Memoir has been described as a postmodern genre through which one explores facets of the self that challenge modernist notions of a complex yet singular reality. Through this reflective act of creative self-expression, one may encounter realities that not only question existing conceptions of identity, but also normative views of what constitutes a self. One may also explore the ways in which multiple realities of self co-exist and interpenetrate. Constructing a memoir may offer a profound mode of discovery in which one experiences the subjective self nonconceptually. Spontaneous recollection of personal history, emotion, sensation, image, and dream within the context of transient phenomena in the present environment, may offer insight into the very nature of mind itself and the reality it constructs.;Depth psychology has traditionally derived psychological insight by amplifying this stream of consciousness through the ancient narratives of Greek mythology. Other wisdom traditions such as The Great Perfection of Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism, may also shed light on these experiences and awaken aspects of identity leading to profound transformation. These insights may extend not only to relatively mundane aspects of the human condition, but like Augustine, one may reflect on ultimate questions of identity. Augustine wrote that the memory "is like a great field or a spacious palace, a storehouse for countless images of all kinds which are conveyed to it by the senses," and that within these recollections is contained a memory of "a state of blessed happiness." Great Perfection thought may regard this state as a blissful experience of one's buddha-nature.;Memoir, in this form---as an initiation, a Vision Quest, a spontaneous de-stabilization of a prior way of knowing oneself, is mediated through what Archetypal Psychology calls a Dionysian consciousness. This poetic consciousness is also a "somatized awareness of self." The borderless regions of the psyche ruled by a Dionysian consciousness lay the ground for the deconstruction and reintegration of facets of identity revealed through the Historical Mind, the Archetypal Mind, and the Buddha Mind. Dissolving the conventional polarities that the ordinary mind constructs in order to maintain its sense of a coherent narrative of self, existing under its own power, enables one to open to the unconditioned, thus weakening the habitual tendencies of the conditioned self.;Following the theoretical discussion is a personal memoir from which the insights for this dissertation arose. The memoir is written in the form of a series of ritualized walks over a period of a number of years. The setting is the Santa Barbara Harbor and surrounding breakwater.
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