Depth psychology, religion, spirituality, and more
OUR WORLD IS AWASH IN SYMBOLS, VIBRATING WITH MEANING. In order to grasp the meaning, of course, you have to be able to recognize a symbol, when you see one. Everyone knows “fine art” is full of symbols. The meaning in a painting, a drawing, a print, a piece of sculpture unfolds when you engage …
Continue reading "Oh, the Symbols You’ll See, the Stories You’ll Tell"
PROJECTIONS ARE RAMPANT IN OUR “SCHIZOID” SOCIAL WORLD THESE DAYS. It’s become a truism, even a cliché, to observe how divided our society has become. Once upon a time, I felt our society was neurotic. Now, it is so split that our collective consciousness seems to be on the verge of a psychotic break. As …
WHAT DO IVY, GRAPE VINES, LIONS, BEARS, BULLS, AND MASKS HAVE IN COMMON? They’re all associated with Dionysus in ancient myth, literature, and art. Dionysus is not simply the god of wine. He cannot be reduced to the jovial, tipsy Bacchus immortalized in the Disney treatment of Beethoven’s “Pastoral” in Fantasia — although that is …
THIS WEEK’S POST IS WILL BE A LITTLE DIFFERENT, a little more personal than usual. Here’s why. The online course I’m offering, “Jesus and the Feminine in the Gospel of John,” begins next week (see my note below). Although I’m offering it through my local church, the course is open to the public at large. …
WHEN JESUS COMES BEFORE PILATE, WHO’S FACING JUDGMENT? We are, according to the account in the Gospel of John (18:28-19:16). Here’s how. John’s story of Jesus before Pilate reads as if it were an episode in a play. The episode has seven scenes, alternately taking place outside and inside the governor’s fortress in Jerusalem. Here’s …
WHILE HEIGHT IS A METAPHOR FOR THE SPIRIT, DEPTH IS A METAPHOR FOR THE SOUL. Might it be possible to reach the transcendent heights of the spirit by diving deep into the soul? Could the “ascent of Mt. Carmel,” advocated by St. John of the Cross, be a soulful descent? The answer in both cases, …
Continue reading "Transcendence – Going Deep to Gain Height"
ALTHOUGH MOST OF THE TIME MOST OF US DON’T RECOGNIZE IT, organizations have souls. Our ancient ancestors felt the presence of spirits everywhere, animating everything. Plato abstracted that ancient intuition into a theory of ideal heavenly archetypes standing behind all material forms. By Roman times, St. Paul and other early Christian writers could talk about …
Continue reading "Why “Powers” and “Principalities” Still Hold Sway"
Discover a Side of Jesus You've Never Seen Before “Jesus and the Feminine in John” — a 5-week course on Zoom In mythology, a deity who dies and rises on the third day is a moon god, a son of the Great Mother. The good news of Christ says Jesus died and rose on the …
THE ARC OF SPIRITUALITY IS BENDING TOWARD INCLUSIVITY. Some 3,200 years ago, Ramesses II, pharaoh of the New Kingdom in ancient Egypt, presented himself to his people and the world as the son of the high god Ra, and as a god himself. In the highest of ancient civilizations, spirituality was a strictly royal phenomenon. …
Continue reading "Breathing a Wind That Blows Where It Will"
An Action Movie with a Twist Last night, as we finished watching WW 84, the latest installment in the new Wonder Woman film franchise, I felt a touch of synchronicity at play. In my previous blog post, “A Tale of Two Myths,” I spoke about murder mysteries as manifestations of the Myth of Redemptive Knowledge, …
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