{"id":673,"date":"2012-07-23T17:12:37","date_gmt":"2012-07-23T17:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/juliannedavidow.com\/demonew\/?p=673"},"modified":"2012-07-23T17:12:37","modified_gmt":"2012-07-23T17:12:37","slug":"life-goes-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juliannedavidow.com\/demonew\/blog\/2012\/07\/23\/life-goes-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Life Goes On"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the life of the spirit, we are always at the beginning.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Amour a l’affut (Love on the Lookout)<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

I read this quote many years ago and have forgotten where or who said it; but it has stayed with me and often comes to mind.\u00a0 Probably it pops up when I\u2019m feeling discouraged or tired; or I see the sadness and brokenness of someone; or the news of the world is just too overwhelming.\u00a0 Of course as I get older, I\u2014like many others–start to count how many years I\u2019ve lived and how many I may have left.\u00a0 It seems that \u2018too many\u2019 things have happened and left their mark on mind and body.\u00a0 But then I get a good night\u2019s sleep; meet someone who is kind; offer aid to someone in need and feel that I am making a difference; find a new friend; start an exciting project; visit a different city–and things look up again. Or perhaps none of the those things happen; but as I reach inside of myself to some deep place, looking for an answer, looking for peace,\u00a0 I am blessed with a new way of seeing things–almost through an act of grace.<\/p>\n

A few months ago, as I wrote in my last blog entry, I attended a workshop given by Thomas Moore at the New York Open Center.\u00a0 He spoke about Eros, ancient Greek god of love, desire, and procreation.<\/p>\n

In classical sculpture Eros was portrayed as a young man, perhaps 19 or 20 years old with large wings.\u00a0 Later, he became a winged child or infant, usually drawing a bow, often seen with Aphrodite, goddess of love.\u00a0 He is the force within us that calls to us, that embodies all that we desire.\u00a0 Thomas Moore said, and we’ve probably\u00a0 all had this experience, that Eros can blow into your life when you least expect it.\u00a0 He makes us feel alive, awakens all that perhaps we wish could stay asleep.\u00a0 Still, he lives on.\u00a0 He is our own eternal sense of youth.\u00a0 He is a creative power, keeping us connected, keeping us going.\u00a0 I like to think of him as the eternal essence of becoming.<\/p>\n

The picture by Bouguereau above is not the classical Eros.\u00a0 But it captivates me.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure if it is a girl or a boy, but she is beautiful and physically at the edge between childhood and adulthood.\u00a0 For me, she embodies the thought that, in the life of the spirit, we are always at the beginning.<\/p>\n

In 1959, two years before his death, Carl Jung gave an interview to John Freeman for the BBC program \u201cFace to Face.\u201d\u00a0 Freeman asked Jung about death, an event Jung had said was as important psychologically as birth, and about it\u2019s being an end.\u00a0 Jung replied that although death is an end, we are not certain about what it is.\u00a0 He went on to speak of the \u2018peculiar faculties of the psyche that are not entirely confined to space and time.\u2019\u00a0 And he spoke of how we can have dreams and visions of the future, can look around the corner.\u00a0 \u00a0Jung said:<\/p>\n

\u201cI have treated many old people.\u00a0 It\u2019s interesting to watch what the unconscious is doing. It is about to be threatened with a complete end and it disregards it.\u00a0 Life behaves as if it were going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said it\u2019s better to live on looking forward as if we have centuries; to live on looking forward to the great adventure that is ahead, rather than to look back and become petrified. \u00a0Yes, we\u2019re going to die, he said, but there is something in us that doesn\u2019t believe it.\u00a0 Think along the lines of nature, he said.<\/p>\n

Of course in both Western and Eastern philosophy, there is the concept of the continuation of consciousness, and of reincarnation. Plato spoke of it, as did many others including Renaissance philosopher Giordano Bruno:<\/p>\n

During life, the soul does leave its own body, but it cannot leave the universal body, nor can it be abandoned by the universal body…for when it leaves one simple or complex body…it goes and enters another.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Hindu God Lord Krishna says:\u00a0 Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be.<\/em><\/p>\n

And:<\/p>\n

As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, the soul similarly accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>Buddhism uses the term rebirth, but the idea of the continuation of consciousness in some form is still present.\u00a0 His Holiness the Dalai Lama says:<\/p>\n

Buddhists are concerned not only for this life but for life after life, on and on.\u00a0 We count not weeks or months or even years, but lives and eons.<\/em><\/p>\n

Of course there\u2019s a flip side to all of this.\u00a0 Some of us want things to end.\u00a0 Sometimes we like to take something to ease the pain, forget everything, go to sleep, lose consciousness.\u00a0 Some find the problems of life so overwhelming they even commit suicide.<\/p>\n

In the movie “Groundhog Day,” dubbed \u201cthe most spiritual film of our time,\u201d the actor Bill Murray, a disgruntled news reporter,\u00a0 keeps trying to kill himself.\u00a0 But no matter what he does, nothing works.\u00a0 He keeps waking up to the same day, with the same old troubles, over and over.\u00a0 Slowly, as he starts to do the inner and outer work necessary to help both himself and others, things begin to change.\u00a0 One day he wakes up to find that it’s finally “the next day,” and that happiness and love have made their way into his life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 \t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the life of the spirit, we are always at the beginning. Amour a l’affut (Love on the Lookout) I read this quote many years ago and have forgotten where or who said it; but it has stayed with me and often comes to mind.\u00a0 Probably it pops up when I\u2019m feeling discouraged or tired; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[194],"tags":[200,201,202,195,203,204,44,205,206],"class_list":["post-673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eros","tag-buddhism","tag-carl-jung","tag-dalai-lama","tag-eros-2","tag-krishna","tag-love","tag-rebirth","tag-rebrith","tag-thomas-moore","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliannedavidow.com\/demonew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliannedavidow.com\/demonew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliannedavidow.com\/demonew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliannedavidow.com\/demonew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliannedavidow.com\/demonew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/juliannedavidow.com\/demonew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliannedavidow.com\/demonew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliannedavidow.com\/demonew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliannedavidow.com\/demonew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}