consciousness
09 Feb 2011

The Elemental Forces of Global Transformation

1 Comment Self Development and Transformation

“The gigantic catastrophes that threaten us today are not elemental happenings of a physical or biological order, but psychic events. To a quite terrifying degree we are threatened by wars and revolutions which are nothing other than psychic epidemics. At any moment several millions of human beings may be smitten with a new madness, and then we shall have another world war or devastating revolution. Instead of being at the mercy of wild beasts, earthquakes, landslides, and inundations, modern man is battered by the elemental forces of his own psyche. C.G. Jung

It was a fascinating synchronicity in my life. As my house was pelted by thundering winds and layers of thick, unrelenting snow last week, rocks, bottles and bullets flew in Cairo. The inundation I experienced here in Chicago felt in some ways to be overshadowed by the revolution taking place in Egypt, and yet, in other ways the two events felt strangely aligned. I skipped back and forth between CNN and the Weather Channel, watching for a break in both relentless storms.

While elements of change ebbed and flowed from the heartland of the United States to the ancient sands of the Middle East, I couldn’t help but ponder the significance of an apparent web of momentous physical and psychic events occurring on our planet and in our consciousness.

I suppose I unconsciously took it for granted that folks in the Middle East were not willing to fight for their rights. Regime after controlling, oppressive regime in the Arab world seemed to have taken advantage of a few convenient scapegoats (the U.S., Israel, capitalism, Hollywood, “The West”) through the years, conveniently overshadowing their own horrible human rights violations, the economic rape and pillaging of their common citizens and the general manipulation of hearts and minds.

Over shadow is truly at the core of it, too. It takes a lot to blur the deep human longing for wholeness, joy and love and it relies upon an overarching, bloated shadow that swaddles our essential love for life in rags of doubt and resentment. The greatest tragedies in human history have typically occurred as a result of similarly monolithic entities who have successfully brainwashed the collective consciousness with a tribal cool-aid aimed at using our inherent desire to protect against ourselves.

Not dissimilar has been the environmental snow job on the planet…

The only thing that matters is our advancement. You want to protect our evolution as a species, don’t you? Then who cares about strip mining? Who cares about aerosol cans and light bulbs? Who cares about sucking the earth dry in a matter of a few hundred years what took millions to create? You want to be the best nation, don’t you? The strongest power? Drink, drink, it tastes like fruit punch…

The archetype of the wounded healer is one that has long resonated for me. The notion that in order to truly help others heal one must have done his or her own fair share of suffering and grown from it, i.e. placed the pain and near death experiences (physically and/or emotionally) into a constructive context, is probably the most potent response to “why bad things happen to good people.”

However, when an archetype is not expressed in a meaningful, transformative, dynamic way, it “loads up with energy and becomes inhuman” (Marie-Louise von Franz). I believe that is the situation we are facing on our planet these days.

Without transforming our collective suffering thus creating a sacred wisdom of the heart borne from pain, we risk the creation of something terrible and ugly in its place.

Without choosing to learn from our arrogance, immaturity and selfishness as a society we don’t really grow up as a species and end up retarding our psycho-spiritual development as well.

18 Jan 2011

A Dreamy Evolution of Human Consciousness

4 Comments Self Development and Transformation

Human evolution, or anthropogeny, is the origin and evolution of Homo sapiens as a distinct species from other hominids, great apes and placental mammals. I have always appreciated the commonly known horizontal illustration of the evolution of “man” from stooped over simians to almost vertical sapiens. I believe we humans were brilliantly engineered as a species to adapt, grow and survive and while it is incomprehensible that our species could develop into anything but what we have become today, there is no logical reason to believe that we are done growing!

However… I also believe that our evolution continues to occur not only as a developing species but also as a developing consciousness. Indeed, the fact that we dream is one of the strongest supports for this belief. Dreaming is non-essential when it comes to survival as a body but I believe it is essential with regard to our development and evolution as thinking, feeling, consciously metaphysical beings.

Dreaming is the process whereby the unconscious mind communicates with the conscious mind in an attempt to create wholeness in our beings. Dreams are the bridges that allow movement back and forth between what we think we know and what we deeply, unconsciously, even metaphysically know.

Dreams also allow us to transport information or events that may be painful or confusing to an environment that is at once emotionally real but physically unreal; we inject these confusing or challenging thoughts and feelings into a psychic Petri dish where we experiment and observe ourselves in a safe container.

Dream analysis is a key component in the process of becoming whole as a person. While interpretation and input from a book, a psychotherapist or one of Oprah’s guests can be extremely beneficial, it can never be as meaningful or profound as it is when we figure something out on our own. Our desire to make peace with or establish an understanding of something that occurs in the dream world is truly a movement toward deeper awareness of ourselves. It speaks volumes about our evolution as an intelligent consciousness.

In addition, dreams often involve the vast array of human experiences from our deepest desires to our deepest wounds. Therefore, analyzing these emotional places within ourselves helps us make peace with both extremes and steers us back toward the center, fashioning a baseline of peace and balance.

One need only observe a (rapidly diminishing) animal of prey to see the level of calm and equilibrium they exhibit when moving through the world. It would be unusual indeed to witness a panther (theroretically) who can’t execute dinner because of too much strain and stress, fear of failure or residual childhood trauma. Yet, for all of our development, knowledge and understanding about the world, we humans seem far less at peace with our essential selves than those animals who are arguably less “evolved.”

Personally, I’d rather be chased by wolves, stalked by a panther or shot at by crazy gunmen in my dreams then in my waking life in order to learn something about myself and expand my conscious awareness of life. Still a scary experience, but far less life threatening!

10 Jan 2011

Why Not Live and Let Live?

2 Comments Relationships, Self Development and Transformation

I used to live on a small ranch in New Mexico where my neighbors and I enjoyed plenty of room between our respective properties. A gorgeous rock cliff served as demarcation to the north and then there was just land everywhere else sprinkled with some houses, horse corrals and the train tracks to the south. Each morning I’d open my front door and my dogs would take off into the sage brush and chamisas, doing their business as they saw fit. No leashes, plastic bags or parks. In fact, no one seemed to care what my dogs were doing or where horses pooped or how deep into my land the neighbors’ llamas grazed.

And yet, I was very aware of an unspoken code of boundaries. An understanding existed, floated, between all of the land-owners out there in the high desert. Centered on respect, folks out there beneath the big sky understood that we all lived out in the hills because we wanted the privacy, freedom and peace to live our lives without much interference.

Floodlights were put on motion sensors so as not to disrupt the natural beauty of the night sky for anyone else. No radios spewed unwanted music across the succulents and pinon trees. Our road remained unpaved year after year in order to keep traffic at a minimum. It was quiet and simple enough to focus on what was happening internally without many external distractions.

Many people thought I was off my rocker when I voluntarily moved to the heart of Chicago. And yet, city life isn’t terribly different from rural living. Not terribly…

People still like their freedom, peace and privacy they just go about it a bit differently. Less of an unspoken code here, folks seem very committed to the written laws in place and are often rapidly on board when it comes to their enforcement. People seem resolved never to see the night sky so who cares if you leave your lights on all night or if your car alarm goes off three times a night? Living on top of and beneath people day in and day out, it also gets hard to avoid being in other people’s business. I can easily distinguish when the neighbors are fighting and when they are making up…Hey, that’s city life, right?

Boundaries are a funny thing in the big city. We love our freedoms but we’re willing to do all sorts of things in order to make sure other people are following the rules properly. We love our peace and quiet but we can only attain real peace here by consciously choosing to be unconscious. While I don’t mind living in the city now, I do miss the unspoken commitment to live and let our neighbors live.

12 Oct 2010

Conjunctio: A Love Story

No Comments Uncategorized

“…in the midst of death, life persists, in the midst of untruth, truth persists, in the midst of darkness, light persists.” Mahatma Gandhi

Eighteen years ago I graduated from university and headed for Israel. I was twenty-one years old and after four years of college, thoroughly confused as to what was truly important anymore. Several hours into life beyond the shelter of my parent’s roof I entered higher education with the intention that it would give me the tools and the degree necessary to set out in the capitalist way and make lots of money.

Like many recent college graduates, I returned to my parent’s home after graduation with the tassle, the degree, skills I never imagined receiving from a place of higher learning and some well soiled laundry. I remember the feeling of walking into the house I had left four years earlier and sitting down at the kitchen table. I stared at the overstocked napkin holder at the center of the table and instantly felt empty. The desperation of having accomplished something yet not knowing what it had really been for left me feeling anxious and alone. I had been home a couple of hours before I realized that no matter what I did, I had to do something and do it quick. It was no longer my home but I didn’t know where or what my home was, either.

A few hours later I was packing for Israel. I knew deep within that I was ready to discover what it was I had caught glimpses of in the past that felt akin to “numinous” experiences. Twentieth century German philosopher, Rudolph Otto, popularized this term, numinous, as describing the power or presence of some higher being, perhaps God. I was startled to find that as I walked off the plane, there was no flaming chariot, no cherubim, no pillar of clouds to direct me toward my spiritual experience. Very disappointing.

In fact, my time in Israel was very challenging for several months. I was surrounded by people wherever I went; buying, selling, pushing, pulling. Everyone smoked cigarettes, drank sludgy coffee and seemed really wired and intense. I sat on the beach in Tel Aviv, knife in hand before a huge watermelon wondering if there was anything “numinous” left in the Middle East. It seemed like the power and presence was only to be found in the throngs of young Israelis in uniform with machine guns slung over their backs, or in the cliques of super religious Jews, Christians and Moslems whose connection to their respective faiths all felt very distant and inaccessible from where I sat.

Yet, something did happen. I was quite literally pulled to a small northern town called Tsfat. I won’t get into the details here, but suffice it to say that I had never heard of the place before so as the bus wound up the mountain that hosted the ancient city, I was a bit startled to feel something, almost, well numinous, growing within and without me. My time in Tsfat changed my life in countless ways and opened up doors that continue to require explanation and interpretation.

One of the earliest and most profound experiences was at the Ari Mikva. This is an ancient cave named after The Ari, an esteemed Kabbalist, or magical mystic. The enormous cave carved into the side of the mountain beneath the city contained a deep, cold pool of mountain water. Mikva’s are ritual immersion pools and can be found all over the world, sacred to many faiths and traditions. I had been in Tsfat no more than a few hours when some new friends insisted that I join them in this amazing pool. Before I knew it, I was stripped down and nervously following my guides into the cave. As we moved deeper into the rock, the giggles and chatter of the young men seemed to fade and like the last moments before sleep, I felt as if I were in a dream. If it hadn’t been for the ice cold water at my ankles, I’d have fallen over in some sort of trance.

The water rose higher with each step and the light slowly disappeared. I felt the gentle hand of my new friend on my shoulder and heard his whisper “Get to the center of the pool and dunk yourself in all the directions while you listen.” In an instant, I was chest deep in the icy water, surrounded by the darkest darkness I have ever witnessed. There was silence except for the occasional gasp of air and the coarse, gutteral rumbles of unknown men. I considered that just a few months earlier I was in a college classroom in upstate New York but this was something more than a world away. In that moment I knew this was why I had come to the Middle East. I was strangely calm and slowed my breathing in order to relax my shivering body.

I closed my eyes even though there was nothing to see, and plunged myself down into the blackness. As my head broke the surface of the water on my way back up, I was startled at the strange sensation. I could have been under there for hours or seconds, but it felt like an eternity. I was conscious of a deep feeling of quiet within myself, a sensation of knowing, of connection. I shifted my body to the next direction and dipped down again. Same thing, just more intense. I felt every drop of water trickle down my face as my state of awareness seemed miles deeper than it had minutes earlier. I plunged myself into the dark and wet space three more times, each time allowing myself to push myself deeper into the space.

If ever I had been “in the moment,” this was it. If ever I had understood the kinds of quotes that people like Gandhi or Jung are best known for, this was it. If ever I felt the deep, penetrating connection to something numinous, this was it. Carl Jung spoke passionately about the Conjunctio, a marriage of sorts, between the numinous and humans, between two lovers, between the sacred feminine and sacred masculine, etc. Yet, in order to experience this meeting between my Self and something bigger, deeper, wiser, etc., it required a certain sense of consciousness.

Consciousness allows me to experience the difference between myself and that “something else” as well as gives me the opportunity to have a unique, personal interpretation of that experience. Someone else would have offered a very different account of submerging in the Ari Mikva, not because it wasn’t true for me but perhaps because they are telling the experience from a different consciousness.

I am committed to understanding, or even just getting to know aspects of my own sense of consciousness, i.e. the voice in my head, the unique way I feel about things in my life, the way I personally experience my heart loving someone. This allows myself the opportunity to know the difference between what I know to be true in the world and what you know. We may have similar ways of relating to the world, but your unique version or texture of understanding will never be the same as mine. Isn’t that delightful?

Conjunctio is a love story. It is the meeting of two parts at some intersecting point where everything that is, was and will be, come together and come apart. It is the place where I experience you experiencing me and it is my consciousness that allows me to register the moment, hopefully using it to grow and connect with myself. There is something about plunging into a dark pool of water that is mysterious and interesting. However, there was something about my experience plunging into that water that changed my life because I was, at that second, able to be present for it.

There have been thousands of moments in my life when I was not fully present, but that one, I was really there. And it has helped me be more present in moments that followed because my consciousness deepened as a result. So, I want to challenge you today when it comes to being fully present, in the moment. What would it be like to encounter someone special in your life and bring your consciousness to it, your full presence, as you plunge deeper into that conjunctio, that intersection of worlds?