Often when using the Dreamwork Maps process, participants will identify a sea that contains a sunken ship laden with hidden treasure.  Recently, the deep-sea salvage company Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc., announced that its divers had located probably the greatest underwater shipwreck treasure ever discovered.  The ship is the Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, believed to be sunken in a Colonial-era shipping lane somewhere off the Spanish coast. 

It has been code-named The Black Swan by  the expedition divers, a title that metaphorically reflects the book of the same name by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.  In The Black Swan, Taleb proposes that unexpected events and processes are occurring more frequently and experiencing the highly improbable is becoming more likely.

When we dream, a swan often is a symbol of personal transformation and freedom.  The swan transforms from an ugly duckling into a beautiful creature that can move anywhere on land, sea or sky.  A white swan suggests clarity and wisdom, and a black swan suggests a vehicle to manifest our potential and become more aware.

Although Taleb describes the Black Swan process as being event driven, it seems that the most probable cause of a highly improbable event is an individual becoming aware of the sunken treasures in their own uncharted waters.  As we explore our own hidden potential and begin to realise our value, we often transform ourselves in a way that may have once seemed highly improbable.

Often, when we share stories with others, we use language that reflects our current waking realities.  It is interesting to hear Hillary Clinton relate stories of ‘being under fire from snipers’, when the actual footage from the event shows otherwise.  Her story suggests that she feels increasingly under attack and vulnerable to those critics who snipe at her potential qualities as President of the United States.

If Hillary was elected President it would be interesting to see how her stories developed.  She may begin to use more secure and confident language, or perhaps she feels innately insecure and under constant threat.

As Newsweek reports, for many years Clinton has been telling the story of her visit to Tuzla in Bosnia in 1996, gradually adding embellishment and changing details.  This is a natural and widespread process as stories of our specific experiences evolve into declarations of archetypal awareness.   It often begins within 24 hours of the actual event as we seek to share our impressions with others. 

Ronald Reagan often related that he had been in Normandy in 1944 and was present at the liberation of the Nazi death camps. He reportedly later told an associate ‘Maybe I had seen too many war movies, the heroics of which I sometimes confused with real life‘.

As editor of The Shinbone Star,  Dutton Peabody declared in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance ‘This is the west, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend‘. 

As a coincidental and almost homophonic footnote, Gene Pitney, who had a Top Ten hit with the title track from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is best known for his signature song, Twenty Four Hours From Tulsa.

There has been some continued discussion recently about archetypes and their use in the workplace, particularly from  Dave Snowden and Graham Durant-Law.

Although the term archetypes is frequently used in the workplace, what is usually being described are stereotypes or Theophrastic stock characters.

According to Carl Jung, an archetype is a fundamental structure upon which human development proceeds.  He originally termed these primordial images, then dominants, and then finally archetypes.

For Jung an archetype was not a simple description that completely captured the essence of a type of person.  It was a fundamental human pattern that often manifested in the behaviour of individual people.

Although sometimes confused with each other, the archetypes described by Jung are different from the types he also described.  These types, or functions as he also termed them, reflect how individuals engage with their inner and outer worlds.

An archetype is a fundamental human pattern in the same way that a musical scale or a drum rhythm is a fundamental human pattern.  A type is more analogous to a musical genre such as folk or jazz or classical. 

(more…)

Today at 05.48 was the the Vernal Equinox, when the length of day and night are equal.  Although the date is often used to mark the equinox, the correct term for the whole 24 hour period is the Equilux.  At that time on this day, light and shadow are equal.

In the northern hemisphere, the equinox is often regarded as the first day of Spring, one of the inspirational influences for Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.  First performed in 1913 in Paris by the Ballet Russes, it was a complex and innovative piece.

From a musical perspective it seems very fragmented, with recurring melodic motifs that emerge from unpredictable rhythms driven by colourful dissonances.  I am always drawn to how glimpses of these fragments emerge and echo, building a wonderfully moving experience from apparent drama and tension.

(more…)

Arthur C Clarke, one of the greatest exponents of possibility space has passed away at his home in Sri Lanka. 

As one of Clarke’s three Laws of Impossibility, he stated ‘The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.’

Arthur was a master of venturing into what seemed impossible and realising the possibilities of what was previously unvisioned and unknown.

As well as being a master of visionary space, he was also equally at home immersed in the rich waters of passion and curiosity.  He once said ‘How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean.’

Perhaps he is exploring some other spaces now, maybe gently waking up in a Louis XVI boudoir, or floating as a Star Child enclosed in a transparent orb of light.