Proclaim Your Inner Idealist !

 

What are your ideals? It’s “open mike” for your Idealist archetype Ally part-of-Self to proclaim your highest ideal values.

I invite you to write or speak a list of IDEALIST statements or affirmations you would love to share. As an example here are some affirmations from my own IDEALIST point of view:

“Never Give Up, yet always give UP (Surrender to Spirit and be willing to Accept ITS bounty)!”

“Aim for the Heavens in all you do; you do not have to “nearly die” to get Here!”

“Trust.”

“Honesty.”

“Faith.”

“Dream, and then ACT on your inner Dream Guidance.”

“Sit still and Do Something!”

“There are no strangers; all are cut from the same cloth.”

Now then, all you need to do is take some ‘time out’ and LISTEN! Allow your own highest Ideals to guide you on your journey, day to day and moment by moment. Your IDEALIST will support you always and will remind you of your own highest nature.

So ask yourself:

“What are My highest Ideals?

How can I allow these ideals to steer Me along a more positive life course?

How can my Ideals lead Me to define My Life Dream and to Live My Dream, Now! ?”

******   ******

I welcome your insights and stories!

 

 

 

 

Your Possible Dream!

When I was around ten, I read Cervantes’ Don Quixote slowly, episode by episode, like the Bible as I had read it when I was eight! I liked it so much that I didn’t want it ever to end; that is why I only allowed myself one episode per reading. This was a book I would read with a flashlight under my blankets in case my mother would want me to stop reading and turn out the lights. I was drawn into this character of Don Quixote de la Mancha. I identified with his sense of chivalry and adventure, with his strong friendship with Sancho Panza and with his elevating adoration of ‘Dulcinea’.

Later I learned the musical script of Man of La Mancha completely: I sang every song, in order, while walking or resting.  I especially loved—still do—the theme song of The Impossible Dream. Later, in college years, I saw the Broadway musical stage version of Man of La Mancha three times with different casts.  By then I understood from literature classes that we are to pity Don Quixote as a misguided antihero, a dilapidated man bent by the aberrations of the world into little more than a dreary wisp of misguided optimism in a harsh and brutal world.  But, to me, this never really sank in; I still love the figure of Don Quixote as one bearing truth—his truth—as a banner despite all opposition, or Inquisition, too!

Here are the lyrics to the Peter O’Toole movie version of The Impossible Dream: http://www.reelclassics.com/Actors/O’Toole/impossibledream-lyrics.htm (and https://www.youtube.com/embed/YGzqbEeVWhs“>click here to hear the song on Youtube video!)

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far

To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into Hell
For a heavenly cause

And I know if I’ll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I’m laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star

******   ******

WHAT IS YOUR Possible Dream?  What cause do you pursue “without question or pause;” for which you are “willing to march into Hell for a Heavenly cause?” What is your Life Dream that stretches out before you as if an “unreachable,” yet to you it is a REACHABLE STAR?

I believe the human Spirit thrives on such ideal pursuits. It is a dream that benefits many as well as yourself; that which allows you to express and develop into ALL THAT YOU ARE, Here and Now!

I invite you to connect with your own inner ‘Don (or, Dona) Quixote.’  Ask your inner  IDEALIST nature to reveal itself to you. What form of character does it take? What are ITS GOALS for You?

images from pixabay.com

I welcome your insights and stories!

 

Row, Row, Row Your Boat: Exercise Your Imagination!

 

“There are no Strangers;

all are cut from the same cloth.”

I received this awareness as stated above while I was working out at the YMCA the other day, using the opportunity to do a spiritual exercise with my eyes closed while on a rowing machine. I do this often, really. I close my eyes and row, row, row, visualizing being on a lake usually, but this time my inner experience went much deeper.  The rowing became a means of fueling a bullet-like “Inner-space” capsule.  It brought me to another Planet (purple then later lavender skies with a pale sun and a green luminescent Ocean of some substance other than water. The capsule also let me row through this fluid sea then onto land and into a city covered by a dome, with a Temple at its center. I continued to row this capsule (now on some form of antimag energy) through a channel like a tube that I could set to arrive at my destination. Once there I left the capsule and walked through this enormous, vitalizing Temple structure, filled with gardens and libraries and classrooms and Beings of Light itself, so it appeared.

I found myself in a contemplative space within the Temple. I was being asked to explore and to share openly some feelings about my future plans here on Earth. As I aim to retire to a small town where I am not likely to know anyone at least in the beginning, I was sharing my fear of leaving familiar friends behind as I relocate yet again in this lifetime.

“There are no Strangers;

all are cut from the same cloth.”

I returned from this inner adventure where I received this and another insight related to a different question I had posed. Both insights are ‘right on’ in helping me resolve and move forward in understanding. Since this experience I have been looking at people and all beings a little differently; though we may not know each other outwardly, we are connected in Spirit substance, always!

This Innerspace capsule is a modus operandus for inner exploration and Soul Travel. Next time when you’re working out at the gym (or at home or as you prepare for sleep and dreaming), I invite you to allow yourself to be transported via some vehicle of your own creative imagination into the Depths of unconscious and/or spiritual dimensions.

images from pixabay.com

For me this was an excursion of my own IDEALIST nature, an Adventure into the Heights and Depths to illuminate beyond the limited scope of everyday ‘outer’ perceptions.

The Oak in the Acorn

A primary tool I will be offering with the upcoming book Life Paths is the Archetype Dialogue Practice. This approach lets you use active imagination and journaling to engage directly with your unconscious archetypal parts-of-Self (personae) so you can get to know these ever present aspects of your own Self and so you can enlist the Strengths of your archetypal cast as Allies in the pursuit of your most integral goals or Life Dream.

The process of active imagination has been well described and exemplified by Carl Jung.  Wikipedia explains:

 As developed by Carl Jung between 1913 and 1916, active imagination is a meditation technique wherein the contents of one’s unconscious are translated into images, narrative or personified as separate entities. It can serve as a bridge between the conscious ‘ego’ and the unconscious and includes working with dreams and the creative self via imagination or fantasy. Jung linked active imagination with the processes of alchemy in that both strive for oneness and inter-relatedness from a set of fragmented and dissociated parts. This process ultimately resulted in the Red Book.

A simple method for engaging in active imagination yourself to explore or to meet & greet some of your own archetypal energies (or, synergies) is simply to close your eyes and imagine going down into a subterranean cave or down a set of stairs where your archetypal sub-selves can meet with you. Use this or another active contemplation technique to encounter or to observe these aspects of your psyche, then when you return to your usual conscious awareness, as if waking from a meaningful dream, you can record what you experienced or learned. You can also use any artistic media to represent this encounter or what you have learned from it.

I find it easy after long practice with this approach to simply “shift down” to a subconscious perspective and to journal a dialogue directly with my own archetypal aspects. It is important to be receptive and allowing; create an internal environment of acceptance and offer a safe space for the dialogue to occur. Note that the ‘voices’ you will encounter will feel naturally to be aspects of yourself; they are not external ‘entities’ (you can discontinue your session if these voices do feel external). You will know you are ‘in the zone’ when the alternating perspectives in your dialogue feel inwardly to be authentic and clearly distinct parts of Self.

So for this week’s pairing of Idealist archetype traits with the metaphor of life as a Long and Winding Road, allow me to demonstrate, and I invite you to encounter your own “inner Idealist”, too. Remember that your archetypal personae might manifest either as masculine or feminine images and they might present in either Strength (positive) or in Shadow (repressed or feeling suppressed) modalities.

LW: Calling Doña Jeanne [a combination of a female Don Quixote and Joan of Arc!; I  used to address my fencing foil by this name]; come in, Doña!

DJ: We like how you animated and personified your blade in this way; ‘et la!’ we would say…

LW: Thanks. How are you doing these days?

DJ: We—Let’s say I—am always available. I wish lately you would allow me and the rest of us to shed light on why it is so important for you to maintain your trust, your faith. It is one thing to claim a faith but quite another to demonstrate the ‘faith of the mustard seed’, remember?

LW: Or of the Acorn?

DJ: Tell the story; have you ever found its message for you?

LW: Ok… One of my greatest mentors, Antoinette Paterson (Toni), loved oak. All her furniture, mostly from Salvation Army stores around Buffalo, NY, was made of oak. She once showed her young son an acorn while under an oak tree in a park, saying to him, “There is God!”

DJ: And the meaning, dear?

LW: I have always figured she meant that the Acorn, as the seed of the great Oak it will grow into, is a manifestation of the divine principle of Creation. Isn’t that the message?

DJ: But there is more, much more.

LW: What else then?

DJ: The Acorn IS GOD, as God IS the essence of Everything and No-thing—the Alpha and the Omega; Yin and Yang; beginning and goal achieved; inner and outer; Spirit and form; Sea and Foam. Do you see?

LW: I like the sea and foam image.

DJ: It is no metaphor. It Just IS! From out of the Formless, Form emerges. Then and Now, Once and Forever, IS. What does this imply for you?

LW: I look into the Acorn to see therein the Oak in full expression. It is not now and later but it is One. The Oak already exists in the Acorn. Is that what you mean?

DJ: Can you apply this to your recent displays of frustration and impatience?

LW: You mean re. the arduous, nebulous publishing process?

DJ: How can you bring about the bend in the Road you desire?

LW: By focusing on the End achieved.

DJ: No!

LW: By further editing?

DJ: Not even!

LW: Hmm…just by allowing the process to be already complete from within?

DJ: Indeed.

LW: So when I dreamed last week that several large boxes of books were ready for delivery…

DJ: Precisely! On the Inner first; the Outer is a reflection. “All creation is finished in the lower worlds.” (Paul Twitchell)

LW: So trust, allowance, acceptance!

DJ: Love is All! Love is the acorn is the oak and all its roots and branches and leaves. Even its corpse is Love.

LW: Thank you.

DJ: God Bless!

LW: God bless you too, with Love.

 ******   ******

I invite you to your own Idealist dialogue. I welcome all your insights and stories!

What’s a Heaven For?

Throughout this year at Life Paths for Better Endings, each month we are conjoining one of twelve universal archetype character types with one positive Life Metaphor, forging an ‘alchemical’ pairing of elements. These conjunctions are to help us manifest Better Endings with respect to our highest values and pursuits. The archetypal energies we are invoking can help us to actualize the Life Metaphor impetus; that is, calling upon the strengths of your intrinsic archetypal character modes can help you realize your highest life values and goals.

This month we are pairing February’s astrologically associated IDEALIST archetype with the metaphor Life is a Long and Winding Road.  This feels a very natural conjunction in that sometimes, when the Road feels too long or windy, we can derive needed inspiration from our deepest ‘sense of idealism’.

“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,” said Robert Browning, “Or what’s a heaven for?” (“Andrea del Sarto”, line 98).   Let’s call upon our Idealist traits of fortitude and perseverance this week. An ideal or your ultimate Life Dream is worth all the patience and love you can give to gradually realize its highest form of expression.

Like the Monarch butterfly, we cannot be pulled too quickly from our chrysalis of an ideal; only by its own natural struggle toward unfoldment can the strong and healthy, beautiful butterfly emerge from its cocoon.

I am reminded of the Buddhist practice of travel via prostration to reach the pilgrimage center of Bodh Gaya where the Buddha is said to have reached enlightenment under a peepul tree.  A monk, e.g. Sherab Gyalsten from Tibet recently (see story), “takes three and a half steps forward, then prostrates flat on the road while chanting mantras. Then he gets up, folds his hands in prayer and repeats the process.” The pilgrimage may take the monk many years to reach the destination. I have seen a documentary about such a monk who arrived after several years to attend a special ceremony at Bodh Gaya. When he arrived he learned the ceremony had been cancelled for that year due to weather conditions. He turned around, prostrated and chanted, and began his journey home.

In what ways are you set upon a Long and Winding Road in your life? How can you draw upon your Idealist strengths to help you to realize your Dream?

Don Quixote, Idealist of La Mancha

One of the most iconic IDEALIST protagonists of all Western literature is “Don Quixote, the Man of La Mancha”. When I was around 10, I read Cervantes’ Don Quixote as if it were a bible, allowing myself only one of the picaresque stories per night (though sometimes cheating to read ahead). I loved this bumbling, well-intentioned but humble everyman sort of hero, and it was not until I was older that I learned in school how Don Quixote is not universally regarded as a heroic figure at all but rather as a misguided, neurotic antihero.

I have deeply identified with Don Quixote. I’ve seen the play Man of La Mancha performed several times, and throughout college years I knew all of the musical’s lyrics by heart. To me, Don Quixote had an idealistic or cockeyed optimist purity and innocence that eventually won over everyone’s hearts. Aldonza, the “harlot,” is raised by her interaction with Don Quixote to her true inner stature as “Dulcinea”, a Lady; the peasant Sancho Panza becomes an adventuresome Squire on his donkey; and Don Quixote himself, dubbed Knight of the Woeful Countenance, tilts at windmills as if they are dragons and wears an old wash basin for his helmet. His chivalry is as pure as his Idealist energy is strong, even if at times the consequences for those around him are less than positive.

My favorite Idealist lyrics are from the play Man of La Mancha :

“The Impossible Dream”from MAN OF LA MANCHA (1972) (music by Mitch Leigh and lyrics by Joe Darion)

To dream the impossible dream To fight the unbeatable foe To bear with unbearable sorrow To run where the brave dare not go To right the unrightable wrong To love pure and chaste from afar To try when your arms are too weary To reach the unreachable star This is my quest To follow that star No matter how hopeless No matter how far To fight for the right Without question or pause To be willing to march into Hell For a heavenly cause And I know if I’ll only be true To this glorious quest That my heart will lie peaceful and calm When I’m laid to my rest And the world will be better for this That one man, scorned and covered with scars Still strove with his last ounce of courage To reach the unreachable star

Can you relate? Well then, take a knee! By what chivalric name shall you be dubbed? What is the nature of the most Glorious Quest YOU are on? Look up to the night sky to find that Star you seek, and FOLLOW!

The Idealist Archetype

Pegasus

I soar through the Heavens

On gossamer wings,

Aloft in the faith God is All.

Place your trust in my buoyant,

exhuberant Way,

and in Truth may you always prevail.

— LW

Our February archetype is the Idealist. An AIR energy that MAINTAINS and develops any process, the Idealist pairs nicely with this month’s Life Metaphor of life as A Long and Winding Road.

You can count on your Idealist tendencies to strengthen your motivation to achieve any worthy goal. It is an active, lifting mode; a part of you that—when in Strength—carries you forward in a transcendent, joyful way.

In my own contemplative inner adventures I often actually do encounter especially one Pegasus horse which is a beloved inner companion. She takes me on winged flights of unspeakable beauty. While I don’t necessarily see this dream Pegasus as my Idealist part-of-Self, she certainly is real and animated in my awareness and raises me to a more idealistic state of consciousness about life whenever we connect.

If in Shadow, your Idealist may feel trapped or frustrated by limitations or delays. It may help you to find a way around such apparent confinement by offering an alternate activity or route that bypasses or transcends these illusory bounds.

Remember then to listen, and to ask your Inner Idealist for guidance on your next step (or leap) to a desired destination.

 How do you imagine or experience your own Idealist nature? Try answering this question and see what it might evoke for you:

WHEN I GROW UP, I WANT TO BE  : ____________________________

I invite you to journal your answer, or engage in an active imagination ‘flight of fancy’!