It is with some humility, surprise, and measured delight that I acknowledge the accumulation of over 50,000 blog views here on John's Consciousness. While I generally find it surprising that any greater-than-normal number of visitors stop by to read here in a day or within a particular week or month as the statistics report, this … Continue reading 50,000 Blog Visits
The Golden Days of Youth
When I close my eyes after looking at the photo above, I can still smell the late summer air as we played together on the open fields at Valley Forge National Park. I can still feel the sun on my face. I can hear again the squeals of delight from my "little sisters," as they … Continue reading The Golden Days of Youth
Trial and Suffering
Recently discovered painting by Van Gogh entitled "Cypress Sky and Country." "Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved." -- Helen Keller Reckoning Love's Labor Lost by JJHIII24 You never intended to lose the thread Of the labor … Continue reading Trial and Suffering
The Spiritual Inner Side of This Life
man in a dark forest - © andreiuc88 "No experimental methodology ever has or ever will succeed in capturing the essence of the human soul, or even so much as tracing out an approximately faithful picture of its complex manifestations." "My life is a story of the self-realization of the unconscious. It is not the … Continue reading The Spiritual Inner Side of This Life
Transcending Boundaries
"Sixsmith, I climb the steps of the Scott monument every morning and all becomes clear. Wish I could make you see this brightness. Don’t worry, all is well. All is so perfectly, damnably well. I understand now that boundaries between noise and sound are conventions. All boundaries are conventions, waiting to be transcended. One may … Continue reading Transcending Boundaries
Dreamscape
"There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious." -- C. G. Jung from CW 12, par. 126 and “The Philosophical Tree” (1945). In … Continue reading Dreamscape
The Inner Experience
"Artwork by Daniel B. Holeman " http://www.AwakenVisions.com "The inner self is not part of our being, like a motor in a car. It is our entire substantial reality itself, on its highest and most personal and most existential level. It is like life, and it is life: it is our spiritual life when it is … Continue reading The Inner Experience
Empathy and Intimacy
In our fast-paced, technologically-driven, and supposedly "hyper-connected" existence in the 21st century, we often do not recognize or appreciate fully the depth of our interconnectedness to all the other living entities, and at times, even less to the natural environment in which we exist, and upon which we are so dependent for our existence. The … Continue reading Empathy and Intimacy
Freedom of the Spirit
Freedom of the Human Spirit, is a 28-foot-tall bronze figurative sculpture that sits just to the east of Arthur Ashe Stadium. It was created by Marshall M. Fredericks for the 1964 World's Fair. "The development of science and of the creative activities of the spirit in general requires still another kind of freedom, which may … Continue reading Freedom of the Spirit
The Intimacy of Consciousness
“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness." -- Einstein A recent conversation with a dear friend with an extraordinary gift for … Continue reading The Intimacy of Consciousness