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I agree with your theory of not taking the risk. “A shot not taken, is a shot that’s missed.” At some point, one has to attempt to directly experience things, or else closure will remain a faraway dream.

Visualize/intend a bunch of timelines above, below and around you with this physical timeline in the center, stretching before and behind you. Now move a snake dream near the various timelines. With which timeline is the dream associated?

No need to invest anyone in particular with the authority to decide about matters of truth or expertise. That would only lead to some form of religion or cult. Do you think that we need anyone to decide if there is or is not an internet site called The Dao Bums on which we are in fact currently having a discussion? And I don't mean as a question of absolute truth, because you could of course argue that maybe it was just dream, or an illusion created by a demon, etc. Those options are all irrelevant to our daily live in which matters are decided by common sense, observations, arguments, etc.

Let me see if I understand correctly. I started reading ZZ ch 6. 1 古之真人，其寢不夢，其覺無憂，其食不甘，其息深深。真人之息以踵，眾人之息以喉。屈服者，其嗌言若哇。其耆欲深者，其天機淺。 The True men of old did not dream when they slept, had no anxiety when they awoke, and did not care that their food should be pleasant. Their breathing came deep and silently. The breathing of the true man comes (even) from his heels, while men generally breathe (only) from their throats. When men are defeated in argument, their words come from their gullets as if they were vomiting. Where lusts and desires are deep, the springs of the Heavenly are shallow. Legge translation So, I am a regular Joe who likes to read stuff here and there and when I read this I understand each word and each sentence in English and I can see the original is about the same except that was classical Chinese. But wait, I read breath from his heels, WTH is he talking about? Then I checked one of the postings here in this site and I started reading all kind of stuff, some are made up by each contributor others trying to follow some tradition, but come on, the original text in itself doesn't tell me that much. So how I am supposed to understand the text in this specific section of this chapter? how it can possible 真人之息以踵 or is there a reference what it meant by the heel? I tried to imagine that but I don't see a physical evidence that can show me that is possible. I have tried breathing from the navel and yes, I can feel warmth through my knees and feel the warmth of my circulation on my feet. As you can see, I still don't understand what I read is what I get because I don't get it. Or maybe I am out of the target or I don't belong to those bright minds in their selective circle, who knows!

I read something very interesting by Eckhart Tolle that's given me an exciting new idea about awakening to ultimate reality. He said that our thoughts 'are not true absolutely'. He wasn't just talking about value judgments or opinions, but nearly ALL of our thoughts. I've learned that love is all there really is and that everything is really perfect. Fear, attack, and badness are only illusions. They're part of the DREAM WORLD. So, if we have the thought, 'I'm feeling kind of anxious today,' we can remind ourselves that anxiety (fear) is only an illusion. If we think, 'That was very unkind of him,' we can remember that lack of love and attack aren't real. Or if we see on the news that something 'unfortunate' happened, we can know that badness is an illusion and that everything is happening as it should. I was already aware of this approach to awakening, but after reading that teaching from Eckhart Tolle, it occurred to me just how much of my thinking acknowledges the dream world as real, rather than as an illusion.

Lol, “ the Chinese mind” versus those who grew up thinking that: - “death is a curse”. Sure, that’s why the Chinese looove using the character 四 (sarcasm alert). - “heaven or hell”. Sorry to disappoint you but the Chinese also had/have the concepts heaven and hell. - “reach my dream”. Sure, the Chinese are renowned for being slackers (sarcasm alert).

So tell me, all the translations we read all over, the Watson, Graham, Meir, Féng yǒu lán 冯友兰, etc., are those translations directly from the original, whatever is consider original, or shall we read by commentaries as the one Ziporyn did? If I understand correctly, one has to read each chapter and try to make sense with the way of thinking and the way it is understood today by whichever arbitrary comment. Or is there something else I am missing? It seems that in each story of each chapter there is more to ponder and understand and many thoughts are already in the Chinese mind as opposed to those who grew up thinking that death is a curse or that we are going to heaven or hell or if I hope I maybe reach my dream, etc.

and its interesting to add dreams to the discussion...for now and then we may be aware of a dream within a dream within a dream, and if they are dreams that we seem to feel lost in then we want to find a way to wake up from them, and so find ourselves shifting our awareness at that level from one to another to do so... (and just when we thought we were back we realized we were still in another dream)

featuring Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche - one of the monks involved in the groundbreaking project conducted by the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior at Wisconsin University to examine the effects of meditation on the brains of advanced meditators. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=793eUxsxOOM&feature=related

people often stir up emotions to distract themselves.. most people tend to favor drama and noise over recognition and silence, because that is what society trains people to do its typically lauded as some kind of "victory of humanity" to express some or another highly charged emotion based on your idea of how important you are or how much of some object or another you have accumulated people typically seek to avoid the plain truth which exposes who they are in actuality (as in, how they act)... but rather they are much more obsessed and intensely engaged in narrating endless stories and tales and dramatic productions about who they dream of being and all the other dreamy dreams that go along with it the action of ignoring every bit of truth becomes who they actually are - as in, "ignorant" i. e. being continually engaged in the activity of ignorance countless varieties of emotions are used to accomplish this kind of distraction emotions arent "inherently valid" just because "feelings" or whatever... thats ridiculous your choices in the moment determine who you actually are... your actions determine who you are in actuality... not your stories about your actions or your dreams about your stories of who you dream of being

I taught myself hypnosis from an encyclopedia article when I was eight or so. I had a friend at the time who was easy to hypnotize and I had a lot of experience. At a certain point I realized that hypnosis could be dangerous and stopped doing it for years. I bought a lot of books to learn more at some point, and in my late teens was quite good at it and wondered if it might be useful in spiritual training. based on my own experience with the training that I did and some later experiments with another good subject I decided that it may be helpful, but was not necessary, so I left it alone until the late eighties or thereabouts when I met people into Neuro-linguistic programming. From them I learned that the techniques of Milton Ericson had been assimilated into and refined within Neuro-linguistic programming and set about studying and practicing that, and those techniques for hypnosis. Again the bottom line is that while such techniques are useful they are not necessary, nor are spiritual practices reducible to them. I said all the above to make clear that I have a significant background in hypnosis and related topics. Now for a quick look at the history of hypnosis. Modern hypnosis began in the late 1700s with the work of Franz Anton Mesmer who developed a healing technique based on what he called "animal magnetism" and using it to heal people, a technique which also could involve trance induction. Skipping over a lot of history to the mid 1800s, the idea of animal magnetism survived and was very influential, Poe for example wrote a story called Mesmeric Revelation, the link provides a lot of good good background information as well as the story. In the middle of the 1800s the skeptical Scot James Braid said that mesmeric trance was all suggestion and created the alternative name hypnosis and after that the notion of animal magnetism and thus energy tranmission, qi, shen, whatever, was banished from the field of hypnosis, this link to the Wikipedia article is also more informative than I thought it would be, I looked at it to remind me who that Scotsman was, and I was reminded of exactly how much interesting history I was only vaguely remembering, but was leaving out. So bottom line, hypnosis is not directly involved but suggestion may contribute to some aspects of the phenomena. All of that said, Shadow training is apparently in important aspect of Daoist training and mastering and using one's own shadow as well as the shadows of others is part of Daoist teaching. Professor Jerry Allen Johnson teaches in it his books. I have all of his books and he talks about it in two of them at least. I picked up my copy of Daoist Magical Transformation Skills: Dream Magic, Shape-Shifting,Soul Travel, and Sex Magic and found a section on it beginning on p. 72. So I guess Naruto is not simply inventing Shadow Clone Jutsu. I hope this information is interesting and helpful, ZYD

That is a kind of strength which you will gain by your tummy here. When your mind is here or here, you know, it means you are entertaining them (images in the mind). If your mind is here, you are not concern—concerned too much about the image you have in your mind. So, try to keep right posture, with some power in your tummy. ("Practice Zazen With Your Whole Mind And Body", Shunryu Suzuki Transcript, Friday, September 8, 1967) You are right that Gautama never mentions the "hara", he doesn't deal much with anatomy apart from the cemetary contemplations. Nevertheless, in the description of the feeling of the first concentration (gathering the "bath-ball", which I quoted previously), he does mention that the ball is gathered in a copper basin. Is there a feeling to match his description, does the mind which is "here and here" settle in an area that feels like a basin? Hmmm? Chadwick finds it demeaning, that Mr. Suzuki referred to the hara as the "tummy" for his Western students. What is expressed in this sutra is a very daily thing, but not an ordinary thing. “Maha Prajna Paramita” is “great, complete wisdom.” Maha means “no exception, complete.” Right inside your skin this prajna fully exists. So the first thing is, we have to prepare to feel this sutra, not use our brain to understand it. ... When we are dreaming in very deep sleep, we have no sense of, “I am dreaming this.” Everything is so real we do not doubt it until someone makes a sound and we wake up. Then we wonder, “Where am I?” waking up from the dream to so-called “reality.” ("Kobun's Talks on the Heart Sutra", edited by Angie Boissevain and Judy Cosgrove; emphasis added) When I find my place where I am, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. The idea is to "make self-surrender the object of thought", such that "determinate thought" in action simply ceases--first in speech, then in deed, and finally in mind: …I say that determinate thought is action. When one determines, one acts by deed, word, or thought. (AN III 415, Pali Text Society Vol III p 294) And what are the activities? These are the three activities:–those of deed, speech and mind. These are activities. (SN II 3, Pali Text Society vol II p 4) …I have seen that the ceasing of the activities is gradual. When one has attained the first trance, speech has ceased. When one has attained the second trance, thought initial and sustained has ceased. When one has attained the third trance, zest has ceased. When one has attained the fourth trance, inbreathing and outbreathing have ceased… Both perception and feeling have ceased when one has attained the cessation of perception and feeling. (SN IV 217, Pali Text Society vol IV p 146) Herein… the (noble) disciple, making self-surrender the object of (their) thought, lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness. (The disciple), aloof from sensuality, aloof from evil conditions, enters on the first trance, which is accompanied by thought directed and sustained, which is born of solitude, easeful and zestful, and abides therein. (SN v 198, Pali Text Society vol V p 174; “noble” substituted for Ariyan; emphasis added) When I find my place where I am, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. No "seeing through" anything. Seeing through the identification of self in the skandhas helps with "making self-surrender the object of thought"--it's not laying hold of "one-pointedness". Right before falling asleep, that's one-pointedness. Meanwhile: No ignorance and also no extinction of it, and so forth until no-old-age-and-death and also no extinction of them; No suff’ring, no origination, no stopping, no path; No cognition, also no attainment. Helpful to me in making self-surrender the object of thought: When a presence of mind is retained as the placement of attention shifts, then the natural tendency toward the free placement of attention can draw out thought initial and sustained, and bring on the stages of concentration. (Shunryu Suzuki on Shikantaza and the Theravadin Stages; emphasis added) In Glenhaven, or Clearlake? Glenhaven would be across from Konocti, as in the picture below--most of my pictures are from Lucerne, which is farther north on the Glenhaven side of the lake.

well it seems or is that the 4th dimension can see (so to speak) the 3rd but the 3rd can not see the 4th... "What is the 4th dimension in the Bible? It seems most logical that Jesus used the fourth dimension to elude his would-be captors. Similar to the power to disappear from three-dimensional beings, anyone who could move in a fourth physical dimension could also transport himself/herself anywhere in our three-dimensional world instantly." ...and bigfoot is also evolved enough to do this? could we not also say there is dream time, waking dream time, and time that is transcendent to both, or are those just measurements of the same thing or are those things different altogether? Time for human beings is often measured by the revolution of the earth on its axis's and around our sun, etc.. We also have sayings like 1 human year equals 7 dog years and then are some insects that only live for hours or angels and gods that live for thousands or millions of years going by our time....which I'd say is kind of being humanly egocentric about time. Maybe we take space for granted since there can be no space without time, so the when cosmic cycle ends and before it starts again what becomes of all space/time and thus all forms and beings? Some say the big crunch:

After contemplating this quote from the "Lower Dan Tien Question" thread... "The three energy centers is the 作用區 Effect area of 玄關 Entrance There is only one 玄關一竅 Entrance know nothing 因為玄關一竅是第三眼接收中脈與天地之交流的出入口 Because the entrance is the third eye to accept the entrance in the vein and the exchange of heaven and earth It's a hole. Look like a hole. A hole in the dark. But after the 中脈 Midrib is opened completely, the hole will fill of light." * ...I was suddenly reminded of lore my races immortal teacher had shared with one before. I ponder, did vve De Danann spawn and I-rishis grok the lead to gold score? ...Probsz. * "Now the Dagda had a son. He was called Angus the Mac Oc, which means the young son. He had that name for he was conceived and born in one night. But how that came to be is another story... His mother was a woman of the Sidhe... and the Mac Oc had powers to see the future..." * ....The day had been wet and wild, and the woods looked dim and drenched from the window where Con sat. All the day long his ever restless feet were running to the door in a vain hope of sunshine. His sister, Norah, to quiet him had told him over and over again the tales which delighted him, the delight of hearing which was second only to the delight of living them over himself, when as Cuculain he kept the ford which led to Ulla, his sole hero heart matching the hosts of Meave; or as Fergus he wielded the sword of light the Druids made and gave to the champion, which in its sweep shore away the crests of the mountains; or as Brian, the ill-fated child of Turann, he went with his brothers in the ocean-sweeping boat farther than ever Columbus traveled, winning one by one in dire conflict with kings and enchanters the treasures which would appease the implacable heart of Lu. He had just died in a corner of the room from his many wounds when Norah came in declaring that all these famous heroes must go to bed. He protested in vain, but indeed he was sleepy, and before he had been carried half-way to the room the little soft face drooped with half-closed eyes, while he drowsily rubbed his nose upon her shoulder in an effort to keep awake. For a while she flitted about him, looking, with her dark, shadowy hair flickering in the dim, silver light like one of the beautiful heroines of Gaelic romance, or one of the twilight, race of the Sidhe. Before going she sat by his bed and sang to him some verses of a song, set to an old Celtic air whose low intonations were full of a half-soundless mystery: Over the hill-tops the gay lights are peeping; Down in the vale where the dim fleeces stray Ceases the smoke from the hamlet upcreeping: Come, thou, my shepherd, and lead me away. "Who's the shepherd?" said the boy, suddenly sitting up. "Hush, alannah, I will tell you another time." She continued still more softly: Lord of the Wand, draw forth from the darkness, Warp of the silver, and woof of the gold: Leave the poor shade there bereft in its starkness: Wrapped in the fleece we will enter the Fold. There from the many-orbed heart where the Mother Breathes forth the love on her darlings who roam, We will send dreams to their land of another Land of the Shining, their birthplace and home. He would have asked a hundred questions, but she bent over him, enveloping him with a sudden nightfall of hair, to give him his good-night kiss, and departed. Immediately the boy sat up again; all his sleepiness gone. The pure, gay, delicate spirit of childhood was darting at ideas dimly perceived in the delicious moonlight of romance which silvered his brain, where may airy and beautiful figures were moving: The Fianna with floating locks chasing the flying deer; shapes more solemn, vast, and misty, guarding the avenues to unspeakable secrets; but he steadily pursued his idea. "I guess he's one of the people who take you away to faeryland. Wonder if he'd come to me? Think it's easy going away," with an intuitive perception of the frailty of the link binding childhood to earth in its dreams. (As a man Con will strive with passionate intensity to regain that free, gay motion in the upper airs.) "Think I'll try if he'll come," and he sang, with as near an approach as he could make to the glimmering cadences of his sister's voice: Come, thou, my shepherd, and lead me away. He then lay back quite still and waited. He could not say whether hours or minutes had passed, or whether he had slept or not, until he was aware of a tall golden-bearded man standing by his bed. Wonderfully light was this figure, as if the sunlight ran through his limbs; a spiritual beauty was on the face, and those strange eyes of bronze and gold with their subtle intense gaze made Con aware for the first time of the difference between inner and out in himself. "Come, Con, come away!" the child seemed to hear uttered silently. "You're the Shepherd!" said Con, "I'll go." Then suddenly, "I won't come back and be old when they're all dead?" a vivid remembrance of Ossian's fate flashing upon him. A most beautiful laughter, which again to Con seemed half soundless, came in reply. His fears vanished; the golden-bearded man stretched a hand over him for a moment, and he found himself out in the night, now clear and starlit. Together they moved on as if borne by the wind, past many woods and silver-gleaming lakes, and mountains which shone like a range of opals below the purple skies. The Shepherd stood still for a moment by one of these hills, and there flew out, riverlike, a melody mingled with a tinkling as of innumerable elfin hammers, and there, was a sound of many gay voices where an unseen people were holding festival, or enraptured hosts who were let loose for the awakening, the new day which was to dawn, for the delighted child felt that faeryland was come over again with its heroes and battles. "Our brothers rejoice," said the Shepherd to Con. "Who are they?" asked the boy. "They are the thoughts of our Father." "May we go in?" Con asked, for he was fascinated by the melody, mystery, and flashing lights. "Not now. We are going to my home where I lived in the days past when there came to me many kings and queens of ancient Eire, many heroes and beautiful women, who longed for the Druid wisdom we taught." "And did you fight like Finn, and carry spears as tall as trees, and chase the deer through the Woods, and have feastings and singing?" "No, we, the Dananns, did none of those things--but those who were weary of battle, and to whom feast and song brought no pleasure, came to us and passed hence to a more wonderful land, a more immortal land than this." As he spoke he paused before a great mound, grown over with trees, and around it silver clear in the moonlight were immense stones piled, the remains of an original circle, and there was a dark, low, narrow entrance leading within. He took Con by the hand, and in an instant they were standing in a lofty, cross-shaped cave, built roughly of huge stones. "This was my palace. In days past many a one plucked here the purple flower of magic and the fruit of the tree of life." "It is very dark," said the child disconsolately. He had expected something different. "Nay, but look: you will see it is the palace of a god." And even as he spoke a light began to glow and to pervade the cave and to obliterate the stone walls and the antique hieroglyphs engraved thereon, and to melt the earthen floor into itself like a fiery sun suddenly uprisen within the world, and there was everywhere a wandering ecstasy of sound: light and sound were one; light had a voice, and the music hung glittering in the air. "Look, how the sun is dawning for us, ever dawning; in the earth, in our hearts, with ever youthful and triumphant voices. Your sun is but a smoky shadow, ours the ruddy and eternal glow; yours is far way, ours is heart and hearth and home; yours is a light without, ours a fire within, in rock, in river, in plain, everywhere living, everywhere dawning, whence also it cometh that the mountains emit their wondrous rays." As he spoke he seemed to breathe the brilliance of that mystical sunlight and to dilate and tower, so that the child looked up to a giant pillar of light, having in his heart a sun of ruddy gold which shed its blinding rays about him, and over his head there was a waving of fiery plumage and on his face an ecstasy of beauty and immortal youth. "I am Angus," Con heard; "men call me the Young. I am the sunlight in the heart, the moonlight in the mind; I am the light at the end of every dream, the voice for ever calling to come away; I am the desire beyond you or tears. Come with me, come with me, I will make you immortal; for my palace opens into the Gardens of the Sun, and there are the fire-fountains which quench the heart's desire in rapture." And in the child's dream he was in a palace high as the stars, with dazzling pillars jeweled like the dawn, and all fashioned out of living and trembling opal. And upon their thrones sat the Danann gods with their sceptres and diadems of rainbow light, and upon their faces infinite wisdom and imperishable youth. In the turmoil and growing chaos of his dream he heard a voice crying out, "You remember, Con, Con, Conaire Mor, you remember!" and in an instant he was torn from himself and had grown vaster, and was with the Immortals, seated upon their thrones, they looking upon him as a brother, and he was flying away with them into the heart of the gold when he awoke, the spirit of childhood dazzled with the vision which is too lofty for princes. (The end) George William Russell's essay: Dream Of Angus Oge, 1897 * The Three Cauldrons of The Dagda 1. 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXqOLebOmyg * Cheerio.

Wow, I didn't remember having had this. Old thread. More recently I had a few experiences of calling my dream out as such and waking up soon after declaring that I was in a dream. In one case there was a recurring annoying dream theme and it upset me so that I was ranting within my dream like "Damn, every time I am dreaming, this crap happens!".

The mental world has a limited reality that allows experimentation A simple method is to generate energy fields intending them to relate to particular suspected realities and do experiments. For example if there is a particular female of interest, visualize the female then visualize the words "likes me" and push the words close to the visualized figure. If the words resonate with the figure they will interact strongly. You can do that while a friend does the same and compare what is seen. A dream interpretation can be tested by going back into the dream scene and doing experiments. There are many types of experiment to test what is true to what

I will refer to my dream which I posted earlier: I had a dream of a grape vine growing entwined on a pergola structure, it was so entwined that at its trunk it was almost impossible to tell what was vine trunk and what was pergola post. On top of the structure the branches had grown around the beams, and the tendrils had also wound themselves around the beams. In my dream I began separating the vine from the structure, starting at the tendrils, unwinding them, then unwinding the branches, and after some time coming to the trunk which had grown around the post to the point that it was was indistinguishable from it. I couldn’t unwind it as it was hard wood, not pliable like the tendrils and branches, so instead I held the trunk and the post above where they were enjoined and worked at pulling them apart. They did come apart but the whole structure started to topple over so I pushed it up again, and then this happened again, I pulled the trunk and the post apart from above where they were joined, the structure started to topple and I pushed it up again, and then pulling the post and trunk apart a third time it started to topple again, and this time I just walked away. When I looked back the overgrown heavy old vine had disappeared along with the structure, but in its place a new young vine had been planted with no structure around it, and I marvelled as I realised that the vine had never needed the structure in the first place, and was now free to grow. The structure, maybe best described as lifetimes of human conditioning and false identification, is what the ‘self’ has attached to and believes is necessary, so much so that the structure and the ‘self’ are at the deepest level indistinguishable from each other, whilst the ‘Self’ is the new young vine that has no structure, no conditioning, no false identifications, and never actually needed it. I claimed previously that the momentary experience of nonduality was not the ‘Self’, because the ‘Self’ being the new vine can only be established once all of the previous ‘self’ which is conditioned and has false identifications has completely disappeared. There can be a moments view of emptiness, but either the ‘self’ and conditioning and false identifications resume as they did in my dream when the toppled vine and structure were pushed upright by myself, or emptiness perhaps can be extended with no new ‘Self’ established. Going one step further in my view this new ‘Self’ develops and grows unhindered by conditioning and false identifications which is contrary to Advaita Vedanta, which holds that the Self is already perfect, so I can’t be an Advaita Vedantist after all, let alone a fundamentalist one. The proof for me is the absolute lack of any conditioning or false identification left, anything partial is necessarily in the land of ‘duality’ for me.

"I should start a YouTube channel.... I really should have handled that grappling situation in jujitsu last week differently..... do snail's dream?...." after 30 seconds of meditation.

Agreed 100%. I'm skeptical, but open minded. Without skepticism you end up wasting money and time that you could have seeking out something genuine, or enrolling in a karate class. With a closed mind, you might miss something truly magical, to whatever extent it's possible in this world. I lucid dream and astral project, and while I'm skeptical about the experience being me actually leaving my body or just my imagination, if I was too closed minded about it, then I never would have trained myself to do it, and would be missing out on an experience that is real, even if the reasons behind it might not be what some people claim it to be. And if you're still feeling desperate to throw your disposable income at somebody, I can give you my paypal account, and say a prayer for you in my Qi Gong practice or something. It might work.

This movie was inspiring. It is about a man who had dream to walk the twin towers on a tight rope. Is there a path to finding a truly inspiring dream? What steps should one take to find their dream?

Upcoming free teachings of dream yoga on Facebook Live starting June 6th. All talks are recorded so you don't have to be available at the scheduled time.

I dreamt a lot of stuff one night, but the stuff I keep on remembering was that inside me there was a entity on my liver like sludge with a face on it, and the impression I got was that it was feeding off my energy. Secondly there was octopus-like creatures with no face that I can remember. One giant one was on top of my whole head, and there were other ones as well. They seemed like they were helping out, utilizing energy in order to do things like pull out spikes in my brain and other areas. Thirdly there was some entity that was made out of blackness and eyes, flat and without a specific location. This didn't leave me a big impression, I thought "if I leave it alone, it will leave me alone". The liver entity gave me the largest impression. I have chronic fatigue and it seemed like it was the culprit sucking up all my energy. Does anyone have anything for defeating energy parasites? Were the octopus creatures actually helping or just pretending? Or is a dream just a dream, even though this one gave such a large impression on me? Alternatively I can continue practicing FP chi kung even though I feel it is eating my energy.

human being always lie, always, but a good movie portraying many dark truths of our society is Requiem for a dream. Highly recommended, one of my favourite movies ever

Share whatever art, qoutes, scripture, music and so on as you feel like. The key is that it speaks to you. It is allways nice if you write a sentence or two on how you interpet it and what it means to you. So, to be completly honest, i intend this thread to «document» beautifull writings i have encountered, but by all means: feel free to share stories meaningfull to you aswell: Greeks on love: Cleanthes - hymn to Zeus (early seconds century bc) The myth of Narcissius, reminagined by Oscar Wilde and recounted in «The alchemist»: Odins «mystic initation, Runatal 139-149: Odin: Death of Balder/Balders dream, poetic Edda So, some context before i continue. You can think of him as some sort of norse Jesus or Apollo. Beloved, beautifull, heart of gold etc. He was also asscociated with spring. His death marks sets in fimbulvintr, a winter lasting three season and marks the beginnibg of the end: ragnarok/twiligt of the Gods. I find it quite poetic. If we see Balder as the personified good, being killed shot by a blind man with an arrow tippes with an mistietoe, a plant so ignificanr that that Fraya overlooked it, kills the ideal man asscociated with spring, witch sets in a tree season long winter. So thats how the world end, the ideal killed by his blind half-brother, tricked by the envious Loki (the tricster). Just as a fun fact, the blind god who shot Balder, is named Hothr, and is who the GoT character is based on. Fimbulsvintr, Voluspa: (Just as a side note, this is belived to have been a real event. An islandic, volnaic erruoprion took place in 550, witch blocked the sun for a significant period. I think this correspond well with the migration she as well? Ragnarok (Translated by Jackson Crawford(Völuspá Stanzas 43-56).)