Open to Interpretation
City Words
#Unique
Game on...on the radio...Dodgers 1-Diamondbacks 4...Dream: 🦋I made a speech during a panel talk...afterwards, it's pointed out where I sit when Trump speaks...far right front row..."I've heard him before, he talks well.", Trump tells his crew...I wake up.
🦋Waiting to take a shower...shower is being used...the floor is flooding, and I go to work tryng to drain it with little success...I wake up...
🦋I'm in a big room...soldiers on one side, and one of them changes from uniform to shirt and tie, takes a seat at a desk on the other side...I wake up...
🦋I'm angry, tell the Shadow, and them, I haven't forgotten what went before, and that I'm itching to get out of here...I wake up...this is the "trapped arguement refrain dream"...or some such...
🧐Whttps://www.bannerhealth.com/healthcareblog/teach-me/functional-freeze-mode-what-it-is-and-how-to-break-free
Writing about your feelings and experiences can give you insight and help you process your emotions. It can also identify triggers and patterns linked to the freeze response.
🎶that might be why people write stories!...here's a childhood memory...I'm playing with the other kids...we find a ladder, climb up on the garage roof...they all climb down, and take the ladder away, stranding me...my sister looking for me, finds me, rescues me...this one I dont remember...she relates it was a daily thing, the older kids tormenting me, and me wanting to play with them...from the few things I do remember, seems likely...they dropped my baseball bat down thru a sewer cover...stoic, seeing I couldn't get it, I walked home alone...dont know but a kinda lifelong attitude set then!...I was four...distinctive memories are like fables written out...this in Chicago...just before move to SoCal...rather than "find the unique" I've been using google's artificial intelligence to find common ground, common experiences...reports...the doom scrolling same...not just common to me, but just common...yesterday, there was a unique Roman emperor from Syria that brought with him his religion, aand during his short reign, emposed it on all Rome...it was a sun cult, readsaid, and brought to mind Ankenaten's Egyptian sun cult...
The teenage Roman Emperor Elagabalus (reigned 218–222 CE) brought the Emesene Syrian sun cult of the god Elagabal (the "God of the Mountain") from Emesa (modern Homs, Syria) to Rome. He tried to make this Syrian deity the supreme head of the Roman pantheon over Jupiter, triggering intense backlash that led to his assassination. Decades later, Emperor Aurelian successfully established a state cult to Sol Invictus ("the Unconquered Sun") in 274 CE, blending eastern solar traditions into a central imperial religion. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
The Reign of Elagabalus
Syrian Origins: Born Varius Avitus Bassianus in Syria, Elagabalus served as the hereditary high priest of the local sun god Elagabal before local legions proclaimed him emperor at age fourteen. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
Religious Upheaval: Upon reaching Rome, he built a grand temple (the Elagabalium) on the Palatine Hill for his god and transferred sacred Roman relics there. [1, 2]
Supremacy of the Sun: He forced traditional Roman senators and priests to worship his Syrian deity, ranking Jupiter and all other gods as mere servants of Elagabal. [1, 2, 3]
Downfall: His aggressive dismissal of Roman religious customs and eccentric behavior alienated the Roman elite and the Praetorian Guard, resulting in his murder at age eighteen. [1, 2, 3, 4]
Legacy and Sol Invictus
Aurelian's Revival: Around 50 years after Elagabalus's death, Emperor Aurelian revived institutional sun worship by officially dedicating a magnificent temple to Sol Invictus in Rome in 274 CE to unify a fracturing empire. [1, 2, 3, 4]
Imperial Patronage: Unlike Elagabalus, Aurelian integrated the sun god alongside traditional Roman state religion rather than violently replacing the entire pantheon, making Sol Invictus a crucial protector of the emperor and state until the rise of Christianity. [1, 2]
Religious and Political Reformers
Akhenaten: An 18th-dynasty Egyptian pharaoh who shifted traditional polytheistic worship toward monotheistic devotion to the sun disk, the Aten. [1, 2, 3, 4]
Elagabalus: A Roman emperor of Syrian origin who elevated his native sun god, Elagabalus, above the traditional Roman pantheon. [1, 2, 3]
Aurelian: A Roman emperor who stabilized the fracturing empire during the Crisis of the Third Century and promoted the centralized cult of Sol Invictus. [1, 2, 3, 4]
Contrast in Legacies
Akhenaten caused an internal political and religious revolution that was systematically dismantled by his successors after his death. [1, 2, 3]
Elagabalus alienated the Roman Senate and military guard through extreme unconventional behavior and eccentric religious mandates, resulting in his assassination at age 18. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Aurelian used military might and administrative focus to successfully reunite the Roman world ("Restorer of the World"), earning high military respect before his assassination. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
In The White Goddess, Robert Graves argues that true poetry originates from an ancient matriarchal moon-worship rather than patriarchal sun-worship. He views solar religion as a later, secondary usurpation that displaced the primordial, magical authority of the Moon-goddess and her earthly bards. [1, 2, 3]
Moon Versus Sun in Poetic Myth
The Primacy of the Moon: Graves asserts that "poetry began in the matriarchal age, and derives its magic from the moon, not from the sun". The Moon-goddess (the Muse) represents emotional, intuitive, and ancient religious truths. [1, 2]
The Rise of the Sun-God: Solar worship and masculine pantheons arrived with patriarchal social structures, replacing cyclical, earth-based goddess reverence with rigid hierarchical order. [1, 2]
The Seasonal Cycle: In Graves's mythological framework, the sun-god functions as the mortal lover and sacrificial son of the Goddess. The winter solstice marks the ritual death of the sun-god, allowing the moon and the Goddess to regain ascendancy. [1]
The alternation between being awake and sleeping mirrors the celestial choreography of the sun and the moon, mapping our biological rhythms to day and night. [1, 2]
The Sun and Wakefulness
Circadian drive: Daylight stimulates our internal biological clock, promoting alertness, raising body temperature, and fueling active states.
Active energy: Sunlight aligns with active wakefulness, signifying outward focus, high energy, and engagement with the world. [1]
The Moon and Sleep
Homeostatic rest: Darkness triggers melatonin production and signals the body to wind down, mirroring the quiet gravity of the night.
Subconscious transition: Sleep and dreams represent an inward retreat, a restorative phase akin to the reflective, gentle illumination of moonlight. [1, 2, 3]
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These historical figures and belief systems intersect through the evolution of monotheism, royal religious centralization, and solar worship in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East.
Solar Monolatry and Imperial Cults
Akhenaten: The 18th-Dynasty Egyptian pharaoh (r. 1353–1336 BCE) shifted official focus to the sun-disk, the Aten. While often termed history’s first instance of state monotheism, it functioned closer to monolatry—worship of one primary god while other traditional structures were suppressed. It did not survive his reign. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Elagabalus: The Roman emperor (r. 218–222 CE) tried to install the Syrian sun god Elagabal (Sol Invictus Elagabal) as the supreme deity of the Roman Empire [12.11], shocking traditional Roman sensibilities by placing foreign stones and rites above Jupiter. [1, 2, 3, 4]
Aurelian: The Roman emperor (r. 270–275 CE) successfully established the official state cult of Sol Invictus ("the Unconquered Sun") in 274 CE to unify a fractured empire, creating a centralized theological focus that preceded Christian dominance under Constantine. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
The Abrahamic Monotheistic Traditions
Judaism: An ancient Abrahamic, strictly monotheistic faith centering on the covenant between God (Yahweh) and the people of Israel. Historical and theological traditions place its monotheistic development independently of, or significantly prior and subsequent to, short-lived royal experiments like Akhenaten’s. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Christianity: Emerging from Second Temple Judaism in the 1st century CE, it professes monotheism through the doctrine of the Trinity. It ultimately replaced classical Roman solar cults like Sol Invictus as the dominant framework of the Mediterranean world. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Islam: Founded in the 7th century CE by Muhammad in the Arabian Peninsula, Islam emphasizes Tawhid (indivisible, strict monotheism) and views itself as the culmination of the preceding Abrahamic prophetic traditions shared with Judaism and Christianity. [1, 2]
Had to find the passage back to the place I was before
"Relax, " said the night man, "We are programmed to receive
You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave
Psychological Parallels in the Song
The Hypnopompic Transition: The heavy head, dim sight, and late-night corridor voices evoke the strange boundary between sleep and waking where logic breaks down and internal fears materialize. [1, 2]
The Night Man as the Shadow: The night man’s chilling decree—"You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave"—functions like an unyielding psychic program or the ego's inability to reject its repressed shadow self. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
The Internal Trap: The hotel represents a self-constructed labyrinth of the psyche rather than a physical place, mirroring how deep-seated behavioral patterns and the unconscious mind hold a person captive. [1, 2, 3]
Life is fabulous and full of fables, blending wonderful daily experiences with timeless stories, shared word roots, and moral lessons that guide us through the world.
The Connection Between Fabulous and Fable
Both words come from the Latin root fābula, meaning "story" or "tale".
"Fabulous" originally meant "characteristic of fables" when it entered English in the 1400s.
Stories help us make sense of our real-life adventures and misadventures. [1]
A quick look at the shared history of the words fabulous and fable:
🤔 Here's the scoop: “Fabulous” and “Fable” share a common root, ...
9 months ago
Instagram · Kris Spisak | Author, Narrative Architect, Literary Historian
Timeless Life Lessons
The Tortoise and the Hare: Slow and steady wins the race.
The Boy Who Cried Wolf: Honesty matters because liars are not believed.
The Ant and the Grasshopper: Prepare today for the needs of tomorrow. [1]
Fables use simple plots to mirror our own choices, showing us that everyday life is rich with underlying meaning. [1, 2]
Connections Between Dreams and Fables
Symbolic storytelling: Both dreams and fables use non-literal elements, such as animals or impossible scenarios, to represent real truths. [1]
Hidden meanings: People often look for a moral or psychological lesson in a dream, much like interpreting a fable. [1, 2, 3]
Cultural archetypes: Carl Jung suggested that dreams tap into universal symbols and figures, similar to the recurring archetypes found in folklore and fables. [1]
Historical use: Ancient leaders sometimes used fabricated dream narratives as strategic fables to inspire and guide others. [1]
