An Ancient Form of Uncivilized Wildness

Jung said that: “Psychiatry has turned the Gods into diseases.”

Unfortunately Jung and most Jungians have turned the Gods (and Goddesses) into archetypes: named and minutely described denizens of the collective unconscious that we can have an 'as if' relationship with at weekend workshops and schmooze with once and a while in our dreams.

Please don't make the mistake of underestimating the spiritual dimension of our human birth-right as you enter your own shamanic vocation.

In my experience, behind every image, thought and word, there is an emotion first. Behind every emotion there is a universal archetypal power and emotional energy that must come forth as imagery that expresses that deep emotion. Behind every archetype is a totally autonomous living force of deity that has no historical bounds, no time bound form.

These ancient and emerging deities, that use our lives and bodies as their playgrounds and every second hold us in sway as they incarnate themselves in us, ever emerging anew, arise out of a greater unifying mystery of benevolent silence.

Weep for the prophets and so-called psychotic visionaries who are robbed of their life giving gifts from the Gods by our culture of fear and human arrogance. And weep for us that we still treat them as lepers when they are, and always have been a divine source of the mana we need to survive on earth. (read full article)

Michael Cornwall Ph.D, 2010

The Icarus Project

Intra-Species Predators

A Warning from the Ancestors: Psychopaths in Folklore and Fairy Tales
Thomas Sheridan
thomassheridanarts.blogspot.com
Sun, 20 Nov 2011 07:51 CST

Recently, I received a message from a someone who read Puzzling People and they asked me this question: "Why are ALL fairy tales about psychopaths and psychopathic behavior?"

Mythology and folklore are really an early form of psychology. In a pre-scientific era - it was the only means by which average people could anchor their frustration and warnings to others regarding the Consciousness Parasites and other pathological predators within the material world - without having to rely exclusively on supernatural-religious concepts such as demons, succubi and so on. This was probably to avoid charges of witchcraft and blasphemy. So rather than deal with purely religious motifs - from around the Middle Ages on - the psychopath entered into the world of children's fairy tale. (read full article at Signs of the Times)

Dayum - I loved Rumpelstiltskin!

....and what do you do for a crust?

That's Australian for 'what do you do for a living? What's your job?  For some years, whenever I am asked what I do for a crust, I have to suppress the wicked urge to reply: "I steal them from the ducks in the park!" because not everybody gets my sense of humour and they think I'm being a smart-arse.

Which I am.

Then they suspect I'm trying to make them look stupid - and with some people, they don't need my help. They're doing just fine all by themselves; and as stupidity is a kind of protection against impressions one cannot deal with; heck, I'll admit to being a tad envious of that bovine banal intelligence.

Just a tad.

But back to what we do for a crust and whether or not there is a scientific connection between breadcrusts and curly hair, there is certainly a connection between what some people did for a crust and ovens.

Will we ever Break the Chain?

The phrase 'banality of evil' relates to the fact that tens of thousands of ordinary individual people were complicit in the Final Solution. Many of them could not be charged with war crims later because they were just doing their job, just following orders, or just responsible for a tiny link in the chain. They followed orders mechanically and without questioning them. Consider the simplification of the chain:

Person A: I simply had the list of Jews in my municipality. I did not round up the Jews but I did pass this list on when requested to do so.

Person B: I was told to go to these addresses, arrest these people and take them to the train station. That's all I did.

Person C: My job was to open the doors of the train - that was it.

Person D: My job was to direct the prisoners on to the train.

Person E: My job was to close the doors, not to ask where the train was going or why.

Person F: My job was simply to drive the train.

[Through all the other small links in the chain that led to......]

Person Z: My job was simply to turn on the showers out of which the poison gas was emitted.

The path to Auschwitz was paved with indifference

- Ian Kershaw

Indifference.

White Astrid Rose

   ...why do you allow these men who are in power to rob you step by step, openly and in secret, of one domain of your rights after another, until one day nothing, nothing at all will be left but a mechanised state system presided over by criminals and drunks? Is your spirit already so crushed by abuse that you forget it is your right - or rather, your moral duty - to eliminate this system?

So................what do you do ..for a crust?

Quiet Birds in Circled Flight

I departed from Newark Airport in August 1996. My parents drove me. Jenn, who later became an anarchist, met me there to give me first class upgrades. So on my way to Phoenix I luxuriated in a large grey seat and later felt embarrassed about the “First Class” ticket on my bag. In Phoenix, we stayed in a house. I met Harmony there and we became friends. Harmony spoke about the patterns in the landscape when viewed from a plane. She was talking about the big picture

I explored Cuernavaca with all my senses. I walked. I took photographs. I bought postcards and I sent them to NY. I wrote letters. I included deliciously monotonous details in each letter. I watched life. I lived life.

I took a taxi alone through Mexico City to a hospital for a urinary tract infection. I spent the night in the hospital. I received 2 Iv’s of Ciproxin in my veins. The next day, I traveled to Oaxaca with my visiting mother. I spoke Spanish when my mother and I rented a hotel room in the Centro of Oaxaca City. I sat across from her at a restaurant on the Zocalo. I drank a papaya smoothie. I smiled for a photo. I held the straw as I drank. I did not buy chapulines, the hardened carcasses of grasshoppers.

I boarded a bus alone to the coast. I paid 24 pesos. I shared my oranges with the women on the bus. I marveled at the winding road. I drank in the green of the high territory between city and coast. I sat and sat for hours. I arrived in the evening to Puerto Escondido. I saw the Mexican Pacific for the first time. I stayed in a cabana on the beach with a woman I met on the bus. I fell asleep for the first time to the sound of the ocean. I paid for the cabana.

I adorned myself with necklaces. I pushed silver hoop earrings into my ear holes. I slid bracelets up my arms. I tied pieces of my long hair into tiny buns. I fastened each bun with a clip. I listened to myself doing these things.

Sourced from: munchess

Talk to the Hand: Vicarious Trauma

Few people in the general community give any consideration to the complex occupation of sign language interpreting. Demands placed upon interpreters other than those associated with languages (linguistic demands) include environmental, interpersonal and intrapersonal.

Few interpreters recognise the insidious development of vicarious trauma as they interpret in emotionally charged settings such as mental health consultations (diagnostic and ongoing), legal appointments, court appearances (Children's, Family, Magistrates, District etc), police interviews, and the gamut of general medical appointments.

Close and prolonged work in settings where the interpreter is repeatedly exposed to crises of various kinds - interpreting an abusive interaction between family members in a counselling situation, conveying the doctor's prognosis that the patient has six months to live, assisting a police officer and medical staff communicate with a person who has been pack raped - can have serious psychological consequences for the interpreter.

Not only is information interpreted often very sensitive and linguistically challenging, the interpreter has to deal with their own emotions and how they react automatically to the situation at hand.

The following is a quote from a paper written by Carmen Valero-Garces - Emotional and Psychological Effects on Interpreters in Public Services.

"Experts also consider three levels at which the signs of being under psychological or emotional impact are visible. These levels are: physiological, cognitive, and affective. The most perceptible signs on a physiological level-as all of us probably know-are high blood pressure, chest pains, headaches or backaches, nausea, etc. which can be accompanied by antisocial behavior, insomnia, a change in appetite, consumption of alcohol, tranquilizers, and other drugs. At the cognitive level, the most perceptible signs are confusion, bewilderment, paranoia, feelings of guilt, suicidal tendencies, or recurring thoughts, lack of concentration, etc. At the affective level, the most perceptible signs are: sadness, anxiety, irritability, fear, and shock.

The consequences derived from working in these strong emotional contexts are also categorized into three types: those related to the profession itself, to the workplace, or outside the workplace.

In the professional context, emotional alterations can produce the psychotherapeutic transference-counter-transference phenomenon, anxiety and stress, mistaken perceptions, heart problems, as well as the burnt-out syndrome (which include symptoms such as disillusion, lack of motivation, apathy, physical and mental exhaustion, loss of energy, and frustration). In the workplace, the consequences are: increased absenteeism, a tendency to leave the position and/or the organization, a smaller role at work, and a rise in interpersonal conflicts.

Outside the workplace, the consequences are often problems within the family relationships, isolation, and effects of the 'vicarious syndrome' ('vicarious traumatisation'). Blair and Ramones (1996: 24) describe this phenomenon in the following way: "The endless stories of violence, cruelty, exploitation and atrocity; the emotional impact of experiencing another's terror, pain and anguish; and the continual exposure to the darkest aspects of the human condition can produce symptoms strikingly similar to the post-traumatic symptoms of their patients."

Interpreters need to be aware of the effect of vicarious trauma together with other related concepts such as compassion fatigue, burnout and work stress.

Interpreters who are informed about vicarious trauma and who actively maintain a balanced personal and professional life are in the best position to provide an ongoing quality interpreting service with minimal risks to their emotional health.

More interpreter training in basic psychology regarding core concepts such as stress management, dealing with anxiety, understanding how empathy and self esteem can be effective 'tools' when faced with emotionally challenging situations, would assist interpreters maintain a healthy emotional state.

Close all doors behind you as you exit

Burning in a lake of fire is certainly one way to spend one’s eternal damnation.
But Jean-Paul Sartre had a more insidious suggestion.

The three recently deceased characters in Sartre’s play “No Exit” discover at the outset that the afterlife for people of their questionable character consists of nothing more threatening than a French drawing room with inconsistent valet service.

No sweat.

But what if you had to spend infinity in a room with people seemingly chosen to drive you optimally batty?
The characters in the play await their torturers, little suspecting that they are meant to torture one another.

Sartre didn’t draw his notions of hell from the Judeo-Christian tradition. He was one of the most well-known atheists of the 20th century. Sartre was a proponent of existentialism, which stresses – among other things – full personal responsibility for the consequences of one’s acts.

Thom Hofrichter, First Presbyterian Theater minister of drama, said he believes the play has a lot to say to modern Christians. Hofrichter says Sartre alleged that “existence precedes essence,” meaning that humans have no essence when they are born. They exist first and then establish their essence through the choices they make.

We live in a time, Hofrichter says, when words seem to speak louder and more persuasively than actions.
“In this society, people give themselves labels and then their actions contradict the label. People call themselves ‘compassionate conservatives’ when their actions are anything but compassionate.”

The characters in “No Exit” have no place to hide when the toxic chemistry of the three forces self-reflection.

Joel Scribner, First Presbyterian Theater production manager, who is actually directing Hofrichter-as-actor this time around, says there are too many instances of situational morality in today’s society.

“Murder is bad, but it is OK if it serves the oil industry,” he says.

Hofrichter says one of the ways modern Christianity fails its adherents is by making it too easy to absolve oneself of responsibility for one’s actions.

“There is a misuse of the saving power of grace,” he says. “It reminds me of an Emo Philips joke:

‘When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bike. Then I realized that the Lord doesn’t work that way, so I stole one and asked him to forgive me.’ ”

Hofrichter says words – no matter how powerful, seductive and oft-repeated – should not free a person from fearless self-assessment or transform harmful acts into just ones.

“You shouldn’t be able to call yourself the Environmental Protection Agency and rape the land,” he says.

“We are getting more and more sophisticated about how we lie to each other in this culture. ‘No Exit’ says you are ultimately judged by your actions. What you do is who you are.”

All this philosophizing doesn’t preclude the play from being thoroughly entertaining. Hofrichter says it’s funny, fast and even lusty at times. But it also makes you think, which is not as incongruous as it might seem to some present-day patrons.

Review by Steve Penhallow, fireman lifted from John Paul Sartre.org
 

Paint, Brush and Spirit

"Seasonal Joy" original mouth painting by Natalina Marcantoni

They said I could not paint because I don't have use of my hands. I have proved them wrong! ~Simon Rigg, quadriplegic, Warrnambool, Victoria.

The Association of Mouth and Foot Painting Artists of the World (AMFPA) was founded as the Vereinigung der Mund- und Fussmalenden Künstler in aller Welt, e. V. (VDMFK), in Liechtenstein in 1956. It is a commercial conglomorate of publishing houses that employs artists, who, for reasons of illness, accident or congenital disability have no use of their hands, and who use either their mouth or feet to create their work.

The main product of the company is Christmas cards with motifs painted by the member artists. These cards are sold every year in the months leading up to Christmas via direct mailing in 46 countries around the world (2004). Other products available through AMFPA include postcards, art prints and calendars.

The AMFPA has in later years been the subject of several exposes suggesting unethical behaviour within the organization. The coverage has spurred criticism from charity, consumer and handicap organizations.

In June 2007 the company sued Danish Broadcasting Corporation and Danish daily Ekstra Bladet for libel after negative coverage during December 2005. On October 10 2008 the High Court of Eastern Denmark ruled in favor of the accused journalists, stating that there was sufficient factual basis for statements like:

"Behind the scenes we found a well-oiled money making machine with economic puppeteers, who are scraping in money with arms and legs",

"People think they are supporting a charity, but in reality we are looking at a money making machine" and

"...only a measly 3% is going to the mouth and foot painting artists".

AMFPA has not appealed the decision.

Shop Online for MFPA Christmas Cards

^{MFPA - United Kingdom
MFPA - Australia
MFPA - United States of America
MFPA - Canada
MFPA - India}

^{The India chapter of the association of Mouth and Foot Painting Artists is part of a worldwide art movement that is wholly owned and run by its artists.
Our organisation empowers disabled artists to pursue their creative dreams while earning their own livelihood with dignity and respect. All our artists paint holding the brush in their mouth or in between their toes.}

"Ganesha - Remover of Obstacles"
MFPA artist

 

The Way-Inn

Sabian Symbol
Pisces 4: Heavy traffic on a narrow isthmus
Monomoira: Venus

By the true causeway of imagination
You'll come to your destination.

 

A cause makes a way; a way may require a cause., or provide one.  The word "causeway" derives from the Old English “causey way”, meaning a thoroughfare that has been “heeled” or “trampled” down. A causeway is typically a road raised above surrounding water or wetlands. Causeway" derives from the Old English “causey way”, meaning a thoroughfare that has been “heeled” or “trampled” down. A causeway is typically a road raised above surrounding water or wetlands.

 The longest in the world is the Ponchartrain “bridge” in Louisiana. Singapore and Malaysia are joined by a causeway. Churchill had five causeways built - the Churchill barriers - linking the Orkney islands around Scapa Flow as defense against the German navy in WW2. Dykes in Holland are sometimes also causeways.

Consider the “isthmus of imagination” described by the medieval Sufi master Ibn 'Arabi. For Ibn 'Arabi, imagination is the isthmus (barzakh) between the ordinary world and the world of eternity, between body and spirit, and between being and nothingness.

To walk this causeway requires discipline, practice and discernment. On the way of true imagination, higher beings become visible and intelligible. Imagination has the power “to embody that which is not properly a body.”

Isthumus, Supreme

(Al Barzakh al'Ala). This is the Great Isthmus standing between Allah and nothingness. It is known by various names. Nondelimited Imagination, The Cloud, The Breath of the All Merciful, The Real Through Whom Creation Takes Place, The Universal Reality, Nature, The Reality of the Perfect Man.

Polarity Degree

Virgo 4:

A coloured child playing with white children

Monomoira: Jupiter

Yesterday I was shopping at the NQR Food Market and served by a young woman about 18 or 19 wearing a short-sleeved top which displayed her amazing array of tattoos; body art. She was like that Tattooed Lady at the circus and had a ring through her nose. What I found interesting is that her tattoos were old-fashioned, not the trendy tribal designs and they were beautiful and so colourful. I couldn't take my eyes off the red rose in fullbloom in her forearm. I wondered if she was a performing artist when she wasn't the register jockey at NQR (which stands for Not Quite Right). As I left, I was surprised that she hadn't been told to cover-up: to wear longsleeve shirts as used to be the drill in my youth. Heavy tattoos, face jewellery and other expressions of individuality are considered significant barriers to gaining employment within conservatively-minded workplaces. Clearly NQR is more accepting and doesn't judge a book by its cover.

My natal Chiron is at 4 degrees Pisces and meeting that young woman has given me a completely fresh perspective on these degrees. I am finding that applying Valens' Monomoira correspondences of the classical planets to the degree symbols is pulling me into deeper dreaming with the elemental archetypal energies of the Sabian Symbols.

Resources

Vettius Valens' Monomoira Table - Aux Mailles Godefroy

Almiraj Sufi and Islamic Study Centre, Broken Hill, New South Wales

A Desert in Bloom: A Broken Hill Story - Encounter, ABC Radio National

The Robert Moss Blog

Six Degrees of Separation from Evil to Empathy

Simon Baron-Cohen, expert in autism and developmental psychopathology, has carried out groundbreaking research to isolate and understand the factors that cause people to treat others as if they were mere objects. In his book, Zero Degrees of Empathy (2011), he proposes a radical shift, turning the focus away from evil and on to the central factor, empathy.

Putting empathy under the microscope, he explores four new ideas: first, that we all lie somewhere on an empathy spectrum, from six degrees at one end, down to zero degrees at the other. At six degrees we meet highly empathic people, while at zero degrees we meet the psychopath.

Secondly, that deep within the brain lies the 'empathy circuit'. How this circuit functions determines where we each lie on the empathy spectrum.

Thirdly, that empathy is both the result of experiencing parental love, and the result of genes. And fourthly, he asks an almost unthinkable question: while a lack of empathy leads to mostly negative results, is it always negative?

Full of original research and radical ideas, Zero Degrees of Empathy presents a new way of understanding what it is that leads individuals to treat others inhumanely, and challenges all of us to reconsider entirely the idea of evil.

The above is from the inside jacket cover of Simon Baron-Cohen's book which I have just borrowed out from my local library. Along with Pema Chodron's, Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears and Robert Moss' Active Dreaming: Journeying Beyond Self-Limitation to a Life of Wild Freedom.

An eclectic triplicity of books I know, but you go to a Public Library you meet the Shelf Elf and have backpack, will travel. Since I got a new computer a couple of months ago, I haven't needed to go to the library each day to use their public computers, but I did today and - gosh - it was fun! Broadband and printing facilities and chatting with the Librarians, who were kind enough to say that they missed seeing me. I've missed seeing them too.

I am really looking forward to reading Zero Degrees of Empathy because the subject matter segues into the work that I have vowed to do with this lifetime: to help create a more compassionate world. A vow I made when I was six years old after visiting my mother in a psychiatric asylum - an environment utterly devoid of compassion and empathy. You could cut the fear with a knife and serve it on toast.  As a highly sensitive child and psychically untrained, visiting these environments wasn't all that healthy for me yet I think I must have had a good deal of protection from the Spirit realms when I did.  I have been told that a special grace walks with me and I am living an extraordinarily karmic life, which isn't necessarily negative. I've also been told that I'm one of the rare ones.  I have yet to figure out what that really means and the longer I live, the less it matters. For all I know the person who told me that may have just been blowing smoke up my ring.

The zero degrees of the book title got me thinking about the zero degrees in astrology and whether or not there is an empathy connection with planets and sensitive points at the zero degree. I've read that 0-1 degrees in Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn are extremely critical degrees in predictive astrology: always a jump start, so to speak. I read that at the Joy of Satan Ministries, which is wickedly ironic. A jump start into what though?  Out of the frying pan and into the fire? 

And what about the zero degrees aspect, the conjunction, said to be a Magical angle. Does a conjunction influence a greater capacity for empathy or a potential for ruthless manipulation?  Recently on an astrological forum, a member owned an awareness of their capacity for using and manipulating others; wondered if they were psychopathic/sociopathic/narcissistic because they felt that had all the Dexter-traits of presenting a facade of caring concern, whilst assessing each person in terms of how they could be used, their value in furthering professional and personal agendas. They posted their natal chart: no zero degrees, yet a difficult Cardinal Grand Cross with a twelfth house Chiron and a pesky Leo Ascendant that just wants to be special.

I note that in all the information that has been offered to this person, no one has said "Lighten up, dude, it's just your Shadow. Listen to some Alice Cooper, get some tattoos, wear black and work it". But that's just me.

On the other hand, serial killer Aileen Wuornos has Mars at zero degrees in the Seventh House and Neptune at zero degrees in the Fifth House, with her IC/MC axis at zero degrees. I have a great deal of empathy for Aileen Wuornos, she never had a chance with her upbringing. I did an analysis of her chart a few months ago: Lucifer and Orcus in the first house and Nessus in the twelfth. When she was executed by lethal injection, Saturn was transiting Lucifer, Orcus transiting Pluto, Chiron transiting Mars and Medusa transiting Neptune.

I pray for the soul of Aileen, may she find peace and love in her next life. May the loved ones of her victims find peace and forgiveness in their hearts in this life.

May we all have the fortitude to walk the line on the side of compassion: the only path with heart that counts.