[jamesn.]

Dennis; thank you for your extraordinary sensitivity and thoughtfulness in the way you shared such personalized insights with each of our posts. I found particularly fascinating your own methods of accessing and giving voice to the things in your life that you feel need addressing by letting them speak through two specific categories of: “blessings and blisters”. This brings to mind a story about one of things I heard concerning Joseph’s frustration with the way people often misunderstood the meaning of the way people interpreted his term of: “follow your bliss”; and what it often entailed. His comment of: “I should have said follow your blisters” seems to bear this out since his insights in many of his recorded lectures often state there may be great personal suffering along our individual: “road of trials” to fully understand and process what our life is trying to tell us; often through the personal alchemy of our dreams and life experiences in the way we see ourselves. I find for myself that his interpretations of Jungian material has been some of the most helpful in the way I see myths, metaphors, and symbols as suggestive guideposts instead of concretized “thou shalt” commands that society and religion often put up as roadblocks within our own personal experiences; often keeping us out of our own mythical garden so to speak; where the awe and rapture of being alive lies waiting to be discovered; even within this Grand Opera he mentioned we live in with all it’s pain and heartache. Seeing it as a participatory act instead of an ordeal is tough and difficult business sometimes because being able to look behind this veil where our grail truly lies doesn’t necessarily reveal itself automatically; and as he offered we participate in this game of life with gratitude even though we know it hurts; and that is often extremely difficult to ascertain when all this stuff we are in the middle of may be suggesting otherwise.

(This pandemic we are now going through I think underlines how important these insights he left behind are in being able to navigate this: “freefall into the future” he talked about; and our ability to understand what all these inner messages within our lives are telling us with competence.) For instance these last few weeks here in the US with our catastrophic political landscape falling to pieces would be a perfect example of how Joseph’s material could be so very helpful in assimilating the: who, what, and where we all are in getting through these things.) When Joseph talks about Bastion and Spengler and Jung he is not saying that there is some way to see our lives through a single lens; but to see a much larger season of change that is evolving and we must evolve with it and it is hard without the old roadmap we once relied upon. We are making this stuff up as we go along by going inward as well as driving our vehicle outwardly; and our inner compass; (which you so very thoughtfully suggest); is giving us clues we have to: “learn how to read”; and by each of us sharing how we do this I think is of enormous value. Your important book that you put together with such great care is a tremendous aid in helping people to decipher their own inner landscape; and if I may join with the others here in saying we are so glad you could be here with us in sharing these insights you have gathered over the years that are so helpful in doing so.

If I may be allowed one humorous anecdote in reference to your wonderful little clip at the end. My name is (James) btw; and I loved your reference to Hermes and how he loves to have fun by playing the trickster; often causing mischief by messing with communication of any kind. Yesterday; he hijacked my entire post by erasing it completely. Stephen came to my rescue by helping me retrieve it from the “ethers” and alerted me; (that for any astrology buffs); “Mercury is in retrograde at the moment” and this always provides the perfect avenue for him to create mischief and havoc with those who fall under this particular configuration.

Thank you again for your generous and kind participation with us and I will certainly look forward to more of these wonderful insights as we go along. Namaste