Jules Cashford's films are informative and inspiring. I very much enjoyed the program and I would like to express my appreciation to Jules for the insightful and thorough presentation and to ARAS as well. Thank you!
Thank you so much for the insightful, well researched, and relevant films. It has been a joy to be present. Besides having named my daughter Gaia, "my" School of the Origins is dedicated to creative and somatic practices to move us closer exactly to the necessities of awareness and inner change Jules shared (which I will not list here), from decolonizing the mind from the split codified by Enlightenment to embracing the Intelligences of Nature, recognizing them around us and intrinsic to our inner world as well. Talking about images... I wish to share a simple video that tracks the birth of a collaborative art piece (just acquired by a man who fell in love with Her) titled "She Who Responds" (guess who "She" is...), it is one possible tangible, imaginative, creative response to what Jules has been so poetically and accurately telling us. Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka9DL9tzEp0
I just sat in amazement throughout the presentation. I learned a lot. I've already got books reserved to learn more. thank you for a beautiful presentation!
I have listened to the 2 wonderful, scholarly talks by Jules Cashford. In response to questions today about how to make it more relevant, I wrote & published a paper called "What’s the Matter with Mother," which I gave first as a lecture in 1976 (sponsored by the Guild for Pastoral Psychology in Oxford, Engl.).
The paper was then published in my book Echo’s Subtle Body, which has gone through several reprintings. The paper also, I believe, came out as a Guild of Pastoral pamphlet. I let you know this because the paper illustrates (my own) mercurial way of using that same Gaia material at the time. Others might get ideas more relevant for our times now. (My paper was of course long before concerns re climate change.) I was merely trying to think psychologically in my own way about things relevant for me at the time.
My wife and I enjoyed both videos, and we were happy to hear the more specific focus in RETURN OF GAIA on the preservation of our Earth.
The second video, like the first, triggered a couple of recollections, and we thank you for that.
1. I wrote a song, BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, many decades ago. I was reminded of it as the video offered thoughts about the naming of things. Here’s a verse from that song:
I started feeling what they call alive
They sent me to school when I was five
So I could name all the things I’d see
All the things that stood outside of me
2. I was also reminded of my early pro-Gaia action as a film maker. Thanks for that, too. Somewhere in the 1970’s the USA Army Corps of Engineers was moving forward with a plan to dam the Meramec River. I read about this plan in the Sunday Saint Louis Post-Dispatch after a weekend float trip on the Meramec with my 3 daughters. I knew, deep in my heart, that I had to do something. I started a citizens action group, FRIENDS OF THE MERAMEC RIVER. Eventually I wrote and produced a documentary film which was widely viewed at every screening at the biggest movie chain in Missouri for the three months leading up to a state-wide referendum on damming the Meramec. The voters rejected the damming plan and the Meramec continues as a spring-fed tributary of the Mississippi, free-flowing all the way from the foothills of the Ozark Mountains. This was after SILENT SPRING but way before pro-Gaia activism had become a widespread activity and movement.
Thanks again for reminding us about these flashes for Gaia from our own lives.
I hope Gaia does become a force in our world. We need Her. I’ll be sharing your work with my grand-daughter who will enter college next year. She's determined to become involved in saving the planet. We’re going to help her do it. She’s got my Mom’s eyes and my determination and toughness. Imagine her, hand in hand with Gaia, trampling out the vintage where the grapes of planetary destruction are stored.
Thank you for the stimulating webinar today. Thoroughly enjoyable. As you may know, I asked a couple of questions during the presentation. Both were based on my own experience. Following are two vignettes therefrom. 1. Pegasus I must thank you in particular for reminding me about an encounter with my father. The two of us were in his automobile. I was about 5 years old. We were conversing quite actively, quite enjoyably. A sweet time to remember. I saw a huge red horse with wings, probably on a billboard, or possibly illuminated over a gasoline station. I asked my Dad what it was. He told me a version of the story of Pegasus, taught me the name of the mythic creature, and that its father was the Greek’s God of the sea, and that its mother was a snake-haired Goddess who would turn you to stone if you looked at her. All quite vivid and suggesting that there was a lot more to the stories of the Greek Gods. We were so very close at that time. 2. Sifu Justin In a discussion of Taoism, following a TaiChi instruction by Sifu Justin, we drifted into some questions about Buddhism. I mentioned White Tara and the other Taras, and Sifu Justin said light-heartedly something like, “Those Buddhists have more saints and symbols than the Catholics.” My continuing study of Buddhism as a person raised Christian has confirmed that what Sifu said was both true and instructional. You can find some echoes of all this in the two questions I posted during the webinar. Thanks again. Yours in the Dharma, Bill Oakey
Jules Cashford's films are informative and inspiring. I very much enjoyed the program and I would like to express my appreciation to Jules for the insightful and thorough presentation and to ARAS as well. Thank you!
Thank you so much for the insightful, well researched, and relevant films. It has been a joy to be present. Besides having named my daughter Gaia, "my" School of the Origins is dedicated to creative and somatic practices to move us closer exactly to the necessities of awareness and inner change Jules shared (which I will not list here), from decolonizing the mind from the split codified by Enlightenment to embracing the Intelligences of Nature, recognizing them around us and intrinsic to our inner world as well. Talking about images... I wish to share a simple video that tracks the birth of a collaborative art piece (just acquired by a man who fell in love with Her) titled "She Who Responds" (guess who "She" is...), it is one possible tangible, imaginative, creative response to what Jules has been so poetically and accurately telling us. Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka9DL9tzEp0
I just sat in amazement throughout the presentation. I learned a lot. I've already got books reserved to learn more. thank you for a beautiful presentation!
Joyce
I can heartily recommend Pat’s paper and her book “Echo’s Subtle Body”. It’s very good indeed.
Thank you for the stimulating webinar today. Thoroughly enjoyable.
As you may know, I asked a couple of questions during the presentation. Both were based on my own experience. Following are two vignettes therefrom.
1. Pegasus
I must thank you in particular for reminding me about an encounter with my father.
The two of us were in his automobile. I was about 5 years old. We were conversing quite actively, quite enjoyably. A sweet time to remember.
I saw a huge red horse with wings, probably on a billboard, or possibly illuminated over a gasoline station. I asked my Dad what it was. He told me a version of the story of Pegasus, taught me the name of the mythic creature, and that its father was the Greek’s God of the sea, and that its mother was a snake-haired Goddess who would turn you to stone if you looked at her. All quite vivid and suggesting that there was a lot more to the stories of the Greek Gods.
We were so very close at that time.
2. Sifu Justin
In a discussion of Taoism, following a TaiChi instruction by Sifu Justin, we drifted into some questions about Buddhism. I mentioned White Tara and the other Taras, and Sifu Justin said light-heartedly something like, “Those Buddhists have more saints and symbols than the Catholics.” My continuing study of Buddhism as a person raised Christian has confirmed that what Sifu said was both true and instructional. You can find some echoes of all this in the two questions I posted during the webinar.
Thanks again.
Yours in the Dharma,
Bill Oakey