Little did I know there was so much imagery and media surrounding the dark forest.
What is the Dark Forest?
Reference to Jean Stimmel and Psychoscapes... where he references Joseph Campbell, from the 1960's. Campbell posed the following:
“The myth is the public dream and the dream is the private myth. If your private myth, your dream, happens to coincide with that of the society, you are in good accord with your group. If it isn't, you've got an adventure in the dark forest ahead of you.”
As Jean Stimmel states on his blog: "We are strangers in a strange land and when that happens, like it or not, we have no choice but to do the hard work to find our way to an authentic life. It’s not easy. As he tells us, you have to blaze your own trail: “You enter the forest
at the darkest point,
where there is no path.
Where there is…path,
It is someone else's path.
If you follow someone else's way,
you are not going to realize
your potential.”
We people, we have a familiar saying: Life sucks, people suck.
Wow what a miracle it really is when our life works out and we can truly say we're happy!
In my life, starting in 1974, I can truly say I discovered happiness. By 1979 that was gone, but for those four years I lived truly happy.
Also during those four years my life was Hell...
I've told the story so many times before, how age 8 I received a book from my aunt at Christmas. R IS FOR ROCKET by Ray Bradbury. It was a book of short stories, of which one in particular became a part of me, Frost and Fire.
My childhood was great... I had a good home with loving parents, was free to explore, and wasn't micromanaged like children are today.
I was bullied in school, starting in the 5th grade, only to get much worse in middle school. My parents were there for me, to help, but in hindsight it was the school district that should have been responsible for my well-being while learning. Today, schools still struggle with bullying... and really, there's no reason that should be a problem. A school system is a microcosm... everything that goes on within a school is managed throughout the day. So why should any student be subject to being bullied, or any student be allowed to be a bully?
Just saying... school systems are not helpless... and busting a kid for making a hand into the image of a pistol is insane. Pink Floyd had a song that captures the moment... THE WALL.
The You-Tube video is unfortunately censored:
So we'll go with John Lennon's WORKING CLASS HERO:
So they hit me at school and called me a fool. I moved away on my own when I became 18 year's old. And that's when the real shit hit the fan.
There's so much in our society that lays claim to rules that blood is thicker than water, and that we don't abandon family. But what about when that family doesn't respect you nor accept you? When that family is like a black widow spider who has you snared in a web, injecting poison to make you conform to the people on the hill?
There are serious issues in the world with people being subject to parental or militaristic control.
There are girls married off to old men. Girls being subjected to genital mutilation in the name of just cause. Boys that have it hammered into their heads that violence is sweet, that peace is for sissies.
At age 21 I saw my dreams come true... and that story I read at age 8, I found my place. That job was custodian at a local college... with excellent pay, and benefits, and a chance to find my own way in life. I became a disgrace to my family!
How many people in this world become a disgrace to their family?
I've been seeing a therapist of late... to help me and guide me through the Dark Forest. I got the good news my mental health evaluation includes PTSD, Depression and Anxiety... the recommended treatment: cannabis/marijuana, which is illegal in my state. Fuck me!!! With all the pills available for people, why would a plant be a better solution? NOT, that that is the sum total of my solution. A plant can't provide the total solution, but it can sure help, maybe much more than a pill.
As my mother believes there is only one road in life. ONE! There is nothing to question, no decisions to be made. Grow up, go to college, get married, buy a house, have 2.5 children, grow old, and die. That is life. Oh, and have fun... she does have her fun.
Me, I sought the mystical in life. I sought freedom and my own path through the dark forest... I've met more than one siren...
But I remain... a lone wolf.
My message to you out there... it is not acceptable that 80% of abused persons should be happy with their abusive environment. No abuse is acceptable. If you have a black widow on your back weaving a web around you - escape... escape to the dark forest and find your own way.
We live but once, even if reincarnated, this life is important. Suicide is not an option. Living is the only option, and if that means cutting ties with the family, the past, the script, so be it.
Live free. Prosper. Break from the web... and find your own way through the dark forest... find the light!
I love this post...got to say it's my favorite. Great choice of images too.
ReplyDeleteThank-you!
ReplyDelete