Dream Daimon

“Reading [life] backward means that growth is less the key biographical term than form, and that development only makes sense when it reveals a facet of the original image.”“…the innate image of your fate holds all in the copresence of today, yesterday , and tomorrow. Your person is not a process or a development. You are that essential image that develops, if it does. As Picasso said, I don’t develop; I am.““We dull our lives by the way we conceive them. We have stopped imagining them with any sort of romance, any fictional flair….[rather, we could dare] to envision biography in terms of very large ideas such as beauty, mystery and myth.”I accidentally (on purpose?) came across a copy of The Soul’s Code by James Hillman. He opens by discussing the Platonian myth that each soul, before birth selects its unique circumstances which best fit its life’s purpose, or “necessity.” I don’t wish to  affront anyone’s religious beliefs, I simply think that this myth or notion is worth a ponder, some reflection, a moment of thought. Personal myth, or the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves hold a great deal of power. Plato may have been onto something…

Wishing you a week of envisioning your life in the context of those large ideas of beauty, mystery and myth.

Quotes from The Soul’s Code, In Search of Character and Calling, by James Hillman, further images from my personal mandala journal. You can read an intriguing interview with Hillman on photographer and journalist Scott London‘s website by clicking here.