Dionysus

I have seen those two theater masks in a vast array of different places throughout my life, but never truly knew what or where they stemmed from. I always had an idea that they were visual conceptions of Yin and Yang. I was surprised to find they were a symbolic representation of a Greek god.

The duality in Dionysus was fascinating. I believe that a certain amount of this same duality exists in every person. Is it not true that a person can turn from tragic to comic in an instant? People have the capacity to experience such overwhelming joy, and, at the same time, can feel excruciating sorrow and pain. It's my belief that this plays a large part in creativity--the never ending duel between feelings of happiness and those of grief. A person must find a way of balancing the two, a process individual to each person. That balance and the way of finding it is creative in itself. Maybe that is why these theater masks have continually resurfaced throughout my life. They represent not only Dionysus, but a universal fighting between and balancing of emotions.

As for the Shamans, I'm just not sure. The idea of traveling between higher and lower realities is very foreign to me. It's possible that I'm not grasping the concept entirely, but it still seems far fetched. Did the early shamans really believe they were moving from one world to the other, or were they just experiencing a different level of consciousness? An altered state of consciousness?