But I think we're gonna start off with a poem to set the scene.

Ithaca by C.P. Cavafy.

As you set out for Ithaca, hope your road is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery.

Laestrygonians, Cyclops, angry Poseidon—don't be afraid of them: you'll never find these things like that on your way as long as you keep your thoughts raised high, as long as a rare excitement stirs your spirit and your body.

Laestrygonians, Cyclops, wild Poseidon—you won't encounter them unless you bring them along inside your soul, unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.

May there be many summer mornings when, with what pleasure, what joy, you enter harbors you're seeing for the first time; may you stop at Phoenician trading stations to buy fine things, mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony, sensual perfumes of every kind, as many sensual perfumes as you can; and may you visit many Egyptian cities to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

I mean, one thing Odysseus is not is faint of heart.

Mm-hmm.

And at this point in the play, C.S. Lewis is sitting in his study with his other friends who are also Cambridge and Oxford dons, and one of which is, uh, the, the minister.

And Joy has had a little bit of a remission.

And Harry, the minister, says to Lewis, "Jack, I know how hard you've been praying, and now God is answering your prayers." The playwright has Lewis answer, "That's not why I pray, Harry.

I pray because I can't help myself.

I pray because I'm helpless.

I pray because the need flows out of me, waking and sleeping.

Uh-huh.

We're gonna try to take a Jungian look at the Declaration of Independence.

In Congress, July 4th, 1776: The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind require that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.

Pretty powerful words.

Mm-hmm.

It starts by saying, "How do I need to change? How can I be curious? What, what might I learn? What's valid in the other's position that, that is helpful for me?" So Lisa, there's, um, a quote we had discussed before we started recording that's rather lengthy and, and, and I, I, I'm taking it, I acknowledge that I'm taking it a bit out of context.