HOW CAN SO MANY AMERICANS IDENTIFY WITH CULTURE-DESTROYING VALUES?..January 20, 2024?

My comments are from my and, I think, a Jungian perspective. Deep in our collective human psyche, mostly UNCONSCIOUS to us all, are 'archetypes' which are energized images, stories and patterns of ancient human attitudes and behaviors. These energies have forever historically been able to possess(strongly unconsciously effect human personal and collective attitudes and values) persons and whole groups of persons. This is nothing new and comes with great cultural changes in epochs, say every 2000 years. Such changes can be overall good or extremely bad.

 

Rioters attacked police & the U.S. Capitol Jan 6, 2021; physically threatening the vice president and others. Assembled congress persons hid for their lives.

Neagatively, such disruptive collective posession often involves a hyper egotistic charistmstic personality who claims he alone can make everything better, just trust and follow him. 

Because this process is truly UNCONSCIOUS one is not aware it is happening to oneself and feels she/he is fully in control of their own choices and decisions. 

No one escapes this possibility happening to them. So it's essential persons be intentionally conscious and at least aware that there IS, fully proven by Freud in a somewhat negative way 100 years ago, a REAL and active unconscious dimension working in us all personally and collectively. This is our human condition for good and bad. 

Vigilant awareness is our best protection against possession during such upheavels. We are in such a time Jung believed. During such times we are all likely to negatively project (transfer) our own unconscious 'shadow aspects' onto others, assuring ourself with dogmatic certainty that we know who the real devil is in all this.

So we might should have some empathy for those who appear to have become significantly different than they used to be in a culturally destructive and sometimes over-excited and unwarranted optimistic way. 

Wisdom would say to always remember it 'can happen to me' in various unexpected ways. Our ego's resistance to respect, BELIEVE or TRUST in the reality of the Unconscious assumes we, by our ego self-willing alone, can live purely rational/balanced lives. This misguided belief, with no credit or recognition given to our own irrational behaviors and attitudes, is the greatest present enemy to a healthy sustained American culture. Such a one-sided view sets us up for our own lack of a more genuinely unbiased/objective cultural attitude. 

And we might find ourself lining up with many others who would unintentionally crush the most positive aspects of American ideals with its collective goal of a 'checked and balanced' democratic life for all our neighbors, here and beyond.

Such a personal 'wholesome' psychological/spiritual balance is most needed, desirable, and I think still possible, in these ominous days. 

Best wishes to us all in our transitional troubling times.

THE MANDALA AS AN EXPRESSION OF THE DIVINE...January 19, 2024

My art efforts are like a second grader; I'm no artist. But during a difficult life transition I drew many mandalas*, sometimes using colored pencils. I often started with a circle and maybe some spokes to the center. Later I learned to draw a hexagon and then an octagon to begin. After getting that foundation I just let my hand continue -as if on automatic pilot, not by any ego designed plan- to fill in detail as it emerged. No rush, just being there with it. 

I became aware the ego tries to take over the drawing process and make the design. So I resisted that by relaxing and releasing any expectations of the outcome.  Jung believed this was a channel through which the Unconscious expressed itself. Sometimes I was unsure if the product was the ego's doing or something larger and unconscious to me? For what it's worth, I came more and more to trust it was what Jung calls the all-embracing Self representing its state through me. Neither dreams nor creative  mandalas seem like something my conscious ego would have ever thought or planned.

**

I found it a therapeutic and settling activity and often it changed my conscious attitude. It can be a welcomed centering experience. I may have spent an hour at times, as it began generating more detail, repeating a design throughout the containing edges. There are often many repeating motions and I try to always be consciously aware of the outer boundary and the center. It feels, in the end, like something 'whole' or 'complete' has been created. 

Best wishes if you try drawing your own mandalas. It's safer, as in life, to not take oneself too seriously. It can be a nice distraction and some fun. I do think it should be a very private activity.

*The word mandala means 'circle'. The mandala pattern is used across most religious traditions. It represents wholeness, holiness and all things encompassed by the Divine. It seems mandalas occur very frequently throughout nature and find themselves adorning many famous temples, mosques, cathedrals and ordinary churches.

**This sketch was initiated by a nightly dream. The image was about 'walking in Philadelphia for the first time.' The message was about 'love in the world.' Philadelphia is called the city of 'brotherly love' and is named by one of the Greek words for love -'Phileo' meaning mutual/honest friendship.

A NEEDED CORRECTION IN USING SACRED TEXTS(Bible)....January 14, 2024