COAST TO COAST
It has been gratifying for members of the FCRP to hear about
mini-conferences developing in other areas of the country. At one
time much of the business of the Haverford group was carried on by
members living in and around Washington, D.C. That these people
formed their own local group seemed a natural occurrence.
Over time we became aware that one after another of our members
were moving to California. We remember wondering if they
would get together. Today we are aware of the wonderful group
which has come together there. And now there has been a spin-off
from this group. A new gathering has developed in Southern California.
A first grandchild, no less!
The latest news is that the rumblings we have been hearing
from New England are for real. The first gathering of the NE FCRP
was held at Temenos in October.
It is reassuring that while members of the more established
groups are moving away, or becoming otherwise involved, new
members are joining, and new groups are springing up elsewhere.
That opportunities for the experiences leading to self-understanding,
spiritual renewal, and the formation of deep personal friendships
are increasingly available, is certainly cause for celebration.
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
The Annual Conference of the West Coast Association for Religion
and Psychology in 1982 was led by Laura Dodson on the topic:
"Embracing The Tiger: The Yin and Yang of The Inner and Outer
Journey." In an article appearing in the Fall issue of Full Circle,
providing background material in anticipation of the weekend,
Laura Dodson asked:
"Could we find an archetypal core to the distress of our globe?
What on a core archetypal level hinders us in peacemaking? What is
the wounded archetype? Could Jung's concepts of Energy, the tension
of opposites, the masculine and feminine, help us to see with
more depth?"
She reminds us that when the discrepancy between the inner-
most self and its outer expression becomes too great, illness—
physical, mental, and/or spiritual, results.
In the Fall, 1982 issue of Full Circle, Mary Ellen McNelly reported
Ms. Dodson as saying:
"Don't worry about what I can do, but how do I see? Let's
develop our e y e s . . . to see what is going on inside other people
who may not, because of their/our developmental stage, be able to
hear us. . .
"Violence is the fruit of being stuck on one end of the opposites.
With integration of yin and yang comes our more creative use
of self, deeper acceptance of self and others, increased capacity to
live with uncertainty, with ambiguity."
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
The following excerpts were taken from Linda Brown's report
on the FCRP conference entitled "Springs of Renewal" which appeared
in the Friends Bulletin, June, 1982.
"Betty Smith, member of Santa Monica Meeting and specialist
in Greek mythology, was our leader for this weekend journey into
the birth-myths of Dionysos, God of abundance and transformation,
and of Hermes, trickster/messenger God and guide of souls. According
to myth, Hermes and Dionysos are both born in caves. Betty
named the cave the place of 'our deepest urgency or cry.' Thus,
symbolically, god-presence is born within us out of our deepest
longing. . .
"Renewal is not mere gathering of new insight intellectually,
but a creative event in one's internal landscape, 'an altering event,
a turn' after which one sees the world differently. . . Ancient
Greeks believed that each time of renewal was. . .seeing one's life
from the perspective of a newborn. . . Dionysos was twice-born of
two different mothers and finally brought to birth out of Zeus' thigh
as if to symbolize that each life requires many (re)births.
WASHINGTON
Like members of an ancient tribe we sat in a semicircle around
the huge stone fireplace. It was storytelling time and the theme
was, "Mine Enemy Teaches Me." The fire warmed us as the storytellers,
choosing appropriate costumes and props, told their tales.
There was The Flute Player; swallowed by a fearsome boa, he
learns to live inside the monster, cutting his way out piece by piece
until he reaches the snake's heart. Thereupon it rears mightily and
falls dead. This represents the quiet, feeling way of dealing with the
enemy—from the inside out.
The tale The King's Ankus, by Kipling, tells of Mowgli, the
jungle boy, and his friend, Kaa, the python. They visit a cave deep
under the ground where the sinister white cobra guards the king's
treasure. The jeweled ankus, in the hands of greedy men, brings not
fortune but death and destruction.
Isak Dinesen's The Ring, reveals how a chance encounter with
a thief casts a shadow on a young wife's view of life and marriage.
The Gifts of The Christ Child, by George McDonald, relates
how a wizard helps a ten-year-old boy dream of himself as a grown
man and change the scenario of his life for the better.
The Son of the Leopard, a moving Ethiopian folk tale re-told by
Harold Courlander, deals with the projection of a shadow by a whole
people. It shows how a single man, who was believed to be the
reincarnation of a tyrannical and blood thirsty ruler, finally comes to
terms with his awesome fate.
These stories have in common the gaining of knowledge about
the shadow which we project on someone else and sometimes call
the enemy. The stories also illustrate the idea that gods and demons,
the source of our healing and our destructiveness, dwell
within us. Unconscious processes often become clearer to us
through images which speak directly to the unconscious. We were
encouraged to let go of the concrete world so the events of our
spiritual lives could become mirrored in the people and the events of
the stories.
Lucy Eddinger
NEW YORK
Although a conference was not undertaken in 1982, members
in the New York area have gathered for monthly discussions focussed
on the book, The Aquarian Conspiracy.
NEW ENGLAND
On a chilly day in October, friends of FCRP in New England
gathered for the first time around the Franklin stove in the new
lodge at Temenos. At the outset a sense of trust and common horizons
enabled us to share deeply our growing edges with one
another.
We focussed on the contemporary relevance of the Greek myth
of Helios, the sun god, and his impetuous son, Phaethon. Helios
grants his son's wish to drive the solar chariot across the heavens
for a day. The horses get out of control, Earth (Mother Gaia) is
scorched, and catastrophe is narrowly averted by her cry to Jupiter
to stop the ravage.
We gained fresh perspective on nuclear war as only the latest
episode in humanity's millennial struggle to control the unleashing
of lethal elementary forces. What does it mean today to listen to the
feminine voice of Mother Earth? What is our role in letting Her cry
be heard widely enough to avert the cataclysmic scorching. . .?
Teresina Havens
We are impressed with the above reports from our far flung
family. Might we not say that we are part of a world wide movement
which Marilyn Ferguson has called The Aquarian Conspiracy?