Festivus!

This past week has been busy. The Halloween/Samhain season is always chock full of parties, social activities, and for me personally, quiet contemplation. For you folks in America it's time to set your clocks back as daylight dwindles. The leaves on the weeping cherry are just about fallen, and huzzah fall is in full swing.

I find things in life have a rhythm. I also notice that people panic when they think they're supposed to be doing something else instead of listening to the rhythm. Like my friend who freaks out because they are no longer involved in a relationship & feels that they must move on right now. If there's no person in their life, there is something wrong... or another who has reached a certain age and worries that they're not where they're supposed to be in life (not married, their career hasn't developed the way they expected, or their life just has not gone as planned). It's taken me longer than I would have wished, but I realize that things happen when they happen. Relax and just move forward and don't worry what others think or listen to what others say about what you should be or shouldn't be. Being yourself (and yourself truly without pushing your shit onto others) is really the only way to be happy, I find.

I had a dream about a little girl who had a talent, but her mother sent her to a surgeon to make her beautiful instead. She sat in a dentist chair, white medical tape on her forehead, cheeks, and chin to pull her skin back. Mother was at her ear telling her who she should be and what to think. I was thinking about how so many children get lost this way. Parents want their kids to be happy, and they do the best they can, but still, it's amazing what fear can make a person do.

What I wonder is if this has any relation to the preliminary work I'm doing for the book. People who are not really all that interested in that foo-foo pagan new agey stuff still relate to totems. Logos, team mascots, 'power colors', and the like have a psychological effect on us. We may choose a favorite animal as a child because we like how they look and what they can do. Perhaps subconsciously we want to be like them, to run, or fly, or fight, or to know what they know. From what I noticed this is less talked or thought about but changes little as an adult. We still align ourselves with things we want to manifest, only now in our consumer driven culture we focus on brand names, video game characters, and other icons linked to products and entertainment. The need is still there, but instead of exploring ideas and concepts that are truly outside ourselves we are attaching ourselves to concepts and ideas conceived of by another individual or group, and they often have a manipulative agenda to have us buy into their product or service line.

I am wondering how this affects our base spirituality. Providing products and services isn't wrong, we need each other to specialise, one person can't make everything that each individual needs to survive as a collective whole, it's not how our species works. But can't we go to far? Get lost in what is really important?

So anyway, I wonder how this relates to the concepts of demons, and fear. Studies show that people are more isolated, and have less close friends than they did when I was a kid. The way people communicate now is less personal, more surface information. My friend was trying online dating for a while and found most of the men preferred to talk via text. While they were very chatty with that form of communication, they were monosyllabic, stilted, and uncomfortable. I know that's not true for everyone, but it seems to me a growing trend. How does this relate to folklore, and fear? I'm trying to find a relationship. People fear what is unknown to them, and if there's a growing trend of people not connecting and fearing close personal interaction then I personally think this is what may be leading to why eating disorders, depression, and others mental disorders are on the rise.

The arts is the only gateway I know to lead people outside of themselves. So back to folklore. Stories is how people illustrate the relationships between ourselves and the rest of the world. Even if the story is about mathematics or quantum physics, it's still a story. As I write I'll work to illustrate the relationships of archetype, and uncover how the relationship or lack there of manifests in how we connect and relate to ourselves and each other.

Does this make sense? Heh, does it matter? ... probably not yet.

So from Ethopia, here's Getatchew Mekuria & The Ex & Guests, song Tezalegn Yetentu