(For Doug, Helen and Carrie, who taught me to trust myself.

And for Brian.

The ocean looks beautiful tonight.)

When we read religious texts (including the Bible) archetypally and mythologically, they become *more* meaningful, true, applicable and real – not less. It does not diminish a text to call it myth – it exalts it. It sets it on the pedestal of shared imagination, it lays it out as a smorgasbord and invites all to feast on it. It cracks it open in ways that may have been unimaginable beforehand. It makes it meaningful and meaty and relevant in any dimension, timeframe, religious context or epoch of time. It welcomes deep engagement with other fields and disciplines, because an archetypal and mythological framework has holographic and multidimensional meaning-making devices – eliminating surface level divisions on the minutiae of issues like transmission, translation, and doctrine.

I have learned to discern where the fibres of bone and marrow meet at the intersection of spiritual abuse and underlying mental illness. I have deeply studied the connection between evil and stupidity, and noticed how the capacity for addiction often indicates a commensurate capacity for spiritual power and awareness. I have made detailed notes about where intent ends and consequences begin, where family of origin patterns lay the groundwork for enabling harm, and where that groundwork overlaps with the safety and survival of individual members. I have mapped the subtle but discernible differences between a psychotic break and a spiritual awakening. I have circumnavigated the delicate meeting place between shamanic power, spiritual anointing and energetic intelligence.

When we say ‘I am afraid of the unknown’, what we are really saying is ‘I am afraid of what I am currently projecting out from my own field of consciousness into the quantum realm.” Those are two very different things, in point of fact. What we project into the ‘unknown future’ is largely a function of our family of origin, our trauma-patterning, our religious or cultural conditioning and our deepest fears and insecurities. Future-gazing is, in fact, an epic exercise in projection. Projection, far from being something we should avoid doing, is – in fact - a powerful tool at our disposal, which we can use to co-create our reality.

This is what Jesus meant when he talked about dying to ourselves. This is what it takes to have the mind of Christ. Which is why so very few people who call themselves Christians will ever have it: because post-modern evangelical Christianity is one of the strongest pillars propping up the Kingdom of Empire, which has literally nothing to do with the Christ Consciousness. The two are diametrically opposed. So much of what happens in churches these days is like a weird cocktail of superstition, tradition, leadership seminars and group therapy.

But, and this (as my friend Chris likes to say) is a powerful truth; it can be hard to come by. And sometimes I find myself wandering around aimlessly in my truck echoing the laments of the Psalmist and mumbling things like ‘in a dry and sun-scorched land where there is no Biggie Juice, my soul grows faint.’ Because I am not above entertaining myself with some mild heretical appropriation of scripture.