St. Philip's Anglican Church on 10 July 2026

 

Whatever we do/ The dead are not thinking about you

 

Bus terminus, Atwater and Ste. Catherine Street,
1956

The dead are not thinking of you 

they are dead, so you don’t have to 

think about them, you don't have to worry

about what you did or what

you didn't do, they are

at peace wherever 

they are

                                         ————————————————-

Whatever we think, whoever we like or dislike, it all refers back to ourselves, the dead are not thinking about you, and if we regret what we did or what we didn't do, whatever the case, give it up, surrender to time, to what could or might have been, let it all go, let it all disappear into time, nothing in the past can be changed and we select our memories, they are not real, they are memories, they aren't real, our regrets, what we would or should have done differently, who we loved and who we didn't love, who was mean and who was friendly, let it all go, it is only going to hold you back because it is all transient, changing, subject to change, ephemeral, evanescent, and hopeless, and let it all go, forgive yourself, that's what you can do, forgive yourself and live in the so-called present but it isn't the present if it has a shadow of the past falling on it, darkening life, darkening our souls, and forgive yourself. The dead don't hold grudges against you or disapprove of what you have done or didn't do, the dead are dead and they have moved on, to nothing or to whatever we have invented for them to move on to. Whatever we think, whatever happened, you can do nothing about any of it, but you can forgive those who betrayed you, hurt you, disappointed you, and you can forgive yourself for what you have done or didn't do, and thank those who helped you, loved you, helped you along the way in your life's journey, but as for the dead, they're dead and gone except in your thoughts..           

"All great Peoples are conservative . . . ", Thomas Carlyle

 

Here is a quotation from Thomas Carlyle's Past and Present (1843): 

All great Peoples are conservative; slow to believe in novelties; patient of much error in actualities; deeply and forever certain of the greatness that is in Law, in Custom once solemnly-established, and now long recognized as just and final.--True, O Radical Reformers, there is no custom that can, properly speaking, be final; none. And yet thou seest Customs which, in all civilised countries, are accounted final; nay, under the Old-Roman name of Mores, are accounted Morality, Virtue, Laws of God Himself.

On Dreams, Poetry, and the Soul

I always assumed that everyone had “big dreams” at some time in their life. Everyone dreams but most people don’t listen to their dreams, they forget them as soon as they wake, or if the dream is remembered it is either ignored or sloughed off. They don’t want to be disturbed by dreams, or by re-visioning their life, or by becoming more conscious, or by the discomfort of psychological insight. This is how poets think: they allow for the presence of dreams as a form of communication from the unconscious, and the dream is then listened to.

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God communicates to people in two ways: through angels and through our dreams. If you want to communicate with God, or receive a message from God, then be open to your dreams. Dreams coming from God are the “big dreams”, and we may have only a few of these during our whole life. Dreams have some interest for poets and artists, dreams are psychic collages juxtaposing images that one would probably never put together. They are of interest in an aesthetic sense, as a curiosity, and importantly for therapists as a door into the psyche of their client. Discussing a dream is a way—an entrance, a door—into the psyche, it is a catalyst for discussion. Surrealism as a movement grew out of Freud’s positioning of dream interpretation as an important part of therapeutic work. The Surrealists were more fascinated by the dream as an aesthetic event than by its therapeutic value. Dreams, then, as life changing events, can be an important aspect of how poets think; as well, dream imagery can be transformed into a poem.
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Two other minor examples of poetic thinking: when I returned to live in the neighbourhood where I grew up, I would regularly see people who I used to see in the streets when I was young. They were not older versions of themselves, they were the same people that I used to see, as though, over the intervening years, they had never changed. I no longer see these people, they seem to have departed, where they have gone to I don’t know, but I would often see them, just as they were so many years ago. A second example: I have always believed that when we think of someone we used to know, but have lost contact with them, and they suddenly come to mind, for no reason at all, at that same moment they are thinking of us. For example, sometimes we think of an old friend with whom we have lost contact and then, only a few seconds later, the phone rings and it is the person we have been thinking of. Synchronicity reminds us that there is some kind of cohesion and meaning in life if we can see it.
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It is the essence of the shamanic journey that what is perceived is not a product of the imagination but is “real”. The important thing is the experience in which our awareness and consciousness is not always subject to cause and effect. Dreams juxtapose images that are usually not associated with each other. In essence, the dream is a collage or a "cut-up" (see Brion Gysin). Dreams fascinate us when they open the door of archetypal association. A door, for instance, allows us to enter a room, but a "door" for William Blake is an image opening our awareness and our perception of the symbolical world of the psyche. Almost two hundred years later Jim Morrison resonated to Blake's perception and the music of The Doors followed, music that is shamanic and archetypal.
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Dreams, Tarot cards, Sabian Symbols, the Aquarian Symbols, archetypal images, paintings by Odilon Redon, Magritte, and others, photographs by Man Ray, all help open an entrance into the deeper levels of the psyche. At this deeper level we become conscious of people, we can explore events that were formerly left unconscious, and a narrative becomes available to the conscious mind. I would include fairy tales and mythology as ways to access the unconscious mind.

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Poetry deals with the soul and soul making. Just about any subject can be transformed into poetry, but a poet’s soul is needed for this transformation of the everyday into poetry. The poet is the soul's alchemist. Poetry is transformation. Dreams are another form of alchemy; they transform everyday reality into an expression of the psyche or the soul, and these dreams can sometimes give us access into our own souls.