On 6/16/2016 12:10 PM, Bob Whitmire wrote:
After a drink or two, I can argue that inanimate objects--things--also _can_
possess a soul.
With my Animist headdress on, I must agree.
But it takes the whisky to get around the fact that one person's object with
soul is another person's piece of crap.
That's because (Jungian hat donned.) what we generally tend to think is the soul in or of the object is, in fact,
projection of interior parts of ourselves of which we are consciously unaware onto external things, people, whatever.
Jung called these hidden parts of ourselves the Unconscious for the obvious reason that about all we can know about it
consciously is that it is there, but not what's "in" it. Soul is just as good a word for it. *
The object is just an object, with no intrinsic, objective qualities of good or bad, helpful or unhelpful. Those
qualities only arise from our, external perspective. Poison Oak (or Ivy) just is, it's soul and physical being simple
mirrors of each other. When many of us interact physically with it, our bodies react in unpleasant ways, and we tend to
demonize it as Bad, particularly those of us filled with the monotheistic religious worldview and/or secular/scientism
gestalts that rely on dualistic thinking and feeling.
The naturalist healer will connect with the soul and discover in what ways the object's nature might be useful. Poison
Oak/Ivy, for example, have healing uses for herbalists, holistic healers and so on.
The Shaman also may contact the soul, as a part of understanding the relationship of an individual or tribe to the world
they live in. The "other" world(s) that Shamans visit and the material, middle world, that our bodies and minds
(largely) inhabit, mirror each other. Knowing the soul properties of the things that surround us in the middle world is
important, sometimes crucial, to the Shaman's work in the other worlds.
As you know, I can natter on about this stuff, from several perspectives, more
or less ad infinitum.
Moose the Mouth
* Thus, Jungian Projection and Re-Collection, as Marie Louise Von Franz named the process, Inner Work, as Robert A.
Johnson called it, Shamanic practices like the Soul Retrieval that Sandra Ingerman and other Shamanic practitioners
describe and practice and other ways of finding and re-integrating "lost" parts of ourselves as a way of healing, are
all essentially the same process underneath.
--
What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
--
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