Archive for February, 2012

Superhero decision and Hercules sign

February 24th, 2012

 

At the moment, I am working on and writing up a powerpoint workshop on the archetype of Superhero that I will give to a client team in Toronto next Tuesday.  For days, I have been researching classical and contemporary legends of heros, superhero icons, historical and famous contemporary figures that Americans and Canadians find to be their personal superheroes, and looking at brands that represent a Superhero archetype.

 

I am also considering applying for the doctoral program in Depth Psychology with emphasis on Jungian and Archetypal Studies, at Pacifica Graduate Institute in California, where there will be a major emphasis on archetypes and mythology as key to my Ph.D.  I am in the decision stages, and actually am writing now from Santa Barbara where today an interview with the head of the department JS will take place.

 

Two days ago while running along the Hudson River in New York City–after a silent request to the Universe to please help me figure out the Superhero presentation, which is complex and related to a specific brand that I’ve done a large ethnographic study on, as well as to help me figure out what to do about the doctoral program and if I should go ahead–I saw a truck that said Hercules prominently on it.  Hercules Cleaning is its full name.  Apparently, Hercules Cleaning is a cleaning company that promises strength of cleaning results, but the important sign for me was the name Hercules.  Then another truck with Hercules on it came into view. I walked by another one.  Another passed me on the street.  Then another.  Yet another.

 

With my mouth agape and my mind astonished at this visual synchronicity, I witnessed seven Hercules trucks within a 10 minute period of time–parked, moving, in traffic, going by me, in front of a warehouse, etc.–they were all different and all these signs of Hercules were occurring within a very short period of time.

 

As almost everyone knows, Hercules is a great hero from classical Greek and Roman mythology, celebrated as a contemporary icon, appearing within adult and children’s movies, and used as common parlance to mean superstrength.   “A Herculean task,” etc.   Hercules is the original legendary hero known for his half-god/half-human origin, his mighty superhuman prowess, his many feats with other superheros, and his ability to perform tasks of impossible difficulty.   The 12 tasks of Hercules are archetypal.  One day I’ll note them in a posting if it seems relevant.

 

So, with my iPhone on me that morning, I quickly and intensely photographed these seven Hercules truck sightings.  Realizing the dramatic news and sign represented by so many Hercules appearing to me, I am now seeing–while developing this post–that a) the Superhero presentation in Toronto will go well, it will have strong results for the brand, corporate team, if followed will enjoy success in the marketplace, and be a strong connection between archetypes and my mythological/brand work, and b) I need to and can take seriously a positive decision to accept the doctoral program on mythology and archetypes within a depth psychology perspective were it offered to me.

 

Superhero strength like that of Hercules will be required, but it is sure to become available.

 

I am posting several photographs of these Hercules sightings, but remember, there are actual seven sightings.  There were more than seven but some “got away” from me because I couldn’t get my camera out in time, assuming each time I did a photograph of a truck with Hercules on it, it was the last.  And, then I saw another.  And another…

 

Seven is the number of Explorer-Adventurer/Chariot archetype, which implies movement within stability, the time of the new adventure, with total permission to be exploring new worlds.

 

 

 

 


 

Signs like these act quickly and with great focus during a time of intellectual ferment.  The owl seems a fitting symbol of ideas and thoughts rushing in from self, others, and from what Carl Jung called the collective unconscious, that vast storehouse of legendary wisdom underlying spiritual and powerful symbolic iconography with synchronous events appearing with meaning in the world.  Classically, the snowy owl is associated with Athena, the Greek goddess/archetype of wisdom.  Remember the snowy owl flying in with the letter for Harry Potter to announce his entrance to the school of magic in the first Harry Potter movie?   Athena also appears visually in my powerpoint presentation, the expanded version, as a model for contemporary female icons like Wonder Woman and perhaps a building block for target audiences related to the brand I’m working on.

 

 

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Datura, dream, and desperados

February 15th, 2012

This reader’s post can be found under my post A Beginning Descriptor, which I wrote when alerted by RA that her friend J had experienced a strange intersection between dream and reality.  Both take place in a small South American town.  Here is J’s story:

 

I will attempt to describe the ¨dream¨referred to in the above posting. I fell asleep with an apricot-hued Datura flower on my pillow, breathing in the blossom´s delicate perfume. A very clear and unornamented dream ensued. 

 

In my dream, a father and son were traveling through a desolate landscape. The scene was a dark night in a desert town. The father was some kind of gambling desperado. The son was there to steer him clear of danger. They received word that they must prepare because the town was to be under siege. A gang was poised to enter the town and create havoc. The macho father wanted to take them on, but the son prevailed. And they took refuge in an upstairs hotel room.

 

I was awakened out of the dream by three loud knocks on the door of our lodging. My partner leapt out of bed to investigate. He found no one there, and looking out of the open screen-covered windows, could see no movement or evidence of anyone in the shadows. He returned to bed and as we were pondering the significance of the knocks, we heard a gunshot fired from very close by. We waited for some movement or explanation. In the next moment, a series of five gunshots were fired, also very close. Afterwards there were no sounds or explanations. We went back to sleep, hoping that the morning would resolve the mystery.

 

In the morning we learned that the town we were staying in had indeed been under siege with robberies, assaults, and attempted highway roadblock assualts.

 

We never learned the significance of the three knocks that woke us.

 

Comment by Lindberg:  This is an amazing situation.  The dreamer dreams of an assault on a town, is awakened by mysterious knocks, sees nothing, but later learns that the town they were staying in was under assaults.  Who knocked?  What was the nature of the assault dream?  Did it act as a synchronous vision of something that was happening simultaneously?  Were both dreams or were both realities?

 

This post will act as my intention to learn more about the phenomenom of dreams that exist simultaneously with a dramatic reality situation.  It’s not a prefigurative or predictive dream.  The assault dream happens at the same time as the assault on the town.

 

If other readers have similar dream-reality situation, please write and tell us, or feel free to comment on this dual dream-reality synchronicity.

 

I am wondering if Jung and other depth psychologists have an opinion.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Synchronicities from readers writing in, Synchronicity, Totally new synchronicities | 4 Comments »

Two kinds of intelligences

February 13th, 2012


This categorization of learning by Rumi seems particularly vital today; I have never seen the distinction quite this way before.  I offer the poem called Two kinds of intelligences

 

“There are two kinds of intelligence: One acquired,

As a child in school memorizes facts and concepts

from books and from what the teacher says,

collecting information from the traditional sciences

as well as from the new sciences.

 

With such intelligence you rise in the world.

You get ranked ahead or behind others

in regard to your competence in retaining

information

You stroll with this intelligence

in and out of fields of knowledge, always getting more

marks on your preserving tablets.

 

There is another kind of tablet, one

already completed and preserved inside you.

A spring overflowing its springbox

A freshness

in the center of the chest

This other intelligence

does not turn yellow or stagnate.  It’s fluid,

and it doesn’t move from outside to inside

through conduits of plumbing-learning.

 

This second knowing is a fountainhead

from within you, moving out.”

 

From The Essential Rumi, by Coleman Barks

 

Can one be enamored of both styles?

 

I specialize in the first, which moves from the outside to the inside, but find myself drawn to the fountainhead…the one from within, moving out.

 

 

 


 


 

Posted in Creativity, Methodologies and research findings | 1 Comment »

Pacifica as university signaled by car

February 12th, 2012

 

For the past two weeks, I have been intensely developing my application for the doctoral program in Depth Psychology with Emphasis on Jungian and Archetypal Studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute.   Still lacking one or two vital pieces of the application on this day, I was driving my Lexus out of town, leaving New York City, wondering if I would be accepted and how it would be to do a full-time research practice and do a full-time doctoral program–at the same time.  Could I?  Should I?  Would I?  Yes, it’s too exciting an opportunity to pass up.

 

Then…

 

In front of me, I see a plain white minivan, while traffic is stopped at a light.  It has the logo Pacifica.  It is subtle yet dramatic.   Like a breath of fresh air wafting into a dark cloud of worry, the logo brings me up sharply and I relax.

 

 

The pale white imperceptible Pacifica logo on the car is a sign that…

 

…news or a next-step is imminent with Pacifica the university.    I realize that it really doesn’t matter what I think, obsess, or worry about because what will be, will be.    The Ph.D. program is actually a foregone conclusion, part of my destiny, the next stage of my intellectual progress…signaled in a flash by this small synchronicity.  The program, my life, and my continuing-t0-evolve research practice will happen as it should.

 

Tonight–moments ago, in fact–a consultant-colleague J.O. in the sustainability marketing field emails me to ask how my degree in Cultural Anthropology at Columbia had gone, and that she’d like to do it or get one, too.  She asks, “What would it be like to study collaborative culture, to shift toward study of cultures that are less materialistic in value?”   No one among my professional friends has mentioned cultural anthropolog for a while although I’ve been contacting former anthropology professors nonstop.  Her question and her desire to talk about advanced degrees is yet another small sign that my new program is right on track, on the horizon, coming up quickly.

 

 

 

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An interception…beginning descriptor

February 8th, 2012

This is the beginning of a synchronicity reported recently from South America.  It is from R who is relating it about her friend J.  J is now traveling in Spain and may not have internet access to write it herself.   This is an edited excerpt from an email.

From R:
I have daily been reading, working on  a new graphic piece, practicing and playing violin.  i met with a local medicine herbalist for my cough,  and he gave me an array of plants that I have been using medicinally, drinking, inhaling, and pouring them on myself in the local tradition.   I am also enhaling sea water and running every morning….trying for a complete effect, to concentrate on healing this persistent cough during this month when I don’t have too many responsibilities.   It seems better.
What is strange is that recently I have had this feeling of ‘falling in love’ with the plants that interact with humans, in my own garden.  Before, my feeling was that gardening was aesthetic, a kind of ornamentation, a love of color and design.  Now, this has suddenly changed about a month ago.  I began to feel this new, different relationship emerge.
Here is a veiled reference to the dramatic synchronicity:  I gave a Datura flower (growing in my garden) to our guest, J, to put at her bedside last weekend.  I said to her, randomly, without much thought, ‘See what happens tonight.’  That night she had a dream that intercepted with the physical world precognitively and synchronistically.  The dream occurred at the same time as some spectacular events occurred here, namely 5 robberies, assaults, and attempted petty robberies all at the same moment during the time of her dream.   I asked her to write into your blog all the details as this was so impressive.
If she doesn’t do it soon I will write this in, as all of us are still trying to understand what happened.
By the way, none of us were robbed and we are totally happy and OK, just livin’ the life here.
Editor’s note:  My expectation, hope, and intention is that by writing a teaser post on the above synchronicity, the author J or her friend R will want, or feel called upon, to describe the details of the dream herself in a future posting.


 

Posted in Synchronicities from readers writing in, Synchronicity, Totally new synchronicities | 1 Comment »

New synchronicities

February 8th, 2012

 

A reader, R, has written to request a category called New Synchronicities so that she and others can post totally new synchronicity experiences in its own section.

 

I am adding this category today, calling it Totally New Synchronicities.

 

To review the purpose of the blog Secrets and Synchronicities for new readers…it is to create an ongoing forum of interactivity on the theme of building and exploring a compendium of synchronicities recorded from an intentional desire or completely spontaneous, unsolicitied occurrence in order to see and experience such meaningful coincidences on an ongoing basis.

 

It is also to analyze their meaning, muse, see where and if the coincidences move and expand, and note any connections between personal or professional synchronicities with the field of in-depth qualitative, archetypal research.  Carl Jung, champion of synchronicity, believed that meaningful coincidence and archetypes existed in the same continuum.

 

 

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