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Good one this week, I found it very helpful.
The 2021 Fates & Graces Mythologium was held this weekend and I presented a new paper about the archetypal significance of the pair being twins, among other things.
Ever since Nietzsche wrote The Birth of Tragedy, people have been laying their grievances about the patriarchy and its over-emphasis on rational thought at Apollo’s feet. But to me, Apollo cannot be separated from the imaginal attributes surrounding his myth. In my view, it is really Aristotle we should be complaining about.
Anyway, I turned my conference presentation into a Youtube video which is now moonlighting as this week’s sermon. The work is certainly preachy at times so I think it qualifies as a religious sermon.
This week’s music mix is also recycled because I have been listening to it nonstop since last week. I realized that I’ve had Artemis and Apollo on the brain for a while now and last week’s mix is really about the two of them. See if you can identify which songs invoke Artemis and which Apollo. There’s an epic one that’s really about both of them.
This week’s verbal sermon is short but packs a serious punch. I had to listen to it myself several times, and each time I was transported. The music, too, is powerful and there are many gods and goddesses in there, inviting us to leave silliness behind and enter into true profundity. There is nothing like mythopoetic language and powerful music to transport us directly into connection with the divine.
Master Shi Heng Yi gave a Ted talk about the five hindrances to total awakening. I thought they were fascinating because of their psychological specificity. All of the hindrances begin in the mind which is why I often talk about how liberation (for ourselves, for our species, and for the planet) must begin with an internal and personal struggle for freedom.
Wishing for peace and liberation to come to all the beings of the many realms. Even though this is a tall order, the aspiration is sincere, the aspiration is the engine that can make this real.
I think perhaps most people regard creativity as a process reserved only for artists. But actually, we are all creating things all day long with our thoughts and attitudes. This is why being peaceful is a creative act, one that, like every other creative act, begins somewhere and then grows and grows.
This is why this week I talk about making peace as a creative act.
A lot of amazing good music (shout out to Ted for supplying the first song on the mix!) this week, so close your eyes (and your mouth!) and dance.