It was an odd day, the day that I died. I don’t think that it is worth getting into the details of the event, they weren’t very meaningful, at least not to me. Not in the long run. I think it is also worthless to talk about lights and tunnels and things, not because I didn’t see them, it just… wasn’t important to me.
See get this, I was lying there… I was in the hospital, I remember having to argue with my wife about what I wanted, there were a few things that were obvious that she already knew. She knew my flair for the dramatic and my desire to utilize what many have called, meaningless gestures, partially because I believe and also for the dramatics.
Its funny, I didn’t have to argue with her about getting a priest, a specific priest. Yes I know, I am not Catholic… but he was a friend, and he used to sneak me communion during Mass. It was funny I remember once over a beer I told him I wanted him to give me last rites, he figured that he’d go first so we just toasted our glasses and he said all right. I won’t tell the diocese if you won’t. I still remember him praying the rosary for me. It was neat, maybe the cross between Morphine and Dopamine… but I saw Mary there… She was behind my youngest son, there was a tear in her eye, and a smile on her face… her face was so warm and inviting, I wonder if everyone knows how warm and inviting her face is. Sure I know it is crazy for a protestant to talk about visions of Mary but hey… it’s what I do.
The room was strangely warm, I thought I would be cold… I wasn’t, I don’t know what was warming the room up… maybe love… maybe frustration… You know there was a chaplain there. I had hoped there would be one, this was a Southern Baptist fellow… I think I was conscious about two hours, he was there the entire time. At one point he sat with me and talked, just he and I, I had to smile, he was so young, and his eyes an odd mix of warm and cold. Like he was full of emotion, but fuller of a desire to only let it squeak out. He was a good guy, I don’t remember his name, he was in training, I told him a little about my training, I told him how I wanted to die… I opened the door for him.
"It seems like your ready," he said to me in a haunting voice. I always wondered if I would have that conversation with someone. The truth is, I was tired, I suppose a little young but still, I have two kids and a wife I love very much… The oldest is married, I won’t get to see my grandchild this side of the shadowlands, but I know he is coming, I know it’s a boy, they don’t believe me, think I am a damned old mystic. I will get a chance to speak with him before he goes, I will send a message, I wonder if they will get it.
Now the youngest, he is the most like me, he is in seminary, followed in my footsteps, I can’t believe it. I argued with him about it, talked about the hours, about pain, about the tears I had shed, about living paycheck to paycheck, God’s forced faith, knowing that he will provide because otherwise we starve. I knew I had lost the argument when I saw a gleam in his eyes… later a vision… I made the arguments of his grandfather, but my heart welled with pride. I know he doesn’t know about the pain that is coming, but I know he can take it. I feel that I can stand before God and feel redeemed because of my children… because through all the mistakes I made… they will change the world, maybe that is just the father in me… but God is a father too.
I will never see him wed… be he will. Its funny when Mary left his side she was replaced with the shape of a different woman, olive skinned… seemed cute… holding his arm. I don’t think he was open to the vision fully but I saw him shiver, then scratch his arm where she was touching him… he would meet her soon, maybe two years out, but soon.
The oldest… successful bastard, he is like his mother. I never thought I would spawn his kind. The popular kind, the sporty kind, but he was a little different. Sure I had to adjust his attitude as a kid but he seems to have gone a different direction. He seems to have… grown. He will be a good father, I can’t believe the woman he married. Every day I wonder how he got her… She is so kind, I think she is the reason he went back to church. My vision of him is interesting… a rose… he will be a leader someday… a leader in the church… not like my young son… but a lay leader… an elder...
My wife, she is funny. She has two silver dollars in her purse… because I asked for her to carry them, to pay the boatman. When I die I want them over my eyes. She will hand one to each son; they will cover my eyes. She is okay with that, but she wasn’t okay with me dying… at least not at first. I keep telling her I won’t make it, she keeps talking about miracles. I keep telling her I don’t want those miracles. I am not afraid of death, or at least wasn’t until that damn chaplain asked me a question.
"Yeah I’m ready," I heard myself say. "How about you, you ready?" I know the expectation of the chaplain, I know what the staff thinks he should do, I smile at him. I can’t help it, I tell him stories about CPE: About the years I spent as a chaplain and as a preacher, the years as a husband and a father, the years alone… in transit… wondering if I would ever find a home. I saw a tear in his eye… That bastard, he knew what I needed, and I think I knew what he needed. I needed to talk… he needed to hear… yes I was ready… it was right
"You are Catholic?" I always laugh when people ask me this question.
"No sir, never got around to conversion," my priest friend laughed.
"I think you understand what Catholic means better than most…" my Priest said.
My new Southern Baptist friend didn’t understand that comment, so the father, it feels odd to call my friend father, explained about the big church. This chaplain is just a kid, we both know he isn’t going to listen too well, but I like him. He is me… I am him…
My niece and nephew are there, and a man who became like a brother to me later… my sister-in-law’s brother. A good guy… I was glad he was there. I look forward to seeing my brother again. I wonder where he is…
All the sudden there is pain… God awful pain… So I do the only appropriate thing… I start to curse… the nurse gives me more morphine immediately I get loopy, it’s almost time… I glaze my eyes with the look of goodbye, I try to speak but I am too tired, I can raise 1 finger, I wave… the circle around me joins hands. Mary was back, Jesus was there, and Grandma, that is where I saw you first… My brother standing next to his wife… I hadn’t seen that in years… I can’t exactly remember why… oh now I remember. I don’t think she knows he is there…. Mom… Dad… smiling, holding hands. I really appreciate that theology about "believers but not knowers."
They are gone and I get up… blue lab coat… chaplain coat… I am in the hospital… "Code 1 to ICU 3" I rush to the code and find out it wasn’t a code… the chart says, "do not resuscitate." The family is standing around the body; Mary is here, Jesus is here… Mom, Dad… why are you here… Anna… Adam… why is my family here? I look down on the table, me… all the sudden I am looking up from the table… and I am filled with breath.
Grandma, that is when you handed me my chaplain coat… my sons placed the silver dollars over my eyes. I put my coat on… I walked through a corridor… another chaplain next to me… he wore black… pretty macabre for a chaplain… oh, he is "that" chaplain… I walk to a river… there is a boat, and a man with a lantern. "Charon?" I said. He smiled at me and held out his hand, I reached into the pocket of my lab coat, lets see… papers… more papers… census’… there they are. I hand over two silver dollars to Charon. He smiles.
The journey is short… peaceful, and oddly enough seemed like forever… I was a little nervous… now judgement it coming, now I stand before God… now the decision… Elysium or Tartarus… All the sudden no fear… I should be afraid, I am not… I got off the boat onto a dock… I walk through a door… I am in the hospital again… but it is a dream I had many years earlier… I walk into employee orientation… I state my name to the man behind the main desk… the bookkeeper opens a large book… this was just like a dream… he smiles… "St. Peter?" I ask. This is no longer the dream. I begin to walk and turn to ask a question, "can I check on my family?" he showed me a monitor. There was crying… even the chaplain… but it was okay… Mary was there… so was my Dad… and Mom… I looked to the right; Grandma was with me… she had never left me. Uncle Bud on her right… smiles… all smiles… The journey, I plot my course.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Friday, June 29, 2007
The Shadow: A Layman's Introduction
(I am not an analyst, you might read my stuff and think I have no idea what I am talking about, that is fine… I might just agree with you. I have recently come into the writing of CG Jung and am beginning to walk a road of understanding this requires the collection of my thoughts and dialogue therein. Please, let me know what you think)
Another of Jung’s core archetypes is the Shadow. The Shadow appears in our dreams and also in our fantasies as different things. The shadow itself is the part of the human psyche that we often don’t want to acknowledge. Often times parts of ourselves our relegated to shadow because of some strict moral judgement, and sometimes because of the way we fit into cultural norms.
For example, let’s talk about pride. Pride finds itself in the top 7 of the deadly sins list and for centuries has been the negative focal point of sermons and philosophical expressions. To view pride as a negative thing is rather black and white. I would say there are two sides to pride. There is the negative side, which I like to call Vanity, then there is the positive side, which can be understood as a positive self esteem. There are such phrases as, "pride in our work," "pride in our job," and "pride in the life we live." These things are important… we cannot live a life without pride it doesn’t work, but we take a word like pride and define it in a way that makes all pride seem bad.
Other examples might be in words like, religion, doctrine, and sexuality. All these things have negative connotations and often those connotations are exaggerated for the purpose of getting ones way or winning an argument. These things if not expressed find themselves in the shadow.
Of course it doesn’t have to be that dramatic. We often live unbalanced lives, there are very spiritual individuals out there who are accountants but never act on their spirituality because they are accountants not some form of minister. When something like this happens one might commit him/herself to work in such a drastic sense the spiritual aspect of the psyche is not experienced, the psyche will try to balance this, sometimes through dreams sometimes through fantasies, and there are other ways. Watch the imagery, a Catholic man dreams of a rose blooming from between the keys of his computer… the psyche might be saying something… something like, "Express me!"
I am typing all this to say, the Shadow is not necessarily bad or wrong, nor is it evil. When dealing with the shadow it is often necessary to cast no moral judgement until it is better understood. In dreams the shadow might appear anywhere from an elusive woman to a demon king, all depending on how ready we are to hear what the psyche has to say.
Does this mean we take the shadow in fullness and bend toward its will? Of course not, we have the ability to make choices in relation to, how we act and even what we believe. If one has been living a life of low self esteem and self deprivation he/she may figure that out and arrogate oneself falsely trying to compensate, because, well in all honesty a bit of an Ass. This might just be a case of letting the shadow run the show, remember when dealing with the inner self, the ego can and often must make moral decisions on what action is taken.
The same with Sexuality, Western Culture tends to dichotomize sex. It is either all evil or all good. Often sex is encouraged to be left in the bedroom and never mentioned, or something that is to be toyed with until one figures out his own way to make it work. That statement represents to polar views. Sex in itself is neutral, it is what we do with sex that places it in the moral realm. Human beings are sexual creatures, why do I say that, because all other animals are, and there seems to be this strong desire, whether it be bingeing or in sexual anorexia. An individual who deems sex, if not in voice but still in action, as evil or something to be feared might have very erotic dreams or fantasies that often seem out of control. Those who binge in the realm of sexuality might have dreams and fantasies expressing the opposite, maybe a nun or a priest, either way something will appear in the shadow.
In both cases one will need to connect to that aspect that has been relegated to the shadow as to gain psychic wholeness.
Another of Jung’s core archetypes is the Shadow. The Shadow appears in our dreams and also in our fantasies as different things. The shadow itself is the part of the human psyche that we often don’t want to acknowledge. Often times parts of ourselves our relegated to shadow because of some strict moral judgement, and sometimes because of the way we fit into cultural norms.
For example, let’s talk about pride. Pride finds itself in the top 7 of the deadly sins list and for centuries has been the negative focal point of sermons and philosophical expressions. To view pride as a negative thing is rather black and white. I would say there are two sides to pride. There is the negative side, which I like to call Vanity, then there is the positive side, which can be understood as a positive self esteem. There are such phrases as, "pride in our work," "pride in our job," and "pride in the life we live." These things are important… we cannot live a life without pride it doesn’t work, but we take a word like pride and define it in a way that makes all pride seem bad.
Other examples might be in words like, religion, doctrine, and sexuality. All these things have negative connotations and often those connotations are exaggerated for the purpose of getting ones way or winning an argument. These things if not expressed find themselves in the shadow.
Of course it doesn’t have to be that dramatic. We often live unbalanced lives, there are very spiritual individuals out there who are accountants but never act on their spirituality because they are accountants not some form of minister. When something like this happens one might commit him/herself to work in such a drastic sense the spiritual aspect of the psyche is not experienced, the psyche will try to balance this, sometimes through dreams sometimes through fantasies, and there are other ways. Watch the imagery, a Catholic man dreams of a rose blooming from between the keys of his computer… the psyche might be saying something… something like, "Express me!"
I am typing all this to say, the Shadow is not necessarily bad or wrong, nor is it evil. When dealing with the shadow it is often necessary to cast no moral judgement until it is better understood. In dreams the shadow might appear anywhere from an elusive woman to a demon king, all depending on how ready we are to hear what the psyche has to say.
Does this mean we take the shadow in fullness and bend toward its will? Of course not, we have the ability to make choices in relation to, how we act and even what we believe. If one has been living a life of low self esteem and self deprivation he/she may figure that out and arrogate oneself falsely trying to compensate, because, well in all honesty a bit of an Ass. This might just be a case of letting the shadow run the show, remember when dealing with the inner self, the ego can and often must make moral decisions on what action is taken.
The same with Sexuality, Western Culture tends to dichotomize sex. It is either all evil or all good. Often sex is encouraged to be left in the bedroom and never mentioned, or something that is to be toyed with until one figures out his own way to make it work. That statement represents to polar views. Sex in itself is neutral, it is what we do with sex that places it in the moral realm. Human beings are sexual creatures, why do I say that, because all other animals are, and there seems to be this strong desire, whether it be bingeing or in sexual anorexia. An individual who deems sex, if not in voice but still in action, as evil or something to be feared might have very erotic dreams or fantasies that often seem out of control. Those who binge in the realm of sexuality might have dreams and fantasies expressing the opposite, maybe a nun or a priest, either way something will appear in the shadow.
In both cases one will need to connect to that aspect that has been relegated to the shadow as to gain psychic wholeness.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
The Slasher Flick as the Male's Expression of the Anima
Have you considered the "Dead Teenager Movies." I rented Final Destination 3 the other day and they had an extra on the DVD that talked about the "Dead Teenager Movies." To make it simple these are slasher flicks where teenagers die in large numbers, various examples: Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the Thirteenth, and Halloween. There are many others, but you get the picture.
The move often centers on two main characters, the slasher and the heroine. I suppose it might be a hero but often the movie brings a woman to the forefront. In the beginning of the movie we often find this woman taking a stance on sexual improprieties, and in some ways appearing chaste. The funny thing is that it isn’t necessarily their choice it just happens to work that way, they are never unattractive and often picked because they are attractive, but not the "Hot ditzy chick." This woman/girl is girl next door pretty, the one you take home to mom. She is also strong willed and able to defend herself and even often conquer the antagonist of the film.
Take also into account that most of the people who come to these movies are male teenagers. Why is it that a male wants to come and watch a woman who will undoubtedly have the chance to score but will not, and also at some point will be bound, either by rope or in a cage of sorts conquer.
I have an idea. One of Jung’s most popular archetypes was the Anima/Animus. The Anima is (for men) the female aspect of the soul, and the Animus (for woman) being the male aspect. Theoretically all people have both parts of the soul represented by archetypes and through life will try to express appropriately both sides. When one side is not expressed appropriately the collective unconscious will try, often through dreams, but also through fantasies to allow this aspect of the self to be expressed.
As one comes to a slasher flick males get the opportunity to express many different aspects of these relationships. First the male understands his own feminine sexuality (not to be confused with homo-erroticism) and at the same time sees expressed some form of ultimate woman, one who is "touring the facilities and picking up slack (listen the cake song, short skirt long jacket). This woman is perfect; she is feminine, attractive, and tough. At some point in the movie she will be bound, expressing the males desire to bind his own anima, and then she will be loosed, and the male will figure out that embracing the anima is not embracing weakness but strength.
To conclude, I think these movies represent something that has shifted to the periphery in our culture, something that needs re-connected with. We have been given this false version of masculinity that has no room for a natural femininity. This need, suppressed but the consciousness, is then expressed in by those who make the movies, and by those who passively watch them.
However, it is important to note that passive experience of the anima in a movie is not equivalent to appropriate expression through the conscious mind.
Let me know what you think.
The move often centers on two main characters, the slasher and the heroine. I suppose it might be a hero but often the movie brings a woman to the forefront. In the beginning of the movie we often find this woman taking a stance on sexual improprieties, and in some ways appearing chaste. The funny thing is that it isn’t necessarily their choice it just happens to work that way, they are never unattractive and often picked because they are attractive, but not the "Hot ditzy chick." This woman/girl is girl next door pretty, the one you take home to mom. She is also strong willed and able to defend herself and even often conquer the antagonist of the film.
Take also into account that most of the people who come to these movies are male teenagers. Why is it that a male wants to come and watch a woman who will undoubtedly have the chance to score but will not, and also at some point will be bound, either by rope or in a cage of sorts conquer.
I have an idea. One of Jung’s most popular archetypes was the Anima/Animus. The Anima is (for men) the female aspect of the soul, and the Animus (for woman) being the male aspect. Theoretically all people have both parts of the soul represented by archetypes and through life will try to express appropriately both sides. When one side is not expressed appropriately the collective unconscious will try, often through dreams, but also through fantasies to allow this aspect of the self to be expressed.
As one comes to a slasher flick males get the opportunity to express many different aspects of these relationships. First the male understands his own feminine sexuality (not to be confused with homo-erroticism) and at the same time sees expressed some form of ultimate woman, one who is "touring the facilities and picking up slack (listen the cake song, short skirt long jacket). This woman is perfect; she is feminine, attractive, and tough. At some point in the movie she will be bound, expressing the males desire to bind his own anima, and then she will be loosed, and the male will figure out that embracing the anima is not embracing weakness but strength.
To conclude, I think these movies represent something that has shifted to the periphery in our culture, something that needs re-connected with. We have been given this false version of masculinity that has no room for a natural femininity. This need, suppressed but the consciousness, is then expressed in by those who make the movies, and by those who passively watch them.
However, it is important to note that passive experience of the anima in a movie is not equivalent to appropriate expression through the conscious mind.
Let me know what you think.
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