I love Jonathan Carroll. Ever since I went to a reading/signing he did years ago, I’ve been hooked. He read from Glass Soup, which wasn’t out yet, and signed copies of White Apples for us. I loved it. I’ve gone back and read everything of his that I could track down, and lots of his stuff is no longer in print, so that’s been an exciting hobby.

Anyway. The Ghost In Love. It is utterly fabulous, and yes, the best thing that he’s written yet (so say the reviews on his site; so say I). It is about the breakdown of the Natural Order, of a way in which people can take charge of their own destinies, can live their lives the way that is best for them, and determine the time and matter of their own deaths. And, to spoil the plot for you, that way is by recognizing that we are the sum of many facets of ourselves, mostly the selves we have been at different times in our lives. That those selves do not go away. Some are embraced by our egos, and some are rejected, but the rejected ones simply live in the subconscious and undermine ourselves and our lives and any efforts toward happiness.

Ok. This is the exact idea I am working on for my next novel. Mr. Carroll presents it in a different light than I would (of course), and I am at once jealous that he got there first and thrilled that I am not the only person to get there, and that I am in such marvelously esteemed company. And, I am now wildly excited to get working on that idea!

(This idea, of course, is clearly laid out in the hero’s journey and in the major trumps of the tarot. It’s not a new idea, but this idea always hinges on integration. Why is that the only answer? Some things can’t be reconciled but must be acknowledged and worked with.)

So far, I have been working on a novel that incorporates *my* selves, recalcitrant and helpful. The rough draft was going rather smoothly, but I set it down and stopped working on it months ago, struck by a huge bout of self-doubt. I also was paying more attention to those selves, or as I call them, Aspects, on a regular basis to help me chart a course through life. I haven’t been lately, and I can’t really say things have been going my way. My ego seems to be capable of treading water, but seemingly only through luck and last-ditch efforts.

I am going to get back to working on that novel; and to help me do it, I am going to give those selves more expression. Which I intend to post a great deal of here. I am officially making it a project, even if nothing more comes of it than a balanced me. Though honestly, I’d like for people to see that there is value in sitting down and sorting these selves and their priorities out. They can actively help you, and they can inadvertently help you figure out strange desires and things you keep in your life even though you know you should get rid of them.

I’ll warn you right now: I am one of those people. One of those people who believe that thought drives action. Therefore and ergo, right thought drives right action. You might know it as The Secret, or the law of attraction. Which are very fancy systems that try to inspire us to remember that intent always drives us. If we fail to provide our own intent, the intent of others will bounce us around like a cork.

One of the original books written on this idea (ha!) is The Master Key System, by Charles F. Haanel. It’s available over at Sacred Texts, one of the best places on the Internet. I ended up there today and randomly clicked on the link for The Master Key System, as it’s one of the new additions to the site. I read a chapter, the Psychological Chart, and found this bit to be rather enlightening:

If most persons whom you meet do what you want them to do; if they feel toward you as you wish them to feel; if they think what you want them to think, give yourself 100 per cent., because everything we get must come from others; there is no other channel by which success can reach us…..When you understand there will be no cause for anxiety; you will know, because in the first place you will never want or expect anyone to do anything except what is best for them; you will understand that every transaction must benefit both parties. When you understand these laws, when the principles become a vital part of your life, when they are involved in your mental attitude, you will have found the Master Key and all doors will be open to you, because you will understand that every event, every condition, every thing was first an idea, and that just to the extent that you grew quiet, and focussed your attention on that idea, stilling all the activities of the mind, and eliminating all other thoughts from your consciousness, will the various phases and possibilities of the idea develop; and just in accordance with the definiteness with which you picture that idea, and the extent with which the idea takes possession of you will the creative power do its work, and the creative power will eventually take control and direct every activity of both mind and body and will begin to shape every condition related to the idea, so that sooner or later the idea will come forth in definite tangible form.

In present-day parlance, this concept is called “setting goals.” You know, that thing you never do. I am just as guilty, even though in the past year and a half I have tried to keep myself reminded of the importance of my will and keeping my thoughts focused. The tradition of New Year’s Resolutions is not to torture oneself with fanciful notions that will never be, but to set down indelibly on paper a desire. Once that desire is implanted in the mind, if one is aware and looks at opportunities as they arise, ways are found toward the desire.

I can’t help but think that so many people discard this theory as “wishful thinking” because in our era of scientism and our history of conservatism, so many people will not allow a goal to exist in their lives unless they can also map the steps to the goal. In math and science this is called proof, and each step much be carefully taken in slow progression until the goal is reached. This point of view means that things that are beyond your current resources are out of reach. If you cannot finagle a way to your goal looking at the time and money and effort and connections you have right now, the goal is pronounced unreachable.

Well then to you it is.

But if you decide on the goal and focus on the goal instead of the way, then the theory is, the way takes care of itself. How? Because ideas are the beginning of action. Because you look at the goal and then look at your resources and you decide on a first step based on what you can do. When you take that first step, you change your life. Your resources will change. Every step builds on the last, and intuition must be trusted just as much as logical thought to see the next opportunity and to take it.

I write all this because it is still new and almost-incredible to me, too. I see the truth of it but it is still so easy for me to doubt. I want the solid-feeling of a plan leading to a goal. But I cannot believe that life is so limited at the same time that I crave the illusion of that stability.

What was it? Oh yes. Deciding what you want is only the first step.

I am reading Richard Caldwell’s The Origin of the Gods
and the first chapter has a lovely explanation of what happens when you desconstruct language. Caldwell’s aim here is to show how difficult it is to put a hard definition on “myth,” but I think what the example shows goes deeper.

“So suppose we turn to a far less complecated object to define, and ask the question philosophers are fond of asking, ‘What is a table?’ A definition acceptable to most people who speak English and claim to know what a table is, would probably be something like this: An object, usually furniture and most often with one or more legs, with a flat horizontal surae on which things can be placed. This seems simple enough, but again problems arise, which may be classified as pertaining either to form or to function. In the case of form, is a house built on pillars and with a flat roof, on which objects are placed such as a television antenna or the trees and plants of a roof garden, therefore to be considered a table? Of course not, most people would answer, since a house is not a piece of furniture. Then what about a bed? No, the answer runs, a bed is not a table since the objects to be placed on the bed are supposed to be people, while the objects put on a table are food or writing materials or something else, but not people. Then why is an operating table not an operating bed? Because, even though people lie on the table as on a bed, their purpose in lying there is to be just like the objects on a table, to be cut up by the tools of someone standing or sitting next to the table.

How wonderfully cyclic language is! You can use a metaphor to point out the breakdown of the metaphor that the whole of language operates under in the first place. I’m sure philosophers have chortled over this one for centuries, but it really makes me think. How *do* we communicate with one another? The speaking of language to another means taking on an assumed worldview and an assumed set of common reference to even begin to work. And if taken literally, as seen here, language simply fails. If language was literal, we wouldn’t need programmers, as we could than simply tell a computer what to do. But because computers do not participate in the group think, in the reality that we provide for ourselves to interact with one another, we have a hard time making computers understand us using human language.

And oh the questions that brings up, about the perceived solidity of reality–a state that can be changed with a collection of syllables that has no meaning but the one with which we choose to imbue it.

I am reading a book called The Circle and it is about the correct way to wish. That is, backed up by intent and will, and with open eyes to see the opportunities that the universe brings to fulfill your wish. And once you have seen the opportunity, to act on it tirelessly.

It’s not a new concept. It’s just hard to break old patterns, and so so hard to believe.

But, you know. Yes We Can. Maybe believing will be a tad easier these days….

Anyway. The book comes at a good time for me, because I recently had too much faith. That is, I put too much trust in sheer hopeful inaction, rather than seeing the signs that it was time to act. And I made myself sick fighting the desire to move with the will to stick to the plan. In the end I moved, and things in my life are much better for it. And now as I read the book and go through the exercises in wishing, I have found a journal that has a wish in it, or perhaps a prayer, but definitely a need. As I am not a person who usually shows deep passion, I even managed to surprize myself. I thought some of it was quite beautiful, so I am posting a revised version for you to enjoy. (Revised to protect the innocent, as it were.)

O goddess, hear my prayers. By the light of the moon I beseech thee, let my wish come true. By the power of my will, by the sufferance of the powers that are greater than me and move in the rhythm of the universe, let my wish come true.

Aphrodite, goddess of lust and love, please answer my prayer. Let my wish come true so that our bond might deepen and that true love might forge itself between us.

O Isis, Queen of Heaven and Lady of Light, let me know again the face of love, let it hold me in the night when I am lost, let it play with me in joy by day. Great lady, let my wish come true.

Ishmael, guardian angel and keeper of doors, make my way easy, if you love me. I implore thee, let my wish come true! Lend me your strength to turn the universe and focus it on this desire. I am shriven of my doubts and I renounce uncertainty. Please let me repent of my falling and show me the way.

By the life-giving light of the sun, Apollo, I call to thee now to answer my prayers, to bring me the strength to shift the universe to make my wish come true. Lover of poets and inspiration, please help me make my dearest wish true.

O lady Bast, my patron and goddess who tends the soft wounds of the heart, help me to be whole in love and let my wish come true.

O Oracle who stands between and keeps the connection to the infinite safe and pertinent, help me reach back to that glowing, infinite space and let the desire of my mind and the needs of my heart reverberate and shift the great web of connection that binds us all. May the world shift to my desires and bring more love to the world and be a force for good.

Let the sun bear witness to the depth of my need, let it burn my intent on the soul of the universe. By all things that live and the connection that defines their life, let this come to pass, that my wish should come true.

Let the words I mark down here be echoes of the Word, let them be infused with the power of the beginning of all things. Let them go back to the void from whence they arose, to bring forth the stirrings of my wish to illuminate as truth across the fabric of the universe.

Perhaps it was overkill; but I can say with absolute certainty that my wish is coming true, and in a way that brings me joy at every turning.

I have been stuck on researching Athene fully over the past month. Figuring out the process for best writing the webpages for Story of Myth has not been easy for me, and I am trying to write down everything I want to say about Athena first and then break it up into nicely organized chunks later. I want to make sure that my style, while informative, does not get too preachy and dry and keeps the images fresh and interesting and current.

I have been reading Christine Downing’s The Goddess, and I’ve just been hit over the head with the extraordinary wrap-up at the end of her chapter on Athena:

Now I understand that balancing the claims of work and passionate involvements, keeping time-with and time-alone in creative proportion, finding ways of allowing the intellectual and the poetic to intermingle fruitfully–all of this is never going to be easy……I am forced to acknowledge how difficult it will always be to not fall back defensively at moments of stress on the masculine in myself–which is masculine when it loses touch with its ground. I will always be susceptible to the danger of of getting pulled into the underworld and lost there, or of getting cut off from the world of soul in the upper air.

To be honest, I’ve never had much affinity with Athena before. But after reading Downing’s modern view of this goddess, I have a beautiful new vision of her that makes me realize that Athena and I have a lot more in common than I thought.

An intriguing bit I read today from Joseph Campbell’s Occidental Mythology:

“…not only were many of the best-known Homeric myths actually fragments of pre-Homeric mythology reinterpreted, but also in the field festivals, women’s rites, and mystery cults of the Classic world there survived beneath (and even not far beneath) the sunny Olympian surfaces a dark, and to us even appalling, stratum of archaic ritual and custom.”

All myth comes from somewhere; and the deepest roots of myth lie some 22,000 years ago in cave paintings and are shrouded in mystery, as there are so few records or artifacts from the time. How can we know how people thought back then? How they viewed the world and their place in it? How can we begin to guess?

Or is it simple truth that human nature never truly strays that far from a basic core that has been embellished over the years and our myths have kept the record of that truth?

Greek myth is such a turning point. What your high school history teacher said is true: our entire world would not exist as we know it without Classical Greece and Alexander the Great, seeding the ancient world with Greek ideas.

Slowly but surely the research on Greek mythology goddesses progresses!