Comments on: A Choice with Grief http://www.christopherspenn.com/2008/01/09/a-choice-with-grief/ Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:46:07 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 By: Michelle / chelpixie http://www.christopherspenn.com/2008/01/09/a-choice-with-grief/#comment-1866 Michelle / chelpixie Wed, 09 Jan 2008 22:12:20 +0000 http://www.christopherspenn.com/2008/01/09/a-choice-with-grief/#comment-1866 So many messages behind this and great thoughts. *hugs you* Thanks. So many messages behind this and great thoughts. *hugs you* Thanks.

]]> By: Matt Searles http://www.christopherspenn.com/2008/01/09/a-choice-with-grief/#comment-1865 Matt Searles Wed, 09 Jan 2008 21:21:36 +0000 http://www.christopherspenn.com/2008/01/09/a-choice-with-grief/#comment-1865 I'm struggling with this right now. It seems to me that transformation, particularly in light of death, isn't a totally conscious process, and arguably making choices in general isn't as much a conscious process as we often think of it as. For me the transformation started before my mom died. I imagine it must sound like a strange thing to most people.. but it was as if there where these little whispers speaking to me.. as if coming to me from beneath realities surface. I just sorta stood in wonder, and kind of still do. People often talk about "God's plan" but often such talk sounds like.. nothing more then an idea you might use to try and comfort your self when, to put it in technical psychoanalytic terms, you're ego was somehow threatened. But the thing for me was that those whispers seemed to speak of a plan, that you could pear into like some old testimate prophet. The whispers seemed to be answering my hearts questions.. And when my mom did die, beneath all the grief and loss and all the rest of it.. in the terms of the whispers, it kinda sorta seemed right, almost like a miracle. God is, after all, a symbol of a mystery. The ration of the known to the unknown is what.. 1 to infinity? Meaning comes from context so what does anything mean if the ultimate context in a mystery? And then isn't life and death kinda the ultimate mystery? We spend half our lives getting to know the world out side our selves, and the other half getting to know the world within. I believe in a process of dialog with the unconscious, that true transformation comes out of this kind of dialog.. with lets say both the unconscious and the mystery more generally. It's funny how some of Matthew's lyrics echo my own experience. Jung used to say that religion is a defense against religious experience... and there's a way that a status quo experience of reality blocks out the mystery.. I mean maybe you need something like that for survival, for worldly pursuits.. but in grief that shatters... like some superficial idea that has no business being clung to. When that shatters you get flung into the unconscious. It's a bit like Zen mediation on emptiness. Psychologically, such meditation creates a psychic vacuum on the level of the conscious mind... the energy can then go beneath the surface with the potential of activating unconscious content that can that blast out at us, into our vacuum, in the form of a satori or revelation. Well, I guess this is sorta long from a blog comment, so I guess I'll leave that there. I’m struggling with this right now. It seems to me that transformation, particularly in light of death, isn’t a totally conscious process, and arguably making choices in general isn’t as much a conscious process as we often think of it as.

For me the transformation started before my mom died. I imagine it must sound like a strange thing to most people.. but it was as if there where these little whispers speaking to me.. as if coming to me from beneath realities surface. I just sorta stood in wonder, and kind of still do.

People often talk about “God’s plan” but often such talk sounds like.. nothing more then an idea you might use to try and comfort your self when, to put it in technical psychoanalytic terms, you’re ego was somehow threatened. But the thing for me was that those whispers seemed to speak of a plan, that you could pear into like some old testimate prophet. The whispers seemed to be answering my hearts questions.. And when my mom did die, beneath all the grief and loss and all the rest of it.. in the terms of the whispers, it kinda sorta seemed right, almost like a miracle.

God is, after all, a symbol of a mystery. The ration of the known to the unknown is what.. 1 to infinity? Meaning comes from context so what does anything mean if the ultimate context in a mystery? And then isn’t life and death kinda the ultimate mystery?

We spend half our lives getting to know the world out side our selves, and the other half getting to know the world within. I believe in a process of dialog with the unconscious, that true transformation comes out of this kind of dialog.. with lets say both the unconscious and the mystery more generally.

It’s funny how some of Matthew’s lyrics echo my own experience. Jung used to say that religion is a defense against religious experience… and there’s a way that a status quo experience of reality blocks out the mystery.. I mean maybe you need something like that for survival, for worldly pursuits.. but in grief that shatters… like some superficial idea that has no business being clung to. When that shatters you get flung into the unconscious.

It’s a bit like Zen mediation on emptiness. Psychologically, such meditation creates a psychic vacuum on the level of the conscious mind… the energy can then go beneath the surface with the potential of activating unconscious content that can that blast out at us, into our vacuum, in the form of a satori or revelation.

Well, I guess this is sorta long from a blog comment, so I guess I’ll leave that there.

]]> By: A Choice with Grief http://www.christopherspenn.com/2008/01/09/a-choice-with-grief/#comment-1861 A Choice with Grief Wed, 09 Jan 2008 13:35:50 +0000 http://www.christopherspenn.com/2008/01/09/a-choice-with-grief/#comment-1861 [...] and in that role I was lucky enough last year to meet a wonderful blogger and podcaster called Christopher Penn who has just written a beautiful post on grief and how we can either let it destroy us or use it as [...] [...] and in that role I was lucky enough last year to meet a wonderful blogger and podcaster called Christopher Penn who has just written a beautiful post on grief and how we can either let it destroy us or use it as [...]

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