“Religion is [can be] a defense against the experience of God.” C. G. Jung

A dear friend invited me this week-end to participate in a special brunch to celebrate Bright Week. Bright Week, or “Renewal Week,” is a tradition observed by many Eastern Orthodox Christians to commemorate the seven days following the resurrection of Christ. The entire week is considered to be one really long day, with each day being labeled “Bright,” such as Bright Monday, Bright Tuesday, etc.

I like the concept of bright days.

Brunch was initiated with several prayers, chants and even a didgeridoo performance. Attention was offered to intention, not dogma or liturgical correctness. It was beautiful and I felt honored to be included.

As I sat and enjoyed the mindful discussion and dialogue that guests engaged in throughout the afternoon, one thought persistently pierced my awareness:

At what point does religion serve as a springboard for a person to plunge into their own unique experience of the Transcendent and likewise, where is the point at which religion serves as a distraction from that personal encounter?

As a former practitioner of an orthodox religion I know for myself the experience of maintaining the dogma, rituals and rules was a very important practice. For one thing, I learned a great deal about myself and how I resist rules! However, I also learned how much easier life can be once one consciously follows a set of rules and the magical space it can create for spontaneous spiritual experiences to occur at the interface between the unconscious and transcendent realms.

I found that adhering to specific, organized, physical parameters seemed to create a greater platform for metaphysical moments.

That’s a bright thought in my good book.

I used to love twirling around in circles as a little boy, making myself as dizzy as I could before I would fall sideways into the warm grass, giggling and groaning with ecstasy. As a “spiritual seeker type” of young man, I was captivated by the Whirling Dervishes, the Sufi order that counted the great poet Rumi as one of its members. I sought out their mystical celebrations of merging with the Divine Source through a deep meditative trance induced by careful gliding into a transcendent state. Ahhh.

Who doesn’t enjoy a good spin?

In fact, I see spinning every day in my work. Some people like to whirl themselves into a dramatic tizzy by repeating the same patterns, over and over again, until they either stumble upon deep meditative introspection or they crash into a brutal wall of frustration and anger.

I am also aware of the kind of spinning where people attempt to repackage their thoughts, behaviors and emotions toward less incriminating, less shame inducing places. This is a fascinating process to witness, as the spinner, much like the Dervish, can become intoxicated by their own circulating distortion.

And really, who doesn’t spin sometimes? Humans are indeed animals, deep down inside, and we have a strong survival instinct. I find that for most people, survival tends to be typically emotional rather than physical in nature. Why would I want to feel bad about myself? It is far easier to spin the facts or the feelings in a way that alleviates my own anxiety or feelings of shame.

Today, there is even a substantial amount of institutional spin. Corporations spin disasters or failed quarterly profits, governments spin misguided policies, wars and appointments. Today, Wiki Leaks’ Mr. Assange is being spun so hard he is sitting in jail right now and the folks that put him there want you to believe the spin is reality. Since when does Interpol extradite people for broken condoms?

Ah, the breeze is lucid, warm, dream-like as we turn and turn and turn.

I set out early this morning to walk the dogs and found the air crisp and cool, the sky clean and bright. The moist leaves sat clumped on the grass and naked in the street; they smelled like a bowl of soggy corn flakes that had been forgotten, abandoned for a cartoon or a pop tart. The smell, the cold, the clear light of the moment, all compiled, created a texture of memory that forced me out of the present moment, somewhere else.

Stanislov Grof, in his book The Holotropic Mind, discussed the concept of what I call memory clusters. Like an accordion of moments, events in our lives are grouped together at a particular point with similar frequencies, emotional levels and essentially, experiential textures.

For example, I lived in Santa Fe, NM for 9 years and the smell of roasting chili peppers along the road wherever I went during the months of Sept/Oct is indelibly inscribed in my consciousness. I also, however, associate the smell with intensity, prosperity, and sensuality due to a number of events that “seemed” to occur in autumn while I lived there, specifically some new relationships, work successes and the purchase of real estate.As a teen, I ran cross-country each fall and have numerous memories of padding half naked through wet leaves, through the crisp morning air, up and down the hills of Bear Mountain State Park. I felt free, alive, and determined.

This morning’s combination of leaves, smells and crisp fall air brought me right back to the autumn of 1987, a month before my 17th birthday. I managed my way up to Williamstown, MA for a long week-end where I hung out and interviewed at my number one college choice, Williams College. At the time, it was considered the hardest liberal arts school to get into and I planned to apply Early Decision. I wanted to go there so badly I could taste it. My week-end of beer, girls and rugby made it even more clear. In fact, in the middle of a crashed dorm room party that my rugby host smuggled me into, one of the students raised his plastic cup of beer and definitively announced: “Man, you’ve GOT to come here. You’re awesome.”

Can you believe the ego inflation I experienced as I threw on my new, thick, sweatshirt and headed home to NY, a giant purple “W” caressing/protecting/blocking my heart? At the top of my game, the apex of my world, I rolled down the windows of my old blue Nissan and let the cold, matted air redden my cheeks as I worked off the hangover, speeding down the Taconic Parkway so fast it made the windshield vibrate…

Several months later I received a “wait list” letter and while I was rattled by the delay of my destiny ride back to Williamstown, I had every expectation of being fully accepted in the spring.

Spring arrived, and with it, the stack of college envelopes. “As you might have heard, this has been a record setting year here for Williams College. We regret to inform you…”

It was the first major disappointment from the outside world I experienced, but it felt like the end of the world at the time. I had pictured my life as an adult beginning with a Williams College experience. I had not planned an alternative vision from which to weave my life story. I felt more than defeated, I felt wrong. As if there was a glitch in the Matrix and somehow the world just didn’t work the same anymore.

There is a different memory cluster associated with the demolition of my 17 year old’s expectation that I’d go to Williams. Thank God, really. There is something so profoundly perfect and beautiful and eternally hopeful about the Autumn Leaves Cluster. It is the moment when life feels right; when people think I’m wonderful and the timing of things work. It is the moment of transcendent hope that I am able to access when I need inner strength and support in order to accomplish or succeed. And like an accordion, I rely on the power and intention of dozens of similar events, feelings and experiences.

So, while I never made it back to Williams College, I found my way into many other streams of thought and consciousness. I constructed even more interesting, provocative, transcendent scenarios to play out in my 40 years… Some of which are still in motion. What do you think/smell/feel/remember/imagine right now?

It doesn’t take the sudden death of a three week old goldfish to prompt stirrings of the meaning of life for a five year old child. Issues of life and death bombarded me from birth and likely will unto death, from the chicks hatching inside the nursery school incubator to the disintegration of multi-colored Pac Men. We won’t even get into the relationship of said Pac Men with floating bright red cherries as they are swallowed by supposed greater beings.  It is virtually impossible to avoid the matter of life and death, but for a small child it is inevitable that the matter be conjoined with the question of God.

And isn’t it one of THE questions for a young one? Adults are often so strong and matter of fact in their beliefs and emotions with regard to God, yet no one truly explains the matter in enough detail and with enough seeming precision as to settle the issue completely. So, we little one’s improvise. 

All knowing, all seeing, all powerful. These are the Super-human qualities that seem to get bandied about quite readily when it comes to discussing this God entity. Already a committed Superman adherent at three, common descriptions of God very closely challenged my associations with the Prince of Krypton, a hero who always impressed, astounded and fulfilled my expectations. I depended on Superman a great deal as a boy. Not even simply as a boy. I still admire the Man of Steel…

Transcendent. Able to appear and disappear at will. Dissolving and coagulating. These abilities bumped God above Superman as I had never seen him perform such feats. Another devoutly revered superhero, Batman, was able to appear and disappear, dropping in and leaping out of situations at will, however when measured by the suggested definition of transcendent, the Dark Knight didn’t come close either. Transcendent was suggested by a teacher as something akin to rain falling from the sky on a summer afternoon and the ensuing absorption of said water by the ground, the bugs and each blade of grass. Transcendent.

In fact, as more and more of God’s qualifications were recorded, it became increasingly challenging to find anyone that resembled him or her in my personal experience. I include “her” for my love for Batgirl was already warm and sublime at a young age and I would have welcomed her into the God running.

So many adults, when queried, are adamant that they enjoy personal relationships with God, that He is a fixture in their lives and that He personally saves them from all sorts of villains and evils. However, there was no God comic book, no Saturday morning cartoon, no Underoos. Whomever this God character was, he clearly needed better P.R. The closest I could find was a quirky, low budget animation program on Sunday mornings called “Davey and Goliath.” The consistently low-key “boy and dog” show seemed to address the sorts of questions I was also concerned with, but in the end, they were just as puzzling in their determinations.

In the end, the question of God remained a puzzle. The greatest approximation I found within myself was a hybrid crossing Mr. Clean with the Jolly Green Giant. This was the figure that seemed to seep into my dreams, speaking with a commanding voice, acting in a controlling, all-knowing sort of way. I had visions of waves of grain and green pea pods behind him as he encouraged me to be nicer to my little brother, tie my shoes faster and eat more of the frozen peas on my plate at dinner.

In fact, this early childhood version of God didn’t come with a cape or “underwear that was fun to wear;” she didn’t fly, didn’t drive a cool car or fight evil. Indeed, the manifestation of this transcendent being in my dream life and increasingly, my waking, conscious awareness, supported the rather confusing case of God.

If anything, I emerged from childhood with a unique association with God that approached a patriarchal, agricultural and extremely sanitary giant. This perhaps explains my subconscious preference for frozen vegetables and shiny floors and helps me better understand the radical right.