Try to remember why you are there living the human life. Try to discover what it all means in the course of many lives. Remember to search for meaning every day. Remember to remember at every day’s end that you are part of a greater whole, alive for a reason, alive for the completion of something that only you can figure out. Remember to dream. Remember that everything has meaning and your life is no exception. Remember especially that!
-From the Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne
I observe the spring birds and daffodils arriving too soon, simply following nature’s cues, their inner programs indelible, natural laws that must be obeyed.
In contrast, most conscious humans would delay flight plans if alerted to an as yet unseen arctic nor’easter. How is consciousness not superior to nature’s old ways? This is the argument that elevated reason to chiefdom, to stardom. But reason, in its mental abstractness, has lost contact with its deep chthonic roots, with the power and wisdom of nature itself. Reason can harness the energy of nature, but if it abuses this decision-making ability nature will exact its corrective.
We find ourselves living in a comic book world now. Super villains or, from another perspective, super heroes have taken charge of Gotham City. Like many of Hollywood’s current epics the forces of good and evil are in dire conflict, either pre- or post-apocalypse. Reason has clearly lost its command, but why?
Why have the deep chthonic powers arisen so ardently to topple reason and reinstate an angry god? Was our choice of Obama that one-sided, as we presumed that the world was ready for full inclusion? Wasn’t Hillary reason’s obvious no-brainer for the next step? Why are we where we are now, back in Gotham City?
Perhaps the mistake was presuming that the light and right of consciousness was all that was necessary for wholeness to finally come about, that good will always triumph over evil. In fact, this one-sided hubris constellated the enantiodromia of the blitzkrieg of this dark side we now face. Light and dark, the two sides of God, are the two sides of all of us, and they must each be included lest the jealous, disowned God exact its revenge.
Take the sexual instinct, for example. Consciousness can prescribe the appropriate channels for this instinct, a very logical and ordered program. But beware the ravages of a powerful neglected instinct not properly lived in consciousness. The result, sexual abuse, in every culture, class, and institution around the globe.
What has assumed power is civilization’s disowned shadow, blind instinct wanting and taking. Responsibility for why we are here lies with the people of light, who truly underestimate the power and relevance of the people of the dark, as well as with the people of the dark who have no use for the reason of the people of the light.
With sex you cannot consciously force attraction. You must engage the power of deep instinct to join with conscious love for there to be fulfillment. Conscious love without the juice of attraction is at best a rational partnership, the shadow of which supports the pornography industry.
So how do we arrive at conscious and fulfilling sacred sex? Clearly such a merger must include the heights of spirit light and the depths of dark chthonic instinct. Only an inclusive yin/yang configuration can lead to a balanced whole. If a tree’s branches are to reach heaven, its roots truly must sink into hell.
Consciousness must be restored to its leadership position in our world, but it must become a realistic versus idealistic leader. Nature did advance itself by evolving human consciousness after all. Yes, it is better to be able to delay a flight versus arrive early to sudden death.
On the other hand, consciousness must fully know and embrace its darkness, its deep chthonic roots, and slow its evolution to a reasonable pace that its integrated wholeness can bear.
In consciousness with chthonic roots,
Chuck
PS: Today is International Women’s Day, a day that many have called for women to give the world the experience of no women in it. That wave of energy may be experienced as what it is like to be in a world of light lacking its deep chthonic roots. Let’s see what happens!!
Each morning we awaken to our longest running dream, the world we live in. So compelling and consistent is this dream that we call it reality. In our reality dream, reason has come to be the guiding force, with magic and spirit really believed to exist only in other dreams.
Despite the limitations of reason, it has generated a dream we can count on, a safety net of order and continuity for us to build and maintain our lives on. Currently, our world of reason is under siege by a wily trickster who presents under the pseudonym of economics.
“It’s jobs, stupid; it’s the economy.” And with those words the world goes silent and is brought to its knees in servitude.
This past week I heard a music reviewer, on the eve of the American Idol finale, state that the show had become so formulaic and, despite some strong voices, that formula choked out new music. She herself felt the need to attend a rock concert that night, rather than be bored once again. The economic coup, the other “idol” of our times, has become equally formulaic and boring.
In our own American dream, currently dominating the world stage, a new economic American Idol was anointed this week, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. At age 28, he is now one of the twenty wealthiest people on earth. How did he get there? Well, his greed and speed launched Facebook initially. Despite dirty tricks at Harvard, he pulled it off. The recent Facebook IPO launch was filled, once again, with dirty tricks, with JP Morgan implicated once again, but Zuckerberg still landed at the top, and truly, that’s all that matters. Right?
Reason and fairness are no match for the “economic need” of the few. And, in the end, all dirty deeds are truly forgiven because, secretly, all is fair in the accumulation of wealth. What matters is getting there—at any cost. That’s the real dream of the economic dream.
We have to frack, to poison the water supply. Why? It’s jobs, stupid! We have to drill in the Arctic. We need more oil. Why? Homeland security and the economy, stupid! We simply cannot limit carbon emissions to forestall global warming, at least not now. Why? It just doesn’t make economic sense. How could we possibly shut down a nuclear industry in these times of economic need?
Ironically, such drastic economic delusions were created by the Zuckerbergs of the world, the Wall Street tricksters, the champions of finance and industry who continuously fool the world to their own wealth advantage. But truthfully, their power remains unchecked because, secretly, we’re all upholding the notion that the accumulation of wealth, through any means, is of the highest value and at the basis of our survival. That American dream, like American Idol, simply chokes out the possibility of other dreams, even one so simple as fairness, sharing, and taking only what you truly need. Or a dream that acknowledges interdependence, a dream that says, “no being left behind.” It takes all of us to uphold the dream.
Our reality dream is breaking apart now because even rationality cannot uphold the logic of the economic trickster. Science, a most rational process, is severely checked under its influence. According to the economic trickster, science exists only for its money making potential and should only be funded to serve the market. Education is all wrong. Schools are markets now too; markets for iPads, markets for loans, for online degrees. It’s all about the economy—we need more to survive. Like cancer, that dream can only survive on the unchecked accumulation of more.
The good news is that new dreams are incubating to dream our world forward, as we begin to awaken from our current economic nightmare. Just watch Greece. They’re doing it. They’ll be damned, but that cradle of democracy is learning to just say no, as the trickster—the European/World economy—shakes in its boots. True reality is that there is no debt crisis, there is no economic crisis, there is more than enough to sustain all in this world.
The trickster’s crisis is the crisis of greed, with its insatiable need to have it all—that’s the true crisis of which we’re all deluded. The trickster’s dream insists that we dream its dream and pay homage to survival being based on feeding the insatiable need of its greed. That dream requires all of us, in consensus, to agree to it, to uphold that world. That’s why the markets are terrified at the implications in Greece and France. If Greece leaves the Euro, they break from that dream, and that dream begins a free fall into a nightmare that even the trickster can’t dream himself out of.
The other good news is that we are all dreamers capable of awakening from this dream that’s held us in its grip for so long. In our daily dreams, we can incorporate mindfulness practices to achieve a calm that allows us to dislodge from the frantic fears generated by the suggestions of the trickster hypnotist, found within us, as well as without.
We can dream our lives forward, beyond the constraints of the economic formula into new possibility. We can even dream a world of magic and fulfillment, freed of the delusion that we need to accumulate more. Come on, dreamers, let’s dream it forward!
Dreaming on,
Chuck
Note: A good follow up to Chuck’s blog and the economic dream we are caught in is to watch the movie I AM by Tom Shadyac. If you haven’t seen it, it offers a romp through where greed has taken us and specifically the director himself. In the end, he allows simplicity to take it’s modest yet most appropriate place. Available in our Store, under the movies category.
Yesterday, as Jan and I prepared to make a brief visit to Aunt Virginia before attending a matinee showing of Hereafter, I struggled to somehow dismantle the bathroom ceiling fan to free a trapped bird. Jan had just been outside and noticed a flock of bluebirds on the roof, calling loudly. The eyes of the trapped bird stared intently at me as I lowered the fan, it was a female bluebird and she was now freed.
We arrived a bit late to 91 year old Aunt Virginia to find her resting with her new Yorkie puppy Dewey sitting calmly in her lap. Dewey is adorable with bright attentive eyes, wise beyond his years. He locks onto my eyes, we connect. Aunt Virginia is a young mother again, constantly tracking Dewey’s whereabouts, fixing him lunch. We say our goodbyes; it’s time for Hereafter.
Back in the day, Jeanne and I anxiously awaited three things in life: the always postponed release of Stevie Wonder’s next album; Carlos Castaneda’s next book; and Clint Eastwood’s new movie. While Stevie and Carlos attended to our spiritual and magical sides, The Clint was pure masculine shadow. He mirrored the energy I aspired to and that Jeanne was attracted to. Who would have thought that The Clint would evolve into such a sensitive, gentle director willing to take on the question of the hereafter, only the greatest mystery of life?
This movie is at once engaging and seamless as it flows through the unfolding dramas of three characters in separate worlds whose lives ultimately intersect at the deepest level. The pace of the movie is decidedly Eastwood’s. He skips the explosiveness of most Hollywood dramas, calmly allowing the story to unfold without over-stimulation or over-telling. You’re not likely to encounter too many texting teens at this movie; The Clint does not cave to that energy. This is an intelligent movie.
Jan and I thoroughly enjoyed it, two thumbs up! I will say no more directly about the content of Hereafter. Go see it!
However, I am not a stranger to the hereafter, so I will describe my own experience. Jan and I have had profound experiences of Jeanne in the hereafter in the here and now. We literally lived a scene right out of Ghost where Whoopi Goldberg transmogrifies into Patrick Swayze so that he can connect with his wife played by actress, Demi Moore. Jan, Jeanne and I have verified this experience and that possibility.
What I can say however is that this experience doesn’t mean anything to my rational mind. The rational mind will always do what the rational mind does best: doubt and question. My rational mind doubts and questions every otherworldly experience I have ever had.
Here is the conundrum: We know this life will end. Then what? Lights out or lights on? Our reason knows there is no god, no magic; it can all be explained. We can choose to believe but our reason scoffs at belief. If we have genuine experiences of hereafter, reason, our own or someone else’s, quickly explains them away with reasonable doubt. And so, we are left with reason on one side and experiences on the other, with reason claiming ultimate control over the interpretation of everything.
My solution to this conundrum has been to suspend judgment and to have experience. Allowing for experiences leads to its own knowing. This knowing needn’t challenge reason, which has its own knowing, albeit limited. The solution lies not in convincing reason. This is not possible. Reason upholds our consensual reality. It is the foundation of that reality. Experiences of hereafter lead to knowing an expanded reality, one in which reason exists in its own right but is simply one world among others.
There was once a time when it was certain that the sun revolved around the all-important Earth. That it is now known that the earth—among other planets—revolves around the sun, does not diminish the reality of the earth, it simply diminishes its supremacy. Reason shares a similar fate, though it is fighting hard to maintain its supremacy over the hereafter.
I like The Clint’s approach to the Hereafter. It’s calm, no dramatic attempts of proof; an invitation to experience.
For those who haven’t read The Book of Us, I suggest this autobiography as a documented experience of here and hereafter. Of course, like all documented experiences, we are left with confronting reason with its doubts and questions. Take it instead as an invitation to have your own experiences. That has been the essence of Jeanne’s channeled messages: lessons in how to have experiences of hereafter, here and now.
If you wish to correspond, please feel free to post a comment below.
Until we meet again,
Chuck
The primary function of the womb is reproduction: the production and continuation of the life of our species. Shamans maintain that the womb has a secondary function, rarely accessed, as the epicenter of evolution. For shamans, evolution is a function of intent and the ability to perceive and interpret energy in new ways.
Shamans call the womb a “perceiving box,” capable of perceiving and interpreting energy as direct knowledge, completely independent of the cogitations of the mind. This is not a rational process, but a living, irrational process, like life and nature itself.
Shamans claim that women’s access to direct knowledge is unparalleled. In fact, it happens so easily that women take it for granted or simply dismiss it. In contrast, men, lacking a womb, must work very hard to gain access to direct knowledge and highly prize that achievement. For shamans, this is the advantage men have over women; since they work so hard for it, they don’t dismiss it. When this topic was touched upon at a Tensegrity workshop I had attended, the question arose as to the fate of women who no longer had their wombs due to hysterectomies. We were assured that the womb center was fully present in the energy body, regardless of changes in the physical body. Perhaps the major reason women dismiss their access to direct knowledge is reason itself, the reigning fixation of awareness in the modern world.
Women, like men, are socialized to cultivate the mind by mastering rationality. The ability to understand and explain life in rational terms is deemed a measure of intelligence and is a core component of self-esteem. Simply knowing, without knowing why one knows what one knows, without being able to establish a systematic rational building block of facts, in modern terms is deemed both laughable and primitive.
As we watch the nigredo of oil sweep across the Gulf of Mexico, what is it that we know? How much oil dumps into the Gulf each day; how the oil will be encircled and contained; how the leak will be capped; what the effects will be on the shrimp industry; how government and industry will work together to solve this regrettable miscalculation? What does the womb perceive? What does the womb know about life and where it is headed under the dominance of rationality in our modern world? Who will value what the womb knows?
In my clinical work as a psychotherapist I have often been struck by the knowing of the womb, as reported by women clients at different times in their monthly cycles. Of course, the regimentation and orderliness of the modern world has socialized women to devalue and override the stirrings and moods of the womb, though the knowing womb frequently overrides such repressive efforts by outbursts of irrationality. In my experience, the knowledge that can burst forth at these times, though exaggerated by the energetic process needed to overcome repressive efforts, frequently reveals truths that ultimately become major life changes, though they may take decades to realize.
For shamans, the future of our evolution rests in our ability to break the fixation of our awareness on a world of solid objects and a mind of reason. The ability to perceive energy in new ways frees our evolutionary potential. Yet, even in this world of solid objects, might we free ourselves of the dominance of the rational? As we observe now the destruction of life on our planet, as it is reasonably rationalized away in quantifiable, descriptive terms, masquerading as control and order, might it not be time to listen to the knowing of the womb, the bearer of life, the seat of evolution?
If you wish to correspond, please feel free to post a comment below.
Until we meet again,
Chuck