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Reciprocity
| Inner
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lungs |
| Outer
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interdimensional worlds |
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green |
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Welcome
Feature from Cambridge, Massachusetts
Dreams of Reciprocity
Why the Lungs?
Book and Film Recommendations
Reciprocity in the News?
Who’s
Who in Reciprocity
The Child's Garden
Poetry
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From the Editors |
This month we are finishing our cycle of the Thirty Principles of Form. The featured principle is Reciprocity, number 10 of the Containing Principles (numbered 10-19). Reciprocity is the principle of “what goes around comes around” or, in an older expression, “measure for measure.” Fairness, justice and - on the cosmic level - karma are expressions of this principle. In our personal lives, we learn to be fair even when the rest of the world is not; we learn that what we receive mirrors what we give. Also, as the first of the Containing principles, #10, Reciprocity is the foundation of the edifice of human society. Without the establishment of justice, society cannot survive. Next time you get that notice for jury service, remember that a jury of peers is a gift of the principle of Reciprocity.
As the Editor, I send my heartfelt thanks to all those whose responses helped us keep this newsletter going for thirty months – the other writers, the news searchers, the people who read books and watch films, the readers and commenters, the encouragers, and of course the dreamers! Your gifts made this newsletter happen – itself a gift of Reciprocity -- Tamar Frankiel.
Thanks especially to Cammie Doty & Carol Bucklew for help on this month's newsletter material.
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Feature from Cambridge, Massachusetts |
Here is a teaching from one of our dream sisters on the principle of Reciprocity:
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Listening between the words, observing between the worlds, pausing between the moments, Reciprocity is the principle that gives the lie to the solidity of time. It tells us that what we think is real is only that which we send out, and we can know what it is we send by what returns to us. That movement is Reciprocity.
When I was a child I saw the calendar as a very wide spiraling 3-D figure eight. Take a little trip through time with me through that child’s eyes. January starts at the top left corner, very dark. Slug along through the snow to the right, and around March, time becomes a little less dark and starts sloshing slowly downwards to the right then curve around left to May, bright and sparkly. June, July, August stretch out from right to left, full of billowing languid light until September, then sloping downwards again in a bright rust flame, sliding down to the right as the colors darken into December. December, sitting at the bottom right corner of this fat figure eight, lets go of time entirely for a few days, and time becomes a faint dotted line curving upwards to the left behind the back of the figure eight, as though it were crisscrossing summer’s shadow, then reattaches itself to January once again.
Wherever I went I felt this flow, the figure eights of years superimposing themselves over one another like the shimmering of hummingbird wings in air, and I knew time wasn’t really real, just a fluid construct to direct the movement of energy and seeming manifestation in the world.
Obviously this perception of time did not fit in too well with those grid-filled sheets of squares we call our calendar. And I did always have trouble with those pesky time lines! It was not until my teenage years that I realized most people didn’t look at time this way. But as I grew older, another perception fitted itself in alongside that flowing figure eight, and that perception was the accumulation of experiences, beliefs and stories based on those experiences, all the mental/emotional/physical/psychic “stuff” that one picks up living in this human world. And this “stuff” seemed to block the flow of energy until those shimmering spiraling years seemed more like bricks piled on top of one another, like ancient pyramids of confusing, clogging history. Time had completely solidified and become real.
Reciprocity is a gateway principle that stands between our construction of the world and our interaction within it. What we send out into the world comes back to us as our experience in it. This is Reciprocity’s role in revealing truth, for it is really asking us: What do you choose? The beliefs and thoughts and stories we hold in our minds stand like little mirrors within the flowing figure eight of time, and bounce back to us what we think we want to see.
The practice of recapitulation, dream circle and working with the principles can help us to see these mirrors and begin to make a different choice, because the greater truth that Reciprocity offers us is the choice of Oneness with one another and with God. Even if we falter and choose separation and fear, the choice of Oneness comes yet again in the very next moment, the very next breath. Pause. Look. Listen. Hear with the holy mind of your heart and choose once again. That’s Reciprocity.
--Cammie Doty
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Dreams of Reciprocity |
We
can learn about the principles by examining our dreams.
Here are three dreams of Reciprocity:
We had to barter for one day of the week. It sounded so outstanding, so I took a laundry basket filled with every kind of object. It was brimming over with things. It was good! But then we realized we had to barter for another day, and we had already chosen the best items for the first day. Still, we filled up another basket for a second day. The number 181 was in my head. We paid either $1.81 for the day or 181 for the basket, I believe.
Barter is a great example of Reciprocity, and this dream shows how being willing to enter into ‘barter’ ensures a life that is full. The numerology is fun also. $1.81 is $1.00 and .01 plus the 80 cents in the middle. These suggest multiples of tens plus the 8 of Goodness. Or, the 8 could be the diagram of reciprocity itself, the back-and-forth that goes on forever (as in the infinity sign). It could be for the basket (space) or for the day (time). The dreamer added “I believe” in the way we often put in “it seems” or “I think,” but as the tag line of the dream, it’s also an affirmation of faith in the blessing of Reciprocity.
At a parents’ meeting with an expert school administrator, we tell him about our middle-school son who has problems with a teacher. [The dreamer has no child near this age in waking life.] Another mother tells how the children’s lungs are being eroded till they’re raw. I see an image of bloody lungs. I remember I dreamed this before. The speaker has written on the board,
Label the Information
Label the Misinformation
Then he says the teacher in question is not an expert in his field and he should not be teaching anything except physical education. As he speaks my horror grows and I begin crying. I wake up crying into my pillow. I go briefly back into the dream to see if he has any other things to say, but I just see the printing on the board again.
Sometimes Reciprocity dreams carry warnings, because of their affiliation with principles of justice. The lungs becoming raw and the dreamer’s deep sadness suggest something urgently in need of correction. “Middle” school suggests the Containing principles, while the oracle points to the need to distinguish clearly between “information” and “misinformation” – what is coming into form in a positive way, and what is coming into form in a distorted way. This dream could refer to some aspect of the educational system itself, or to a larger framework. The important thing is to see that it clearly calls for a righting of wrongs or re-balancing of energies.
A large bird, something like a hawk, catches a small, sparrow-ish bird in mid-flight. The bird struggles and seems to get out of the other one's mouth, then they disappear from view.
Then a group of students is discussing what to do about cleaning up the environment, growing food etc. They know a lot about the environmental situation but I'm surprised to hear them talk very disdainfully about most people - 'they' can't learn much, 'they' will never have the discipline to grow their own food etc. But, so far as I know, the students aren't doing it yet either. A voice says "You can't teach it till you do it."
Now I'm walking on a short concrete bridge that arches across an open space - I see a large bird catching a small, sparrow-like bird in its mouth. The small bird gets free and flies in my direction, but is terribly disoriented and smashes into the concrete wall, tumbling over and over. The large bird zooms toward it. I wince -- and don't want to see what happens.
Reciprocity is a principle involved in ecology - the dynamic balancing of the natural world - and therefore relates to the environmental movement. Bookended by the images of a large bird chasing a small bird, the dream seems to be posing the question, Where are you in your own practice? Your own feelings? Your own relationships and attitudes toward others? It’s important to look at all the dynamics rather than a narrow view that saving the earth means only recycling paper and using energy-saving appliances.
To find Reciprocity in your dreams look for references to the lungs or breathing ... to green or turquoise hues ... to travel in unusual, in-between spaces (interdimensional universes) …. to the number 10.
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Why
the Lungs? |
The lungs are the obvious metaphor for the give-and-take of Reciprocity. We breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide, while plants respiration uses carbon dioxide and releases excess oxygen (while, by the way, using some also). Also, you can't stop yourself from breathing even if you try.
Reciprocity is as automatic as breathing. Yet we can become aware of what we are "broadcasting" just as we can slow down or speed up our breathing.
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Book and Film Recommendations |
A Western Approach to Reincarnation and Karma by Rudolf Steiner, edited by Rene Querido and Robert McDermott
Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Anthroposophy and the Waldorf school approach, worked hard to develop an understanding of karma that made sense in Western terms and allowed also for the action of grace. This book contains selected lectures that give an overview of his insight into the reality of repeated lives and the balancing influences of destiny.
Pay It Forward, book by Catherine Ryan Hyde, film directed by Mimi Leder
According to wikipedia.org, “Pay it forward” was a concept described by Benjamin Franklin and Ralph Waldo Emerson, stated frequently by football coach Woody Hayes, and popularized in a novel by Robert Heinlein, in his book Between Planets. In Ryan Hyde's book and movie it is described as an obligation to do three good deeds for others in repayment of a good deed that one receives. Such good deeds should be things that the other person cannot accomplish on their own.
Thirteen Conversations About One Thing, directed by Jill Sprecher
A series of apparently random events in a variety of individual lives not only shows our interconnectedness, but also can become a vehicle for meditating on how we react to what is beyond our control. If karma (or luck) is a major factor in our lives, how do we maintain hope and generate happiness?
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Reciprocity in the News |
There seem to be quite a few places where Reciprocity showed up in the news – maybe. Are these expressions of the principle?
- Headline: What Are Friends For? A Longer Life
Tara Parker-Pope, New York Times online, April 20, 2009. Friendship is more important in people’s health than previously recognized – especially for women, but among men as well.
- Headline:
Redesigning Two Women’s Lives
Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times, 12/8/07. Two Iranian women, one secular & wealthy, the other religious & poor, teamed up to create a women’s clothing business that succeeded across class lines and survived Iran’s morality police.
Eds
Note: Did this kind of Reciprocity work create the possibility of what we saw in Iran this past month?
- Headline: Satellite to Identify Carbon Hot Spots Around the Globe
Tom Banse, Pullman, Washington, 2/18/09. Some places on earth absorb far more carbon dioxide than others. Scientists hope to identify these more clearly in hopes that they could help right the balance in our attempts to moderate global warming. http://www.voanews.com/english/AmericanLife/2009-02-18-voa31.cfm
- Headline: Sigh. The I-Tent – It Had to Happen Sometime
Green technology: The UK telecom company, Orange, has invented a tent that generates its own electricity with its photovoltaic fabric, keeps track of your energy usage, has a flexible LCD screen on the wall, and glows when you text-message your tent address, so you can find it in the dark. http://www.backpacker.com/tent_solar_power_concept_tent_technology_geek/blogs/
- Headline: Mothers’ Exercise Can Strengthen Babies’ Lungs
London (ANI), April 17, 2009. American researchers reported that studies of fetal breathing movement and the baby’s nervous system showed lungs were more mature when mothers had been exercising at least 30 minutes 3 times a week.
- Headline: Huge Yin and Yang Crop Circle Discovered in Wiltshire
A huge crop circle sculpted in a sea of barley seems to be based on the Yin and Yang theme, and appeared near an ancient British burial mound beneath Windmill Hill near Devizes, Wiltshire on 25 May. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1189518
Eds Note: What goes around comes around.
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Who's Who in Reciprocity |
The famous people we found with Sun in Reciprocity are an interesting group – including two who were on opposite sides in the elections of 2000:
- Al Gore, 1948-
Politician, businessman, U.S. Congressman and Senator from Tennessee, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and, from 1993 to 2001, the forty-fifth Vice President of the United States, under Bill Clinton. Author of An Inconvenient Truth.
- Dick Cheney, 1941-
Vice-President under George W. Bush; active in promoting a strong executive branch in the ‘balance of power’ in American government.
- Judy Collins, 1939-
American folk and standards singer and songwriter, known for the stunning purity of her soprano; for her eclectic tastes in the material she records (which has included folk, showtunes, pop, and rock and roll); and for her social activism.
- Boris Spassky, 1937 -
Legendary Russian chess player, a prodigy at chess from age 10, world chess champion from 1969 to 1972, and was widely respected as a universal player.
- Shirley Jones, 1934 -
American actress and singer who starred in a number of well-known musical films, such as Oklahoma!, Carousel, and The Music Man, and won an Academy Award for her supporting role in Elmer Gantry.
- Harry Belafonte, 1927-
One of the most successful Jamaican musicians in history, dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Caribbean musical style in the 1950s. His best known song is the "Banana Boat Song", with its signature lyric "Day-O". Throughout his career, he has been an advocate for civil rights and humanitarian causes.
- Cesar Chavez, 1937-1993
Mexican American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (later the UFW). A hero for farm laborers, he fought against illegal immigration to help keep wages higher and improve work safety rules.
- Marilyn Monroe, 1926-1962
American actress who became the sex symbol of the early 1950s (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes), then broadened her acting range to win a Golden Globe for Some Like It Hot .
- Thomas Merton , 1915-1968
Trappist monk of the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemane in Kentucky, an acclaimed Catholic spiritual writer, poet, author, social activist, and proponent of inter-religious dialogue.
- Ralph Ellison , 1913-1994
African American writer, best known for Invisible Man, about a black man’s search for identity in the urban North.
- Glenn Miller, 1904-1944
Jazz band leader in the “Swing” era, most popular in the late 1930s and early 1940s (“Moonlight Serenade,” “Chattanooga Choo-Choo”). While traveling to France to entertain troops, his plane disappeared in bad weather.
- Yitzhak Rabin, 1922-1995
Israeli politician and general. He was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel with two periods in office, from 1974 until 1977 and from 1992 until his assassination in 1995. In 1994 during his second term Rabin won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on peace with Egypt.
- Benjamin Spock, 1903-1998
First pediatrician to study psychoanalysis to understand children's needs and family dynamics. His ideas about childcare influenced several generations of parents to be more flexible and affectionate with their children, and to treat them as individuals.
- J. Edgar Hoover, 1895-1972
Famous FBI Director for 48 years, but was known to investigate people for their political beliefs rather than criminal activity. His suspected abuses of power led to a 10-year limit on the position.
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1882-1945
32nd U.S. President, famous for his New Deal which helped bring the United States out of the Great Depression, and for his leadership in World War II.
- Brigham Young , 1801-1877
Second head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), succeeding its founder Joseph Smith in 1847; founder of Salt Lake City and first governor of Utah.
- René Descartes, 1596-1650
French philosopher called “Founder of Modern Philosophy" and "Father of Modern Mathematics.” He said that his great philosophical inspiration came from a dream, in which he saw two scrolls saying OUI and NON.
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The Child's Garden |
The spiritual parenting of our children – through studying their principles – teaches us as well as them. We believe that bringing this work to the next generation can be one of the most powerful forces to heal humanity. Here’s an example of learning from our children:
I never told my daughter, with Sun in Reciprocity, to “say thank you” when she was a child. I just knew I wouldn’t need to do that. As an infant, I often thanked people on her behalf for a kindness or gift, and as soon as she was old enough to talk, she expressed her thanks without any prompting from her parents.
I mentioned to her when she was about three that it was always appropriate to send a thank-you note to show your appreciation for gifts. She straight away drew a snowman scene for a friend who had brought her a winter dress. At her birthday parties, she seemed to value the giver more than the gift and was quick to show her appreciation for a thoughtful selection. When she married, she had her thank-you notes written before she left on her honeymoon travels! She also remembers milestones better than anyone else I know, and sends birthday and anniversary cards to friends and family without fail.
I also recall a silly game we played when we shopped during her teen years. We would look at a garment and then start: "It's smart, yet understated. It's colorful, yet demure. It's fashionable, yet timeless. It's practical, yet whimsical." It was a fun way of recognizing the yin/yang of situations.
--Carol Bucklew
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8. Poetry |
John Drinkwater was an English dramatist and poet, known for his plays of historical characters: Abraham Lincoln, Mary Stuart, and Oliver Cromwell. His Sun is in Reciprocity, and in this poem he expresses our mirroring with the larger universe.
Reciprocity
by John Drinkwater
I do not think that skies and meadows are
Moral, or that the fixture of a star
Comes of a quiet spirit, or that trees
Have wisdom in their endless silences.
Yet these are things invested in my mood,
With constancy, and peace, and fortitude;
That in my troubled season I can cry
Upon the wide composure of the sky,
And envy fields, and wish that I might be
As little daunted as a star or tree.
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