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 | "The Quest" | |
| It is a mistake to not question the taboos, to examine their validity and relevance to our times. Any that segregate women and men into separate divisions, into classes subjected to different rules, are a fraud. A formalised expression of dogmatic power wielding. They have nothing whatsoever to do with coming to understand ourselves, let alone acting as a guide towards spiritual well-being. Taboos that have the sole purpose of restricting the flow of information, are a curse. They cloud the judgement. They narrow the viewpoint, barring the observer from anything that conflicts with received wisdom. Once their minds have been made up for them, the facts will only confuse them. Without knowledge, life is chaos. It is empirical knowledge that establishes the patterns of existence. Yet, while wisdom implies knowledge, knowledge in itself, does not infer wisdom. |
| We are bombarded with fragments of information. Our daily intake is stupendous. So much so, that we can lose track of what we were doing, or thinking of doing, or thinking of thinking about doing. So much of this incoming data is pure rubbish, all vying for your attention. All wanting something from you. What is important to your life, what to filter out? The data input is largely concerned with other people's wants and needs. It makes demands upon your life for the purpose of improving the lives of those who bombard you. Another helping of junk mail for anyone? |
| When we are preparing for a holiday, we plan ahead. We consult maps, lay out an itinerary, list things to do, decide what we will take with us, and what we will bring back. Good planning raises the potential for a good holiday. And the rest of our life ... ??? I have written of seeing our life as a journey through time. I now suggest that you now draw up a map for that journey. A map that will be extended on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis. The journey proper, only starts when you start to keep a daily journal of incidents, events, and people, that have some degree of prominence in your life. Without such a journal it is so easy to endlessly repeat the same day over and over again. Life is a journey, and we need to fill in the blanks on the map to illustrate our progression. While it is an essential part of every traveller's paraphernalia, the journal is still only a series of words tracking across a two dimensional page. Yet they are a record of four dimensional happenings. They are a record of our passage through time and of the emotional impact we experience at various times and places. And the resultant changes to our viewpoint. |
| Although essential, the Journal lacks some vital quality. Without an extra dimension, it is fated to become a dusty record without a life of its own. Seldom reread; its accounts lose the vitality of the events that had a significance at the time. What better then, than to name those places and events; give them names that contain the essence of the experience? Lived to to the full, our life will develop a mythic quality, a vibrancy that lifts it above the mundane. We constantly need reminding of this simple fact. We plod when we need to dance. We blunder or drift into situations where we do not need to go, or miss visiting places to which we do need to go to. Instead of a forward flow, our lives can become a pointless wandering, ordered by external events. Or worse, a cage from wherein we lose site of the bars. |
| The diagram on the previous page, showed progress as being a series of lines, interspersed with yellow nodes. Those nodes signify events, turning points, changes in direction on the traveller's map. There are times when these nodes reflect incidents of large import to us. Instead of travelling in hope, I see it as beneficial if we plan our trail to pass through certain points on the map. Not as tourists. As participants. Reclaiming the myths. Acting out the myth. In retrospect, there often comes the realisation that, though of no great significance when viewed in isolation, a series of nodes inevitably led from one to another towards unforeseen events. Events that could have been foreseen if one had a pictorial record. Just as weather forecasters plot the course of weather fronts; predicting rain or shine to come. We have advantage over them in that, after a period of plotting our course, we see the ways in which we can continue to plan its general direction in advance. Learn to move in the direction that we wish to go. |
| When writing of Tarot Cards (Chapter 5) I spoke of how each card represented an archetypal event, situation, or figure that symbolised the human condition. We all walk the stage of life, and the plays and acts are potentially common to us all. In every age, men and women have faced the same basic situations, and have learned to deal with them. Their accumulated knowledge, handed down as mythic stories, free us from the necessity of reinventing the methods time and again. Part of the power of the myths is that they give names to events and situations. Fears are named as monsters, dragons, etc. Our goals become crystal chalices, good deeds become protective shields, skills become magical swords. Even as today it takes skill, a certain sophistication, to cut through the red tape that strangles our enterprises. The scenery changes, the play is the same. In past times, the educated classes had an understanding that the names were symbolic icons, that they gave an understanding as to how various situations could be handled, could be worked through. They also accepted that names had power. By using the symbols on a daily basis, they could live a mythic life. Not just go looking for the rituals when they ran into trouble. Everyone knows that we can come to grips with an illness, a problem, ... when it has a name, a handle that we can envision and take hold of. The naming of it gives us something to grasp. Provides the first step to understanding and dealing with it. Travellers into understanding were once named Questors. I recently heard them called Psychenauts. A name change to reflect the times, the journey is the same. |