Sometimes the songs that we hear, are just songs of our own

(title post from GD song "Eyes of the World")

I posted a song below. Initially I felt embarrassed doing it - kind of the feeling that you might have if you are taking care of a particular need (anyone who knows me knows what I am referring to) and then find out everyone was watching you - kind of like out of some dream where your bare naked soul is revealed to the world for everyone to laught at. Yet all the same - emotionally that is what I do here - that is with all 3 of you that may be reading this! Sometimes I think it is more "embarrassing" for some of you than it is for me. But anyway, before I post the words to my song - let me explain..

An older woman at work introduced me to the writings of Carl Jung back in San Diego years ago. I can't say I read all, or even most of what he wrote, but I read enough of what he wrote along with some of his offshoot "Jungian" authors, saw some of them speak live at the "Friends of Jung" in San Diego, to get the general idea of it. And like Freud - he writes about the vast world of the unconscious mind. Yet unlike Freud, he paints us out more to be spiritually driven than sexually driven creatures. And anyway - one of the concepts that really fascinated me was the concept of the "anima". The anima is essentially the inner female of a man. It may be expressed im many forms, but ultimately, when a man is attracted to a female on the outside world, it is connecting with his inner woman. The female parent obviously has a lot to do with his first exposure to a woman, so naturally it is no surprise that the woman he ends up with as his mate shares some of her characteristics. If you really want to read up more, just google "anima jung". I just did it and here is one of the quotes I came up with, two of his own quotes:

"What can a man say about woman, his own opposite? I mean of course something sensible, that is outside the sexual program, free of resentment, illusion, and theory. Where is the man to be found capable of such superiority? Woman always stands just where the man's shadow falls, so that he is only too liable to confuse the two. Then, when he tries to repair this misunderstanding, he overvalues her and believes her the most desirable thing in the world."

"The more remote and unreal the personal mother is, the more deeply will the son's yearning for her clutch at his soul, awakening that primordial and eternal image of the mother for whose sake everything that embraces, protects, nourishes, and helps assumes maternal form, from the Alma Mater of the university ot the personification of cities, countries, sciences and ideals"


Anyway - there is a heck of a lot more to it than that - but it is a start. So - needless to say - even if you recongize it on a rational level, when you are falling in love with a woman, ultimately it is a link to and from your own self - and when you are in love what you see is not always what you get. That is why people often break up after the initial "magic" wears off. That is why a woman on the internet - who I have never met and never will meet - appeared to be such a magical cure all force to me this winter. The more I found out about her - I knew I could never get along with her in reality - her fundamental Christian faith, interest in pop-country music (that I hate with a passion), Republican views - I mean other than the fact that we both had fucked up childhoods, there was nothing else there. But the scarey thing about the internet is that it is the ultimate projection ground because there is nothing at all to break up the fantasy with anything in reality. That is why I hear about so many people falling in love on the net, and often with ominous results (Victoria pointed out to me a story on TV where a man fell in love with a mysterious woman and then butchered his own wife of 35 years to death after doing it. I assured her that I will be much more humane when I do her in.)

When I met my wife, I was drawn to her based on my "anima" as well, but there was always something that seemed more practical about it than any situation I had been in before. I fell in love to a degree, but I also knew that there was enough of a bond there that I could spend my life with her, and I knew it pretty quickly. She is the type of woman that I could be friends with even if I had no physical interaction with her. When I first came across her, I was hoping she would be my friend. After all - it was a "just friends" ad in the San Diego Reader that brought me to her. I thought that was all she wanted too!. She mentioned the books "Steppenwolf" and "Frankenstein" in her ad. She liked reading books that actually required some thought, had a diverse cultural interest in music, she was someone like me who liked to think, and ponder why we are here and what we are about - and frankly, I have not come across a lot of females who do that. We have struggled over the years, because we do clash on many levels, but now we are doing better than ever. As pointed out in the "Mastery of Love" by Don Miguel Ruiz, the key to a relationship is to see that a certain amount of love must come from within. If you rely on your mate as your sole source of your love fix, you place to much of a burden of her and your own expectations make that impossible for her to ever live up to that. And then, low and behold, you go out looking for the void somewhere else. With the internet you don't even need to step outside your door.

So - it dawned on me several months after my interaction with my internet woman came to a stop - that the whole thing had started and ended in one place - my mind. If it started there, it could end there - and live on - in my mind only, without any interaction with her on the outside whatsoever. So I thought of all the women I had ever fallen in love with, and combined them into one woman in my mind - and to an extent, that is how I relate to Jung's anima. It is like believing in any faith, God for example. If you can believe in love as a force, you don't need anyone "out there" to fill the void. Then - if you are alone, you can either stay that way, or be in a much better position to find someone without being desperate. If you are married, you can come into the pardnership with your cup as full as possible, without relying on your mate to fill it for you. I have tried it lately, and it seems to be working out great. I appreciate the glass much more for being half full, than empty. I appreciate what I do have here, and try not to obsess as much over what I don't. And with all that rambling aside, here are the words to my song:

Anima Devotion

All of my life I’ve wanted an angel
Feed me hugs and kisses an eternal fire
At 13 I fell so madly in love
With a stranger I soared just higher and higher
Then came the crash falling flat on my face
The rejection and sadness wouldn’t let me be
Now with some concentration and meditation
I know that my angel she has never, never, ever left me

I once called her Cathy once called her Renee
But she never was gone, never left or went away
With devotion and faith to her now she never will roam now
She lives in my heart, I’m just bringing her, bringing her right back home

I can have all the love I ever have needed
If I click my shoes 3 times and just believe
I don’t need no explosive, passionate affairs
If I close my eyes that love’s always gonna be there
I can feel her spirit kissing me on my mouth
Hold her softly warmly as the tears start to fall
I once called her Heather once called her Tracy
But the truth is she’s everyone and no-one and no-one and no-one at all

I once called her Christina once called her Sharon
Now they all have left but she still lives on
With devotion and faith to her now she never will roam
She lives in my heart now, I’m just bringing her, bringing her right back home

Got to pay attention to that woman inside
Pray tribute to the Goddess with dream love and song
So I won’t have to chase some elusive dream
I can stay here at home, now where I belong
I once called her Cathy long ago yesterday
But she never has gone, never left and went away
With devotion and faith to her now she never will roam
She lives in my heart, I’m just bringing her, bringing her right back home