Jungle or Rainforest?

This is Amorella reflecting on the tropics in this virgin photograph which exhibits reflective and transcendental qualities. A muddy mirror is better than no mirror at all.

I wasn’t going to do this, but I can’t help it. According to Merriam-Webster’s:

Jungle: “1 a : an impenetrable thicket or tangled mass of tropical vegetation b : a tract overgrown with thickets or masses of vegetation.”

Rainforest: “1 : a tropical woodland with an annual rainfall of at least 100 inches (254 centimeters) and marked by lofty broad-leaved evergreen trees forming a continuous canopy.”

I see both a jungle and a rainforest in the photograph, so in context is it a rainforest first and a jungle (second) underneath the canopy.

The larger covering takes precedent over the smaller tangling of vegetation. Why is that?

A sense of ‘dominion over all’ is seen in the canopy.

Rank order by size: the heart, the soul, the mind.

In reference to the photograph I see each as a Lilly pad and each equal in size.

What are they floating on?

In context, human blood, DNA, quantum physics, that sort of thing. A bio-chemical jungle covered by a canopy of skin.

Keeping in context, where is the Heart of Darkness?

I think it floats in the atmosphere of fear and need for dominance to control the fear.

When are you afraid?

Today, rarely. Though the other day I had a terrible early morning dream in color as usual. Aliens landed abruptly and people, including myself, were surprised. We were running from their strange machines and weapons. I felt terror as I ran through an urban setting and the only reason I remember the dream is because I haven’t felt such a sense of immediate terror in many years.

In the eighties, when I first began using the washer and chain and the Ouiji board concept came to mind after the washer appeared to pull straight down rather than usual. The washer was as a cork and a fish was nibbling from beneath only there was no string below the washer. The immediate sensation in my fingers was very odd and disconcerting. I thought perhaps there were good spirits or angels and bad spirits or angels. I personally didn’t want to evoke either spirits or angels even if they don’t exist and I make them up in my head.

People (I think) worry about going into their unconscious minds because they are afraid to see their ‘whole’ selves. This opinion based on observation of myself only. I probably have it in my notes but it would have been in the mid-eighties. I still have the many notebooks because then as now, this is an ongoing experiment.

Once, only once, I had a shaman’s dance. The dance wasn’t very long but I will never forget its spontaneity. Fortunately, I was by myself. It was as if I were dancing with G---D or an Angel of G---D. No drugs or alcohol. Nothing of that sort. Anyway, ever since I have not much concerned myself with the legendary Satan or other evil angels.

In the dance I was beyond in sense of fear, and in the silence (except for my humming a short melody during the dance) I felt no power existed. I was nothing within Absolutely-No-Power and I still existed all the same. Wow. I haven’t thought about this for quite a while.

I have my doubts now and I had my doubts within a day after. I realized it could have been an hallucination, or just a figment of my imagination. I have felt a ‘presence in a room’ several times during my life but this is certainly not an event I ever wish for. I was tired and lying on the couch in the basement. I had turned off the television, I suppose after the local night news. I don’t remember.

I was just lying there thinking about getting up and going to bed. That was it. Then the melody in my head. I automatically got up (very unusual for me as I have never done this before or sense) and proceeded to do a little dance or jig – something to that effect. And when I stood I sensed a ‘Presence-with-a-Sense-of-another-Self-without-Power’ and I danced for a moment or two. I don’t remember how long.

Time did not exist when I danced. I call it a ‘shaman dance’ because I don’t know what else to call it even though I am no shaman. I was not ‘one with the universe’ I was less than nothing and yet I still danced. It was/is the ‘freest-most-self-less-moment’ of conscious experience in my life.

You wonder still on the ‘spiritual-like’ experience and are ambiguous about including it in a blog such as this. The event was a real and powerfully existential experience to you. You can debate the reality, for it was as a vision or dream that your real down-to-earth body and brain participated in – a spontaneously self-induced hallucination. I can go with that, especially since it makes this much more comfortable for you to acknowledge this ‘experience’ at all.

I don’t know how I got from point A to point B in this posting. I thought we were going to discuss ‘the human evil’ in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. That book was on the agenda in one class or another more than once in my high school teaching career. Good book, still worth the read.