The cauldron has provisions;
Its food reaches out its savor strongly.

Mama Price lived with us for some time after her stroke when I was a small child. She seems to have influenced the mother archetype that I keep within myself almost as much as my sister has. She has influenced my dreams possibly more than my sister has. Perhaps she is for me what Jung would call the ''Great Mother'' archetype. All of my own memories of her are from when she had been partially paralyzed from a stroke. She seemed to not even want to have her former strength back. Perhaps she was too tired. I remember how utterly renounced she seemed. We would talk about how bad the snow had been and then she pointed out how the weather never changed indoors where she stayed in her bed. She spoke with a barely audible voice and was only concerned about hearing news about her many children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. I never knew who they all were, but she did. However, she seldom reminisced about the past. I have dreamt about receiving advice from her (or someone like her) in a gloomy ancestral crypt. An experience I once had seeing mummified Carmelite nuns in Mexico City recalled the memories of those dreams.

393

The cauldron has provisions;
Its food is timely.
I reach up with both hands respectfully to receive it.

The archetype that I have called the Dog is certainly influenced by feminine stereotyping in what is still a male dominated culture. The Dog, however, is not my idea of the ideal woman any more than the Muse/Lizard is. I believe that an ideal person, if there is such a thing, is made up of a balance of all of these more extreme archetypes. I believe that all men should have experiences from the work that has been designated by tradition for women. Through the many years I have had as a single parent, I have become more in awe of Mama Price who picked cotton to raise money for food and shelter for nine children. Feminism is the great innovation in modern philosophy as we have all come to value our more feminine qualities and learn to better appreciate the feminine perspective.

394

The Ting:
The great are feasting,
Neither solemnly nor sedately.

The Dog is the part of me that is devoted to the service of others. The Dog honors the past and learns from it mostly in regard to how it can help those in the future; namely, our children. The Dog is the healer who also provides food and sustenance to those that depend on her. The Dog is also a teacher. The Dog is the part of nature that provides for our health and physical well being.

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