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Comment by Ellen Lee on May 17, 2009 at 7:16am

Oh, my goodness! I'm so sorry I am so far behind in the conversation. I have been unable to stay online for very long because of a flare-up of my fibromyalgia, and I can see that I've missed so very much.

Thanks, Phil, for picking up the conversation after my question regarding metaphor vs. archetype. To Jung, however, archetypes don't have much to do with nature per se. It's difficult to explain, and I find that this also makes reading Jung in the original difficult for me - he seems to have a difficult time expressing what he means as well! To my understanding, archetypes are innate ideas/unconscious concepts, or images, that every human being is born with, and which are passed on down through time from generation to generation since the beginning of the human race. They include such ideas as the anima (the female side of the male psychology) and the animus (the male side of the female psychology), the "mother", the "father", the idea of a divinity or other "explanation" of our existence, and many, many more. Jung's believe is that these archetypes are expressed often in mythology, and he analyzes them by studying various mythologies and cultural belief systems. This is just my rudimentary understanding; I'm sure that Jung's ideas are more complicate that I can understand as I've only touched the surface in reading him. I find "analytical" or "depth" psychology extremely interesting, and I also would like to find an analytical psychologist to work with in discovering how my unconscious affects the way I live my own life. I'd like to read more and better understand how Jung's ideas can be applied to more global issues, such as why different cultures have such a hard time understanding one another and accepting each other's cultural beliefs as legitimate for that particular culture.

I really am enjoying reading the discussion currently going on about our relationship with "Mother Earth", or "Gaia" as she's sometimes called. I've been considering this problem since I was fairly young, and have research American Indian religions and cultural mores to get a better idea of what an ideal understanding might be. In my very, very humble opinion, the American Indian's understanding of the relationship between humans and the earth is more in accordance with my own beliefs. On the other hand, in "Western" mythology, according to the Bible man "has dominion" over the earth; the American Indians on the other hand belief in the intricate interdependency between the human and the planet, and so treat her with great respect. In this way, humans know that they are dependent upon Gaia to survive, and that only by taking very good care of her can they survive. It's such a glaring difference between how most people think of the Earth, and I believe it may account in part for why we are now in the situation we are regarding the destruction of our planet. I don't recall who said it, but some person said that "humans are the only animal that fouls it's own nest".

Phil said in an earlier post: "I agree what we are needing is a material equivalent to "the sacred", but to me it's in acknowledging the common wilderness of magical realities we share, that completely lack man made meanings, but have living parts we can get close to and experience. So, it's important for us to explore something beyond meaning for us to find our own meanings." I couldn't have said it better myself.

DF wrote: One of my greatest frustrations with 'human thought' is the discussion that we humans are (somehow) separate from "Her", from Mother Nature. For me, this is one of the primary shifts that needs to happen; and I believe it's occurring right now. In part, Changing Normal will allow us to see ourselves as an INTEGRAL part of Nature, rather than separate from Her way. That is exactly the problem: how to integrate ourselves into nature rather than remain so separate that we cannot see that the impact our actions on earth affects us as well. I once read a statement buy a scientist whose name I cannot for the life of me remember now (thanks, fibro-fog!) said, "One of these days the earth is going to shake off the human race like a bad case of fleas."

I am greatly enjoying this discussion and cannot thank you all enough for running with the ball. I do feel, however, that I'm quite as advanced as many of you are in my knowledge nor in my ability to express myself as potently as you are able to do. But you are stimulating my mind and are encouraging me to delve deeper into these ideas, and that is a wonderful thing.

Thanks so much,
Ellen

Comment by Discovery Fuel on May 16, 2009 at 8:21pm

This is music to my ears guys ... seems the deeper 'generative' dialog has finally begun :)

Comment by Phil Henshaw on May 16, 2009 at 7:31pm

Ken,
I think myth may have been once used to enrich our understanding of greater realities, like children's stories are now, and not as later used to reduce reality to a story. Reducing reality to a story is I think where myth loses its meaning. Myth which doesn't refer to the greater complexities of our shared wilderness, but becomes just words about words and values about values is a circular fabrication, and lacks a referent of comparable substance.

That the sciences fall right into that trap, representing nature as agreed explanations, creating their own self-referencing mythology to substitute for rather than use to add depth to our understanding of reality. That places the relation of science and mythology as the scorched pot calling the kettle black it seems to me. One can trip in the other direction too, and forget that isolating a story from its greater reality does not make it untrue, just cut off. There's more to a person than their height, for example, but a person can still have a very definite height. I think this is part of the problem with understanding scarcity, it's only for the thing which is scarce, and if you need ever more of what you have ever less of, you definitely have a problem. Of course, shortages might just indicate that your problem changed without your noticing and your real problem is not shortages, sticking with old solutions.

Comment by Phil Henshaw on May 16, 2009 at 6:53pm

To me "we" (our conscious self-image) are indeed "separate" from her in that we "hold ourselves apart from her", by "re-presenting" nature as being our own mental construct, a projection of the rules we hook up in making explanations. I think that's the mind trick that separates us.

The way to connect for me involves clearly seeing the separation, partly by how our images are crisp and connect with our personal values, but the reality we based the image on is unclear in parts, having many unexplored features and no direct relation to my values. That helps solidify the very material difference between mental projections from our own explanations and our complex physical environment full of independently behaving parts.

Lots of people still get confused by that use of "independent", since in their minds all things are supposed to be part of "one self-consistent rule" and so can't have "independent parts" somewhat by definition. Once you accept that, as part of your own integrity as an individual, you get to have your own individual image of reality, you can then see your image and your greater self as independent, and other kinds of things in the wilderness as having their own individual independence too. Our own images of things are collected fabrications of our own making that may be inconsistent with themselves and anyone else's.

That helps you acknowledge that what we really all have in common is a richly unexplored wilderness, not a shared image. At some point you see your own thoughts as part of a physical world attempting to, but always falling short of, imagining itself. I think one repeatedly trips over the idea that "objectifying" something in the wilderness allows you capture it in your mind. That usually just means that you have swapped your search of reality for a clear image that falls far short of the reality, and so fooled yourself once more... :-)

I agree what we are needing is a material equivalent to "the sacred", but to me it's in acknowledging the common wilderness of magical realities we share, that completely lack man made meanings, but have living parts we can get close to and experience. So, it's important for us to explore something beyond meaning for us to find our own meanings.

Phil Henshaw ¸¸¸¸.•´ ¯ `•.¸¸¸¸
NY NY www.synapse9.com

Comment by Ken Homer on May 16, 2009 at 6:49pm

Interesting thread... I have a few comments that may help to muddy the waters...

Prior to the mid-19th Century, the word "myth" had the connotation of "real." Myth was what explained the inexplicable, and mythological (archetypal) ancestors enacted the kinds of behaviors that created order in the world, with the promise that if we reenacted them order would be kept. For many peoples in the world such myths are still at the heart of their meaning making. However for those of us who are inheritors of the Cartesian legacy, the rise of rational positivism and the post-enlightenment worldview of man separate from nature, "myth" took on the meaning of a "fanciful story." For more on how this occurred and the repercussions of it see the work of Mircea Eliade.

The problem with declaring myths, which created "real meaning" as false and fanciful, was that it devalued them as ways to gain guidance in life and left a gaping hole in human consciousness where meaning is derived from the natural world. This led to nihilism and a near total divorcing of human from nature (the term fashionable at the time was "man" not human.)

The devaluing of mythic stories over last 150 years, where human life is threaded into the natural world as the matrix for a meaningful life, has a been disaster not matter how you measure it. One result that we are heir to is a global economy that sees living systems, such as rainforests or oceans as "resources" which are here for humans to treat in whatever way they see fit, even to the point of clearcutting them (yes the ocean is being clearcut just as horribly as old growth forests) creating toxic wastelands out of ecosystems that took millions of years to evolve, and declaring that the consumer goods derived from the practice (most with real utility that last barely a single human lifetime) equal profit.

So a new mythology is needed as well as a different appreciation for the role of language. Vic somewhere in this thread you equate language with words. Words are only one small aspect of the totality of language. Language encompasses, gesture, speech and symbol, along with the way that using all of the above allows for the coordination of actions for those using the language, e.g. wolves have language which allows them to take down an elk that no single wolf could manage alone; and in the case of humans, to coordinate our coordinations - our language has future tense so we can plan for more than the present moment - something wolves can not do.

Returning to myth for a moment imagine the following concentric circles. At the center are speech acts - the things we do in language to navigate our lives such as make assessments, assertions, declarations, promises, requests etc. The next level out is vocabularies, which build up distinctions such as those found in various traditions like law, medicine or engineering. Each of these professions has its own vocabulary which supports specific conversations - which is the next level out. The next level out from vocabularies is the realm of narrative, these are the personal, familial, communal/tribe/nation stories that are derived from our cultural milieu and carried within out bodies as mostly unconscious frameworks for creating meaning out of the circumstances of our daily lives. Beyond narratives lies traditions - such as law, medicine, engineering etc,. Moving out to the next level we find historical discourses - the big memes shaping not just families but entire peoples and ages. On the other side of historical discourses we find religions - those great shapers of the psyche and finally surrounding all of these we come to myth - that which we encounter at the edges of our linguistic ability to describe our world.

Although both clerics and scientists are loathe to see it, their creation stories, Genesis, the Big Bang (to cite only two of the most dominant in the culture today) are myths. They attempt to explain where we come from - which is a primary question that human beings appear to be hardwired to explore. The question is not which is true, because at the level of myth, all myths are true, but rather, what myths are useful?

What myths can be brought forth now that will rethread the human experience back into harmony with nature and thereby support the kind of massive shift needed to bring enough people into a coherent manner of living that we do not dramatically and most like permanently diminish the carrying capacity of Earth for the children of all species for all time.

Two myths currently holding the industrialized world in thrall are the myth of human separate from nature and the myth of scarcity. These are probably the most virulent and pernicious myths being spread through the language of business and globalization - and are among the first needing rethinking and reweaving. Discoveries in science are showing us that we are in effect "Earth walking as Humans" our bodies are intimately coupled to our environment and when we allow a mindset of separateness to create large scale systems of long term toxicity, we pose a lethal threat to the health and well being of our grandchildren.

Advancements in technology are showing that if we can manage to find ways to govern ourselves successfully through the eye of the needle we are collectively approaching, then it is quite possible that the human race (along with many other species) can achieve the promise of Christ - Everlasting Life - perhaps not the individual immortality lusted after by so many, but a continuity of being that has already existed for some millions of years with mothers and fathers passing their genes along to their offspring for as far into the future as we can imagine.

What is the contribution of changing normal to activating such a myth - or one which can provide similar functionality - and how do we use our language to bring it forth? Who are our allies in this work? How do we want to be together? Why is it important to us? Who needs to have their voices heard?

And what is the appropriate forum for these conversations to unfold? I just spent 90 mins writing this and it isn't often I have the luxury to do so. We need other venues besides posting to websites!

Comment by Discovery Fuel on May 16, 2009 at 5:24pm

Good stuff Phil: Here's my hit from reading: One of my greatest frustrations with 'human thought' is the discussion that we humans are (somehow) separate from "Her", from Mother Nature. For me, this is one of the primary shifts that needs to happen; and I believe it's occurring right now. In part, Changing Normal will allow us to see ourselves as an INTEGRAL part of Nature, rather than separate from Her way. In other words: "We are That". Presently, Nature's evolutionary stage includes this idea of 'reflection', which is the ability to look back and see Herself in the mirror. This is why "Alice in Wonderland" is so big for me in this community. Fo it is Her reflection that exemplifies the dynamics of awareness. Nature is not an independent player - She is Us, as seen in the Great Mirror. And this is one of the conceptions relating to environmentalism that must (and is) evolving. Ironically, environmentalism has separated us from that which we are - the environment. However, in our teenage reactive state, humanity now beginning to look ahead at the next turn in the Labrynth; that place where a new level of our own maturity will become inherent in our way of being, and thereby in Nature's state of being. Just as a child moves into teen-hood, and then adulthood - the fractal nature of our own Nature is reflected as a part of this same experience. When we re-cognize (i.e reflect) upon this, we will come to know awe and a new sense of what 'Sacred' means in Life. It will be without blame or judgment, but instead with compassion, wisdom, and a knowing that it is time for a new normal to move into Nature's way.

Comment by Phil Henshaw on May 16, 2009 at 3:18pm

But nature also works with story. We get the idea of story from her, not she from us. What we're missing is how to watch her stories without a heavy overlay of cultural values, social relations and stock phrases, etc. Her basic "story unit" is things that "begin, develop, live and end". That provides her enormous variety on a single theme, and all of it "value free" and "unencumbered by human thought". If we learn to read her stories without all the baggage that our way of "making sense" layers them with, then we notice little useful things. One is the completely unhidden pattern ALL living things end their growth with maturation, then followed by "the good life". The pains we're going through now look a lot like death pains, and could be, but are equally possible to turn into birth pains, at least in the physical world. Whether it's possible in the cultural world too, allowing us to create and share the myths and values we'd need to acknowledge nature as an independent player here, and communicate how to get along with our "new dance partner", I have more doubts about... ;-)

Comment by Discovery Fuel on May 15, 2009 at 8:48pm

Phil, Let's work with this ... for me, myth is 'not' what the world is made of. And shifting to story and reality are intermixed: Story is how we describe reality as we know it. It is also how we descibe the possibility beyond reality, which also connects to something Great enough to 'realize' Life into us. Of course the paradox is that we 'are' That, and yet that 'That' is what we don't know of intimately. It is this chasm where myth is found - almost in an attempt to fill the void. Stories then, are heard as the reflections of a collective understanding (i.e. myth is not individual) bouncing off the walls of the chasm-cliffs that define our lives. So, possibly, myth is the bridge between spirit and matter, and story fuel 'what' matters - that which we feel through emotional responses and make our existence meaningful. .... Food for thought .. Vic

Comment by Phil Henshaw on May 14, 2009 at 5:07am

Maybe mankind's idea that the world is made of mythology is our problem... I think we need to shift to connecting story and reality. Story can include myth, and be evocative, but without being so detached. That's part of what I hoped Ellen would respond too, but maybe my take, that archetypes are actually physical phenomena, is too original.

Comment by Discovery Fuel on May 10, 2009 at 11:07am

It would be interesting to turn this into an interactive game of some sort that moves the meaning of archetype and metaphor (and archetypes and metaphors themselves) into a evolved expression of a conscious global mythology! See my friend Jai Hude's cool http://Xthegame.com as example.

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