A DREAM, A DREAMER, AND A DRAMA

On December 18, Carl Jung had the following dream:

            I was with an unknown, brown-skinned man, a savage, in a lonely,
        rocky mountain landscape. It was before dawn; the eastern sky
        was already bright, and the stars fading. Then I heard Siegfried's
        horn sounding over the mountains and I knew that we had to kill
        him. We were armed with rifles and lay in wait for him on a narrow
        path over the rocks. Then Siegfried appeared high on the crest of 
        the mountain, in the first ray of the rising sun. On a chariot made
        of the bones of the dead he drove at furious speed down the 
        precipitous slope. When he turned a corner, we shot at him, and 
        he plunged down, struck dead.
​           Filled with disgust and remorse for having destroyed something
       so great and beautiful, I turned to flee, impelled by the fear that
       the murder might be discovered. But a tremendous downfall of
       rain began, and I knew it would wipe out all traces of the deed. 
       I had escaped the danger of discovery, life would go on, but an 
       unbearable feeing of guilt remained. 

When Jung woke up, he heard a voice within himself commanding that he understand the meaning of the dream, but he could not. Finally, with a sense of desperation, Jung came to a conclusion. Siegfried, Jung thought, was a symbol of his own heroic idealism that had to be killed, and the rain represented the tension between consciousness and unconsciousness, a tension that had been resolved. With this understanding of his dream, Jung was able to go back to sleep. 

Jung goes on to describe another profound experience that came out of his dream. He said, "new forces were released in me which helped me to carry the experiment with the unconscious to a conclusion." What is the nature of Jung's "experiment with the unconscious," and how had the dream make that future work possible?

Beyond a brief reference to his attitude of considering himself a hero, and thus identifying with Siegfried, we have to consider what in addition might have emerged in the symbol of Siegfried. This symbol of a heroic figure driving a chariot of bones of the dead, careening down a mountain slope—this symbol surely means much more than Jung has claimed.

For example, consider two additional associations we might consider.

1. The first and obvious one is the mythological figure in Germany's folklore. Siegfried was a heroic figure in the German poem, Nibelungenlied in which he rides his famous horse Grani, slays a dragon, bathes in its blood, and marries Princess Kriemhild.
2. Siegfried also is a symbol of Sigmund Freud and his powerful drive to establish psychoanalysis as a science in which the unconscious was to be understood as the mind's attempt to repress the sexual drives and aggressive thoughts that violated the social norms of one's society.

Give these two possibilities for what the symbol of Siegfried might mean in his dream, Jung admits the anguish that tortured himself before he concluded that Siegfried was a symbol of Jung himself as a heroic figure. Nowhere does Jung refer to the possibility that Siegfried might well be a symbol of Freud.

Why the torture to come to grips with the meaning of that symbol? But also,Jung admits he had been "forced to sacrifice his ideal and his conscious attitude." (p. 180)  Whose ideal and conscious ideal had Jung followed?

And the answer is that Jung yielded to Sigmund Freud's ideal. What was that? To Freud's credit, he made clear his intention, his ideal, his professional aim, and his ambition. During the thirteen hour-long conversation when they first met, Freud said to Jung, "My dear Jung, promise me never to abandon the sexual theory. That is the most essential thing of all. You see, we must make of it a dogma, an unmistakable bulwark." (p. 150)

At the time Freud made that statement, Jung made this observation:

       One thing was clear: Freud who had always made much of irreligiosity, had 
       now constructed a dogma, or rather in place of a jealous God whom he had
       lost, he had substituted another compelling image, that of sexuality.

However, Jung participated in the newly formed "religion" as the golden boy in whom Freud found favor. So it was that with Freud's urging, Jung was appointed the first president of the new organization, The International Psychoanalytical Association. In fact, he held that office at the time of the dream we are considering and did not resign until April 1914, long after the dream of Siegfried. 

Jung surely was tormented over his break with Freud's "dogma" and the emerging psychoanalytical association. Meanwhile, Jung published his book Psychology of the Unconscious, in which he affirmed a deep level of the unconscious, later called the collective unconscious. Jung's idea strongly challenged Freud's sexual theory and idea of the unconscious as a repository for repression of disturbing perceptions, thoughts and emotions. 

Jung struggled to free himself from Freud's dogma but also from the role Freud had persuaded Jung to assume as president of the psychoanalytic association. Jung struggled to become free to live his own life and pursue his study of human personality, the realm of the mind's unconscious, ad the role dreams play to compensate our waking-life existence.

This dream about Siegfried played a significant role in freeing Jung to pursue his own purpose. The dominance of Sigmund Freud in Jung's life had to be terminated. And so it was in a dream when the symbol of Siegfried was assassinated.

The question remains, however, as to how this dream and my comments shed light on the major theme, "Dreams in Search of a Moral Compass." Defining morality as "actions that conform to one's values," we can conclude that Jung's dream honors the far reaches of human potential. The death of Siegfried in Jung's dream becomes not a tragedy but an awakening of human consciousness. 

                                       AND NOW THE DREAM...

We have a dilemma of sorts, and it is this. We do not always know what we know. We have forgotten. We seem not to be able to remember. Where has that information gone, and why do we not remember? And, in some instances, we come to know something but thought it was unimportant or irrelevant and let it fall away. It fell away.

Where did it go? It is somewhere in our head, our brain. But now it's out of sight. Maybe the best we can say is that a lot of information fell out of our head into that part of our mind we call the unconscious, which among other things is a basket of memories—memories of things we perceived with our five senses or intuition, feelings and thoughts, decisions we made, judgements at which we arrived, actions taken or not taken.

This basket of the unconscious is very large. We cannot measure this basket we call the unconscious, but it has been with us a very long time. It contains a lot of information we accumulated in our short lifetime. And in the basket of our unconscious, there are remnants of historical knowledge that our family and ancestors collected over the centuries. Within the neural pathways of our brain we contain corridors of wisdom that gave birth to our magnificent civilization. It's all there: the wisdom and follies, victories and defeats, awe and terror, hope and disillusionment, laughter and tears, love and hate.

You and I know these experiences. Many of them we have forgotten, suppressed or repressed. And, oh yes, the basket of the unconscious also contains traces of lives not lived or even of new knowledge approaching us from afar for which we do not even hold words.

We do not always agree with one another. We hold different political views, different religious backgrounds, different cultures and races and origins. Each of us holds values important to us, needs that drive us, and identities that differ. But one thing we have in common. We all dream in the service of our deeper humanity.

Now comes the question. How do we retrieve all the knowledge, all the information that may in fact be crucial not only for our personal survival but that of humanity and the planet itself. Well, take heart my friends. Our knowledge is not lost because each night we dream several dreams. Unfortunately, most of us since early childhood have done our best to ignore the dreams so that we can get a goodnight's rest, right? However, we do that at our peril. Let me tell you why I say this.

                                            A DREAM IS A STORY
And like all stories, it has a beginning, a plot or theme, a movement toward a climax in which some matter is made more clear, and an ending. Observe closely and you will likely see how your dream reveals a night-time drama.

                            A DREAM REVEALS RAPID-EYE MOVEMENT
In sleep laboratories,  generally when the eyelids display movement it is noted as REM sleep. When individuals are awakened, during the rapid-eye phase of sleep, they will say that they were dreaming at that time. We also see this REM pattern in our pets, occasionally accompanied by short abrupt movements, as if the animal is attempting to move like they would in waking life. 

                                        A DREAM IS A BRIDGE
I am using the metaphor of "bridge" to suggest the connections made in our dreams, connections that connect conscious with unconscious, past with present, present with possible features of an unknown future, and meaning with meaninglessness. A dream bridges values and needs in the service of placing  dreamers in their roles of a life story that pursues purpose and calling.

                                     A DREAM IS A COMPENSATION
The dream compensates waking life. It reveals both conscious and unconscious while showing any tension that may exist between our conscious life and what is unconscious. When the unconscious is in disagreement with the conscious, struggles follow in which the unconscious persuasively confronts the conscious. Finally, on some occasion, a message may arrive telepathically—so to speak—in which the future life of the dreamer will intercede, evoking a sense of the unknown. (See Carl Meier's description of the levels of compensation, described in his three volume study of analytical psychology.)

                                        A DREAM IS MYSTERIOUS
Having said all of the above, it may or may not strike the reader as unnecessary to say the dream is mysterious. Still, it is true and must be said in behalf of noting that there still remains much to learn about the dreaming mind.

                              DREAMS LINK US WITH EARLY ANCESTORS
We cannot say with certainty when dreams first appeared, but biological and anthropological evidence suggest to evolutionary biologists that Neanderthals and early Homo Sapiens dreamed. Furthermore, REM sleep is considered to be a "highly consensual mammalian trust," and that REM sleep cycles would have been helpful for problem solving, bringing together pieces of crucial information. Finally, the caves of Lascaux and Chauvet display paintings suggesting symbolic and abstract thoughts.

                                    DREAMS ARE PURPOSEFUL
With this, I return to the theme of this writing. It is no wonder that so many references to dreams appear to all the people of the world regardless of race, culture, society, or historical epoch. Surely their purposefulness evokes in us the interest dreams deserve in behalf of our well-being and that of our world today.

Shall we listen to our dreams? In my next writing, I plan to consider a dream of Carl Jung in which he discovered something very important about himself.

(The book I referenced earlier is Carl Meier, The Psychology of Carl Jung, published by SIGO Press in three volumes.)

                 AN ARCHETYPAL STORY OF CONFLICTING VALUES
​
This is an archetypal story of an encounter between Jesus and the devil. It goes like this.

       Jesus had spent 40 days in the desert on something like a vision quest. He was
       exhausted and hungry, and the devil seized this opportunity to tempt Jesus with
       three challenges. The first challenge was to suggest that Jesus turn a stone into
       bread. Jesus refused. Next, the devil tempted Jesus to fall from the highest 
       tower of the temple so that God would have to catch him. Jesus refused. 
       Finally, the devil took Jesus to the highest mountain so that Jesus can see all
       the kingdoms of the world and possess them. The only catch was that Jesus 
       would have to worship the devil in return. 

This archetypal story is adapted form the Gospels of Matthew (4:3-11) and Luke (4:1-12). These are the only accounts in the gospels where the devil and Jesus meet face to face. Allow your imagination to take you deeply into this encounter. 

Consider the devil: 
        How does the devil look?
        How do you think he smells?
        What kind of teeth does he have?
        A mustache?... with handlebars?
        How does his voice sound?
        How close does he get to Jesus?
        Is there a sneer? A look of confidence?
        Do you observe how he seems to be sizing-up Jesus?
        What are his values?
        How does he walk away from Jesus?
        Does he look back over his shoulder?
        Could he be leaving with a contemptuous glance?
        What values does he display in his temptations?

And then there is Jesus. He has just returned from forty days and nights in the desert. Use your imagination: 
         What does his robe look like after forty days with no change?
         What shape is his hair in?
         Look at his sandals; how are they holding up?
         Look at his fingernails, his toenails.
         No contact with running water since his baptism by John, how parched are his lips?
         Where are his eyes, drooping or fully open?
         How emaciated does he appear to be?
         Is he walking fast or slow?
         How startled might he look when the devil appears?

Now, give attention to the devil's agenda and challenge to Jesus.
         Number One:
                     Turn the stones into bread. 
                     The result would be wealth.   
   
         Number Two:  
                     Jump from the highest point in the temple so that God will have to save you.
                     The result would be revenge. This is because the devil is angry with God who
                     elevated human beings as being more important than the devil, a dark angel  
                      who rebelled against God and wants revenge. (See Milton's Paradise Lost.)
                                               
         Number Three:
                     All I am asking from you is worship, and in return you may rule over all the
                     kingdoms on earth.

      These three values--wealth, revenue, and worship—appear to be the devil's highest      
        yearnings. Sound familiar? But how does Jesus respond? What values does he reveal?

You and I have the advantage of time, theological study, psychological reflection, and the portrayal of Jesus as a prophet, healer, a mystic of sorts who goes off to himself often where he is thought to have entered into deep meditative states with God. In addition, Jesus is a teacher. We have some record of his teaching, and, as written in Matthew 5:1-12,  this is what he taught. 

         When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, 
         his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
               Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
               Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
               Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
               Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
               Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
               Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
               Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
               Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the 
                    kingdom of heaven.
               Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of 
                    evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is              
                    great  in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were
                    before you.

Consider then the values Jesus lived and taught in response to the devil's temptations. Placing them side by side, they look like this:

                  Devil                                                   Jesus
                  wealth                                                 poor in spirit
                  revenge                                               peacemaking
                  worship                                               love

You will note that this archetypal story is a reflection not on religious dogma but the role values play in forming one's moral compass. Of course, religion is not irrelevant when we seek an understanding of our moral compass. But religion is more then dogma and ecclesiastical creeds, is it not? Most simply put, religion serves as host for our primal values. It is no wonder that all the religions of the world claim some variation of the "golden rule." 

           Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
           And do not do to others what you would not have them do unto you.

This is the citadel of compassion. And what is compassion if it is not the foremost value that can hold humanity together. Of this we dream.
                     

                                       VALUES AND MORALITY

My moral compass is a dial of values important to me. Five of the most important values are courage, freedom, truth, beauty and love. I could list more, but those five circulate regularly through my life, giving shape and identity to my work, relationships, recreation, and spirituality. They may be called my core values.  However, sometimes I think, feel, and act contrary to the five values I listed above. 

Why is that so? Life happens to us while we go about our work, relationships, and the many interesting things that catch our attention. A conversation with a neighbor, a TV show, an article in the paper, our partner's reminder of some household duty we forgot, anger at some disturbing political event, the much-treasured telephone calls from children, the mischievous scurrying about of our dogs and cats—all these and more pull us away from our deep center. So many interests and needs grab our attention and we flounder. We juggle our many selves and we lose contact with our moral compass.

But is this not a dilemma each of us faces as we deal with the practical concerns of our everyday life? Or to put it more directly, how often do we give thought to our values? And what do I mean by "value"? What is a "value?" And what do I mean when I place them in the role of directing our moral compass?

Take just a moment here and consider what a value is. The Oxford Dictionary of the English Language defines value this way: 

• the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something.
• the principles or standards of behavior; and judgement of what is important in life. 

And what about morality? Take note of this definition of morality:

• a particular system of values and principles of conduct.

On the surface, most simply put, our moral compass is what we learned in childhood. Be nice to other people. Say "thank you" when you are given something. Do not cross the street in front of oncoming traffic and hurt yourself or cause an accident. Share your crayons with other kids who do not have any. Respect your teachers. Stand when you say the Pledge of Allegiance. At church, bow your head when others pray. Do not be resentful when others are elected as class officers but remember you may be chosen the next time and, if not, support other kids who are honest and hard-working. Remember, you may have many sweethearts before you choose a life-partner. With messages like these our core values were formed and our morality set in motion.

But, as I said earlier, sometimes we flounder and lose touch with our moral center. The truth is, as we observe in our society today, something happened to our moral center. Our language has become coarse and often vulgar. Support of the poor and needy has been impacted by the national social services grant cuts. Severe foreign oil rollbacks and steep inflation impact groceries and transportation as well as operating costs. In addition, we cope with a war that has not been officially supported in Congress nor explained as to cause and expectations for termination.

How do we explain what has happened to America that has rattled the world, broken alliances, threatened the stability of our democracy, taken away attention to the natural disasters that threaten planet Earth, and lost sight of our democratic ideals? I offer three explanations. 

The first explanation is that the everyday needs of life summon our attention. Population growth has increased with a preference for living alone. We are drifting apart. The total number of single-person households has increased from 6.9 million in 1960 to over 38 million in 2022. Consider the strain this growth alone places on our infrastructure and services. In other words, our population growth and expectations for the "good life" command attention. We create new highways, we destroy habitats to build new houses,  we expect community services, we need medical care, and we face an aging population. With so many demands for our attention, who has time to think of a moral compass?

Second, Carl Jung called our attention to consider what happened to Germay between 1935 and 1945. As he said in his essay, "Wotan," it was not so much the economics or politics that fractured the nation, as it was the experience of "Wotan," the archetype of power, war and domination. In his timeless essay, Jung describes what happens to a nation that falls under the spell of an archetype. In another writing, I will say more about the nature of an archetype and its power to seize the minds of individuals. I trust it will suffice to describe an archetype as having impact on humans just as instincts have an impact on animals. The archetypal experience of a "feeling tone" shapes the direction taken because of its power to influence our perceptions, thinking, and feeling. As a result, our moods and mental activities are led in directions of which we are not conscious and within which our values are lost. Wotan led to an authoritarian rule of Hitler who embodied the dictator archetype and activated the energy that engulfed the German people. Such archetypal powers  override our morality.

My third explanation as to what happened to our society that has distorted our moral compass must be understood psychologically. Simply put, we are experiencing the would-be leadership of an individual whose personality may be described as narcissistic sociopathy. You may look up the term. Google, with the aid of AI, presents this summary:

        They are characterized by extreme grandiosity, deep manipulation, a 
         complete lack of empathy, and a disregard for social norms, often 
         gaining pleasure from harming others. These individuals lack a moral
         compass and often use deception for personal pleasure or gain. 

Here with these considerations of (1) sociopathic narcissism, (2) archetypal possession, and (3) a growing population driven by advertising media that shows no concern for morality, I have described how we lose touch with our values and morality. But they are not lost. I will return to the role of values and morality in the night-time drama of our dreams. 

                                            INTRODUCTION

               Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social
               well-being and not mainly the absence of disease and 
​               infirmity. The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard
​               of health is one of the fundamental rights of any human 
​               being without distinction of race, religion, political belief,
               economic, or social condition.  (Constitution of the World
               Health Organization)

​Without health, there can be no experience of a moral compass; without a moral compass, there can be no health. And without dreams there can be no deep understanding of what it means to be healthy or how to move beyond the distractions of mistrust driven by robotic decision-making and the urge to settle conflicts by going to war. 

​Why do I say that? Because, as Montaigne said, "Dreams are the true interpreter of our inclinations, but great skill is required to sort out and understand them." 
(Quoted by Coriat in The Meaning of Dreams, (title page, 1915). Montaigne affirmed life and embraced human potential to recognize and pursue our values and needs.

What are these values? I will list five:

                                                 courage  
​
Paul Tillich named the meaning of this state of mind best. Having faced Hitler and his Nazi war machine that conducted the malicious destruction of human life, Tillich came to the United States where he wrote his most profound understanding of what it means to face the evil disruptions of life. At the very center of his appeal to courage, Tillich affirmed "the courage to be oneself." (The Courage to Be, p. 105)  This is where we begin as a child and where we end in the face of death, hoping we can claim as did St. Paul: 
                 I have finished the race.
                 I fought a good fight.
                 I kept the faith.  (2 Timothy 4:7)

                                                freedom

I cannot let this value pass by without referring to Thomas Jefferson. Pursuing his personal understanding of freedom, Jefferson affirmed "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," preferring "dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery" whether it be the authoritarian rule of government or the oppression of a religious theocracy. He supported education and the freedom to talk and disagree. Where Jefferson is strongly criticized, however, was his failure to recognize and act on his own undemocratic practice of maintaining slaves, an abuse of which several generations would pass before this evil was recognized for the tyranny it is. 

                                                          truth

Supporting the values of courage and freedom, truth ennobles each. And presently in this distracting time of misinformation and self-serving political exploitation, "truth" itself has become elusive. Long lost is the art of political oratory in which the search for truth is debated. Absent today is the standard of a search for truth-telling. How quaint appears the childhood story of George Washington's response when his father asked who cut down the cherry tree: "I cannot tell a lie. I cut down the cherry tree." This likely mythical tale was told and re-told to children (and adults) as an early childhood quality of George Washington, but also—very importantly—as a value to be enshrined within the democratic ideals of the new-born nation. And so it has largely been honored and held as a noble ideal to be lived out by persons in all walks of life.

                                                 beauty

What an interesting value we share, made even more so by the layer upon layers of meaning on which beauty rests. How do we define it? How can it ever be held within any simple definition? I fall back on the often-quoted definition of John Keats. In his poem, Endymion, written in 1818, he left us these unforgettable lines:
                    A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
                    It's loveliness increases.
                    It will never pass into nothingness.

Two of my neighbors stood admiring the new pickup truck one of them had just brought home. The proud owner rubbed his hand over one of the gleaming fenders and almost reverently said, "What a beauty"!  And so it goes. What more can we say, whether it be a new, polished pickup truck, my wife's treasured daffodils springing up in our yard each year, or General Patton's profane exclamation when he saw the first m26 tank. How odd, we may think, that the idea of beauty ranges along a long line of pleasures to see, touch, hear, and sense—experiences of a joy that will never pass into nothingness.

                                              love

And then there is love. Is it the most treasured of all things we value? What more can be said about it? But we do well to recall that love encompasses many levels, evoking a mystique that is spiritual, erotic, practical, friendly, aspiring, hospitable, playful, self-focused, passionate, romantic, and unconditional. 

The three Greek words generally used to name love are philia, eros, and agape. 
Philia is that love we feel for friends, neighbors, and others who enter our lives in a mutually-caring way. Next, there is eros. Here we experience the energy of passion, attraction, and a desire to connect. This is not simply a sexual longing but a pull toward that which we care for passionately. But eros and philia do not stand alone. By themselves, they describe the cognitive and emotional experiences of caring. However, human beings have evolved in their reach for the stars and a spiritual longing for that which is ultimate. This we call agape, unconditional love. 

These five values—courage, freedom, truth, beauty, love— appear universally. They propel us, engage us, and fulfill our lives. But they do not operate alone. Our values intersect our needs, and to our needs I turn next. 

                                                   PRELUDE

Are you living your life? Your true life? Not some way of being in the world determined by what others told you. Are you living your real life, your true life and not some false life made up of "shoulds" and "oughts," a false life imposed upon you by others who tell you what they think you should be. Those "others" may mean well, they may or may not be nice people, they may point to their success in the world and want the same for you. 

But here's where the matter comes to a head. No one can tell you what your true life is. You are unique, special, unlike any being that has existed in the past or will exist in the future. Your parents, teachers, guides may claim a success for their lives and want the same for you. Or, it could be that they never really lived their life and fear that you may be like them, disappointed in what they made of their life. In either case, no person, near or far, past or future, can tell you your true life. 

How, then, can we find clues that may guide us toward living our own life, guided by an identity we name our "true self?" What source do we have that we can trust, a source that is universal, timeless, ever-present, and often ignored? That source is our dreams. In this writing I plan to present the idea of our dreams as guides to our identity and our moral existence. Along the way in later writings we will explore many dreams.

And, by the way, I hope you will take this occasion to reflect on your own dreams. If you do not presently record your dreams, this is a good time to begin. Any kind of notebook will serve as a dream journal, preferably a book that is not lined, so as to allow you to draw pictures along the way.

In your journal, allow for a section where you record the meaning of words you may not know. Definitions are wonderful. They help to clear the fog in our mind that obscures insights. "Insights" are the "ah-hahs" that open our way of thinking, feeling, sensing, and acting.

For example, here are a few of the words and concepts that will appear in our journey together. Let's begin.

                                                    DREAM
--Dreams are stories in the ancient language of symbols.
  And like the stories we read in our novels or watch on our screens, a "story" has a beginning that moves toward a climax which resolves the problem or issue and brings the story to an end that may or may not be satisfactory. The story often commands our attention, propelled by characters we like or dislike, often reminding us of individuals and situations we have experienced in our waking life. After all, theatre began in ancient Greece (500 BCE, 490 BCE) when the Grecians needed a way to understand and cope with the political, moral, cultural, and religious concerns of their time. So it is with us. On the stage, in our movies, and novels we face and try to cope with the "dramas'  in our personal and public life. Mythic stories entertain us while they also make possible the tears, laughter, wonder, awe, and meaningfulness of our deepest humanity. Appearing as we sleep, our daytime dramas come to us each night in our dreams. In other words, our unconscious works to resolve matters of our waking life. This is the gift of dreams as well as the challenge as to how we may understand them. 

                                                   VALUES
--things, behaviors, qualities considered as important, interesting, and  worthwhile.
   We may or may not be conscious of what we truly value and, most importantly, we may discover in our dreams that we do not honor those values.

                                                   MORALS
--standards of behavior regarding right and wrong that one may or may not practice.
  Note also that moral behavior differs from moralistic behavior, which is a judgmental view of one's behavior. In other words, moralistic preachings and behavior do not necessarily reflect our deepest morals. 

                                                   COMPASS
--"a device for determining direction by means of a magnetic needle...turning freely on a pivot and pointing to the magnetic north."  (Merriam-Webster)
  Sometimes the concept of a compass may be used in considering the direction or misdirection of one's life. See the following.

                                     TRUE NORTH, CHARACTER 
--"the direction from any point on earth toward the fixed geographic North Pole, where the earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface."  (Wikipedia)
    True north differs from magnetic north (to which a compass points). See above.
   True north may refer to a person's core values, qualities, and behaviors that determine an individual's character.

While the terms "values," "morality," and "character" may be described in still other ways by many professions, I will later be using these words and concepts as I described them above. My intention is to place dreams within a frame or theoretical construct in such a way as to take note of the direction of a person's life. Is the dreamer following his/her True North? How can one know? Is it possible that our dreams search for a moral compass? 

It is in such a moral compass that we find our freedom, a gift that is profound, and yet, very simple.  

                                              "SIMPLE GIFTS"
             
                   'Tis the gift to be simple,
                   'tis the gift to be free.
                   'tis the gift to come down
                     where we ought to be.
                   And when we find
                    ourselves in the place just right,
                   'twill be in the valley of love and delight.
                  When true simplicity is gained, 
                  To bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed, 
                  To turn, turn, will be our delight,
                  'til by turning, turning we come round right.
                         —(Composed by Elder Joseph Brackett, 1948)

I am well aware that in these troubled times, many of us simply stop watching and reading bad news. My use of the phrase "senseless society" may tilt your opinion quickly in the thinking of "Here we go again." But, in my defense, I hope to rise above the bad news by offering a view of safety and sanity. However, first things first:

                              THE SITUATION: A SENSELESS SOCIETY

Politics! It did not have to be this way, but for the time being it is a way of fear, confusion, misinformation, the splitting of friendships, families, boards, governmental organizations, services, news outlets, municipalities, and even the military. In other words, even the task of describing the danger of our present situation is daunting. 

I will try, however, to state the "senselessness" of our society and world situation by drawing on the expertise of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Following the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a group of scientists who helped build the first atomic bomb realized the horror of what they had created, and what it might portend for the future of civilization's survival. In order to help guard against the danger of individuals and even nations' use of nuclear weapons, the concerned group of scientists in Chicago founded the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists for the purpose of educating the general public of the dangers potentially threatening global catastrophe.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists publishes articles regularly, available to the general public. The organization consists of renowned scientists from around the world. Each year they convene in late January to consider the actions and non-actions of world leaders and governments, asking what has been done to save our planet from catastrophic destruction, always keeping in mind the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as reminders of what devastation we can enact on one another and the planet.

You may yourself read and reflect on the report of the Bulletin. They addressed the following concerns, acknowledging that Russia, China, the United States and other major countries have become increasingly aggressive, adversarial, and nationalistic. In particular, concerns raised had to do with the following: 

• "a lack of leadership on nuclear issues with no country stepping up to stem the growing sense of disorder and breakdown of norms."
• "a troubling climate outlook" with record-breaking trends continued in 2024 and 2025. Globally averaged temperature in 2024 was at the warmest level in 175 years of record-keeping.
• "Increasing chaos, disorder, and disinformation in the world's information ecosystem threaten society's capacity to address difficult challenges in 2025, and it is clear that AI has great potential to accelerate these processes of information corruption." 
• "Four major concerns: the possibility that scientists could create mirror life, the continued evolution of AI and biological weapons systems, and the dismantling and degradation of US public health infrastructure... ."

And there you have my brief summation of the bad news in a senseless society. Now I  present the other side of the equation.

                                   THE RESPONSE: SAFETY AND SANITY

First, let me quickly add that there remain governments as well as professional organizations and determined individuals who carry on the worthy and courageous work of serving humanity. Those individuals and groups, thankfully, are too numerous to name in this short writing. Therefore, I will point to four other sources available to you: Buddha, Moses, Christ, and Lao Tzu. I have chosen these sources as a resource not only because of who they are, but also because they offer windows into practices that may assist us in the search for safety and sanity.

• Buddha: The prince, Siddhartha Gautama lived a sheltered life in Nepal until he left to witness the widespread suffering of aging, sickness, death, and the misery of groups warring with each other. From this experience of suffering he preached the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path that concludes with a deep meditative concentration taught in Tibet, China, Japan, and world-wide sites. Often the meditation employs  the universal mantra: om mani padme hum ("Hail to the Jewel in the Lotus") evoking the image, compassion, and wisdom of Buddha for a suffering, senseless society.

• Moses: Moses was a Hebrew prophet. He led the Israelites out of their slavery in Egypt. Following an Exodus that crossed the Red Sea, they arrived in a wilderness where Moses spent 40 years with his quarrelsome group of hungry, scared, confused band of followers. They had barely escaped their previous decades of slavery, only to fall into the temptations of idolatry and demand that Moses lead them back into Egypt. When Moses could take it no longer, he sought solitude on Mount Sinai where he was given the Ten Commandments. The commandments begin like this:  "I am the Lord thy God — Thou shalt have no other gods [ultimate value on being] before me."  This is a high bar challenging our senseless society with its gods of wealth and power. 

• Christ: What can we say that has not been said about Jesus Christ and his words? But let me risk simplifying by referring to what has become known as the "beatitudes." There are eight, and each one refers to a new state of existence, or what the New Testament scholar, Rudolf Bultmann, referred to as an "eschatological existence," the awakening to a condition of being in which one's life is oriented toward the "kingdom of God," rather than the frivolities of the world. Returning to the beatitudes of which Jesus spoke (See Matthew 5:3-10), I choose only one: "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God."

• Lao Tzu: We know little about this mysterious old man whose name is associated with the Tao Te Ching. The work itself is a collection of 81 chapters or poems rising from Chinese mysticism. Around 1100 BCE, in the Chou dynasty, the individual known as Lao Tzu is thought to have served as an archivist in the Chou court at Wangcheng. Despairing the "senselessness" of his time and society, he left that world behind but not before compiling some or all of these writings we find in the Tao Te Ching that has become a "face" for the religion we know as Taoism. Taoism focuses on nature, simplicity, balance, meditative practice, intentionally resisting the lure of a senseless world. This path is known as the Way. 

         Consider this excerpt from the Tao Te Ching, poem 21: 
                The omnipresent Virtue will take shape according only to the Way.
                The Way itself is like something seen in a dream, elusive, evading one.
                In it are images, elusive, evading one.
                In it are things like shadows in twilight.
                In it are essences, subtle but real,
                Embedded in truth. 

More can and will be said about our response to a senseless society. And in future writings I will return to:
                 the mind of Buddha
                 the commandments of Moses
                 the heart of Christ
                 the Way of Lao Tzu

I see each of these as providing a sane and safe response to the senseless society in which we find ourselves at this time.  

(The translation of poem 21 in Tao Te Ching is by R.B. Blakney, Lao Tzu, Wisdom of Ancient China.)

Like millions of people around the world, on New Year's Eve, you may have seen the ball drop in Times Square, the fireworks, parades, and celebrations around the planet. You may have been alone and quietly experienced the passing of our old year. Still, you can say that you "saw" the moment when a significant moment occurred in time.

I refer to this experience as "seeing." It is one of those occasions when we know the "past" is now behind us, and the "future" is before us. Wherever we are, in whatever time zone, our clocks approach 11:59 PM, and we experience something hard to describe. Yes, we may see the "ball drop," we may offer a toast to friends and loved ones, we may call a relative or a friend of long ago. Most often this experience commands all of our senses briefly, and then it is gone.

What did we see? Or did we? I use the word "see" to describe what may be indescribable, but yet something happened that is soulful. That event when our clocks moved from
11:59 PM to 12 AM, describes perhaps the solitary instance when we are one with each other. We may not know that, we may not see it, but we do well to reflect upon what we "saw" or missed seeing. Poets describe moments in time that transcend time, moments of beauty, awe, wonder, meaning, love, and possibly a resolve to live against a backdrop of eternity.

I will give you a small taste of what I mean when I say that poets "see" into the soul of humanity and bring to us their gifts of sight, presented with the evocative vision of poetic imagination. Of the many that could be chosen, I invite your consideration with poetic excerpts from Robert Frost, Lao Tzu, Mary Oliver, W.H.Auden, and Derek Mahon.

                                 STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING
                                              Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Frost was born in San Francisco, moved about in his early years including some time in England before settling down in Shaftsbury, Vermont, on a farm where he grew apples, taught writing in local schools, and wrote poetry.

                                      Whose woods these are I think I know
                                         His house is in the village though;
                                         He will not see me stopping here
                                      To watch his woods fill up with snow.

                                        My little horse must think it queer
                                         To stop without a farmhouse near
                                       Between the woods and frozen lake
                                          The darkest evening of the year.

                                         He gives his harness bells a shake
                                          To ask if there is some mistake.
                                         The only other sound's the sweep
                                           Of easy wind and downy flake.

                                        The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
                                           But I have promises to keep,
                                          And miles to go before I sleep,
                                          And miles to go before I sleep.


                                           TAO TE CHING — Chapter One
                                              Lao Tzu (6th century BCE?)

Lao Tzu, which might be translated from the Chinese as "Old Man," lived in the 6th century BCE, according to some research. However, little can be of certain about this profound old man who supposedly worked for Confucius before he retired and retreated to the unknown sacred mountains in China. 

                           The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
                           The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
                           The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.
                           The named is the mother of ten thousand things.
                           Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.
                           Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations.
                           These two spring from the same source but differ in name;
                               this appears as darkness.
                           Darkness within darkness.
                           The gate to all mystery.


                        YOU ARE STANDING AT THE EDGE OF THE WOODS
                                       Mary Oliver (1953-2019)

Mary Oliver is one of the better know poets in modern literature. She grew up in Ohio, became fascinated with poetry in her later life and wrote of nature and our place in the deep mystery of woods, streams, oceans, and animal life. She spent many of her most productive years living in Provincetown, MA. I have excerpted the beginning and ending of this poem that yet evokes in me the wonder and mystery of Oliver's world.

                            You are standing at the edge of the woods
                                                   at twilight
                                          when something begins
                                          to sing, like a waterfall
                                                      ...
                                                The thrush
                                     is silent then, or perhaps
                                            has flown away.
                                     The dark grows darker.

                                                The moon,
                                     in its shining white blouse,
                                                     rises.
                                   And whatever that wild cry was

                                    it will aways remain a mystery
                              you have to go home now and live with,
                 sometimes with the ease of music, and sometimes in silence,
                                          for the rest of your life.


                                           FOR THE TIME BEING
                                          W.H. Auden (1907-1973)

Auden was something of a wanderer. Born in Great Britain, he sought stability in life within the boundaries of New York City, first in Brooklyn Heights, and later, Manhattan. Auden was gifted to make use of his own unsettledness and left us with an evocative commentary on the political, moral, social, and religious dynamics of his time, throwing light on the disturbing time in which we are living. Later in his life, Auden found refuge in the Anglican Church from which he drew the symbols of this long poem that concludes as follows: 

                     He is the Way.
                     Follow Him through the Land of Unlikeness;
                     You will see rare beasts, and have unique adventures.

                     He is the Truth.
                     Seek Him in the Kingdom of Anxiety;
                     You will come to a great city that has expected your return for years.

                     He is the Life.
                     Love Him in the World of the Flesh;
                     And at your marriage all its occasions shall dance for joy.


                                  EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALL RIGHT
                                           Derek Mahon (1941-2020)

Mahon was a solitary who wrote against the backdrop of Northern Ireland's brutal conflicts. Determined, he pushed himself to claim a love for poetry that his working class parents did not understand. His "watchful heart" looked inward and outward as he visited many cities around the world and saw features of life that others may not have seen. But many of us have found comfort in the vision of his "watchful heart" that he describes in the following poem.

                                 How should I not be glad to contemplate
                                   the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
                                   and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?
                                 There will be dying, there will be dying,
                                    but there is no need to go into that.
                                 The poems flow from the hand unbidden
                                    and the hidden source is the watchful heart.
                                 The sun rises in spite of everything
                                    and the far cities are beautiful and bright.
                                  I lie here in a riot of sunlight
                                    watching the day break and the clouds flying. 
                                  Everything is going to be all right.


We do not all possess that marvelous capacity to write poetry. But we see with our eyes, our hearts, our minds, our imagination, our dreams. What do you see this new year?