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To look with the eyes and see with the heart
is the secret of the philosopher's stone
re: Harry Potter
Magic is
not about disorder. On the contrary, it reestablishes a peaceful Don't know much about astrology... Stars and planets. They've been pondered, ached
over, cooked and internalized since our consciousness first split off
from the unconscious. Have a look at the night sky (I know you do) in
some place away from city lights: awe, pure awe. We, as a species, the
conscious eyes and ears of a planet, have long ago embedded a
projection of our psyche within those stars. Onto those changing
relationships of infinite small fires, ever-moving, we've wished our
deepest wishes, prayed our most cherished and desperate
hopes.
Quite a map, this that we carry off to our dreams. I'm not one to believe in divination or prophecy. But I do tend to think that the way I feel in responding to it sometimes tells me about parts of myself I didn't know about. If there's a revelation, that's it. What would JKR's perspective be? I understand and
sense from the books she has an accord with Jung. She also knows her
classics. The planets, the magick of forces and relationships
projected as the
Greek daemon
and
the Roman/Medieval genius figures: all these intuitions
were just part of the daily thoughts of ancient and imaginative
people... and the more you read of them, the more you understand that
their thinking persists in our unconscious and is reflected in myth.
Further, the more you study myth, the more you are amazed that such
great depths of wisdom could be cast and played out in these
personifications of forces and events. The very act of writing--any
art--releases them. So I just expect that depth from someone as finely
tuned as JKR.
Alchemy reflects the dream perspective that plays
on and directs our thoughts. The conscious awareness that light comes
forth from darkness (and vice versa... a metaphor for the Tao / Oneness
of conscious and unconscious) -- has been heartening in my life, to
say the least. But what has always struck me was the
discussion of the Centaurs in the first book... Fate. Harry seems doomed
by the planets, yet, it ain't necessarily so, Firenze insists.
Firenze, the rebel, is a terribly important figure. What is he really
saying? That though the dark forces and their logic are always there
guiding things and not to be belittled or ignored, the light of
consciousness--individuality and ultimately the continuing process of
individuation--can reset the course. That ultimately Harry and the
decisions he makes, the things he uses to guide him, are a stronger
magic than any literality or prophecy. That that is his fate: to defy fate.
Firenze is cast out from his kind for working
with Dumbledore... cast out of a star-shackled consciousness. This
seems enormously important.
Work with caution, the old alchemists said. Harry
Potter isn't about good vs evil. It's about power and the way we use it.
Harry Potter reflects the crisis of our age.
"Mars is bright tonight."
I keep bringing up the Fundamentalist Right: that certainty with which they inflict their views on everything they touch--and it's a huge "hand-of the dead on the shoulder of the living" power they wield--works to create and promote a superstition which makes the Bible a magick book of hard prophecy, rather than the collection of writings from various sources, histories, intents and interpretations that it truly is. They lose its true power, which is inspiration and metaphor. It's like insisting Harry is a true story and that that is its only value, when it's only the meaning that's "real." Like the Centaurs, they've become blind to their actions... like the Death-eaters in their certainty of following... And--they're being used by forces that pursue an agenda of power. The conspiracy business isn't new in the world. It's always been with us, there in birds, in primates. It was perfected by the Romans and hasn't ceased since. (Dinosaur eat dinosaur. It's so neocon. It's so In the Company of Men.) It's the tiresome mindset that uses propaganda, racial, religious, Nationalistic myth to ensnare. Many ways to lie. It knows them all. I have no insight into conspiracy's whos and whats--but I listen when Dumbledore says: "I say to you all, once again – in
the light of Lord Voldemort’s return, we are only as strong as we are
united, as weak as we are divided. Lord Voldemort’s gift for spreading
discord and enmity is very great. We can fight it only by showing an
equally strong bond of friendship and trust.”
We ache to trust. We can't turn on the TV
without being made to flock like birds of identical feathers,
fear our neighbor, coaxed to hate some all
purpose 'evil dooer.' Some enemy is created to fuel the need to
circle the wagons and forget our conscious heart and higher
reason... our lives and who we are. All gets boiled down to good/bad,
and we lose our center.
And as you said, there reality is the middle way. The
old Celts knew this, and Dumbledore is one of them.
We are magicians as well: We know how to creep into minds and make them do our will. As Bruno know, propaganda is a form of magic. How can you see your own irrationality when the cosmos doesn't reflect or adhere to human reason? Nature is by nature paradoxical. We have no way to grasp that -- except through art and myth and, with some honest humility, what they can reveal to us about our own shadow. The cure starts there. Harry comes as a balancing magic in the world: our modern and necessary myth. much appreciation and affection,
deborah JKR also knows this:
World's Billion Young People Key to
Stability -UN
Wed 8 October, 2003 13:14 BST
By Patricia Reaney LONDON (Reuters) - The world's 1.2 billion adolescents are the key to growth and international stability but poverty and disease are threatening their future, the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) said on Wednesday. There are now more adolescents in the world than ever before. Eighty-seven percent of them are in developing countries and one in four lives in extreme poverty. But in its 2003 "State of the World Population" report, the UNFPA said the baby-boom of the poor countries, the result of high fertility in the past, presents both a crisis and an opportunity to change lives. "This is a crisis from the point of view of health," said Alex Marshall, who worked on the report. "Young people are at risk from sexually transmitted diseases, from accidental pregnancy and from HIV/AIDS," Poor health and a lack of education also increase poverty which poses other risks, he told Reuters. "Poverty is the greatest destabilising factor in our world today. The combination of poverty and lack of hope lays kids open to all sorts of temptations, including extremism," Marshall added. But the demographic surge in young people and recent sharp declines in fertility in some countries offer an opportunity for economic and social change because the proportion of people of working age will increase relative to the younger or older dependent generations. "We are calling on national leaders, local leaders, the international community and young people themselves to recognize the crisis and to take advantage of this opportunity," Thoraya Obaid, executive director of UNFPA, told a news conference to launch the report. "We will have a global crisis if we ignore the needs of young people," she said. SMALL PRICE TO PAY The report urges governments to do more to meet development goals set at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in 1994. Industrialized nations pledged to meet a third of the funds to cover population and reproductive health services, to improve education and other needs in the developing world that were estimated to reach $18.5 billion by 2005. But so far the UNFPA has only about half of what is required. "It is less than $10 billion now and less than $3 billion comes from industrial countries," Obaid said, noting that is a small sum compared to what is spent on arms and defense. Countries including Korea, Thailand, Mexico and Malaysia invested in programs in the 1950s, 60s and 70s and are seeing the benefits now. Marshall also cited Bangladesh, parts of India, Uganda, Vietnam and Cambodia for their success in family planning or for lowering the rate of HIV infection. "This is a wake-up call to leaders to listen to young people and acknowledge their needs," Obaid said. "It is a call for governments to increase funding and extend information and services to young people, to support them so they can lead healthy, productive lives." ~home~ |
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Deborah's website |
Great heavenly one who turns the universe, the God who is, Iaô, Lord, ruler of all, ablanathalaabla, grant, grant me favor. I shall have the name of the great God in this amulet; and protect me from every evil thing, me whom Jacqueline bore, Charles begot.
