Tag Archives: unconscious

Chuck’s Place: Mother Unconscious

The little songbird channels from above... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
The little songbird channels from above…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

When I discovered that Art Garfunkel was coming to our little town, I knew I had to see him, to see what he had to offer now. The music of Art and Paulie, as he so affectionately referred to Paul Simon, has sung to my soul for the past 50 years. If the Beatles were the extraverted splash of the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, Simon and Garfunkel were its introverted soul.

Art is in the midst of his “mending tour,” having lost his voice three years ago. His voice, to my ear, was utterly beautiful, echoing the sounds of yesteryear to near perfection. He interspersed the music with personal poems and heartfelt stories from his magical life. His poetry was sweet, but it soon became abundantly clear who the real poet was. Paul is the poet, his verses channel the sober truths of spirit, while Art is the conduit, the beautiful songbird of spirit. Together, as Simon and Garfunkel, they captured a wholeness of spirit, light and dark.

The concert ended without answering my question: What do you have to say now, Art Garfunkel? The audience roared, seeking an encore. I couldn’t bear to see this icon forced to conform to such a mundane custom, but Poughkeepsie demanded it. Finally, Art slowly and gently stepped back on stage and said: “I’m going to sing you to sleep.” Then this Jewish choir boy from Queens sang Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. And with that he delivered his message of now.

This prayer speaks to the truth that when we close our eyes each night and go to sleep we must surrender our consciousness, our soul, just as here in this childhood prayer, asking the Lord to hold it and protect it through the dark night that we might be born again the next day, consciousness rejuvenated into the light of a new day.

Each twenty-four hour day is a complete life cycle. We are born in the morning. We heroically go forth and take on the challenges of life and the world through the afternoon. Then comes nightfall when we must surrender life to Mother Sleep, who holds us in her arms and hopefully delivers us anew the next day.

Carl Jung writes in Symbols of Transformation: “In the morning of life the son tears himself loose from the mother, from the domestic hearth, to rise through battle to his destined heights. Always he imagines his worst enemy in front of him, yet he carries the enemy within himself—a deadly longing for the abyss, a longing to drown his own source, to be sucked down to the realm of the Mothers. His life is a constant struggle against extinction, a violent yet fleeting deliverance from every-lurking night. This death is no external enemy, it is his own inner longing for the stillness and profound peace of all-knowing nonexistence, for all-seeing sleep in the ocean of coming-to-be and passing away. Even in his highest strivings for harmony and balance, for the profundities of philosophy and the raptures of the artist, he seeks death, immobility, satiety, rest.”

There is something to be learned when encountering the dark side of the moon... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
There is something to be learned when encountering the dark side of the moon…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Mother is the most powerful being; she gives life yet in her wrath she might take it as well. Every child instinctively shudders at the dark side of the moon, Mother’s bad moods. Psychoanalyst Melanie Klein called it the good breast and the bad breast, the one what nurtures and the one that withholds life. The child is powerless and beholden to the moods of the Mother Goddess.

In adulthood the relation to Mother, the source of life and renewal, transfers to the depths of the unconscious that each evening greets us in sleep. In sleep and dream we are unburdened of our daily tensions or haunted by nightmares from the depths. We are essentially at the mercy of the moods of Mother Unconscious. Art Garfunkel is wise to suggest we put our souls in good hands as we drift off on this momentous night sea journey.

However, the advantage of adulthood is that we are now fully able to engage and work with the mighty powers of the deep as we take our journey toward rebirth. Beyond our childhood prayer for protection we are now empowered to take full possession of our soul as we go to meet the deep instinctive forces that pressure us during life and challenge our ego fortresses.

Perhaps the storms of nightmare are connected to the raging great Mother who challenges our ego’s neglect of our deepest needs or deepest truths. If the ego can listen to its dreams, however terrifying, and face what is being asked of it to change in attitude and behavior, it might find future dreams of benevolent support for changes constituted consciously. The ego is also free to hold onto consciousness in waking dreams, where we confront the forces of the deep in their projections upon the relationships of waking life.

Seek consciousness in the waking dream too... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Seek consciousness in the waking dream too…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

I appreciate most that the message Art Garfunkel gives now, after all these years, is to pay attention to the night and the power of Mother Unconscious. This is the playing field where all the terrifying forces in the world find their origin. This is the playing field where we are empowered to achieve the union and wholeness we seek to advance deeper into life.

As we lay ourselves down to sleep, let us hold onto our souls and go to meet the Great Mother in her love or in her wrath, as adults. It is up to us now to guide the Mothership, humbly respecting its power and truth.

Conscious in the dream,
Chuck

The above quote is from Carl Jung Symbols of Transformation (C.W. 5) pp. 355-56

Chuck’s Place: Participation Mystique

What is that mysterious thing that we are struck by? - Photo by Chuck Ketchel
What is that mysterious thing that we are struck by?
– Photo by Chuck Ketchel

Magically and mysteriously we are emotionally struck by and drawn to the energy of another. That being, whom we hardly know, ruptures our emotional, mental, physical and spiritual homeostasis. We become riddled with fear, obsession, anxiety and awe.

This experience is not under conscious control; this is a seizure of the ego by energies much deeper and infinitely more powerful than our meagre bastion of rationality. We cannot talk ourselves out of it; we are drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

The energies that take possession of us are the energies of individuation, the deepest truths of who we are, driving us to rapturously discover our wholeness. However, these energies require the full participation of consciousness if we are to truly become fulfilled in our human form. In mandala terms, we must consciously “square the circle” if we are to become our wholeness. We begin to square the circle by becoming aware that we are in a state of seizure.

In a state of seizure our unconscious energies have bonded and melded with the energies of another. That is the inner experience and sometimes it is the outer experience as well—sometimes two people meet in an equal state of seizure. More often, though the inner experience is compelling, the seizure is one-sided. We are blindsided by the unconscious power of projection that mysteriously binds us with the soul and substance of another being. It matters not whether the experience is one of adoration, exaltation, love, or utter disgust—we are mysteriously and inseparably enmeshed with this other being. We are completely distraught, as a vital part of our own living essence walks freely and separately in the world apart from us in this other person. Our minds and hearts obsess as we fear the loss of our soul.

Our projection might be something else entirely! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Our projection might be something else entirely!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Though that person may be on the other side of the earth, though they may not even know we exist, it matters not; we are inseparably entwined. Years might pass, but our utter devotion to this soulmate is undaunted. Time is meaningless in our timeless commitment to this transcendent experience; and that experience allows no other soulful being in. We may even marry another, but our soul remains faithful to its nemesis, on the deepest level never embracing our official partner. Such is the mystical participation of our soul with its chosen other.

Consciousness of our state of seizure cannot change the power of our unconscious emotional bondage, but it does afford us the ability to not blindly act in accordance with our unconscious mandate that lies at the root of our passion. The decision to hold back an action may throw us into great despair, or even depression, as the unconscious reacts by withdrawing its energies from even the simplest tasks of daily life. But such a decision does affirm our intention to act responsibly and with consciousness, even if it means banishment to the desert for a spell. The goal here is to establish a conscious relationship with the unconscious, based on a partnership versus a blind allegiance to the dictates of instinct and compulsion.

For consciousness, the task is to unearth and resolve the reason for the compulsive, mysterious tie to an other. This might mean facing issues from earliest childhood or deep woundings from other times in our lives, asking the inevitable questions that might lead to conscious clarification. Why has the unconscious chosen this being? Why am I being asked to take this journey with this person? Why is the unconscious insisting that something about this person so mirrors something about myself? Am I willing to take this journey and consciously face the facts as they unfold? Do I need to completely oppose the outer journey, and cloister myself to a direct inner encounter with the root of my desires?

Participation mystique, ultimately, is the language of the unconscious. It engages us in entanglements with beings in the world whom reflect the jewels of our own wholeness. If we read this language concretely, and passionately act out its energies as they possess us, we are strewn about the ocean waves without the benefit of a navigating vessel.

Consciousness gives us our vessel to navigate the ocean of infinity with. Consciousness gives us the choice to learn our lessons in the outer world or in the inner world. Consciousness allows us to shorten our terms of bondage to obsessive projection. Though we can’t consciously lift the obsession, we can oppose blind allegiance to it, whereby introverting the playing field and allowing for symbolic resolution within the self.

The alchemy of love... - Photo by Chuck Ketchel
The alchemy of love…
– Photo by Chuck Ketchel

Ultimately, love is a conscious process. True, the energies of the deepest human needs must enter a love relationship, but passion without consciousness can never equate to love. To be free to love, we must first be freed of the lessons of compulsion, that which is mysterious participation without consciousness.

Obsessions eventually lift as we integrate into our wholeness our genuine ability to love and be loved, as we square the circle of our being with consciousness. The unconscious will always communicate its secrets, but as full-fledged conscious partners we are freed to mystically participate in ongoing adventures of life and love.

From the mystique of it all,
Chuck

Note from Wikipedia regarding what Carl Jung said about the subject: “PARTICIPATION MYSTIQUE is a term derived from Lévy-Bruhl. It denotes a peculiar kind of psychological connection with objects, and consists in the fact that the subject cannot clearly distinguish himself from the object but is bound to it by a direct relationship which amounts to partial identity. (Jung, [1921] 1971: paragraph 781).”

Chuck’s Place: Apple & ISIS

Still playing the same old record, reflecting the shadow? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Still playing the same old record, reflecting the shadow?
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

I honor this Patriot’s Day by reflecting upon the deep opposition that rocked our world on 9/11/2001 and continues, in ever-changing forms, to deepen the divide in a world so in need of reconciliation. A true patriot loves and defends his/her country. Love and the ability to defend require facing the deepest truths so that action toward reconciliation can be based on what is truly needed; we must all be willing to face the devil within ourselves.

As within, so without. The forces mirrored on the world stage reflect the deepest opposition within the psyche of the human race. Recognizing these opposing sides of ourselves offers us the opportunity to bring to wholeness our individual selves and contribute to reconciling the fundamental challenge of our time. Let us take up the challenge of inner truth versus seeking relief of this inner opposition by simply projecting the evil upon the enemy in the battle cry of war. Such distorted attempts at resolution have never succeeded as they don’t address the true reality of the opposition that is seeking solution.

And what are the opposing forces? At the deepest level these forces reflect humankind’s greatest nemesis: obedience to nature at an unquestioned instinctual level in the Garden of Eden before the fall versus eating the apple of consciousness and choice from the Tree of Knowledge. These are the opposing forces within all of us, two parts of the wholeness of who we are as human beings: instinctive beings with freedom of choice. These two forces are completely out of step in the modern world, leading to violence and opposition.

Our modern Apple has just bedazzled us with the soon to be released iWatch. Apple is the apple of the eye of the modern technological world. For all its gifts it also symbolizes a hubris of mind and technology over the instinctive needs of the world. IPhones rule the world and they keep coming with more and more promise of Eden itself, the latest watch offering to, in a sense, become our personal doctor, monitoring our heart rate, as if this could really cure the true illnesses of humanity.

Meanwhile, ISIS beheads, cuts off the ultimate houser of intellect, the head, insisting upon blind adherence to extreme fundamentalist law. ISIS is so extreme in its fundamentalist opposition to modernity that even Iran covertly aligns with the US in efforts to stop its advance.

The terrorist here is the deeply alienated, instinctive unconscious that has turned terrorist in reaction to the hubris of modernity. On 9/11/2001 it targeted the towers of Capitalism, the World Trade Center, the seat of conservatism and adherence to an old order, the symbol of a world financial order that had for so long neglected, tricked or controlled the resources of the Third World.

Time to slow the pace and get back in balance and rhythm with nature... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Time to slow the pace and get back in balance and rhythm with nature…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

I heard of a college student writing a paper comparing Google to God and the collective unconscious. The deep psyche is not a lifeless Akashic Record as Google represents but a primal force that reacts to the attitudes of consciousness that have broken ranks with its deeper nature and run away with Apple, Google and Facebook. If consciousness allows itself to be continually lured and led by its fascination with the speed and playthings of technology, it invites the collective unconscious in, whose timepiece stretches into time immemorial to produce the terrorist to slow down its pace and wind its way back to the rhythm of nature.

Individually, we must all take conscious responsibility for the direction of our lives. We must reconcile with our primal needs and instinctive wisdom as we consciously direct the course of our lives toward fulfillment of who we truly are, the seed of our individuality fully realized. If we stray too far from our instinctive needs and wisdom our lives will be sabotaged outwardly and inwardly. Paying attention to the wisdom, messages, and compensatory actions of our dreams is a good place to start to face the truth of who and where we really are.

The Dalai Lama, as the nagual, the leader of Tibetan Buddhism, has suggested ending the lineage of Dalai Lamas. Carlos Castaneda did the same thing as the final nagual of his ancient shamanic lineage. Both leaders represent guardians of ancient traditions that fully reconcile with the truths of nature and the deeper unconscious.

The message for the modern world is to take full responsibility for evolving the self, keeping in alignment with our deepest truths. Indeed, develop your iPhones of modernity, but keep an inner eye on the care of your body, along with the true needs of our interdependent world and the planet we all share. Perhaps the Dalai Lama and Carlos Castaneda, two great foresighted masters of our time, offer a model of reconciliation for the opposing energies of Apple and ISIS that threaten to split apart the world as we know it.

We all connect with the beauty of nature... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
We all connect with the beauty of nature…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Both the Dalai Lama and Castaneda, upon release of their attachment to the rigid traditions of their ancient practices, allow for the diaspora of their teachings to find their way in forms appropriate to modernity. These masters charge consciousness with assuming leadership now in taking life forward, the intent being that we all assume full and individual responsibility for addressing life’s deepest needs and truths. On this Patriot’s day, let us be true patriots and assume full responsibility for the truths: as within, so without.

Assume responsibility. Accepting the shadow ISIS within eliminates the terrorist ISIS without.

In honor and reconciliation,
Chuck

Chuck’s Place: The Nature Of Defense

Nature's defenses in control, oppressing life... - From the Thoth Tarot deck
Nature’s defenses in control, oppressing life…
– From the Thoth Tarot deck

The core intent of defense is to protect. Defenses are the actions of the survival instinct; they are nature at work. Both Freud and Jung agreed that psychological defenses originated beneath consciousness, a product of the instinctual or archetypal psyche.

We do not choose our defenses; they are the automatic compulsive actions the deep psyche employs to protect the self against real or imagined threats. Two of the most powerful and deeply-rooted-in-nature defenses are projection and dissociation.

If we feel uncomfortable within ourselves about something we’ve said, done, thought, or felt, our protective psyche might assess this as a threat to our self-esteem or ego integrity. Its response might be to employ the defense of projection whereby it literally projects blame outside of the self, rearranging our conscious perception of reality to keep the culprit at a safe distance, securely planted in someone else. On a grand scale this is how America keeps itself safe from facing its own deviousness: the bad guy is always the devil somewhere else, who we have to eliminate, thus our moral superiority is preserved.

Dissociation is perhaps nature’s most powerful defense. When we are confronted with a danger inwardly or outwardly—that our unconscious deems potentially lethal—dissociation will save us by splitting us into pieces, preserving our most precious and vital self by submerging it deeply within the safekeeping womb of the unconscious. Outwardly, parts of our ego self remain at the surface as an adaptive or survival self, functionally charged with navigating life disconnected from its wholeness. The English psychoanalyst Winnicott called this self the false self because it always senses that it is just functioning or pretending to be engaged in life, secretly knowing that its most vital parts no longer participate in outer life.

Projection and dissociation are archetypal defenses of the instinctive psyche. These are the default settings of our self-preservation. Unfortunately, when life is governed by these defenses it may be safe but totally unsatisfying, as life’s deepest needs go unmet. If the adult self attempts to raise its vulnerable parts and bring them into life, the instinctive psyche frequently opposes this action and sabotages the effort using negative thoughts, guilt, or shame. The instinctive psyche is invested in survival; wholeness threatens survival, as we are challenged to own fully our projected and dissociated parts, which may be laden with traumatic experience that could threaten ego integrity.

The solution to this dilemma lies in recapitulation. In recapitulation the adult self takes 100% responsibility for healing, releasing the instinctive psyche of its automatic protection. As the adult ego bears the full tension of encountering and integrating its parts, the instinctive psyche simultaneously tests the adult self, confronting it with all that has been projected and dissociated from and all of its accompanying terrors of disintegration. This testing process of the adult ego’s ability to manage the fullness of the self is a necessary interaction between archetypal defense and conscious ego. This may result in a one-step forward two-steps back kind of process for a while, but ultimately, once the instinctive psyche sees the ego’s ability to manage its own healing, the higher self is freed to support the ego in the recapitulation process through increasing synchronicities, dreams, and visions that lead to retrieval of its lost wholeness.

The ego unfettered and assuming full responsibility, in alignment with the grail, the true self... - from the Thoth Tarot deck
The ego unfettered and assuming full responsibility, in alignment with the grail, the true self…
– from the Thoth Tarot deck

Evolution is really about assuming full conscious responsibility for our lives so that we may be available for all else that is. If we allow our unconscious nature to merely keep us safe, it will, but only through its compulsive defenses and at the expense of our wholeness, our fulfillment, and our evolutionary potential. Is that really satisfying? Or are we ready to do the work to free ourselves from the divisiveness of our instinctual defenses and claim our true wholeness?

Recapitulation is work that is evolutionary for the individual—know thy self—and the world-at-large too. In moving beyond our personal projections and dissociations we open ourselves to more fully experiencing and participating in life in ways that we are unavailable for while under the control of nature’s defenses.

There exists another aspect to nature as well, the interconnected oneness of everything, and that’s really the nature our evolutionary self is striving to discover and cultivate. In fact, the collective charge of our time seems to be pushing us all to go beyond the self. That is really our greatest evolutionary endeavor.

Going beyond, with love and gratitude,
Chuck

Note: We pulled these two cards this morning, certainly in alignment with the publishing of this blog and our pursuit of truth and spirit.

Chuck’s Place: Inhabit New Habit

Nature is on automatic pilot... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Nature is on automatic pilot…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Reasoning, or thinking, is a function of consciousness. The far greater share of our mental functioning operates on automatic pilot, in the vast realm of the unconscious mind.

Although we can consciously decide to breathe, to breathe deeper, to adjust the rhythm and length of a breath, the majority of breaths we will take in our lifetime will happen automatically, outside the purview of our conscious awareness.

Our unconscious is filled with billions of such preset programs that we all share and inherit from the evolutionary journey of our species. This was why Jung named the deepest level of the unconscious the “collective,” versus personal, as at the deepest level we all share in common the same preset programs to react and survive as living human beings.

The unconscious mind does not need to think through eons of experience in order to gain the precise knowledge of how to react to a given need or stimulus. I was once deeply wounded in the palm of my hand on a beach. I was alone. I passed out; that is, consciousness left. When it returned, I discovered my hand packed in sand, the bleeding completely stopped. I was good to go. The program to “dress” that wound lay dormant and ready in the unconscious. It was triggered to action upon contact with the stimulus of the wound as it pushed the ego out of the way and took care of business. This is the essence of instinct—inherited habits to address adaptive needs to ensure survival.

With the advent of consciousness, human beings have a new source of habit making. Utilizing our faculty of reasoning and learning, we introduce new patterns of behavior into our lives. When we learn to drive, for instance, we—with consciousness—repetitively practice a series of behaviors, such as learning to brake and drive with one foot, learning to turn the wheel, to park, and to stay in lanes with others going in the same direction. Once these tasks are consciously mastered, they slip into the realm of the unconscious, as habits that react on demand, as needed, when we drive. After awhile, driving starts to require minimal consciousness—in fact, we easily daydream while our unconscious reacts to all the stimuli we encounter as we safely take our journeys.

The unconscious is a habitual mind that reacts to needs and commands. This fact lies at the essence of hypnotic suggestion. Like the habit of driving that we ask the unconscious to perform when we enter our cars, the unconscious awaits orders constantly throughout the day. Hypnotists are aware of this part of the mind that responds to suggestion, and speak directly to it.

The truth is, we are all our own hypnotists. The Shamans of Ancient Mexico identified our inner hypnotist as the internal dialogue that incessantly barks orders at the unconscious mind, manifesting in how we see ourselves and construct our world. That internal dialogue may tell us that we are inadequate, unattractive, unfulfilled, undervalued, underserving, etc. Of course, it can also deliver other consistent messages that support a sense of worthiness and adequacy, but this is less common. We become so entranced by the habitual definitions of our internal dialogue that we construct a personality and sense of self according to its dictates. We become entrenched in a familiar definition of self that, however uncomfortable or unfulfilled it may be, persists because of the constant redundant messages and orders delivered by the incessant internal dialogue.

Ready to dive in and create some new waves? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Ready to dive in and create some new waves?
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

The Shamans of Ancient Mexico suggest that we interrupt this automatic flow of messages by canceling the internal dialogue and consciously delivering new suggestions, what they call intent. Intent is the mantra of a new, consciously delivered, command, bent on manifesting a new sense of self, as well as a new world.

When we coin a new intention—i.e., I am calm—and repeat it religiously, like a prayer, we are delivering new working orders, entering a new habit into our unconscious mind that will activate the programs associated with manifesting that intent. We must be religious in our practice—highly repetitive—if we are to push aside the old messages, the conflicting old messages of the reigning internal dialogue, which can only serve to confuse, that is, deliver mixed signals to the unconscious mind. And mixed messages, as we know, confound the manifestation of change.

We must be disciplined and persistent in our practice. Remember, it took a long time and a lot of practice to truly master the art of driving as a guaranteed habit. It is the same with manifesting and inhabiting a new habit. Perseverance and repetitive practice will, ultimately, manifest intent in new habit!

Chuck