Hello there, not sure what has happened to the Elf Trans. part 4..?..this story is a month old now, but havn't forgotten about it just yet...Havnt read much of late, but saw the show and copied the transcrip..

CD



The Magic Ingredient

Sunday June 13 2004

Summary:
In a highly secularised era where superstition has been marginalised we find successful popular culture telling tales of the magical and fantastic. Why do Harry Potter, Tolkien, Spider Man, or The Da Vinci Code have such huge global appeal?


Transcript of Story:

Intro
Hello and welcome tonight to Compass. I'm Geraldine Doogue.
Last week, the latest and what some critics already regard as the best so far of the Harry Potter films opened nationally.It's a new addition to a significant handful of "magical" literary and cinematic phenomena of our time. Standing alongside for instance the Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. Our scientific rationalist world has delivered to us many things that once would have been in the realms of fantastic fiction, manned space flight, computer technology, dazzling discoveries in medical science, the list could go on and on.

At the same time in western nations it can be argued that religion has been marginalised. Casting aside a religious sensibility with its mystery and its values

So does this fascination for the magical and the fantastic indicate a longing for lost values, or just a desire to be totally engaged in a ripping good yarn.

Well tonight we explore this with four very different Australasian writers who've pondered on the magic ingredient in their creative works and critical commentary.

Craig Heilmann:
Spiritual interest doesn't go away, it simply bobbles out in another part of culture. And I think that that's what's happened with Harry Potter.

Garth Nix:
I would like to believe in magic and so on. It's fascinating, it's interesting. I don't. It's great in stories and I suppose one of the things that we go to stories for is to experience the stuff we can no longer believe in on a day to day basis.

Hal Colebatch:
The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter are so appealing in this age now because they offer a very refreshing and positive alternative to a lot of the culture that is being pushed upon us.

Iain McCalman:
I think that magic, especially for artistically minded people can stand as a sort of metaphor for the creative imagination

Narr:
Iain McCalman is the Director of the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University.
In 2003, he published a biography of an 18th century magician Guiseppe Balsamo, better known as Count Cagliostro. Cagliostro, sometimes aided by his attractive wife Seraphina, moved among the elite circles of his time impressing them with "magical" feats and often recruiting them for his own form of "Egyptian" freemasonry.

Iain McCalman:
I initially encountered Cagliostro as a minor figure on the edge of my standard of research. And he sounded slightly too good to be true, so much over the top. I had a look at his history, and as I unpacked the history I encountered someone whose story was more sensational than any fiction I had read.

Narr:
What particularly fascinated Iain about Cagliostro's story was the stellar attraction of this charlatan.
It happened during "the age of reason" when rational scientific thought was becoming the new cultural norm.

Iain McCalman:
He was in his day in the late 18th century the most famous man alive. He was probably the first modern celebrity, the first huge pop star. And so that level you can't say he's a mere historical oddity. Nor more than we can call Marlon Brando or Madonna a historical oddity. These people are massive forces in the culture, the popular culture of their day.
He engaged with some of the greatest thinkers, the greatest cultural artists of his day.Goethe, an extraordinary writer, a thinker, philosopher, a scientist.
Mozart, galvanised by this man. Mozart not only believed in Egyptian freemasonry to a degree, or was intrigued by it, he made Cagliostro the hero of one of his greatest operas, his last opera The Magic Flute.
Sarastro, the extraordinary musician's sage is Cagliostro. And he was a freemason himself Mozart and was intrigued by this figure.
He was very similar to, shall we say the Harry Potter phenomenon of Rawlings in his day, or the Lord of The Rings, this enormous cult of both reading and of movies.

Narr:
Iain believes that the "magical" appeal of Cagliostro to artists like Mozart and Goethe went beyond trickery and illusion or even some kind of supernatural force associated with the occult.

Iain McCalman:
What we're talking about is a system that allows your imagination to think about wonderful splendid things beyond the ordinary. Things beyond ordinary material forces; whether they're science or economics or anything else. And there's a kind of needing people to think about transcendent things.

Narr:
This use of the magical in culture according to Iain brings with it a surprising opportunity to explore things of the so-called real world.

Iain McCalman:
There's a very strange paradoxical connection between realism and magic, between one system that on the surface seems absolutely fanciful and fantastic.
And when you think about it in films like Lord of the Rings and you think about Harry Potter, it's really very detailed, it's every day.
You can imagine yourself in there living in that world. It's a complete alternative world, and that's one of its great attractions.

Narr:
Unfortunately for Cagliostro however, not everyone took a finely nuanced view of his contribution to popular culture. His nemesis was the traditional foe of magic, the church.

Iain McCalman:
Many people see him as the last victim of the inquisition. To the church he was the Osama Bin Laden of his day and then they put him in an extraordinary prison, one of the most terrifying places you could imagine and they kept him more or less buried alive there until he died.

Deuteronomy 18:10-12
There must never be anyone among you who makes his son or daughter pass through fire, who practices divination, who is soothsayer, auger or sorcerer who uses charms, consults ghosts or spirits or calls up the dead for the man who does these things is detestable to yahweh your god

Ms Bernie:
Now I want you to point your wand to me. If you are having a duel with some one and you want to make them powerless, does anyone know what you say? "Expelliamus!"
So what you have to do everybody is point your wand straight to me and say "expelliamus!

7.30 Report 23/06/03:
The contents of the book is based on witchcraft and various occult symbols, and for kids that have a bent in that way they can go on to discover more of that

Craig Heilmann:
Magic is defined in the bible as you know, people should not get involved in witchcraft. And so the outsider looking in looks at Harry Potter and says, it's got witchcraft, there's a school of wizardry called Hogwarts, it's got witches in it. Ipso facto it must be of the devil, it must be evil. And that's a kind of I'd say a simplistic approach to the situation.

Narr:
Craig Heilmann is a New Zealand based writer who has worked extensively on family and parenting issues.

Craig Heilmann:
My view of the universe is a pretty black and white one. You know I've a very very basic what I call a conservative Christian view of the universe really.
It's traditional kind of, the traditional thinking of the church really would be pretty much the framework kind of thoughts through which I would address the world.

Narr:
He co-wrote a book called "Hogwarts or Hogwash" which analyses the Harry Potter phenomenon and sets out to draw up a Christian response to it.

Craig Heilmann:
I reckon reading Harry Potter isn't fundamentally different from watching any TV news channel or picking up a John Grisham novel.
I mean at the end of the day what you're getting is a view of life through the lense of a story. And what I come to it as is as a parent.
I say my children will grow up in a world full of ideas and those ideas in the end are both good and bad. They will have to engage with all of them, whether good or bad.
And they will have to learn how to formulate and live out of good ones and how to reject, understand and perhaps even argue against bad ones.

Narr:
He sees the enormous popular appeal of the Harry Potter stories partly as an irrepressible expression of spiritual yearning, that's been choked by the dominance of modern scientific and technological thinking.
It's this spiritual longing, not the threat of witchcraft or occult symbols that for him, pose the real challenge for churches

Craig Heilmann:
People are not that interested in organised, structural religion or spirituality any more. They want to explore things for themselves. And so the era, the time, it's very timely, it's the right time to have written this type of literature. It rings true with people, it excites them, it energises them.
Definitely I think the church at large has to figure out new ways of addressing the culture if it intends to have any real relevance to the culture. I think there's a lot of good in the Harry Potter stories. A lot of the character issues that go on are the sorts of choices. Having to choose good over evil, having to learn how to build relationships, having to learn how to forgive rather than hold out ideals of vengeance or whatever. Acting in an honourable way, acting with courage. These are virtues that all human societies ought to honour and practice and actually not only train into the young but also encourage by the very nature and structure of society itself.

Girl:
I like how they do all the potions and how there's no adults there

Boy:
I like it because they fix their own problems, they don't go to the teacher.

Girl:
I like how the children are in charge not the adults and they make their own decisions and how they're supposed to fix their own problems and also it's a fantasy story so it gets me involved.

Narr:
Craig Heilmann feels that although the Harry Potter stories and films contain positive messages they fall short of conveying a "worldview" which contains something beyond the mundane.

Craig Heilmann:
It's like the supernatural really has just collapsed into the present, into the present world of mundane things, and you never really escape. The vast difference between his world and ours is this issue that some people have magic skills and some people don't. But really in terms of trying to grapple with questions like the imminence of evil, what are the purposes of evil, what is the nature of what is good, what causes people to go astray in life, what causes the suffering and the negatives that we see in the world. I don't know that J K Rowling does any job really of answering those questions.If you compare it with Tolkein, you look at this wonderful part of the first movie of The Lord of the Rings you know the Fellowship of the Ring, where the little hobbit Frodo is sitting inside the dark caverns of Moria, and everybody's been there in their life. They've all sat in the dark caverns of Moria and though about the long road ahead, and said boy this is going to be tough.And Frodo says to the wizard Gandalf, he said I wish the ring had never come to me. And Gandalf gives him what I think is a very wise answer, which is to say that it was meant to come to you, and therefore you have a role to play. You have your part to play in this life, and there's something of great significance in what you are doing. It's more than just the destruction of the ring or to be set on that course. It is something about the ultimacy of life itself that's in play.
I never really get that sense with the Harry Potter literature that J K Rowling has produced. There's just something a little bit flat and absent in it and I guess I can only simplify it by saying it's like the supernatural world has simply collapsed into the present and I never get a really clear perception of evil.

Hal Colebatch:
Where the elitist culture has failed or become really irrelevant or destructive, a popular culture has taken up the slack. People are voting with their feet and with their dollars as to what they really want.

Narr:
Hal Colebatch is a writer, journalist, editor and lawyer from Perth.
In a book called "Return of the Heroes" he wrote: "notions of chivalry, heroism nobility and valour even to a large extent dignity and modesty -which previously infused western culture seem to have vanished"
He went on to say that the huge popularity of Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Harry Potter "reveal an underlying attachment to traditional western values"

Hal Colebatch:
I think there's a sort of bleakness, deconstruction of a lot of values, questioning of a lot of values, uncertainty about values, about morality and in many ways a lack of a sense of the wonderful, the splendid, the exciting, the numinous. And I think the huge popularity of things like the Lord of the Rings and Star Wars and Harry Potter are much bound up with all of that.

Narr:
Carefully painted orcs and dwarfs inspired by "The Lord of the Rings" films do battle in elaborate dioramas with chess-like rules of engagement.

Man:
Just to get out of this world, is a lot of fun with wizards and dragons and orcs and things like that. It just inspires me, I just love it.

Narr:
Good escapist fun for these enthusiasts. Perhaps it also reveals, as Hal Colebatch would have it, a need to attach to a place where those vanished western values can be found.

Man:
Yes I would prefer it it was, if the way middle earth is there, I'd certainly be grateful if the real world could be that way.

Hal Colebatch:
People want a bit of colour in their life, they want a bit of adventure, of splendour of heroism. And they also want a firm moral base.

Narr:
Hal Colebatch believes that in magical and fantastic stories like "Lord of the Rings" there is nothing unreal about the characters who have to face familiar challenges.

Hal Colebatch:
They're not cosmic shadows in a dream, they're not, they're playthings of faith. They do have their own individual volition and importance. If you like they have, they're capable of moral choice, they exercise their choice, they are - and this is a funny thing to say about a fantasy story - but they're anchored in the real world.They deal with, in their various ways, problems that are the analogues of problems we face.

Narr:
Answers to those problems Hal believes are not given to us in the form of some utopian ideal.
Good magical stories like Lord of the Rings take into account the flawed reality of human nature and strike at realistic outcomes.

Hal Colebatch:
I'm a person who's very suspicious of 'isms of utopian ideals and political correctness. I don't think The Lord of the Rings, takes you down that path. In The Lord of the Rings it is said again and again that the good people are not trying to build a perfect world. They are not trying to transform the world, that they're trying to fight off ultimate darkness and destruction. Other evils may come, but so be it, they'll have to be faced when they come.
It's saying that the human race lives in a hard but not desperate and not hopeless situation.

Narr:
Hal has written, among other things, science fiction. Most notably stories in the "Man-Kzin" series created by the American writer Larry Niven.

Hal Colebatch:
I think there are elements of fantasy in most science fiction. For example in my own stories of the Man-Kzin wars there is a thing called hyper drive which is the device for travelling faster than light. Now at the moment that's simply magic as in The Lord of the Rings and when the characters are in trouble they get flown somewhere by an eagle. It really is a plot device. I set out first of all to entertain. If you don't do that you don't get to first base anyway. But at the same time I'm not going to put in anything that's contrary to my own values and beliefs. In my fiction the message isn't the primary thing, but perhaps in a sense there's a bit of a message there.

Narr:
The "Man-Kzin wars" tell of a conflict between a passive human society and an alien race of tiger like warriors. The humans have to learn courage and chivalry to fight back.

Hal Colebatch:
I'm not preaching sublime militarism because values like honour, courage, kindliness are all rediscovered and indeed the aggressors catch them. Both sides are improved, although the process takes a long time.

Garth Nix:
I think on a day to day basis there is a lot of acts of courage and self-sacrifice which we don't necessarily hear about.

Narr:
Garth Nix is one of Australia's most successful fantasy fiction writers with a huge "young adult" following in Britain and America. His books have featured among the top 3 on the New York Times children's bestsellers list and a series commissioned by Lucasfilm, of "Star Wars" fame sold more than a million copies in the U.S.

Garth Nix:
I was paddling my own canoe, going my own way, and all of a sudden this gigantic tidal wave - which had been a long time building - came up, caught up, caught me up. It swept past and I was carried along its wake. I think the tidal wave is Harry Potter. Why Harry Potter in particular worked no one knows, I think the whys of fantasy-fiction is due to a combination of things. One is it is escapist, there is a desire to escape from a complex and difficult world with its uncertainties and so on. But also I think it's a desire for story. It's the desire to experience stories that do explain things and that are actually possible to explain as opposed to our normal lives which often feel as if we can't work them out. And I think that's what Harry Potter and many other fantasy novels offer.

Narr:
Garth doesn't believe in magic or religion, but thinks they are all but essential ingredients to his work.

Garth Nix:
I think it would be very difficult to be a fantasy author and not be interested in religion. You know religion is a fundamental part of human experience. It's a fundamental part of peoples' lives and it's a fundamental part of history as well and fantasy writers in particular draw upon history a lot and also of course a lot of fantasy uses magic and magic is very closely associated with religion. Miracles and magic sit side by side so religion offers a tremendous store of narrative. All organised religions do, and of course they have their fabulous books.

Woman:
Tonight we're going to talk about the Da vinci code which you chose...first of all, who enjoyed it?

Man:
Well I thought the story was telling us something very important about the church. The church took women out of the picture in a dramatical way by rewriting the past rewriting history and writing women out of the picture altogether

Narr:
Religious narrative forms an integral part of the latest publishing phenomenon "The Da Vinci Code", under discussion here at a book club in Sydney's inner suburbs. Author Dan Brown has combined a racy detective thriller with an ancient mystery supposedly at the heart of the Christian faith. It's currently sold over six million copies.

Garth Nix:
I guess Dan Brown is using a sort of fantasy technique, minding history and just extrapolating from something real to create something fantastical but he's used that within the genre conventions of a thriller. And he's also unlike most fantasy novels tried to impress on the reader that his novel is based upon more factual stuff.

Woman:
You've got to remember that the book is a work of fiction, a thriller and that's what Dan Brown came up with.


Kristin:
The information is fact.

Woman:
I was questioning what I thought was in the bible

Kristin:
Are you a literalist do you believe the bible stories as fact or as an illustration

Woman:
I had to look back and think about what I thought of the bible but I didn't read it in that context. I'm questioning where the fiction stops and the truth starts.

Woman:
I think people are clinging to the factual side of it and making a lot of pretty deep assumptions to it really searching for something that probably isn't there

Narr:
The "real" contemporary world of The Da Vinci code is a very different place to Hogwarts or middle earth. It does, however, invoke the magical and fantastic with the help of the modern day descendents of the legendary knights templar.
They are portrayed as the custodians of the real holy grail and a profound secret about Christ that was allegedly hidden from the world by the Catholic church. Iain McCalman acknowledges it's a very different work to stories like Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings.
But, in his view, all these phenomenal stories cater to the same yearnings and they all have the eternally appealing, inspirational "magic ingredient"

Iain McCalman:
All these forms of popular culture are reaching out for something spiritual, something transcendent in human nature that it not actually formal religion and magic encompasses it. It's a loose metaphor for that longing.

End

www.abc.net.au/compass/s1120233.htm

Hi ,

I read it all.

So all things attracts to the idea whose time has come.

The Metaphor for longing,
To be honest and truthful to yourself, and present that honesty and truth to others,
(Lacking perfection, it is a on going process, indeed), but even so, some are able, some are not, to tell it, say it, feel it, and the reaction from the others, back to an individual, is based on each reacting persons stage of ....?

Unprepared within, not having the tools of human love operating at a general level or at a particular moment,

Covered by the goo, that Linda Goodman often referred to as, and the reason for it is,

BECAUSE WE ARE SELFISH.

Self-ism,

Not used to being connected to another as you are connected to your SELF.

Secrets means advantage.
Secrets means lacking.

Secrets are Lies about what we think we are,
but there is no advantage or lacking when we become what we really are.
...???
I almost had a mouth full,
Bussssst, busssst,
Next.

Darwin

Hello Proxymoon

Selfish-Selfless = Unselfish ?

Is is so hard not to know another as you know your S elf ?
aaahhh!!
Isnt fault finding an ongoing process, Imperfection ?
Everyone has work to do on this.Advantage and lacking seem worlds apart, but your post has given me some food for thoht.

Quote..
and the reaction from the others, back to an individual, is based on each reacting persons stage of ....?

Wouldnt we be reaching a state of Mind about our S elves?

anyway I have to get going right now..
Later..
CD.

Hello Daisy,

I don't get the comments above the aaahhh.
I think it is very hard to really know your self.
I think it is impossible to really know someone else.
But knowing your self implies LOTS of imperfection,
And sharing that with another is risky business in the modern climate of humanity.
Between to lovers of GREAT love, might it happen?
I think love like that only occurs once every 688 years or so.
Many stories about coming close are written in books.

What two people loved like one?

But lets say for the sake of NON-argument (as I can hear the masses reading this saying, oh Hogwash, there have been many a pair of Great love between people.) that it happens a few times a day.

Isn't that in its self an example of how rare love is?

Imagine, a 1,000 people knowing each other like they know themselves?
I can't. So the next step is ... exactly what you were saying ...

Faultfinding is an ongoing process.
So once one becomes aware of this, it becomes pointless to respond to another,
And going into yourself, giving up the false advantage (control of the outer world),
And discovering the lacking inside (acknowledging your desires and needs),

With honesty inside and humility outside,
We test for love, risk for love,
But knowing more soundly, as the process clears our lacking,
That we must communicate, not turn into a tree or a Guru on a mountain,
And we learn that the love we imagined is not really what love is,
That being a limited conditional blending of two, a pair, as in nature,
But a response of yeh or nae, nea (How do you spell neigh?),
Which is wonderful if your name is Buda or Jesus or Martha,
Because your needs are met,
But for the rest of us, we must still communicate, in complex ways, about complex problems, to get compromised solutions, in may cases, just to continue to exist.

That's where complete open brutal honesty in speech, and expression is so important, as the infinite levels of our abilities to express and receive all information,
Without reacting to the information as if it defines our self or the person supplying the information, are constantly present and blended together,
And the natural tendency would be to separate into groups to make problems go away by restricting the information from being expressed.

Think of this site. One setting of mixed self-knowledge. Mixed 5th house, 7th house, 8th house, 11th house expressions of love.

Lets look at two other settings. An AA meeting on a full Scorpio moon night.
That's why they say, "What's said there, stays there." Not a lot of rules, not a lot of progress, but lots of expression and honest feelings.

Now lets look at the United States Senate.

Roberts Rules of Order. A sergeant of Arms. Permission to speak.
But there is no love there and the responses are as construed as possible and lauded with under meanings.
But without those strict rules, we would have civil war in about 3 months.

So what setting is the higher form of love?
Neither, it is the presence of love in a higher form of purpose and necessity.

So, that leaves each and everyone of us to ask a question inside about ourselves.
That question is, "Are we willing to accept who we are?"

That's all for now,

L&L
Darwin

P.S. One personal question. Where does one run to in the middle of Australia?

Hi.
yay or nay? yes or no?..not positive on spelling there.Selfless = unselfish it meant selfless Love, which apparantly is Neptunian..did find and artile which mentions this, since posting that.. in the Healing Mother Earth thread now, about Venus and Neptune retrograde in May..

Yep did think of that later,that some would think of all the great stories written of Love, a perfect blending or so.Yes maybe you have explained how rare that type of Love is.Or the rare minds that are able to perceive this and somehow bring this to the masses..
Just going only on what Ive read, supposedly each possess what the other is lacking.
Not sure what I meant before aahh!! either but "know thyself" comes to mind now, a saying by Jesus?, not pos on that either..but guess it was what got me saying that.
There has been stuff written on parrallel lives, and to imagine yourself in a parallel life where all your needs are met so you are a whole person already, not waiting to be made whole only after meeting another..
maybe if someone is predictable you can know them, until they fly off the handle..

yeah hey where does one run to in the middle of aust, well Ayers Rock, or Uluru is probably near the Centre of Oz.Nah! its been interesting, been spending time with friends more than usual.Talk about honesty and open expressions.
So yes, guess the mountain top aint where its all happening,you can only cut yourself off for so long. Unless its symbolic for rising above our lower natures.
Heard some good news tonight, south aust won out over the nuclear waste dump saga, now all the other states have to dump their own waste in their own back yards,and not here..So instead of one big dump there with be half a dozen small ones..



you got me thinking..

Hi there, Jim has a way with words, but here goes..

Quote:

---

14 July 2004

Hi,

Adolescence. Strikes terror into the hearts of
parents, and groans in the throats of those who have
endured it. Prime training for the Patriarchy, where
all of us non-quarterbacks and non-promqueens can adapt
- or not - to being lessthan. Imagine a world where
everyone is respected and empowered for their own unique
contributions - and those whose contributions are still
unknown are respected and empowered all the more,
because their uniqueness has no peers and no role models,
since they're the cutting edge of evolution. Imagine
being an adolescent in that sort of world, where the
unmanifest is mystery and promise, and the manifest is
history.

The big constant in adolescence is *risk*. Risk in
trying out new processes that are totally unfamiliar.
Risk in following or suppressing deep urges that are
totally new. Risk in knowing who to trust among the many
who clamor to advise. Risk in following those inner
voices that advise a very different path. Even the
safest path through adolescence is fraught with risk.
But imagine a world where those who clamored to advise us
told us to listen for and follow those inner voices.
Where post-adolescents cradle our feet in their hands to
lift us as we reach for the stars, and catch us when we
fall, rather than so generously loaning us their chains.

Were we to make an interpretation for a Venus-Mars
Void such as the one we're in this year, most especially
one that follows such a profoundly transformative
initiation as the most recent one, the suggestion that we
might find ourselves *reliving adolescence* would be
right on track. We made many decisions in adolescence,
about what was safe and what was not, about what was
worth the risk and what was better left on the table.
Remember the decisions you made? For almost every
decision we made, every time we chose safety or rued our
choice to risk, we left part of us behind, split off a
part of us to forever suffer in unsafety and lust for
what we didnt have the support to choose.

That's one of the opportunities that presents itself
to us here, the opportunity to recover all these lost
fragments of ourself, to make it safe for them to follow
their orphaned inner voices, to support them when they
choose what everyone said was too risky to want - to give
*ourself* permission to follow *our* orphaned inner
voices and to support *ourself* to choose what we've
always wanted but didnt believe we could have. Lovingly
and gently of course. Most of us are still lugging around
from adolescence, in that oversized flowered carpetbag
behind the dresser, judgements we made then. Judgements
about what's good, what's bad, what's safe, what's too
dangerous. Each one of those judgements is a doorway that
leads to our passion for living.

Bottom line here is to be *loving* with those
orphans. Most of us had a big identity crisis at about
14 (transiting Saturn opposite natal Saturn), just about
the time when we were discovering who we really were as
individuals (transiting Uranus sextile natal Uranus).
For most of us that was the 6th or 7th or 8th grade.
Take a minute to go back there, being very gentle with
yourself. Any regrets or humiliations or stupid tricks
or clumsy efforts that still make you cringe? How can
you be loving and supportive to that person and honor
them for taking the risk - or not, forgiving them for
not being perfect on the first try, and supporting their
courage to try again?

The notion that we're all supposed to go through
the same stages with the same timing is another cultural
prison. We simply dont. Even if we have Saturn-Saturns
and Uranus-Uranuses at *about* the same time (there will
be variability due to retreats), we each have different
*other* processes occurring in our charts and our lives.
We are unique, and we do our processes on our own unique
timeline. We're supposed to be ashamed and seek secret
counseling and never tell anyone else about it, if our
stages are out of synch with cultural expectations.
Take back yer integrity. Stick one thumb in yer mouth
and the other in yer crotch and let yerself be weird.
Lose yer obedience to the mediocre, and gain yerSelf.

Stones to help you recover your integrity include
Diamond, http://www.jbuss.com/rockindex2.htm#diamond and
Eudialyte, http://www.jbuss.com/rockindex2.htm#eudialyte .

Eudialyte with Arfvedsonite is particularly powerful,
http://www.jbuss.com/jbl4d/eudarf1.htm .

Love, Jim

---

Hello again Darwin
yep that mountain top comment about it not happening, I still understand that LG mentioned she had raised her vibrational frequency by being so high up in Cripple Creek Colorado..there will be many who do not get to do that of course, whether it is a state of mind or fact. Right on your comment about the AA Scorpio meeting...

and now Jims recent Jbull...
Quote.
We're supposed to be ashamed and seek secret
counseling and never tell anyone else about it, if our
stages are out of synch with cultural expectations...


This may be the key between charts of those great Lovers we get to hear about..

Quote:

---

Venus relates to personal love and Neptune to selfless love or agape. Venus love operates between people as separate individuals, while Neptune erases barriers and blurs edges of distinctiion

---

So yep Love may not be what we think it really is....
Love Ya!!

CD

Interesting words and a catchy little tune called
"Do anything you wanna do"
by Eddie & The Hot Rods
1976-1977.

gonna break out of this city
leave the people here behind
searching for adventure
is the kind of life you'll find
tired of doing day jobs
with no thanks for what I do
I'm sure I must be someone
now I'm gonna find out who
Chorus
why don't you ask them
what they expect from you
why don't you tell them
what you are gonna do
you'll get so lonely
maybe its better that way
it aint you only
you got something to say
do anything you wanna do
do anything you wanna do

don't need no politician
tell me things I should have been
?not the no audition
tell me things I shouldnt sing?
no-one tells you nothing
even when you know they know
but they tell you what you should do
they don't like to see you grow
Chorus
why don't you ask them
what they expect from you
why don't you tell them
what you are gonna do
you'll get so lonely
maybe its better that way
it aint you only
you got something to say
do what you wanna do
do what you wanna do

repeat verse one...


CD

Hello again Friends

I am so excited to be here today. What a great thread! Proxy, your post was wonderful in response to this transcript...right at the heart of what it all means...yes, that magical ingredient...that's what Linda's goo is all about. I have to type out a post separately to answer yours and can actually do that today. Even though I've been absent from this forum I've been thinking nonstop about all this stuff.

On Pat's thread I see I have a lot of studying to do to catch up...wow...will give it my best.

Much love,

Hi CD and Proxymoon and everyone,

I'm back to comment on Proxy's first post. I read the whole thing too and could go over it bit by bit, but I just wanted to jump ahead to here.

"The Metaphor for longing,
To be honest and truthful to yourself, and present that honesty and truth to others..."
Yeah, for a change, right? Yes, True to your Self...

"(Lacking perfection, it is an ongoing process, indeed)"
Your Self IS perfect!!!
Ability to see it, tell it, feel it..."based on each reacting person's stage of ...?"
Who is closest to the Truth? Who is 'further along' on their journey?
The answer may be that no one is further along because the journey is not over until every last one is united and all recognize that all are One. That is the ongoing process.
So really, someone who seems 'hopeless' and is close to despair may actually be closer than someone coping in this world to an awakening.

"Prepared, with the tools of human love"
The goal of human love is to become as God loves. We are learning to love truly, unconditionally, as God loves. We have to come to know it by ourselves--it's something that cannot be imparted, only known or felt by one's own experience.

"Covered by the goo, that Linda Goodman often referred to as..."
Yes, that's the goo! of Mother GOOse and Linda GOOdman's GOObers! And how do we realize our goal?
This longing is the spiritual longing for unity, with God and with every part of God--the purpose of our creation.

"and the reason for it is,
BECAUSE WE ARE SELFISH"
Who are we??? We beLIEve we created something real that is apart, separate from God, but that is impossible.

"Self-ism"
or self-ism (egoism) = "not used to being connected to another"
EXACTLY Proxy, so then we could add, As you are NOT connected to your Self.
We are learning to reconnect with our Self, our real Self, Whom we have hidden from ourselves.
How do we learn this? How do we overcome our fear of seeing who we really are? That's what Goobers is all about.

"Secrets means advantage.
Secrets means lacking."

So so true Proxy! why is advantage sought other than in competition with 'other'--what is 'lacking' but a perception of the possibility of loss, what we 'lack' we don't 'have'

"Secrets are lies about what we think we are."
Yes because our ego lies to us about who we are--our ego (the self we invented) wants us to believe in it. Secrets are what the ego fears which the ego tries to hide from our sight, to keep us separate from ourSelves and from 'others.'

"But there is no advantage or lacking when we become what we really are...???
Yes. True.
We don't have to 'become' what we really are--we always have been Who we are. It's just a matter of awakening to that awareness. It's everything.

Next. I really love your next post Proxymoon!

I just wanted to add one thought about the show...

The Deuteronomy verse could be read two different ways. To read it another way could put it in a whole new light:

Deuteronomy 18:10-12
There must never be anyone among you who makes his son or daughter pass through fire, who practices divination, who is soothsayer, auger or sorcerer who uses charms, consults ghosts or spirits or calls up the dead for the man who does these things is detestable to yahweh your god.

There must never be anyone among you who makes his son or daughter pass through fire...for the man who does these things is detestable to yahweh your god.

In other words this could be addressing one who would seek to judge and punish or condemn someone seeking spiritual contact, such as the church imprisoning till death Cagliostro. It seems to me it addresses 'the man' who does these things to a son or daughter.

What do you all think?

Love,

Yikes I almost finished typing a long next post and suddenly it was all deleted. Weird! Not a problem as I was typing from notes, but unfortunately I will now have to wait till tomorrow to redo. Sorry bout that. See you tomorrow.
Love,

Back again to try to retype what I already typed

First of all, I just want to clarify on what I started writing yesterday: Of course I do think it's POSSIBLE to find the way back to God alone...I just think that is harder, that's just my own one cent...

And of course I don't think one has to wait until finding the Perfect Lover to find God... but I do think that makes it just easier in learning how to share a Mind, to be One. I think ANY lover, or friend, or 'foe' will do as well, for crossing bridges and climbing over walls in order to become one in Mind.

Again, I said that Great Love could be A way, as in one possible path back to the Garden of Eden.

But I also think any people, such as us here at this forum, could learn to be open enough, to take risks of communicating, to overcome our fears and expose our deepest thoughts in order to share them...and also we would have to learn at the same time to ACCEPT each one's thoughts and ideas, not to judge them or attack them, as the very spiritual oriented AA has found a way to run its meetings. This is just simple respect and honor to one another. It takes practice to reduce one's defensiveness (reacting where vulnerable).

What makes twin love nice is sharing can happen when minds are open to one another. There is a process in which each feels safe and at home with the other. There is way less guessing or projecting what someone else is thinking. So much less time is needed in explaining oneself...it's so refreshing to be able to just fly with discussions without having to explain, over and over, minutiae and still be misunderstood...It's just less exhausting. So I think being with a 'twin' just makes learning how to share a mind easier, as a first step. I think there have not yet been twins who have managed to go all the way in mind sharing...close but no cigar! And so, incomplete. That would not be the last step until an individual or couple of twins takes their skills to others until all learn to share One Mind. So therefore no one is really 'further along' than others, because until one and all are united, no one can go further. No one gets left out.

All this trying, and learning, is necessary in order to get back to that Garden. Next time we're back to the Garden, it's going to be a LOT nicer than before because we'll have blossomed into our full humanity, with God's loving patience and guidance.

Okay, on to retyping...

CD: "To be honest and truthful to yourself, and present that honesty and truth to others"
Being truthful to your Self.

I wasn't going to do this again, quoting from ACIM, but today's lesson seems relevant right here:

Lesson 165
Let not my mind deny the Thought of God

"What makes this world seem real except your own denial of the truth that lies beyond? What but your thoughts of misery and death obscure the perfect happiness and the eternal life your Father wills for you? and what could hide what cannot be concealed except illusion? What could keep from you what you already have except your choice to see it not, denying it is there?

The Thought of God created you. It left you not, nor have you ever been apart from it an instant. It belongs to you. By it you live. It is your Source of life, holding you one with it, and everything is one with you because it left you not. The Thought of God protects you, cares for you, makes soft your resting place and smooth your way, lighting your mind with happiness and love. Eternity and everlasting life shine in your mind, because the Thought of God has left you not, and still abides with you.

Who would deny his safety and his peace, his joy, his healing and his peace of mind, his quiet rest, his calm awakening, if he but recognized where they abide? Would he not instantly prepare to go where they are found, abandoning all else as worthless in comparison with them? and having found them, would he not make sure they stay with him, and he remain with them?

Deny not Heaven. It is yours today, but for the asking. Nor need you perceive how great the gift, how changed your mind will be before it comes to you. Ask to receive, and it is given you. Conviction lies within it. Till you welcome it as yours, uncertainty remains. Yet God is fair. Sureness is not required to receive what only your acceptance can bestow.

Ask with desire. You need not be sure that your equest the only thing you want. But when you have received, you will be sure you have the treasure you have always sought. .. For this sight proves that you have exchanged your blindness for the seeing eyes of Christ, your mind has come to lay aside denial, and accept the Thought of God as your inheritance.

Now is all doubting past, the journey's end made certain, and salvation given you. Now is Christ's power in your mind, to heal as you were healed..."

CD: "(Lacking perfection, it is an ongoing process, indeed)"
Remember your Self IS perfect!

next..

Proxy: "I think it is very hard to really know your self."

Yes, as in your Self, because we put up veils to hide our self from our self, and we bleieve all of the illusions of this world which we made so we could learn about separatin and why our true will is unity.

Proxy: "I think it is impossible to really know someone else."
Well, we ourselves have made it impossible, up till now. We defend ouselves against the truth of our Selves because we came to believe so deeply in our self. That is okay because it's all part of the process of learning and necessary for learning. We still believe tht to reunite with God and to become All as One that we have to die and forego our individual consciousness. But if we can have faith to dare to dive deeper to uncover all our darkness and bring it to light, then we could release our fears by seeing that all along they were groundless. With eachother we can learn to let down our walls and see that we are loved anyway!

Proxy: "But knowing your self implies LOTS of imperfection"
Because we JUDGE our self, and eachother, and condemnourselves, when we were told judge not. And fear not.
Remember our Self is now perfect. We are sinless because we are each a part of God, and how can we be a part of God yet sin? Forgiveness is the key to the gate of Heaven. It s release from all judgment and condemnation. Forgiveness does not include first judging then bestowing pardon, it means releasing each one from a false perception of sin, releasing thepast and only looking upon Who we really are. This is true freedom and joy.

"and sharing that with another is risky business in the modern climate of humanity."
It sure is! But we find ourselves instead on a great adventure of sharing, a thrilling ride! This is the main idea of Marianne Williamson in "A Return to Love" and "Enchanted Love". Two great reads. (She based these on A Course in Miracles.)
Perhaps this is why we LONG for a twin soul, in order to reach the state of One Mind. At-One-ment. I think this is a natural longing. I think this longing is essential to our divinity and it is why God created us! In other words I think we share this longing with God.

Between two lovers of GREAT love, might it happen?
Well Proxy, we are on the same page here. I am making it my life's work to study. Maybe it's because I have sun Venus and Mercury in my 6th house, and I think it is my work to try to begin to heal relationships...
IMHO I think it would, and will happen. I think this is what humanity has been preparing for up to the dawn of the age of Aquarius, becoming ready for this stage of our human development. "Many stories about coming close are written books" as you say...yes!

Proxy: "What two people lovged like one?
Well, I don't know for sure if humans have achieved that yet, but I suspect not because the energy fromthat would have become a part of our collective consciousness. It seems we are still more dividedthan united. still think a major step has yet to be taken and that noone has yet found the way: this step is the balancing of the Masculine and Feminine divine energies, so that they are in perfct harmony and one does not overpower the other.
The reason is, if you keep divingand diving, you come up against this wall...this wall keeps away a lot of understanding which would help us become as One. I feel this is the whole gist of Goobers.
What are the secrets of balancing the Male/Female energies? I think all that's needed is trusting, open communication. Who has done that? Each has a lot to teach the other...
The energy created ('the Third Energy') when this is accomplished is what I think enables True Creation, harmony of Mind in Creation (the mysterious 'H' symbol in Goobers...Harmony? Happiness? The 'Happiness Poem" ... I think more and more of us are going to start to be able to begin relating like this. And we know the power of Love...so let's get on with making more of it.

We have always kept away True Love as an impossible dream, unreachable...we believed that if one knew another TOO well, then the 'magic' of the love would fade. But the opposite is true--the more you know each other the higherthe love gets, and it keeps growing in intensity.

True Love is limitless, boundless, eternal, and ours.

Imagine the possibilities!

Proxy: "Imagine 1000 people knowing each other like they know themselves? I can't..."
I think you can...
It's still such a foreign concept to our fear-based thinking, but fears can be quickly unlearned. We don'thave to do this alone, as God's Holy Spirit is the bridge that leads us humans back to God.

This was why I wanted to start that Mother Goose/Goobers thread, to see if all of us here could open up a new kind of dialogue about ideas of how to get through the wall dividing the Masculine and Feminine, because we seem to be stuck here. The world is reflecting this unbalance.

I believe Linda and Goob's journey had brought them to this brink. They had to separate because they could not understand each other's thinking on some matters of the heart, and these differences arose from ancient fears, and they had a communication breakdown. They could not become of One Mind unless they came together to work out these differences. But it was so fearful. It threatened their sense of identity. But what is needed when this scary stuff happens is willingness, to accept each other's feelings...each had much to teach the other.
We're all here, now!

Prox: "...we must communicate, not turn into a tree or a Guru on a mountain...
And we learn that the lovewe imagined is not really what love is,
That being a limited conditional blending of two, a pair, as in nature,
But a response of yea or nay ... "

Wow Proxy, I am breathless from your words, that we are having this great conversation...how exciting! This is really what love is all about.
Love is the mountain!
Why would anyone settle for hills when they could be on the mountain... ?

Proxy: "Which is wonderful if your name is Buddha or Jesus or Martha, because your needs are met"
WHOA...
Hold on right there...
Their light is our light too. We HAVE what they have! Jesus and I'm sure the others told us so, emphatically!!!

Let the light out! Let it out of its self-made prison!

What you say Proxy about 'brutal honesty' without reacting to the information as if it defines our self (S elf!) or the person supplying the information...
We've all noticed that even at this loving, spiritual forum, there is constant friction. Andif we can't achieve peaceful discussions HERE, how can we hope to see that among nations?

There would need to be a commitment to openmindedness and faith in each other, and holding each other as holy, sinless, perfect beings. Seek truth and ye shall find. Refrain from all judgment, attack, self defense, and condemnation.

True vision is not the kind we see with our eyes in this world. Let only God be the judge. That is our freedom. And God looks not on any sin (because it's fake), only perfection.

"Are we willing to accept who we are?" Yes Proxy!

This thread has filled me with joy! To be continued...
Love,