How do you and I understand and cope with these strange times in which we are living? By "strange times," I mean the clash of two extremes that whirl around us daily as if in a free form dance of folly and heroism. There are no constraints, no positions, no choreography, and no melody that inspires an ecstatic embrace of union, or a promise that the mad dance will conclude any time soon.

Now consider "folly" and what that word means:

• absurdity
• foolery
• idiocy
• inanity
• lunacy
• imbecility
• insanity
• stupidity

These synonyms of "folly" became associated with the Foles-Bergere of Paris back at the turn of the 20th century. Britannica described The Follies of 1907 as risqué with elements of seminudity, pageant, and comedy that played well in Paris and New York until 23 years later when the Great Depression ended the production.

And in history the archetypal dancing partner of "folly" is "heroism," that means:

• daring
• fearlessness
• gutsiness
• bravery
• guts
• nerve
• valor

Where in history have we witnessed these qualities most dramatically? No doubt you are thinking of instances in your own life where heroism occurred. And recently in The Christian Science Monitor on 7 June 2024, Chris Migerica and Zeke Miller caught a special moment in recent history with this news release:

       President Biden on June 7, looked to summon Americans to defend democracy 
   from threats at home and abroad ... by drawing on the heroism of Army Rangers
   who scaled the seaside cliffs of Pointe du HOC in the D-Day invasion.

We think also of our 9/11 trauma, when 343 firefighters died along with 60 police officers, 13 paramedics, and 3 emergency medical technicians. Many other heroic acts occurred that day, including those individuals in the towers who faced their end with a desperate resolve or a gallant dive from the crashing tower to face their approaching death rising from the concrete, debris-filled street below.

Returning now to my topic, "The Archetypal Dance of Human Folly and Heroism," I have sketched the extremes of human behavior, folly and heroism. And I use the metaphor "archetypal dance" to note the dynamic swing of our actions, the often absurd folly and the daring heroism caught in the free-form swirl of archetypal tension. I use the reference to archetype meaning the innate, neurological guiding impulse that brings us to the guardrails of health, safety, and well-being when we risk losing our way.

So just who are we human beings? Do we tilt toward the risky end of losing ourselves in our follies, or do we subdue our lively, creative selves with a dutiful existence of heroic sacrifice? And the answer appears to be that we must be careful not to suggest a simplistic response that lends itself to a 30-second commercial on prime time TV.

I call your attention again to my use of "archetypes" that function for us as instincts function for animals. But we must be careful not to define archetypes as instincts, although they provide something of the same drive to survive and thrive in a threatening world. Further, archetypes carry with them the capacity for symbolic reflection that gives meaning to our existence and elevates the call toward the heroism by which we face the many challenges that come our way.

It is for this reason that we need heroic figures not only in our personal lives but also in the lives of our national leaders.

TO illustrate this, I circled around through history to focus on President John Kennedy. He not only lived the life of a hero with sacrificial service in the Pacific campaign of WW II,   he summoned the nation as President to confront the Cold War with valor, wisdom, and heroic leadership.

In particular, I thought it important in this historical moment of vulgar cynicism and nihilism to lift up another time and a hero who offered us courage and a vision to bring forth our own heroism.

Listen to John Kennedy's words at the Commodore Hotel, New York, when he accepted his party's nomination for President on September 14, 1960:

       I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human
       liberty as the source of national action, and the human heart as the
       source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source 
       of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, this faith in our fellow
       citizens as individuals and a people that lies at the heart of the liberal 
       faith, for liberalism is not so much a party creed or a set of fixed platform
       promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability
       through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for 
       himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and 
       brotherhood which all human life deserves.

And this second quote also comes from President Kennedy on the day of his inauguration in Washington, D.C., January 20, 1961:

       Now the trumpet summons us again—not as a call to bear arms, though 
       arms we need—not as a call to battle, though embattled we are—but a
       call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out,
       "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation"--a struggle against the common
       enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself . . .

       In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted
       the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not 
       shrink from this responsibility—I welcome it. I do not believe that any of
       us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation.
       The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will
       light our country and all who serve it—and the glow from that fire can 
       truly light the world . . .

       With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final 
       judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His
       blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must
       truly be our own.

And still the dance continues.

In a previous blog, I asked the question, "Why can't we be happy?" And I answered that question by noting that we cannot be happy because too many of us are competing for the inalienable rights offered all human beings by our Creator: truth, freedom, courage, beauty, and love. These are the heritage with which we have been blessed, although they will be realized in our personal and social lives only if we have the wisdom and commitment to make our heritage a reality.

But herein is the problem. We seem not even to agree on what those inalienable rights mean. What is truth? We remain floundering in the insanity of misinformation. What is freedom? We confuse authoritarianism with freedom to do whatever benefits us. What is beauty? We are seduced with ostentatious glamor that we call beauty. And what is love? We live in the fleeting encampments of superficial titillation that we fool ourselves to believe is love.

Driven by power, hyped-up by soundtracks in stores and malls for the promotion of spending and buying, disoriented by mega churches whose religion became entertainment, drifting in the sea of professional sports whose logos reflect creatures confined to captivity in zoos and shrinking worlds, frightened by permeable borders that no longer protect us from others whose habitats are being destroyed—our transcendent rights of courage, truth, freedom, beauty, and love appear to float over the horizon of our once magnificent planet as time nears the midnight hour of darkness.

But not totally and not yet. To reach for a metaphor or image that helps us frame the meaning of this moment in which we are living, I turn to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Do not think that this is an elitist group of academicians who have nothing to do with our down-to-earth title of this writing, "Why can we not be happy?". In fact, the work of the Bulletin has everything to do with our happiness—and our survival. In fact, the Bulletin began at another time when the survival of the world was at risk. This is the way they tell their story.

          The Bulletin began as an emerging action created by scientists who saw an
      immediate need for a public reckoning in the aftermath of the atomic bombings
      of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Our mission was to urge scientists to help shape
      national and international policy. A second mission was to help the public 
      understand what the bombings meant for humanity.

And the creative way that original group devised was to portray the face of a clock with a minute and hour hand. Midnight on the clock would symbolize final destruction—doom—and that is why it became known as the Doomsday Clock. In 1947, for example, when the doomsday clock was begun, the minute hand was set at 7 minutes to midnight. In the
75+ years since that first setting, the minute hand has been changed 25 times in response to existential threats.

Where is it presently? At 90 seconds before midnight, the minute hand is closest to midnight than it has ever been before. And like other readers, you probably have questions: Who determines the proximity of the minute hand to the midnight hour? What are the factors that influence the declsion makers?

Let's begin with that last question. The factors that move the minute hand so close to midnight are the following:

• NUCLEAR RISK: Consider the present conflicting powers, the irrationality of their refusal to reconcile, and the availability of nuclear weapons that may be used if the warfare prompted extreme reactions or if a mistake was made to let loose these doomsday weapons that could destroy our civilization.
• CLIMATE CHANGE: While the clean energy transition in our societies has offered us some hope, the fundamental issues of climate change remain a political obstruction among the world's nations that undermines the necessary action required to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
• BIOLOGICAL THREATS: Increasing numbers of individuals and groups work in this area with potential benefits for humanity, but also increased risks that mishaps in laboratories or mismanagement may let loose a devastating agent or agents that could swarm over people, training facilities, individuals, and nations, paralyzing any prospect for recovery before civilization itself is devastated.
• DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGIES: The arrival of generative artificial intelligence has sprung on research laboratories, controlling agencies, and governmental regulations seemingly overnight. No one knows where this may be headed, how it may be directed in the services of humankind, and/or the extent it may become destructive in the hand of rogue players.

You can see what concerns the panel of atomic scientists who balance these potential destructive concerns with the urgent need to contain them in the service of avoiding catastrophic mayhem not only within the laboratories of research but also within and between nation states. In addition, we must consider the outliers who want to control the potentialities of their power for their own narcissistic benefit but also, in some most alarming instances, for the purpose of destroying civilization itself.

Thus, the question in our title evolves.

Today, it is more seemly to ask not, "Why can't we be happy?", but rather, "How can we be happy?" Well, of course, it does us no good to despair or to throw up our hands in helpless defeat. Yes, it is indeed 90 seconds before midnight. Yes, there are a significant number of our population who are (1) ignorant of the fact, (2) dismissive of the destructive potential facing us, (3) lost in anger, divisiveness, and paranoia, (4) defiant in belief that all of this is liberal political propaganda, etc. 

And, as I remind my analysands and members of my dream group, I have no record of dreams that suggest our end is near. Sure, we have warning dreams, but everything I pick up in my dreams and the dreams of others is that we have time, but we must be conscious.

What are you dreaming? The clock keeps ticking!  

Do you remember where you were and what you were doing on Monday night, September 10, 2001? I recall a very enchanting evening with my wife. The beautiful, silky day slipped through our fingers all too quickly. We concluded our summer vacation at one of the most beautiful beaches in the world—our world, anyway.

And so the evening began in that bitter-sweet moment when a very precious time ends, our vacation, but a new reality calls us to the promise of more-of-the-same, only better. We decided to stop by my office to check mail, water plants, and top off the trip home by enjoying a glass of cabernet at the restaurant beside my office.

I suggested to Deborah, my wife, that we ease into the return of our busy lives with this treat to honor the wonderful vacation we had enjoyed. She quickly agreed, already bracing herself for the rigorous program year ahead with the stress she shouldered as a symphonic cellist who had to prepare and perform a new program each week, with special rehearsals for the holiday seasons. Of course, she looked forward to the grueling work which she also dreaded. There, that evening as she relaxed in the tensions of opposites that composed so much of her life, we chatted about our past and the future that we anticipated with the genial anticipation that all of us experience at the end of our vacations and a return to normal. 

A "return to normal" ... We could never have anticipated that the evening would be our last "normal." We lingered with our wine, we laughed, relaxed, relived the grand moments on the beach we loved so much—the walks, the moonlit nights of skinny-dipping, the love-making, the collecting of shells, the greeting of other beachcombers we had never met before and would never see again, but people like us, our "beach family."

Each of these precious moments lingered in our minds as we lingered with our wine. Deborah looked so relaxed and lovely, sitting at the outside table of the restaurant, under dim lights and stars emerging in the gathering darkness. But then came a very subtle, but distinct shift in the mood. Deborah became quiet, pensive-like, and I knew she was gathering her thoughts. Was it a dread of yet again preparing herself for another demanding performance of Beethoven's Ninth?! No, something else. Finally she said, "I feel as if something bad is going to happen." "Like what?," I asked. "I don't know," she responded, "and I don't want to end our evening and vacation with a downer. It's probably nothing."

But the moment arrived with somber tone and a quiet uncertainty. We felt it. "Something is in the air," we may say at such times. We do not know how our minds work to pass along an undisclosed image, sensation, thought, or feeling. But I shall never forget that particular moment -- the laughter, the fun, the glass of wine, the enchantment, and then the indescribable foreboding unknown. So ended the enchantment.

Meanwhile, 847 miles from where we sat at that restaurant, two planes would be boarded the next morning, Flight 11 headed to Los Angeles, and Flight 175 also headed to LA. Only 727.7 air miles away, the planes boarded probably with sleeping but expectant passengers looking forward to a nap while their Boeing 767 jets nestled them in its wings, in preparation for the next business day or vacation days such as Deborah and I had  previously enjoyed and relived under the romantic lights of the first evening back home.

And so it was that the two jets hurdled toward a fateful crash we have come to refer to as "9/11" and the first act of terrorism that penetrated what we had taken to be the impenetrable shield of our country's "isolation." Adrift with secure boundaries east and west, the great Atlantic and Pacific oceans, to our north the friendly Canadians whose border we could regularly criss-cross with appropriate political hospitality, and to our south, other friendly neighbors in Mexico, where we might hospitably shop and sightsee, we could rest easy. Ah, so assured we were that nothing short of a nuclear rocket would penetrate the friendly skies above our heads. And, thankfully and mercifully, President Reagan and President Mikhail Gorbachev undertook courageous and wise steps to foster positive relationships as the Cold War wound down and the old USSR continued to dissolve.

Also, a particular source of confidence was our seeming mastery of all that we had come to associate with modernism. Engineering, technology, a free-wheeling capitalism, free markets except for any we might want or need to control, the rejection of old traditions, the optimism of politics and economics regulated with a thriving marketing economy—all of this we had mastered in euphoric triumph of modernism that had cast off old ways and looked for more development and progress. After all, here in New York, in what was named the World Trade Center, we showed the world its tallest building in the North and South towers, completed in 1973.

And so it was that on the morning of "9/11," I left my house just before 9 AM, and turned on my car radio to enjoy our warm and friendly radio show, Charlotte Talks. But immediately I was told that regular programming would be suspended for national news. In what must have been a freak accident, the announcer declared, a jet had collided with a tower in the World Trade Center. More news flooded the local station with details. At 8:46 AM, flight 11 from Boston crashed into floors 93-99 of the North Tower. But wait, there was another crash at 9:03 AM as flight 175 from Boston crashed into floors 77-85.

All hell, literally, was unfurled. Shock and fear flooded our news outlets and our bodies as well as our minds and souls. This was no accident; clearly we had been attacked. Yes, the improbable if not the impossible had happened. The two towers collapsed. But it was not just the two towers that collapsed. No, the "9/11" story is that the crash of the towers signaled something more significant—the collapse of modernism.

Actually, two other flights crashed that day. The third plane struck our Pentagon, and the fourth plane crashed in a Pennsylvania rural field. But before the day ended, the attacks killed 2,977 people and 19 al-Qaeda terrorists, making it the deadliest terrorist attacking history, planned by Osama bin Laden, who had become leader of what would later carry the name of al-Qaeda, ("the base"), a militant organization that declared a holy war against the United States.

Since that national trauma, we have been adrift. Fundamentalist religion challenged politics, politics challenged democratic institutions, and courage caves today in the face of money and power while our enchanting world slips into memory and waits—because dreams never die.

                               "Why Can't We Be Happy"

                   I'm so full of love yet I'm sad every day
                      How can we keep on living this way?
                   Now we are in a war, people dying every day
                      With a little love, it'll all fade away

                   Can't we all be happy, the way it used to be?
                   Love one another and let the world be free
                   People are hating' more and more everyday
                   Understanding is gettin' slowly further away
                      Now what's gonna happen when it all comes to a head
                      There'll be no world to live in, cause we'll all be dead

                   So, why can't we be happy, the way it used to be?
                      Love one another and let the world be free
                             (Ike and Tina Turner Lyrics)
                           Album COME TOGETHER—1970

But, dear Ike and Tina, wherever you may be listening in and following the daily news of gloom, despair, and agony, you will understand why we cannot be happy. It's bad. How bad, you might say? Well, it's bad enough that the New Yorker ran a cartoon by Teresa Burns Parkhurst last week that pretty much says it all. In the cartoon, we see a corporate head of what looks like a sales team of women and men. The standing team leader says, "In light of national and world events, we've repealed our no-crying-at-your-desk policy." (April 5, 2024)

That's right. It's that bad down here (or "up here," if the case may be). According to our own United States Department of State, we are facing concerns in the following issues:

• Anti-Corruption and Transparency
• Arms Control and Nonproliferation
• Climate and Environment
• Combating Drugs and Crime
• Continuing Terrorism
• Cyber Issues
• Economic Prosperity and Trade Policy
• Covid-19 Recovery
• Energy
• Global Health
• Global Women's Issues
• Human Rights and Democracy
• Human Trafficking
• The Ocean and Polar Affairs

There are many more, but I will hold my listings and allow you to catch your breath. I would, however, consider one more factor. It is this: Underneath all the issues I previously listed, there exists one matter we must consider, and that is the Zeitgeist that gives birth to all those issues.

Let me explain. Consider the word, ZEITGEIST. The New Oxford American Dictionary defines zeitgeist like this: "the defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas and beliefs of the time." Looking further, the Webster's Third International Dictionary goes on to offer the following: "the general intellectual and moral state or the trend of culture and taste characteristic of an era." And finally, in the sense of considering small nuances in the definitions, consider how The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language adds another subtlety: "the taste and outlook characteristic of a period or generation." Lastly, it is worthy of note that all three dictionaries offer the description of a present moment in time as a compound of two words zeit ("time") and geist ("spirit").

Looking at zeitgeist from the vantage point of the word's derivation, we may grasp the psychological significance not only of the word, but also a deepening sense of what is happening to us and the troubled world in which we find ourselves now.

But now comes the next observation, we have cracked the door open to understand that we are beset at this time by a spirit that is out of sight, and colors not only our moods, thoughts and actions, but the way we perceive, decide, and act. Furthermore, we  understand that the so-called "spirit" is what we mean by the psychological term archetype. Thus, we now bring our question of why we cannot be happy to a deeper understanding. 

Since the the monumental discovery by Carl Jung of the "collective unconscious" within which reside the dynamics of human potential to think, feel, and act, we now more fully grasp what goes on in a society that influences the zeitgeist. For example, any individual may influence the mood, perceptions, and behavior of a group, a community, and even a nation. How is this possible? Alas, for good and ill, we all are connected now with our personal and collective media. What goes on in the furthest corner of our planet washes up on our phones, TVs, and news outlets. This may serve us in a very positive way, but also in many negative ways by individuals who wish to do us harm, or do not care, or selfishly act only for private gain.

And so, we come back to our first question, "Why can't we be happy?" And the most fundamental, honest answer is this: We can be. But in order to do so, we must be aware that all of us now are in one lifeboat, just one. What you do impacts me, and what I do impacts you. In other words, any selfish act I commit at any given time will possibly bring me satisfaction or good fortune or happiness in the short term. But in the long term, in our small lifeboat, what hurts you will come around and hurt me. Right?

What governs our zeitgeist on our small lifeboat? What is the spirit (archetype) of our time (zeit) together? One spirit (archetype) acts in behalf of mutual life and potential. This is the archetype of truth, freedom, beauty, and love. Of course, the spirit (archetype) of death and selfish power also resides in our psyche, and the very freedom we cherish allows us to decide what choice we may make. The old misperception still exists that there is not enough truth, freedom, beauty, and love to go around—that if I do not grab a bunch of it for myself, you will control it. 

In that case, the answer now becomes clear. We cannot be happy because at least some of us are competing for the unalienable gifts offered all human beings by our Creator: truth, freedom, beauty, and love. This is our heritage. May we be granted the will and courage and wisdom to claim our inheritance.

How strange it may seem to you if I attempt to offer an understanding of this strange moment in which we are living by presenting two words that are not anchored in our native English or our every-day speech. These two words are WOTAN and ZEITGEIST.

"Wotan" is the name of a god in German mythology and folk lore. "Zeitgeist" is a word that has crept into our discourse, most often to describe the future's mood and expressions in music, the arts, theatre, literary publications, dramas, and all endeavors to pull open the curtain of our national life.

Wotan, of course, lurks in the far dark corners of our libraries' stacks where few people have any interest in exploring. Perhaps some academics dust off the volumes of ancient mythologies, symbols, depth psychologies, anthropologies, and arcane studies in ancient religions.

But, of course, Wotan maintains a place in the tombs of time-be-gone tales of human character, tales of adventurous souls who sought meaning at the end of our furthest remembrances, geography, and human origins. However, like all archetypal powers, Wotan does not remain out of sight and experience forever. An archetype may duck under the surveillance of our consciousness of years or centuries, and then startlingly appear in the life of an individual or a nation when the archetype seizes the conscious mind with a grip so strong that our perspective loses its grip. Then we find ourselves in the hands of an omnipotence that defies rational explanation.

Jung admits to having encountered such a power in his personal life. This is the nature of an archetype nestled within that part of the human psyche Jung called the "collective unconscious," so far away from ego-consciousness that the archetype cannot be mastered or controlled. Rather, the archetype bridges mind and matter with a numinosity that may hallow our existence and make life seem worth living, meaning worth pursuing, and human existence an existential gift of grace. Or, on the other hand, certain archetypes may lead us into the darkest corners of existence, for example, the archetype of war such as Wotan. 

This means that the archetypes do not appear always in beauty, hope, love, and wisdom. Rather, like instincts, the archetypal powers bridge our physical world and our spiritual seeking. In fact, the archetype peers into the distant past and furthest reaches of whatever extensions of ourselves life makes possible at any given moment.

In fact, the archetypes breathe joyful expectation and dreadful fears throughout the daily affairs of life. And then the archetypal experiences appear in images that are the gifts of inspiration and dread. In other words, like instincts, archetypes strum the notes of humanity's varied experiences. And from those melodies, we walk the path of our origins and our extended human potential.

How do we dare give the name of "archetype" to these deepest of human experiences? Because they are as real as instincts are. In fact, as analytical psychology teaches us, the word itself refers to experience that is "first in meaning," tracing itself back to the Greek verb archeen which means "to begin" or "to rule," suggesting that archetypes are power centers and currents that shape who we are, what we have been and what we might become, all of which we present in our dramas, musical compositions, and works of art.

But now we come back to consider Wotan. When Jung wrote his essay by that name in 1936, he had been preceded by the young English writer, D.H.Lawrence. Sometime around 1924 or 1928, scholars cannot verify the specific date, Lawrence and his wife visited Germany for the second time. He records his perceptions and experience of the country in "A Letter from Germany" you will find included in Phoenix, a posthumous collections of some of his works, including in particular his keen description of places he visited.

In that letter describing his second visit to Germany, Lawrence is taken with the zeitgeist that he describes as a sense of danger. The danger does not originate in the people. He refers to it as a spirit that has come to inhabit the place. Moreover, he defines it as a "savage spirit." And indeed it was. Already the movement of political action and characters moved in the rhythm of war, a rhythm that would bring Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party to power and to the ruination of a magnificent country that had contributed so much to western civilization.

How absurd can this be! How absurd that such a civilized population could fall victim to the savery of mass murder and war that would then threaten civilization and hoist the ferocious banner of anti-semitism!

How could that be? It was not rational. It was not explained simply by politics, economics, or relations with neighboring peoples. It was none of those things as Jung makes clear. It was a people infected by a savage archetype, an archetype of war and power-seeking. It was an archetypal power that drove Germany to war and threatened the world order. It was Wotan.

In the months to come we will discuss further this archetype of war, how it appears in the mythical origins of our existence and how it continues to threaten our civilization and our existence. 

Something happened in our society that cast a shadow on our civic manner, behavior, relationships with one another, hopes and dreams, appreciation for our democratic ideals, and trust in the future. This reminds me of another time, another place, and another description of a national mood described by the English novelist D.H.Lawrence.

            Something has happened. Something has happened which has not yet 
            eventuated. The old spell of the old world has broken, and the old
            bristling savage spirit has set in. ... And it all looks as if the years were 
            wheeling swiftly backwards, no more onwards.

That quote by Lawrence comes from "A Letter From Germany," written in 1928 or 1929 and published in 1934. He goes on to add as he nears the conclusion to his letter:

            Like a spring that is broken, and whirls swiftly back, so time seems to be
            whirling with mysterious swiftness to a sort of death.

This prophetic observation by Lawrence that was written in the 1920's and published for the world to see in 1934, came to fruition only a decade later. Carl Jung picked up on the dark fatefulness Lawrence anticipated. And from Jung's vantage point, he named the events at that time in Germany as a people seized by an archetype he recognized as Wotan. Nowhere in my recollection is there a more definitive and descriptive analysis of what it is like when a nation falls under the spell of an archetype such as Jung articulated in his essay by the name of that particular archetypal power—Wotan. 

We do well not to casually dismiss this historical event, national catastrophe, and terror of what happens when a people sleepwalk into a net of psychical peril. Of course, we can easily dismiss Jung's observations of an archetype named Wotan. We may think, "How quaint, how disingenuous, how removed such an experience and psychological description are from us." 

But before we let our 21st century imagination run away with us, we might hold tight the reins of our distractible minds. Consider what an archetype is. Allow yourself to become conscious of the archetype's numinosity, its power to control the minds of not just one person but a nation of people, its capacity to infect an individual with narcissistic importance, and its dominating influence on social, political, and religious leaders one would expect to know better than to be hauled down the corridors of authoritarianism, savagery, and self-importance.

In other words, archetypes are not simply a psychological concept. They are to human beings what instincts are to animals. In an earlier writing, I defined "archetype" as:

            primal forms of being arising from evolutionary origins, manifesting
            in human beings as universal patterns of behavior, cognition, emotion,
            and perception; or as images that appear in dreams, symbols, and
            myths; or as deeply felt experiences and encounters that are mean-
            ingful but not necessarily explicable through present-day paradigms;
            functioning in the human unconscious as formative centers of psycho-
            logical complexes; capable of constellating a psychoid field of
            connectivity.  (Musing in Search of Meaning; p. 80)

It is important to note that we do not inherent specific images but rather the biological, neurological capacity to form the images which is part of our genetic endowment. Because we become aware of images in literature, fairy tales, and myths, we mistakingly think of the images as archetypes. However, they are not the archetypes but rather archetypal images that impact us in meaningful ways because of our capacity to sense in our environment universal and timeless patterns. Carl Jung expresses it this way:

            again and again I encounter the mistaken notion that an archetype
            is determined in regard to its content, in other words, that it is a
            kind of unconscious idea (if such an expression is admissible). It is
            necessary to point out once more that archetypes are not determined
            as regards their content, but only as regards their form.... . 
            (Memories, Dreams, Reflections, pp. 392-393)

Perhaps more than any other professional in the field of psychology, Anthony Stevens has worked to clarify what is meant by the word and concept of archetypal powers. Stevens suggests that archetypes "precede all existence" and further that "they are manifest in the spiritual achievements of art, science, and religion, as well as in the organization of organic and inorganic matter." ("The Archetypes," The Handbook of Jungian Psychology, p. 90)

Something so dynamic and formative in our existence helps us understand what's happening to us at this time, personally and collectively. As I said at the beginning of this writing, something profound has happened in our society that must account for the violence and insanity we are experiencing daily. What archetypal powers have seized us?

I will return to this theme next month when we will consider Jung's essay, "Wotan," describing the archetypal power that cast a spell on the German nation and erupted in the rise of Hitler's fascism.

Since I last wrote you, I have been asked to officiate at a funeral and a wedding.

"Officiate"—such a strange word. What does it mean? To make something "official" sounds very hollow for occasions such as weddings and funerals, don't you think?

Of course, there are other words sometimes used for these occasions. We "perform," "conduct," and "do" weddings and funerals. But think about that. Those are the two occasions in life when love is most felt, shared, expressed, enjoyed, grieved, remembered, and hoped for.

In the two occasions where I was recently asked to "officiate," I knew the parties very well, shared memories and hopes, and felt the love which was palpable and permeating—filling the families and friends, the important persons who deliver the flowers, make sure the lights and microphones work, and—yes—dig the hole where the deceased may be "laid to rest," as we euphemistically cover the horrors of saying good-by to a loved one with words that somehow are supposed to comfort all of the witnesses who know that any one of us may be the next to be "laid to rest" in the cold ground or ushered through the fires of cremation before our remaining ashes are spread by the wind.

But stay with me here. This is not a soliloquy of mourning or even a remembrance of the happy times when unions in marriage celebrate the ecstasy of love. Rather, I offer an observation that love is most honored when it is recognized as the very boundary of our existence in which we come to be—to be a person, an actor on the stage of life in which love is the primary theme of our being, without which there is no meaning to our brief existence. Love is indeed the beginning and the end, but also the in-between that fills not only our personal lives but the lives of others, the lives of our dependent creatures, and the dark shadows of night with the triumphant declaration of a Presence made meaningful by love. Herein is the ontology of love.

St. Paul dove into an understanding of love when he wrote a letter to the small group of Christians in Corinth around the middle of the first century, CE. In that marvelous chapter 13 of the epistle, St. Paul reminds his readers of love's reality and importance. He weaves his way through several distractions and disagreements that separated individuals from each other, as they continue today to separate us. It is not Paul's position on any of the points of debate that need to be focused on here in this writing. Rather, it is his profound description of the importance of love because of its very nature.

So what is the nature of love? How might you and I think of it? How might you and I put it in the simplest words that might lead us toward an understanding of love? Let me try.

But before going further, it is of course important to note that we have become accustomed to thinking of the nature of love in its three-fold expressions: philia, eros, agape. Within this frame, generally we understand "philia" as a kind of neighborly love, and hence we come upon the city of Philadelphia, the "city of brotherly love," as it was early-on described. Named by William Penn, an English Quaker, Penn considered this city in the new country to represent freedom from tyranny. The city did indeed play an important role as a meeting place for delegates from the thirteen colonies that went on to become the United States. Even with the many squabbles endured by the delegates, the "city of brotherly love" held its reputation as a center for grievances and differences found in a formula that united the differing parties within a restraint, admiration, and tension of brotherly conflict, a relationship of brotherly love.

Then came eros. How difficult it has become to liberate the concept and popular notion of eros from the container of sexual love. The glitter and glamour of sexual desire certainly resides within eros, but eros is much more. Even Carl Jung admitted the difficulty in fully understanding and describing eros. Listen to the anguish with which Jung wrestles the idea toward an understanding with which he can live. Referring to what he describes as "the realm of Eros," Jung acknowledges "the incalculable paradoxes of love." He goes on to acknowledge that Eros is a "kosmogonos, a creator and father-mother of all higher consciousness." And then he goes on to say this:

       In my medical experiences as well as my own life I have again and again
       been faced with the mystery of love, and have never been able to describe 
       what it is. ... Here is the greatest and the smallest, the remotest and
       nearest, the highest and lowest, and we cannot declare one side of it
       without discussing the other. No language is adequate to this paradox.
                                            (Memories, Dreams, Reflections, pp. 353-354)

So, we may ask, where does this leave us? As I have worked over many years to look within the mystery of love's nature, I have discovered some light in the theological explorations of John Macquarrie, an Anglican priest and theologian. Like all of us who seek to probe the depths of understanding the nature of love, Macquarrie came to my assistance with these words to describe love in the ontological sense as "letting be."

       Love is letting-be, not of course in the sense of standing off from someone
       or something, but in the positive and active sense of enabling-to-be. 
       When we talk of "letting-be," we are to understand both parts of this
       hyphenated expression in a strong sense—"letting" as empowering, and
       "be" as enjoying the maximal range of being that is open to the particular
       being concerned. Most typically, "letting-be" means helping a person into
       the full realization of ... potentialities for being, and the greatest love
       will be costly, since it will be accomplished by the spending of one's own being.
                                                  (Principles of Christian Theology, pp. 310-311)

​This is the beginning and the end. Such love appears over our grave sites and within the halls where marriage is solemnized. We hold this consciousness with the reverence due the highest peaks of our human experiences and the lowest descents of such suffering as love allows. 

I hoped we might be finished with war. The power of our weapons, the prospect of indescribable destruction, and the catastrophic loss of life numb our sensibilities.

This cloud has hung over my head all my life. My grandparents suffered the cruel uncertainty of living daily, not knowing when a representative from the American Red Cross might drive up to their door with an announcement thousands of families received that a loved one was killed, captured, or "missing-inaction"—their location and condition unknown. 

In fact, my father served in the Pacific campaign under General MacArthur and returned home physically unharmed. My uncle, however, was not so lucky. He had been captured in the battle of the Bulge during the last days of the war in Germany. In fact, this major battle was the last major offensive on the Western Front during WWII. For weeks he was listed by the US Army and the Red Cross as "missing-in-action." The good news is that he survived to return home; the bad news, however, was the ongoing PTSD he suffered most of his life until he died in his 60's.

This tragedy, and many like it in families across the United States and other countries as well, scarred a generation. Sons and daughters had been drafted to serve in a war considered to be honorable, a war fought agains a tyrannical enemy, a war to save civilization. It was also thought by many to be a war to end wars. 

But it did not. Again, in my lifetime, I have experienced: the Korean war, the Vietnam war, the ethno-nationalist conflict in northern Ireland, the Iraq war, the Russia-Ukraine war, and the war between Hamas and Israel. And, in full disclosure, as many of you who know me are aware, in my lifetime I, too, have taken up arms and served as an artillery officer in Korea.

In the magisterial fiction of Herman Wouk's The Winds of War and War and Remembrance, he concludes the monumental task of describing the European and Pacific campaigns of WWII by saying this:

       These two novels tend to one conclusion: that war is an old habit of 
​       thought, an old frame of mind, an old political technique, that must
       now pass as human sacrifice and human slavery have passed. I have
       faith that the human spirit will prove equal to the heavy task of
       ending war. Against the pessimistic mood of our time, I think that
       the human spirit—for all its dark side I here portray—is in essence
       heroic.

Also, dear Wouk, with admiration and gratitude for your remarkable romance, war continues as does the pessimistic mood of our time. And yet, like you, I do agree that the human spirit is in essence heroic. However, I also add another dimension to this fictional dialogue you and I are having. This "dimension," if this is what we may call it, is the unconscious. In your novels, I do not recall you mentioning that word ever, nor did you tell what any of your characters dreamed. Yet, dreams are the most universal experience of each of us, as well as our dogs and cats. We all dream, and in our dreams we face the dangers with which our heroism is tested. This is the heroism of our total being: body, mind, thoughts, feelings, and behavior.

How ironical it is that many people say they do not dream, and in some cases refuse to face their dreams because the dreams scare them. Like all of us, they want to rest at night, to sleep undisturbed, to have a "peaceful" night. These night-time disturbances begin in childhood. We wake up, crying, running into our parents' bedroom, clutching our safe objects, dolls, teddy bears, blankets. My point is that at our youngest age, we run from our fears and rest under the protective shelter of whatever makes peace possible.

In some cases, the fears that disturb us are played out on the world's stage, as with Wouk's story of the European and Pacific wars. Sometimes our fears are rooted in the personal dynamics of families, couples, and children's playgrounds. Whatever the source or situations that prompt these fears, we must understand two things: First, it is a good thing that we are hard-wired so that we can experience fear because some encounters are wisely to be feared. The bullying person, the catastrophic illness, our accidents, the uncertainty of life's end, and so on. In these cases, fear helps us to respond and perhaps arise at some send of peace.

Then, there is the second case where fear is good. This is the deeper fear of our unconscious humanity. What I mean by this is our experience of the prevalence of uncertainty in the world. After all, each of us lives with a growing awareness that comes to each child eventually. "No, you are not the center of the universe. No, your mom and dad and friends will not always be here. No, in fact our solar system itself is not the center of the universe. No, you cannot be assured that all the individuals and circumstances you encounter will have your best interests at heart."

Given all of that, then how are we to live our lives with a sense of peace? How are we to hear the liturgies of Advent and Christmas in which the angels sing of peace on earth and goodwill to others? Actually this question occupies the center of most major religions. And the answer, simply put, is that we are to deepen our experience of life in a spiritual consciousness of peace.

This spiritual consciousness of peace arose within the New Testament account of Jesus and takes place in the ancient land of Palestine, consisting of three regions: Galilee in the north, Samaria in the middle, and Judea in the south. The political figures were the Roman emperor, Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus; Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee and sometimes referred to as King Herod or by the title of tetrarch ("ruler of a quarter") and called "that fox" by Jesus; Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judah where Jerusalem was located as well as where Jesus was arrested.

As for the social conditions in Palestine, the majority of people would be called a peasant class made up of tenant farmers and laborers as well as fishermen. Beneath them was another class carrying the name of "the poor." This class included the sick, crippled, mentally ill. Finally, there were the outcasts: sinners, prostitutes, and tax collectors. The sinners were those who lived immoral lives, in some cases identifying with Gentile lifestyles, in other cases excommunicated and cast out of the synagogue. Among this group also were the non-religious travelers who passed through Galilee.

In other words, it is something of a motley crew in a remote part of the world where warring armies marched through, and political power was carried on the shoulders of these Galileans, Samaritans, and Judeans at the will of the Roman emperor with his subordinate governors such as Herod and Pontius Pilate. To those people, that place, and that historical moment came the bold chorus of voices declaring,
       PEACE ON EARTH
       AND GOODWILL TOWARD ALL
       (See the footnote for Luke 2:14, in THE NEW JERUSALEM BIBLE)

And there we have to leave it for this Advent and Christmas season. In our troubled time with the prospects of war bubbling throughout the world, where men, women, and children die brutally, where daily we turn away from the news too painful to bear—I leave you with the wish and prayer that you may know, express, and extend peace on earth and goodwill to all. 

     We all know that something is eternal. And it ain't houses, and it ain't names, and
     it ain't earth, and it ain't even the stars ... everybody knows in their bones
     that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All
     the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years
     and yet you'd be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There's
     something way down deep that's eternal about every human being.

That's what the Stage Manager says in Our Town. However, the Stage Manager is not really a stage manager but rather the main character of Thorton Wilder's play, written and produced in 1938, and regarded now to be perhaps the greatest American play ever written.

I know the play, personally, as I was privileged to have played the role of Stage Manager. In full disclosure, I must tell you I was a sophomore in high school when I played this role of a lifetime. Many notables wise in years and experience far beyond my sophomoric musings have been cast as the Stage Manager, including Frank Sinatra, Henry Fonda, and Paul Newman. After the production opened the doors to include females, actresses such as Helen Hunt have added to the reflective, deep role of Stage Manager.

So what is the play, Our Town, about and why should it be of any significance for us, almost 100 years after it was published? Thornton chose as a setting a small fictional town, Grover's Corner, New Hampshire, sometime between 1901-1913. And the reason it might be of interest to us is because the play opens up life's profound themes not only of death and life itself but also of goodness and badness, hope and despair, the exciting urgings of youth and the deeper pathos of age, love and loss. We are privileged to see these emotions passing through the lives of individuals like you and me, awakening us once more to what has been and what might've been if only ... .

Consider the characters. There is, of course, the Stage Manager who observes the people of Grover's Corner as they pass across the stage, revealing the daily affairs of life in their small town where everybody knows everybody, where gossip reveals the good things and the bad. There are scenes in the play where the Stage Manager stops the action, reveals more about he characters and even asks the audience to describe what they are seeing. Of course, all the actions, the conversations, and the reflections on what is taking place—all of this leads us deeper into the hearts and minds not only of the people of Grover's Corner, but within us as well.

In other words, Grover's Corner exists not only in Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize winning play but also in the archetypal depths of our existence. I mean by archetypal depths those universal experiences of thought, emotion, and action rooted in the very depths of our being. Across all boundaries of culture, race, religion, and gender, each us exists within the worlds of work, play, community, and spirituality of some kind. Think about the movies you have seen, art you have reflected on, music you have heard, people and places you have visited, moments when you felt suspended in awe. Without those moments, life would be banal, meaningless, maybe unendurable.

However, these archetypal moments in work, or play, social life or spirituality—each of these moments hold the potential for comedy or tragedy. The people in Our Town reveal our "ups and down," "ins and outs," "loves and losses." This was Thornton Wilder's genius bringing to life these dear heroic, sad and funny characters in which we see ourselves.

Consider the tragedy, for example, of Simon Stimson, the choir director and town drunk in Grover's Corner. Everyone knows Simon and gossips about him but does nothing to help the poor man. Maybe he is simply too repulsive. His attitude does not help matters when he says, 
     That's what it was to be alive. To move about in a cloud of ignorance; to go up 
     and down trampling on the feelings of those about you. To spend and waste
     time as though you had a million years. To be always at the mercy of one's 
     self-centered passion or another. 

Where would you locate Simon's tragedy in the four quadrants of work, play, community and spirituality? Was it his work? Was it an early traumatic experience in which someone hurt him deeply, so deeply he never recovered? Life eventually becomes too hard for him, only "ignorance and blindness," and he hangs himself in his attic.

Simon's life left him with a wound so different from the life of Emily Webb. Her father publishes Grover's Corner's Sentinel, appears to be well-informed, and supports Mrs. Webb as they make plans for Emily's wedding to George Gibbs, the high school star basketball player who gives up going to play for the local state agricultural college. He seems genuinely to love Emily and looks forward to their future life where they will rear their children in Grover's Corner. 

As the play progresses, we find that George and Emily do indeed marry but she dies young in childbirth. Then in one of the most moving scenes, Emily returns in her state as one of the dead who wishes to visit her old home. She chooses the non-material form of her 12th birthday and is surprised to observe both the familiarity of her old home but also at the same time to learn of all that has happened since she died. More moving and meaningful, however, is her awareness of how precious, fleeting, and important human existence is. Unlike Simon for whom life is a tragedy, Emily claims life as a transient treasure to be affirmed and lived fully. She says:
     Oh, Mama, look at me one minute as though you really saw me. Mama, fourteen 
     years have gone by. I'm dead. You're a grandmother, Mama! Wally's dead, too. 
     His appendix burst on a camping trip to North Conway. We felt just terrible
     about it—don't you remember? But, just for a moment now we're all together. 
     Mama, just for a moment we're happy. Let's really look at one another!...I can't. 
     I can't go on. It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another. I didn't
     realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed. Take me back -- up the
     hill -- to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look. Good-bye to clocks ticking....
     and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot
     baths....and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you are too wonderful for
     anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live
     it -- every, every minute?

I will pause here with Emily's question: "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?"

Hope or despair, I asked in my previous writing. Which is it we feel most during this historical moment of uncertainty?

You know the threats very well:

• the climate changes that bring extreme weather systems of hurricanes, record-setting temperatures, flooding, as well as evolving weather patterns in local areas;
• the social medias' spread of misleading and sometimes dangerous misinformation;
• the betrayal by democratically elected officials who violate the trust placed in them for the work of our institutions;
• the destruction of natural habitats;
• the promise and threat of artificial intelligence, emerging as what might be the most significant cultural and technological development in our lifetime;
• and so much more, but let us not forget the failures of our old established churches to faithfully serve as stewards of our natural world, the poor, the disenfranchised, our children and young people, the elderly, and all who look for moral guidance.

Meanwhile, we are now experiencing phenomenal developments and advancements in medical care with explorations of the human brain and body never before possible. And while we are exploring with increasing detail the human body, another exciting exploration of almost unbelievable scope flashes across the pages of National Geographic, our TV screens, and other world-wide media sources. This is the exploration of space. With the landing of the James Webb telescope, we are now given images of the surfaces on Jupiter's moon Europa, the emergence of early galaxies, but, astonishingly, a look backwards over 13.5 billion years ago in time when our universe emerged out of the darkness that was before.

So there we have it. In this short list I presented, we see despair and hope. Or do we? Maybe we do not perceive them actually. How else can we understand the ongoing seemingly oblivious perception in recognizing the threat of danger at our doorsteps, or the promise of a golden future that AI and our technological advances could make possible? 

And so we come to the question of PERCEPTION. What do we perceive? How do we perceive? What blocks or distorts our perceptions? Is it not likely then, that we might look at the same object but perceive different things? What are the misperceptions in my life that are distorted because of the misinformation that falsely colors what I am perceiving?

In other words, our way of perceiving operates like this. I am given a view of the world that may be true to nature or not. Maybe I have misunderstood something. Maybe I have been misled or misinformed by a number of sources: people, media, TV studios, movies, papers, preachers, politicians, counselors, teachers, family members, and more. Perhaps I have never considered how to look for truth, how to investigate the nature of things, even the nature of NATURE. Perhaps I have become jaundiced by scams, or even by misfortunes that fell my way—sickness, accidents, death. So many factors influence what and how I perceive.

This is a theme explored by Wallace Stevens in his poem, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird," written between 1915-1920, and published 1923, in his first book of poems, Harmonium. One of the more profound twentieth-century poets, Stevens noted the role of perception in the way we look at a work of art or an object in nature. He says as much in verse II of the poem:

            I was of three minds
            Like a tree
            In which there are three blackbirds.

Are there really three blackbirds? Probably not. He is looking at one tree and one blackbird, but he actually "sees" one blackbird and realizes he becomes aware of three different perceptions. How subtle and "tricky" are our perceptions. Later in verse XI, he describes the experience of possible misperception when he mistook a shadow for blackbirds.

Finally, in verse XIII of the poem, Stevens comes to rest within his perception.

            It was evening all afternoon.
            It was snowing
            And it was going to snow.
            The blackbird sat in the cedar limbs.

Now he perceives only one blackbird, and he is aware that his imagination symbolized by "evening in the afternoon" created or influenced his earlier perceptions of three blackbirds. Now, his "reason," represented by "snow," makes clear his perception. He is no longer projecting upon nature but rather is allowing himself to perceive what nature is presenting.

​And in this way we come back to our perception of this moment in which we are living. Is it a time of hope or despair? What are you perceiving?