The constitutive nature of metaphor in everyday life Much of what we think and do is a function of metaphor “Thought of the Week” for January 1, 2007 Metaphor is for most people a device of the poetic imagination and the rhetorical flourish—a matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary language. Moreover, metaphor is typically viewed […]
“Thought of the Week” for September 8, 2003 “Decontextualization” of a text …An essential characteristic of a literary work, and of a work of art in general, is that it transcends its own psycho-sociological conditions of production and thereby opens itself to an unlimited series of readings, themselves situated in different socio-cultural condition. In short, […]
Unquestions assumptions shape education INSTITUTIONAL DISCOURSE SHAPES THINKING AND ACTING “Thought of the Week” for June 21, 2004 “Discourse” is a shorthand term to describe how characteristic ways of speaking develop in particular social contexts. Because schools are distinctive social contexts, it is not surprising that we can talk of school discourse. We are interested […]
Interpreting text through context “Thought of the Week” for February 13, 2006 Much of the time when we produce an interpretation of a text…, we do so by contextualizing it within the frame of some meta-text or generalization that occupies a discursive space at a higher level of abstraction than the story. …[We] are re-presenting […]
The journey toward trauma recovery CHANGING FLAWED PERCEPTIONS BEGINS JOURNEY TO RECOVERY Survivors of trauma tend to remember the traumatic situation in an unchanged way; their initial perception of the event is the way they continue to view it, as if the traumatic event were frozen in their memories. The healing process involves thawing those […]
The paradoxical nature of boundaries BOUNDARIES CREATE CONFLICT AND OPPOSITES “Thought of the Week” for August 27, 2001 Two thoughts and a comment (below) from Ken Wilber’s No Boundaries The particular thing about a boundary is that, however complex and rarefied it might be, it actually marks off nothing but an inside vs. an outside. […]
The journey toward liberation EASTERN PHILOSOPHIES AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS “Thought of the Week” for April 30, 2001 Eastern mystical traditions are not…primarily concerned with theoretical concepts. They are, above all, ways of liberation, concerned with transformation of consciousness. During their long history they have developed subtle techniques to change their followers’ awareness of […]
There comes the crossing of the line again, what I call the return across the threshold. The line through which you passed when you went into the abyss is the line through which you pass when you leave the powers behind. But can you get back up into the world of light? Is there going […]
The difficult journey to personal identity POSTMODERN SOCIETY: NO PLACE FOR ADOLESCENTS “Thought of the Week” for October 6, 2003 “…there is little or no place for adolescents in today’s postmodern society. This has contributed to many more young people than in the past acquiring elements of a patchwork self that make them more vulnerable […]
“Thought of the Week” for February 19, 2001 Objectivity makes an object of all it observes—even children The empirical method is the basis for all logical positivism, and is responsible for incalculable developments in the physical and biological sciences. But objectivity can be concerned only with objects; it must transform into an object anything it […]
“Thought of the Week” for October 2, 2000 Trickster crosses boundaries and disrupts, but stimulates creativity and change In short, trickster is a boundary-crosser. Every group has its edge, its sense of in and out, and trickster is always there, at the gates of the city and the gates of life, making sure there is […]
“Thought of the Week” Monomyth is metaphor for transformation … [hero] myths are not fictitious stories of imaginary characters in nonexistent countries. Rather, the monomyth of the Hero’s Journey is an accurate description of the experiential territories visited by people in visionary states during transformative crisis. And as the psychospiritual crisis of transformation is a […]
“Thought of the Week” for 15 January, 2001 EDUCATION SHOULD FOCUS ON PROCESS RATHER THAN OUTCOMES A very different…explanation for why we become mindless [acting without thinking based on old assumptions] has to do with our early education. From kindergarten on, the focus of schooling is usually on goals rather than on the process by […]
Role of Faith in the Hero’s Journey
by Reg Harris Copyright © 2005 by Reg Harris. All rights reserved. Revised October 7, 2007. A personal mythology is the story we tell ourselves about ourselves. It influences how we view and interpret our experiences, and it filters the experiences that will enter our consciousness by selecting those events that relate to our myth. […]