Why the sudden increase in virus cases? Other than the particulars of opening too soon and the lack of agreement on safety measures I believe there are much more fundamental issues here as to why the U.S. hasn’t been able to get control over the virus spread. One of these issues may very well be our understanding of what independence means. For many it seems to be about “You can’t tell me what to do, it’s a free country”. This attitude can and perhaps does affect the country’s ability to control the virus’ spread.
Mass denial which comes about when there is a large discrepancy between what people want something to be and what is the reality of it is often a human default when the going gets tough even though this is not in our best interests. It’s is part of the fight or flight response with the denial of facts being a flight response even though the flight might have us running into the jaws of a pack of saber-toothed tigers. Overriding our default responses and using the tools at hand to help us mount a sensible ‘fight’ response might be a better approach to fighting this war.
In order for any society to sustain itself there has to be a certain willingness to give up some of our independence for the betterment of the whole, but Americans seem to be less and less inclined to do this and right now that is costing lives and livelihoods.
Many of our leaders seem to care more about themselves and their Party than they do about the people they are supposed to serve. Beliefs seem to hold more cache than facts and that will eventually catch up with us in some rather nasty outcomes yet to be revealed.
The current federal administration has done just about everything it can do to separate us politically and socially which makes it much harder if not impossible for us to unite in a common goal or to mount an effective war on this virus. If we had acted like this at the beginning of our involvement in World War-II we might be speaking a different language and be ruled by a different country i.e., we would have lost the war just as we are doing now with the so-called virus war.
If we want to continue as one nation under God, if we think that the country is stronger and greater when we unite, we need to ignore the words and actions at the top that are trying to divide us and start thinking of ourselves as a society worth protecting as a whole and doing what promotes inclusiveness and wholeness.
The quote, “United we stand, divided we fall” is a truism that we need more than ever to get behind, learn to compromise, and get back to the hard job of learning to live together.
While digging through a small box of books that I was intending to give away to the local library I discovered a small book that I must have bought years ago intending to read but having never actually gotten beyond the first page. I could see that it would be a fast read so I sat next to the box and opened the book.
It was a very short story written by one of my favorite American authors, Mark Twain, possibly written during or prior to the American Civil War. The title– “The War Prayer”.
The story, almost a poem, told of the patriotic fervor of war, the over romanticized version of going to war of being victorious over those who thought, acted, and believed differently. It described the cheering, parades and speeches from both the politicians and the ministers from the pulpit. Those people who acted as a rational counterpoint were demeaned and threatened until their anti-war point-of-view was suppressed and silenced.
At the height of one minister’s war sermon an old man walked down the aisle and announced that he had been sent by God. He told the congregation that their God had heard their request for victory against their opponents, but that they needed to know the other side, the unspoken side, to their request that only God would know.
He then spoke of the pain, agony, starvation and devastation to their patriotic opponents, their children and their families. He spoke of the shredding of their bodies, their wills, their homes, and the oceans of spilled blood of those who were virtually neighbors and in many cases family that would have to happen in order to claim the victory the congregation had asked for in their prayers. He said that their loving God was ready to grant their request if they realized the full cost of their prayer. They sat in silence, stunned by the old man’s words.
In the end they determined that the old man was a crackpot and cheered their soldiers on.
I’m writing of this story because I have out of fear and misplaced patriotism found myself cheering the destruction of those that don’t agree with me, or my way of life. Instead of searching for a means toward tolerance, I find myself secretly wishing for an end to the conflict through any means including violence even though I know that violence only begets more violence and that over the long haul has never really kept us safe, safe enough to not need our armies and technologies of suppression and death.
Within every violent fanatic is someone who fears loss, the loss of importance, position, meaning, control or safety. They fear not having a voice in the living of their lives. Though their means for preventing the loss or in gaining a voice is abhorrent, immoral, ungodly and inhumane, their need is not alien to the rest of us.
It is in that shared need that the answers to ending violence of all kinds1 resides. Do we have the courage to look for it or is it just too easy to kill what scares us?
The answer resides with us all. What are you really doing to bring about peace?
1Violence can look like oppression of any kind e.g. against children, against women, against one belief over another, one culture over another. It can look like the suppression of any person’s expression of who they are or restricting opportunities for some while enhancing them for others. Oppression can also look like a rigid adherence to only one point-of-view as though any human could actually speak for the intentions of God. What arrogance!
Violence also comes from well meaning people who are dedicated toward ending such things as racism, feminine harassment, or wage disparity. It shows up in the indiscriminate demeaning of our police forces, hate rhetoric, and the tearing down and defacement of statues.
This violence is more subtle though just as destructive as the bloodletting kind. For many zealots of social-change the attitude toward dissent or a different approach to the one being propagated is one of “your either with us or against us” or that a different kind of hate will dispatch the old kind of hate. NOT SO, hate is hate and always, always, always breeds more hate!
These well-meaning soldiers of fairness then demean any comments or positions that aren’t in alignment with their positions. For example, I belong to a group that has dedicated itself to end racial disparity but anyone who suggests a way of doing that that’s different than the so-called leadership is called old or too unconsciously “white” to truly understand what’s at stake or what needs to be done but if they follow the leaders then they will become ‘woke’ and be of some use to the cause. Never mind that they are shutting down dialog, never mind that they are exhibiting the same kind of prejudice they are trying to eradicate i.e., making unsubstantiated judgments about a person or group of persons based on a lack of understanding and then acting upon those judgments as though real to suppress those with alternate points of view or being.
This is how movements fail because they become what they are resisting and start tuning out the other voices that don’t sound like theirs.
It’s about time we start listening to the voice of God and not the voice in our heads, the one that’s dismissive, angry, afraid, arrogant, and judgmental then ‘together’ we may have a chance to bring about justice.
Several ancient cultures, including the Egyptians and Chinese, practiced chromotherapy, or using colors to heal. Chromotherapy is sometimes referred to as light therapy or colorology and is still used today as a holistic or alternative treatment.
In this treatment:
Red was used to stimulate the body and mind and to increase circulation.
Yellow was thought to stimulate the nerves and purify the body.
Orange was used to heal the lungs and to increase energy levels.
Blue was believed to soothe illnesses and treat pain.
Indigo shades were thought to alleviate skin problems.
Most psychologists view color therapy with skepticism and point out that the supposed effects of color have been exaggerated. Colors also have different meanings in different cultures. Research has demonstrated in many cases that the mood-altering effects of color may only be temporary. A blue room may initially cause feelings of calm, but the effect dissipates after a short period of time.
Studies have also shown that certain colors can have an impact on performance. Exposing students to the color red prior to an exam has been shown to have a negative impact on test performance. More recently, researchers discovered that the color red causes people to react with greater speed and force, something that might prove useful during athletic activities.
The Color Psychology of Blue
Blue is described as a favorite color by many people and is the color most preferred by men.
Blue calls to mind feelings of calmness or serenity. It is often described as peaceful, tranquil, secure, and orderly.
Blue can also create feelings of sadness or aloofness.
Blue is often used to decorate offices because research has shown that people are more productive in blue rooms.
Blue is one of the most popular colors, but it is one of the least appetizing. Some weight loss plans even recommend eating your food off of a blue plate. Blue rarely occurs naturally in food aside from blueberries and some plums. Also, humans are geared to avoid foods that are poisonous and blue coloring in food is often a sign of spoilage or poison.
Blue can also lower the pulse rate and body temperature.
Consider how blue is used in language: blue moon, blue Monday, blue blood, the blues, and blue ribbon.
The Color Psychology of Black
Black absorbs all light in the color spectrum.
Black is often used as a symbol of menace or evil, but it is also popular as an indicator of power. It is used to represent treacherous characters such as Dracula and is often associated with witchcraft.
Black is associated with death and mourning in many cultures. It is also associated with unhappiness, sexuality, formality, and sophistication.In ancient Egypt, black represented life and rebirth.
Black is often used in fashion because of its slimming quality.
Consider how black is used in language: Black Death, blackout, black cat, black list, black market, black tie, black belt.
The Color Psychology of Yellow
Yellow is a bright that is often described as cheery and warm.
Yellow is also the most fatiguing to the eye due to the high amount of light that is reflected. Using yellow as a background on paper or computer monitors can lead to eyestrain or vision loss in extreme cases.
Yellow can also create feelings of frustration and anger. While it is considered a cheerful color, people are more likely to lose their tempers in yellow rooms and babies tend to cry more in yellow rooms.
Yellow can also increase the metabolism.
Since yellow is the most visible color, it is also the most attention-getting color. Yellow can be used in small amount to draw notice, such as on traffic sign or advertisements.
The Color Psychology of Green
Green is a cool color that symbolizes nature and the natural world.
Green also represents tranquility, good luck, health, and jealousy.
Researchers have also found that green can improve reading ability. Some students may find that laying a transparent sheet of green paper over reading material increases reading speed and comprehension.
Green has long been a symbol of fertility and was once the preferred color choice for wedding gowns in the 15th-century. Even today, green M & M’s (an American chocolate candy) are said to send a sexual message.
Green is often used in decorating for its calming effect. For example, guests waiting to appear on television programs often wait in a “green room” to relax.
Green is thought to relieve stress and help heal. Those who have a green work environment experience fewer stomachaches.
Consider how green is used in language: green thumb, green with envy, greenhorn.
The Color Psychology of Pink
Pink is essentially a light red and is usually associated with love and romance.
Pink is thought to have a calming effect. One shade known as “drunk-tank pink” is sometimes used in prisons to calm inmates. Sports teams sometimes paint the opposing teams locker room pink to keep the players passive and less energetic.
While pink’s calming effect has been demonstrated, researchers of color psychology have found that this effect only occurs during the initial exposure to the color. When used in prisons, inmates often become even more agitated once they become accustomed to the color.
How does pink make you feel? Do you associate pink with certain qualities or situations? You can discover how other people react to the color pink in reader responses to pink and share your own responses to the color pink in the comments area found below.
beige:Blah, neutral.
black: Separation, the unconscious, evil, depression, the shadow side of the self.
blue: Depression if it is dark; intuitive awareness, almost spiritual in nature if it is light blue.
brown: Dullness, earthy, the material world.
gold: Valuable or significant.
green: Serenity, healing through growth.
pink: Love.
red:Passion, vigor.
violet: Spiritual feelings.
white: Clarity and purity.
Yellow: Lightness, vitality, hopefulness but also cowardice or cautionary, depending on context.
Color meanings are a bit iffy. You should be especially careful to interpret their meanings based on the resonance and meaning for you. Color interpretation is also cultural in nature. Jennifer Kyrnin has developed a cultural color chart that you may want to refer to. The above meanings are western in nature.
Of course you should always look to see what feelings you have with the colors presented and what meanings and associations if any they may have for you as well.
In dreams there is often an image of a person or an object disappearing. This can be in reference to your fears and anxiety about certain people or things disappearing or dying in your waking life or aspects of yourself or your life that you have ignored and that may be disappearing. The images may actually be trying to bring your attention to what you are not seeing in the world around you or in yourself. Nightmares are often the penultimate attention-getter in ones dreams if what you are not seeing threatens your well-being.
A form of disappearing in ones dreams is the act of “fading” and may be symbolic of a loss of energy being felt but not being attended to adequately. One’s drive or motivation may be fading or disappearing altogether. This symbolism has shown up in the dreams of some people during the Covid-19 lock down.
The phenomenon of disappearance also shows up in the waking world and I bring it up here so as to bring your attention to it. As an educator and psychologist I knew that it was important to keep certain points of view such as behavior rules present and conscious to the students. This is why teachers occasionally go over class rules beyond their initial presentation, why the students often participate in the process of creating the rules, and why they are often posted on the classroom wall. However, it has been shown that if a posted set of rules stays fixed they disappear from the student’s consciousness. This is why some teachers know to periodically move the rules posters and bring the student’s attention to it.
We of course don’t always see what is right in front of us. In fact we probably miss most of what is out there however, the unconscious mind will often pick up on what we are not attending to and it’s from the unconscious mind that our dreams are generated.
When it comes to visual recognition the brain needs among other things context for the object to be recognized that is how an object resembles previous objects and whether recognition is important enough for the brain to devote energy to the process. Attention slips or is never engaged if the object doesn’t demand enough attention. Also if the object is embedded with too many other objects e.g., your kitchen tools drawer, the brain needs to work harder and the risk for missing certain objects even the one being looked for increases. Also if there is no context for an object that is if there is nothing for the brain to compare it with i.e., something that is so alien to experience it may not be seen by the brain and therefor does not exist to that individual or collectively to any number of individuals.
In short, there are probably many things in our visual experience that we do not see that are functionally invisible or that have disappeared from sight but that are actually there.
Though this may heighten one’s sense of the mysterious it can also actually affect the choices we make and how some of those choices may seem irrational (rational output depends on rational input). If something is truly not visible to us our decisions can be adversely affected. Advertisers and politicians use this fact to emphasize what they want people to see so that their decision-making regarding the object or concept or person is directed along a pathway of the advertiser’s or politician’s choosing versus that of the person being manipulated.
A good technique for making activities and events disappear is to continuously bombard the populace with outrageous visual and cognitive stimuli so that they become overwhelmed and cannot focus properly, this is what the current federal government administration in the United States is doing. In this way they can hide in plain sight the questionable activities they use to manipulate people to their advantage. To overcome this one needs to be aware of what is behind the curtain in this fantasy land of OZ in order to see what is really there. But be careful the Wizard doesn’t want you to pay any attention to the man behind the curtain for if you do the whole fantasy will collapse and the Wizard will lose his power.
We need to pay attention to our dreams and to what we are not seeing in the current crises, ignore the redirection and deliberate Tweeted misdirection of the political “wizards” and focus on what they’re are actually doing behind the curtain. What do “they” want you to focus on i.e., what do they agree you should focus on for that agreement or direction is a ruse and only meant to obfuscate. We need to pay closer attention to what’s actually out there in both our dream and our waking realities. Our very lives depend on it.
It is said that nightmares in our dreams come to us as a means of gaining our attention to things that we are paying little or no attention to but that threaten our well-being. However, because all dreams negative or otherwise come in service of our health and well-being our nightmares are actually there to help us.
I believe that this is also true on a collective or societal level and that to some degree our everyday lives are lived as a dream and symbolically represent what is happening within the collective psyche of a culture.
As a culture we have ignored the effects that our willful ignorance has had on our lives individual, societal, and political. We deny what we don’t want to think about and gloss over the negatives so as to focus on the positives. In short, we have learned to be ostriches and hide our heads in the sand. To do this we deny our short comings, ignore the political complexities of modern life and shoot for as much immediate gratification as possible even if that gratification is just a sustaining of our pride and need to be right about our position and points of view.
But the collective has its own psyche that when overstressed by not being dealt with adequately will break free of its suppression and create crises of nightmare conditions that demand that we pay attention and do something to correct the problems. This is what nightmares in our dreams are doing and it is what the triplet crises of the Corona Virus, #metoo, and #blacklivesmatter nightmare is doing as well.
The people we vote for and the issues we ignore or refuse to deal with adequately because we think they are too complex or because we just don’t want to be bothered so we leave it up to the person who promises us to handle it regardless of whether they know how to or not has in many cases helped to produce the current nightmare. Also, our refusal to take a hard look at our biases, prejudices, and beliefs and how they serve or don’t serve us have also combined to create the perfect storm that has resulted in the nightmare we are all experiencing.
For many the answer is to continue to deny the problems, ignore any complicity and/or to be indifferent to the issues because that’s easier. In fact, those who are most complicit are those who attack anything or anyone who tries to make them face their complicity.
But the shadow side or dark side of our collective personality will not be suppressed forever and if it is it will eventually wreak havoc upon the body politic much as it would the body/mind of the individual. Empires have dissolved because its leaders and citizenry have ignored its ills. As a culture we as Americans have much to be proud of, but our continued suppression of our darker aspects will be our downfall as it has for all those empires and societies before us.
Our salvation is to be found in how we deal with and not hide from our darker aspects. It is time to vote intelligently for that which supports healing and unity amongst our disparate parts and not that which divides. It is time to confront the beliefs that enable the hurting and demeaning of others and not give them power. It is time to face the facts of what we have done and are continuing to do to our society and our environment. It is time for America to wake up and grow up.
What’s exciting, however is that there is a glimmer of hope still left and Leonard Cohen summed it up for me in his song, “Democracy is coming to the USA”
“It’s coming to America first The cradle of the best and of the worst It’s here they got the range And the machinery for change And it’s here they got the spiritual thirst It’s here the family’s broken And it’s here the lonely say That the heart has got to open In a fundamental way Democracy is coming to the USA”
We had a social distance get together on Saturday, two of our daughters and two of the youngest grandkids, them outside and us separated by the screen door.
All went pretty well but something was missing. When it was over and they went home I felt lost, empty and terribly alone, pretty much what I had been experiencing during the get together but now even more intensely.
So what was up? I hadn’t had this feeling when Zooming and Face-timing them but now when they were actually here, why now I wondered? I mean, weren’t we together? Yet we were still separated. And then I saw it that even in the experience of togetherness and love there was simultaneously loss. Love and not love, Joy and grief are embedded in one another, in the experience of one I got both. Communion and separation live within each other.
I’ve always felt somewhat alienated even from a young age and even during those amazing times of love in my life I was never able to get close enough to satisfy the deep need for connection, to be one with the other.
The absence of communion has always been profoundly and deeply felt as loss, of self, of meaning, of existence. It’s as though what I am doesn’t exist when too greatly separated from others. Love, belonging, communion, connectedness is what we are and it hurts to find myself in this separated state both in body and soul and not able to transcend either.
I’m feeling like an observer in life and not a participant.
For many of us the ‘distancing’ during the pandemic has made the nagging feeling of separateness, loss and loneliness of the everyday feel even more acute. It’s hard enough connecting on that desired deeper level but most of the time the more superficial connections have been adequate and who wants to look too deeply at what they don’t have? We want to be grateful for what we do have. I am grateful and I now also notice how I have always longed for that deeper connection now that much of the superficial has been taken away.
Not too long ago I had someone pooh-pooh the idea of there being any inherent meaning to dreams.
What I asked him was, “What evidence do you have that there is inherent meaning in anything?”
He then proceeded to give me the meanings for things and I asked after each one of his assigned meanings, who gave that meaning to the object, or event? “Someone did, an expert, everybody agrees that’s what it means!” He exclaimed in frustration. I then went on to point out how many times in history the meaning of something that was created by an expert, or accepted by the collective turned out to be wrong. I also talked about how something can have several meanings depending on one’s point-of-view, cultural view, values, and experience. “Do you not have thoughts that you commit to words that you have given meaning to and then you put them out into the environment and leave it up to the listener to interpret? Are the words really independent of the speaker, or of the listener? If something can have so many meanings, what is the inherent meaning?”
What I was trying to get at was that there is (prepare yourself) no inherent meaning.
You and I are meaning machines. We are constantly giving meaning to everything we see and every event that we experience. And these meanings are uniquely personal, uniquely ours. Seen this way, the discourse between individuals can be a discovery process, a learning–an expansion toward enlightenment.
This is why I constantly caution the dreamer to follow his own meaning for the persons, places and things in their dream and to use the analysis of an outside interpreter as only a guide.
The meanings of events, things and people in our dreams are no different than they are in our waking lives. Yes, when we are awake the story-line seems to flow more smoothly and follows some kind of logic, but the dream story-line also follows its own logic and the discontinuity that often forms the story-line in a dream seems to be a function of the REM eye movement.
Now you might say that some dream events can be quite bizarre such as flying, or fighting dragons, but so what? Most of us don’t spend much time noticing the bizarreness of ordinary life because we have a built-in bias, a predetermined explanation that deletes anything that doesn’t fit the accepted cognitive paradigm (personal or collective) i.e. it doesn’t even register into consciousness.
In the dream state, that filter is shut down and what is not noticed consciously is released from the subconscious (no, I’m not saying that there are dragons that you’re not noticing, at least not real ones). If these unnoticed events are not brought to consciousness through the process of dream analysis they will be dumped, deleted, trashed. Dream analysis is nothing more than doing to the things of life that we normally do when conscious, only we are doing it with the unconscious material picked up while awake and exposed through the dream.
In our waking lives people and events are often mirrors to ourselves in that they reflect the image we project. If we project fear, then we see fearful things in the mirror of the world. In short, when we hide the essence of who we are, then we can only see the image that we project reflected in the world.
Have you ever had dream images, or even dreams that seem to recur again and again, sometimes several times a month, or over a several month period? There are even some folks who have shared a dream that has shown up for years.
What’s that about?
On one level we all have them, usually more than you think, for example look at these
Being chased–what are you chasing after, what is threatening you, or what are you avoiding?
Death, yours or others–dealing with the emotions surrounding death, of a loved one or your own. It is also a symbol for endings.
Trapped-unable to change something in your life, or to live up to full potential.
Naked in public–Being vulnerable to something, or having yourself exposed e.g. the mask or clothing you’ve put on in order to present your self in a certain way to the public being stripped from you: someone seeing through your façade.
Flying–Freedom, escape, or independence and autonomy from something.
However, on another level we have all experienced recurring dreams that are more specific to us personally.
Typically dreams present images that have special meaning for the dreamer such as special places, or people that evoke certain feelings, memories, themes, and concepts. They recur because they are speaking through the ways you typically respond to both your internal and external worlds. Dreams also use the best image available that communicates what it is trying to communicate. In other words, it’s the “best fit” that can make the point i.e. if there were a better image, or dream that would best serve the dreamer’s health and well being, the dreaming mind would have used it. This stuck quality of a repetitive dream suggests that something is really important for the dreamer to attend to and that it is basically the same as it was the last time the dream was experienced.
Sometimes these dreams are revealing a “life-task” such as something unfulfilled, or unexpressed, in the dreamer at least during the time period of the dream repetitions.
Occasionally, some recurring dreams come as nightmares that might point to particular unresolved psycho-spiritual dramas, or traumas that need attention for the sake of the dreamer’s well-being and development. Sometimes a recurring dream is “speaking” to some repressed and as yet unresolved memory, or issue.
In short, there may be a tendency for recurring dreams, especially those with nightmare qualities, to be focusing on deep life issues. If the task is identified and dealt with satisfactorily in the waking world, the dream almost always disappears, or significantly changes unless of course it comes up some time later because some later task is along the same lines as the original.
In contrast, there are recurring dreams that affirm that the dreamer is on the right track with regard to some aspect of his, or her, life and that the dream continues until he/she acknowledges this. This is especially true if the dreamer continues to act and make changes in the direction of their development out of some hesitation or doubt that they are doing the right thing. Again, when the task is clearly identified and dealt with appropriately, the recurrent dream disappears.
So how does one discover the underlying task to be worked on?
Below is one way to process such a dream: You might want to use the following process outline to help document information gained from a recurrent dream. *
Identify what each of the images and elements mean to you. What do each stand for? Sometimes this can be found in your description of the image (include feelings, judgments, and ideas about the images). Name these images succinctly based on their essence e.g. Dark Demon, Screaming Mother, Crazy Professor, or Dying Self.
When looking at the activity in the dream identify any “because” factors i.e. as an example, you can’t open a certain door “because.” Sometimes the “because” can give you clues to the emotional ‘stuckness’, if any, or task definition.______________________________________________________________________________
What, or who, are these elements usually associated with? For example: Does this dream show up under certain waking world situations such as stressful times in general, or prior to a certain kind of activity (sports activity, standing before an audience, visiting your mother)? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
What is your role in the dream and/or what is being asked of you?
Try taking on the role of each of the elements e.g. what would be your response as the door (in this example) to not being opened? Ask questions of the door e.g. are you an aging door? Is your lock broken? Etc. This is done better with a friend or two. This is so that you can get as much information about the object(s)/images as possible.
In your imagination bring one of the recurring images (usually the most prominent image–the one that essentially summarizes the essence of the dream e.g. Dark Demon, Screaming Mother, Dead Brother) into your consciousness and ask it why it is visiting you? Listen for the response. You might also ask what it needs and listen to its response.
Having someone help you to answer these questions and to serve as a scribe to record your responses can be very useful.
All of this can give you specific information related to the recurring theme, or themes and help you to identify the meaning of the images and perhaps the task(s) at hand that may require waking world resolution.
In the Archipelago of Dreams Robert comes from the nightmare of his world and enters the nightmare of a Spirit world gone mad. His nightmares repeat themselves over and over and will continue to do so unless he can find the courage to face them down. But how does one deal with such frightful creatures? The Dream Healer knows that it is in the wounded image of the Dark Lords themselves that a healing presents its self.
* A number of processes are presented in the book The Dragon’s Treasure(see the link to the right of this blog).
