@jeanne-mayell, beautifully said. ❤️
Considering Carl Jung's theory of dreams, I'd say you've hit the minotaur on the head. Jung believed that dreams reveal more than they conceal; that they offer a potently symbolic mechanism for integrating the unconscious (both what's simply unknown, as much as what is actively hidden and suppressed) into the light of waking awareness; and that dreams with powerful mythical or archetypal symbols are as much about our collective integration as a culture, as they are a personal process for the dreamer.
In many ways, Ivanka is a cultural totem for the dying traditionalist/patriarchal epoch. She represents a demure, elegant, perfected feminine form who, although intelligent, remains willingly subservient to the desires and whims of her father—outwardly supporting him in everything he does, however dangerous—whether she personally condones his actions or not. She even converted to Modern Orthodox Judaism for her husband, no small thing.
But she also represents the pressures of a transitional period. She's incredibly driven and ambitious. Her father has never given any substantial stake in the shares of his organization to his children; they've had to work there in hopes of some day attaining it. (I'm not arguing here that they're not privileged.) DJT has forced his three oldest children to compete—sometimes ruthlessly—with one another for his favor, and from a very young age, Ivanka learned to use every in-born trait and acquired capacity at her disposal to ensure that she is most favored.
The price has been emotional incest, if not physical, as well as a kind of ongoing public exploitation of her at her father's whim. (Who wouldn't be humiliated to tap dance for him that way?) There is no getting around the fact that Ivanka is the adult child of a malignant narcissist (a symbol for necrotic patriarchy for sure!), so whatever her own failures or demons or even crimes, she's done what everyone in that parent-child relationship does: she's learned how to survive inside it. Maybe by evolutionary design, but we can't not love our parents, no matter who they are or how they behave toward us. Unless we willingly go no-contact, a relationship with a malignant narcissist—even if you're his "favorite"—is an abusive dynamic, full stop.
Just this morning I saw that more women are now coming out about Weinstein, and more is tumbling out about Epstein & Co. too. And you're right, Jeanne: this is all part of the dream symbolism, if we read it as a collective story. It's pointing to what's occurring, what's coming, and what we have to process in order to evolve our society. You can't move from one set of standard operating procedures, one prevailing order, to the next unless you fully and totally accept what has become pathological about the previous.
Happy Solstice everyone. May we hold one another well and lightly as we continue passing through this transition.
@vestralux. You really can write. You have said it all here, more than any news of the day; you've touched on essence of our age, an age that is coming to a close.
@jeanne-mayell, thank you so much for your kind words, dear one.
@lawrence and @sdj, I completely agree. I felt a significant energetic release in the field this weekend.
And beyond impeachment, more than a few interesting developments have happened on the ground. While there's still an overwhelming flank of evangelical holdouts, the ranks have broken—and the languaging is changing. The movement as a whole had basically accepted a devil's bargain, leveraging their souls against the temporary reward of "pro-life" judges and proximity to power. But the profligate sin of fundamentalist evangelism is hypocrisy. You lose any semblance of your imagined moral high ground against the blatant immorality of this president. And although CT's editor-in-chief isn't the first to stand up, his words went viral. When one of your own challenges 'all of them that buy and sell in the Temple,' well... I'd call it a turning point.
Another thing that went national was the news that a key group of conservative critics, including George Conway, have formed a PAC, the Lincoln Project, explaining, “As Americans, we must stem the damage [DJT] and his followers are doing to the rule of law, the Constitution and the American character.”
[Also, noteworthy: Conway dubbed our prez IMPOTUS, which takes all moniker prizes for me!]
And I continue discovering new conservative media, such as The Bulwark (and its podcast) which describes itself thus: "No shouting, grandstanding, or sloganeering. Conservative, conscientious, and civil." Elsewhere, it says, "Never tribal."
As a progressive who seeks to be conscientious and civil, rather than reactive or tribal, I believe healthy democracy will always need healthy debate across divergent ideological perspectives. So, I don't want to see conservatives or conservatism disappear. I want to see what is worthwhile or essential on the right survive and grow through its present apocalypse. Criticism impels growth. Tribalism compels devolution.
In 2016 I saw that the Republican party would fragment as a result of this president (I wasn't alone). Hell, Lindsey Graham himself predicted the party's destruction if they voted for T, and declared they'd deserve it. We've been seeing the steady rise of fascism and authoritarianism all over the world. And a dark breed of pseudo-intellectual White Supremacy is gaining power in this country. In the first quarter of this year, the GOP as it still is will have to choose. That's all the time they get. The excuse of Stockholm syndrome to this president (though funny) is weak. And Godwin's law be damned. We are literally and actually reliving events that mirror those which led to rise of the Nazi party in Germany and its horrific ends. We have been rewalking that ground already for too long, and every thinking person knows it.
If this president were to be reinstalled (I won't say "re-elected"), we'd see a future none of us could bear to write about here. We all know that deep down. But however dark it gets between now and November, I don't believe that will happen. Putin's puppet president (I said it) is sick. Soon enough, it will be impossible to mistake his symptoms for anything else.
With the Christianity Today article, there’s even more focus on the Evangelicals and the bargain they’ve made with the devil. Their hypocrisy can’t stand up under the bright light of inquiry and even closer scrutiny. Let’s face it, if you’re siding with the folks who put kids in cages, you’re not on the side of the angels.
Now the conservative National Review is calling for Trump’s removal, too. So the beat goes on and my mood is improving.
I have "lurked" here for a little over a year now. I have always intuited things, an Empath... and an NDE 47 years ago heightened things. I am usually "in the closet" because many do not understand or accept it. A long Journey to be who I am today. I just wanted to say (Putin's Puppet has been my name for Trump since 2016) I am so thankful that people are finally seeing what he is. Truly evil flourishes while good people stand by and do nothing. I have had long time friends turn on me because I speak out about him. I have met new ones...who can see what he is and what he is doing. I wanted to thank all here.. for the support and honesty that I "see" know that it has comforted me and kept me from thinking I was insane LOL. I have always had a heightened sense of smell , hyperosmia, about many things in the physical world. Oddly .. I always had a sense of "reeking garbage" that I can actually smell whenever I would see IMPOTUS (Love that!) and hear him talk...to the point I have to turn it off/remove it. I strongly sense his mental health is teetering on the brink of him totally losing it. It remains to be seen if the GOP covers it up for him as they did with Reagan.
Welcome to our community. Thank you for your post and happy holidays!
Amen, @bluebelle!
I think it bears remembering that only about 13% of Christians identify as evangelical. The problem, of course, is that—much like the religious clerics Jesus of Nazareth directly criticized (which, as we know, got him killed)—the majority of white American evangelical leaders have aligned themselves with "Rome." Not because they care so deeply about sparing the lives of the unborn [what do they care for those lives once they're here?] or because they fear "the homosexuals" so much [they seem to love all the gay music ministers and pastors who lead their megachurches!], but because they want to continue to be appointed to senate seats and federal judgeships and cabinet posts and every other powerful position their proximity to this president affords them.
Seeing to the preservation of their "religious freedom" is an accidental euphemism for American Sharia, but I digress...
I was raised by evangelicals and no longer identify as Christian myself. But (despite my stated frustration here) I have a great deal of love and respect for that two-millennia-old faith. For others like me, I think it's important to keep in perspective that most Christians fall somewhere near the political center—like everyone else in the bell curve of democracy. And at the forefront of every one of our country's civil rights and social justice movements, going back to abolition and suffrage, were liberal Christians—Unitarians and Quakers and Episcopalians and Methodists—(and people of other faiths) who fought for the rights of all people, at risk of their own lives and livelihoods. They sought to stand in the example of their messiah, who'd once been a lowly immigrant child but had gone on to challenge the injustices of Rome itself, including its enslavement of the Jews. A carpenter's son who was willing to die fighting for a more righteous and compassionate world.
And each of those evangelicals, if we take them at their word, believe they'll stand before him someday.
So ... children in cages? Imprisoning frightened migrants who desperately seek asylum at our borders? Callously allowing young people to die in those conditions? Rewarding a soldier who murders civilians and mocks the death of an adolescent? Looking the other away as a journalist is brutally murdered and mutilated? I can't imagine how they believe they'll justify those things then.
Hi, @journeywithme2! So glad you finally posted. Please do stick around.
P.S.
I have hyperosmia! I'm basically a bloodhound. My daughter and I joke that my uncanny sense of smell is my "unfortunate superpower," but your post makes me incredibly grateful that I don't smell anything extrasensory when I see or listen to IMPOTUS. (The seeing and hearing are bad enough, thankyouverymuch.) ?
Thank you Jeanne and Happy Holidays to everyone here!
Hi, and couldn't agree more about American Sharia. Recently, I watched "The Family" on Netflix, a five-part series about an extremely powerful evangelical group centered in DC. It explains the hard right evangelical mindset quite well. It also reveals their faith-based reasons for accepting IMPOTUS as their Chosen One.
Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to all who celebrate.
Even for those who don't, here's a holiday gift for us all viafilings in court yesterday. The very first line of the article says: The House is open to the prospect of impeaching President Donald Trump a second time, lawyers for the Judiciary Committee said Monday. Happy Holidays!
@vestralux, I don't always catch all smells. Some seem to elude me-like when my friend complains about her cats having soiled something. I don't always smell it. On the other hand, I catch many things others don't. I one time called the HVAC repair guys because my heat didn't smell right-I smelled something burning. The guy thought I was nuts till he found the blower motor switch was working only intermittently. Seems I could smell the heat coils when the switch hadn't activated yet, but the guy couldn't figure out how since he could barely smell them when he was in the attic with them. LOL I could always tell when my ex had been smoking pot when he had my son in the house. The clothes sometimes didn't even leave the suitcase, and were never in the same room with the ex while he was smoking. Then they'd make the journey from one coast to another in a plane, but when I unzipped the suitcase, I could always smell the tobacco and the pot.
Hi, @mikeb! Totally. Some of us discussed the docuseries here right after its release, and I'm glad you've mentioned it again. In fact, I'd say the story it reveals (as frightening as it is) should be necessary viewing for all Americans. But then, I'm partial to sunlight as disinfectant.
What I want to see next is an examination of how this particular strain of religious thinking and its tendency toward dark covenants with power has repeated throughout history, from Constantine to the Crusades to the Reformation and so on. It feels like something we need to be conscious of as a culture. A type of mind virus we should learn to better guard our societies against.
@cindy Very cool about the HVAC motor! As they say, the nose knows.
Like you, I smell all the things—even when no one around me is concerned or convinced. Someone told me that Kim Kardashian can smell cavities just by sitting near enough to a person, and I can believe it. I feel I've smelled cancer (before it was diagnosed) and even death (before it had commenced). But I also tend to experience smells whenever spirits are near, which might be anything from particular food smells, cigarettes, pipe tobacco, a campfire, mothballs, or the odor of alcohol on someone's breath, to more pleasant smells like aftershave, gardenia, jasmine, or roses. Without fail and regardless of smell, I get a metallic taste in my mouth when spirits are near.
I have synesthesia (I've said it here before, but I imagine a lot of us do), so smell for me is bound up in other senses: namely, visual (color) and sound. They're overlapping energetic frequencies, I guess. So, a smell often has a color component that I'm picking up visually (inner eye). And certain musical chords or harmonies come with color and smell. There's sometimes also a feeling of "texture," but that's harder to explain.
Happiest of Holidays to all here ..sharing one of my favorites of the season : https://youtu.be/yxDZjg_Igoc
I don't know where to post this - remove it if it's the wrong place.
I was at my brother's tonight for Xmas eve and my nephew gave me a book "1000 Things The Republicans Do Right." Chapters concern the electoral college, health care, diversity etc.
Every page in the book is blank. Happy holidays.
Merry Christmas/Holidays Everyone!
Anyhow, I was reading a book about Ego and there was a few paragraphs about Howard Hughes and man, he had a lot of similarities to Trump. I wonder if anyone has seen both charts to see if they had similar placements. HH was quite an egotist who squandered millions and most of what he had was inherited. He lost more money.. he also had government contracts in which he squandered taxpayer dollars. He also degenerated mentally (and physically). I don't know why he is viewed so positively. That guy was narcissist and a jerk. He bankrupted so many businesses.
In his early life he was very inventive and ambitious. Later on he went nuts.
I'm not a professional but I glanced at both the charts. DT and HH have several planets in common, namely Leo and Gemini. Howard was a Libra, however. I am on a fun site that tells you people who have similar aspects. The people who have similar astrological aspects to Trump are complete disaster areas. After all, Gemini takes up the #2 spot in serial killers. Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Keith Richards, someone called Anti-Christ (who has similar aspects to Hitler), Alois Alzheimer, and others have astrological aspects as DT. People with similar aspects to Hughes' chart seem more benign. Of course I'm generalizing, and this is just for fun.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all! I am so thankful for all of you and especially Jeanne, who has created this place for us to meet and exchange ideas.
I just finally had time to read the following article. It is not very festive, but it serves, in my opinion, as a reminder that we need to remain calm, steady and focused over the next few months in directing our energy. The article is about the president and his current mental state written in the form of an interview with a mental health professional. Apparently, he can only thrive if he can create anger and discord.
https://www.salon.com/2019/12/23/how-to-understand-trump-now-wounded-child-drug-addict-or-delusional-gaslighter/
I am going to try to direct the anger/fear that I feel instead as light to those who are trying to do the right thing and protect the country.
I wish all of you peace and joy over the holiday season!