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Magical Mystery Moments

May 3, 2017
EMOTIONS, RITE/RITUAL, THINKING AND THOUGHT
5 Comments

“MAGIC MOMENTS” : Magic moments, when two hearts are carin’ // Magic moments, mem’ries we’ve been sharing … Time can’t erase the memory of // These magic moments filled with love … Magic moments filled with love  [Songwriters: Burt Bacharach / Hal David.  “Magic Moments” lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC]

“There’s a magic and mystery in positive events.”  –Sonja Lyubomirsky, PhD, psychologist

The term magic has a variety of meanings, hence there is no widely agreed upon definition of what it is or how it can be used.  However, some treat magic as a personal phenomenon intended to meet individual needs, as opposed to a social phenomenon serving a collective purpose.  The explanatory power of magic should not be underestimated, however.  Both in the past and in the modern world, magical belief systems can provide explanations for otherwise difficult or impossible to understand phenomena while providing a spiritual and metaphysical grounding for the individual.  [See “Magic” in Wikipedia.]

“It’s a mystery!”  –Tom Stoppard, Shakespeare in Love

“…moments of epiphany, or revelation, of radiance…with meaning essentially wordless, for words are always qualifications and limitations.”  –Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

“Persons who come for therapy do so because they lack power; they complain that they cannot achieve.  …  Patients want ‘magical knowledge,’ and no matter how correctly the therapist explains that insight is not magic, it still feels that way to the person when an insight ‘dawns.’”  –Rollo May, “Faust in the Twentieth Century” in The Cry for Myth (1991).

“There is no myth which is not the unveiling of a ‘mystery,’ the revelation of a primordial event which inaugurated either a constituent structure of reality or a kind of human behavior.  [But] when no longer assumed to be a revelation of the ‘mysteries,’ the myth becomes ‘decadent,’ obscured; it turns into a tale or a legend.”  –Mircea Eliade, “Preface” in Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries (1957)

“MEMORY”:  Midnight // Not a sound from the pavement // Has the moon lost her memory // She is smiling alone // In the lamplight…  Memory // All alone in the moonlight // …I remember the time I knew what happiness was // Let the memory live again // … Tonight will be a memory too // And a new day will begin // …  –Andrew Lloyd Webber, T. S. Eliot, Trevor Nunn, Zdenek Hruby • © Universal Music Publishing Group, Imagem Music Inc.

interrobang  MagicalMysteryTourDoubleEPcover.jpgMagical Mystery Tour

 

“MYTHOPOEIC”

May 4, 2015
RITE/RITUAL
1 Comment

What? Mystical, cosmological, sociological, pedagogical.

“What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.
…
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.” T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets

* * *

J. Campbell.  M. Eliade.  C. Jung.  B. Bettelheim.  R. May.  N. Frye.  P. Wheelwright

Living a myth implies a genuinely religious experience, differing from the ordinary experience of everyday life, re-enacting fabulous, exalting, significant events.

“The bard is sacred to the gods and is their priest.” –John Milton

Ovid.  Whitman.  Milton.  Thoreau.

We live the myth ceremonially or by our performing the ritual [the “doing”; rite is the “how to do”]: in one way or another, we “live” the myth in the sense that we are “seized by the sacred, exalting power of the events recollected or re-enacted.” –Eliade

Employee-Wash-Hands-Sign-NHE-13171_300Simple hand washing?

The Lavabo: Latin for wash (or bathe).  In the ancient church, the priest would clean his hands after receiving gifts of oil, food, and other goods.

“The priest then begins to recite Psalm 26: “I wash my hands in innocence”: Lavabo inter innocentes manus meas.”

“When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, . . .he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. ‘I am innocent of this man’s blood,’ he said.” –Matthew 27:24 (NIV)

“Will all the water in the ocean wash this blood from my hands?” –Mrs. Macbeth

Surgical Hand Scrubs: “There is a standard procedure for surgical hand antisepsis, gowning, and gloving which is based on current evidence, best practice, and validated research.” –Every medical-surgical instruction manual.

“Get up there and wash your hands before dinner!”–Mom

lava soap bars

MAKING LISTS FROM A SICK BED

September 5, 2013
EVENTS, FAVORITES, MEMOIRS, PLACES

By: James F. O’Neil

“Find a place inside where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.”  –Joseph Campbell

 

Hospital bed

Photo: Hill-Rom

Recovering from knee surgery was an ordeal that included many nights of restlessness and pain.  During those times, often under the influence of medication, I would lie in my hospital bed, trying to ease the distress by visualizing my home, mentally walking through each room, recollecting objects, colors, and decor.  Soon I was focusing more specifically, trying to picture book titles, CD labels, and the covers of my DVD collection.  I was trying to remember, to ease the pain.

After the allowed hospital stay post-surgery, I had to spend a week in a private room in a rehab center.  There I was welcomed, my aides eager to heal me, though determined to spoil me in the process.  Constant attention was paid to the person in the private room, who just wanted to moan and get some rest.  For unknown reasons, again, my mind would drift, and my memory would work to make mental lists. 

In the evening, I would fall into a light sleep.  I would dream lightly, and then awaken after an hour or so, in my darkened room.  Forced to lie on my back because of the surgical staples, I could turn a bit on my side, enough to reach the bedside stand and the light–but also my gel pen.

On the back of the small slip of paper (my evening meal menu), I added item after item from my mental lists–items that I deemed important.  

During the day, I would study my list.  Between sessions of the staff trying to help me move, to do some exercises, and my pleasant occupation of trying to regain my strength by eating, I would edit and refine my lists. 

At home, after my release from my sick bed, I found some time to copy out those remembered “favorites”–those, “What-if-you-were-stranded-on-a-desert-island-with-only-one…?” whatever-item.

By many standards, my hospital list might seem amateurish.  Nevertheless, as I later began to study the items, I was surprised that such awareness and detail could come during periods of intense pain.  Even though I felt at times as though I were dying, I knew I was not.

I just wanted out of that hospital bed, out of that place–and wanted a Jack and Coke….

 * * *

Here is some of what I scribbled:

The Written Word:  Othello; A Tree Grows in Brooklyn; The Guns of August; The Power and the Glory; Childhood’s End; The Handmaid’s Tale.

My Visuals:  Vermeer; Tiffany; Bernini; Crayolas; Chicago Architecture.

Music:  Vivaldi; La Boheme; Gregorian Chant; Streisand Duets; Fleetwood Mac.

Movies:  English Patient; Casablanca; Jerry McGuire; Shakespeare in Love; Carousel; What Dreams May Come; Moonstruck.

My Beverages (Yes, I even thirsted after other types of pleasures):  Jack Daniel’s; Scotch whisky; Gewürztraminer; Diet Vanilla Coke; Arizona Sweet Tea; Cherry Dr. Pepper. 

What Dreams May Come

Photo Credit: aesteticum.com

 ©  James F. O’Neil  2013