February 15 2020 Journal Fragments

from "Power and Gemeinschaftsgefuhl" by James Hillman: 

"The way to overcome division [between psychological schools] is not merely to bury the hatchet and promote sweet harmony. Rather, it would be to see the necessity in the sympton. What is the value of this phenomenon, division, as such, rather than we divide further over its causes and arguments? What's the purpose in this guiding fiction? What gains does division give?"

And:

"To go truly deep is to go into the soul of the world."

And:

"What notion of the world do we have that makes it a place on for the masterful? Why must being in the world, as the existentialists would say, require the power of mastery, of superiority?"

I forget how clear and helpful he is. Is is not clear how this is what A Course of Miracles asks of us? This willingness to accept without qualification or condition the symptom? To gaze upon the nightmare without explaining or describing it but letting it appear to us over and over? That the only way to the soul is through the body and the world and the mind bringing both of them forward as body, as world? It is not a question of expertise but surrender; we empty out of everything - including power, privilege et cetera.

Hillman goes on to suggest that our innate sense of inferiority is not merely a cultural artefact, not merely a result of our status viz. other folks - is not merely pathology - but rather is "native" to the cosmos. It is the human soul in deepest communion with the soul of the world in deep communion with the soul of the cosmos.

. . . 

Fell asleep after writing that and dreamed. In the dream, a question, loosely phrased: how much can or must the sannyasi forget?

And was then jerked crudely awake by Chrisoula cursing in the kitchen downstairs. Midnight, a little after, the neighbors racing ATVs, the roaring keeping Finnie  awake. 

I got dressed and went outside. I remember a nurse in Boston, saying, "you're the guy who forgets who he's fighting and why he's fighting, he just fights." Told the neighbors park the fucking ATVs, waited until they'd done so, then went back inside. Finnie and Chrisoula were asleep within an hour; I didn't make it back to bed. The ledge, it just keeps getting narrower. 

The answer, dreamer, is: a lot. 

. . .

Hillman again, same essay: "There's obvious chasms all over the place that don't have anything to do with sex."