Fear is the perception of danger. But what if the perception is an illusion; that is, a false idea or belief? And what if that illusion (the false idea or belief) "infects" a group of people or even a state? And what if the illusion is used as a weapon by an individual to manipulate the people who are thus "possessed" -- like a lynch mob can be urged on to do heinous things because those persons in the mob are under the influence of the manipulator?

So where am I going with this? Here, I refer to Bob Woodward's latest book, Fear. He introduces his book with the following quote:

       "Real power is -- I don't want to even use the word -- fear."

                Presidential candidate Donald J. Trump in an interview with
                Bob Woodward and Robert Costa on March 31, 2016, at the 
                Old Post Office Pavilion, Trump International Hotel, 
                Washington, D.C.

Woodward never develops this idea as such. Instead, he proceeds to demonstrate with quotes how fear was used in the service of one individual's seemingly enjoyment of brandishing power. The book's descriptions of attempts to portray fear are not for the faint of heart. The chapters throb with bellicose language, profanity, the shaming and berating of individuals in front of their peers, accusatory and demeaning tweets, unpredictability in following a schedule as well as changing ideas regarding policies, lies, firing individuals without facing them, disregarding tradition and time-honored institutions of government, and an ongoing cacophony of false, self-serving descriptions of achievements. 

What are we to make of such behavior that appears as irrational, aggressive, militant, without regard for individuals or institutions, paranoid, self-centered, callous, and unconscious -- while also enjoying this display of so-called "manliness." But even more puzzling and disturbing is the question that follows: What are we to make of those persons who participate in this carnival of insanity; individuals and groups of people who occupy positions of respect, power, and responsibility -- and yet do nothing. In fact, some of these even appear to curry the favor of this self-appointed leader! How can this be, we ask. It makes no sense. 

It makes no sense. At least from any psychic island of sanity where this bizarre phenomenon has not yet taken hold, it makes no sense. But for those so possessed, for those under the thrall of this madness Woodward describes, those persons appear to overlook the immoral and irrational behavior through the use of rationalization. Each of us can rationalize doing absurd things if we are driven by fear. 

Fear is the most basic, primal emotion. Most of us know fear very well. We come into the world afraid to live; we leave this world afraid to die. And in between, we move in a serpentine path, dodging fear here and there, facing our fears on some occasions, suppressing or repressing them at other times, in which case they take up residence in our unconscious and re-appear in an array of symptoms, maladaptive behavior, self-medicating attempts, and actions taken in behalf of the fears now turned into psychic deities who command our thoughts, emotions, and patterns of behavior. 

It seems to me that that we here in the U.S. have yet to come to terms with the 9/11 attacks on Manhattan's twin towers and our Pentagon. So shocking was this first attack on what we thought to be our unapproachable, impregnable mainland, that we collapsed into a histrionic fear of deep vulnerability, of not feeling safe, of having a faceless enemy who worked in fiendish ways to destroy us and our way of life. Villains lurked everywhere; no place was safe; "if you see something, say something." Paranoia grabbed us by the back of our necks and dragged us into a "war of terror" with shades of color to signify the level of danger, and an international hunt to capture Bin Laden -- the only face we could stick on this new world of terror.

Worse, there welled up from our collective unconscious a dark force that possessed us. Possession is a psychic state in which people are controlled by a strong inner drive, a dark, irrational power that could be described as a spirit, demon, god, or other supernatural force. (American Heritage Dictionary)

You recognize that feeling, that state of mind when you are "scared senseless," so to speak. To be "scared senseless" is in fact a very apt description for what I am attempting to describe here. Carl Jung calls that power by the name of "archetype." The Jungian analyst, Anthony Stevens, defines "archetypes" as: 

       Innate neuropsychic centres possessing the capacity to initiate
       control and mediate the common behavioural characteristics
       and typical experiences of all human beings irrespective of 
       race, culture, or creed.       (Archetype Revisited, p. 352)


Of course, these "neuropsychic centres" do not "scare us senseless" as a rule. The emotions and cognitions vary from person to person, experience to experience. But the point is that the "felt sense" of an archetype intervenes in our conscious state of mind. Jung explains it in the following metaphor, taken from his essay, "Wotan," published in 1936, for the purpose of trying to describe what he saw happening in his neighboring country, Germany.

       ​Archetypes are like riverbeds which dry up when the water deserts 
       them, but which it can find again at any time. An archetype is like 
       an old water course along which the water of life has flowed for 
​       centuries, digging a deep channel for itself. The longer it has flowed
​       in this channel the more likely it is that sooner or later the water will
​       return to its old bed. ... Thus the life of nations rolls on unchecked, 
​       without guidance, unconscious of where it is going ... . Political events
       move from one impasse to the next, like a torrent caught in gullies,
       creeks, and marshes. All human control comes to an end when the 
​       individual is caught in a mass movement. Then the archetype begins to
       function, as happens also in the lives of individuals when they are 
       confronted with situations that cannot be dealt with in any of the 
       familiar ways.  (para. 395)

In other words, an archetype arises in an individual person, but when the same archetype occurs within a group of people, even a nation, then there develops a kind of psychic infection, a "group-think" a movement that usually carries the name of some kind of "...ism," e.g., communism, fascism, racism, etc. And for this to happen, the circumstances in the life of an individual must have reached a point of vulnerability in which the person seeks some kind of explanation, a savior, a cause, someone to blame, something that awakens strong emotion -- thereby opening the mind to an invasion or psychic infection. In this case, a charismatic person who poses as a heroic savior may infect a group, an entire nation. Jung goes on to say: 

       ​The impressive thing about the German phenomenon is that one man
       [Hitler], who is obviously "possessed," has infected a whole nation to 
       such an extent that everything is set in motion and has started rolling 
       on its course toward perdition. (para. 388)

Thus did Carl Jung in 1936 anticipate the catastrophic collapse of a nation in 1945, of educated, civilized, technologically advanced citizens whose fear turned into anger, opening the windows of their souls to be filled with their most primitive instincts under the influence of an archetypal god, a warrior god, who had possessed a leader capable of charming them into a mass hysteria. He promised them economic relief, power to rule the world, and a privileged place within his illusion.

So,no, real power is not fear. But real fear can possess us; it can expose our souls to the invasion of a dark power that ever so slowly erodes our sense of right and wrong -- even our humanity.
    

                        Now is the time to know
                     That all that you do is sacred.
 
                        Now, why not consider
               A lasting truce with yourself and God.

                        Now is the time to understand 
                   That all your ideas of right and wrong
                      Were just a child's training wheels
                              To be laid aside
                        When you can finally live
                               With veracity
                                   And love. 

                          Hafiz is a divine envoy
                            Whom the Beloved
                     Has written a holy message upon.

                            My dear, please tell me,
                                Why do you still
                         Throw sticks at your heart
                                    And God?

                      What is it in that sweet voice inside
                               That incites you to fear?

                     Now is the time for the world to know
                    That every thought and action is sacred.

                                     This is the time
                  For you to deeply compute the impossibility

                                  That there is anything
                                         But Grace.

                              Now is the season to know
                                That everything you do
                                           Is sacred.

              (Poem by Hafiz, Trans. by Daniel Ladinsky, The Gift)

This remarkable poem by the Persian poet Hafiz arrests us on many levels. Had we time here in this blog, we might spend the night musing together about the meaning of each verse. But, for the moment, I am thinking about the sixth verse that slips in unexpectedly with a startling question:

                        What is it in that sweet voice inside
                                 That incites you to fear?

With this one sentence, Hafiz turns the table on us, prompting us back to the preceding verse for a slower rereading:

                                  My dear, please tell me,
                                       Why do you still
                                Throw sticks at your heart
                                             and God?

Now we realize Hafiz has gotten very personal! I did not realize I was throwing sticks at my own heart, much less throwing sticks at God! And, while we're at this unveiling of "secrets," what makes you, Hafiz, think I have been covering over a voice that "incites" me to fear?

Here I was looking forward to enjoying a comforting, "spiritual" poem by this fourteenth century poet, and suddenly the cat is out of the bag, to insert yet another metaphor. And, as happens with our dear cat Sheba, there is no rest until her meowings and nudgings are investigated!

So here we are with Hafiz who, not unlike an insightful psychotherapist, slips in a question that moves us into the subterranean depths of our psyches, leading us down through the cobwebs of long unattended memories, the shadows of play between light and dark, and the creepy descent through realms we may not even knew existed.

Hafiz is extending an invitation to put aside his book of poems for the moment and reflect back through the long, dimly-lit corridors of our lives to the basic fear that has incited our histories of fears. For fear is not just a primal emotion, it may be the primal emotion. We come into the world afraid of life, and we leave the world afraid of death. And each step  along the way has been preceded by the fear that we do not know what lies ahead, we may not like what we find, we may not be up to what the new thing demands of us, or we might not do it as well as whomever it is we are falsely setting up as the measuring rod for our life, or we may fear that we will have to give up whatever we find -- the treasure, the lover, the distraction that covers up our fundamental fear!

Our fundamental fear: What is it? We probably first think of fear as an emotion arising from a sense of danger, a threat of some kind -- physical, emotional, mental. But there is another way that we use the word to describe something of another nature. This connotation of fear might be most closely associated with the experience of awe or reverence. We fear the most basic objects that we believe might threaten us in some way; but we also "fear" those objects, places, and/or experiences that connect us with the deepest and highest aspirations of life. This is most fundamental because it is archetypal, "hard-wired" within the neural networks of our psyche.

Looked at this way, we may understand "fear" as the primary emotion that anchors our humanity. Without fear, we would be vulnerable at the point of not recognizing the dangers that can kill us. But, also, without fear we would miss that magnificent dimension of life in which our humanity flowers. For example, think of how we welcome home those persons who have faced danger in whatever arena, prevailed, and returned to remind us that the highest point of human achievement is the "baptism by fire" in which we face the "dragon of death" and overcome. Daily, often without fanfare or recognition, persons around the world encounter their deepest fears, and in their acts of courage find their lives to be ennobled. Without these heroic acts, we would be enshrouded in cowardice and unconsciousness.

Which brings us back to the question Hafiz raises, "What is it in that sweet voice inside that incites you to fear? Why does he call it a "sweet" voice?

I think the voice is "sweet" because it prompts us to face not just the surface level of our fears but the archetypal level of fear, which we know as awe, reverence, the dimension of depth. On our long journey through space and time, it is the nature of our species to recognize danger, feel fear, and make adjustments. But is is also our nature not to fear fear! 

To be conscious of this is to escape the paralyzing fears of childhood in which we feared the "bogeyman" in our closets and underneath our beds. To be conscious of this is to escape the suffocating imprisonment of relationships in which "love" is lived out as control and the need to carry the others' feelings. To be conscious of this is to recognize the dehumanizing policies of dictatorial regimes and would-be dictators who exploit others in the service of their own narcissisms.

To be conscious of this is to experience the grace of being fully human.
                        

What could be more settling during these dwindling lazy, hazy, quiet evenings of summer than to sit on your deck with a cool glass of fresh lemonade and allow your mind to ponder the "basic facts of human existence?"  Growing up in coastal Carolina, and having settled here in the central part of the state, my memories have been woven into the threads of a way of life now passing over the horizon.

It was -- and still is, for the most part -- a way of neighborliness without nosiness, kindness without expectations, faithfulness without pompous religiosity, straight-speaking without condemnation, and a kind of eager anticipation of each season without the boredom that comes when a visitor has lingered to the point of wearing out the earlier welcome.

Late summer evenings epitomized this last experience. Trips to the beach, playing in the pools and rivers and surf, roasting oysters, fishing, wearing the skimpiest of clothes without shoes when possible, cook-outs, playing hide-and-seek in the dark -- each of these set up the following quiet times after twilight watching the fire flies in their hopeful mating dances, listening to the harmonies of the cicadas and bull frogs as they sang us back to a time before memory, when the structures of life that gave birth to "the basic facts of human existence" that are visible to us now only in our dreams and our deepest undisturbed self-reflection.

How sad it is to live our lives skipping along on the surface. How trivial it is to occupy ourselves with the distractions that arise to mask our anxieties and provide some kind of meaning to what we fear would otherwise be experienced as a vacuous meaningless existence! How dangerous it is to discover new and great powers in the substance of our material world, atomic powers that can destroy our world. How tragic when these powers are exploited and manipulated for political gain and marketing profits, rather than to channel them through a funnel of restraint in the service of protecting our material world while providing care for all sentient beings. 

But we are out of touch with our depths, seduced by our flirtatious mind's courtship with the intoxicating power of the machine, gadgets, the artificial intelligences of our manufactured clones. The robots are winning.

But here is the thing: Robots cannot dream. Of course, it is true that they can consolidate "memories." And as is true with the human psyche, the consolidated memories may be recalled. But they have no moral center except what has been introjected by human programmers and reworked in the circuits of memory consolidation for the purpose of accomplishing tasks -- which may even include their own survival.

But that is not dreaming. Dreams arise from the "two-million-years-old self" in the depths of human unconsciousness from which human consciousness evolved, giving formation along the way to the psycho-neural substrata of the human psyche, called archetypes, countless in number, signaling the meanings associated with human speech, behavior, thought, feeling, and images. 

C.G.Jung, whose birthday we celebrated this week and the pioneer of research in archetypal symbolism, referred to dreams as a "communication from the unconscious, unitary soul with humanity."

       It reflects not on the ego but on the self; it recollects that strange self, 
       alien to the ego, which was ours from the beginning, the trunk from
       which the ego grew. It is alien to us, because we have estranged ourselves 
       from it through the aberrations of the human mind.
       (The Meaning of Psychology for Modern Man," Civilization in Transition, 
       Collected Works, Vol. 110, para. 118)

Hold tightly to this thought because it sounds strange to our modern consciousness. Consider the phrase, an "unconscious, unitary soul of humanity;" consider also that our "unitary soul of humanity" sends us several "messages" each night in the form of dreams! Let this possibility seep into your idea of yourself and whatever it is you think makes you human. Very likely this is a thought and a possibility you have never entertained, and if so probably did not admit to many people for fear you would be either ignored or pigeon-holed as "odd." But the role of dreams in human development is a basic fact of human existence.

But we experience this fact of human existence as strange because, in the first place, we live in a society and a world in general that does not take our dreams seriously. They are considered to be meaningless, a random firing of neurons, at best a gathering of the day's residue in order that we might sleep better tonight and work more productively tomorrow.

So this basic fact of human existence, that dreams bring us important messages, varying in urgency of cause from "very important" to "not-so-much," this reality is discounted today as is the reality of an "unconscious, unifying soul of humanity"  residing in each of us. That too is discounted.  

The result is we are left adrift in a universe of shrill voices, jingoism, narcissistic posturing, a rejection of scientific research, a politicizing of media, the demagogic attacks on honest journalizing, a religious establishment that has sold its soul to the marketing experts to increase numbers, profits, and ideological ends, in which a pompous poser calls "up" "down" and "down" "up," while few dare call the lie what it is.

Would it not feel good to center down again on what is real, what is authentic, what is most basic in our existence. I have no easy recommendations for how you might find your path toward that lost world. However, I do think we can begin with the basic facts I have presented here. Tonight, you will have a dream that brings a message of some concern from your deep unconscious in order that you might live your life more joyfully, realistically, and meaningfully.

So I will call on Jung to say what he said earlier, but with slightly different coloration:

         A dream is nothing but a lucky idea that comes to us from the dark, 
         all-unifying world of the psyche. What would be more natural, when
         we have lost ourselves amid the endless particulars and isolated details
         of the world's surface, than to knock at the door of dreams and inquire
         of them the bearings which would bring us closer to the basic facts
         of human existence? Here we encounter the obstinate prejudice that
         dreams are so much froth, they are not real, they lie, they are mere
         wish-fulfillments. All this is but an excuse not to take dreams seriously,
         for that would be uncomfortable. Our intellectual hubris of consciousness
         loves isolation despite all inconveniences, and for this reason people will
         do anything rather than admit that dreams are real and tell the truth. ...
         Even if the whole world were to fall to pieces, the unity of the psyche
         would never be shattered. And the wider and more numerous the
         fissures on the surface, the more this unity is strengthened in the depths.
         ("The Meaning of Psychology for Modern Man," Civilization in Transition,
         Collected Works, Vol. 10, para. 305)

The battle began on December 16, 1944, and ended January 25, 1945. "The Battle of the Bulge," as it came to be named, marked Adolph Hitler's attempt to surround the four allied armies advancing into the heartland of Germany. Hitler planned to destroy them and sue for a negotiated peace and the end of WW II. The German dictator threw most of his remaining resources at the allied front in the Ardennes region running through southeast Belgium through Germany into France. The German resources initially included 410,000 men, more than 1,400 tanks, tank destroyers, assault guns, 2,600 artillery pieces, 1,600 anti-tank guns, over 1,000 combat aircraft, and other miscellaneous pieces of military equipment (wikipedia.org).

The allies defeated the Germans in this climatic battle but with great costs to its troops: 20,000 killed, 40,000 wounded, and 20,000 captured or "missing-in-action." Among these missing-in-action, later determined to be captured, was my mother's young brother, Victor Mace, not yet 20 years old. He survived but barely. Following the "Battle of the Bulge," the war dragged on until May 7, 1945. During those horrific months, Mace who had been captured on January 21st, survived with little food, sole-less boots in the German winter, ragged inadequate clothes, always on the run, hiding with his German captors who retreated at night from the advancing allied forces, dodging the U.S. airplanes during the day as they bombed and strafed anything moving that looked like German troops.

To have survived those conditions of war seems like a miracle. Not all prisoners were as fortunate as Mace. Many died trying to endure the harsh weather, a lack of adequate food and clothing, constantly on the run, and never knowing if and when their captors might kill the prisoners who were making the German retreat even more complicated. To have kept alive the sick, wounded, and ragged prisoners was in its own way an act of mercy by those German troops.

But not all of the captors were that merciful. At 4:30 on the afternoon of December 17, 1944, a premier German SS unit captured and machine-gunned 84 prisoners. This war crime, known as the Malmedy massacre, was one of many atrocities committed against civilians as well as soldiers under the orders of Hitler to display brutality as a show of intimidating force.

But Mace survived. On the morning of Tuesday, May 8, 1945, Mace said he woke up to a strange silence -- no sound of guns or airplanes, no chatter by the German soldiers, no automobiles. He looked around and saw no German troops at all; they had thrown down their weapons and deserted. Then, straining to make sure of what he thought he heard, Mace listened to a far-away human whistling, but coming closer and closer. Joining other U.S. prisoners who had rushed to the fence where they had been crammed inside the night before, they saw striding easily up the road, approaching the camp, a British soldier, whistling as he led his unit up to the gate of the fence which they quickly opened. Mace was liberated; he and others across Europe  celebrated VE Day, Victory in Europe, joining hundreds of thousands of people not only in Europe but around the world. On stretchers and cots, canes and crutches, those who had been prisoners and "missing-in-action" began their journey home.

The war does not end here, however, not for Mace, his family, nor his many fellow prisoners of war who suffered Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. His health was fragile, and his vulnerability surrounded him like a light transparent gauze wrap that covered him as a mosquito net would, shielding him but trapping him as a prisoner yet again.

Most often he soldiered through his trauma. But sometimes not, as for example when the family had gathered at my grandparents' for dinner on a lovely summer afternoon, and a low-flying small airplane flew just over the top of the house for no apparent reason. Perhaps it was some "cowboy" crop duster showing off his dare-devil skills. But for whatever reason, the plane dipped down and seemed to buzz the house close enough to get the attention of all of us who stopped eating momentarily, looking at each other in apprehension. Then, in a flash, Mace fell out of his chair and huddled underneath the table -- leaving an image that was seared into my memory forever as a reminder of the psychological ravages of war.

The memory is also for me a testament to the capacity of the human spirit to survive and prevail. Mace lived on into his sixties, rearing three fine kids, my cousins, Roger, Bonnie, and Gail -- now living their lives of which Mace would have been proud -- and celebrating a marriage which survived the trauma and endured for the good times. 

I share this remarkable story with you on this Independence Day when we press the pause button in our busy lives in order to reflect on who we are as a people. In my personal reflection on Mace and his battle, I find it remarkable that I cannot remember even one word of resentment or regret for what he suffered on behalf of his country. Nor did I ever hear any vitriolic criticism from other family members. This does not mean that they could not be quite vocal about certain politicians and certain actions taken with which they did not agree. And my comments are not meant to color the family as people who glorified the ways of war and the sacrifices made by those who are touched by war. 

They just simply went about their business. And if the "business" called for sacrifice, they rallied from some deep moral core to do what they thought right. And this is the battle for civilization, is it not? You will indulge me, I hope, if I stress this particular point at this particular time. 

For we are now living in a strange time. The egotistical drive for "progress," for power, for domination over others and nature itself, for ideological purity, for walls that separate people, for profit at any cost of ethical responsibility, for the dismissal of institutions that provide safe and sane boundaries for our public life, for the display of appearance over substance, and for the apparent lack of regard for a moral center -- these and other manifestations of the "spirit of the times" run counter to the very structure of human existence. 

And what is that "structure?" Apparently, if the witness of time and the evolution of the human spirit are to be considered, there is at the core of our existence a human civility that was worded for us 242 years ago:

            We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
            that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
            that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. -- That
            to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving
            their just powers from the consent of the governed. -- That whenever any
            Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of
            the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying
            its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as
            to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
            (From the Preamble of the Declaration of Independence, in Congress, 
             July 4, 1776)

And this, as Mace would attest, is a battle for our civilization.

                        Be forewarned! What follows is a joke.

Oliver, a forty-something failed salesman felt down on himself. He considered his life a failure. He had failed to get promotions, failed to make a salary comparable to others in his position, failed to connect with a meaningful relationship, and so on. But Oliver also failed to take care of himself, what he wore, what he ate, the need to exercise and develop healthy self-care habits. And so, he despised himself, ruminated over how life was unfair, obsessed on how bad things always happened to him.

While he was thinking those thoughts, he stepped outside his car onto a very busy street, not paying attention to the traffic, and was struck by a speeding bicyclist. Falling hard on the pavement, Oliver fell into a deep coma that lasted a couple of days during which time God had an opportunity to squeeze between Oliver's obsessional thoughts and ruminations.

God had been trying for some time to speak to Oliver but could never get a word in edge-wise, so persistent was Oliver to preoccupy himself with his negative self-talk. So now God had a chance, and this is what God told Oliver. God said, 'Oliver, you paid no attention to where you were going so captivated were you by your thoughts, and you paid no attention to what you were doing. Now you are in a coma and could die, but I am going to have mercy on you and give you another shot at life. In fact, just to make sure you have an adequate cushion, I am going to grant you forty more years to live!

Perhaps it was this grand gesture by God that jolted Oliver from his coma! In any case, Oliver wok up and said to himself, "Was that really God who spoke to me? And do I really have forty more years to live?" Ruminating on this possibility, as Oliver was wont to do, he decided might as well take a chance on it. "After all," he thought, "what do I of all people have to lose?"

And thus it was that Oliver shifted his obsessional thinking and self-preoccupied ruminations to consider what a special person he was, blessed by no one other than God! Granted to have forty more years to live! Led by those thoughts, Oliver began to change his outer life. He bought a whole new wardrobe, updated his automobile to a luxury model, joined an exercise club that provided a trainer, nutritionist, and a full curriculum of self-help classes. His sales went up, he got a promotion, and he even got botox -- later granting himself the gift of plastic surgery, an investment that paid off, he felt, with a trim figure, a prominent chin, a youthful hairline, and abs that would be the envy of any man twenty years younger. 

Work colleagues were astonished, prospective dates badgered him for attention, and Oliver's thoughts dwelt on what a grand man he had become. In fact, Oliver was thinking exactly those thoughts when he stepped outside his car on the same very busy street where he had been struck only three years earlier, and as bad luck would have it, struck again by a speeding courier-bicyclist.

Once again, Oliver fell hard on the street and went into a deep coma. This time, death was more imminent and Oliver found himself at the Pearly Gates where God was on duty, having given the gate-keeper a thirty-minute break.

Oliver felt confused. How could this be? He was dying, about to pass through the Pearly Gates. And Oliver was also very angry. He yelled over to God who was busy at the moment with some book-keeping triviality. But Oliver persisted. "God," he called. "Look over here; it's me! You promised me forty more years and I have thirty-seven left! What happened? What kind of mistake is this?!"

So God looks over toward Oliver, and comes even closer for a better look. "Oh my," said God, "this is a terrible mistake! I did not recognize you!"  1

A funny story, you may think, but what is the point? And I share the question with you. The story is funny but sad, comedic but tragic, drawing from the realm of our deep humanity but also quite archetypal if you reflect on it. This "joke" is certainly not a morality tale, but yet it does strike a moral chord. There is in each of us a "radio station" playing in our mind all the time with messages from its "sponsors," such as neurotic guilt, shame, envy, pride, anger, loneliness, fear. To draw upon another metaphor, each of us in the dark night of our souls has murmurings from the shadow-land of our deep unconscious. Perhaps as children and young people, we may have thought that as maturing adults we would have those voices tamed or at least have the volume turned down.

But we make a mistake if we think the voices are gone. We may not hear them but the "radio station of unconscious ramblings" goes on and on, twenty-four/seven. And apparently our mind's subliminal hearing of these messages pulls us into the distractions of an on-going replay of the soul's morose messages or of the ego's attempts to cover them up with games of power, materialistic yearnings, sexual exploits, or even religious ideologies. 

And so, a "spell" is cast that guides our minds into the dark caverns of neurotic preoccupations or to the airy flights of distracting adventures that take us away from our deep, true self. If this is the case, which I believe to be true, then it is fitting to ask this question: "Are you mindful of your mind?" Or, "Who is watching over your wandering mind?"

And how might one engage in this practice of paying attention to our minds? You might consider these two ideas: Observe your dreams closely. What is your "mind" doing or saying, not doing or not saying? Yet again, try this. Sit quietly for a period of five to twenty minutes. Observe the thoughts, feelings, and perceptions that come to your attention. But do not engage them. Simply observe.

Through our dreams and our sitting mindfully, we learn to gain some objectivity about our mind, our thoughts, our perceptions, ad our feelings. It is not that we are trying to control our mind as much as it is to see that our mind does not control us! I have a mind; it does not have me ... as it did have with poor Oliver! 


FOOTNOTE
1      
Paul Gilbert. In a seminar presented by the Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School. (With some revisions to Gilbert's original telling and my own adaptation of meaning.)

I am going to give you two images of fear and a question. The first image of the nation of Germany that smoldered in desperation between the two great world wars. The second image is from the American South.

So, first, the image from Germany. It is not a pretty one, disturbing even ninety-four years later. But you must remember how brutally the Germans were treated by the Allies following the collapse of Germany and the end of World War I. Humiliated, starved, bankrupt, without the support of economic means for recovery, the land and the people were left broken, attended primarily by their devils while the world watched. 

Here is the image. It comes to us from the observing pen of D.H. Lawrence, a "Letter from Germany," which he wrote March 1924, while traveling the "heavy, ponderous round hills of the Black Forest." Lawrence notes the "dreary fields," the "smashed houses," and says this:

            The moment you are in Germany, you know. It feels empty and somehow
        menacing. So must the Roman soldiers have watched those black, massive
        round hills with a certain fear, and with the knowledge that there were at 
        their own limit. A fear of the invisible natives. A fear of the invisible life
        lurking among the woods. A fear of their own opposite.
        __  __  __  __  __  __  __  __  __  __  __  __  __  __  __  __  __  ... .
           
            At night the place is almost dark, economizing light. Economy, economy,
        economy -- that too becomes an insanity. Luckily the government keeps bread
        fairly cheap.
            But at night you feel strange things stirring in the darkness, strange feelings
        stirring out of this still-unconquered Black Forest. You stiffen your backbone
        and listen to the night. There is a sense of danger. It is not the people. They
        don't seem dangerous. Out of the very air comes a sense of danger, a queer,
        bristling feeling of uncanny danger.   (Phoenix: The Posthumous Papers, 1936,
        pp. 108-109)

Lawrence is describing so well the feeling of fear when it enters our lives, either because we no longer feel safe due to the perception of an obvious threat, or because of a feared threat we cannot even name because no perception of it exists. Like a child at night feels unsafe, fearful that somewhere in the room -- under the bed, in the closet, somewhere -- something very dangerous is lurking!

Each of us is susceptible to such fears. The reason is because fear is archetypal and the bumper sticker says it very well: "Just because I am paranoid does not mean they are not out to get me." Sanity and insanity lurk very close together here, do they not? This is because fear is one of our primal instincts. How could it not be? When a child is born, leaving the (generally) hospitable, safe womb of the mother, it falls into a harsh existence of strange sights, sounds, sensations. And there is no retreat, no going back, only forward into a mysterious and uncertain future. 

So we come into the world afraid, and we face death afraid. In between, there are encounters with fear, some of them fact-based, and some of them neurotic. Some of them are quite personal, and some of them are collective, experienced in groups or even nations, as was true in the Germany described by Lawrence in his letter.

Now I will give you another image of fear, closer to us in time and geography. The New York Times ran an article on April 25, 2018. The article, "So the South's White Terror Will Never Be Forgotten," written by Brent Staples, details the opening of The National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. Erected on the six-acre Memorial grounds is the Legacy Museum, housing 800 steel pillars hanging from the ceiling with the names of more than 4,400 African-Americans, mostly men, but included as well are the names of women and children, family members of men who were sought for so-called "crimes" against whites. 

The events would sometimes be advertised in local papers as "lyhnching bees" or Negro barbecues." Mr. Staples' article begins with the chilling description of the "carnivals of death where African-American men, women, and children were hanged, burned, and dismembered as cheering crowds of whites looked on . ..."  This, Staples goes on to say, was "the cornerstone of white supremacist rule in the Jim Crow-era South."

This "Jim Crow-era South" refers to a climate of terror int eh Southern United States when state as well as local laws enforced racial segregation. The name "Jim Crow" was created by a white actor, Thomas D. Rice, who toured the region with a minstrel show, using the stage name of Jim Crow to portray the newly-freed slaves as dull-witted, lazy, leacherous individuals who could not be trusted. This caricature appealed to the former slave owners suffering themselves from defeat, hardship, and fear that the African-Americans would retaliate for their years of slavery and mistreatment. These discriminatory laws ruled the southern states from the period between the end of "Reconstruction" in 1877 until the 1960's.

It was an era of fear in the southern United States. You can imagine the terror felt and experienced by the African-Americans during that time. Fueled by ignorance, the fear cascaded into layers of prejudice, hatred, and mistrust that dominated a region and impacted the entire nation. How can that be? How can the human species so capable of genius, generous in outreach, and compassionate in sickness, tragic loss, and death -- how ca this species of creatures behave so abominably toward others in their fellow creatures. We are flawed in this manner, there is no question. We are capable of exemplary acts of heroism but also of despicable acts of barbarism. 

The danger is a phenomenon we call mass hysteria, collective hysteria, moral panic, mass psychogenic illness. It is a disorder in which fear arises within a group or nation and takes possession of the people. The ruling cause is fear, arising from a specific perceived threat or from some vague sense of danger that may be projected upon other persons, groups, or objects. The symptoms are the diminishment of rationality, the demonization of the perceived cause of the threat, and violent actions to subdue the threat.

In my field of analytical psychology, we call this phenomenon a collective complex. It is a psychological complex because it draws its energy from the unconscious depths and is ruled by the archetype of fear. And it is collective because it has spread from the individual to a group. Carl Jung describes the phenomenon like this:

            In my view, this happens when the life of a large social group or of a
            nation undergoes a profound change of a political, social, or religious
            nature. Such a change always involves an alteration of the psychological
            attitude. Incisive changes in history are generally attributed to external
            causes. It seems to me, however, that external circumstances often merely
            sense an occasion for a new attitude to life and the world, long prepared
            in the unconscious to become manifest. (Collected Works, Vol. 8, para.594)

By "new attitude," Jung does not mean it is necessarily good or appearing for the first time. He is referring, rather, to a change in the over-all values and direction of a people at a given moment. Something arises from the depths and seizes control, often under the sway of a "leader" who gives voice to what is bubbling in the unconscious of the people.

And so we ask, why are we now living in a world of fear? What has happened to us? What deep forces within us are stoking the fires of anger, prejudice, and violence? What is the meaning of this nightmare we are living?

This is a poem by David Wagoner from his book, Traveling Light, in which Wagoner draws from one of the many tales by the British author, soldier, explorer, and advisor to Margaret Thatcher as well as Prince Charles who regarded Laurens van der Post (1906-1996) as a spiritual advisor. Known to be relatively free in his accounts of travels and experiences, van der Post nonetheless stirred the imagination of those who met him, as they often came away from those encounters with a deeper sense of meaning and the numimous mystery of life. What follows is Wagoner's poem. 

                                        The Silence of the Stars

                             When Laurens van der Post one night
                           In the Kalahari Desert told the Bushmen
                                       He couldn't hear the stars
                    Singing, they didn't believe him. They looked at him.
                              Half-smiling. They examined his face
                                     To see whether he was joking
                     Or deceiving them. Then two of those small men
                               Who plant nothing, who have almost
                                      Nothing to hunt, who live
                                On almost nothing, and with no one
                                     But themselves, led him away
                                From the crackling thorn-scrub fire
                               And stood with him under the night sky
                                And listened. One of them whispered,
                                        Do you not hear them now?
                               And van der Post listened, not wanting
                                  To disbelieve, but had to answer,
                                      No. They walked him slowly
                                  Like a sick man to the small dim
                                   Circle of firelight and told him
                                       They were terribly sorry,
                                       And he felt even sorrier
                             For himself and blamed his ancestors
                                 For their strange loss of hearing,
                          Which was his loss now. On some clear nights
                       When nearby houses have turned off their televisions,
                           When the traffic dwindles, when through streets
                              Are between sirens and the jets overhead
                                Are between crossings, when the wind
                                      Is hanging fire in the fir trees,
                             And the long-eared owl in the neighboring grove
                               Between calls is regarding his own darkness,
                                     I look at the stars again as I first did
                            To school myself in the names of constellations
                      And remember my first sense of their terrible distance,
                                       I can still hear what I thought
                            At the edge of silence where the inside jokes
                                  Of my heartbeat, my arterial traffic,
                            The C above high C of my inner ear, myself
                      Tunelessly humming, but now I know what they are:
                             My fair share of the music of the spheres
                                     And clusters of ripening stars,
                           Of the songs from the throats of the old gods
                               Still tending even tone-deaf creatures
                                  Through their exiles in the desert.

Reading the poem closely, we are moved by the Bushmen's deep sorrow for the truncated spiritual life of van der Post. He cannot hear the music of the stars which, to them, is the great symphony of their being, their connection with the Divine Spirit that sounds throughout the universe, evoking wonder, awe, and a reconciling Presence, which unites all human beings -- all sentient beings -- indeed all creation.

You and I might think it folly, that these quite simple people in the remote region of southern Africa actually believe they are hearing the stars singing. On the other hand, perhaps they would believe that the silence of the stars we experience is folly, driving us to fill that emptiness with the 10,000 distractions of modern civilization. Yet again, it may well be that the music of the singing stars is the music within the human soul, a music evoked by a worshipful epiphany when gazing at the star-lit sky, away from the deafening cacophony of our planes, lawn mowers, blasting radios, and televisions, and automobiles racing down the ligaments of our collective life in neighborhoods of ever-glaring light and raucous noise.

In some sense, we know like the Bushmen that the stars pull us upward toward a wondrous envelopment of what, for the moment, we might call a sense of Mystical Being. We lack the scientific knowledge to fully understand this phenomenon. But as we grow older into the wisdom of older age, the reality becomes clearer as distractions fade away, making life grander, life more precious, and the later years of approaching death a catastrophe were it not for this deeper knowing and the inner hearing the music of the stars.

Carl Jung in a personal letter written in 1950 put it this way:

                  "The spectacle of old age would be unendurable
           did we not know that our psyche reaches into a region
           held captive neither by change in time nor by limitation of place.
           In that form of being our birth is a death; and our death a birth. 
           The scales of the whole hang balanced."

This is yet another invitation to you, an invitation to consider your dream. And, to extend the idea even further, to consider what dreaming is about. Why do we dream? As far as we know, all animals dream -- with the possible exception of two (the echnidas and the platypuses). Call it what you will, drawing upon your metaphysical, spiritual, philosophical, psychological, medical or practical orientation, dreaming occupies a large space in the life  of this world. It obviously serves a useful purpose, and we might think of it this way.

The dream is a nudging from the unconscious in the form of a symbolic story. Its purpose is to awaken us to something out of sight that is going on in our life: our body, our mental state, our social life, our environment, our psyche's need, our spirituality, our unfinished business from the past, our future's call to us. Toward what end? Toward our well-being in some ultimate and/or immediate sense. Why? That we might complete our lives in the pursuit of authenticity, health, and happiness.

Now the question becomes, how do we arrive at some sense of the meaning of the dream? While this seems like a great mystery, usually a meaning of the dream lies openly in front of us. But it helps to remember these steps in approaching this understanding.

     1.  Notice what you are feeling when you hear the dream -- the emotions and the  
          sensitivities in your body.
     2.  Observe the action of the main character in the dream and imagine the emotions, 
          perceptions, sensations that character must be experiencing. Feel them in your
          body.
     3.  Reflect upon the main character's waking life. What is happening or not happening
          to bring that person authenticity, health, happiness?
     4.  Now consider, what is the mood of the dream as a whole, the "feeling tone?" This
          will probably help us identify the psychological complex in which the dream is
          embedded, another way of catching a glimpse of where the person's life is stuck,
          not moving forward with life's tasks.
     5.  Look for ways in which the dream appears to compensate the dreamer's waking
          life, leading the dreamer through an impasse toward a state of resolution, 
          completion, fulfillment, a reorientation, a new identity, or a peace of mind.
     6.  Keep in mind that in the great majority of dreams, each image, each action, is a
          part of the dreamer's inner life. In other words, when you dream about another
          person, that person represents some part of yourself that has not been allowed
          some conscious recognition in your life. When you dream about a "house," it may
          re-present a state of mind; when you dream about "falling," it might reflect the
          sensation of being out of control, etc.

In short, listen and "feel" the dream with your whole being. Do not overthink. Listen as you would to a good story. You will come to see the playing out of life's universal themes, especially the theme's of power, sex/love/affection, religion, and relationship with people and objects.

For example, with the dreamer's permission, let's consider a specific dream. The dreamer is a striking fifty-nine year-old professional woman. She has worked at a top level ad agency for thirty-one years, rising to the rank of senior sales person with a salary providing her a comfortable life-style and relative financial security. However, her accomplishments and rewards came with a high price of stress in the form of more "wear and tear" on her body and mind than she had acknowledged. At the point where she came to me for analysis, she felt burned-out and was ready to retire. This dream occurred a month following her resignation and her residual uncertainty about what life would be like for her following the intense life she gave to the agency. Again, with her permission and some abbreviation of details, this is her dream. 

     Betty is driving my car. She parks it at a large car dealership, and I see that
     part of the paneling inside the left front door is damaged. I ask her what she is doing
     driving my car and where she got my key. She tells me Bob gave it to her. I go
     into the dealership to order repair parts for my door and tell them to send the
     bill to Bob. Noticing a ceramics shop that is part of the large complex housing
     the dealership, I go in and browse around the knick-knacks before leaving. 
     Outside in an adjacent field is a vegetable garden that draws my attention. 
     Going over, I pull up a Swiss chard. As I examine the leaves I say to a young
     woman who has come up behind me, "This will make a delicious meal." 
     I proceed to give her a recipe, a delicious dish I actually enjoyed last night.

Notice the dramatic story line of the dream. The action moves from a confrontation around the dreamer's "hijacked" car and key to a vacuous passage through the world of the ceramic knick-knacks to the very pleasant experience in a vegetable garden and the sharing of a favorite Swiss chard recipe with an unknown young woman. The characters, the actions, the buildings, and the garden -- all are symbols that reveal something about the dreamer's life at this moment in time. What do the symbols reveal? 

• A reorientation of her life?
• A change in her attitude, her "use of time?"
• Her personal power and how it may have been "hijacked" by some part(s) of herself that have not been conscious?
• What really gives her life meaning?

Those are the same kinds of questions that might come to us as we read any story. Like detectives, when we consider a dream, we have to "snoop" around the scene.

• Who are Betty, Bob, the mystery woman?
• How were the car and key taken over by Betty and Bob?
• What has happened to the dreamer's "car" if it represents her power and sense of identity as cars do. (We buy our cars with some attention to their power and also how they represent us and our values.)
• What is the appeal of the vegetable garden to the dreamer?

And so, like good detectives, we learn from the dreamer the following:

• Betty is an older employee in the ad agency, going through her duties as a "hired hand" captured by the company, performing tasks that are really meaningless to her.
• Bob, not surprisingly, is the executive president of the agency, a typical corporate executive, driven by an ever-increasing need for greater numbers and productivity.
• The car dealership is where our dreamer had some of her more successful sales.
• The vegetable garden is where she feels "drawn" whenever she gets near one.

Given that background, a gestalt of the dream begins to emerge. We can see how our dreamer's life was commandeered by the "Bob" part of her personality, a kind of tyrant who drove her to perform in a work that really was not her deep source of authenticity, health, and happiness. In fact, her health -- emotional, mental, and psychological -- was at some risk in the work. But her "Betty" part of the personality continued to "churn" out the work by pushing the "car" on and on even as it was beginning to come apart on the inside. And, finally, there is an image of the "garden," a symbol of new life, verdancy, nourishment, and happiness.

How, then, might the dreamer restate her dream's meaning for her life at this moment? It could sound something like this:

     My work drove me relentlessly to produce more and more. I felt angry,
     frustated, and confused. Like the ceramic knick-knacks, I had turned it into a
     caricature of myself, dead inside while presenting a painted-on expression of
     what I might be supposed to look like. But when I come to my garden, I come
     alive again. It nourishes me and feels as if it takes years off my life.

So what has changed? She already had resigned from her work. But the dream helps her to "make sense" of what had happened to her and how she might live her life onward in her "garden." Without this reminder, she might lapse back into working part-time in her old position, or even doing the same work in another agency that would love to have her skills but which would re-create the same old expectations of driven-ness that broke down her car in the dream.

The dream, considered, serves both as a warning and an affirmation of what her life may yet be -- in the garden of her delights.






























 

Let's stop our business for just a few moments and meditate on "power." My reason for suggesting this is because we appear to be helplessly caught in some bubble of time dominated with a power obsession. We expect it in the sports world; we have come to anticipate it in the practice of corporate take-overs accompanied by admiration for the bullying, aggressive executives; we hear daily about the sexual exploitation of women at the hands of men in positions of authority; we endure the ongoing wars that suck the firepower and strength of our young men and women; and we hear hourly the present-day political mantra of "making America great" and wealthy and free from the nightmarish traumas of a majority of the earth's citizens.

There is no need to continue on with the list. We are depressed enough without groveling in the despair of a lust for violence in our power-saturated political and entertainment worlds. However, it is not this present period in history that has produced the obsession with power as all of us are too mindful, having survived those long history classes in which we had to memorize the dates and basic facts seemingly of every war that has ever been fought since Adam and Eve got into a scrape with a snake, and later with God who threw them out of their paradisal Garden of Eden, followed by Cain's killing Abel in a fit of jealousy and rage. So, yes, we have struggled with our "power complex" for a time longer than the list of dates composed by our history teachers or the Bible's mythological accounts of humanity's beginnings.

However, there is one source that is seldom referenced when power is discussed. This is the Chinese I Ching or Book of Changes. In China for more than three thousand years, this book of wisdom has served China's political leaders, statesmen, teachers, philosophers, sages, holy men/women, and the citizens in general -- offering oracular counsel for dealing with life's conflicts including the use of power.

One of the I Ching's sixty-four hexagrams offers a probing commentary on power, and is given the title of Ta Chuang/The Power of the Great.  The witness of the centuries comes to us with evocative commentary about the wedding of two ideas: what it means to be "powerful" and what it means to be "great," employing the archetypal and ancient images of heaven and thunder. Stated in picturesque language, the commentary says: 

                                    THE IMAGE
                                       Thunder in heaven above:
                                       The image of the power of the great.

The commentary elaborates on this image in the following way:

              The hexagram points to a time when inner worth mounts
              with great force and comes to power. ... hence there is danger
              that one may rely entirely on one's own power and forget to
              ask what is right. There is danger too that, being intent on
              movement, we may not wait for the right time. Therefore ...
              perseverance furthers. For that is truly great power which
​              does not degenerate into mere force but remains inwardly
              united with the fundamental principles of right and of justice.
              When we understand this point -- namely, that greatness and
​              justice must be indissolubly united -- we understand the true
              meaning of all that happens in heaven and on earth.

To move within this perspective, shaped by its deep valuing of life, unites a "right time" with a "right effort," with a "right intent," and a "right attitude." By the use of "right," I am not referring to that which is legal, but rather to that which is rooted in a consciousness extending beyond one's own self-interests, whim, and profiteering, a consciousness that lifts one up toward the omega point of human existence. The question is not "what's good for business," but what is "business for the good.." In other words, the "power of the great" resides within a concern for the common good. 

Does such a concern motivate the leadership in China today, or for that matter even the average person on the street? I have no idea. I do not hear it mentioned in discussions of their political reckonings. It reminds me of the time my wife and I were searching for a teacher of tai chi. Many of the young Chinese we would ask had no idea what we meant, and when we explained, their response would often be something like, "Oh, you mean what some of the old folk do out in the parks! No, I do not know anyone who does that." But the same could be said, in I wonder how many instances, if we asked Westerners to describe the "Golden Rule," and where it arose or how it is practiced today.

But our meditation is not about finding fault or blaming. It is, to come back to our starting point, about our entrapment within the collective obsession of power and how that is played out destructively at this time in the many arenas of our life. And so, lest we despair, I come back to the I Ching and its promise of hope that is possible for us. There is a ray of light in this hexagram which claims "Perseverance brings good fortune." Elaborating further, the commentary goes on:
 
                  If a person goes on quietly and perseveringly working at the
                  removal of resistances, success comes in the end. The 
                  obstructions give way and all occasion for remorse arising 
                  from excessive use of power disappears. Such a person's 
                  power does not show externally, yet it can move heavy loads,
                  like a big cart whose real strength lies in its axle. The less
                  that power is applied outwardly, the greater its effect.

In other words, not to push our cart with excessive worry but to rely on its inner resources is the source of great power. Not to confront the outward obstacles with displays of arrogant force but to connect with the axle of our common humanity is the power of the great.

Now the Evangelicals' cry to "put Christ back in Christmas" is supported by a publicity stunt to endorse "Merry Christmas" as a greeting and salutation during this season of celebrating Christ's birth. The call for a restoration of "Merry Christmas" (that never did actually go away) is issued from the highest office of our land.  The pronouncement rings hollow as
(1) a rallying battle cry for his Fox-brainwashed supporters, (2) another attempt to reestablish a nostalgic Norman Rockwell white-only moment in time, and/or (3) a marketing ploy to drum up more business in the season between Thanksgiving and New Years -- as if we needed further commercialization!

But, as is true of most bad things that come our way, underneath is an opportunity to look more deeply at what the ruckus is all about. In short, the matter seems to come down to how a diverse, secular society that honors freedom-of and freedom-from religion can honor its many diverse groups of religious and non-religious citizens. As a young nation, peopled principally in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by newly-arrived immigrants from European countries with Christian histories, long before public media and the modern advertising industry had power to dominate what we read, what we hear, what we see, and how we feel pressured by  methods that prey upon our unconscious likes and dislikes -- long before all this, in a society strongly influenced by Protestantism, the recognition of a day to honor Christ's birth was much simpler.

But not so now. In addition to the increase in numbers of people from around the world, those newly-arrived citizens also bring with them the faiths of all the major religions of the world: Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Taoism, and others in addition to the established Judaism and Christianity. Factor in, as well, the growing number of the NONES who do not identify with any of the established religions, the atheists, the New Age do-you-own-kind of spirituality, etc. What a potpourri!

And then there is, in addition, our friends who discredit the Christmas story by reminding us that  Christianity draws its narrative wonder and awe from the Roman's celebration of their holiday, the Saturnalia, an ancient festival celebrated between December 17-23, with much eating, drinking, decoration of trees, exchange of gifts, and what some commentators have described as excessive self-indulgent, sensual pleasures. All of this honored the god Saturn, a deity of agriculture, fertility, liberation, and time, to whom a pig would be publicly sacrificed in the temple. Supposedly, Christians hijacked the festival and moved the date of Jesus' birth to coincide with the Roman celebration of Saturn.

But it is not quite that simple. Winter festivals have sprung up in many parts of the world among a diverse origin of people, including:
         Dong Zhi -- Chinese
         Shab-e Yalda -- Iran
         Inti Raynie -- Peru/the Incas
         Shalako -- Zuni Indians
         Soyal -- Hopi of northern Arizona
         Taji -- Japan 
                           (See "History Stories," History.com)

You begin to see a fuller, more complete picture than would be given by a simple association of Saturnalia alone. In other words, there is an intriguing interaction of time, the seasons, geography, people and their customs, and the deep faiths of the world's religions. We take for granted the simultaneous appearance of Hanukkah and Kwanzaa beside Christmas, but there are many other festivals and celebrations with similar rituals spread through time and geography, and yet each has its own unique heritage.

And so we come to a point I want to consider. It is this. Christmas is archetypal. Like all the other festivals in their unique manifestation, Christmas draws its lasting power and mythic wonder from its nature not only as a historical phenomenon describing the birth of a Jewish peasant from the Mediterranean region of the world. It is also anchored in the archetype of the winter solstice, and the human yearning for light, life, and hope. 

The winter solstice marks the longest night of the years and the shortest day. For our ancients, it was no doubt a frightening time. Earlier on, they had no idea about astronomical wonders of the sun, earth, moon, seasons, fertility, dormancy. Sure, they would slowly over the centuries begin to piece together the patterns of nature coinciding with the movement of sun and stars, but not before the experience of winter solstice was bred within our bones as the interplay of life and death, light and darkness, hope and doubt, warmth and cold, fire and an all-encompassing freeze that threatened all life, the ending of which was uncertain. What could be done? Appease the gods, make whatever sacrifice could be made in order to curry the favor of the divinities, and meanwhile huddle together, recite stories, entertain those close to you in whatever way you could. Even Jesus offers this prayer for his people, "pray that it [a time of tribulation] will not be in winter." (Mark 13:18)

It is against that historical and astronomical backdrop that I say, "Christmas is an archetype." It lodges within the souls of Christians not only because of its promise of deliverance from the winter of life, but because of its portrayal of humanity's sense of cosmic purposiveness made possible paradoxically by the birth of a child. 

This unique message of hope and renewal, a saving promise of humanity's higher nature, adds to the richness of deposits in the spiritual experience of all Christians. To silence its mythic narrative, to ignore it, to cover it up with the tinsel of holiday trivia, or to regard it as only a replay of the Romans' Saturnalia, would be to cancel an investment in life for generations to come. 

The same can be said for all the festivals that bring light to our winter solstices. And so I say, let us greet each other with the best each of us has to offer. If it is Jewish, Islam, Hindu, Buddhist -- whatever -- I welcome your greeting and salutations.

What would be chilling would be to forfeit our heritages and become like Dickens' Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, a soul-less person whose disgust not only with Christmas but with all things loving, had frozen his personality to the point, "the cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice." The best he could say was "Bah Humbug"!

And so, from the warmth of our house to the warmth in yours, I bid you a Merry Christmas and best wishes for your New Year.