transcendence

Some anthropologists have suggested that religion came about or is invoked when people realize that they are not in control of something e.g., the weather, crop success, the greed and aggression of neighboring tribes, death, happiness, and health among many examples.

The divine is called upon for success in endeavors and to ward off failure basically when the anxiety of uncertainty rears its ugly head. But because there is only one certainty in the world the divine is frequently turned to for some kind of magical intervention i.e., to evoke some kind of external intervention.

To make certain crops are always abundant there are rituals which must be followed and if there is a disaster in that year it’s probably due to some part of the ritual that was skipped or done incorrectly or by the wrong person which of course needs some kind of appeal for another intervention.

That “one certainty” of which I speak? We are not only the receivers of it but the creators of it as well. It is that when something happens, what happens, where it happens, and how it happens is what it is, i.e., it is what is happening. It is not what you want to be happening unless it is. Having an expectation for ‘what is’* to be anything other than what it is being breeds the uncertainty thus creating the need for some kind of controlling intervention.

The truth is that nothing is within our control and that in itself is another expectation that of believing that anything can be controlled. Hell, most of us can’t control ourselves some or most of the time, i.e., that there are unconscious forces that urge certain behaviors and reactions that are not always in our best interests e.g., smoking, overeating, drinking, gambling, over sexing, avoiding, aggressing, ignoring, over defending, over protecting, denying, non-attending, and a whole bunch of other “ings”.

In short, having control is not anything we have control of. Transcending the need for it is however something we can do. There is magic and something of the divine in the act of letting go. It’s probably why prayer can be so powerful for one frequently won’t turn to it until all is lost, i.e., until one has given up the ability to control.

This does not mean that one should just lie down and let whatever is happening happen especially if it’s detrimental to one’s life or the lives of others. Human interventions can alter the factors that are behind a happening and there are certainly ways that are more often successful than others to change a happening from happening in the future or at least to moderate it, but there are of course no certainties here other than the certainty that something will happen.

Invoking the divine can help one to feel better about what is happening, give hope, as well as give the illusion that something is in control especially when all seems lost and out of control. It is for this reason that it can be of great value psycho-emotionally which is no small thing.

Having to be in control is energy draining and can slow or end the progress of virtually everything in one’s life. Giving over the need to control something can have a magical effect on one’s ability to cope with a happening which in turn often provides the energy to keep moving forward in one’s life.

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For more on letting go of control: https://thebookofdreamsblog.wordpress.com/2017/11/14/a-variation-on-my-first-meeting-with-the-spirit-guide-of-the-blue-fresco-dream/

*The “what-is” and the kind of “magic” referred to above is a part of the book “Psyche’s Dream: A Dragon’s Tale”.

John Tenniel (1820–1914), “Why is a raven like a writing-desk?” (The Mad Tea Party), 1885, Hand-colored proof.

It could be said that Alice Liddell in her adventures in Wonderland took a road trip through Therapyland. During her time there she experienced a dream of transforming significance that helped her transcend some of her waking life stresses. As with many of our own dreams Alice experienced what seemed to be nonsensical and unreal but that eventually led her to what is real. In all our dreams we are often confronted with images of transformation, transcendence, and the morphing of creatures great and small and like therapy help us to discern the mysteries of our waking life.

Transformation: Signifying a change in one’s character or nature. Alice did this when transforming herself into a big self and then into a little self. She also rejects the dream world and thus symbolically does the same with the illusions of her waking world by brushing away the animated deck of cards like they were no more than a pile of dead leaves.

Transcendence: Is an image of going beyond the limits of the ordinary to achieve something greater than the usual. Alice’s wonderland is all about transcending the ordinary and embracing the bigger self.

Morphing: Is symbolic of turning into something new, changing from one way of being to another or looking at things from different perspectives. The Cheshire cat morphs from being solid to being indefinite, from being real to being tenuous, from being whole to being fractured, while the grin being all that’s left is like a false smile for it isn’t reflecting anything substantive. It’s also a metaphor for deception or a coverup (which shows up again when the deck of animated cards paint the white roses red or when the walrus and carpenter con the oysters so that they can eat them, or when the Mad Hatter cons Alice with the riddle, “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” for which there is no answer (many of us chase after riddles in life for which there are no answers). Many things in life are a deception that we are conned into believing are real.

Like the Cheshire Cat it is also in our nature to hide, to hide from others and to hide from ourselves. What are we hiding? We hide our failures, our hurts, the parts of our personality or nature that is less than ideal. We hide our mistakes, and sometimes we hide the parts of ourselves that make us stand out good or bad. Like the caterpillar we drug ourselves with high sounding philosophies or like the door mouse suggested to feed our heads with drugs or be like the Hatter and just give in to our madness and use it to drop out and as an excuse to no longer play the game.

Though most of the dialog in Alice’s Adventures didn’t seem rational, one of the hidden gems in Alice’s dream was the suggestion that to conquer life required the acceptance of both the rational and the irrational. In the Door Mouse’s cry, “feed your head” he could have been referring to the need to open one’s mind to discover the real purpose of life.

Part of transforming ourselves through our dreams is to discover these hidden parts or deceptions and to see beyond them to the bigger picture i.e., to transcend our ordinary selves to see who we really are.