Raymond L. Burton - The Happy Soul

As I roll over my whole body aches from yesterdays training. I am about to complain until I remember those that don’t have legs to ache. I make a solid oath to myself that from here on out, I will always choose movement over simply watching life pass me by. There is always time for rest once in the grave as Conan once said.

The morning dew runs down my neck as I brush the branches that have covered me from the nights wind. I should have looked before I sat up. At least I stuffed my socks in my boots and they are not full of dew.

My protein powder is pulled out of my rucksack and is full of little holes. Somewhere out there is a really buff squirrel. I thought the zip lock was a smart idea. Next time I ‘ll duct tape it or something.

It doesn’t seem to matter how far out in the middle of nowhere we are, they always manage to make scrabbled eggs and coffee. It’s a heck of a lot more than the average bum downtown gets every day. I’m thankful. Slightly cold and very damp, but thankful none the same.

The best part of the day is when that morning sun climbs higher in the sky and starts to burn off the damp fog and dry the soggy grass. My combat boots start to feel lighter as the mud dries out and stops making snowshoes out of my every step. One step and one kick to shake of the sticky stuff. The birds are happy too, because they are singing their little hearts out.

Walking out of the woods and into the clearing, I see the sunlight bounce of all the ATV’s. The soldiers, my friends are firing the beasts up and filling the morning air with the smell of diesel. I am stopped in my tracks and for some reason, this is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

-Ray Burton
[tags]soldier story, soldier memories, Ray Burton[/tags]

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Cruising around youtube I ran into this beautiful work…

And now a few words so my layout doesnt bust with the embeded video…

PEACE..
What Happend?!
You took a breath…
You came alive and time stood still.

Everything stopped..
The world breathed like you…
Your heart opened..
You saw for the first time…

THEN THE WORLD CAME RUSHING BACK IN….

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I looked to my left and saw the massive eye.

I trebled to my core.

I could hear the snorts and sniffs as I quickly ducked to the side of the window hoping I hadn’t been seen.

With each step the massive T-Rex dinosaur made the house vibrate like a massive subwoofer was playing in the distance. Around and around the titan circled. Sniffing, staring, trying to find the one thing that will slake its thirst for flesh.

Like a mouse under the talons of an owl I scurried to close all the drapes, hoping that if only the eye didn’t find me, that I would be safe. That glassy unblinking eye.

I didn’t know where the ancient beast came from, but now the house was full of guests. I think it came with them. They had no fear. The T-Rex dinosaur wasn’t there for them. They seemed oblivious to the fact that the colossus was even there.

******

I woke up from my dream with the feeling that not running from the dinosaur any longer will bring about a circumstance that I need.

I have had this dinosaur dream before, in one form or another. I checked back in my dream dictionary and saw that I actually wrote “don’t run from the dinosaur”. That was about a year ago. I guess from last night, I still have something important to learn.

Here is something I found that was interesting at http://www.jungiantherapy.com/dreamwork.shtml.

If the dinosaur is, as Whitmont and Perera say, a “pre-human energy” that the ego experiences as “‘monstrous’ or archaically primitive,” it may be that this energy is potentially valuable as a compensation for some maladaptive attitude of the ego. This energy is reptilian and prehistoric. That is, it is not from the personal unconscious but from the collective unconscious. It may be that the ego needs not to repress or escape this energy but to engage it and integrate it. This ego immediately assumes that the dinosaur is harmful - that it intends to devour and swallow the ego. It never occurs to this ego to wonder (much less to inquire) whether the dinosaur, as a special variety of instinctual energy, might be helpful - that is, whether the dinosaur might energize the ego instinctually and transform consciousness.

How might the ego engage this energy? With the assistance of a Jungian psychotherapist, the client might employ the method of active imagination and address the dinosaur. The ego might actively engage the image in a dialogue. In such a conversation, the ego would not simply assume that the dinosaur intends to devour and swallow it but would inquire, with curiosity, exactly what the dinosaur does intend. It would pose this question and expect the image to provide an answer. Images that emerge from the unconscious have intentions. The general intention of the image is to contact and impact the ego. A specific image has a particular intention, which is to contact and impact the ego in a distinctive way for a precise purpose - which, from a Jungian perspective, is to compensate some maladaptive attitude of the ego. In this respect, active imagination is a method to ascertain, experientially, just what the particular intention of a specific image is - in this case, what the intention of the dinosaur is - so that the image might then compensate the attitude of the ego and transform consciousness.

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