on resonance

I'd like to quote from Neil Postman, who is actually quoting from Northrup Frye:

... who has made use of a principle he calls resonance. "Through resonance," he writes, "a particular statement in a particular context acquires a universal significance." Frye offers as an opening example the phrase "the grapes of wrath," which first appears in Isaiah in the context of a celebration of a prospective massacre of Edomites. But the phrase, Frye continues, "has long ago flown away from this context into many new contexts, contexts that give dignity to the human situation instead of merely reflecting its bigotries." Having said this, Frye extends the idea of resonance so that it goes beond phrases and sentences. A character in a play or story - Hamlet, for example, or Lewis Carroll's Alice - may have resonance. Objects may have resonance, and so may countries: "The smallest details of the geography of two tiny chopped-up countries, Greece and Israel, have imposed themselves on our consciousness until they have become part of the map of our own imaginative world, whether we have ever seen these countries or not."

In addressing the question of the source of resonance, Frye concludes that metaphor is the generative force -- that is, the power of a phrase, a book, a character, or a history ot unify and invest with meaning a variety of attitudes or experiences. Thus, Athens becomes a metaphor of intellectual excellence, wherever we find it; Hamlet, a metaphor of brooding indecisiveness; Alice's wanderings, a metaphor of a search for order in a world of semantic nonsense.

I now depart from Frye (who, I am certain, would raise no objection) but I take his word alon with me. Every medium of communication, I am claiming, has resonance, for resonance is metaphor writ large.

I wanted to put this down here, as a bard in training, because I Have never heard someone -- let alone an academic -- describe "etherics" by way of art so well described. I will have more on this in the future, but first I want to read some of Northrup Frye before I continue this thread.

resolutions

My big resolution is pursuing “social capital” which wikipedia discusses extensively (and rather poorly and dryly) but which Marv Thomas in his book Personal Village has summarized brilliantly:

Everyone agrees to put energy into the relationship and the social capital grows. Then when we are in need we draw some out. We do this in all our relationships: in families, fellowships, support groups, friendships, and business. That is how the world works. That is how the world has always worked. And that is how the world will always work.

If I had to pinpoint what’s going on in my world, with Saturn in Libra at the moment, social capital and its lack is what's under scrutiny. It’s been all over my journal entries and echoed in my Guidance for 2009. I've got blood relatives who don't really care whether or not I've found a job, or might be evicted from my apartment, as long as I'm listening to their recent boyfriend woes. I've got friends who get drunk as sin while I'm trying to do something difficult, knowing full well I've got a lot on my plate I might need serious help with. I've got old friends writing me begging to hang out again, only to go into cold radio silence when I fly up to meet them for $1000 to $3000 without any word as to why they didn't keep up their interest. These are all issues of social capital. It's like a bank: If you keep putting in your money, but you go to the bank to draw out money of your own and nothing's left, then you've got a faulty bank. You've got bad social capital. So, I’m making that hard call — are people in my life reciprocating? For some it may be time to take up the sickle and move on.

But I worry that on a much larger scale, we’re all affected by a large deficit of social capital in the world at the moment. If I had to throw in with one important movement, I told myself that this obviously is the one that bothered me enough to do something about it this year.

So as I was reading a post recommended by Molly's About.com blog, discussing news over at http://www.heliastar.com/ it all resonated with me very strongly. The words from M. Kelley Hunter that Venus is near to Pluto, and this is inviting us to "rebuild with love. An overhaul is in order for another decade and a half. The necessity is to rebuild, to regenerate from the Earth upward into human civilization".

Rebuilding with Love is exactly what I think would be needed to once again revive social capital more prominently in the world. It will be one of my focuses this year.

time out of time

I like to take the twelve days of Christmas, from December 25th to January 6th as a reflective time to review one month every day, in my personal journals, blogs and other diaries and log files. I even sometimes scan over my saved emails from the period. It takes me back into reflection over the year, which is much needed, as an attempt to rediscover what successes and accomplishments I managed to make.

I’ve always been curious about the Twelve Days of Christmas which end on January 6th with Twelfth Night. Supposedly each of the twelve days predicts what the weather will be like for the corresponding month of the year (that is, the first day foreshadows the weather in January, etc.). In Wales, they were considered ‘omen’ days. In Scotland, no court had power during the twelve days. The Irish believed that anyone who died during these days escaped purgatory and went straight to Heaven.

According to Germanic tradition, the goddess Holle, dressed all in white, rides the wind in a wagon on the Twelve Days of Christmas. During this time, no wheels can turn: no spinning, no milling, no wagons (sleighs were used instead).

According to Waverly Fitzgerald of School of the Seasons website, "Helen Farias suggests that the 12 days were originally 13 nights, celebrated from the dark moon nearest the solstice through the next full moon (Jan 1, New Year's Day). It seems clear that this is a magical period, a time out of time, whatever dates you choose. It is a special time, existing outside of the usual rules, when work is forbidden and all routines should be turned upside down."

I love this idea of a 'time out of time' taken to reassess where you are in your personal journey. It is a wonderful time to consult the Wise Ancient Ones, or if you don't go for that sort of thing, to talk to your elders, your parents, your clan matriarchs and patriarchs. Get some outside perspective. Get some wisdom. I don't have parents with that kind of insight, so I seek it from higher and deeper sources. I go to my Ancestors and my Guides.

I've spent the past six months reading in the library about psychic ability, dream interpretation, divination, empathy, bardic ability, Celtic Revivalism, Druidism, Wicca, mythology and comparative religion. Most of all I recommitted to the practice of Astrology. I feel like Astrology is a big river that we go down and how you choose to navigate it, or paddle with or against it, is up to you. But you can either work with the flow of All-That-Is, or you can be oblivious to it and find yourself dashed on the rocks constantly as a result. After handling my Saturn return poorly, I found myself crawling back into my river raft, soggy and spent, and recommitting to my intuition and impulses. This year was my commitment to a higher calling, a higher purpose than fame and fortune.

There is a great legacy that I want to be a part of and it has been here since the beginning, and once we walked with it for milennia. I want to be part of that legacy and I want to sign on with others who are walking with it already. Better to be late to the party than not go at all. And during these twelve days of Christmas it is easier to reach the Wise Ones and find the pulse of life than at other times of the year.

This year in particular I want to pay attention to details, and take the incremental steps, going both inward and outward, as I move into the New Year of the second decade of the twenty first century.

identity

I'm having one of those patented Blogger Moments™ as the new year descends with rapid speed. I decided to rename and refocus on a wider array of issues. For the past several years, I've had about seven different blogs all running at the same time under different topics, but they inevitably dry up over time. Over all, my favorite topics are:

1) downshifting and simple living
2) astrology
3) mythology, comparative religion, spirituality
4) amateur gardening
5) amateur yarn work
6) watercolor and charcoal studies
7) philosophy

That's a lot of blogs. I'd rather tackle them all under one really obvious header here. The ROLLBACK SHACK is our pet name for our attempts at living a more simple life, less media, less ads, less TV, less consumerism, less stress -- more liberties, more spirituality, more focus, more fulfilling.

One of my favorite anime (I know, right, I just said less TV up there? but my big exception is anime) series, called Serial Experiments: Lain is about a girl who learns that:

EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED

So the same premise holds for this blog. Everything I do is always somehow connected. From last night's dreams to today's finished crochet project. I think I'd rather focus on life at the rollback shack as it is in all its messy glory and fullness. It's easier than picking it apart.