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.

So the dam has broken. Now we are flooded with long pent-up anger, resentment, shame, fear, confusion, old patterns of rationalizations, betrayals, etc.  Each of these brings back names of individuals, places, moments in time that lay sunk beneath the waters of public and personal denial, as well as unconsciousness.

I hesitate to add any further material to the flow of information, the bawdy revelations, the incriminating accusations, admissions, denials, confessions, careers worked away, ethics investigations, and more. So I will be brief in adding something that has repeatedly come to mind as I hear stories such as these in my consulting room. This has to do with he relationship of love and power. Carl Jung stated the matter quite precisely like this:

            ​Where love rules, there is no rule to power; and where power predominates,
            there love is lacking.  (Collected Works, VII, par. 78)

Let me clarify a little. It may seem that the accusations having to do with groping, stalking, touching inappropriately, displays of nudity have little to do with "love" but a lot to do with bullying and domination in pursuit of some deviant sexual gratification. What, then, does "love" have to do with the matter?

In a fuller development of his statement, Jung clarifies his use of "love" to mean something like an intimacy based upon a mutual feeling of closeness. This "closeness" may occur in one or more of several dimensions of our life: physical, (possibly moving from a first attraction to the consummation of intercourse); social (shared similar outside interests such as sports, food, entertainment, etc.); spiritual (shared experiences in prayer, devotional reading, worship, etc.); and intellectual (a love for books, ideas, history, etc.).

In the same discussion, Jung also clarifies what he means by "power." Actually, he refers not just to power but "the will to power." Power in itself is not necessarily bad. It exists always in one of three positions: (1) power under (subordinate to another in one or more ways); (2) power with (a sharing that is mutual, consensual), and (3) power over (dominating, controlling, ruling over another).  

In Jung's quote, he is referring to this third position in which he acknowledges the possibility that some people find special pleasure. These people "will" to have power over others, to use it for gratification. This is the "will to power," and where it predominates, there love is lacking.

And it is at just this point that the dam burst, flooding us with the sexual debris from years past. But not just "years;" rather, we must speak in terms of centuries. For patriarchy is old. Males have dominated women since the beginning, except for a few pockets of history and geography in which matriarchy held power.

Even so, the record for male domination over women is carved in the history, the literature, the family customs, and our best institutions of education, government, and religion. The pictures of old, white men dominate the chronicles of present-day life from our politics to our churches, and beyond.

That is why it would be unspeakably tragic if this flood of revelations about the abuse in particular of women at the hands of men (no pun intended there) does not go all the way to the bottom of the sediment in which the foundations of patriarchy are embedded!

Until then, there will be no true intimacy. I find it very interesting that my work with individuals involved in the sub-culture of BDSM have taught me more about true intimacy than any other one source. Their mantra rings true for all spheres of life, and it is this: SAFE, SANE, MUTUAL.  On these three principles, all true intimacy rests. "Safe" means one is able to feel secure physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually. "Sane" means the persons or institutions involved may be trusted to maintain commitments and to act within a moral frame which all parties have acknowledged as binding. "Mutual" means that each person's voice deserves to be heard and counted. This is a true democracy that makes possible a deep intimacy in which our social contracts may thrive, our children will be safe, each gender will be respected and honored.

​In such a society, such a family, such a relationship between men and women, deep intimacy grows. We will know that when we see it because "love" rules over the will to power -- even in the highest office of our land.

Contrary to the new tribalism overtaking the world, at Disney attractions around the earth, we hear the Disney chorus sing "It's a Small World After All." That is the title of a song written by two of Walt Disney's staff songwriters, Richard Sherman and Robert Sherman. Mr. Disney asked them to give him a happy song that would serve as a musical backdrop to a water-based attraction sponsored by the Pepsi Board of Directors, to be used in the 1964 World's Fair. The attraction and its theme song would celebrate the unity of children around the world, anticipating peace, good-will, and happiness for children (and adults) everywhere. You have heard these lyrics many times:

            ​It's a world of laughter,
            A world of tears.
            It's a world of hopes
            And a world of fears.
            There's so much that we share,
            That it's time we're aware
            It's a small world after all.

            There is just one moon
            And one golden sun,
            And a smile means
            Friendship to everyone.
            Though the mountains divide,
            And the oceans are wide,
            It's a small world after all.

            It's a small world after all!
            It's a small world after all!
            It's a small world after all!
            It's a small, small world!

But today those words ring hollow in our ears, conditioned by the ideologies of a new native nationalism. We get out our guitars and rhythm instruments, sit on the floor with our kids and sing along. But that promise of world peace and good-will toward all, the delight in forming friendships across international borders, and the warm feelings of safety that come with these ... . They feel like an imposed familiarity, a false happiness, like we are going through the motions but our heart is not in it, and our minds no longer believe it.

We know the words to be true, of course. It is indeed a small world geographically. But the distances seem to lengthen politically, socially, and spiritually. For example, polls taken among adults reveal a rising trend toward people feeling less safe than when the children's song was written for Walt Disney and became a mainstay at Disney Parks around the world. Also, anxiety is appearing in our young people at a rate bewildering to educators, social workers, and the counselors who talk with those kids. The American College Health Association reports 62% of undergraduates describe an overwhelming anxiety; the Education Research Institute lists incoming freshmen reporting their anxiety level in 1985 at 18%, but at 41% in 2010. Finally, the 2017 Pediatric Academic Studies indicates that the number of children and adolescents admitted to hospitals for thoughts of suicide or self-harm, these numbers have doubled in the past decade.

Our children and young people are to us as canaries are to the coal miners. These kids remind us of something we cannot deny as hard as we might try. And try we do, as witnessed by the very diversions taking place on TV screens across the world as I write these lines. As an example, I am referring to the distractions of sports events that fill stadiums with screaming fans, people who in Houston may pay as much as $3,000 for a ticket to the World Series tonight, triumphant followers of pro-football games who will thrill to the gigantic flags unfurled on the playing fields as military jets soar overhead with deafening thunder. 

I am not protesting these sports events. However, I am concerned about the extravaganzas we have made of them; the triumphant, militaristic pageantry, the extreme financing of these events as they participate in the deteriorating commercialization of our educational institutions; and the values we demonstrate to our children. But most of all, I deplore the deterioration of our society here at home and abroad, as we sink deeper into the morass of a collectivistic power complex that elevates the tyranny of would-be world saviors such as the one we have elected to the highest office of the land. 

Why? Why did we do this? How did we do this? It makes no sense on the surface. That individual is repugnant in every possible sense of the word. Most frightening is the mistrust he sows, the fears he fosters, the demoralizing impact he brings to all our institutions that have guarded the values of human decency, justice,and a better world for our children, knowing after all that it is indeed "a small, small world."  But all of that has become fodder for the nationalistic hunger imperiling the world, championed by our own bullying despot who champions the new tribalism, drawing lines across maps of the world, between groups and races, between family members -- lines that break trust and cast out people who do not pay homage to lies proclaimed as the way to "make our country great again." 

I come back to the question, how did this happen? And this is what I believe to be at work in our eerie horror show. First, our president is indeed a practiced showman with an uncanny ability to tap into the baser instincts of people and use those forces for his own purpose. Second, his purpose seems to be nothing more than to inflate his own collectivistic power complex -- "collectivistic" because it has no depth and no value except to use people to create power and make money for himself. And, third, with his program of deregulating any protective policies that would, paradoxically, help the very people he is hurting, he fuels the collectivistic power complex that drives the financial markets. Although he came into office when our economy was rebounding, as of this writing the markets are rising to new heights, for which he will gladly take credit.

But there's a fourth and most important dynamic, unseen but surely at work toward constellating these irrational events in our political, social, and spiritual life. This fourth dynamic may be described in the following way. Sometimes a strange "spirit" appears to "infect" a group of people and turn it into a mob. The same thing may happen to a nation or even an association of nations. This "spirit" seems to take possession of a people, and in the New Testament is spoken of as "powers." For example, in his letter to the people of Ephesus, written around 100 C.E., when Paul was imprisoned in Rome, he described the times like this:

            For we are not struggling against human enemies, but against principalities,  
            against powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against 
            the spiritual hosts of evil in the heavenly places.  (6:12)  (See Walter Wink's
            3-volume study of power in the New Testament.)

Here Paul is revealing what he calls the "inner workings of the mystery kept hidden through all the ages..." .  (3:9)

Eighteen hundred years later, Carl Jung took on the task of helping us consider these "inner workings" and what they may mean for us in our periods of darkness when we act as if we are possessed. He reminds us that our blight is ideologies, mouthed by individuals and groups bewitched by the archetypal powers in their psyches:

            The gods have become diseases. Zeus no longer rules Olympus but rather
​            the solar plexus, and produces curious specimens for the doctor's consulting
            room, or disorders of the brains of politicians and journalists who 
            unwittingly let loose psychic epidemics on the world.  (Secrets of the Golden
            Flower, p. 37)

So it is with the archetypal powers that have erupted in our psyches, leading us into warring tribes, driving us to seek meaning and relief in distractions and opioids, spreading ideologies, raising up autocrats who feel entitled to control the powers of our political, social, and economic life, not knowing they are merely third-rate actors moved about like puppets on the stage of a small, small world, enacting a drama sure to fail them.

I was only seven or eight years old when it happened -- this fishing tale. But I remember it well, or at least I think I do. It is a funny thing how some events in our childhood stick in our mind for no apparent reason. This is one of them. And maybe the fact there is no apparent reason for remembering what easily could have passed as a relatively insignificant happening, this somehow adds to the mystery of the event. Why does the little story stay with me? I don't know, but here is the tale of "the fish that did not stay for supper."

As I said, I was around seven or eight years old, sitting at the supper table along with my grandmother, Uncle Mace, Aunt Louse, cousin Roger, and my granddaddy. He was a modest man, well-liked in the farming community where he would have been recognized as reliable, using common-sense, competent, generous, and soft-spoken. He was the kind of fellow who could slip into the annual turkey shoot with his age-old shotgun and bring home the turkey, out-shooting all the competition with their latest Browning, Winchester, Remington double-barrel pump action weapons.

And for the sake of this fishing tale, I should also say a little something about his religion. I say "little" because he said little about his faith. A Christian, if you had to hang a label on him, one who attended church on most Sundays, he may have been "devout" but you would not have known it from any outward demonstration of piety -- except perhaps for one thing. It had to do with his work.

He farmed, growing tobacco and corn which were the source of livelihood for many in the rural eastern county of Horry, South Carolina. The entire economy of that region leaned heavily on the hard labor of its farmers, the weather, and "luck," although my granddaddy would likely have said that we create our luck for the most part with our hands -- working the black dirt of that very fertile land.

So he grew tobacco, tending the seeds in their pristinely crafted "beds," pulling the plants up when they grew to six inches or so, transplanting them in long rows with a hand-operated funnel-like planter, and cultivating the growing stalks until the five weeks of harvest arrived, mid-to-late June. Then the leaves would be strung on tobacco sticks and hung up on tiers in a barn where the leaves would be dried with heat-filled flues spanning the barns until the green, gummy leaves became golden brown, making them the highest grade for buyers of big large tobacco companies who would come to town in August, filling the warehouses with lots of merriment, chatter, auctioneering, and maybe the reward of paying the exhausted farmers the tobacco companies' highest dollar.

​But that depended upon the shade, texture, and general quality of the tobacco leaves my granddaddy brought to market. In other words, all the hard work in growing tobacco filtered down through the long weeks of spring and then summer when the tobacco stick laced with green leaves would be hung in the barns for a week at a time to be "cured." Everything depended upon the curing -- establishing the right temperature for the leaves to  undergo an alchemical transformation to the golden color that would then be processed by the makers of Lucky Strike, Camel, Phillip Morris, Cool, Chesterfield, Winston cigarettes, and other "fine tobaccos."

You can imagine how tedious this process was. It would take five or six days of curing time during which the farmers kept close watch on the tobacco leaves inside the barns of some 40X40 feet and 50 feet high, heated by "burners" fueled by large tanks of petroleum. A matter of changing temperature in the barn within an hour or so could make the difference in the quality of one barn of tobacco, which could account for a fifth of the farmer's income for a year. So intense was this process that some farmers would spend their nights at the barns waking up hourly to monitor the curing process. 

Over the course of five to six days, many farmers monitored the curing process from beginning to end. But my granddaddy would not. If the span of days should include a Sunday, he would turn off the burners on Saturday night at 12:00, and fire them up again Sunday night at 12:00, regardless of where the tobacco was in the process of curing. No one knew this except for the family, and he never talked about it. I mention this only to give an example of his religious practice, or as he might have said, "to honor the sabbath." For him, it was a matter of living what he quietly believed. Looking back now some fifty years, we cannot fail to see the irony that this well-intended, good man would excel in producing a product which would bring disease and death to thousands of people. That consciousness never entered his awareness, nor that of his friends who shared his vocation and his amicable life-style.

Which brings me at last to the tale of "the fish that did not stay for supper but made my granddaddy laugh." It begins with a Saturday fishing trip for two old friends, my granddaddy and Archie Allen. Archie was a good fishing buddy for my granddaddy but it was a relationship whose chemistry was composed of contrasting qualities. Archie was a talker, not hesitant to talk about himself and to extol his relationship with the Almighty. In other words, he seemed to feel it a duty to share his piety with others.

How my granddaddy put up with Archie's freely sharing can only be accounted for by the fact that Archie also believed you had to maintain silence while fishing in order to not scare the big ones away. So they fished together. And on this particular day of the fishing tale, Archie did indeed hook a large Bream. Then, looking over at my granddaddy who had not even had a bite all day, Archie convincingly said, "And thank you, Lord, for this meal of which we will partake."  At which time, the Bream turned loose Archie's hook and returned to its nest.

But the tale does not end there. That night as we gathered for supper, during a lull in our table chatter, my granddaddy obviously wanted to say something he had been sitting on. And out came the story of Archie's hooking a big fish, proclaiming his deep piety by giving thanks to the Lord, only to have the fish drop off Archie's line.

I remember that moment vividly. We all sat quietly until he finished bringing us up to that point on the fishing trip. Then he got very still as if there might be something more to say. We waited. Suddenly, he started to laugh, and we all joined in, imagining Archie's face when he lost that Bream for which he had already said grace.

After we all settled down, having enjoyed a great laugh together, not much more was said that night about the fishing trip. But I will not forget the way my granddaddy laughed. It was not just at Archie but at an immodest display of piety receiving its just due, maybe even at the ways of God's mysterious workings of the universe, and a sign that things are not always what they appear to be on the surface.

Who knows all that was going on in my young mind. I think in some way not yet conscious at the time, I must have experienced some comfort in sensing that there is a purposive unfolding of life, leaning toward justice and right-ness -- a way of life's deep Mystery that sometimes appears with humor.

In any case, when I consider the unfolding of our life in this present moment, filled with conflicts, wars and threats of wars, the collapse of our institutions, the jingoism and narcissistic preening spilling out of the highest office of our land -- at such a time when it might be easy to give in to our fears -- I continue to hold faith in a purposive unfolding of our universe. With patience, if we hold steady, we will laugh together on that day when the other shoe, like Archie's fish, will drop.

I am writing this blog on August 21, 2017, at the time of the solar eclipse, which is marking a 3,000-mile long swath across our continental United States between Oregon and South Carolina. In other words, it is no small thing here in our little locality. But these are strange times, described daily -- if not hourly -- by our news services. So it is hard not to wonder about whatever connection there may be between this solar phenomenon and the belief-defying events in our politics.

Perhaps in the years to come I may look back at this blog and find some delight in reflecting on the 2017 state of affairs and how we came through all of this without much fuss. You know all too well the "state of affairs" to which I refer:

• our environmental crisis with ice caps breaking away, seas rising, people displaced, homes lost, etc.;
  
• the longest war in our country's history (approaching 16 years) still going on in Afghanistan with an announcement today of thousands of additional troops to be deployed, while our other war in Iraq (approaching 9 years) grinds steadily on, and the warring destruction in Syria adds daily to the list of 220,000 people killed in that country; 
• economic markets rise while old jobs disappear, communities decay, infrastructure crumbles, ideologues preach a religion of aggressive capitalism with unending profits, gladiator sports teams reward star players with multi-million dollar contracts that still cannot compensate for the destructions of their brains and bodies, and the advertisements on TV glamorize the toys and lifestyles of the rich and famous, making you think we all could look and live that way forever;
• racial tensions escalate, extremist groups proliferate, Nazi groups march in front of synagogues in Charlottesville, VA, pausing to extend the Hitler-era salute of demagoguery and anti-Semitism;
• while in the office of our United States President, a Fuhrer-like insanity stalks the land, igniting the baser instincts of our people, toying with our minds, threatening "fire and fury" against the regime of another madman in North Korea, escalating the chaos within the institutions that our tradition has provided for the welfare of all, giving reinvigorated power to the Reagan quote, "In the present crisis, government is not the solution, government is the problem." This is a quote taken by the ideologues to support attacks on the structures of our civil society, and employed now in extremity by the Trump administration to dismantle the very foundations which make possible a social contract by the people, for the people.

But enough of this listing of concerns in what I am calling our present state of affairs. Now I turn to the matter of what commands our attention at this moment. Sitting outside in the sweltering heat with our faithful cat, Sheba, waiting for the moment when the moon slowly glides between us and the sun, I think about the centuries past when other eyes observed this phenomenon. For most of our ancestors, it is not surprising that they could not understand the science of a solar eclipse. In the absence of that knowledge, they projected their inner fears , anxieties, and explanations of events on earth through the movement of celestial bodies. "As above, so below," the Chinese sage might say. Within their cosmologies, theologies, and projections upon the heavens, they "saw" explanations for events in their personal lives and the state of affairs in their worlds.

But let's give them a little slack. Hardly a week goes by in my consulting room that I do not have someone announce to me that they are how they are because of their astrological sign. "I am a Taurus; "  "What can I expect of myself to change my behavior when I am a Leo, a Virgo, Libra," and on and on. They seem not to see the disconnect between describing their behavior and lot in life as something prefigured in the heavens while at the same time coming to analysis in order to somehow change their state of affairs. Most often, these are educated, professional people who bring their astrological charts into our sessions along with their daily astrological readings in the comic section of their newspapers beside the Billy Graham column.

Which reminds me of yet another incompatibility. This is the confusion within well-educated people about the nature of prophecy in the Bible. Prophecy in the Bible generally has to do with concerns about the "outcome" of worldly events. For example, it is something  like this: if you do not pay your taxes, one day in the not-too-distant future a member of the IRS will come knocking on your door, bringing a day of judgment to your house, and a demand for settling up your account! That is a prophecy having to do with the outcome of an event not in the celestial heavens but within a sequence of events, a cause and effect, here and now. That this example I just gave refers also to a moral consideration of life makes the outcome weighty. It may feel calamitous if it is your delinquency at hand. In the same way, the "prophets" in the Hebraic history of our Judeo-Christian tradition spoke eloquently about the ruinous outcomes not only of individual transactions but quite often the projected catastrophes of nations, of rulers, who acted without consideration of the meaning of their actions. In these cases, it is not the movement of the stars which guided the prophets; rather, it is their inner moral consciousness.

But what about the saying of Jesus in the gospels of Matthew (24), Luke (21) and Mark (13)? The words of Jesus are not characteristic of anything he has said elsewhere.This text is what students of the Bible call "the little apocalypse." It describes "strange signs in the sun and moon," culminating in the end of the world marked by the "Son of Man coming on the clouds of glory." As I said earlier, these words sound nothing like Jesus' reference to the Kingdom of God as a spiritual reality within oneself. Consequently, most serious biblical scholars regard the passage as a later insertion of apocalyptic themes not associated with Jesus of Nazareth.

However, once again, we can see how the old idea of a relationship between celestial bodies and events on earth fuels ancient beliefs, old archetypal themes dormant within the human psyche. Which brings us back to the events this day.

The eclipse has now passed overhead. With 98% of a total eclipse, we saw the sky darken, the cicadas chirped loudly, a few birds joined in, and Sheba indicated with a yawn that she wanted to go inside -- perhaps thinking it must be bedtime! I put down my pen long enough to experience this phenomenon. My reaction? I noted the other-worldly feeling that came over me, as if I were drawn back in time or to some other, distant reality.

Something very different, very strange was taking place in the heavens, just as they are in the political, social life of people around the earth. What a very strange synchronicity!

You probably already have images floating across your mind, having read my title above. "Home" means so much. It pulls at our heart, stirs our body, and teases all kinds of thoughts in our heads.

How could "home" not move us so completely? It was one of the first words we learned  as children. And it was the place we wanted to come to after we had been away for a spell -- a week, a day, an afternoon, after school (?)! Unless your home had been swamped in sickness and/or neglect and violence, as the homes of too many children have been. But unless that was your experience, "home" was the place where you came to for safety, support, understanding, love, and something else -- something mysteriously satisfying and meaningful on a level that challenges words to describe it. 

By the way, even if your home might have been a painful place, it is altogether likely that in your mind "home" still resonates as a place of refuge and meaning. Maybe even more so!

Because "home" is not just a place on a map, not just a place with a zip code, a place defined by geography. Oh, no! "Home" is a place in your mind -- or better yet -- a place in your soul. 

For example, take the song recorded in 1957 by Patty Page, "Old Cape Cod." You remember the lyrics?

           ​If you're fond of sand dunes and salty air
          Quaint little villages here and there
          You're sure to fall in love with old Cape Cod
          That Old Cape Cod.

          If you like the taste of a lobster stew
          Served by a window with an ocean view
          You're sure to fall in love with old Cape Cod.

          Winding roads that seem to beckon you
          Miles of green beneath an ocean view
​          Church bells chimin' on a Sunday morn
          Remind you of the town where you were born.

          If you spend an evening, you'll want to stay
          Watching the moonlight on Cape Cod Bay
          You're sure to fall in love with old Cape Cod.
​          You're sure to fall in love,
          You're sure to fall in love
          With old Cape Cod.
​          (Lyrics and music by C. Rothrock, M. Yakus, A. Jeffrey, 1957)

Now the interesting thing about Patty Page's best-selling record of "Old Cape Cod" is this. She had never visited the Cape until after her recording became a big hit. So she visited the place described in those memorable lyrics. And this is how she described her visit to the Cape:  "I could not believe it when I finally did go, because I realized that [the song] had captured something about a place that I had had within me for so many years, but never knew. It's unexplainable to me, because it's so dear to me -- I knew I had been there before [although] I hadn't."   (Cape Cod Times, February 27, 2010)

We can understand that, can't we? We find ourselves in some place we have never been, but there is a deja vu! We just seem to know we have been there before. Or it might be that we meet someone, supposedly a stranger, but we feel for sure that we have known that person at some other time!

In other words, something deep within Patty Page resonated with both the words she was singing as well as the actual scenes she experienced when she visited the Cape. There is something in us that is "soulful." Something "deep" calls to "deep." And when we do not allow ourselves to experience it, we become disgruntled, frustrated, manic or depressed, even sick in body and/or mind, or very susceptible to possibly dangerous distractions.

I have observed this over the years when I visited Cape Cod. The weekends have become almost unbearable with traffic now -- people arriving, people leaving. So many people! And why? Of course, we could say they come for a vacation, the food, the beaches, the tourist attractions. There is all of that for the throngs of people filling the highways, streets, shops, and trails.

But there is something more. They lyrics of the song "Old Cape Cod" describe something much deeper than the sentimentality and nostalgia this song can conjure up. Down under that level of feelings, we know we are connecting with the most precious thing of all, what our soul yearns for, what it is to be human -- a place called "home." 

Remember the movie, E.T.?  E.T., the extra terrestrial wants to phone home; actually he wants to return home. It is a brilliant drama of the alien creature who, like each of us, wants to return home. And we found ourselves in the movie wanting so much for E.T. to be able to return to his home. We identify because each of us is E.T. The experience is archetypal, universal and probably transcends borders of race, culture, species, and extraterrestrial beings.

We feel the stirring of our hearts, the yearnings, and the thought of ways we might attempt to satisfy those yearnings. After all, that is why God gave us summers -- so that we might go "home" even if for a little while!

No, I am not referring to Mika Brzezinski's facing the belittling, demeaning Twitter attack by the President in which she was described as "dumb as a rock," "crazy," and "bleeding badly from a face-lift." Such a small-minded attack failed to deliver any serious challenge to the co-host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

The Wonder Woman I am about to describe is the heroine in the phenomenally successful movie that carries the name of a DC comics character, "Wonder Woman," with box office numbers racing past $700 million, as of this writing, while still holding strong at the ticket office. And the challenge to which I am referring is this: How does a movie that features a female action character, capable of love and romance, trained in the noble art of a warrior who does not compromise the ideals of honesty, justice for the underdog, and bravery in the face of overwhelming odds, capable of showing compassion and mercy, while reflecting the beauty and dignity of a princess (which she is) -- a movie that portrays all these idyllic qualities -- how does avoid the challenge of being described as, well, "cheesy?"

I wondered how a movie with those qualities would fare in an age such as ours that is trapped under the spell of Ares, the mythic god of war, who thrives on violence, sarcasm, misogyny, nihilism, conspiracies, titillation, cynicism, and cowardice by politicians. Well, apparently, Wonder Woman, the movie and the heroine, is playing very well in a public fragmented by just about everything else.

Much of the credit for the movie's success must go to the idealism of its director, Patty Jenkins. In an article by the New York Times, June 4, 2017, titled "Bullets, Bracelets and a Big Heart," Ms. Jenkins responded to the question of "cheesiness" put to her by the reporter, Cara Buckley. This segment of the interview is worth repeating here as follows:

      THIS MAY BE A CHEESY QUESTION, BUT WHAT DO YOU WANT PEOPLE 
      TO TAKE AWAY FROM THIS MOVIE?

      Did you say cheesy? Cheesy is one of the words banned in my world. I'm 
      tired of sincerity being something we have to be afraid of doing. It's been
      like that for 20 years, that the entertainment and art world has shied away
      from sincerity, real sincerity, because they feel they have to wink at the
      audience because that's what the kids like. We have to do the real stories
      now. The world is in crisis.

      I wanted to tell a story about a hero who believes in love, who is filled with
      love, who believes in change and the betterment of mankind. I believe in it.
      It's terrible when it makes so many artists afraid to be sincere and truthful 
​      and emotional, and relegates them to the too-cool-for-school department.
      Art is supposed to bring beauty to the world.

And this is what Patty Jenkins brought to the world with her movie. It helped that the assembled cast put their shoulders to the task of showing how love and beauty still trump cynical violence and ugliness. Chris Pine played the leading male character with strength and poise but never in a dominating way. He never tried to show up or control Gal Godot (Wonder Woman, Princess Diana) and would have failed had he tried because she was well trained and nurtured by Robin Wright (Diana's "aunt"), and Connie Nielson (Diana's "mother") -- both of whom are powerful women, tempered with mythic wisdom, physical strength, warrior skills, and a compassioned consciousness that filled Diana with love and a strong sense of gender equality as well as justice for all people. And I need not repeat the outstanding choice of Gal Gadot for the role of Wonder Woman, as Ms. Gadot is in her life off-stage not only a former Miss Israel but also a combat trainer for the Israeli Army.

So, no, Patty Jenkins did not show fear in facing the spirit of our times that puts down the soft arts of love, compassion, mercy, and respect for others. Those qualities permeate the story of Wonder Woman, but they do so with a warrior's determination to show strength in hardships and resolve in battle.

It is no wonder, then, that women resoundingly applaud the movie. They know very well that the crisis in our world, to which Patty Jenkins refers, is a crisis brought upon us by the brutality of patriarchy in which men are trapped. Just as the men in the movie's combat trenches could not/would not break out to enter the field of combat, so are the male would-be leaders of our generation stuck in the trenches of ideologies, patterns of pseudo-masculinity and cowardice in facing the paralyzing truth of patriarchy. Men fear losing  their favored positions, as well as their expectations that the world of tomorrow will be like their world of yesterday. But it is that world of male-created patriarchy that is receding. Women are preparing to move to the front lines of our domestic, social and international battles, encouraged by the new generation of young men and women who are not trapped within the bewitchment of Ares' love of power. 

But not yet. Ares still sounds his battle-cry for all those who would fight for the status quo. And we men, as in the movie, do not appear to be up to the task of challenging those entrenched fears that keep us stuck in time. Which reminds me of an incident back in 1972. In the first issue of Ms. magazine, Wonder Woman appeared on the cover with a caption, "Wonder Woman for President," a bold "nomination" by Gloria Steinem.  

After 45 years, it is not too late -- yet. Now, more than ever, I think the time has come.