3 results for (book:ur2 AND session:724 AND stemmed:close)
“Not long after I closed my eyes I saw, almost in silhouette, a Roman soldier standing on the top of a square, crenelated tower that formed a corner or angle in a massive stone wall. My position was at ground level. I’d lost all sensation of my body lying on the cot. The scene was very faint, so much so that it might almost be called more of an idea than an image. The sky behind the soldier was darkly overcast; I was aware of very little color. I ‘knew’ that the tower I faced marked the southeastern corner of Jerusalem, and I ‘knew’ that the wall itself was an enormous fortification that had surrounded that ancient city sometime during the first half of the first century A.D.
“My own defiance is a peaceful one having to do with ideas. I see my two Romans physically undergoing an exploration of the opposite sides of rebellion or subversion, within the context of a much closer, more oppressive military authority: For whatever reasons, the Roman officer is turned upon and thrown into the Mediterranean to drown (as described in Note 1 for the 715th session)7; my Roman soldier, a man of lesser rank, has evidently betrayed his sworn position of trust, and is caught in authority’s vice. I think all of this could be counterpart action, all right, personified by two selves living in the same narrow time period, in close proximity in the same geographical area of the Middle East.8
(I was in for a surprise as the students discussed Seth’s remarks. One class member, a close friend whom I’ll call Peter Smith, is an artist and sculptor; after studying my Roman sketches, he had a note passed across the crowded room to me:)
(In the 724th session the following night, Seth remarked upon such circumstances, saying that while Peter and I weren’t counterparts, we’re “closely enough allied so that in certain terms you ‘share’ some of the same psychic memories, like cousins who speak about old dimly remembered brothers.”13
Now: Your friend Peter [Smith] shared the same earthly period.4 You were not counterparts — or you are not counterparts, but closely enough allied so that in certain terms you “share” some of the same psychic memories, like cousins who speak about old dimly remembered brothers.