Perfect Disasters: A humorous essay

My husband and I stink at planning vacations.  Call us lazy, impatient, or foolhardy; we have trusted (or tempted) fate on many impulsively arranged trips.  We grow older and wiser–yet some habits die hard. 

          Many of our trips are spontaneous events–hunches of the moment.  Yet, even with advance notice, I am often reluctant to work at vacationing.  Why should planning leisure demand labor?  All Rick and I need is time together, preferably in nature.  While our couple-friends conduct month-long phone interviews, toil over brochures, and consult experts; we chose our honeymoon destination by looking for green areas on a map of Oregon.   Our intuitions plan our trips.  Unfortunately, we haven’t always liked their plans.

I’ve moved back to storiesthatwork.blogspot.com

This is a lovely site but won’t do some of the things Blogger does for me.  Please come visit me at

storiesthatwork.blogspot.com

I’ve moved back to storiesthatwork.blogspot.com

This is a lovely site but won’t do some of the things Blogger does for me.  Please come visit me at

storiesthatwork.blogspot.com

Squaring the Circle

I’m still tweaking this site to make it easier to read. In the meantime, here’s a great blog to visit—this artist creates a new mandala everyday.  Jung was a great believer in the usefulness of mandalas (they are found worldwide) to visually represent psychic wholeness.  When we create mandalas, we are symbolically working to mend the schisms in our own unconscious. 

Seems to work with today’s quote:

Dare to be naive.
- Buckminster Fuller

Jungian TV

I hope to get a new story completed soon.  In the meantime, if you like experimental drama, check out the critically acclaimed series, “The Singing Detective.”  We are renting it through Netflix.  Time magazine calls it a “daring dramatization of the subconscious.“  Like all mythic or fairy tale stories, it has plenty of bleak moments.  But these are balanced by verbal wit, crazy purple prose, and fantastic musical production numbers.  Highly recommended! 

Do you dream of famous people?

Speaking of dreams…..

Have you heard of the website posting dreams people are having about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton?   Here are the links: 

http://idreamofbarack.blogspot.com/

http://idreamofhillary.blogspot.com/

I can’t imagine the pressure these two are under since all of us are projecting our own psychological issues onto them! 

Critiquing “The Secret”

Have you read “The Secret?”

I tried to get it from my public library (just for research).  No dice.  They had eight copies–all out.  Same with my sister’s library.   On the bestseller list for 33 weeks, the book’s popularity reveals….what?  A gaping wound in our national psyche?  Are we feeling so desperate and incomplete that we hunger for magical powers?     

The Secret claims we can “attract” anything we want, through our thoughts.  If that were true, I’d have won the Pulitzer Prize by now.  Still, psychologists have proven that chipper attitudes can lead to happy results.  Think “self-fulfilling prophecy.” Even some brain scientists confirm:  when we make hopeful statements to ourselves, we train our brains to look for those hoped-for events.    

Dreaming of Spring

Once I looked up the word, “epaulet,” this quote really sang to me.  Happy Monday.

I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.
-  Henry David Thoreau

Where do you live?

I packed up my posts and moved yesterday. 

In a fit of frustration, I left Blogger. While I’m prone to focus more on content than form, (anyone who reads the blog knows this) periodically, I emerge (as if from a deep sleep) and see the design-horror I’ve been driving or inhabiting. 

Then it’s time to clean, or paint, or polish.  In a physical move, I cannot rest until I create a semblance of homey comfort.  I hurriedly unpack all my boxes and get pictures on the walls.  Then I relax again until new insight strikes.

The moving metaphor feels apt.  My psyche has taken up residence in this blog.  My mind spends a ton of time here–writing, tweaking, moving boxes around. 

Just as in many fairy tales, a dilemma (I was trying to create post summaries and couldn’t do it) forces the seeker to a new land.  Most of these stories reassure us that when a door closes, a window opens.  Sure ‘nough.  I spent many frustrating hours battling computer codes but now am grateful.  The blog obviously needed this change!

Thanks to the folks here at WordPress! Seems like a nice neighborhood.  Please forgive the strange formatting glitches on some of the posts below.  I’ve been unpacking in a frenzy but can’t get to it all just now. 

Ugh! The Hard Reality of a Brick Wall

Been trying to improve this site today and having a tough time. Hacking away with computer codes. Not my forte’!

Hard to stay patient with the process.

In the meantime, here’s more zen.

A bird in the hand is a certainty,

but a bird in the tree may sing.

Bret Harte

Recipe for a healthy psyche

These ideas come from my own “Jungian experiment,” and the writings of Jung, Marie Louise Von Franz, James Hillman, and Robert A. Johnson, among others. Try your own experiment and let me know what happens.

1. Get enough sleep and wake up slowly.
If possible, arrange your schedule so you can go to bed early and wake up without an alarm. I’ve noticed that when I’m able to sleep until my body wakes up naturally, I remember more of my dreams.

Studies have shown REM (dreaming) sleep is vital to psychological health. When experiment subjects were allowed to get non-REM sleep but were disturbed during the REM sleep cycle, they suffered from aggression, anxiety, and poor concentration. Scientists are finding that sleep is not only vital for physical rest but helps us maintain our emotional well-being

American Zen for Thursday

Direct your eye right inward, and you’ll find
A thousand regions of your mind
Yet undiscovered. Travel them and be
Expert in home-cosmography.

Henry David Thoreau
Walden

Reflections on "The Straw, the Coal, and the Bean.

I’ve been re-reading, MLVF’s “Archetypal Patterns in Fairy Tales.” Like most of her books, this is a transcribed lecture filled with insights gleaned from decades of analytical work—both on herself and for her patients.One chapter explored the Grimm tale, “The Straw, the Coal and the Bean.” Some websites call this a “household tale.” Von Franz describes it as a Schwank –a joke-story. MLVF notes that this joke (like all humor) has many “dark” elements.After admitting that she finds these stories the hardest to interpret, Von Franz dissects each image in the tale: the old woman, the act of cooking, the fire, the straw, coal, bean, bridge, tailor, and thread.Does she ruin a joke with these “amplifications” and interpretation? MLVF admits that the joke itself (as the dream itself) is always better than any interpretation. Read the original (above) and see what you think. Do you want more info, or is the tale satisfying enough alone?

As you might have guessed, I’m always curious for more suggestions regarding symbols and images.

Dream Research from Stanford U

While I work on a more ambitious post, here’s a really incredible site on all aspects of dream research–from Stanford University.

Reflections on the Academy Awards

Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell spent their lives helping us comprehend the mythic world.

Movies (and the stars who make them) express that world.Last night I, with about 43.5 million other Americans (figure from Andrew Hearst’s blog), watched the Academy Awards. I was inspired, especially during the montages honoring past winners. Sure, these stars have an army of stylists and I’m always fascinated by their incredible gowns and jewelry. But it is the great heart of certain actors that moves me.I’ve spent much of my life working with actors. If you’ve ever personally known performers (at any level of accomplishment), you know they belong to a unique stock. Their calling (for the greatest actors, there is always an artistic/religious-type calling to their work) requires the openness and curiosity of a child, and the ability to delve into and express all emotional states. Actors must be bigger than (daily) life.

Zen for Sunday

All significant battles are waged within the self.

Thoughts on "The Wolf and the Seven Kids"

Today I’ve been contemplating “The Wolf and the Seven Kids,” a grim Grimm tale with a happy ending. Based on my google research, this title seems to be a favorite for storytellers. I’ve found storytelling cue cards, several children’s books on the tale, and three different videos on YouTube. My favorite is a shadow-puppet version linked here.I’m not finding a way to retell this tale–but I am contemplating it.

I’m stuck by the violence. I’m supposed to side with the little kid-goats but the image of mother-goat cutting into the wolf’s belly haunts me. Why doesn’t the wolf wake up to this surgery? He is practically comatose from his greedy meal. What can this mean?

A Juicy link.

Happy Friday.Instead of a story or koan today, I’m posting one juicy link, Encyclopedia Mythica– a fabulous mother lode of myths!

A new story for "Frau Trude"

Today’s tale, “Frau Trude” is a change of pace. We’ve mostly been looking at happy endings-but not today!I think the original fairy tale is more than a “mind your parents” cautionary fable. It speaks to the dangers of naïve and unbridled curiosity–a risk for all ages.

Jamie watched the shadows on the ceiling. Their movements depicted a battle between light and darkness. She was part of the story too. A valiant maiden, fighting for truth and freedom. Her parents (represented by the black smudge in the corner) were the cruel tyrants to be overthrown.Jamie saw the entire saga playing simultaneously on the ceiling, in her mind, and in the cryptic lyrics pulsing through her ipod. She wanted to write it all down, but the mystical tale was moving too fast and she was very tired. She’d taken a higher dose of the shroom than before. Too much? She felt faint.

Eight hours later Jamie was ready for more. She’d be more careful this time to get the perfect dose so she could record the brilliant messages coming to her through the TV, the fish tank, the stars and most especially, the trees.

But when she went to find her stash (perhaps she’d just do the pot and save the mushrooms for another day) it was gone. Confiscated by her captors.

The Dark Side

Both fairy tales and Jungian psychology can emphasize the dark side of life. I’ve been working on an adaptation of “Frau Trude” yesterday and today (will post tomorrow)—a story steeped in harsh realities.

Also yesterday, the Chicago Tribune ran “Happiness is overrated, author claims; savor the sorrow.” The article looked at the need to integrate sorrow into our lives. Here’s the the book discussed in the article.

If all goes to plan, I should have the new story tomorrow. In the meantime, if you’re in the mood for fairy tales or my adaptations of them, check out some of my previous posts, they’ll be categorized as ‘contemporary Brothers Grimm.” Here are three reader favorites:
“The Seven Ravens,” a longer three-part story, “The Sisters of Sundance,” and
“Elf Magic.”