Eros after my mother's death. Daddy and I visited my mother's sister and her daughter in Raleigh , N.C. This was a few months  after mother died. I was ten and my cousin was 16. I totally enjoyed her physical presence. I thought of her as very pretty. I liked that she enjoyed sitting near me. I paid appreciative attention to her female body. On an outing she would have me wet my crew hair cut and she would rub her hands through my hair and make the water spray. I loved this interaction and I loved being close to her physical self. I enjoyed the way she smelled. This is truly Eros experienced. My own Eros was being engaged and active. If I had been a little older I would have experienced this as sexual attraction no doubt. I remember hoping that my Dad might marry my aunt and Ann would be daily in my life. I recall when my brother arrived on the scene, who was about my cousin's age, I was jealous that the two of them were hitting it off. I was not as much in her interest as I had been without him. I'm glad that I had that experience of Eros with Ann my cousin. She had been named after my mother Anne.

Being clearly aware of how Eros feels before one is sexually aware demonstrates how 'innocent' Eros is in and of itself. And Eros should continue to be experienced as such innocent excitement in the physical bodily presence of another. When this is with a beloved adult partner it becomes expressible in overt sexual ways and ideally is charged with the same innocence as the Eros experienced by a child. Unfortunately Eros gets contaminated and warped by the influence of Western culture and religion. This turns Eros into something that becomes sex as power or sex for the sake of sex. Pornography, as customarily experienced and promoted  in Western culture, is evidence that Eros has been corrupted, denied and lost its connection with pure innocence. Eros can lose its innocence and fail to stay united and guided by Agape and Philia. Eros in harmony with Philia is genuinely welcoming and playful. Uncorrupted Eros does not use its strong power to tease but to delight, in itself and its beloved.  Eros with Agape will motivate a lover to, 'Climb every mountain, ford every stream, follow every rainbow' and as necessary  love its partner 'pure and chaste from afar.'

Eros keeping its childlike innocence is what makes it spiritually and psychologically possible for present day lovers to reenter the Garden of Eden. The innocent Eros of Eden is possible where lovers are very conscious, as mature adults, of the presence and meaning of Eros in their own inner experience. Genesis accurately describes Eros as being mutually  'naked with no shame.' Such lovers  know well  the difference between 'good and evil.' and they will know for sure, unlike much of our culture, that Eros is  very good. To them most moral issues that  presently  face humankind  are not ones that can be codified by 'thou shalt or shalt not'  but require the conscious and intuitive practice of  embodies love and justice  in all human relationships. Where Eros abides with Phileo and Agape humans  are more able to 'look through the window'  into life with fully open and conscious eyes.

'Belshazzar's  Feast'  Painting  1635, London

The second dream is again a window. It is drawn by the ' mysterious finger' which is another symbol of the unconscious that usually refers to a foreboding communication from the Sacred. This image implies a strong warning is included in the message of this dream. The book of Daniel in the O.T. describes a dream where the 'finger of God' writes out a message to King Belshazzar. It is called the 'writing on the wall.' In my dream the finger draws a rectangle, then it turns this into two squares. The 'squaring' of something is a reference to the process of moving toward healing and wholeness and completion. (This is the Jungian 'individuation' process. Jung did not invent 'individuation' but only gave a name to the process of development he saw demonstrated across all areas of human life: culture, religions and individual dreams.) The 'windows' in the dream are clear and clean as if waiting and asking the dreamer, "What do you see? What is the view of life, of God, of humanity, of love that you are going to step into and make your own?" It may be specifically asking me what I 'see' in the previous dream. Do I see death or life? A world where humans acknowledge and anticipate Eros or where Eros is denigrated and pushed underground? I have tried to explain above what I see in that dream. What I think is the message for me. The second dream is granting some confidence in my sense of being able to 'choose' what I see in the window. It is not telling me what I should see but warning that what I choose to see reflects the real content of my heart and the meaning of my life.

The essential message to Belshazzar by Daniel's interpretation was that 1. The days of his kingdom were ending 2. He has been weighed and found wanting 3. He was guilty of a 'divided' kingdom.

The dream is asking me to then search my heart and try to see something through the window that Belshazzar failed to see. If so the message can be a blessing instead of a curse and the verdict be : 1. Your 'inner kingdom' is worthy of service to others for many days 2. Your inner attitude is one of solid balance, neither side too heavy or light... and  3. The opposites are united, not divided, in your inner world. It is advising me that I should 'see' carefully. I recall Jesus' similar warning , 'Take care that you see with a single eye." I think that it was not possible to fully see mature Eros in ourselves and others until our era. We now, unlike our forebears and unlike me as a child with my stepmother and step sister, can look through the glass, not darkly but clearly, and see love in ways that have not been evolutionarily possible before. Will I and will my culture consciously seize this opportunity that offers to improve the quality of human life forever?

This is a very heavy, but hopeful, dream contrasting two very opposite experiences I have had resulting in contrasting kinds of reality. The dream is parallel to all those stories where the human is asked to 'choose which way you wish to go.' Joshua said to the Israelites, 'Choose you this day whom you will serve.... Choose life or death.' The unconscious presents me with a similar choice that fits my situation, and possibly, if this an archetypal dream, the situation of my culture in general. That choice is: "Choose openness to Eros or refuse and chastise Eros. Honor Eros as an essential aspect of love along with Agape and Philia or denigrate and push Eros out of consciousness, repress it as our forebear’s have so often done."