fragility of the world’s dream...are, in part, somatic and psychological manifestations of the...

Fragility of the World’s Dream Eranos, September 2011

Stephen Aizenstat, Ph.D.

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© Copyright 2011. All rights reserved.

The story keepers of the Eranos Foundation tell us that the name “Eranos”

was inspired by Rudolf Otto and, shortly thereafter, Eranos was incarnated through

the work of Olga Forebe-Kapteyn (www.eranosfoundation.org). If we think of Otto's

main contribution to depth psychology as naming the numinous, then we can

imagine Eranos as a feast where each guest brings a numinous dish as contribution.

Such contributions are not a recapitulation of others’ ideas or a rehash of what any

of us has been said before, but rather a way of giving voice to what is presently

numinous as it makes itself known through dream, waking vision, synchronicity,

and more. My intent is to offer a numinous dish to this great feast, one that is

moving through my experience and is in relation to the theme of our undertaking,

the fragility in the contemporary world. What I bring is a depth psychological-

archetypal reflection on how the terrible consequences of ecological devastation

manifest in the dreams and behavior of our children.

From my point of view, the fragility in the contemporary world is rooted

most fundamentally in our continuing denial of the pathos active in the anima mundi,

the soul of the world, as expressed through the images of the world’s dream. When

the world’s dream, the imaginal world behind the world or what Henri Corbin called

the mundus imaginalis (1988, p. xi) goes unattended, we live in peril. In a time when

extinction of life as we know it is a real possibility and the screams of the dying echo

across the land, the compensatory defenses of narcissism, deflation, and over-

consumption keep us disconnected from the world’s dream and the threat of

ecological devastation.

We are now being asked to find new ways of responding to environmental

peril. We must look beyond a person-centered perspective, and listen to the figures

that are alive and active in the world’s dream. The world’s dream consists of images

that do not come exclusively from within us, but also originate in the world itself,

out there. In other words, it is not just people who are dreaming. The creatures,



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landscapes and things of the world are also dreaming and their interiority, their

plight in the world, comprise the content of the world’s dream.

Our first step in listening to the world’s dream is to differentiate between the

suffering out there and the suffering in here, inside of our subjective experience. We

as humans can no longer imagine the pain we experience each day and night as ours

alone. The angst we feel involves something other than our personal life

circumstances. Our bad moods are more than a response of a relationship gone

wrong. Our anxiety is more than the result of childhood disorder. Personal suffering

is, in part, the result of the anguish located in the creatures and things of the

world—out there, in their subjectivity. We experience their torment in our bodily

afflictions, high-risk behaviors, disturbances of mind, and our soul’s despair. Their

distress becomes our misery as well as our illness. Experiencing our afflictions and

dream images as originating in the world is an indigenous perspective that offers

great value in a time of fragility. Native peoples know that everything is dreaming.

When a river becomes polluted and fish disappear, the people of the land feel both

an empty stomach and a loss of life force. Their dreaming becomes disturbed.

Through the world’s dream we gain access to the intelligence alive in nature’s

psyche.

In the modern world, who would notice these interconnections? Fish never

seem to disappear. They are caught thousands of miles away, flash frozen and

preserved for years to make them available for consumption at any time in any

place. Stomachs stay full and we feel no loss. Thus, there is no personal pain and

little relationship to the circle of life. People are not overtly distressed by what

remains unseen. It is only the last-remaining schools of fish, hunted down and

processed in high tech, ocean-based factories that experience the pain of their

extinction. Their grief is part of the world’s dream. It is the plight of the fish—or the

struggle of a forest drenched in acid rain, or the deadly bleaching of coral reefs as



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ocean temperatures perilously rise, or the demolition of the heart of a small town to

make way for redevelopment—it is all this that appears as agitated images in

dreams. These are the figures that sound the alarm. It is their sorrow and torment

that, in many ways, condition what we feel and how we behave.

Taken one step further, when a species or an eco-system dies, the questions

become, how will it be remembered? How will the knowledge of what is no longer

be passed on? The answers are found in the interrelated realms of the world’s

dream, where their presence, intelligence, and voices are eternal, and forever

pleading with us to hear the urgency of the call, which brings us back to the theme:

tending to the fragility of today’s world. A generative response is possible if only we

have the ears to listen, the eyes to see, and the courage to respond.

I feel compelled to advocate on behalf of the world’s dream for two primary

reasons. First, for the planet to survive in a way that supports life, as we know it, we

as a species need help from another source. Second, as our planetary environment

becomes increasingly toxic, I am concerned about the psychological and physical

health of the human race, particularly of our youth. Advocating on behalf of the

world’s dream pushed itself on me. And, as is often the case, when that kind of push

happens, it begins with a broken heart—and so it was with me. So, I start with a

story of heartbreak.

This last year I was asked to be with a group of emotionally troubled

students, ages 16 to 18, from a number of American high schools. All were taking

advanced placement courses in environmental studies and history. These are bright

kids: top tier, university bound, studying with the best teachers the school system

has to offer. In their Environmental Science courses, they discovered a frightening

consensus among members of the scientific community: the environmental damage

to the planet due to global warming is irreversible and, unless something

unprecedented happens, the end of life on the planet is only 20 to 40 years away.



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Is it any wonder that these kids felt alienated, cut off, and hopeless? They

sank into a despondent state. They began asking, What difference does any of this

make? A few had actually dropped out of school, creating considerable personal and

parental distress. A number of others were suffering significant psychological

symptoms and more severe psychiatric disorders. Many engaged in high-risk

behavior. Or they became very isolated, spending entire days jacked up on Red Bull

mixed with vodka, relating only to the artificial world of violent and disembodied

video games such as World of WarCraft™. Of course, many of these high school

students were experiencing the kind of existential crisis appropriate at this age,

though perhaps more acutely than others. Some were still in the potent heroic mode

that accompanies adolescence: Hey, leave it to us, we can change the world! This

particular group of students was swinging back and forth sharply between

despondency and potency, and their behavior had reached an acute level, including

suddenly dropping out of school, not coming home for days at a time, drug addiction,

and deep depression. The severity of their behavior is why I was asked to help.

When I was with these kids, my spirits dropped and my heart hurt, because

of the extent of their pain and also because the simple truth is that this generation,

these kids, will inherit the horrible environmental mess. This heartbreak led me to

ask: How can dreamwork, particularly the consideration of the world’s dream, be

helpful to these kids? What if we try to put ourselves in their shoes and absorb the

information they were learning in their environmental science classes? It is not

difficult to do; we all know something of the crises these kids are facing because it is

in the headlines virtually every day, and is the subject of the powerful film The 11th

Hour, produced by Leonardo DiCaprio in 2007. Here is a brief sample of some of the

facts related in the documentary:

Stephen Hawking, the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge

University, warns that Earth will very soon become like her sister planet Venus.



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Temperatures will become so high on Earth that the raining of sulfuric acid will

create conditions that the human race and all living beings will not survive. Recent

research shows that the earth has warmed up so much, that even if we were to cap

carbon dioxide emissions at the level that they are at now, 20% of the ice in the

Arctic will melt, and most likely in few decades the arctic will be Ice Free, creating

catastrophic consequences. According to Bill Mickibben, founder of Stepitup07.org,

the UN estimates that there will be 150 million refugees because of climate change

by the middle of this century. Wallace J. Nichols, Senior Scientist, The Ocean

conservancy; and Sylvia Earle, Oceanographer, Explorer-in-Residence, National

Geographic Society agree that our oceans are in crisis. Humans are extracting too

much—removing billions of creatures every year—and, in return, putting too many

pollutions back in. They estimate that 90% of the bigger fish are no longer present.

Many species of the ocean, as well as the land, are disappearing daily, never to be

found alive on earth again. Omar Freilla, Director of the Green Worker Cooperatives,

says that in virtually every elementary school, when kids are asked how many have

asthma, at least 30% of the hands go up, and in many classrooms the number is as

high as 50% or even 60%. Kids look around and see every other friend on an inhaler.

As the world becomes more toxic, the loss of breath, the most frightening of physical

afflictions, is here now, a waking dream.

From the point of view of the world’s dream we are living in a nightmare.

These environmental facts create images of catastrophe, territorial threat, and

impending apocalypse that produce grief and helplessness. Our kids are particularly

vulnerable to these horrific images, which visit their dreams and impact the way

they are imagining their future. Their anxiety, depression, and disease syndromes

are, in part, somatic and psychological manifestations of the fragile world’s agitated

dream making its presence known to the most vulnerable among us, our young.



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While their rational minds scramble to maintain denial, they know the natural

balance needed for a sustainable future has broken down.

Let me share one teenager’s dream that I listened to just months ago. This

came from a 17-year-old boy, a high achieving student, from Santa Barbara,

California.

In the dream I see the Earth. It is the size of a giant head. I notice that it is MY head—I am the Earth. My hands are outstretched, and I see that I hold all of the world’s populations in the palms of my hands. A huge energy moves through me. I realize that I need to stay very still; if I even move a finger, just a little bit, hundreds or thousands of people will fall off and die. I use all the strength that I have not to move a muscle, not even a little bit. I stay as still as I possibly can. I must sacrifice my personal life and stay paralyzed so nobody else will fall off and get hurt. Wow. I think, this is much bigger then I am. I realize I don’t have a choice but to remain paralyzed. I must keep my balance to save the people. The only thing to do, the best thing to do, is to dedicate the rest of my life to staying completely still. I have no other choice. End of dream.

His outstretched hands, holding all the world’s people, is an embodied image

of life in the balance. It is the world’s dream telling its plight in the images of this

boy’s dream and asking for help. So what do we do? How do we support this young

man? How do we help him move out of paralysis and increasingly self-destructive

behaviors to a quality of generativity? He hauntingly illustrates the point made by

pediatrician and human rights activist Dr. Helen Caldicott in a 2005 speech. It is as if

the death of our planet is being grieved in the dreams of our children.

Of course, some of what is pictured in the young man’s dream may be an

expression of his personal condition. He may be suffering from personal anxiety, or

isolation, or an inflated feeling of power or powerlessness. He may be experiencing

the pressure of holding too much at the moment. These considerations and more

would need to be explored. If we surmise that the world’s fragility is expressing

itself through dream images hosted by this young man and his peers, it creates both

disabling afflictions and as yet unrealized opportunities. For this teenage boy, to



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learn that what he is holding in his hands is the pain of the world, and not entirely

his personal struggle, is liberating and healthy. He understands that it is not his

pathology alone. In addition, the dream offers the knowledge needed for his

development. Imagine, for a moment, the earth image “the size of a giant head” as a

seed. When nurtured, it comes to life and releases the potency of new growth. The

dream offers access to a planetary life force that can support inspiration rather than

desperation.

This young man most likely was born with this capacity to connect to the

world soul, a gift, as the old stories say, from the ancient earth guardians given upon

his birth. Sourced in the psyche of nature, this seed image can be imagined, and once

upon a time was imagined, as this young man’s true character; his fate, a calling, his

daimon—his authentic power. This kind of connection, this power, is important to

today’s world. Authentic power is an innate potency rooted most essentially in the

world’s dream. It is a subtle power informed by intuition, curiosity, and imagination;

a seed power that originates in a planetary consciousness. Authentic power, when

cultivated, releases this boy from the isolation and paralysis of the civilized world—

a world readying itself for its inevitable destruction—and connects him to a broader

web of life. For this teenage boy, at a time of fragility in the world, authentic power

offers something more precious than rubies and gold. It offers a way of being placed,

a sense of deep belonging, and a ground to stand on.

I will speak of more ways of tending to the world’s dream soon but first, a

word of caution. Make no mistake: listening to the voices of the planet as expressed

in dream images is not, and will not, be easy. Hearing the world speak on behalf of

itself is difficult. From the start these voices are muted by three dominating forces:

the media, business, and grief. The first force is modern media, blanketing human

experience with an ever-accelerating totality of information and visual stimulation.

The adrenaline rush of the next sensational story propagates and perpetuates an



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addiction to screen time—and thus a limited attention span. The rhythms of the

natural world, the voices of the world’s dream, give way to the over 700 channels of

hyperkinetic overload. The second force stifling the world’s dream is the religion of

our times—business, as defined by the ideas of western capitalism. Business has

become the fundamental force of human society, dominating our thinking and

behavior, and defeating everything in its path. For good and for bad, the business of

doing business has become omnipresent. The mergers, the start-ups, the family

business, the takeovers, the ponzi schemes, bank scandals, debt ceiling, and

mortgage bundling are the obsessions of our time. Business is the waking dream of

contemporary civilization, pushing aside the organicity of the world’s dream and

her capital. The third and perhaps most powerful force limiting our access to the

intelligence of the world’s dream is grief. To listen to the voice of the world is to

hear the suffering of the dying. In modern culture we have little tolerance or

patience for death. Few authentic rituals of death are left to us. We have, for the

most part, forgotten how to grieve. We push death away at all costs. Tending to the

figures of the world’s dream means listening to the suffering of the terminally ill. It

is a task many of us avoid.

Because of the dominance of the media, the obsession of business, and the

intolerance of grief, the divinities of nature who are located in the world’s dream—

the oceans, the deserts, the magna at the earth’s core, and the powers of storm and

rain—are now marginalized as mere symptoms of climate change. Yes, they blast

forth in the headlines for a moment, briefly capturing psychic awareness in times of

natural disaster. But they are quickly forgotten, repressed in the solar light of

daytime media and its preoccupation with sex scandals and the fixation on the ticker

tape of numbers of a manic-depressive stock market. For instance, even in times of

environmental calamity such as Hurricane Irene that landed on the northeast coast

of America in August 2011, we deny or forget. When New York City officials took the



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unprecedented step of ordering nearly half a million people to evacuate, when

airlines cancelled thousands of flights, when severe flooding caused billions of

dollars of property damage, and when dozens of people lost their lives; even then,

the voice of the planet went unheard. Watching CNN on the morning of August 28th, I

was astounded to hear one Philadelphia resident admit “I slept through the whole

thing.” “It’s nothing. It’s exaggerated,” asserted a citizen from Boston. An anchor on

CNN said, “a bunch of people in New York have already said to me this morning, you

know, ‘What was the big deal all about?’” And then from North Carolina, perhaps

one of the areas hardest hit, comes this from an old timer, “this was the non-event of

the century. Let’s just move on.” Yet, despite our denial, our bravado, our avoidance,

the old pagan nature Gods do erupt. They have not been altogether subdued by the

dominating forces of the media and the economy. Their voices scream through the

dreams of humans, particularly, as we have seen, though the dreams of our children,

people most permeable to their plea.

To continue our work of tending to the world’s dream, we must first take a

moment to once again recognize the multidimensional nature of dreams. Dreams

originate from a variety of sources and each implicates the other. The events of the

day influence the personal, which in turn connects to the cultural, all of which is

impacted by the world. Like a circle, dreams go around and around; sometimes in

one direction, other times just the opposite. Experiencing dream images, in some

ways, is like looking through a kaleidoscope. Depending upon how one looks

through the lens, it is possible to see the many different levels of figures and motifs

interacting in a dream. From this perspective, the modes of perception, ways of

seeing are as important as what one sees. Let’s take another example, an image that

is familiar to all of us.

An image of an Ocean appears in a dream. At first, we could link it to the

circumstances of the last 24 hours visiting the ocean; wanting to be at the ocean;



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remembering something special or hurtful that happened while at the ocean; and so

on. On another level, the dream image of Ocean may suggest something of our

personal history, our memories. For example, a deep sadness that started with

events in childhood such as an ocean of tears or an early experience of feeling

drowned. This is the perspective of developmental psychology, sometimes referred

to as realm of the personal unconscious. Looking further, on another level, the image

of Ocean may take on an archetypal significance, and be linked to a mythological

theme or a motif from literature or the arts. Here, Ocean is the place of the night sea

journey, or Ocean is womb where all life began, or this is Ocean of the great floods

and epic transformation. This is the perspective of Jungian-oriented psychologies,

and sometimes referred to as the realm of the collective unconscious.

Speaking of the Jungian perspective—Carl Jung talked about the genius of

dreams by invoking the image of a 2-million-year-old wisdom figure alive in each of

us (1977, p. 89), a figure with access to all of these dimensions who can speak with

great intelligence. This central archetypal figure speaks in the language of images.

To develop relationship with this core figure of the Self is enormously helpful,

particularly when times are hard and we are feeling a sense of loss.

To return to my point: on all of these levels there is much psychic intelligence,

well beyond our rational minds, at work. This intelligence informs our lives and

behavior. But please notice: as amazing and useful as this way of listening to dreams

is, it is still a human-centered orientation. It relates Ocean to the circumstances of

the day, our personal development, and cultural themes. All of this is helpful, no

doubt, yet all is imagined as originating from the experiences and knowledge base of

one species, human beings.

Let’s broaden it, taking another step. Beyond the wisdom of Jung’s 2-million-

year-old human body lives a 2-billion-year-old earth body, with an intelligence that

is much deeper and, in some ways, much more evolved than what originates out of



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personal or collective human experience. Of course, in his later work Jung hints of

this when he talks of the psychoid archetype and the phenomenon of synchronicity

in a presentation he offered here at Eranos, both of which implicate the world. The

point is that below the personal and collective human experience is the dreaming of

the world, the world’s dream. We must attend to the world’s dream. The scope of

the ecological crisis demands it.

I want to continue with the Ocean as dream image, and elaborate with a true

account of what happens along the Santa Barbara coastline each year. A few months

each year several factors combine to pollute the ocean around Santa Barbara.

Glaring signs that warn people to stop and stay out of the water are posted up and

down the beach, telling us that the sea is toxic. The ocean, always dreaming, voices

its ills through its images, and these appear as images in our dreams. During those

months, many Santa Barbarans feel depressed. Even when we haven't visited the

ocean for weeks, we feel its toxicity in our own bodies. Most of us don't recognize

that our feelings of dread have nothing to do with our personal condition, but rather

with the state of an ocean in distress, making its sickness known as a disturbance in

our physical and emotional lives. When we experience the world’s dream expressing

itself through our afflictions, again, we do not deny these experiences, nor attribute

them to a bad mood or to a biological virus. Instead, we have the opportunity to

respond from the strength and resources found in our dreaming body/mind. A

dream loves to be met in the way of a dream. So what do we do? How do we keep

hope alive? How do we move out of paralysis or worse, the perpetuation and

escalation of our destructive ways? How do we develop the skills to attend to the

images of the world’s dream? This morning I will offer three ideas.

First we can cultivate another way of listening and seeing, a way of tending

not only to the despair In the world’s dream, but, also, to the beauty and the promise

alive in an animated world. Dream Tending is the methodology I offer, a



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phenomenological practice of working as a naturalist might—befriending, in the

immediacy of experience, the images of the world’ dream—whether they are

peoples, animals, things, landscapes, or any other beings of the world. Tending to

the world’s dream requires patience, presence, and gut level curiosity. The dream

tender follows his nose, not only his mind, relying on his instinctive compass as a

navigational tool. Listening to the figures of the world’s dream is never move vivid

than when we are connected to them instinctually.

To get started, this would mean we must slow down, be patient, and get out

of the mania of everyday life. We need to take time each day to go on a walkabout as

the Australian aborigines do when following the way of the dreamtime. To learn,

then practice, how to go on a walkabout in the world, is to acquire the skills of

walking about in the landscapes of the dream. On walkabout, we walk without intent

or an agenda. We get into our instinctive curiosity and out of that list of obligations,

chores, or tasks that we are always thinking about. On walkabout, one is in the

world as if it were a dream, experiencing that animating spark that is alive in all

creatures and things. When we do this we become open to the enchantment of

places and creatures and things of the nature-made as well as of the human-made.

Our way of seeing changes, our modes of perception alter. On walkabout, we follow

a different path. We activate our senses. Following our curiosity, we allow time to

touch, smell, and even sometimes taste the beauty alive in the world. We make time

each day to listen to birds singing or the wind rustling the leaves in the trees.

Sounds simple, yes? No, not really. To take the time to go on a walkabout with a

quiet mind is a challenge. But, when doing so, the world responds and shows itself

to us.

As archetypal psychologist James Hillman says, “the things of an ensouled

landscape announce themselves, ‘Look, here we are” (1982, p. 77). They regard us

beyond how we may regard them, our perspective, what we intend with them, and



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how we dispose of them. This imaginative claim on attention bespeaks a world

ensouled. To be present to the things and the creatures in the world and in the

dream is to hear their stories, experience their beauty, and to allow their dreams to

inform our lives and our actions. So, I suggest taking 20 minutes each day to go on a

walkabout.

A second way of attending to the images of the world’s dream is to make

contact with what I have come to call the indigenous image. Listening to hundreds of

dreams of people who grew up in the Information Age, I noticed that many of their

dream images were originating not from their deep personal nature, but from the

advertising industry. When I tracked these commercial images back to their sources,

I found that they did not root back into the authentic experience of the dreamer.

They tracked back to the dreamer’s susceptibility to a sales pitch. These images are

not organic, and they do not arise from the world’s dream. They do not individuate

on their own, and so do not help us grow. They are like a genetically-engineered

plant with a terminator gene. They exist to sell a product and then simply disappear.

I call these kinds of images counterfeit images. Billions of dollars are spent on

advertising each year to sell products. Hours of TV viewing a day are common for a

person now coming into college. Our connection to a sense of our deep belonging is

no longer located in nature’s fabric. It is located in the dream of commerce, urban

life, and the multitude of information screens that surround us. The dreamscape is

fast becoming the screenscape. I was surprised to discover that the average person

can identify hundreds of corporate logos, but less than a dozen flowers or

indigenous animals in their neighborhood?

So, what do we do? Look at a dream. Begin by identifying an image that is

rooted in nature, a dream image that has qualities that are recognizable as nature-

based. Spend time with this image. Look at its particularity. How is the image

unique? For example, suppose Fox visits. How is this image of Fox different from any



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other of Fox? What is this animal’s distinguishing features? Feel the presence of Fox.

Then feel how you are affected in turn by its presence. Another method is to simply

start with the dream setting, a place in the natural world, a cityscape, or for that

matter, someplace in outer space. The dream setting, the landscape of a dream, is

one of the most forgotten dream elements because our tendency is to orient around

the dream ego, the “I” in the dream, its feelings and actions. Yet all dreams come

with a setting, even if it is a sense of nowhere, which often offers rich access to the

world’s dream. Getting to know the landscape of a dream brings an awareness of

place, of being placed, along with a sense of belonging to something larger than our

human-centered experience. Here we can feel the pulse of the world’s dream.

The third way of tending to the world’s dream is to take dream tending to the

streets. Become what I call an “archetypal activist.” Listen to voices of the Earth’s

creatures and landscapes, some of whom are gone now, only alive as ancestral

figures in the dreamtime. When hearing their voices, like the plea of Ocean, the call

of Forest, or the voice of Fox, take it seriously, and act on their behalf. Acting this

way is out of the ordinary, and some may regard it with suspicion. I respond by

saying this: taking action on behalf of the creatures and landscapes of the world is

what it means to be a planetary citizen with an expanded consciousness.

Here is a word of caution. Don’t rush in to find an immediate solution to a

crisis situation. Though we mean well, when we act this way we tend to act

reactively and impulsively. So, the key is to change the question. Instead of asking

What can we do to fix the planet? inquire, What are the creatures and places of the

planet asking of us? Listen to their intelligence, their two-billion-year-old

knowledge. They visit every night in our dreams, making their presence known.

To conclude: Dreams come. They offer themselves to our species. Humans

are visited night after night by visitors with voices from outside the confines of our

rational, linear, analytical minds. These beings from the world’s dream beg that we



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step away from a manic style of living and relinquish our addiction to speed. In the

fragility of today’s world our children, need more than what the civilized world can

offer; more than making the grade, technical training for career placement, and

evidence-based learning outcomes. They yearn to be touched more deeply, to feel a

sense of soul that comes to life beyond the personal and even beyond the collective

human condition. They long for an indigenous way of knowing and a sense of

elemental belonging to a home that they will inherit and inhabit. Instinctively young

people seek out social networking and technology not to necessarily further a split

from the natural world but, in fact, to forge a closer relationship to the living

embodied images of the world’s dream, a dreamscape sourced in the psyche of

nature. They want to hear the callings of the others and to become stewards of the

wellbeing of creatures and landscapes that share the planet. Our children can

cultivate an attitude of cooperation not domination, where even sustainability is no

longer adequate but instead gives way to profound regeneration.

We feel the desperation of our youth. We see their symptoms. We know the

plight of the planet. We experience the vengeance of her imbalance and the

consequences of her fragility. Now is the time to change our mode of perception, to

see in a different way, to listen with a poetic ear, to hear the voices of the others as

they make their intelligence known. Now is the time to listen to the world’s dream, a

way of being expressed by Kabir, the 15th-century Sufi-Hindu master (2004, p. 18):

Between the conscious and the unconscious, the mind has put up a swing: all earth creatures, even the supernovas, sway between these two trees, and it never winds down.

Angels, animals, humans, insects by the million, also the wheeling sun and moon; ages go by, and it goes on.

Everything is swinging: heaven, earth, water, fire, and the secret one slowly growing a body.



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Developing this way of seeing need not take a long time. Kabir saw this poetic

vision for fifteen seconds, and it made him a servant for life.

In this essay, we started with and heard a dream of distress from a teenager

living in Santa Barbara. We know this dream. These images, in one way or another,

appear in each of our dreamtimes. Now it is up to us to do something. It is up to us

to tend to the world soul, to keep the beauty alive, and imagination open. The world

is asking this of us. Our community is asking this of us; and, so are our youth. If I

have learned but one thing over these last months, it is that the generativity we seek

starts with a new attitude, an attitude that is occasioned by the presence of the

living images of the world’s dream. These images visit each night, and each day in

dreams.

Yes, the intolerable is with us; the horrific lurks behind each headline. But

maybe this pathos, this suffering of the world soul, will connect us to our deeper

resources, the beauty and intelligence alive in the psyche of nature. We are moved to

be present to the intelligence of the dreaming psyche in all of her images. We are

being challenged into a way of being that requires another way of responding. We

can meet this challenge. In community we can do this. In communities like Eranos

we can offer to each other our best. We can support one another to make the time—

to be out of time, for a while. In community, we can, we must, help each other

remember the anima mundi, the soul of the world.

We can, as the poet Rumi says, let the beauty we love be what we do [2006, p.

36). We can do this now. Our world and our children need us now.



17


References

Corbin, H. (1988). Alone with the alone. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

DiCaprio, L. (Producer), & Conners, N. & Petersen, L. (Directors). (2007). The 11th hour movie. USA: Warner Brothers.

Hillman, J. (1982). Anima Mundi: The return of the soul to the world. Spring, 71-93.

McGuire, W. & R.F.C. Hull (Eds.) (1977). CG Jung Speaking: interviews and encounters. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Rumi, J. (2006). The essential Rumi, new expanded edition, C. Barks and J. Moyne (Trans.). New York: Harper Collins

fragility of the world’s dream...are, in part, somatic and psychological manifestations of the...

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