"'Pass within to the living landscape," we seem to be told, but beware of your own inner state, for you are entering a psychic hall of mirrors." (-Joseph Campbell?)
"If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man." - Henry David Thoreau
"However, most illnesses do have a psychological component, and a realization of one's participation and responsibility in the disease process is entirely different from blame or guilt. Of course few ever really want a life-threatening sickness, but it usually functions as a message to change or gives patients something they are not getting from their lives" - Love, Medicine, and Miracles by Bernie S. Siegel, M.D.
This life is a psychic hall of mirrors, it certainly seems to be true. What is happening in my psychic hall of mirrors right now? I am becoming more aware of my blind spots and character weaknesses. (I think. The thing about blind spots is that they are "blind spots"). Dreams help. The main character weakness in me is probably a child level of selfishness (insecurity, grandiosity, fight or flight, you know the stuff). It hides underneath my conscious mind most of the time, but it pops its head out in my dreams and life. It's normal, it's the ego, it's the mind, it's collective. The solution (something to work at every day) for me is to do things that make me more aware of being my body, this body, here and now. Things that are grounding and put me in connection to my oneness with the planet. Yoga, fresh veggie juice, preparing healthy food, jumping on my trampoline, swimming in the pool, and laughing. Another part of the solution is to keep up somewhat with things going on in the world. Where we are as one human consciousness. Of course there are things on television that are a facade, but so am i. There are also things that are very inspiring and educational. I also occasionally say the "Jesus Prayer"- "Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me, a sinner." It helps clear my mind and get my ego out of the way.
I have been thinking alot about humanity and our place in nature. We are pieces of the divine but we are also, obviously, animals. If any piece gets too disconnected from the whole and off on it's own tangent it eventually is driven insane by the unconscious mind/ego. That, I think, is hell. The people who have played the most blatently, outwardly evil roles in their human lives, like Hitler or Rasputin, ...what were they creating and living inside....hell. Eventually the evil they inflicted will come back and eat them up. But they are still a part of the whole. We all have a share in the collective unconscious. We are all involved in the process of evolution.
Right now, I think the growing awareness of "green" living, healthier eating, building, etc., is a really great symbol for a purging of the collective unconscious. Old, stagnant ways of being are dying out so new, more aware ways of being can be born. I have had dreams, which I will not share because they are a little too vivid, which lead me to imagine that when we leave the body behind (in death), it is like waste exiting a larger bodily system. So nothing is lost. What is left behind is merely the waste product. While it is alive, the body is really just like an appendage of one big body, that we are just as much a part of as we are this little body. I have had this sensation when I am drifting off to sleep. One other thing is that these bodies/minds a little limiting, as far as location. While we are in them we can only travel so fast. Outside of the little body, there is much more to see, and it is much easier to see it (also learned this in "dream-school").
Now, on a personal level, regarding the quote by Siegel. I think I can understand why I "got cancer." The truth is, although I experienced moments of great beauty on occasion, and overall would have said i was doing "all right" or even "great" if you had asked me, I was very tangled up inside. (I am still untangling). I drank practically every night and although I did other things in life like play music and hang out with friends, if I were to be honest I would say that I had an emotional attachment to alcohol. The thing is, the unconscious can be an overwhelming thing to live in close connection with. People like me, the visionaries, the artists, the poets, etc., I think are particularly subsceptible to leaning on substances in order to detach, numb, or space out a little. But one thing chemo treatment is helping to happen is lose my emotional attachment to alcohol. I already have so much poison going through my system, alcohol just doesn't appeal to me the way it used to, or have the same power to take me to another mindstate. I have to say that I am learning to enjoy the rawness and realness of life, the immediacy of the moment, although I occasionally do say and do stupid, embarassing things, which I am more aware of now that I am usually sober. The answer to life is not alcohol; it is humor, humility and willingness to learn. And recognizing that your thoughts are not necessarily your thoughts. Life (thus mind/thoughts) is collective in nature...no need to get all tangled up in the thoughts that float through your mind.
One other important thing...is really just learning to be your own best friend. Not a friend that bullshits you, but a friend that is totally real with you and really wants the best for you. No agendas, just experiencing reality together. Then happiness is born.
