Culturopoesis

2007-06-20T22:41:00.000-07:00

The contributions to this blog will remain here but new work will appear THERE.

The shift has to do with spelling. I'm giving culturopoiesis a shot.

The Birth of a Nation

2006-12-10T17:35:00.000-08:00

If culture is made - an artifact at some level - what parts does cinema play?

"Classic silent film, directed by D. W. Griffith in 1915. This is probably the first film constructed with the classic hollywood narrative style, that is attributed to Griffith. "Two brothers, Phil and Ted Stoneman, visit their friends in Piedmont, South Carolina: the family Cameron. This friendship is affected by the Civil War, as the Stonemans and the Camerons must join up opposite armies. The consequences of the War in their lives are shown in connection to major historical events, like the development of the Civil War itself, Lincoln's assassination, and the birth of the Ku Klux Klan."

"Kramer's" Racist Tirade - Caught on Tape

2006-12-10T17:13:00.000-08:00

Richards, who played the wacky Cosmo Kramer on the hit TV show "Seinfeld," appeared onstage at the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood. It appears two guys, both African-American, were in the cheap seats playfully heckling Richards when suddenly, the comedian lost it.

http://www.tmz.com/2006/11/20/kramers-racist-tirade-caught-on-tape/

He later apologized on Letterman and was obviously struck. What is happening here? Is he really shpowing the audience their own underbelly or just freaking out on his own anger, or both, or ...?

2006-12-09T17:41:00.000-08:00

Feeling particularly grateful for my soon to be official Dissertation Advisor/Reader,

Debra Knowles, Ph.D.

I finally shifted from emails to a simple phone call and now feel we are much more on the same team. A quote from her: "Everybody is living out their thoughts"
and from her work on Hannah Arendt: "All I ever tried to do with my writing is to explain it to myself."

further excellent advice...

Be clear about stating my unique hypothesis as though beginning (but not being obsessive about ) a scientific experiment. State the Process Arts shift as a given but be clear I don't intend to prove it unequivocally. It will substantiate itself as we go.
Don't stop mid sentence to comfort the reader re the vagaries of expression itself being indefinite. Just be clear what is meant.

On a different tangent, the dictionary definition of Empirical = 1. Relying on or derived from observation or experiment: empirical results that supported the hypothesis. 2. Verifiable or provable by means of observation or experiment: empirical laws. 3. Guided by practical experience and not theory, especially in medicine. James Hillman works Jung's "empirical event" such that he "refreshes a term that has shrunk into an encrusted cliche of scientism" (Healing Fiction p32). Does anybody know of any other specific places Hillman or Jung directly expand on the idea of non-scientistic empiricism?

Also in the news, I am grateful to Huston Smith for nominating me for membership in the Pacific Coast Theological Society. He called to inform me today that I am definitely accepted and expected at their Spring Meeting. They send out three papers from members and gather on a Friday from 2pm (2 papers) through dinner, and Saturday from 10-noon (1 paper). I'm looking forward to joining in and chewing on some lovely intellectual roughage.

Reminder to self: send dues to Secretary/Treasurer Sharon Burch

2006-11-10T18:39:00.000-08:00

Genworth - Agassi and Graf

David Miller example - compare to opening sequence of "Matchpoint" by Woody Allen

2006-10-25T15:43:00.000-07:00

Dissertation working outline 20061023

Re-visioning Conflict

Overview

Introduction

Ch 1 The Emergence of the Process Arts, a review of literature

Hillman and...

gods

Art

Community

Conflict

Peace

Thomas Moore

David Miller

Wolfgang Giegerich

Greg Mogenson

Arnold Mindell

George Lakoff

David Kidner

William Doty

David Mamet

Sam Keen

Paul Kugler

Joseph Campbell

Dan Noel - From the Liberal to the Process Arts

Additional Authors to be considered together:
S Freud, CG Jung, ML von Franz, Dennis Slattery, Ed Casey, P Roszak, T Driver, D&L Cowan, R Bly, M Eliade, W Doniger, G

Bachelard, T Zeldin, H Corbin, P Berry, R Romanyshyn, W Berry, M Prechtel, Huston Smith,

Authors who will supply supporting references througout:
J. Hillis Miller, A Dundes, Rumi (Barkes), Rilke, T Merton, T Nh’ăt Hanh, M Ueshiba, J Miles, F Turner, S Schama, G Paris

Organizing what’s ahead

CH 2 Process Arts: beneficent open source developmentalism

Introducing dreams, themes, and micromyths/memes

Polytheism, Monotheism, and the Nuclear Imagination

Industry, Progress, and Information

Nationalism, War, and Terror

Psychology, Mythology, and Associative Inquiry

Available wisdom and other dreams

Running At Depth – the brilliance of wormwood and gall, an example

Theoretically Ecologizing the Fictional Process, or a place for thinking of home

CH 3 Culturopoesis: manifesting the context and movements of ideas

Introduction

the Idea of Epochal Narrative

From prehistory into the images of Hunters, Gatherers, and Farmers

Imagining Hunting and Gathering

Farming & Husbandry: Cultivating Civilization

Empire

Enlightenment

Consciousness, Sight, and the interpretative mirroring of history

Example fugue

modernity, individualism, and psychoanalysis

From Enlightenment to Consumptive Rationalism

Scientistic Psychology

Post-Jungian Psychology

Dream, Mirror, and Representation

Bureaucracy, Absurdity and Bootless Foolery

Mythicity, or, ongoing postally modern

CH 4 Healing Friction: the Drama of Business as Unusual

Introduction

Government, Politics, and the Healing Friction Initiative

Association Cultural Movement and Education – a high point in depth

Virtual and Actual Organization

Associative Inquiry: mapping and returning to Imagined Terrain – more to come

CH 5 Bluevolution: Neo-shamanism, New Monasticism, and the new god image

Following submerged images into their own twilight

CH 6 Guardianship of Peace: ambivalent heroism on purpose

Guidance and Education

Children: Montessori & Steiner vs. the Prussian Military

Action and Performance

Mediation

Martial Artistry

Appendixes, and Hidden Bonus Tracks

Word Complexes

Healing Friction Initiative as Cultural Activism

Abbreviations

Works Cited

Notes

2006-10-25T15:20:00.000-07:00

Dissertation overview and working title 20061025

Re-visioning Conflict

Process Arts,

Culturopoesis,

Healing Friction, and

Guardianship of Peace

“In his book Inter Views, James Hillman remarks that instead of being the founder of a school of thought, he sees himself as the member of a community of people who are at work re-visioning things.”

from the acknowledgment with which

Thomas Moore's begins Blue Fire

Overview

As densely stated as possible for refinement and substantiation as we go along, the 20^th Century brought with it the awareness of several deep shifts. One result of industrial urbanization is the accelerating, global extinction of relatively self-sufficient, village-size communities containing inescapable, long-term relationships[i]. Like no other structure communities, as defined here, can provide a container for both the desired and dreaded changes that accompany human life. This fading connective potential has been shown to deepen and reinforce the individual and group experiences that lend meaning to being human. The need for the kind of meaning associated with place and community persists and becomes progressively acute as the Industrial Mind[ii] promulgates and dwells in literalized abstractions, as though humanity were reducible to refined components or producible as an efficient mechanism. Human beings seem to be moved by this process to identify less with being rooted in familiar ground (literal and metaphorical place, work, family, body, etc.) and more in abstract idea spaces like The Market, Family Values, Globalization, The Environment, War on Terror, and many more. This creates greater exposure and vulnerability to a kind of self-perpetuating mythic structure at works in individuals and groups at the level of epistemology, ontology, and volition. Words often used to describe this mythic complex of influences include: “memes”(Richard Dawkins), “metaphors we live by” (Lakoff and Johnson), and “mythicity”(Gould).

A recent shift of awareness happened in contact with the way industrial memes become a matter of social doctrine and underlie a previously unimaginable facility in fabricating and distributing not only concept based products but also product serving ideas. Vast ability now exists to convert life energy into the development, manufacture, and circulation of almost any thing and idea, from conception and comodification, to advertising campaigns and distribution networks, to the collection and retention (holding the attention and volition) of populations who learn to depend and insist upon on the idea or thing, as well as incipient ideas and things which will of necessity resemble it.

I will refer to this production cycle using its own metaphors, when possible, and will often borrow the mitts, flame, and caliper from this “idea foundry”[iii] in order to re-grind a well used lens, a way of seeing through, by reshaping familiar words. For example, I will use affixes and plays-on-words to refer to the shift from industry, in the sense of any purposeful activity, to industrialism, an abstraction into doctrine, “–ism” coming from the Greek suggesting the act, state, or theory of anything. Following the abstracting movements of industrialism, for instance, might lead to consideration of “industriality” – the quality or state of being within the culture shaped by the doctrine, and then to “industreality” - the submersion of the doctrinalizing process by ubiquitous theoretical usage until the “real” is defined industrially. I create or use others’ neologisms not simply to catch the mind’s eye but as a way of opening and working an idea-complex which reflects not only a shift in observable behavior but also the accompanying inescapable change in word-ideas.

A wave of change followed the industrial revolution as an entire spectrum of vocations, “Process Arts,” were born which draw attention to and educate about how we do what we do, including and informing what we produce. Following the rise of governmental bureaucracy and urban population growth since civilization began; the place of the Manager became prominent, whose entire responsibility is related to other people’s production. The modern workplace now knows the ubiquitous presence of another subset of managers who function at large, temporarily rooted like so much of post-industrial society, given titles like “consultant,” “facilitator,” and “coach.” As the place of work and place of home become in many ways conflated, counselors, mentors, advisors, and therapists all begin to have overlapping areas of interest and expertise for better and for worse. Any of these professionals may move into process artistry, from simply influencing life and work management, when their practice develops a self perpetuating autocritical discipline, “challenged all along the way to rethink, to re-vision, and to reimagine…nothing short of a new way of thinking,”(1) which returns again and again to the way all relationships are built in depth -- tending the quality of interaction. In this realm the experience of creative production undergirds human understanding and the capacity for both suffering and joy in the living of life, independent from and related to what is produced between birth and death. Lay and professional practitioners of these arts tend the influential interdependence of form (existing empirical structure), frame (theoretical environment – or idea space), and function (tangible applications and intangible consequences). The Process Arts are at very least fundamentally implicated in the practice of depth psychotherapy, the modern visual, liberal, and performing arts, organizational management consulting and development, social, civic, and spiritual activism, coaching, mediation, facilitation, and cultural study and criticism. Even die-hard traditional approaches are now fundamentally changed in that they employ additional levels of process awareness and conscious practice. More and more people are making an art form of crafting the layered choices and shared assumptions underlying the understanding of co-creativity itself. This shift in culture is so wide that the world as a whole is changing to mirror its shape. Culture is thereby being made more consciously. Borrowing a neologism from my field (mythopoesis – see below), I call this Culturopoesis. In his work on the culture of psychoanalysis, James Hillman frames this process as “a work of imaginative tellings in the realm of poesis, which means simply ‘making,’ and which [he] take[s] to mean making by imagination into words.” His work, and this work “more particularly belongs to the rhetoric of poesis, by which [he] means the persuasive power of imagining in words an artfulness in speaking and hearing, writing and reading”(H.F. 3-4). Drawing on the approaches of David Miller, Wolfgang Giegerich, Greg Mogenson, and other “post-jungian” thinkers, I will add to that word work its natural extension into action, literal bodies and choices, and the co-creation of the concrete world.

The culturo-poetic shift makes it clear that (post)modern persons are co-creating overlapping, interrelative micro- and macro-cultures by consciously and unconsciously constructing the narrative environments within which reality generating choices become concrete. On one hand, deeply connective stories and images are literalized and functionalized to market, sell, and distribute ideological products. Cases in point include Hitler’s “Final Solution” mirrored in recent “ethnic cleansing.” On the other hand, psychological and mythological studies are being interrelated to make space consciously for personal and corporate biography, group process which includes all possible participants in a given sphere of influence, the cultivation of understanding beyond the collection of information, and calling for global needs to be fully expressed and received in a welcoming of deeper, more “soulful” individuality and interdependence. A result is the building of Community on purpose.

Intentional community is no longer unique to literally cohabiting activists. Beyond and including initiatives like co-housing and kibbutzim, this powerful idea is bringing soul and spirit together in workplaces, militaries, religious groups, families, warring factions, and schools. Process-level methodologies and practice groups are arising around the world with Community-on-purpose in mind. They are finding that the core focus for creating this kind of culture has to do with the deep hearing of participants’ stories and the processing of conflict earlier and with growing capacity and facility in order to hope for Peace, referred to here using the term neo-shamanism in the way outlined for the western “seeker” by Daniel C. Noel, and developing the idea of a new monasticism, as imagined in the work of Thomas Moore.

This redefinition of Community, as being made on purpose, is supported by the redefinition of peace itself. Rather than framing peace as the absence of conflict, here I speak of Healing Friction—doing conflict well rather than avoiding/eradicating it, and changing and being thus changed by this fiction of friction. I propose that professionals who identify this practice of peace as their deep desire and vocation might benefit both from identifying themselves publicly as Guardians of Peace and from working together in ways suggested herein to forward the practice of this kind of community, such that it can and will be adapted and lived wherever it is learned and the Process Arts are practiced.

[i] According to University of Veracruz researcher Mario Pérez Monterosas, Veracruz and Chiapas (Mexico's largest coffee-growing state) form part of the latest migratory region. Between 1995 and 2000, some 800,000 people left Veracruz. Pérez Monterosas reports that Veracruz has been steadily climbing the ladder in the list of the states that contribute to the migrant population in the United States. In 1992 Veracruz was in 30th place, by 1997 it had risen to 27th, in 2000 it held 14th, and by 2002 it had become the fourth-largest sending state in the nation.(a) Before this wave started, emigration from Veracruz's coffee zones to the United States was so scarce that a 1994 survey registered only one township--Misantla--with cases of migration to the north, and there were only twelve.(b) http://www.counterpunch.org/navarro12152004.html a) Mario Pérez Monterosas, "Las redes sociales de la migración emergente de Veracruz a los Estados Unidos," Migraciones internacionales, Vol.2, Núm 1, Enero-Junio 2003. b) Odile Hoffman, "El andar investigando historial de un proyecto de investigación sobre cambio sociocultural y crisis cafetalera," Ciesas-Orstom, 1994 .

[ii] Wendell Berry, The Agrarian Standard, Orion Online (Great Barrington, MA: The Orion Society, 2002).

[iii] http://www.ideafoundry.org/ http://www.techcollaborative.org/members.aspx?member_id=IdeaFoundry http://www.bufflink.org/NewsText/383596236805556.html

2006-10-17T18:33:00.000-07:00

The term up has no meaning apart from the word down. The term fast has no meaning apart from the term slow. In addition such terms have no meaning even when used together, except when confined to a very particular situation... most of our language about the organization and objective's of government is made up of such polar terms. Justice and injustice are typical. A reformer who wants to abolish injustice and create a world in which nothing but justice prevails is like a man who wants to make everything up. Such a man might feel that if he took the lowest in the world and carried it up to the highest point and kept on doing this, everything would eventually become up. This would certainly move a great many objects and create an enormous amount of activity. It might or might not be useful, according to the standards which we apply. However it would never result in the abolishment of down. - Thurman W. Arnold

2006-09-06T20:28:00.000-07:00

My thopoetic Hero

HOW THE SOUL IS SOLD

May 28, 1995 New York Times

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE1D81E3BF93BA15756C0A963958260

During my recent two years as an executive story editor and then co-producer of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," nearly every episode I wrote was inspired, directly or indirectly, by the books of James Hillman ("How the Soul Is Sold," by Emily Yoffe, April 23). When Hillman reworks the world, it's by way of ideas so startling they can induce vertigo, by way of paragraphs so rich they border on poetry. JOE MENOSKY Florence, Italy

"How the Soul Is Sold," by Emily Yoffe, April 23 reference located at
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE5D91238F930A15757C0A963958260&sec=health&pagewanted=all

Joe Menosky

http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/TNG/creative/69099.html

Joe Menosky was Executive Story Editor during the fourth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Co-Producer the fifth season. He then moved to Europe for three years, where he wrote and developed television pilots for the French studio Gaumont, and continued to write stories and scripts on a freelance basis for Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and then Star Trek: Voyager. After returning from Europe, Menosky joined Star Trek: Voyager as a writer-producer. His story or teleplay writing credit appears on over two dozen episodes, including "The Nth Degree," "Darmok," "Hero Worship," "The Chase," "Future's End," "Distant Origin," and "Scorpion."

In addition to Star Trek, Menosky recently sold a feature screenplay, "Real Time," co-authored with Brannon Braga, to director James Cameron ("Terminator," "Terminator II," and "Aliens").

Before working in film and television, Menosky was a journalist. He was science editor and reporter for National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" and "Morning Edition" and his articles and essays on the social and political ramifications of science and technology have been printed or re-printed in "The Economist," "The Washington Post," and M.I.T.'s "Technology Review" among others.

Spotlight: Farewell to Joe Menosky reproduced below

Spotlight: Farewell to Joe Menosky

http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/news/article/111610.html
Special to STAR TREK.COM by Deborah Fisher
04.26.2000

As Star Trek: Voyager makes a run to the end of its sixth season, the episode "Muse" also marks the end of Joe Menosky's stint as a Star Trek staff writer that began back in Star Trek: The Next Generation's fourth season. A former colleague at Simon & Simon had recommended Menosky to then ST: TNG Executive Producer Michael Piller. He gave Menosky a trial run, asking him to rewrite the fourth season episode "Clues." Piller hired Menosky on the strength of his first assignment.

Menosky entered the Star Trek fold at a critical and colorful time. Gene Roddenberry's launch of ST: TNG had relied heavily on the talents of well-known original series writers including Roddenberry himself, Dorothy (D.C.) Fontana, David Gerrold, and heavyweights Maurice Hurley and Herbert Wright. Years two and three had given way to newer and younger names and faces including Richard Manning and Hans Beimler, Melinda Snodgrass, Scott Rubenstein and Ira Steven Behr. Fresh-faced Ron Moore captured every fan's dream of a brass ring, a Star Trek job, with his spec script, "The Bonding."

After a hectic, unsettled first couple of years, the third season of ST: TNG was like beginning anew. Into this third-year team came Michael Piller, a Hollywood veteran, a former CBS censor, an experienced television staff writer with the chops to manage a writing team. He loved Star Trek and brought a stability and vision to the show and the writing staff that began to pay off almost immediately. He set up an open submission process and the staff took hundreds of pitches from experienced writers as well as fans. At its height, ST: TNG received 3,000 spec scripts a year. Besides keeping Moore on staff, Piller also acquired Jeri Taylor who became, with Piller, like mom and dad to a whole new generation of fresh, young writers. New voices were added to the stable of free-lancers like Hilary J. Bader ("Dark Page") and David Carren and Larry Carroll ("Future Imperfect").

Piller also found ways to work within the bounds of Roddenberry's rules of the Star Trek universe that so many writers had chafed against, especially the one that dictated no open conflict between regular characters. By the time Menosky arrived in the fourth season, the formula was highly recognizable -- a five-act structure with A and B plots that culminated just before the show's ending coda.

While "Legacy," a story about Tasha Yar's sister, was Menosky's debut script in October 1990, it was his scripting of "The Nth Degree," aired in April 1991, that made clear to viewers just what Menosky was capable of. "The Nth Degree" was about the character Barclay (first seen in the third season's "Hollow Pursuits") who is made super intelligent by contact with aliens. It was just the kind of intellectual game that Menosky was fond of playing and what made it so memorable was that it completely played with Star Trek's established structure. What might have once been a fifth act climax was instead plopped down into the middle of the third act and the story went someplace else entirely after that. Compared to where Star Trek scripts are now, it may seem tame by comparison, but at the time it signaled a significant change in direction for the show.

Piller, Executive Producer Rick Berman and Taylor couldn't have been more pleased. Later in the fourth season, Menosky's rewrite of "Clues" aired and he worked on "First Contact" and "In Theory." At the same time, another new kid on the block, Brannon Braga came to Star Trek as an intern. Braga's application had caught Piller's eye for two reasons -- he wrote a pretty good Star Trek script and he had flunked Human Sexuality at UC Santa Cruz. The fledging writer quickly got up to speed on "Reunion" and Braga and Menosky began a friendship that lasts to this day.

"They bonded in the early, early days," recalls former ST: TNG and Voyager Executive Producer Jeri Taylor. "When Brannon's tenure as an intern ended, I remember Joe saying he missed him. That actually got me thinking of the plan to hire Brannon. He and Joe were nothing alike whatsoever, but they seemed to fill each other out in some ways. They developed a very strange and symbiotic relationship."

Piller and Berman led the fifth season writing staff of Taylor, Menosky, Braga, Moore and Peter Allan Fields into exciting and uncharted Star Trek territory, introducing Ensign Ro, bringing Leonard Nimoy's Spock (and Denise Crosby's Sela) back for "Unification," and letting Braga loose on such stories as "Cause and Effect."

Menosky seemed to make it a personal mission to take Star Trek writing conventions and turn them on their heads, especially with stories like "Darmok" in which the writer didn't just write a script but created an entire language. "Joe is a brilliant, brilliant person," says Taylor. "I mean that both in the sense of education and native intelligence as well as creativity. His mind worked in ways that none of ours did."

Menosky marched through scripts like "Hero Worship" and "Conundrum" as he and Piller began to make their way toward the season finale, "Time's Arrow, Part I." When ST: TNG launched into season six with "Time's Arrow, Part II," former New York waiter Rene Echevarria and Science Advisor Naren Shankar had joined the staff. The stride the staff had started to hit back in season four really clicked in through season six.

But the years on staff had taken Menosky away from his first love, which was scholarly research. He slipped away to go live near family in Italy and devote himself to long hours studying, eventually penning a mini-series about the Italian Renaissance. Back home Jeri Taylor took ST: TNG through its seventh and final season using Menosky as a free-lancer on "Interface" and then "Masks."

"Masks" was a typical Menosky script much like "Muse," a story full of the writer's love of mythology, archetypes and intellectual puzzles. An examination of Data's possession and the ship's transformation by the mythic gods of another race, "Masks" gave Menosky room to march to that individual drummer that the staff had grown to know and love.

When Berman, Taylor and Piller launched Star Trek: Voyager, they had Braga and other talent to draw on but Taylor always missed Joe Menosky. He returned in the new show's second season because, as Taylor said, "we all implored him to." The timing was perfect as Taylor herself finally contemplated retirement from the Hollywood scene and the Star Trek pressure cooker. Incoming Executive Producer Braga needed a lieutenant and Menosky was it. "He became my right hand man," says Braga of Menosky's eventual ascension to Co-Executive Producer, "especially helping with the immense amount of rewriting Voyager takes. He has a kind of crazy, genius mind that brought a unique perspective to the show."

Braga cites as the high points of his work with Menosky on ST: VOY the big two-part "mini-movies" they started churning out -- "Future's End," "Year of Hell," and "The Killing Game." "Joe is very literate," says Braga, "worldly, knows a great deal about history and art and philosophy. We were very much on the same wavelength in many ways. It was fun working on those two-parters, like writing a movie but we had to do them in two weeks. We were a good team."

While Menosky would go on to write or co-write "Latent Image," "Dark Frontier," "11:59," "Equinox, "Blink of an Eye," and others, it was his work on Voyager's 100th episode, "Timeless," that Braga called "perfect." Starting with Braga's vision of the ship trapped in ice, Menosky felt that "Timeless" had all the great elements of Voyager's new style -- minimal dialogue, startling imagery, and Menosky's personal favorite, a great crash sequence.

Having already slipped back to Italy to return to his much beloved research, Joe Menosky himself was not available to comment on his long Star Trek career. Of his going, however, Jeri Taylor had this to say: "I can't speak highly enough about him. His unique sensibility was particularly suited to Star Trek and some of its loveliest, most lyric episodes have emanated from him. He is steeped in mythology, and found the most elegant ways to use that knowledge to formulate fascinating, intriguing stories. He will be sorely missed."

Ciao, Mr. Menosky.

IMDB page here: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0579775/

Wikipedia page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Menosky

Memory Alpha page: http://www.memory-alpha.org/en/index.php/Joe_Menosky
includes a photo

2006-07-10T18:08:00.000-07:00

Hagiography - Mythography

Saint Brandon, because I'll probably need it at some point.

Here followeth the Life of S. Brandon.

S. Brandon, the holy man, was a monk, and born in Ireland, and there he was abbot of a house wherein were a thousand monks, and there he had a full strait and holy life in great penance and abstinence, and he governed his monks full virtuously. And then within short time after, there came to him a holy abbot that hight Birinus to visit him, and each of them was joyful of other. And then S. Brandon began to tell to the abbot Birinus of many wonders that he had seen in divers lands, and when Birinus heard that of S. Brandon, he began to sigh and sore weep, and S. Brandon comforted him the best wise he could, saying: Ye come hither for to be joyful with me, and therefore for God's love leave your mourning and tell me what marvels ye have seen in the great sea-ocean that compasseth all the world about, and all other waters come out of him which runneth in all parts of the earth. And then Birinus began to tell to S. Brandon and to his monks the marvels that he had seen, full sore weeping, and said: I have a son, his name is Mervok, and he was a monk of great fame, which had great desire to seek about by ship in divers countries to find a solitary place wherein he might dwell secretly, out of the business of the world, for to serve God quietly with more devotion, and I counselled him to sail into an island far in the sea, beside the mountain of stones which is full well known, and then he made him ready and sailed thither with his monks. And when he came thither he liked that place full well, where he and his monks served our Lord full devoutly.

And then Birinus saw in a vision that this monk Mervok was sailed right far eastward in the sea, more than three days' sailing, and suddenly to his seeming there came a dark cloud and overcovered them, that a great part of the day they saw no light, and as our Lord would, the cloud passed away and they saw a full fair island, and thitherward they drew. In that island was joy and mirth enough, and the earth of that island shined as bright as the sun, and there were the fairest trees and herbs that ever any man saw, and there were many precious stones shining bright, and every herb there was full of flowers, and every tree full of fruit, so that it was a glorious sight and a heavenly joy to abide there. And there, there came to them a fair young man, and full courteously he welcomed them all, and called every monk by his name, and said that they were much bound to praise the name of our Lord Jesu, that would of his grace show to them that glorious place where is ever day and never night, and this place is called Paradise terrestrial. By this island is another island wherein no man may come, and this young man said to them: Ye have been here half a year without meat, drink, or sleep, and they supposed that they had not been there the space of half an hour, so merry and joyful they were there. And the young man told them that this is the place that Adam and Eve dwelt in first and ever should have dwelled here, if that they had not broken the commandment of God. And then the young man brought them to their ship again, and said they might no longer abide there, and when they were all shipped, suddenly this young man vanished away out of their sight. And then within short time after, by the purveyance of our Lord Jesu Christ, they came to the abbey where S. Brandon dwelled, and then he with his brethren received them goodly and demanded them where they had been so long, and they said: We have been in the land of Behest tofore the gates of Paradise, whereas is ever day and never night, and they said all that the place is full delectable, for yet all their clothes smelled of that sweet and joyful place.

And then S. Brandon purposed soon after for to seek that place by God's help, and anon began to purvey for a good ship and a strong, and victualled it for seven years. And then he took his leave of all his brethren and took twelve monks with him, but ere they entered into the ship they fasted forty days and lived devoutly, and each of them received the sacrament. And when S. Brandon with his twelve monks were entered in to the ship, there came other two of his monks and prayed him that they might sail with him, and then he said: Ye may sail with me, but one of you shall go to hell ere ye come again, but not for that they would go with him. And then S. Brandon bade the shipmen to wind up the sail and forth they sailed in God's name, so that on the morrow they were out of sight of any land. And forty days and forty nights after they sailed plat east, and then they saw an island far from them, and they sailed thitherward as fast as they could, and they saw a great rock of stone appear above all the water, and three days they sailed about it ere they could get into the place, but at the last by the purveyance of God they found a little haven and there went aland every each one. And then suddenly came a fair hound, and fell down at the feet of S. Brandon and made him good cheer in his manner, and then he bade his brethren be of good cheer, for our Lord hath sent to us his messenger to lead us into some good place. And the hound brought them into a fair hall where they found the tables spread, ready set full of good meat and drink. And then S. Brandon said graces, and then he and his brethren sat down and ate and drank of such as they found, and there were beds ready for them, wherein they took their rest after their long labour.

And on the morn they returned again to their ship, and sailed a long time in the sea after, ere they could find any land, till at last by the purveyance of God, they saw far from them a full fair island, full of green pasture, wherein were the whitest and greatest sheep that ever they saw. For every sheep was as great as an ox, and soon after came to them a goodly old man, which welcomed them and made them good cheer, and said: This is the island of sheep, and here is never cold weather, but ever summer, and that causeth the sheep to be so great and white; they eat of the best grass and herbs that is anywhere. And then this old man took his leave of them and bade them sail forth right east, and within short time by God's grace, they should come in to a place like Paradise, wherein they should keep their Eastertide.

And then they sailed forth, and came soon after to that land, but because of little depth in some places, and in some places were great rocks, but at the last they went upon an island weeping to them that they had been safe, and made thereon a fire for to dress their dinner, but S. Brandon abode still in the ship, and when the fire was right hot and the meat nigh sodden, then this island began to move, whereof the monks were afeard, and fled anon to ship and left the fire and meat behind them, and marvelled sore of the moving. And S. Brandon comforted them and said that it was a great fish named Jasconye, which laboureth night and day to put his tail in his mouth, but for greatness he may not. And then anon they sailed west three days and three nights ere they saw any land, wherefore they were right heavy, but soon after, as God would, they saw a fair island full of flowers, herbs, and trees, whereof they thanked God of his good grace, and anon they went on land, and when they had gone long in this they found a full fair well, and thereby stood a fair tree full of boughs, and on every bough sat a fair bird, and they sat so thick on the tree that unnethe any leaf of the tree might be seen. The number of them was so great, and they sang so merrily that it was a heavenly noise to hear, wherefore S. Brandon kneeled down on his knees and wept for joy, and made his prayers devoutly to our Lord God to know what these birds meant.

And then anon one of the birds fled from the tree to S. Brandon, and he with flickering of his wings made a full merry noise like a fiddle, that him seemed he heard never so joyful a melody. And then S. Brandon commanded the bird to tell him the cause why they sat so thick on the tree and sang so merrily ; and then the bird said: Sometime we were angels in heaven, but when our master Lucifer fell down into hell for his high pride, we fell with him for our offences, some higher and some lower after the quality of the trespass, and because our trespass is but little, therefore our Lord hath set us here out of all pain, in full great joy and mirth after his pleasing, here to serve him on this tree in the best manner we can. The Sunday is a day of rest from all worldly occupation, and therefore that day all we be made as white as any snow for to praise our Lord in the best wise we may. And then this bird said to S. Brandon: That it is twelve months passed that ye departed from your abbey, and in the seventh year hereafter, ye shall see the place that ye desire to come to, and all these seven years ye shall keep your Easter here with us every year, and in the end of the seventh year ye shall come into the land of Behest. And this was on Easter day that the bird said these words to S. Brandon, and then this fowl flew again to his fellows that sat on the tree, and then all the birds began to sing evensong so merrily that it was a heavenly noise to hear. And after supper S. Brandon and his fellows went to bed and slept well, and on the morn they arose betimes, and then these birds began matins, prime, and hours, and all such service as christian men use to sing. And S. Brandon with his fellows abode there eight weeks, till Trinity Sunday was passed, and they sailed again to the island of sheep and there they victualled them well, and sith took their leave of that old man, and returned again to ship. And then the bird of the tree came again to S. Brandon and said: I am come to tell you that ye shall sail from hence into an island wherein is an abbey of twenty-four monks, which is from this place many a mile, and there ye shall hold your Christmas, and your Easter with us, like as I told you, and then this bird flew to his fellows again. And then S. Brandon and his fellows sailed forth in the ocean, and soon after fell a great tempest on them in which they were greatly troubled long time, and sore forlaboured, and after that they found by the time, and sore forlaboured, and after that they found by purveyance of God an island which was far from them, and then they full meekly prayed our Lord to send them thither in safety, but it was forty days after ere they came thither, wherefore all the monks were so weary of that trouble that they set little price by their lives, and cried continually to our Lord to have mercy on them, and bring them to that island in safety. And by the purveyance of God they came at the last into a little haven, but it was so strait that unnethe the ship might come in, and after they came to an anchor, and anon the monks went to land. And when they had long walked about, at the last they found two fair wells, that one was fair and clear water, and that other was somewhat troubly and thick. And then they thanked our Lord full humbly that had brought them thither in safety, and they would fain have drunk of that water, but S. Brandon charged them they should not take without licence. For if we abstain us a while our Lord will purvey for us in the best wise. And anon after came to them a fair old man with hoar hair, and welcomed them full meekly and kissed S. Brandon, and led them by many a fair well till they came to a fair abbey, where they were received with great honour and solemn procession with twenty-four monks, all in royal copes of cloth of gold and a royal cross was before them. And then the abbot welcomed S. Brandon and his fellowship, and kissed them full meekly, and took S. Brandon by the hand and led him with his monks into a fair hall, and set them down arow upon the bench, and the abbot of the place washed all their feet with fair water of the well that they saw before, and after, led them into the fraitour and there set them among his convent. And anon there came one by the purveyance of God which served them well of meat and drink, for every monk had set before him a fair white loaf, and white roots and herbs, which was right delicious, but they wist not what roots they were. And they drank of the water of the fair clear well that they saw before when they came first aland, which S. Brandon forbade them. And then the abbot came and cheered S. Brandon and his monks, and prayed them eat and drink for charity; for every day our Lord sendeth a goodly old man that covereth this table and setteth our meat and drink tofore us, but we know not how it cometh, ne we ordain never no meat ne drink for us, and yet we have been eighty years here, and ever our Lord, worshipped may he be, feedeth us. We be twenty-four monks in number, and every ferial day of the week he sendeth to us twelve loaves, and every Sunday and feast-day twenty-four loaves, and the bread that we leave at dinner we eat at supper, and now at your coming our Lord hath sent to us forty-eight loaves, for to make you and us merry together as brethren. And always twelve of us go to dinner whiles other twelve keep the quire, and thus have we done these eighty years, for so long have we dwelled here io this abbey. And we came hither out of the abbey of S. Patrick in Ireland, and thus as ye see our Lord hath purveyed for us, but none of us knoweth how it cometh, but God alone, to whom be given honour and laud world without end. And here in this land is ever fair weather, and none of us hath been sick sith we came hither. And when we go to mass, or to any other service of our Lord in the church, anon seven tapers of wax be set in the quire and be lighted at every time without man's hand, and so burn day and night at every hour of service, and never waste ne minish as long as we have been here, which is eighty years. And then S. Brandon went to the church with the abbot of the place, and there they said evensong together full devoutly, and then S. Brandon looked upward toward the crucifix, and saw our Lord hanging on the cross, which was made of fine crystal and curiously wrought. And in the quire were twenty-four seats for twenty-four monks, and the seven tapers burning, and the abbot's seat was made in the midst of the quire, and then S. Brandon demanded of the abbot how long they had kept that silence, that none of them spake to other, and he said: These twenty-four years we spake never one to another. And then S. Brandon wept for joy of their holy conversation. And then S. Brandon desired of the abbot that he and his monks might dwell there still with him. To whom the abbot said: Sir, that may ye not do in no wise, for our Lord hath showed to you in what manner ye shall be guided till the seven years be fulfilled, and after that term thou shalt with thy monks return into Ireland in safety, but one of the two monks that came last to you shall dwell in the island of ankers, and that other shall go quick to hell. And as S. Brandon kneeled in the church he saw a bright shining angel come in at the window, and lighted all the lights in the church, and then he flew out again at the window unto heaven, and then S. Brandon marvelled greatly how the light burned so fair and wasted not. And then the abbot said that it is written that Moses saw a bush all on afire and yet it burned not, and therefore marvel not hereof for the might of our Lord is now as great as it ever was.

And when S. Brandon had dwelled there from Chrisunas even till the twelfth day was passed, then he took his leave of the abbot and convent and returned with his monks to his ship, and sailed from thence with his monks toward the abbey of S. Illaries, but they had great tempests in the sea from that time till Palm-Sunday, and then they came to the island of sheep, and there were received of the old man, which brought them to a fair hall and served them. And on ShereThursday after supper he washed their feet and kissed them, like as our Lord did to his disciples, and there abode till Saturday, Easter-even, and they departed and sailed to the place where the great fish lay, and anon they saw their caldron upon the fishes back, which they had left there twelve months tofore, and there they kept the service of the resurrection on the fishes back, and after, they sailed that same day by the morning to the island whereas the tree of birds was, and then the said bird welcomed S. Brandon and all his fellowship, and went again to the tree and sang full merrily, and there he and his monks dwelled from Easter till Trinity Sunday as they did the year before, in full great joy and mirth. And daily they heard the merry service of the birds sitting on the tree. And then the bird told to S. Brandon that he should return again at Christmas to the abbey of monks, and at Easter thither again, and the other deal of the year labour in the ocean in full great perils, and from year to year till the seven years be accomplished. Anrl then shall ye come to the joyful place of Paradise and dwell there forty days in full great joy and mirth, and after, ye shall return home into your own abbey in safety, and there end your life, and come to the bliss of heaven, to which our Lord bought you with his precious blood. And then the angel of our Lord ordained all thing that was needful to S. Brandon and to his monks in victuals and all other things necessary, and then they thanked our Lord of his great goodness that he had showed to them oft in their great need, and then sailed forth into the great sea ocean, abiding the mercy of our Lord in great trouble and tempests.

And soon after came to them an horrible fish which followed the ship long time, casting so much water out of his mouth into the ship that they supposed to have been drowned, wherefore they devoutly prayed God to deliver them of that great peril. And anon after, came another fish greater than he, out of the west sea, and fought with him, and at the last crave him into three pieces, and then returned again. And then they thanked meekly our Lord of their deliverance from this great peril, but they were in great heaviness because their victuals were nigh spent; but by the ordinance of our Lord there came a bird and brought to them a great branch of a vine full of red grapes, by which they lived fourteen days, and then they came to a little island, wherein were many vines full of grapes, and they there landed and thanked God, and gathered as many grapes as they lived by forty days after, always sailing in the sea in many storms and tempests, and as they thus sailed, suddenly came flying towards them a great grip which assailed them and was like to have destroyed them. Wherefore they devoutly prayed for help and aid of our Lord Jesu Christ. And then the bird of the tree of the island where they had holden their Easter tofore, came to the grip and smote out both his eyes, and after slew him, whereof they thanked our Lord, and then sailed forth continually till S. Peter's day, and then sang they solemnly their service in the honour of the feast. And in that place the water was so clear that they might see all the fishes that were about them, whereof they were full sore aghast, and the monks counselled S. Brandon to sing no more, for all the fishes lay then as they had slept. And then S. Brandon said: Dread ye not, for ye have kept by two Easters the feast of the Resurrection upon the great fishes back, and therefore dread ye not of these little fishes. And then S. Brandon made him ready and went to mass, and bade his monks to sing the best way they could, and then anon all the fishes awoke, and came about the ship so thick that unnethe they might see the water for the fishes, and when the mass was done all the fishes departed so as they were no more seen. And seven days they sailed always in that clear water.

And then there came a south wind and drove the ship northward, whereas they saw an island full dark and full of stench and smoke, and there they heard great blowing and blasting of bellows, but they might see nothing, but heard great thundering, whereof they were sore afeard, and blessed them oft. And soon after there came one starting out all burning in fire, and stared full ghastly on them with great staring eyes, of whom the monks were aghast, and at his departing from them he made the horriblest cry that might be heard, and soon there came a great number of fiends and assailed them with hooks and burning iron malles, which ran on the water, following their ship fast, in such wise that it seemed all the sea to be on fire. But by the pleasure of our Lord they had no power to hurt ne grieve them ne their ship, wherefore the fiends began to roar and cry, and threw their hooks and malles at them. And they then were sore afraid, and prayed to God for comfort and help, for they saw the fiends all about the ship, and them seemed then all the island and the sea to be on fire. And with a sorrowful cry all those fiends departed from them and returned to the place that they came from. And then S. Brandon told to them that this was a part of hell, and therefore he charged them to be steadfast in the faith, for they should yet see many a dreadful place ere they came home again. And then came the south wind, and drove them farther into the north, where they saw a hill all of fire, and a foul smoke and stench coming from thence, and the fire stood on each side of the hill like a wall all burning. And then one of his monks began to cry and weep full sore, and said that his end was come, and that he might abide no longer in the ship, and anon he leapt out of the ship into the sea, and then he cried and roared full piteously, cursing the time that he was born, and also father and mother that begat him, because they saw no better to his correction in his young age, for now I must go to perpetual pain. And then the saying of S. Brandon was verified that he said to him when he entered; therefore it is good a man to do penance and forsake sin, for the hour of death is uncertain. And then anon the wind turned into the north and drove the ship into the south, which sailed seven days continually, and they came to a great rock standing in the sea, and thereon sat a naked man in full great misery and pain, for the waves of the sea had so beaten his body that all the flesh was gone off, and nothing Ieft but sinews and bare bones. And when the waves were gone, there was a canvas that hung over his head which beat his body full sore with the blowing of the wind, and also there were two ox tongues and a great stone that he sat on, which did him full great ease. And then S. Brandon charged him to tell him what he was, and he said: My name is Judas that sold our Lord Jesu Christ for thirty pence, which sitteth here thus wretchedly, howbeit I am worthy to be in the greatest pain that is, but our Lord is so merciful that he hath rewarded me better than I have deserved, for of right my place is in the burning hell, but I am here but certain times of the year, that is, from Christmas to twelfth day, and from Easter till Whitsuntide be past, and every feastful day of our Lady, and every Saturday noon till Sunday, that evensong be done, but all other times I lie still in hell in full burning fire, with Pilate, Herod, and Caiaphas, therefore accursed be the time that ever I knew them. And then Judas prayed S. Brandon to abide still there all that night, and that he would keep him there still, that the fiends should not fetch him to hell. And he said: With God's help thou shalt abide here all this night; and then he asked Judas what cloth that was that hung over his head, and he said it was a cloth that he gave to a leper, which was bought with the money that he stole from our Lord when I bare his purse, wherefore it doth to me full great pain now, in beating my face with the blowing of the wind, and these two ox-tongues rhat hang here above me I gave them sometime to two priests to pray for me, them I bought with mine own money, and therefore they ease me because the fishes of the sea gnaw on them and spare me, and this stone that I sit on, lay sometime in a desolate place where it eased no man, and I took it thence and laid it in a foul way where it did much ease to them that went by that way, and therefore it easeth me now, for every good deed shall be rewarded and every evil deed shall be punished. And the Sunday, against even, there came a great multitude of fiends, blasting and roaring and bade S. Brandon go thence that they might have their servant Judas, for we dare not come into the presence of our master but if we bring him to hell with us. And then said S. Brandon: I let not you to do your master's commandment, but by the power of our Lord Jesu Christ I charge you to leave him this night till to-morrow. They said: how darest thou help him that so sold his master for thirty pence to the Jews, and caused him also to die the most shameful death upon the cross? And then S. Brandon charged the fiends by his passion that they should not noy him that night. And then the fiends went their way roaring and crying towards hell, to their master the great devil, and then Judas thanked S. Brandon so ruthfully, that it was pity to see, and on the morn the fiends came with a horrible noise, saying that they had that night suffered great pain because they brought not Judas and said that he should sufler double pain the six days following, and they took then Judas, trembling for fear, with them to pain. And after, S. Brandon sailed southward three days and three nights, and on the Friday they saw an island, and then S. Brandon began to sigh, and said: I see the island wherein S. Paul the hermit dwelleth, and hath dwelled there forty years without meat and drink ordained by man's hand. And when they came to the land, S. Paul came and welcomed them humbly. He was old and foregrown, so that no man might see his body, of whom S. Brandon said weeping: Now I see a man that liveth more like an angel than a man, wherefore we wretches may be ashamed that we live not better. Then S. Paul said to S. Brandon: Thou art better than I, for our Lord hath showed to thee more of his privities than he hath done to me, wherefore thou oughtest to be more praised than I. To whom S. Brandon said: We be monks, and must labour for our meat, but God hath provided for thee such meat as thou holdest thee pleased, wherefore thou art much better than I. To whom S. Paul said: Sometime I was a monk of S. Patrick's Abbey in Ireland, and was warden of the place whereas men enter into S. Patrick's purgatory, and on a day there came one to me, and I asked him what he was, and he said: I am your abbot Patrick, and charge thee that thou depart from hence to-morn early to the seaside, and there thou shalt find a ship into which thou must enter, which God hath ordained for thee, whose will thou must accomplish. And so the next day I arose and went forth and found the ship, in which I entered, and by the purveyance of God was I brought into this island the seventh day after. And then I left the ship and went to land, and there I walked up and down a good while, and then, by the purveyance of God, there came an otter, going on his hinder feet, and brought me a flint stone and an iron to smite fire with, in his two foreclaws of his feet, and also he had about his neck great plenty of fish, which he cast down before me and went his way, and I smote fire, and made a fire of sticks, and did seethe the fish by which I lived three days, and then the otter came again and brought to me fish for other three days, and thus he hath done these fifty-one years, through the grace of God. And there was a great stone, out of which our Lord made to spring fair water, clear and sweet, whereof I drink daily, and thus have I lived one and fifty years. And I was forty years old when I came hither, and am now one hundred and eleven years old, and abide till it please our Lord to send for me, and if it pleased him I would fain be discharged of this wretched life. And then he bade S. Brandon to take of the water of the well, and to carry into his ship: For it is time that thou depart, for thou hast a great journey to do, for thou shalt sail to an island which is forty days sailing hence, where thou shalt hold thine Easter like as thou hast done tofore, whereas the tree of birds is, and from thence thou shalt sail into the land of Behest, and shalt abide there forty days, and after return home into thy country in safety.

And then these holy men took leave each of other, and they wept both full sore, and kissed each other; and then S. Brandon entered into his ship and sailed forty days even south in full great tempest, and on Easter even came to their procurator, which made to them good cheer as he had beforetime, and from thence they came to the great fish, whereon they said matins and mass on Easter day, and when the mass was done the fish began to move and swam forth fast into the sea, whereof the monks were sore aghast which stood upon him, for it was a great marvel to see such a fish, so great as all a country, for to swim so fast in the water, but by the will of our Lord this fish set all the monks aland in the paradise of birds, all whole and sound, and then returned to the place he came from. And then S. Brandon and his monks thanked our Lord of their deliverance of the great fish, and kept their Easter-tide till Trinity Sunday, like as they had done beforetime, and after this they took their ship and sailed east forty days.

And at the forty days end it began to hail right fast, and therewith came a dark mist which lasted long after, which feared S. Brandon and his monks, and they prayed to our Lord to keep and help them. And then anon came their procurator and bade them to be of good cheer, for they were come into the land of Behest. And soon after that mist passed away, and anon they saw the fairest country eastward that any man might see, and it was so clear and bright that it was a heavenly sight to behold, and all the trees were charged with ripe fruit, and herb full of flowers. In which land they walked forty days, but they could see none end of that land, and there was always day and never night, and the land temperate, ne too hot ne too cold. And at the last they came to a fair river, but they durst not go over, and there came to them a fair young man and welcomed them courteously, and called each of them by his name, and did great reverence to S. Brandon, and said to them: Be ye now joyful, for this is the land that ye have sought, but our Lord will that ye depart hence hastily and he will show to you more of his secrets when ye come again into the sea, and our Lord will that you lade your ship with the fruit of this land, and hie you hence for ye may no longer abide here, but thou shalt sail again into thine own country, and soon after thou comest home thou shalt die. And this water that thou seest here departeth the world asunder, for on that other side of this water may no man come that is in this life, and the fruit that ye see here is alway thus ripe every time of the year, and always it is here light as ye now see, and he that keepeth our Lord's hests at all times shall see this land ere he pass out of this world. And then S. Brandon and his monks took of that fruit as much as they would, and also took with them great plenty of precious stones, and then took their leave, and went to ship weeping sore because they might no longer abide there. And then they took their ship and came home into Ireland in safety, whom their brethren received with great joy, giving thankings to our Lord which had kept them all those seven years from many a peril and brought them home in safety, to whom be given honour and glory, world without end. Amen. And soon after, this holy man S. Brandon waxed feeble and sick, and had but little joy of this world, but ever after his joy and mind was in the joys of heaven. And in a sbort time after he being full of virtues, departed out of this life to everlasting life, and was worshipfully buried in a fair abbey which he himself founded, where our Lord showeth for this holy saint many fair miracles. Wherefore let us devoutly pray to this holy saint that he pray for us to our Lord that he have mercy on us, to whom be given laud and honour and empire, world without end. Amen.

2006-03-04T22:08:00.000-08:00

Officer K

Imagine power and identity inhabiting spiral patterns. When a nameable role inhabits a person (I am a Cop), Officer K becomes fixated in the center of an orbital identity complex. Around her, influenced by shared gravitational fields in related circles, orbit the Activist, the Criminal, the Citizen, the Suspect, the Chief, etc. She is supported by the known and powerful aspects of her role but can also be undermined, manipulated, and drained of energy (burned out) in predictable ways using those same familiar pathways.

Part of training "law enforcement" might then necessarily involve challenging Officer K not to fixate but at least be able to layer her inhabiting of her role, first making roles available that are related by category. She is then also a peace officer, law enforcer, professional partner of other legal officers, beat walker, armed guardian of order, public protector, criminal investigator, first responder and apprehender, crime preventer, traffic regulator, and public records maintener. Beyond this she is a citizen, mother, daughter, etc.

Each of these layers gives her flexibility and options into which she may shift to do her job more effectively and put it aside as much as is possible at the end of the day.

The visual metaphor might be that, staying within the pull of the core power identity (Cop), it is useful to distance one's Self from the Role sufficiently to be able to grab the outer orbit of another related Role and swing into its gravity as necessary for effective use of options, emotional and physical survival, and general flourishing in a world where many ways of being are required for peace to be truly possible.

2006-03-02T13:09:00.000-08:00

Digging up The Process Arts

collecting bits in as much chronological order as possible:

In 1997 I founded Beamish Process Arts Consultancy, also using the name "Beamish Corps": suggesting

People need people to function well. Since the demise of the village it has become necessary to purposefully construct community from what is at hand, getting better at it as we go, learning from those who have gone before. Like any other art form, but not limited to the personal experience of the visual or performing arts, this can be learned and taught and refined such that the making of relationships itself is recognized and valued as a next, core, human growth necessity. The core elements to crafting good relationships at the individual, group, and collective level are universally recognizable, accessible, learnable, and developing as we speak. This shift in culture is what I call the development of The Process Arts.

The Council (Board) began formation in 1998 working with and beyond the following words:

PA to denote practices which encourage growth in:
-compassionate awareness of our feelings, fantasies thoughts and any other innner phenomena
-compassionate awareness of the life around us and the state of the world as a whole.
-ability to act effectively in the light of these awarenesses including:
-ability to resolve conflict to the satisfaction of all concerned
-ability to cocreate realities which are of benefit to ourselves and our world

The ability to experience conflict in a way that is not destructive.

PA dojo develop process artists

The shift from either\or to both\and ... and from judgment to curiousity. encourage growth in:
-compassionate awareness of our feelings, fantasies, thoughts
-ability to cocreate realities which are of benefit to ourselves and our world. The ability to experience conflict in a way that is not destructive. The art of asking questions and listening.

The shift from “either/or to both/and” thinking... as well as the shift from judgment to curiosity, both of which encourage growth in the ability to experience conflict in ways that are creative instead of destructive.

A conscious form of an engagement into understanding a present state of being in the world.

Accepting the very deep root into prehistory as a reflection of the need to find a new way to

Process Arts is a conscious form of engagement that nourishes the shift from either/or to both/and __ from judgment to curiosity. It reframes the experience of conflict in ways that are creative not destructive.

Process Arts is a new name for an old practice, which has been been going on forever. It’s a modern expression of the old ways that have deep roots into prehistory.

The Process Arts are comprehensive disciplines that involve the experience of radical inclusivity. Examples include facilitation, mediation, the building of Community, and peacemaking. Especially qualified to be considered Process Arts are those that guide human beings toward the celebration of life and provide a context for the survival and blossoming of culture. Familiar trades and services may appear unexpectedly potent and necessary with the added dimension of being practiced as a Process Art.

The Process Arts are conscious forms of engagement that nourish the systemic shift from “either/or” judgment to “both/and” curiosity. One result is in the reframing of conflict in ways that are creative. Another is in the determination that every individual has specific, often immediate, needs and that all voices must have an opportunity to be heard with care lest we fall so far apart that we cannot come together when our children are in need. This holding of needs and careful hearing requires preparation and the creation of specific expectations.
Beamish Process Arts exists to introduce these ways of approaching our individual and collective needs, to develop our own Process as our “product”, to ask those already practicing radical inclusivity under various banners to include themselves in a common, enduring expression of this work, and to include our selves in the world to create a common, conscious expectation that the life expression of every creature is precious and necessary to our collective survival. We prepare for local empowerment to move into social harmony.

Our incorporated as Beamish Process Arts was recognized in July of 2001 using the following language:

This corporation is a nonprofit public benefit corporation and is not organized for the private gain of any person. It is organized under the Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation Law for charitable purposes. The specific and primary purposes for which this corporation is organized are to provide educational and charitable assistance to the general public by organizing, developing and advancing the work of individuals and institutions who place a clear and evident value on compassionate inclusivity, respect for all aspects of life, and the practice of Process Arts. We provide and support educational and charitable outreach through the integration of process-oriented disciplines including both local and global community building, mediation, facilitation, and peace making.

The primary objectives and purposes of this corporation shall be:

To provide educational and charitable assistance to the general public in the following ways:

(a) To organize, advance, and assist in the developing work of individuals and groups meeting at least one of the following criteria:

the evident, consistent, systemic practice of compassionate inclusivity, i.e. the compassionate discipline of creatively experiencing circumstance, whatever is present, in such a way that individuals are free and empowered to make the best imaginable choices in support of all aspects of life;
an evident respect for all aspects of life and habits to support same, including but not limited to a dedicated practice of Working Consensus or another compassionate, inclusive, co-creative form;
the regular experience of a Process Art, i.e. a creative practice or discipline of compassion geared to habituate human beings to a global expectation of co-creation and shared power and leadership geared toward sustainable life practices

(b) To encourage the cross-pollination and conscious integration of process-oriented disciplines. These include, but are by no means limited to both local and global community building, mediation, facilitation, and peace making. This co-creation will be developed through the formation of partnerships with both public and private groups, as well as individuals.

formal and informal consultation, instruction, guidance, and mentoring
events, demonstrations, programs, and performances
the co-creation of both Community and Retreat Centers
the co-creation of infrastructural elements specifically geared to support Community and the growth of the Process Arts, examples of which include, but are not limited to, facility and event administration, internet content design and support, publication, composition, networking, and promotion in support of our non-profit purposes as provided in California Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation Law.

I heard of potentially related work by Stewart Cubley (below) in 1999, and was excited to know at least part of the principles stated above were in play in his use of the term. I didn't at the time and don't now flatter myself that he is familiar with my work, especially since his interpretation involves inner development through the process of making literal, visual art.

Michele Cassou and/or Stewart Cubley claim service mark for the phrase "The Painting Experience." At some point, at least he began to refer to what they do using the term Process Arts. The current version of the processarts.com website shows

The Painting Experience

Since its founding in 1976, the Painting Experience has touched the lives of thousands of people by enabling them to explore the creative process in an atmosphere of respect and non-judgment.
The ever-widening circle of friends who have benefited from The Painting Experience programs form a vital and diverse community of culturally creative people committed to personal growth and to making a difference in the world. We are actively searching out ways in which to support the potential that exists for true transformation, and we are open to your suggestions.

In November of 1999 Stewart Cubley began his processarts.com website to promote his guidance of people "to explore the creative process through expressive painting."

from the earliest version of procesarts.com

The Painting Experience^SM method approaches the expressive arts in a way that is a radical departure from the traditional product oriented focus of painting instruction. Instead of perceiving art as something to learn or improve, it views the act of creation to be the deepest point of contact with our essential self - an environment where the process of facing the unknown color, form and image becomes a vehicle for entering into the mystery of one's own being, a tool for liberation and awakening.

"The act of bringing forth from within that which makes up our inner life, and giving it birth through color, form and image tranforms the creator in the act of creating. In this dynamic meeting between inner and out, and open flow is established that renews our fundamental response to the world"
Stewart Cubley, Founder

Cubley uses the following language in an invitation to one of his retreats:
First time students find these weekend workshops an excellent introduction to the principles of the Process Arts as outlined in the book Life, Paint & Passion: Reclaiming the Magic of Spontaneous Expression. Continuing students find an opportunity to deepen their practice, to gain new insights into their process and to work within a supportive, stimulating community.

Though Cassou is listed in the copyright of the book she and Cubley are both credited for writing, Life, Paint & Passion: Reclaiming the Magic of Spontaneous Expression, she does not appear in the staff listing on the processarts.com website and now calls what she does "Creativity Without Limits - Point Zero Painting."

Processwork

Another path , called Processwork, with a different name and scope but many parallels pre-dates me by decades. Again, I am abashed to admit that I didn't know Arnold and Amy Mindell existed until a Council member brought them to my attention in the late nineties, leading me to read Leader as Martial Artist. Though fascinated with that approach I have only attended a few workshops by Lane Arye and had not read either Mindell widely until the latter part of my graduate program.

John Abbe writes about the Process Arts in the following terms (many of which are links to his website):

The process arts include things such as FaciliTation?, MediTation and CommunityOrganizing?NonviolentCommunication, OpenSpace, WikiWiki). Even more than a list of particular processes though, process arts is an awarenessis one particular way, and one could do it any number of other ways. That's analogous to PerlLanguage's motto - There More Than One Way To Do It! (and name-brand practices/theories/networks such as that however one is doing something, that

This could apply to any field - cooking, sky-diving, etc., but we use it mostly for fields primarily about humans. There are differences and similarities in process artistry across scales - intra-individual, couples & groups, families, neighborhoods, tribes, towns, cities, regions, continents, globally.

Some relevant resources:

http://del.icio.us/tag/processarts (if you use DelIcioUs or other tag-enabled systems, please tag anything else relevant you find!)
NcddWiki - see NcddWiki:ParticipatoryPractices
The Quickening of America (the working title was The Arts of Democracy), by Frances Moore Lappe and Paul Martin Du Bois BookSense:1555426050
The Change Handbook: Group Methods for Shaping the Future, Tom Devane and Peggy Holman BookSense:1576750582 (a new edition is on it's way, and Peggy recently published a relevant scholarly article)
CenterForGroupLearning
I predict SunirShah's facilitation wiki will be a great resource if he gets it going
CoIntelligenceInstitute

MyPractices

This movement/field/concept has been emerging as a significant phenomenon certainly in recent decades, or even centuries - consider the scientific method and amendable constitutions. One can even take the perspective that it is as old as "modern" human consciousness, behind the explosion of variety of tool use that took place ~50-100,000 years ago. See ConsciousnessIsOurOxygenChallenge.

BrandonWilliamsCraig? (http://bdwc.net ) coined this term in 1996. His Beamish Process Arts Consultancy became the Beamish Process Arts (501c3) community (http://www.beamish.org ) and then Association Building Community (http://abcglobal.net ).

My website currently (20060303) shows:

Human cultures are shifting toward tending the way of interaction at least as attentively as the products that result. How is becoming consciously as important as What we make. Examples of this trend, the language for which originated in the new "Psychology" of the 20th Century, include coaching, the wide use of outside-system consultants and facilitators, mediation, therapy, etc.
Conscious and unarticulated methods are becoming more and more prevalent which assist in this shift and contribute to building Communities Of Understanding which are capable of dealing with the complexity of contemporary abstract systems only because many people are working together on how they work together. Examples include Processwork (Mindell), Quaker Meeting, Focusing (Gendlin), Organizational Development, Council Circles (indigenous), Non-violent Communication (Rosenberg), mythography (Doty), Group Therapy, Community Building (Peck), many forms of martial and performing arts, etc. A fine place to begin expanding this list for yourself might be here.
Naming and thereby qualifying these "Process Arts" by how they are practiced, rather than who founded/owns them or what they tangibly produce, is a participation in an educational intervention in culture that values this shift at least as deeply as the training in the Liberal Arts modern nations almost universally speak of promoting. Thus process-level education is expected as widely as reading, writing, arithmetic, and their various scientific products, and leaders may be expected to have at least a working familiarity with process-level skills.

In my dissertation Process Arts: Culturopoesis, Healing Friction, and Guardianship of Peace I suggest

Work with cultures is work with the metaphors from which the imaginal and behavioral structures of daily life are built. Shaping image/ideas by which it becomes possible to view the metaphors within these structures has been, at least until the invention of the “spin-doctor” and his ilk, the creative realm of the poet, dramatist, psychotherapist, mediator, and other martial artists who work with and facilitate the abstract conflicts underlying the shape of shared narratives. These roles become more potent the more support they receive but are not necessarily more carefully practiced. Conscious and unconscious process shifts are affected every day by speech writers, authors, personalities, and overtly ideological special interest groups (SIG), which can change everything from how children are educated and the future is shaped to an average citizen’s experience of death and dying, often with imminently predictable and less than salutary consequences. Systems have become so sophisticated with and by these shifts that culture has moved beyond what one mind and heart or even one group can fathom. In a world shaped by alienation and fragmentation an suggestive container for wisdom is arising, resembling fantasies of ancient communities evoked by words like “village” and “tribe” but not based in regression to an earlier stage of development, in which understanding becomes progressively available through purposeful cultivation of shared experience with group behavioral complexities. Building community on purpose, rather than inadvertently by being born and dying within a twenty mile radius, allows for the development of a complex cultural knowledgebase sufficiently sophisticated at both the abstract and experiential levels. This is what I mean by “a community of understanding.”

Embedded within a community of understanding capable of and interested in fathoming the depths involved, poet/artist/facilitators may be able to make the workings of a given culture more beautiful, supportive of life, and enduring. Several examples will be explored herein. When those who choose to work at the process level have what they need in the way of a consciously reflective community, a purposefully cocreative language of image, conscious and structural social support, they are encouraged to work with and through friction and malfunctions in order to be as sophisticated in their applied understanding as is humanly possible.

What is implied here, and already in progress in the world, is the cocreation of an alchemical art form. The form is artful in that it initiates an anamnestic creative cycle of descent and return - an orphic process balancing related ideas while they are in the motions of association. This requires mapping and descending thorough the “gaps in our meanings even as there are meanings in these gaps,” and “respect[ing] … differences while witnessing … affinity[ies]”. I will show how this leads to naming, developing, and sharing widely a global shift toward the purposeful making of culture (“culturopoesis”) through the sophisticated processing of conflict (“healing friction”) that combines leading-edge interpretive mythology and depth psychology as a way of articulating an international educational movement already in progress which I frame in terms of the “Process Arts.”

more from earlier in this blog

One of the lessons being learned by those who are defining and developing the Process Arts, by whatever name, involves what Jung referred to in terms of the "return of the repressed." The voices consigned to "not part of Us" are the ones ideally qualified to help us mature into an interdependent and flexible (read likely to survive) Us. In a room/community of Christians the god and goddessparents will be non-Christian because they are the ones who can ask him if he is perpetuating the best of what is traditional. Only the most perspicacious of an In-group can approach this. I feel strongly that godparents should be those who actually feel moved/called to be in the life of the child, rather than appearing to share a poorly understood mythological system. These are the people who love and know him, who happen to be able to inquire with him deeply, when the time comes, whether he really is living the life he believes Christ requires of him. It is precisely their position on the outside but living in a culturally Christian context which allows them the necessary perspective to sharpen his ongoing internal critique of his own behavior. This is what two centuries of rising dominance has made so difficult for Christianity as a whole.

More to come - here and elsewhere.

This work is licensed by its originator, Brandon WilliamsCraig, under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

2006-01-27T22:51:00.000-08:00

(Invitation to parents and godparents to come forward)

Beloved, Baptism invites us into community as a sign of God's love. We welcome new life through water, spirit, and daily means of grace. The movements of grace are free from our conditions and control. Grace frees us to be the people God created us to be.

We welcome all in this assembly, both Christian and not, who celebrate with this family. Your presence is a gift.

Who presents this child for baptism?

[Parents:] "We present Aidan Paul for baptism."

On behalf of the whole Church I ask you, as Aidan’s parents:

Do you acknowledge the personal and systemic presence of evil, injustice, and oppression, accept the freedom and power God gives to resist them in whatever form they present themselves, and repent of the unethical choices in your own lives?

(Parents) I do.

Having heard the stories of God's love living within and among us in Jesus, do you, as part of his Mysterious Body, reaffirm your commitment to follow the example of Christ, trusting in grace, and in union with Christ calling the whole Church to be opened to people of all ages, nations, genders and races?

(Parents) I do.

(To Parents and Godparents)

Will you nurture one another and Aidan in loving community, so that by your teaching and example he may be guided to accept the best of the Christian tradition for himself, and help others build a life of grace, love, and faith?

(those so moved respond aloud) I do.

Let the people say: Amen.

CELEBRATION OF BAPTISM

Loving God, soul’s Mother, spirit’s Father,

Generations of witnesses sing of your liberating love. Through chaos and nothingness you sweep across dark waters bringing forth light. In the days of Noah, through the water you saved those on the ark. After the flood you set in the sky the promise of the rainbow. When you heard the cry of Israel enslaved in Egypt you led them through the River to freedom.

O, sing, all the earth! Speak and tell of God's mercy.

In the fullness of time you sent Jesus, nurtured in the water of the Womb. He was baptized by John and anointed by your Spirit. Jesus called and calls women and men as his disciples to share in baptism, death, and resurrection, to live as his body, and to carry holy gifts of love and mercy to the world.

Declare to the nations the glory among all the people.

Pour out your Holy Spirit to bless this gift of water. Bless he who receives it and clothe him in all that is good, so that all his dyings and risings may reflect the image of Christ.

All praise to you, beloved Creator, through your Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Your steadfast love endures forever. Amen.

Aidan Paul, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

The Holy Spirit work within you, that being born through womb, water, and Spirit you may be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Now it is our joy to welcome Aidan Paul, our new little brother in Christ.

Through baptism you are embraced by the Holy Spirit, welcomed into God's new creation, and called to share in Christ's great celebration of life. We are many and we are one in Christ Jesus. With shouts of joy and songs of thanksgiving we welcome you as a member of the family of Christ. AMEN.

2006-01-26T23:08:00.000-08:00

Paula Craig and Brandon WilliamsCraig in conversation about Baptism

Paula Craig (my mother and a formidable writer and poet) offered the following responses to my first draft rewrite of a Methodist Baptismal Service. My replies to her are in itallics.

I’m challenged by your re-write to articulate what I understand Christian baptism to be.

I had hoped you might be.

Baptism is an essential in-house function. It is initiation into a mystical body calling on a spiritual presence beyond our ideas of community or inclusiveness. This is a truth to be respected, revered (if not understood) and not accommodated to our social needs. Stripping and accommodating is how we have become a woefully uninitiated people…unprepared when fear, evil or grief rises among us.

In-house - agreed, but into the aforementioned body that is both mystical and incarnate, thereby demanding acceptance of the layered reality of both reverence of the transcendent and the obligation to respond to human need. The question is not which to respect but how much of each makes for solid ritual practice by serving both. Human ideas of community and inclusiveness are the only ones we have finally, to project on the divine in hopes of drawing near enough to hear the rueful (and hopefully sometimes fond) shaking of eternal heads at our fantasies. Rewrites become "stripping" or overly "accomodating" when the object becomes averting provocative discomfort rather than refining our suffering with our own malfeasance and ignorance so that it is legitimate.

Do you conceive Aidan’s baptism as being only a commitment of the Christian congregation rather than of parents and sponsors to rear the child in Christ’s holy church (meaning ‘mystical body’)? --a kind of half baptism? Have I missed your point? Or am I clear in honest disagreement?

I'm not certain if we are in disagreement yet, as postions haven't been made clear. This seems like sorting and certanly feels honest and thoroughly agreeable. Part of the question I hear you asking may be a matter of emphasis. As in a funeral, the ceremony is not for the deceased but for the living who remain. While an infant is not the equivalent at the level of consciousness with a corpse and will live with the resonance of the ritual, Baptizing has always struck me as being about the community. I suspect the divine does not require it, if the divine requires anything from us at all. With that said, I intend the rewrites to shift several dynamics, one of which is an emphasis on the immediate community present to the life of the child. This may even help slightly in bringing ideas of God a bit nearer to incarnation from the Way Out There model that makes such a fertile ground for intermediary clergy and lay persons to interpret divine will so poorly. I hope to make clear that it is ALL about the obligation of parents and sponsors to rear the child in the sacred image of Christ’s holy church, which often departs significantly from the more warty corpo-reality.

A LIST OF MY OPINIONS

I absolutely love The Summons for theological and dramatic reasons. I will sing it roughly when you all are singing it to be in solidarity with you ---I can hear all of our Scottish ancestors humming and nodding their heads.

Amen. Sing roughly if you like but certainly with gusto (see Wesley's instructions).

You can’t beat the succinct Traditional Beginning---it says exactly what you’re doing in few words without embroidery. It is timeless, states major symbols and lets everyone define “gift” for themselves. Commentary is nice but unnecessary. The Celebrant addresses the people who are initiating. Your ‘Presentation of the Hopeful’ sounds gracious, recognizing guests and visitors, but it needs a “that” before “aspires”.

Pastor Odette mercifully cut most of my commentary, beyond that the beginning is mostly influenced by her style which is less muscular than "God's mighty acts" and tends to challenge the people within her reach to take responsibility for being the hands of the body which must struggle with all that "salvation" suggests.

I believe this ceremony is the challenging of the parents and sponsors by the church (“On behalf of the whole church I ask you…”) to examine and commit to rearing the child on a definite spiritual path (that doesn’t mean the adults don’t doubt, gritch, and protest), and the parents are challenging the church to examine and commit to being responsible for what they say, do and mean around this child by their bringing him to the altar.

Agreed. Well said.

To repent means to acknowledge one’s own “missing the mark” without reserving any excuse for oneself and deciding to change! (not a feeling). One can sincerely regret one’s losses without repenting of sin. Confession has the drama of renunciation! (not ‘resolve’) which cleanses, the washing that parallels the command “to consecrate yourselves”. Wickedness is way more than cruelty.

Have restored "repent" and more but the drama of confession and wickedness begins the downhill march toward Sin as a literal original state or transgressing against religious law which estranges one from God. I don't think estrangement is possible in the way it is usually understood.
Getting at this will require considerably more space and time. Developmentally speaking, for this particular rite of passage, I'd rather get local and specific with the working of inner and outer conflict that Sin suggests, accessing human judgments like "shameful, deplorable, or utterly wrong." The solution I've chosen is not a winner but it is the best I can do at this time, given my limited understanding both of language and of sin. The best words for this might need to be a three act tragedy to get at it thoroughly.

“Do you accept the freedom…..” is a brilliant sentence that you could spend weeks analyzing. I don’t see how you can be without it. “Acceptance” is key.

Restored - how right you are!

{I get more zealous the more I go on.}

Go, Mom!

How about: “Do you, as part of the Mysterious Body, reaffirm your commitment to follow the example of Christ, trusting in grace, in union with the church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, genders and races?” (You, of all people, would leave this out?)

Restored (and improved)?

“Will you nurture Aidan (this ritual is focused on him) in the community of the Church that by your teaching and example he may be guided to accept divine grace for himself, speak openly of faith, and lead a Christian life.” (not a “nice” life, or a loving life, but a Christian life)

Got it. See my version : Will you nurture one another and Aidan in loving community, so that by your teaching and example he may be guided to accept the best of the Christian tradition for himself, and help others build a life of grace, love, and faith?

(This is a commitment to teach him the mythology that his ancestors have wrestled with and been comforted by—Jesus Loves Me, the Nativity pageant, singing in the choir.)

This is also a committment to guide him toward cocreating Christian culture at the mythological level, taking responsibility for the ways the stories always include interpretation and relational consequences.

I was just wondering: Are Leon and Iris comfortable being godparents/sponsors? Didn’t you tell me they aren’t Christians? Is this accommodating? Are you planning for just parents to be responders? How can non-Christians sponsor initiates into Christ? Knowing you, I bet you and Odette have thrashed this out.

Here is an essential part. Odette made changes (re-orienting questions to parents) and I incorporated your concern. The crux is this. One of the lessons being learned by those who are defining and developing the Process Arts, by whatever name, involves what Jung refered to in terms of the "return of the repressed." The voices consigned to "not part of Us" are the ones ideally qualified to help us mature into an interdependent and flexible (read likely to survive) Us. In a room/community of Christians the god and goddessparents will be non-Christian because they are the ones who can ask him if he is perpetuating the best of what is traditional. Only the most perspicacious of an In-group can approach this. I feel strongly that godparents should be those who actually feel moved/called to be in the life of the child, rather than appearing to share a poorly understood mythological system. These are the people who love and know him, who happen to be able to inquire with him deeply, when the time comes, whether he really is living the life he believes Christ requires of him. It is precisely their position on the outside but living in a culturally Christian context which allows them the necessary perspective to sharpen his ongoing internal critique of his own behavior. This is what two centuries of rising dominance has made so difficult for Christianity as a whole.

Peace be with you, my son----, a ritual is not in “whatever way” but a specific, repeated, handed-down way. The Peace that is to be passed is not just regular peace but The Peace of Christ, the Peace that Passeth Understanding (a genuine wishing that ‘the other’ will experience the mystical union)

Amen, and also with you. And it is our obligation to participate in the specific, handed down, repetitions in a way that is both as conscious as possible and open to the movements of the Spirit in our time, thus the shifts of text. The Peace that Passeth needs grabbing with experiential hooks of regular peace lest we wander bruised in the station pretending that we are on the Spirit's movement that just left without us. You taught me to breathe in and share the genuine wish for the mystical union, but it was by singing over and over the very regular ritual songs that were handed down to you. Not by doing as I was told when it became clear that everybody involved had been passed by understanding.

Loving God, soul’s Mother, spirit’s Father (oh, yes, yes, yes)

Odette doesn't pray this way but I asked if we might reinstate it after her cuts - so it is back. This was right out of your mouth to my tender ears and only later reinforced by latter day post-Jungians.

“……..When you heard the cry of……through the River Jordan” both are major images to recall, necessary to the story. Typo on ‘ark.’ “Sing, all the earth. Speak and tell of God’s mercy.” (because it is not about personal activity). My preference: “He called and calls people as his disciples to share in baptism, death, and resurrection and to live as his body to carry to the world holy gifts of love and mercy.” I love and am inspired by everything from “Declare these works…… to shouts and songs.

Restored "cry" and "River," "Speak and tell," and part of your preference. I'm glad the rest caught you. I'm hoping for both shouts and songs. If nobody jumps up I may have to lead.

Rituals are a gift of the Ancestors to protect us from being trendy at big moments of our lives. I’m sure the whole thing will be a lovely sacrament. I love you all, Mom

I share your wariness of trends. If you meet anybody else carefully and cocreatively rewriting bits of ancestral ritual, trying to honor and preserve the most life giving and mysterious parts of being mortal in the presence of eternity let me know. I'd love to feel like that is a trend.

I love you too. I can't sufficiently express how fantastic it is to have this exchange. You're the most.

2006-01-13T14:19:00.000-08:00

Making dendrites?

I inquired of Aidan, our 3.5mo old, if he is "high-functioning today? "Soaking up everything like a sponge? Making dendrites?"

What are dedrites?

den·drite (dĕn'drīt') n.
A mineral crystallizing in another mineral in the form of a branching or treelike mark. A rock or mineral bearing such a mark or marks. A branched protoplasmic extension of a nerve cell that conducts impulses from adjacent cells inward toward the cell body. A single nerve may possess many dendrites. Also called dendron.

One of many branching, treelike mineral and inwardly conductive nerve cells. Also an image, a projection of something imagined scientifically, from a world that is too small to see without mechanical aid.

This is not an arguement about being scientific or trusting what other people belive or tell you; certainly not in the sense one might listen to someone argue the moon's existence is dubious because no one in the room has actually touched it. Rather, it suggests a collecting of the various ways something exists, an inquiry into the ways it is associated to other known images in a zone where generalities are helpful to understanding a field of experience rather than unhelpful, impeding the progress of rational analysis, for example.

So, I can't touch a dendrite in the same way I can touch my child. Nonetheless I inquire, more than a little humorously, after his dendrite production process, perhaps as a shorthand to remind myself what he may be up to right now, aside from napping, consuming milk, and excreting every known bodily fluid imaginable. This is certainly a process to which I can and do connect with the naked eye or hand.

Naked eye, hand, body, baby, parent - all within a more familiar frame than "dendrite," which is why, I guess, the question is funny, in so far as it is. Touching conveys a kind of reality linked to the way in which sensorial learning is received differently from faith in an abstraction, like "dendrite." In which most folks believes without direct experience, or accept the authority of an expert pronouncement of fact or definition.

Perhaps Nakedness is the basic unit of human measure since, regardless of the collectivity of an imagining unconscious, our conscious experience mostly extends as far as our sensorial range before needing additional encouragement.

How far can a foot travel and an arm reach? What of seeing stars with "the naked eye" and feeling the shape of this world as related by my personal and individual hands?

Both literal and obviously metaphorical nakedness are a part of being human.

"Some of them told us that they were standing naked before the gas chambers when they were suddenly ordered to get dressed and were sent to our camp."

"When it comes to sin, I think God wants us to come to him in much the same way that my wife came to me that night. He wants us to take it all off and stand there before him naked."

"Francis Boyle, a professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law at Champaign, who opposed the 1991 Gulf War, said that "at least President Bush went through the motions" and got a Security Council resolution and authority from Congress under the War Powers Act to support that war. Clinton had neither, he said. "Clinton is standing naked before the world in this aggression, except for a British fig leaf," Boyle said."

"Before Lenny, comedy consisted of hacks who were doing "My girlfriend is so fat.." and "A Rabbi, a Polac, and a Greek walk into a bar..." type jokes. Lenny revolutionized the comedy scene by striping away the superficial banality and willingly standing naked before audiences exposing his thoughts and ideas. He paved the way for the Richard Pryor's, George Carlin's and Bill Hicks' of the world."

Hmm. I guess I'm getting in contact, through extensions from a central idea, with potentially related adjacent ideas that are conductive inward, as associative impulses, toward the imagined body. A dendritic process?

2006-01-11T23:03:00.000-08:00

Word work

Participating in organized religious practice has both potentially sublime and problematic elements. In this case, the question is basically "if we want to encourage the flourishing of the more life giving bits, how do we work with the deeply imbedded patterns of oppression that do not fall into the "spiritually useful goads" category.

As "people of the book" a certain amount of faithful response must take the form of rewrites.

Here is a work in progess.

Aidan will be christened January 29th, 2006. This is the Christian sacrament of baptizing and naming an infant as it is practiced in the Methodist church. The United Methodist Hymnal provides a "Baptimal Covenant II" service for use "only when children or others unable to take the vows themselves are being baptized" It goes something like this (my version in italics below may be compared to the original on pages 39-43 in the UMHymnal):

Intro: persons come forward during an appropriate hymn (maybe "Silence, Frenzied, Unclean Spirits?" UMH 264 or possibly "He's Trampling the Unrighteous with Hooves of Iron?") (better go with "This is a world of love"-with word changes from This Is My Father's World UMH 144, or Be Thou My Vision UMH 451, or best "The Summons" in The Faith We Sing 2130

Traditional beginning...
Pastor: Brothers and sisters in Christ: Through the Sacrament of Baptism we are initiated into Christ's holy church. We are incorporated into God's mighty acts of salvation and given new birth through water and the Spirit. All this is God's gift, offered to us without price.

a shift might look like

Celebrant: Beloved Church, Baptism invites us to enter community, bathed and initiated in signs of God's love that gift our wild and precious lives. We are many and also one body, moving in the world we know in new ways, tending soul, welcoming new life in ourselves and others through water, spirit, and daily signs of all kinds. These mysterious movements of grace are free from conditions, like a newborn given without price, but also in the sense of insisting on liberation from the mercenary obsessions that drive so much of our world.

Presentation of the Hopeful:

Celebrant: We invite those adults to come forward who bring a child for baptism. All others in this assembly, both Christian and not, please participate with words, song, and silence as you feel moved and hear that this is a reconciling congregation, aspires to love unconditionally, and would not have you be other than you are before loving you.

[Parents:] "We present Aidan Paul for baptism."

Church, I ask you:

Taking stock of your own choices, do you acknowledge the personal and systemic presence of evil, injustice, and oppression and feel sincere regret for the destructive choices in which you have participated?

(those so moved respond aloud) I do.

Do you commit to make and call for whatever changes are necessary to circumvent cruelty taking root and flourishing, and resolve to deepen your understanding and trust in order to behave more compassionately as you live?

(those so moved respond aloud) I do.

Have you heard the stories about God's love living within and among us in Jesus' unconditional love for every creature, and do you feel the deep pull to follow this example yourself, calling for the whole church to do the same?

(those so moved respond aloud) I do.

Do you, as one mysterious body with many beautiful and living parts, reaffirm your commitment to follow the examples of Christ, therby understanding deeply the ways in which we cause each other harm, so that you will not fall into these habits in the future?

(those so moved respond aloud) I do.

Will you nurture one another and Aidan by making "Church" synonymous with loving and responsive Community, so that by your teaching and example he and all children may be guided to accept and speak openly of grace, faith, and the leading of a loving life?

(those so moved respond aloud) I do.

Let the people say: Amen.

Peace be with you. And also with you.

Please turn to those around you and offer them, in whatever way moves you, an invitation to share in this Peace...

Let us pray.

Loving God, soul's Mother, spirit's Father,

These are the stories of our people for generations. Through chaos and nothingness you sweep across dark waters bringing forth light. In the days of Noah, through the water you saved those on the arc. After the flood you set in the clouds the rainbow. When you saw Israel enslaved in Egypt you led them through the sea. Their children you brought through water to land you had promised.

Sing, all the earth. Speak and spread mercy each day.

In the fullness of time you sent Jesus, nurtured in the water of the Womb. He went down into the water, was baptized by John, and anointed by your Spirit. He called and calls women and men as his disciples to share in baptism, death, and resurrection, and as his hands to carry to the world holy gifts of love and mercy.

Declare these works to the nations, and glory among all the people.

Pour out your Holy Spirit to bless this gift of water and he who receives it, to wash away any reasons for guilt as he lives and clothe him in all that is good, so that throughout his life his dyings and risings may reflect the image of Christ.

All praise to you, Beloved Creator, through your Son Jesus Christ, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and loves for ever. Amen.

I baptise you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

The Holy Spirit work within you, that being born through womb, water, and Spirit you may be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Now it is our joy to welcome our new little brother in Christ.

Through baptism you are embraced by the Holy Spirit, welcomed into God's new creation, and called to share in Christ's great celebration of life. We are many and we are one in Christ Jesus. With shouts of joy and songs of thanksgiving we welcome you as a member of the family of Christ.

Natch. Followed by shouts and songs...

Comments?

2005-12-09T11:10:00.000-08:00

Be afeared, be way afeared.

Chris Wicke: here's something slightly disturbing...

bdwilliamscraig: Damned Scary "Outsource It," but in a culture where the civic religion is The Market, the gods are everywhere.

Ogre to Slay? Outsource It to Chinese

By DAVID BARBOZA

Published: December 9, 2005

FUZHOU, China - One of China's newest factories operates here in the basement of an old warehouse. Posters of World of Warcraft and Magic Land hang above a corps of young people glued to their computer screens, pounding away at their keyboards in the latest hustle for money.

Natalie Behring for The New York Times

Young Chinese men playing video games in an online-gaming center, one of hundreds that take fees to help players reach higher levels.

Farming for Virtual Gold

Enlarge This Image

Natalie Behring for The New York Times

Workers have strict quotas and are supervised by bosses who equip them with computers, software and Internet connections to thrash online trolls, gnomes and ogres.

The people working at this clandestine locale are "gold farmers." Every day, in 12-hour shifts, they "play" computer games by killing onscreen monsters and winning battles, harvesting artificial gold coins and other virtual goods as rewards that, as it turns out, can be transformed into real cash.

That is because, from Seoul to San Francisco, affluent online gamers who lack the time and patience to work their way up to the higher levels of gamedom are willing to pay the young Chinese here to play the early rounds for them.

"For 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, my colleagues and I are killing monsters," said a 23-year-old gamer who works here in this makeshift factory and goes by the online code name Wandering. "I make about $250 a month, which is pretty good compared with the other jobs I've had. And I can play games all day."

He and his comrades have created yet another new business out of cheap Chinese labor. They are tapping into the fast-growing world of "massively multiplayer online games," which involve role playing and often revolve around fantasy or warfare in medieval kingdoms or distant galaxies.

With more than 100 million people worldwide logging on every month to play interactive computer games, game companies are already generating revenues of $3.6 billion a year from subscriptions, according to DFC Intelligence, which tracks the computer gaming market.

For the Chinese in game-playing factories like these, though, it is not all fun and games. These workers have strict quotas and are supervised by bosses who equip them with computers, software and Internet connections to thrash online trolls, gnomes and ogres.

As they grind through the games, they accumulate virtual currency that is valuable to game players around the world. The games allow players to trade currency to other players, who can then use it to buy better armor, amulets, magic spells and other accoutrements to climb to higher levels or create more powerful characters.

The Internet is now filled with classified advertisements from small companies - many of them here in China - auctioning for real money their powerful figures, called avatars. These ventures join individual gamers who started marketing such virtual weapons and wares a few years ago to help support their hobby.

"I'm selling an account with a level-60 Shaman," says one ad from a player code-named Silver Fire, who uses QQ, the popular Chinese instant messaging service here in China. "If you want to know more details, let's chat on QQ."

This virtual economy is blurring the line between fantasy and reality. A few years ago, online subscribers started competing with other players from around the world. And before long, many casual gamers started asking other people to baby-sit for their accounts, or play while they were away.

That has spawned the creation of hundreds - perhaps thousands - of online gaming factories here in China. By some estimates, there are well over 100,000 young people working in China as full-time gamers, toiling away in dark Internet cafes, abandoned warehouses, small offices and private homes.

Most of the players here actually make less than a quarter an hour, but they often get room, board and free computer game play in these "virtual sweatshops."

"It's unimaginable how big this is," says Chen Yu, 27, who employs 20 full-time gamers here in Fuzhou. "They say that in some of these popular games, 40 or 50 percent of the players are actually Chinese farmers."

For many online gamers, the point is no longer simply to play. Instead they hunt for the fanciest sword or the most potent charm, or seek a shortcut to the thrill of sparring at the highest level. And all of that is available - for a price.

"What we're seeing here is the emergence of virtual currencies and virtual economies," says Peter Ludlow, a longtime gamer and a professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. "People are making real money here, so these games are becoming like real economies."

The Chinese government estimates that there are 24 million online gamers in China, meaning that nearly one in four Internet users here play online games.

And many online gaming factories have come to resemble the thousands of textile mills and toy factories that have moved here from Taiwan, Hong Kong and other parts of the world to take advantage of China's vast pool of cheap labor.

"They're exploiting the wage difference between the U.S. and China for unskilled labor," says Edward Castronova, a professor of telecommunications at Indiana University and the author of "Synthetic Worlds," a study of the economy of online games. "The cost of someone's time is much bigger in America than in China."

But gold farming is controversial. Many hard-core gamers say the factories are distorting the games. What is more, the big gaming companies say the factories are violating the terms of use of the games, which forbid players to sell their virtual goods for real money. They have vowed to crack down on those suspected of being small businesses rather than individual gamers.

"We know that such business exists, and we are against it," says Guolong Jin, a spokesman for N-Sina, a Chinese joint venture with NC Soft, the Korean creator of Lineage, one of the most popular online games. "Playing games should be fun and entertaining. It's not a way to trade and make money."

Blizzard Entertainment, a division of Vivendi Universal and the creator of World of Warcraft, one of the world's most popular games with more than 4.5 million online subscribers, has also called the trading illegal.

But little has been done to halt the mushrooming black market in virtual goods, many available for sale on eBay, Yahoo and other online sites.

On eBay, for example, 100 grams of World of Warcraft gold is available for $9.99 or two über characters from EverQuest for $35.50. It costs $269 to be transported to Level 60 in Warcraft, and it typically takes 15 days to get the account back at the higher level.

In fact, the trading of virtual property is so lucrative that some big online gaming companies have jumped into the business, creating their own online marketplaces.

Sony Online Entertainment, the creator of EverQuest, a popular medieval war and fantasy game, recently created Station Exchange. Sony calls the site an alternative to "crooked sellers in unsanctioned auctions."

Other start-up companies are also rushing in, acting as international brokers to match buyers and sellers in different countries, and contracting out business to Chinese gold-farming factories.

"We're like a stock exchange. You can buy and sell with us," says Alan Qiu, a founder of the Shanghai-based Ucdao.com. "We farm out the different jobs. Some people say, 'I want to get from Level 1 to 60,' so we find someone to do that."

Now there are factories all over China. In central Henan Province, one factory has 300 computers. At another factory in western Gansu Province, the workers log up to 18 hours a day.

The operators are mostly young men like Luo Gang, a 28-year-old college graduate who borrowed $25,000 from his father to start an Internet cafe that morphed into a gold farm on the outskirts of Chongqing in central China.

Mr. Luo has 23 workers, who each earn about $75 a month.

"If they didn't work here they'd probably be working as waiters in hot pot restaurants," he said, "or go back to help their parents farm the land - or more likely, hang out on the streets with no job at all."

Here in coastal Fujian Province, several gold farm operators offered access to their underground facilities recently, on the condition that their names not be disclosed because the legal and tax status of some of the operations is in question.

One huge site here in Fuzhou has over 100 computers in a series of large, dark rooms. About 70 players could be seen playing quietly one weekday afternoon, while some players slept by the keyboard.

"We recruit through newspaper ads," said the 30-something owner, whose workers range from 18 to 25 years old. "They all know how to play online games, but they're not willing to do hard labor."

Another operation here has about 40 computers lined up in the basement of an old dilapidated building, all playing the same game. Upstairs were unkempt, closet-size dormitory rooms where several gamers slept on bunk beds; the floors were strewn with hot pots.

The owners concede that the risks are enormous. The global gaming companies regularly shut accounts they suspect are engaged in farming. And the government here is cracking down on Internet addiction now, monitoring more closely how much time each player spends online.

To survive, the factories employ sophisticated gaming strategies. They hide their identities online, hire hackers to seek out new strategies, and create automatic keys to bolster winnings.

But at some point, says Mr. Yu, the Fuzhou factory operator who started out selling computer supplies and now has an army of gamers outside his office here, he knows he will have to move on.

"My ultimate goal is to do Internet-based foreign trade," he says, sitting in a bare office with a solid steel safe under his desk. "Online games are just my first step into the business."

Virtual Achievement for Hire: It's Only Wrong if You Get Caught (December 9, 2005)

Video Gaming: Alternative Rx for Xbox Fever (December 7, 2005)

South Koreans React to Video Games' Depictions of North Koreans (December 7, 2005)

Virtual Stars Compete for Real Money (December 6, 2005)

The Gamer: What Good Is Sitting Alone Killing Fiends? (December 3, 2005)

2005-12-08T15:29:00.000-08:00

Towards the end of one of his recent public talks, I asked Huston Smith for thoughts on what many are calling "neoshamanism," (Dan Noel's The Soul of Shamanism: Western Fantasies, Imaginal Realities), with which I connect "new monasticism" (Thomas Moore's Meditations: On the Monk Who Dwells in Daily Life), and imagine to be "a form of psychic community service" (Pat Monaghan writing about Arnold Mindell's The Shaman's Body : A New Shamanism for Transforming Health, Relationships, and the Community). In summary, he was very excited by the idea as a direction in which western religious experience might develop, is not impressed with most popular uses of the word (shaman), and recomends a return to more ancient roots which would make the prefix (neo) problematic. I'll ask him if I may post some or all of a recording of his talk in our member area.

At any rate, I'll need to get considerably clearer about my own use of the terms suggested above and this seems to be a fine place to do so, at least in part, by outlining howI see and hear others using these ideas as well as what I believe is implied and unsaid throughout. If I lapse into excessivley "baroque prose" (thanks to my Diss Advisor, Dennis Slattery, for the phrase) please say so in the comments area. What will be developed here briefly will be folded out in full (and with help) within the member area.

2005-12-06T09:04:00.001-08:00

Green Men? Research off? Copenhagen area 1st c B.C. and Inca with identical deities?

Many, many thanks to Iris Mcginnis for pointing this out.

"The Green Man in Antiquity" from p41 of Green Man: The Archetypes of our Oneness with the Earth by William Anderson with Photogrpahs by Clive Hicks. ISBN 0-00-599255-9
The text reads 27 Cernunnos as a horned deity surrounded by animals on an inner plaque of the Gundestrup Cauldron, First century B.C. Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen.

"Pachacamac: God of Earthquakes" from p89 of The Book of Gods and Goddesses: A Visual Directory of Ancient and Modern Deities by Eric Chaline. The image is a line drawing with no citation of source. ISBN 0-06-073256-3

Many many thanks to Iris McGinnis for pointing these out and providing the texts to scan.

2005-11-30T10:59:00.000-08:00

Questions at issue:
If God (of Sunday) is dead but gods still abound, is The Market the replacement monotheism seeping the globe? One among many? Better refered to as Secular Marketism?
Where may this be tracked, and how is best? What qualities are consequences of this worship? What counter examples present themselves?

Memorable Quotes from A Christmas Story (1983)

from memorable quotes http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085334/quotes
Narrator: Some men are Baptists, others Catholics, my father was an Oldsmobile man.
Mr. Parker: That son of a bitch would freeze up in the middle of summer on the equator!
Mother: Little pitchers!
Mr. Parker: Thanks... hold it!
[the furnace conks out]
Mr. Parker: It's a clinker! That blasted stupid furnace dadgummit!
[he walks down a few stairs and falls the rest of the way down]
Mr. Parker: Damn skates!
[coughing]
Mr. Parker: Oh for cripes sake open up the damper will ya? Who the hell turned it all the way down? AGAIN! Oh blasted!
Narrator: In the heat of battle my father wove a tapestry of obscenities that as far as we know is still hanging in space over Lake Michigan.

December 13, 2004 Blacktop Jungle: Auto Intoxication

from http://mckeesport.dementia.org/blog/000156.html

Garrison Keillor has written about how car-buying in fictional Lake Wobegon, Minn., was "a matter of faith." According to Keillor, Catholics bought Chevrolets from Krebsbach Chevrolet; Protestants bought Fords from Bunsen Motors. One Lutheran who was "tempted by Chevyship," he writes, was coaxed into buying a Ford by his pastor, and it turned out to be a lemon.

Keillor was exaggerating, of course, but it wasn't that long ago when car ownership was a matter of some faith. Some families swore by General Motors, or Fords, or Chryslers. Another humorist, Jean Shepherd, wrote about how his father ("the Old Man") was a solid Oldsmobile man.

Macy's Parade

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051124/ap_on_re_us/thanksgiving_parade_16

NEW YORK - A giant balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade snagged a street light and caused part of it to fall, injuring a woman and a child.

The accident happened in Times Square near the end of the nationally televised parade when the tethers on the "M&M's Chocolate Candies" balloon became entangled on the head of the street lamp and knocked it off.

"It happened so fast," said parade spectator Karim Simmons. "It dropped like a rock."

The accident marred the holiday celebration but the injuries were less serious than in the parade eight years ago when another balloon knocked over a lightpost, critically injuring a woman and prompting changes in parade rules.

The Macy's parade started in 1924 and has been an annual tradition, canceled only in the World War II years of 1942 to 1944.

The balloons, including Nickelodeon's Dora the Explorer, the parade's first Latina balloon character, shared top billing with 10 marching bands, 27 floats and performers such as LeAnn Rimes, Aaron Neville and Kristin Chenoweth.

Also see http://www.macysparade.com

One of the largest (resources expended and people paying attention) events of its kind in the world, in contrast with an earlier way that what was most valuable was celebrated publicly.

http://www.elsalvador.org/home.nsf/0/be94ced49a416a4685256b09005abbd8?OpenDocument

Holy Week Is very much celebrated throughout the country since Catholic Romans are predominant. Salvadorans celebrate Holy Week before Resurrection Sunday or Easter Sunday. Processions are held everywhere in the country with images of Jesus carrying the cross. Daily religious services are carried out. A place of interest is Sonsonate, El Salvador's fourth most important city, well known for its street carpets made of colorful flowers and colored sawdust that are created on the street of the procession. This Holy Week tradition attracts visitors from all over the country.

Moriones Festival

http://www.stuartxchange.org/Festivals.html

Boac, Mogpog & Gasal, Marinduque
Holy Week
The towns of Boac, Mogpog and Gasan in the island province of Marinduque become the stages for this 200 year old religious folk festival celebrated during the Lenten season. Morion (mask or visor) is that part of the medieval Roman armor that covers the face. Moriones refers to the masked and costumed penitents who march around the town as barbaric Romans. The festival climaxes with the reenactment of the beheading of Longinus, the centurion who pierced the side of Jesus. As legend tells it, blind in one eye, his sight was restored when Christ's blood splattered on his eye. A unique Holy Week experience, the Moriones festival is much more than the colorful Roman mask and costumes. It is a window into the religiosity of a culture exhibiting itself through a variety of traditional lenten rituals and presentations: the senaculo, passion readings, the reenactment of the Christ's cross-carrying walk to Calvary, penitents and flaggelants, the late afternoon candlelit processions of religious floats and the town faithful.

2005-09-16T23:36:00.000-07:00

From my site, in development, and open to constructive input.

Brandon WilliamsCraig asserts the copy right to be involved in decision making regarding use of all original articulations on this site, it's HTML content and files, and on the following original ideas and terms articulated here, as well as at abcglobal.net, beamish.org, guardiansofpeace.org, and processarts.org. Though by contemporary law I "own" these framing ideas, this approach seems profoundly restrictive and contrary to their development. They do represent my considerable creative effort as well as that of the persons who have had influential collaborative input. I/we use this cultural fantasy of Ownership to request the building of relationship around creative collaboration. Put more simply, if you want to use these terms and ideas contact me and include me in the process by name and by making collaborative choices.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

"This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use." For instance, the original idea "Process Arts" suggests the following interrelated ideas:

1) Human cultures are shifting toward tending the way of interaction at least as attentively as the products that result. How is becoming consciously as important as What we make. Examples of this trend, the language for which originated in the new "Psychology" of the 20th Century, include coaching, the wide use of outside-system consultants and facilitators, mediation, therapy, etc.

2) Conscious and unarticulated methods are becoming more and more prevalent which assist in this shift and contribute to building Communities Of Understanding which are capable of dealing with the complexity of contemporary abstract systems only because many people are working together on how they work together. Examples include Processwork (Mindell), Quaker Meeting, Focusing (Gendlin), Organizational Development, Council Circles (indigenous), Non-violent Communication (Rosenberg), mythography (Doty), Group Therapy, Community Building (Peck), many forms of martial and performing arts, etc. A fine place to begin expanding this list for yourself might be here.

3) Naming and thereby qualifying these "Process Arts" by how they are practiced, rather than who founded/owns them or what they tangibly produce, is a participation in an educational intervention in culture that values this shift at least as deeply as the training in the Liberal Arts modern nations almost universally speak of promoting. Thus process-level education is expected as widely as reading, writing, arithmetic, and their various scientific products, and leaders may be expected to have at least a working familiarity with process-level skills.

When you refer to some method, approach, or application as a "Process Art," please credit me (Brandon Williamscraig) with origination of the term and provide your own clarifications as necessary. Here is one example where this has been done well.

Associative Inquiry ^TM; Analogical System Knowledgebase and the ASK acronym and logo ^TM; Associative Inclusion Dynamics and the AID acronym and logo^TM			Process Arts TM, and The Process Arts TM Association for Cultural Movement and Education ^SM
Systemic Whole Awareness Training ^TM			Guardians of Peace ^TM, and The Guardians of Peace ^TM, including the *gpx* designation and logos
Association for Building Community ^SM, ABCGlobal ^TM, and ABCglobal.net ^TM			Community of Understanding ^SM
			Aimail ^TM, Wholefroods ^TM ,
Culturopoesis ^TM
Mythopathic ^TM
Imagenerative ^TM


Click here for glossary of terms

2005-07-31T18:20:00.000-07:00

Recommend Doniger

"These stories, for all their Machiavellian labyrinths, have much to tell us about our basic ideas about authenticity, identity, and the relationship between public and private selves. They are myths as I define them in the broadest sense: stories that are not necessarily connected with a particular religion but that have the force of religious beliefs, that endure in the cultural imagination as religious texts do, and that deal with deeply held beliefs that religions, too, often traffic in. Such myths are often invoked by people in real-life situations that duplicate the situations they have heard about in myths. There are myths associated both with self-imitation in general and with the more particular form of passing as what you are. In this article I would like to explore some of the implications of self-imitation in racial passing, gender passing, and political passing."

2005-03-31T08:00:00.000-08:00

Introduction

My dream this morning, hard upon waking, is that today is my wedding day. At the top of the stairs that rise from the entry way inside the front door, I see my resplendent bride standing in the difuse sunlight, beside her a hastily selected maid of honor - a friend from work.
I know that I have succeeded. My deception has been complete and she has come all the way to this day not knowing that it is a sham. There will be no guests. Not even what is left of her far flung family will find their way to a chapel door (behind which no sacred space has been reserved) because the ones who might have managed the journey have not heard the call to begine it. The intricate invitations over which we spent so much time in agony and reversals, I had placed by an unsuspecting assistant in the socially responsible recycling bin far away from where they might be seen. There is no aesthetic florist or tasty nourishment scheduled for delivery as promised. No witness will arrive in a flowing robe to sanctify our future.

She trusts me to summon in-the-flesh all the necessary guests and merchants to make this ritual day real and binding to support tomorrow's mystery of our life together and make yesterday's suffering somehow worth the trouble. I show her reassuring evidence of our strangely tollerable growing debt, our first shared reality and initation, marked by reams of receipts and printed acknowledgments generated in the virtual world of my expertise and then cancelled beneath her radar, if not false from the first.

Just before I wake to a tick-tock morning in which there are keyboards with which to transmit this story, I am standing inside the entry door in my heavy creditcard tuxedo with one dewy, perfect question coolly pinned to my mind like a refrigerated boutonierre: will my deception matter? What will she do?

~~~~~~~~~

When the groggy world wakes and goes about its business, the sun brings various kinds of mornings in circles to those already at work in the dark. In that early dark that cannot divorce itself from the day before but can spin a claim on the day to come, in what dream does humanity find itself? What dilemmas present themselves? What questions linger through bathing and eating, for those who can, to accompany hands and feet as they reach step-by-step to create today from yesterday's preparations?

It seems to me that an honerable response to these cultural questions might cover quite a bit of ground, whether concrete or imaginal or "natural" or psychologized or gardened or asphalted or political or mythological or undecided. This journey of exploration seems required because even the simplest bits of life are irreducibly composite: possessed of multilayered interactions, a local gravity generated by the consequences of creative traumas, and morphed by and impacting the world around.

If there are impacts and consequences both dreamed and carried into the waking culture, then dreaming seems to promise coming shocks at several levels, but of what kind and is that certain? It would seem like the bride is being groomed for something. My questions at this end seem to deal with what "matters" and "what will be done?"

My fear upon waking is that there will be no more reaction than a shrug and nothing to do but drift...apart, together, whichever. There were receipts and invitations in evidence weren't there? She loves me, doesn't she, and therefore must forgive and trust that even my ellaborate dramas of misdirection will turn out for the best on some end day? It's no big deal.

The difficulty lies in how much that sucks. Like a vacuumming of flesh from bone today, with a machine plugged in to the end of a story imagined as ending with Disney spells. Like heaving polluted air into lungs working three times as hard because what is poisonous has been industriously welded to and almost cannot be pried away from what is required for life. Like being abandoned to swim in the consequences of broken promises native to a world that measures success by evaded prosecutions and the size of off-shore bank accounts and accumulated influence hidden beneath complexity whitewashed smooth with terrified certitude. Like a list of links, associations, and comparisons which suggest a quantity of supporting information but which may fail over time to congeal as deeper understanding. Like the co-existence of radiant sunlight on bridal gowns just upstairs from syntheticaly shiny, well and professionally dressed, practiced deception.

And this dream and this deception and this world are mine. And yours. Now what?

1248pst20050331

2004-12-31T10:34:00.000-08:00

William Sansom writes on page twenty six of A Book of Christmas:

"one of the objects of these pages will be to investigate the past, search out the teetotums, the gilded apples, the Noah's Ark peg-tops of the old-fashioned Christmas tree; to investigate wassail and lambswool, piñatas and posadas; to look everywhere in Europe for survivals of the old horned god, like the Welsh Mari Lwyd; to note how very pagan a Christian festival can be—always remembering that such disinterrments are only part of the luxury of knowledge, and that the proper Christian gifts to the world of love and gentleness outweigh any coincidental heritage of idolatry.”

Brandon here, with an invitation.

Tis the season to consider the reasons. I wonder if there aren’t several observations out there in web-land sprung anew from the most recent, rapidly passing transition through the dark.

Positions occur to me, as an admittedly over-used starting point, through which I would like to suggest we might find a way together into the sophisticating depths the dark suggests. For instance, I feel disinclined to minimize “such disinterrments” as “only part of the luxury of knowledge” and feel obligated to speak for this shovel work as yielding some of the finest fruits of the knowledge accretion process. It seems by turns an essential observance in a secular Christianizing culture that “the proper Christian gifts to the world [are] love and gentleness” and a colossally farcical disservice to frame this in terms of “outweigh[ing a] heritage” reduced to “idolatry” and dismissed as “coincidental”.

I don’t mean to suggest this is a new objection to an argument that carries great weight in and of itself, or that the author is particularly worthy of attention, only that digging around in Christmas and thoughts thereabout seems more fruitful for a far-flung familiars in the time of fruitcake than it may prove after.

Anyone interested in sharing some thoughts in lieu of nog?

2004-11-15T19:20:00.000-08:00

A reading list from a 2003 Yale Alumni Mag

Honey Bear by Dixie Willson
Les Rougon-Macquart
Comedie Humaine
Stephen Crane's Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath
The Right Stuff
Evgeny Zamyatin's "We"
John O'Hara
James M. Cain
Evelyn Waugh
Mencken
Thomas Wolfe
Carl Van Vechten
Jimmy Breslin
Gay Talese
Celine
Henry Miller
The Bonfire of the Vanities
A Man in Full.
When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi by David Maraniss
Alexandra Robbins' Secrets of The Tomb: Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the Hidden Paths of Power
Daniel Deronda by George Eliot
Julia Glass' Three Junes.
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Alan M. Dershowitz's Shouting Fire: Civil Liberties in a Turbulent Age.
Charles Darwin: Voyaging and The Power of Place by Janet Browne
Carl Zimmer, Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea.
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale by Herman Melville
Glenn Fleishman's The Wireless Networking Startup Kit
The Koran
Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth
The Growth of Biological Thought by Ernst Mayr
Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy
David Quammen: Monster of God: The Man-Eating Predator in the Jungles of History and the Mind
The King James Bible
Sherwin B. Nuland's How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
Tom Perrotta's Joe College
The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James 1908
Stephen Sandy's Surface Impressions: A Poem.
The Republic - Plato
Anthony Kronman, The Lost Lawyer: Failing Ideals of the Legal Profession.
Confessiones by Augustine
Garry Wills Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America
Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession by Janet Malcolm
Ann Packer's The Dive from Clausen's Pier and Mendocino and Other Stories.
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
Steve Olson: Mapping Human History: Genes, Race, and Our Common Origins
The Complete Essays of Montaigne translated by Donald M. Frame
Jennifer Ackerman: Chance in the House of Fate: A Natural History of Heredity

2004-11-02T21:00:00.000-08:00

Ad for Tucker Carlson Unfiltered on PBS TV:

"You can always tell when someone's not telling the truth because he doesn't speak clearly.
Euphemism is always a cover either for ignorance or dishonesty. In other words, if you can't state it in a clear, simple, declarative sentence either you don't know what you're talking about or you're trying to prevent me from understanding you. Both bug me."

I wonder.

2004-10-21T15:10:00.000-07:00

Brandon's response so far:

Didache (which is very cool in many ways) resource: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/didache.html
Though fascinating and applicable, it "has continued to be one of the most disputed of early Christian texts." My fantasy find not only involves a suprising and more obviously authoritative text, but one that fails to recommend "you bondmen shall be subject to your masters as to a type of God, in modesty and fear."

An "anonymous" voice here suggested that the Bible had been outlawed everywere to allow for complete Papal control, and also pointed out the difference between slavery in the First Century and more recent history in the Southern United States.
While these points are important, an anonymous voice is difficult to engage in this context.
If "Anonymous" would like to be a full part of this, he or she may feel free to appear under a recognizable name.

Question(s) that come up:

"It stresses compassion and personal ethics over our modern "outward" ethics, and shows the "abominations" of the First Century Christians were things like "turning away the needy, weighing down with toil the oppressed, [being] advocates of the rich." "

What happened? Goof Troop Ag

2004-10-21T14:20:00.000-07:00

Rufel has offered:

Except that the Bible as Bible has all of those "problems with Judeo-Christianity" in it -- let's not even talk about the OT God who would test the "righteous" believers by ordering them to sacrifice their son and then staying their hand just before the knife drops upon the poor innocents' neck.

And as for Christianity, well, what flavour? For the the early church of Augustine's time certainly didn't survive the Great Schism that split the Christian world between East and West (Orthodox and Catholicism, respectively) in the 11th century (1054, as I recall).

And as for Dark Ages... that term is a huge misnomer, for the Medieval World was a diverse place in which some places where certainly "dark" but other places where shining beacons of culture, like Byzantium. (Believe me, after living with two medievalists, one of whom has a doctorate in Medieval Studies, I've become convinced of this.)

And as for the Bible being outlawed, the majority of Biblical teaching was oral -- literacy rates among ordinary folk certainly didn't include being able to read ecclesiastical Latin, which was the universal language of the Western Christian Church at that time. In my own doctoral research in medieval drama, I've found out that for the ordinary folk mystery cycles, that dramatized the Bible from Creation to Judgement Day, was a more effective means of spreading the faith than *reading* it, because, except for a dedicated few, who had time to learn to read and then to read the Bible?

And, no, my research has shown that it wasn't the clergy who wrote the plays -- it was the laity. That's why the plays were so popular -- they were the film festivals of their day.

This sacred/secular dichotomy isn't a medieval thing... in fact, the medieval world saw the sacred and secular as mixed... Manicheanism (this dual-split) was a heretical notion, unfortunately passed down from the residue of Augustine's own dabbling with Manicheanism before he became a Christian, and it was passed down, whole-hog, into fundamentalist strains of Christianity.

So, Eric, I agree with you on Augustine -- although I still think he, like Nietzsche, was a guy whose followers became more extreme than he ever was. The other points I kind of go, "Ummm..."

2004-10-21T14:09:00.000-07:00

Sometimes tangential comments on other blogs can get a bit out of hand.

I've brought just such an attached thread here because I dig it.

This is the thread begun by my response to Lisa's questions which I hope may develop here more deeply than is characteristic of most blogs. if things get lost in the daily shuffle, please search for terms you rememeber.

Eric's collected responses/suggestions/positions (admittedly taken out of the conversational order):

In the last post [Brandon] said he would like to find a discovery that shows Jesus didn't really espouse most of the modern theological views projected on Him. Well, I have to admit, that is an even better answer than the Ark of the Covenant, and while there may or may not be something out there that would fit the bill, there is something that would start.

It's called the Didache. I probably told you about it too. It's an awesome manuscript found a little over a hundred years ago and now universally accepted as a genuine document written no later than AD 70. While it perpetuates many of our ideas, it also opens the door to a MUCH broader interpretation, and it also shows us that the main focus of the early church was altruism - helping the poor, etc. One could not walk "in the light" unless he or she put others first.
It is also astoundingly inclusive in its wording. Instead of using all the male-centric vocabulary of the traditional books of the Bible, it uses non-gender-specific words nearly all the time. It's just an awesome book, and you can get a paperback copy for almost nothing.

The Didache was hotly debated for a long time, but its *veracity* is pretty much universally accepted. Many other first and early second century documents have been found that quote part of it. Nearly everyone agrees that the absolute latest it was written would have been the very beginning of the second century, but most scholars accept that it is an authentic first century Christian manuscript.

Its *content* is an entirely different matter. It seems that almost everyone has a different view about it. That's understandable, though. I personally like Aaron Milavech's writing about it.

Of course, your fantasy would be the most amazing discovery. I think it would change the world more than any other, because whether or not we like it, Western Christianity has probably shaped the world more than any other thing, including science. Our ethics, which stem from the Judeo-Christian culture (whether genuine or not), color everything. Imagine what it would be like for the new "religious right" who have turned God into a commodity, if they found irrefutable evidence of Jesus' outright compassion. That is one thing I loved about the Didache. It stresses compassion and personal ethics over our modern "outward" ethics, and shows the "abominations" of the First Century Christians were things like "turning away the needy, weighing down with toil the oppressed, [being] advocates of the rich." That puts a major dent in the whole "Moral Majority" right-wing theology so pervasive today.

We owe our modern (and largely false) religious doctrines on three things:
1) Constantine - made Christianity the state religion, but mixed in pagan ideologies thoroughly.
2) Augustine - decided sex, pleasure, and prosperity were evil, and single-handedly shifted Christianity from a religion of peacemaking, generosity, and social altruism into a religion of self-condemnation and judgment.
3) The Dark Ages - we lost so, so, so much in the Dark Ages. Basically, Bibles were completely outlawed, and this is when Christianity turned from a personal belief into a clergy/laity paradigm where the church has absolute power and spiritual authority over "the common man." Before this, all were considered brothers and equals in the church. After, we got the sacred/secular dichotomy we have today.

That's a very condensed version, of course...

Actually, a couple hundred years before Manicheanism, Gnosticism started the sacred/secular paradigm in the church as early as AD 60. By the time Constantine came around, Gnosticism had already infiltrated much of the church, and was a major point in the Nicene and Arian Controversies.

As for Abraham with Isaac, it was a prophetic enactment of what God would do later with Jesus. And Jewish tradition and the book of Hebrews say that Abraham wasn't afraid to do it because he had faith that even if God did make him go through with it, He would raise Isaac from the dead according to His promise. There is a lot of violence in the Old Testament, but it can certainly be argued that most of it is culturally relevant: God speaking to the people on their terms rather than His.

It's not [a question] of true theology, but is really about history when it all boils down to it.
By the way, I know vocal intonation can't really come across in this. I hope it doesn't come across as a lecture. Just trying to explain some history.

2004-08-26T19:44:00.000-07:00

Unlearning the Preventitive Trauma of Proactivity
I love it when the history of something reveals why it is problematic.
pro•ac•tive or pro-ac•tive (pr½-²k“t¹v) adj. Acting in advance to deal with an expected difficulty; anticipatory: not reactive, but proactive steps to combat terrorism. --pro•ac“tion n. --pro•ac“tive•ly adv.
BUT
http://www.word-detective.com/020501.html suggests that "Proactive" has actually been around since the 1930s as a technical term in psychology, denoting a trauma or complex stemming from an earlier occurrence ("pro" being a Latin prefix meaning, in this case, "before") that makes learning difficult. Our modern "proactive," however, is a completely different word, formed from "pro" in the sense of "forward" attached to the "active" from "reactive." This management-ese "proactive" thus carries the sense of "pushing forward" and first appeared around 1971.

What trauma or complex stemming from an earlier occurrence makes learning difficult such that the meaning of the word itself must be shifted into being the cure for its own dilemma?
It is not a completely different word. Psychologically it contains and illustrates its own origin and consequence - original trauma entirely redefined through use to support the fantasy (and not one without usefulness) that preemption can avoid future trauma. What is not useful is the complete loss in current usage of the traumatic context of the original meaning. Now it is simply management-ese for pushing forward, still carrying the hidden reality of trauma unconsciously.

This needs images, additional examples of applications, and a longer paper. Hmmm....

2004-04-29T17:29:00.000-07:00

"On earth, as it is in heaven": that is the theme. Man is returned to the innocence of the sun and stars, and of the animal world, which is rooted in nature, by an equation of himself with the sun, the great lion of the heavens, and of his victims with the herds of the night sky. And by concentrating on these, he is able to erase from consciousness the actual threat of the night of annihilation. The reality of nature and himself as nature has been countered by a myth of personal immortality."

Joseph Campbell, 1959 Eranos Lecture "Renewal Myths and Rites of the Primitive Hunters and Planters" p.17

2004-04-20T16:53:00.000-07:00

Things I'm thinking about and needed a place to write down:

Typology of the Psyche, 1919, Jung created it coming out of psychotic break, thought it was beside the point as he worked with it, and really never mentioned it again thereafter.

James Hillman on:
William James' (brother of Henry ) approach to psyche. American Psychologist, died just before WWI. Deconstructed the Hegelian drive to unify into idea of "wholeness". Prefering instead "each-ness".

The idea of individuation is a linear narrative. Another kind of "getting it all together", but does that really work? Am I really going anywhere in particular or wandering through a mosaic?

Simpsons Season 2 Episode #7F22 had Mr. Burns presenting Bart with a Mesoamerican Olmec War God from 3000 years ago named Xtapalapaquetl. I giggled for several days. Anybody got a jpg or a screen shot?

2004-01-22T14:46:00.000-08:00

Brandon D. WilliamsCraig gpx Spring 2003 Why Pacifica? - Culturopoesis

Traditional methods of developing scholarship encourage the internalization of a set of systemic assumptions. Schools habituate students to the applications of particular methodologies.

While Pacifica is both traditional and a school, the Pacifica departure, if I may be so bold as to articulate it in these terms, is in the attempt to deliteralize scholarship, or reorient in terms of imagination the systemic assumptions behind scholarship. In the same way that mythic material has no ultimate origin and no correct interpretation there is no universally applicable approach to the study of creativity and culture as a participatory art form in and of itself.

In order to hope for both a useful and compassionate engagement of the co-creative effort that is culture it is necessary to not only hear and speak the sounds and recognize the images of the oldest patterns and stories but also to do so in a way that the process of engagement is as much a matter for cultivation as the engagement of the material itself. This ‘departure’ is in the tradition of identifying psychology with image and also with the shift, the “movement” toward understanding everything in terms of imagination. I continue my internalization and generation of this shift for many of the same reasons I originally chose Pacifica. I intend to develop understanding and participate in the process of being human as best I can by attending the process of understanding.

The process of engagement is as much a matter for cultivation as the engagement of the material itself. The term I coined in the 1990’s for practices creating movement toward this attending, the “Process Arts”, is a naming in order to of develop and articulate the change becoming apparent in the social shift toward the deepening awareness of global interrelatedness and the necessity of consciously sharing context. David Miller suggests our study of mythology is essential so myth, religion, and ideology are not used for evil purposes. Stated positively, the Process Arts are for the loving seduction of the collective imagination into a rediscovery, re-vivification, and re-prioritization of the process that is Communitas.

In a process poor environment conflict itself becomes a rite of initiation, but of what kind? I am not always sure how to articulate the messages carried by my initiation into the ritual of conflict via robbery and assault. Sometimes I feel equally uncertain about what remains to be said sitting with a CEO, Dojo Cho, program director, or standing with strangers on mass transit who, like me, both can and do not choose behavior that ritually roots the process of peace. I end up listening and simply telling stories and then digging around and working the experience with the people involved. What is happening today among co-creators of peace sounds, smells, and feels like new rites, paths woven through a wilderness that are means or tangible forms of grace and the “performance of freedom” (Tom Driver).

It has been said that we lack rituals, particularly of initiation. I disagree. What we lack is imagination and creativity in our group process that lays the groundwork for the initiation to be fundamentally life giving. We have a monstrous storehouse of decrepit images and codified behavior that are being worn even thinner by Madison Avenue and other military-industrial manifestations worldwide. I agree with Driver in declaiming our lack of the ritualizing that provides structure in which freedom may be performed even in the midst of extremely complex and multi-layered challenges to humanness.

Initiation does not create an altogether different person. It gives new habits so that initiation per se becomes a fundamental and generative frame of reference. The initiate participates in and continues the process of initiation. In a moral void violence is often unbounded and involuntary. In this sense conflict is initiation but into contextlessness. The paths we follow when we encounter difference and the quality of our conflicts is directly involved in the texture of daily reality. Ignoring the necessity to develop mythopoetically profound processes that artfully include difference and conflict perpetuates violence without boundary and feeds a fecund oubliette for the mulching of our hidden and communal deformities of imagination. As Campbell suggests, mythology is no toy for children.

The most important part of this journey to dissertation is covering the distance between the desire for a sign of dynamic peace in the world and the practice of the habits that bring freedom to be performed. The inescapable presence of difference guarantees conflict in every interaction and is authentically distinguishable only by degree. It is a misuse of that gift to leave it where it sits alone under the scaly feet of the reptilian brain. Becoming a process naturalist, a tender of story, image, dream and psyche, means becoming process savvy and putting specific and inviolable time aside to cultivate not only an understanding of mythopoesis but also culturopoesis, the remaking of Community. It means developing the process of relationship as an art. All choices visited by difference must be practiced as Process Arts in a post-modern world. The alternative is the surrender of freedom itself and the betrayal of the generations that follow. The whole project is a life work for many, cannot be undertaken alone or without the individuality and engages psychecultural elements that initiate mythopoesis, and bring conflict into ritual group processes.