by Randy Morris
As I entered my 76th year, I was presented with the opportunity to undertake a pilgrimage to Greece, a land that has always fascinated me since falling in love with an illustrated book of Greek myths when I was 10. By the time I had become a well-educated adult immersed in the Western Tradition, I knew Greece to be the origin of my culture’s identity. Democracy, Philosophy, Theater, Sciences, Music, Art — everything that formed the bedrock of my own and my culture’s value system, including the foundations of Christianity — had its origins in Greece. After years of life experience and study, I finally understood what the Greek philosophers knew all along – that the goal of my life is Eudaimonia, a way of living and an activity of soul that aligns inner virtues with the harmony of the stars, a view entirely consistent with the latest science about the evolution of an intelligent cosmos, and a valuable contribution to the emerging eco-centric global culture. I came to understand that by clarifying and enacting my vocation — my personal myth, my mytho-poetic identity — I was contributing to the overall flourishing of the created order.
But something was amiss. While I could actualize, through a great deal of persistence and shadow work, a state of Eudaimonia (with occasional lapses, of course), the culture around me was falling apart, swirling around a giant whirlpool, aimless and lost. And it didn’t even seem to care! The cultural critic Mark McInerny captured my feelings when he wrote: “… after a while you see what this country can live with. Corruption without consequence. Lies without penalty. Public cruelty turned into entertainment. Civilian suffering folded into the background while the culture learns, again and again, how to keep eating dinner through it. After a while you stop asking whether the truth has been seen and start asking whether seeing it makes any difference at all.” (Smoke Signals, 3.29.26) It’s one thing to believe in the values of the Good, the True, the Beautiful and the Just, and to know that, however flawed, Western culture judges itself in relation to these values. But what if that culture, after 2500 years, is imploding? Archetypal values are being rendered irrelevant by the forces of commodification and predatory capitalism. What does it mean to be an elder in a time of diminishing expectations and moral decay? Wouldn’t it be easiest to simply turn away from the madness, nurture my own Eudaimonic ‘sweet spot’ and ride out the storm until my own demise in the not-so-distant future? These were the questions I was taking into my Asklepian Dream Incubation ritual on the island of Poros in Greece. For over 2500 years, the nearby Temple of Epidauros had served as the healing center of ancient Greece. People from around the Mediterranean came there to sleep in the Temple and pray for a healing visitation from Asklepios, the Greek god of healing. What could Asklepios tell me about my own healing and my role as an elder in the healing of my culture, not to mention the healing of the web of life itself?
The dreams leading up to my Asklepian Dream Incubation were full of deep emotions – tending the wounded in the aftermath of a nuclear explosion, crying at the beauty of a full orchestra playing praise music, awakening with a vibrating heart and the word Eudaimonia on my lips. During the day of fasting that preceded my sacred night of sleep, I pondered a recent dream in which a gigantic whirlpool formed off of the beach of my childhood home. I strain to see into the bottom, but it’s too deep. At thelast moment I see that it is being created by a laser beam of light coming from a star-like object in the blue sky, which quickly streaks across the horizon and vanishes. What the heck was that?
As night came, my altar was set with sacred objects and a flickering candle. I had formulated my healing request. I had spent my preparation time in silence and fasting. What would Asklepios bring? I dream of wandering the Greek countryside in ancient times. My name is Pausanius. I am visited by three old women dressed in dark peasant clothing who watch me plant something in the ground as I fumble to tie a thin thread around it. I hear echoes of poetry and song. A snake enters my body and says, “Let’s sing!”
In the days following, I read about Pausanius, a name I had never heard before, and his 10-volume travelogue of Ancient Greece written around 150AD. I refresh my understanding of the mythology of the Three Fates and the deft way they weave the strands of our destiny. I recall my previous initiatory encounters with Snake and vow to honor his invitation into the Orphic Mysteries of music. I study the poems and songs whose fragments came to me, unbidden, in the night. I revel in the companionship of my fellow pilgrims with whom I can freely share these images in solidarity and without judgement. So what conclusions do I draw about my initiation into a new phase of my Elderhood? So far, here’s what I imagine the voice of Asklepios advising me:
1. It’s not enough to live in the privileged harmony of a personal Eudaimonia. My destiny now is to wander, like Pausanius, into the broken places of this world, blessing each part of creation, no matter how dark and terrible. My allegiance is not only to my self, my family and the human species,but to the entire web of life.
2. Spiritual Warriorship will be required — Courage to stand for values that are under assault, Resilience to find joy and meaning in the midst of suffering and collapse and Service to restore harmony, as best I can, to the web of life.
3. The Three Fates will have their way with the human species. What they are spinning now is unprecedented. But I can still be ferocious in defense of life of earth. Dreams will show the way. Step into the breech when called. Sacrifice will make sacred the things of the world. That said, I won’t throw my life away on false pretenses. Discernment is required.
4. I no longer plan to sit in the shade of what I have planted. Whether flower, tree or idea, they are gifts freely given to future generations. Perhaps they will see the destiny threads I tied around them, but it is no longer of consequence if they don’t.
5. Continue to practice the discipline of Eudaimonia, seeking balance between inner and outer worlds through nature awareness, music, random acts of Kindness and Beauty and by cultivating, always, deep gratitude for the gift of being alive.
Some lyrics from the song that appeared as an ear worm during the night of my dream incubation come to me now, courtesy of Asklepios:
There is a hope
That’s been expressed in you
The hope of seven generations maybe more
And this is the faith
That they invest in you
It’s that you’ll do one better than was done before
Inside you know
Inside you understand
Inside you know what’s yours to finally set right
And I suggest
And I suggest to you
And I suggest this is the best part of your life.
— Red Molly, May I Suggest
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Note To Reader: In every culture throughout the history of humanity – except ours – dreams have
been revered as a threshold between our waking world and the world of Spirit. As we stand on the
threshold seeking guidance for our journey into the fullness of elderhood, understanding the symbolic
speech of dreams can be important for many of us. Especially valuable can be learning dream
incubation, taught in many cultures, in which the supplicants ritually prepare themselves, make a
request of the dream world, sleep in a sacred setting, and await a response. The story above is what
happened to me in a recent dream incubation ritual in Greece led by Ed Tick. More information on
dream incubations can be found in two of Ed Tick’s books – The Practice of Dream Healing (2001) and
Soul Medicine: Healing Through Dream Incubation, Visions, Oracles and Pilgrimage (2023)
Randy Morris, Ph.D., CSL is Professor Emeritus at Antioch University Seattle, President Emeritus of
the Board of Rite of Passage Journeys, Co-President of the Seattle Jung Society, and has served on the
executive and ritual committees of Sage-ing International where he is a Certified Sage-ing Leader.
Ranndy is co-editor of the forthcoming Spiritual Eldering for the 21st Century: The Sage-ing Way.
More of his work can be found on his website: randymorrisphd.net. He can be reached at
rmorris@antioch.edu.
