Reflection on "Myths, Dreams and Religion" edited by Joseph Campbell

In this collection of eleven essays, edited by Joseph Campbell, I found a wealth of impassioned research into the mystagogy of our literate foundations. My reason for reading this piece of fine literature, was to creatively unmask the roots of a new mythology to re-identify with humankind, i.e. humanity, fashioned by my own literary aspirations. With essays by Alan Watts, Joseph Campbell himself, and other fascinating minds embedded in the culture of mythological literacy, I mainly focused my reading on the traits of human self-identity as it has evolved throughout mythic time. With regard to dreaming, the essays touched on the subject in the light of religious cultural referencing, often comparing Levantine with Indian dream philosophy, as either a visionary or intermediary state burgeoning natural self-transformation; an acorn, if you will, planted in the rough soil of the unconscious by the prehistoric mind of our mysterious bio-archetypal origins. And the perennial quote, from the final essay by Richard A. Underwood, "Myth, Dream, and the Vocation of Contemporary Philosophy" a reference to Heraclitus' Fragments reads, "Even sleepers are workers and collaborators in what goes on in the universe."

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Shrapnel of memory in the ephemeral reflection of a broken shard forced up the neck. Checkerboard flooring sprayed with clear blood. I loosened my grip around his slippery esophagus-cored flesh, dripping with the moldy puss in long-neglected balloon, deflated in the workman’s hand. In the dense obscurity where the long way back from the faint escape route memories still linger. Drinkable, luring, the tidal flush of shared pain extorts the constant sleep, the blathering, ongoing consciousness, never put to rest by the wasted highs of an unceasing mind, running off the bare edge of a fleeting freedom to simply be, and not be moved to contemplate homicide and escape in the backdrop imagination of the unreal & surreal & real fire of raw instinctual creativity.    

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Strangle/Strangling

"To dream about strangling someone, or being strangled yourself, means you have been hiding an important part of personality - one that you need to express to be happy - just to please someone in real life." (iDream)

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of memory and the strange
the lofty touch,
reminiscing beyond the treasured wine of death
as an end to meaning
in the fingertip and pupil
shone lunar and astral
with vanished luck

- excerpt from "hallelujah"