reviews

A Book Review by Robert B. Cunningham, Ph.D.:

"Myths have always arisen in response to ultimate question -- questions such as “Where do we come from?”; “Where are we going?”; “What’s the real meaning of life -- of my life?”; and “Does life -- my life -- have a purpose?” Myths arise to respond to these questions whether asked by all of humanity, a particular culture, or an individual life lived in the turning of a new century within the relatively small circle of family and friends and jobs and struggles and dreams.

If nothing else it seems we humans are born to ask ultimate questions. It is our job, our duty, our destiny to ask ultimate questions and then to listen for the myths that come back from the depths in response. Bob Keller and Varley Wiedeman have shared from their collective wisdom that has been gleaned from long life times of asking ultimate questions and straining to hear the response coming from the True Depth, the Great Mystery, the Sacred Other.

The book is crafted with beautiful imagery and poetic commentary that invites engagement and conversation; that feels like Soul beckoning soul – “Dissolve the Cosmos whole. Absorb her into mind and soul.” The book lures us into the ultimate bonds between Creator, creation, and created: “We are the space where the Earth dreams, Her precious realm where vision gleams.

Assisting Earth to self-reflect, Is how the Earth and we connect.” The destinies of the “living world” and humanity are united, intricately and intimately bound together in the task of exceeding survival and stretching into the potential of wholeness: “The human gift to living world is to make sure she’s all unfurled—to see her, feel her, speak her clear, and be her truthful, conscious mirror.” The “living world” is of course the revealed world, the created world, the vessel into which the Great Mystery poured its sacred essence. And for what reason, what yearning, what purpose did the Sacred Other move? What more poignant motive moved the Sacred but to be seen; “The Mystery ineffable Sought form that was expressible.” True for the Sacred Other—true for the human soul.

Psychoanalysis has taught us that the infant demands to be seen if it is to thrive, to develop, to fulfill its gasping for life. The agony of aloneness is overcome in being seen and finding the gaze of the other that responds with care, nurture and knowing. Could it be no less true for the very Source of life and how wonderful to be seen in the manifestation of the miracle of creation?

No small bet played by the Creator, the Source of Life and Everything. The Living Earth enters into existence with no guarantees, no ace in the hole or card up the sleeve: “we are a risk of major size, that Earth allowed to actualize.” The Fire in the beginning not only quickens life in the human soul it also fuels human drives, ambitions, inflations, and images of hubris. How to deal with this power of life in ways that moves to fulfillment and actualization of all that is sacred? What is proposed is the notion of “adventurous play.” This wonderful concept of spontaneity and openness to the Other allows for human potential to be released in the service of what is best in life and makes it possible to discover the unknown and waiting newness in self and the world. Again psychoanalysis has taught us the value of play—the necessity of play.

D. W. Winnicott recognizes that play is the work of infants and children and adults that brings a special relational space for personality and world to relate. It allows the self to know how it fits into the world on the outside and what the outside can provide the self for growth and healing. Play is an essential ingredient in psychotherapy and healing of soul. Play is essential for creativity to germinate and bring out new possibilities in life. Adventurous is the perfect adjective for it connotes courage and risk. There is no greatness of spirit without courage, no extension of the limits of the known without the willingness to risk, no transformation of need into love without wonder, no movement of fear into curiosity without lowering the illusions of control and power. But in this all there is the potential of disaster and the explosions of grandiosity: “Here please recall why Earth birthed man, to feel and value cosmic plan.”

Much is demanded of the individual: “What Cosmos needs explicitly is each one’s authenticity. It means to hold, possess, attain, To comprehend, endure, maintain.” No one gets off easy. The task to be a true self, made from and into this divine experiment is demanded of each one of us. It is as though each one of us finds ourselves making up a little piece of the mandala in the end of a kaleidoscope. We are each a tiny grain of sand but necessary for the mandala to form and transform as the wheel of time moves. Our place can be filled with its own color and shape and/or it can be empty and only partially filled in. We have good and evil before us and ultimately we have death awaiting us. This is no small thing and the journey is all that we have.

Bob and Varley have given us all a beautiful gift in the offering of this beautiful book. It is theirs to pass on. It is ours to appreciate. In both the giving and the appreciating life is brought into more fullness, meaning is made more real, and the myth is heard."

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