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Thought of the Week Archives
January 1998
January 5
Is it not, then, a strange inconsistency and an unnatural paradox
that "I" resists change in "me" and in the surrounding universe? For change
is not merely a force of distruction. Every form is really a pattern of
movement, and every living thing is like the river, which, if it did not
flow out, would never have been able to flow in. Life and death are not
two opposed forces; they are simply two ways of looking at the same force,
for the movement of change is as much the builder as the destroyer.
~ Alan Watts ~
The Wisdom of Insecurity (p. 41)
Vintage Books (copyright 1951 Pantheon Books)
Comment �
by Reg Harris
Is this not also the essense of the Hero's Journey? The journey is,
essentially, a process of disintegration and reintigration. The old self,
which has proved itself to be too limiting or ineffective, is disintegrated
in the journey. The ineffective or limiting views, attitudes, behaviors
and prejudices are purged by the trail of challenges, leaving behind an
"empty" receptacle which is ready to reintegrate new, more effective and
enabling elements into our character.
". . . the movement of change is as much the builder as the destroyer,"
and so is the movement of the Hero's Journey, which is the process of
change. To reject the call to growth and change is to reject all that
gives life: flow, transformation, growth, expanding awareness, greater
understanding, and a sense of the unity of all things.
Januray 12
There is a profound disrespect for human beings in modern life.
Business encourages us to think of ourselves as human capital. Advertising
appeals to our fears and insecurities to try to get us to buy products
we do not need. Too many religious institutions teach people to be good
but do not help them know what they are. Too many psychologists see their
job as helping people learn to accomodate to what is, not to take their
journeys and find out what could be. Too many educational institutions
train people to be cogs in the economic machine, rather than educting
them about how to be fully human.
~ Carol S. Pearson, Ph.D. ~
Awakening the Heroes Within (page 4)
HarperSanFrancisco (Copyright (c) 1991 by Carol S. Pearson)
Januray 19
"Little by little, wean yourself. This is the gist of what I have to
say. From an embryo, whose nourishment comes in the blood, move to an
infant drinking milk, to a child on solid food, to a searcher after wisdom,
to a hunter of more invisible game.
"Think how it is to have a conversation with an embryo. You might say,
'The world outside is vast and intricate. There are wheatfields and mountain
passes, and orchards in bloom. At night there are millions of galaxies,
and in sunlight the beauty of friends dancing at a wedding.'
"You ask the embryo why he, or she, stays cooped up in the dark with
eyes closed. Listen to the answer.
"'There is no "other world." I only know what I've experienced.
You must be hallucinating.'"
Jelaluddin Rumi (1207-1273)
Sufi mystic and poet
from The Enlightened Mind by Stephen Mitchell (page 102), HarperPerennial
(Note: The Enlightened Mind is an anthology of sacred prose
by great thinkers from the Upanishads to Albert Einstein. Wonderful reading:
inspiring and enlightening.)
Januray 26
This week I am posting several quotes related to a single idea. Perhaps
juxtaposing these ideas will generate an idea or an insight. Enjoy.
* * * * *
The creativity of living systems -- at least that which has its roots
in their quantum coherence -- arises from their ability to create
the kind of order that gives rise to relational wholes, systems that
are greater than the sum of their parts, and to do this spontaneously
whenever a critical level of complexity is reached.
~ Danah Zohar ~
The Quantum Self (William Morrow and Co. Inc, 1990), page 190
* * * * *
Myth is the software, the cultural DNA, the cunconscious information,
the metaprogram that governs the way we see "reality" and the way we behave.
. . A myth creates the plotline that organizes the diverse experiences
of a person or a community into a single story.
~ Sam Keen ~
Your Mythic Journey (Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc, 1989), page xii-xiii
* * * * *
Our experience quite literally is defined by our assumptions about
life.
We make stories about the world and to a large degree live out their
plots.
What our lives are like depends to a great extent on the script
we consciously, or more likely, unconsciously, have adopted.
~ Carol Pearson, Ph. D. ~
The Hero Within (HarperSan Franciso, 1989), page xxv
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