VANITY, CELEBRATION AND PRAYER

16. 
    
    
       I was reading one of the Bible translations early this morning as I was just getting up… before coffee. I looked in the book of Ecclesiastes and I saw the phrase, as translated, “Everything is meaningless”
           The translation I’m used to is: “Everything is vanity.”
            ‘Vanity’, however, has a connotation that the word, ‘meaningless’ does not have. Vanity is best translated as
    'emptiness.'
             I like the word ‘emptiness’ not just because it has a
    Buddhist resonance.
              “Meaningless’ suggests a search for meaning has taken place.
              ‘Emptiness’ suggests an attempt at self aggrandizement
    has taken place and failed. All attempts to puff up the ego result in ‘emptiness’. This is a lesson people of our kind have to
    learn again and again… learn painfully this lesson many
    times.
                Power and Grace and fertility rest only in
    the  mind of the Creating One, the One who rides  the clouds, the Lord of the meeting rivers, the Lord of Abraham, of Isaac, the Lord of Israel and New Jerusalem (a city rarely  built in the physical world) Lord of Albion and of the Semites, Lord of the gentiles, Vishnu of the Hindu, suchness of the Buddhists, Allah of the Sufis, Lord of all creation: he who makes galaxies instantaneous with making quantum foam - sub atomic particles and waves that we never dreamed of in past centuries.
                As above, so below. As within, so without; as internal so external, male and female as one. The Eye at the core of the burning, unfolding crucible of creation, all glory to Him, the source and the Seed of Life. With the heart of Christ who intercedes for us, who purifies and forgives us with  unending  Mercy.
                 The One who cannot be named, the one with many names,
     the I AM at the timeless point in the midst of time.
                 The Mind at the core of things. The source of all that is holy,
    the bell that rings on the hill, throughout the ages,
    calling men to meditation and prayer.
    
    
    
    
    
    
                                                         (C)2014 by W.G. Milne

THE BEGINNING OF A LEGAL ARGUMENT AGAINST THE DOCTRINE OF "ORIGINAL SIN"

            Certain molecules  carry certain emotions.
The hypothalamus makes these chemicals instantaneously with what emotions the body-personality needs to feel at that moment.
       Think of pleasure, for example. Pleasure
is the great motivator. The universe is built
this way, with pleasure at the heart of it.
Even single-celled organisms feel pleasure.
They consume food because it feels good.
       One way the body feels pleasure is through
"endorphins."  This is the name scientists have
given to a natural painkiller pleasure-releasing
group of molecules.
       We think with chemicals. We discern with
these chemicals and we find meaning in life through the chemical receptors in our brain and other body parts. In a very real sense, the brain is the whole body.
       For example, you're stepping off a curb and a car is coming and you haven't looked both ways:
you feel the car coming with your whole body; you feel the danger with every cell in your being...
and so you don't step out into instant death.
The thinking-knowing process does not just
occur in the head.
       
          Back to molecules of pleasure -  the part
I find interesting is that even a single-celled animal shares these same chemicals, these pleasure molecules.
        So these chemicals must be available throughout the universe, throughout life on earth
at least.

        One mistake that is made is this: sometimes
neuropeptides are described and thought of as
"chemical messengers". But, no, the situation is more basic, more fundamental than that. The chemical does not carry the message.
The chemical is the message.
         And these molecules of emotion are available in the ocean and the earth around us.So the universe around us is really an extension of and
an adjunct of our brain. The same processing occurs within and without.                                        
         To me it's very interesting that molecules of pleasure are built right into the biochemistry
of nature - both animate and inanimate. With help from the hypothalamus, our brains turn the
the world around us into the feelings we have.
        In fact, endorphins (molecules of pleasure)
motivate even the single-celled miniscule
beings.  Pleasure acts as a motivator not just for procreation, but for many other acts that contribute to our health - and the well-being of life
around us on this planet - this planet that is creating itself with so many fruitful gifts of joy.
          So if pleasure is so essential to our being, what amoral deceiver taught us that it was wrong: that pleasure was sin - original sin?
          Without these pleasure molecules
we never would have evolved; we could not
exist at this moment.
          
         The QUESTION I ask is this:  "If pleasure is built into the very fabric of the universe and is the prime motivator  even of single cell creatures, how can we call it  sin? Why would we feel guilt about the very nature of our being?
          It's ludicrous!
          I am highly suspicious about the motives
of certain early church thinkers and bishops, who were very clever men...
          I hope the answer to my question is not:

 "IF WE MAKE THEM FEEL GUILTY, WE CAN SELL THEM FORGIVENESS."  

                 So tell them that what they are is sinful.
Inform the people of this in a very slow and 
subtle way.
                                                    




                                                      (C)2014 by W.G.Milne 

NOTE: This is the second part of the article, "Do infants masturbate
           in the womb?" 

SEX AND "ORIGINAL SIN": DO INFANTS MASTURBATE IN THE WOMB?

           I read an article in a scientific journal a month ago.They had discovered (God knows how) that infants masturbate in their mother's womb, before they are born.
     This got me  thinking about the (in my view) erroneous preaching called, "Original Sin."

SEX AND SIN: DO INFANTS MASTURBATE IN THE WOMB?

        From the earliest days in the nursery, men yearn for their mothers. 
She is the one who bathed him, washed his aroused penis,  
dried him with a clean towel when she takes him out of the 
warm soapy water.
         From infancy, even from days in the womb, the small child
is a sexualized creature.
          Why do I keep stressing this, stressing the
 the earliest sexual urges of young children? I do so
because early childhood is where fetishes are born.
Fetishes affect a person's entire life; they are the obsessions
that move one’s days from beginning to end.
          I enquired into these things first of all because I wanted
to understand myself. So this is how it works. Out of selfish 
beginnings, psychological science emerges.
          Mother stays in the male's psyche all his life, just
under the surface of his public persona.
          On the battlefield, when dying, men often cry
and call out for their mommies.  There is no accident in this.
There is no shame either.

          Yet guilt and shame are the problem. Their entire
lives people feel guilt and shame for sexual urges
they first felt in the womb.
          Many adults feel the need to be punished
for these first “shameful” urges. They need to be
punished for the “sin” of feeling pleasure.
           Maybe an infant is punished for slipping her
finger in her vagina at the age of six months. Or
an infant male is spanked because of his inevitable
erections. He is told his erection is “bad”. So perhaps
the tip of his penis is pinched hard or burned with
a cigarette.
          This then becomes his sexual urge for the
rest of his days… He associates pleasure with pain.
He needs to feel pain in order to allow himself to feel pleasure 
and this fetish stays with him forever. It is a neurosis
which he is doomed to repeat endlessly.
           Neuroses  can be partially cured,
so it is said. They can be cured by kindness and
compassion on the part of the adult-infant’s
partner.
           The difficulty is, most dyed in the wool
fetishists do not want to be cured.


                                            (C)2014 by W.G.Milne

PLEASE NOTE: I don't really care that much whether infants masturbate in the womb or not.
This is not a mere prurient or gratuitous
interest that I have.
       I'm making an argument about the nature of pleasure and the notion of original sin,
which will follow in the next article.

SEARCH FOR THE ARCHETYPES... UNCONSCIOUS IMPERATIVES WHICH SEEK FULFILMENT IN ACTION

ARCHAIC SYMBOLS  UNCOVERED IN PSYCHOLOGY,
 IMAGES  FROM THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS ...

AUTONOMOUS, HIDDEN ARCHETYPAL IMPERATIVE
WHICH SEEKS FULFILMENT IN ACTION

 The flood is one such archetype
which we are aware of...out of our
collective pasts. We are aware of the flood
through creation myths, so the image rests
in our shared psyche as a past remnant.
The flood archetype does not contain an
imperative because it is past.

The mother, the child,  trickster
the wise old man, are other such
archetypes, fundamental images.


                The flood is one such symbol from the past,
past image from a creation myth, commonly shared
by most cultures.

But.... the apocalypse archetype....battle of  Armageddon..... 
UNCONSCIOUS IMAGE, 
AUTONOMOUS HIDDEN PATTERN..
  

AUTONOMOUS, HIDDEN
ARCHETYPAL IMPERATIVE 
WHICH SEEKS FULFILMENT 
IN ACTION 

This is an unconscious image we all share, especially
we in the Christian world... AN IMAGE OF THE END OF THE WORLD, WHICH INCLUDES THE BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON.... an unconscious ARCHETYPE
 AN AUTONOMOUS IMPERATIVE
WHICH SEEKS FULFILMENT
      IN   ACTION
          
              I was sitting in a quad at the University. It was
five A.M. I had taken to walking around and seeing
the sites of the old buildings during the night.
           I didn't sleep so well anymore, so I wanted
to settle certain things in my own mind. I had gotten
to the bottom of a number of issues, mysteries that could be solved, and discussed them and solved them in various articles and essays.
          But there are other mysteries... And now I was getting to the point that if I didn't understand something, well,
I had come to know that some mysteries remain
mysteries. 
               There was no point in digging more
deeply at certain aspects of reality, because
there are existences in this world that
will never give up their secrets.

                    I have been looking at the mystery
of Archetypes.
           Symbols and archetype.
              Once again I was confronted with
something that could not be expressed
rationally. Rational explanations
will never work when you are dealing
with symbols.  Symbols are used to
express matters that are too deep for reason,
matters that are true at the core of humanity,
patterns that exist beyond birth-and-death,
universal archaic patterns and images that
derive from the collective unconscious...
            (The flood pattern is one such archetype
that, I suppose, we can say has been actualized
because it has been related repeatedly as part of a
creation myth....)

autonomous and hidden forms... universal archaic
patterns, images that derive from the collective
unconscious

      I was having fun writing this article, cracking some jokes.... tho I knew I didn't have it quite right.
So I looked at some old notes and saw this
next passage:  *********************************
ARCHETYPAL IMPERATIVES
WHICH SEEK FULFILLMENT IN ACTION
   original patterns =  arche -type 
psychic equivalent of instinct (actions done unconsciously)
 FROM Collective Unconsciousness  
                          AUTONOMOUS AND HIDDEN FORMS
unconscious imperatives  that exist from beyond the grave.
            Archetypes are unconscious imperatives
that seek fulfilment in action... For example marriage,
the mother, the flood... AND THE APOCALYPSE
IMAGES THAT EXIST IN THE UNCONSCIOUS
             AUTONOMOUS, HIDDEN
UNCONSCIOUS IMPERATIVES WHICH SEEK
FULFILMENT IN ACTION.....APOCALYPSE
                          BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON
army from the north
army from the south
army in Israel               
       and what was concerning me that night
was that "the apocalypse" might be one such unconscious
archetype...  which was seeking fulfilment in action....
   (doesn't it seem to you that we are unconsciously
fulfilling the conditions of the world's end
as expressed by revelations.... leading towards the
battle of Armageddon..... does in not seem
that we are fulfilling the conditions
of this unconscious archetype of war
      Once again the fool archetype came
to mind, the Fool as expressed in the
Major Arcana of the Tarot... Wait a minute,
the Fool is expressed as happily stepping
forward off a cliff!            

              ***********************************************
                   I was in a good mood and I was
writing a lighthearted article as follows:
             Archetypes, how to elucidate that which
cannot be explained?
               For example, think of Circe. She's
the goddess who turned Odysseus's men
into pigs.
                I've known women who can do that, too!
But to be fair - a lot of these men didn't have
far to go... Some of these men were pigs
to begin with! She's an archetype.
               There is also the woman with
snakes in her hair. Her names is Medusa.
One look from her and she'd turn you
to stone. She is a deep semi-conscious
image that has it's terrifying aspects.
                 I mention Circe and Medusa, because
these ladies are not just symbols. These women
embody  archetypes. I intend this article is just the beginning
of several articles on symbol and archetype.
                Think of an archetype as being a
transcendent human entity that exists in the midst of a
circle of symbols. Symbols we only half know
the meaning of...

                Other archetypes can be said to be
 the Hanged Man and the Fool, cards which exist 
in the Major Arcana of the Tarot. These are symbols which represent transcendent  aspects of human life.
  
              We live in a world of symbols,
symbols that speak to us beneath the
rational level of thought.  Who was it
who wrote the book, "Psyche and Symbol"?
That's a good place to start. Oh, yes,
it was Carl Jung.
               Carl Jung was a psychiatrist.
He studied with Dr. Freud for years.
This is a gross oversimplification,
but in Freud's experience, most psychological
matters could be traced back to early
childhood fears and desires. Most things
can be traced back to how the young
person experienced or repressed
sexual matters.

This is how the lighthearted article was
going to go:                  see below
***************************************** 
             " Now Freud and Jung lived in a time
when cocaine was legal. And Freud used
cocaine quite a lot in his analysis of patient's
problems. No point in beating around the bush,
ho! ho!
           Freud examined many psychological
matters and many patients...He analyzed many
patients when his understanding was fueled
by cocaine.
              If you take enough cocaine, your mind
starts to be obsessed with certain aspects
of sexuality. I have written many, many pages of erotica,
 fueled by cocaine. Trust me
when I say that cocaine eventually causes
you to become sexually obsessed.
                     I think we're lucky that Freud took
so much cocaine. He lived in the Victorian
era, when nobody wanted to confront sex.
In people's living rooms, often the ankles
of tables and chairs were covered by cloth.
Scarves were wrapped around the ankles of
chairs  because ankles were seen to be too
sexual to be shown in polite society.
          S&M really blossomed in the Victorian
era,also, as sex was so repressed  canes and whips
had to be used in brothels - to help people
get in touch with their feelings.

             So no doubt Freud needed drugs
to confront the sexual realities that are the
core of many neuroses. In those days, especially
in Britain, people did not want to slip their
arms into a snake barrel, all the way to the
armpit, and feel what was moving
at the  bottom of the  barrel.
             Even in North America, in the present day,
no one really wants to put his/her arm deeply
into the snake barrel of sexual issues. But
sex or the repression of sex fuels much of human
motivation, whether we want to believe it
or not. There is no point in avoiding this fact.
Freud was absolutely correct in much of his
heroic work.

            It is said, in North America, "The sexual
revolution took place in the sixties." Well, yes,
this is true to some extent. It would be more fair to
say this: "In the sixties  many taboos were shaken
loose" And also to say: "The sexual revolution
began in the sixties... It is still just beginning."
        
             The sixties scratched the surface of many sexual issues. And those people who jumped right in and delved
more deeply into sex - I think it's fair to say, these people
were not taking notes.
***********************************************************************************************
       Then I started reading one of my  older notebooks, in which I was discussing Carl Jung's view of archetypes...

                Carl Jung split with Freud, because he
wanted to explore the unconscious mind. He had
noticed that certain symbols kept recurring
in analysis. Not just in analysis, but all over the
world, certain symbols kept recurring in thought
and in politics.
              The works of Frazer, his "The Golden Bough"
helped inform Jung back in those days when
he was assembling his notion of the Collective Unconscious.
               
Note: For our present information, see also Joseph Campbell's books on mythology.
("Primitive Mythology"  "Occidental Mythology")
Also, it is worth consulting the work of Otto Rank.

               Carl Jung   got his hands on
one entire Codex from the Nag Hammadi Library
It is now called, "The Jung Codex." The lucky
bastard!  Right time, right place, right mind!
               Once he got his mind into the early Christian
gnostic gospels, those gospels that had been
excluded from the Bible....Jung's psychological thought and
theory of the "collective unconscious", his thinking grew.
His thought in general  quickly matured after 
reading the Gnostic materials from the Nag Hammadi.
                Carl Jung's Psychology thinking was entering
 the realm of the mystics, being conditioned by those in search of Gnosis. Jung was headed that way all along,
but upon reading the Gospel of Thomas, growth took place
in Jung's mind.
                It was a criticism by other psychiatrists
that Jung was engaged in "mystical" thinking.
                They said that as if it was a bad thing!
               
                 When I re-read Jung's theory
on Archetypes in my notebook, this 'fun'
article took a downward turn into the
dark places of the unconscious...places I would
just as soon avoid.
             The phrases I quoted in large print
at the top of this article, come directly from
Carl Jung's theory of the Archetype and
the Collective Unconscious.
             Once you read Jung's thinking
about the archetype and you apply it
to the mostly unconscious apocalypse archetype...
you will see, as I did, that the Christian
Armageddon Archetype can be a very dangerous
form of "thinking making it so."
              The whole notion of creative visualization
can apply here. We can make Armageddon happen
with the mostly unconscious power of our
own Archetypal Thinking.
              Are you with me in this? This is scary
stuff and a serious matter indeed. Think of the
words Jung uses to describe archetype, which I have quoted above.

AN AUTONOMOUS     HIDDEN IMAGE
                              

AN UNCONSCIOUS COLLECTIVE  IMPERATIVE
WHICH SEEKS FULFILMENT IN ACTION

Now apply these words to

APOCALYPSE-ARMAGEDDON ARCHETYPE 

           You'll see why this silly, fun article took a
dark and serious turn.
           Towards the end of his life Carl Jung
had a series of nightmares about the end of the world. This was just before the Second World War.
           The same archetype seems to apply today.
            It's something to think carefully about, no?















 Bibliography
______________________
Carl Jung, "Psyche and Symbol" and later works
Fritz Pearls, "Gestalt Therapy Verbatim"
Sigmund Freud's writings on the causes of neurosis.
Elaine Pagels, "The Gnostic Gospels"
  Edited by  Robinson,  "The Nag Hammadi Library"
Robert Graves, "The Greek Gods"  especially the endnotes
Also, see "The Major Arcana" of the Tarot re: archetypes

ZION DREAM: MAGDALENE AND APHRODITE

ZION DREAM: MAGDALENE AND APHRODITE

       
        I believe in spiritual love


         the love of the one


          whom we keep denying...


           denying the existence


            of the One  we


             embody


                      *


                      *



            I believe in sexual love


             the cruelties and the


               mercy of the Goddess


                Aphrodite


                        *


             I am not sure which is higher


             spiritual 


              or sexual love


              and I don’t care which


              is higher


                       *


              She has taken


              every part of me


               cock and balls


               soul and heart


                         *


                 I have given you


                  all my songs


                          *


                  I am left standing


                   on the shore of the beautiful


                   River Lethe


                    watching the shades


                   race past


                         *


                    chasing what?

                    the corruptible?

                    feeding on what's left
                   
                    of the flesh?


                            *


                    I have nothing more to say


                    about higher or


                     lower love…


                    
                     there is divinity


                     at every turn



                               *


                    blindly in the dark


                     I feel my way


                     towards you


                             *


        









                             2




              feeling towards

                          
                    the glow of your embrace


                             *


                     moving blindly


                           feeling my way


                                  in darkness


                              *         


                     guided by the warmth


                            of Your smile.


                      


                            *


                           *


                           *


                           *


                           *


                          3


                 *


             thru us


                    the mind of the


                             creating One


                                      arises 


                    *             

                 through us

                     the earth comes

                             to know 

                                   herself.


                        *


              as  we learn to laugh


                    and dance


                          with the stars


                     *


              twirl and dance


                      the stars reside


                               within us


                    *


                 rubies are hanging

                                from the trees.


                       *



                                            (C)2014 by W.G.Milne

I DON'T SMOKE THE SWEET HERB, UNLESS...

 reblogged moon-medicine

I don’t smoke THE SWEET HERB much unless I’m near the ocean, looking at this picture, having sex, milking a cow,driving thru a rainforest, in a boat with the smell of tarps, eyeing a substantial well-formed woman’s ass… or… or drinking overproof, canoeing down the Big River, howling with the wolves, or writing this brief hello

14 notes