Individual Language

As I am blogging for some time now, it is getting more and more clear what is the core of what I want to write about.

This weekend I stayed a bit away from the computer and thought what I really, down to the essense, wanted to be the purpose of this blog.

And I came to the conclusion that is very well reflected actually in the byline. It says ‘about mind versus matter, individual development and the language of the zodiac’.

In this post I want to analyse those words to see if I can better describe what I mean by that short statement. Because there is actually a whole world of meaning behind that short sentence. A meaning that was so abstract at first to myself that I could not find the right words to describe it.

But lately the concepts are getting more and more shaped and after many drafts that did not reflect yet enough what I wanted to say, this post is maybe getting a bit more on track. Because the words I use in the byline are word for word very essential in what I want to write about.


Mind versus Matter

There is so much to say about those two. And much has been said already about that by others. Actually there are some really interested things said about that.

Of those that talked about mind and matter in a way that I could understand and that resonated with me, there a three people that I want to quote many times. They are David Bohm, Jean Carteret and Leonard Bernstein.

I collected some quotes from David Bohm on the page David Bohm: Mind and Matter that I want to explore further in another blogpost and I already did in the post Information Exchange.

Jean Carteret is a French philosopher that did not leave any writings. But many of his thoughts are collected by the Dutch writer George Bode. Among those writings I found a piece, which can be found on the page Jean Carteret: Language and Psyche, that has become very important to me and is the core of all my thinking. And I think it is very connected to what others have said about Mind, Matter and Consciousness.

And the third page is Leonard Bernstein: Metaphorical Language. I think he has some very interesting things to say about music.

(Update: There is another person that was even more important for my thinking, Carl Jung, which I talk about in my next posts)


Individual Development

Individual development is something I have been meaning to write about for a long time. I have made many attempts by now, but most of them stayed just drafted. I have a clear picture in my head of how I see that development. Which I even would be able to draw. But putting it into a decent blogpost is something that I could not get done yet.

There is one post that I wrote that touched upon that. It is a blogpost I already did a while back and it is my vision on the story from a book by Paul Gallico, that is also used for an album of the symphonic rockband Camel. It is The story of the Snow Goose.

There are some really very interesting theories around that very same subject of development. And I have been thinking if I had to use the phrase ‘human development’, ‘personal development’ or ‘individual development’.

There are several reasons that I chose for ‘individual’ development in the context of this blog, but the main reason is that I had to differentiate between ‘personal’ and ‘individual’ in the analysis of different theories. One of those theories is astrology and I will go into that below in the Language of the Zodiac.

The other theory is that of Ken Wilber: Integral Theory. He uses the word ‘individual’ that is different from the astrological use as I see it. There is a graphic on the page Basics that shows the difference between those two.

Another theory that is important for development, is Maslow: Hierarchy of Needs. It is a very essential way of looking at what I would call in this context ‘personal’ development.

And finally there is also the theory of Spiral Dynamics. That is more what I would call ‘human’ development. Human development in history, but also as seen these days in different parts of the world.


Language of the Zodiac

The language of the Zodiac is the language I want to use for all the concepts on this blog. At its core there are two things I fall back at with every discription. The first are the four basic element that are called fire, earth, air and water in astrology. I will not use those words here because they are to limited in how I want to use those four concepts here.

I want to alter those names several times (starting with mind – matter – energy – psyche) but those four concepts always stay the same. They are the very essense of the zodiac, as each of the twelve signs is in its core one of those four.

But besides that, I want to divide the zodiac in three parts (primorial – individual – universal) that I use as a tool to visualise development. Development in needs (Maslow), development in history (Spiral Dynamics), development in consciousness (Integral Altitude) but most of all the development of an individual human being.

Annemieke

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