Methinks you are right about that. Someone has to do it!
Thanks Ed. I read this quote from US/GOP historian, Boston College professor Heather Richardson yesterday evening myself and was going to post it here. Iām glad you did. Excellent quote, beautiful plain language. It supports what I was trying to express in my more amateurish, expressionistic manner, about the calculated dropping in like a bomb of a āshock eventā to sow panic and discord, and get ideological factions left and right fighting, blaming and insulting each other, all kinds of hysteria erupting, exaggerated reactions, to distract attention to prepare the way for the real agenda. Trump is a narcissistic, sociopathic creature of impulse, who canāt get enough attention, actually thriving and feeding on controversy, his whole phenomenon growing stronger in the face of crushed and helpless outraged opposition (all bullies need their victims, love the tears and squirming they cause by their toxic presences - he needs ālosersā around in the same way a parasite needs warm bodies around to feed on the blood), but Bannon I think is the drunk-with-power so-called evil genius behind the scenes, like Karl Rove during the Dubya years, rubbing his hands together contemplating the schemes he has in mind with that quiet arrogant smile on his face. Hey folks, Bannon does know what heās doing. Heās calculating where to drop disinformation bombs, where and when to stir up chaos to exploit and manipulate individuals reduced to a state of panic and fear. Stay focused and keep your eye on the ball. Donāt get hysterical and distracted. Refuse to play the role of the victim.
My hope is that enough people are going to stay focused, keeping their cool and not taking their bait, that Trump and Bannon and Co. are going to end up severely isolating themselves, hemmed in and cornered by their own lies and deception, their attempts at mass manipulation and control backfiring on them, their circle narrowing and narrowing until it becomes a noose around their own necks. As Heather Richardson wrote: āā¦because shock events destabilize a society, they can also be used positively. We do not have to respond along old fault lines. We could just as easily reorganize into a different pattern that threatens the people who sparked the event.ā
Iām struck by Hedgesā final statement in the TruthDig article you shared, @JDockus:
We are entering a period of national psychological trauma. We are stalked by lunatics. We are, as Judith Herman writes about trauma victims in her book āTrauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of ViolenceāFrom Domestic Abuse to Political Terror,ā being ārendered helpless by overwhelming force.ā This trauma, like all traumas, overwhelms āthe ordinary systems of care that give people a sense of control, connection, and meaning.ā
To recover our mental balance we must respond to Trump the way victims of trauma respond to abuse. We must build communities where we can find understanding and solidarity. We must allow ourselves to mourn. We must name the psychosis that afflicts us. We must carry out acts of civil disobedience and steadfast defiance to re-empower others and ourselves. We must fend off the madness and engage in dialogues based on truth, literacy, empathy and reality. We must invest more time in activities such as finding solace in nature, or focusing on music, theater, literature, art and even worshipāactivities that hold the capacity for renewal and transcendence. This is the only way we will remain psychologically whole. Building an outer shell or attempting to hide will exacerbate our psychological distress and depression. We may not win, but we will have, if we create small, like-minded cells of defiance, the capacity not to go insane.
Obviously, these words relate to @care_saveās posts above, re: the āspaceā we are creating.
But I must say, I havenāt read a more acute ādiagnosisā for whatās going in our world in these precise days than Hedgesā piece.
The very idea that this is really happeningāthat Iām actually being assaulted by a chaotic coordination of death-dealing actors and forces, which are attempting to club me (via a fog of lies irradiating my mediated/medicated mind) into stupefied submissionāthat weāre collectively in the process of being psychologically (which is also physically, sometimes literally) traumatized (āshock doctrineā style, softened up) right nowāis an astonishing thing to realize and admit. The Heather Richardson excerpt shared by Ed corroborates.
I mean, we knew we were being fucked with (the Clintons and Bushes, et al.), and weāve known this for a long time, but this is real penetration now. Moreover, this is only the beginning. Trump and Bannon are just warming up!
Iāve been listening to some Crass. I played the videos again tonight and did some bench presses with my adjustable dumbbells, which I havenāt done in a while. (Spending so much time on co-op work and hustling for cash, Iāve been getting weak in the upper body!) It was interesting reading, as well, about Penny Rimbaudās commune. If we can reach some critical mass through the online work, I would like one day to purchase some land in mountains for a retreat center that could operate with similar values. I would like a place, monastic-like (but Dionysianesque, not without music and fire and wine) where people can go deepāwriting, meditating, conversing, making artāor just come to check their basic sanity. Much as the monastic networks of the middle ages preserved ancient thought and some flame of contemplative awareness over the centuries, this place (interfacing with others already existing or being conceived) could serve a similar role. Obviously, itās just barely a germ of an idea at this point, but Iām placing it here for germination, which might proceed at a turtleās pace, and that would be fine.
The Reality Asylum video is really quite something, and unlike anything Iāve ever seen or heard beforeāechoes of Sylvia Plath, Roger Waters, and something even darker, something I recognize within myself, a voice which has peaked out in some of my (unshared of yet) poetry; I can see why you offered it in relation to those two pieces in progress that Caroline and I posted in the cs.
Incidentally, @Jamie_Curcioās project called ānarrative machines,ā which I was just learning about the other night, with its network of connections to ākin projects,ā exhibits some of the same precisely subversive tactics as Crass. Thereās some intersectionality all around.
http://www.mythosmedia.net/post/155079189357/narrative-machines
A funny sidenote: my daughter and I just finished bedtime-reading Charlotteās Web last week. Itās a wonderfully simple and honest book about life and death. Wilbur the pig is at first horrified that Charlotte captures flies in her web and sucks their blood to liveā¦but he accepts it and she becomes his best friend and champion. Indeed, her āweaving skillsā prevent him from being turned into bacon!
Iām saving the Tortoise and Hare cartoon for watching with the girls. Theyāll enjoy that.
Regarding the style of the Cosmos video, in truth I was going for the very opposite of Crassā¦a deliberate elegance, a vision thatās disruptive precisely by being so radically integrative. I would like to lure people away from the fray with a sweeter tune, not to lull, but to offer an alternative to the narrative collapse of the mainstream. However, itās only one expression of the idea and, as Caroline indicated, merely an entry point, not a destination. I hope many very different styles of expression find a channel here. I do think we need a space of high thought and subtle elegance to contain the violence and trauma within us, and let us transmute it freely. Without that kind of touch, I fear any community would tear itself apart.
Regarding the libertarian municipalism concept, I read up on that too. My takeaway is that we have to try organize on scales that are large enough to be dynamic, but small enough to be humane. A small city is a good metaphor for this. You can have culture, diversity, a vigorous exchange of ideasāyou can always meet someone new in a big enough cityāand you can participate in actual democracy, as in a polis; you are not trapped in the overwhelming size and bureaucracy of a nation-state or world order, but can move around, visit other cities or the countryside if you wish, while still having a home, neighbors, and place (and hopefully time) of your own. (This is obviously supposed to give more of a feeling-sense than a concrete proposal for the scale of what we might aim for here, but it should translate into structure and strategy.)
If I could paint my desired sociological future, it would involve networks of semi-autonomous cities (both digital and analog, and not in opposition to open space or sky) that share resources, protocols, communications, and currencies, without a single, overarching authority imposing its will on them all. Itās perhaps another topic of discussion, but I think Trump could be doing us all great service by destroying an overgrown apparatus that too many of us have become dependent upon, rather than depending on ourselves and each other.
IF (big IF) we could actually get ourselves organized, using models appropriate for a digital-planetary age (rather than a schizoid agrarian/industrial one), we (meaning the big āweā of relatively non-psychotic persons) could establish our own currencies, food networks, production systems, land and housing trusts, indeed, culture, along with everything else we need to lead decent lives. And then fuck the profiteers, and warmongers, and religious fundamentalists. It will take a while, and we will need to resist their actions and do what we must to protect ourselves in the meantime, but they will die off with timeā¦
Yes, itās nice to have a nice big powerful government to provide for our general social needs, but obviously thatās not working out the way many (including myself) had hoped. The United States (and global order), as an overarching entity, needs to completely transform. Pretty clear now that itās getting worse before it gets better.
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Earlier in this thread I mentioned that Trump and Hillary were the loyal opposition to GOD. Your remark registers I believe a similar response and there may be a theme that wants to repeat itself with some variations.
Chris Hedges speaks about trauma. I want to add something about trauma, trance and transcendence. This is very tricky. I take a detour into uncharted territory because we have very few maps for healing trauma and almost none for dealing with collective trauma, wars, famine, ecological disaster, etc.
I had a disastrous childhood, raised by awful people in virulent racist, homophobic, Alabama in the fifties and also endured the assaults of the Reagan and Thatcher years during the AIDS epidemic in NYC. There was a steady drum beat of death, death, death, during two dark decades in NYC. I learned much about what happens when you belong to marginalized, targeted group, targeted by Church, State and Science. We organized, we resisted, and in many ways we lost a lot of talented young people, and that unfulfilled talent, has haunted me, like a phantom limb, that is not there but can still itch.
So I come from a deep Emersonian radical utopian drive which is often triggered by the Trumps and Clintons and Bannons of this World, hence my reference, to their loyal opposition. They wake us up and we must resist and preserve life, and drop into the pelvis and kick ass. We have to disentangle from the dark side of the Warrior ( which Hillary and Thatcher embodied) and start to cultivate the Warrior who fights for something that is Within and Beyond.
As an out of body explorer I have come across the dark warriors who do return to Wall Street in droves and manipulate as much as they can the rest of us in the physical world. I see much of our problems coming out of the liminal zones, the cracks, the in between and I have hosted many encounters with these demonic entities.
They tend to have little influence except in the lower astral and Planet Earth. There are other dimensions where they have no space to act out the way they do here. We can bypass them if we stop giving away so much energy to them. We have to find our center, and protect that center. The dark forces do knock us off center and we must be vigilant in returning to center and refuse to get lost in the field of all possibilities without a good contact with center. Drugs, sex and rock and roll are dangerous for example without a center. The field of all possibilities can sweep us away. Too many lovers without healthy warrior skills!
Our culture wars are basically a replay of these strategies to distract by the field of all possibilities, get to the mall, go shopping, buy the new gadget, etc. The Clintons and Obama have made deals to exempt themselves and have sold us down the river and Chris Hedges sounds the alarm beautifully. Trump arises out of that failed attempt and we are seeing I believe the death struggles of the civilization whoās unearned wealth has clogged the pores of the eco system. Letās remember that the Master needs the slave, cant create anything without the slave, but can the slave see this and disentangle from the clutches of the Beast?
I think the Healthy Imagination is the key to a successful disentangling. The protective sheath of humanity has been torn and the aliens ( you are no good, the world is no good) and the dogs of war enter through the tear and how we deal with this is crucial. Protect the life force, find center, hold a clear intention, and open to the field ( the Imaginal Realms) and the wounds will heal, and our potential can be cultivated and released.
About working with trauma and trance. When in transition trance states are common and even necessary. Art and Trance are kissing cousins. Cultivating high quality trance states that release resilience is imperative or we slide into chaos. We can have Wholeness without self awareness. ( unconscious) Self awareness without Wholeness ( Ego) and we can enjoy Differentiation and Wholeness ( Generative Self). It seems to me the Imaginal realms respond generatively when there is a centered intelligence, with a clear intention that is open to the dance. Trauma blocks and inhibits this generative capacity. That is why I have advocated the use of Clean Language and Metaphor work on this site and other places too.
We have discussed this Clean Language philosophy, Marco, before and I am open to further developments as I believe it can be used in this process we are in the midst of to articulate desired outcomes and to purify the speech of our tribe. Fiction, story telling, the language arts are crucial for the Generative Self to arise from the ashes. So I will elaborate further some notes that Iām making that reference some of our previous conversations. Please appreciate the impromptu nature of these comments and I hope they are of use for they reference those previous discussions on Clean Language and how I believe they can be employed to train the Imaginal Intelligence and turn trauma into transcendence, indeed there is an element of trauma that may be necessary to activate this intelligence. Iām working out this perhaps controversial idea in the following notes. Patience is required!
Some people have one trauma and can be served best with developing a metaphor for that traumatic episode.
Persons who have had multiple traumas, especially as children, have learned how to use hypnotic skills to dissociate ( go somewhere else)This can be triggered at the mere hint of another traumatic episode about to happen.
Dissociation as a strategy for coping with multiple trauma is a great survival strategy, you can float up to the corner of the room and watch it from there. Often this talent can also be developed in non traumatic experiences, in art, theater, fiction, we use the same processes to deconstruct and reconstruct identities creatively. We can go into to other worlds.
Working with dissociation was one of David Groves keen interests and when he worked with me he used a lot of Clean Space. I have found the interplay of Clean Space and Clean Language has worked best for me.
I strongly resist the notion that experts know best. I worked with experts without Clean Language and they are often terrible with trauma. After working with an expert I developed a Touretteās-like syndrome that lasted for a decade.
I found a good CL practitioner with a beginnerās mind and an open curiosity can work wonders with traumatic events. Luckily, I have had the good luck to train someone in using CL and after he worked with me once a week for three months my symptoms disappeared. I have been free of symptoms for over a year. I much favor peer to peer relationships than to the more traditional ways of working. Someone with an arts background and CL is much better than anyone who has immersed themselves in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual.
So having reviewed these notes in public I see I have a lot of work to do as I move through the personal multiple traumas I have struggled with, cultivating good trances and finding reserves. And how that learning become knowledge that can serve the groups I am a member of? Not sure. Thanks for this forum and may we continue to bring our Best Self to this Mandala of Generative Selves in the making-
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Well put, sir. The vast majority of us these days have no tools, no vocabulary, no frameworks for talking about (note, I did not say ādiscussā) these things. Gebser taught me we need to talk/engage/interact not necessarily ādiscussā as that is purely mental/rational. There is a great and pressing need to reactivate past structures. It becomes more evident every day.
Agreed: Hedges sounds the alarm, but when read/heard rationally, he is disharmonic. Though he wouldnāt describe it thus himself, heās addressing a much earlier, and essential, and effective mode of mentation than is recognized these days.
And if there ever was a clear statement, plea for effective mythogical, I havenāt read/heard it yet.
By virtue of his genesis, the expert can never know; by virtue of our perception, he is the only one who can know. Iām with you on this one.
How did Hamlet put it? āThere are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.ā (Hamlet 1.5.167-8)
Abide, @johnnydavis54, abide.
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A road less traveled ā¦
I met my wife while stationed in Germany and living in a small village in Central Germany. I ended up there by chance. This village, according to the Chronicles of the place, has had a population of 200 souls, +/- 10% for the 600+ years of its existence. I maintain these are the same souls ā from then until now ā and they will continue to be that village till they get it all sorted out.
My wife, of course, tolerates my weirdness in this matter. Others in the village tolerate me because Iām my wifeās husband. Judging by the true reactions revealed in their eyes when I mention it, I think Iām onto something.
Many years ago, I was affiliated with what many would call an esoteric organization in what is commonly known as the āTemplar Traditionā. The head of the order was in a battle of life-and-death with his son over the āfutureā of the group. I could have sworn that Jaques DeMolay and Philip the Fair were trying to work out their issues as I watched from an uneasy sideline.
While it is clear to me that we can read much into, if not outright distort, the facts that we encounter, I canāt shake the feeling ā neither with my wifeās home village nor my other experience ā that we may be reliving events that have not yet been properly resolved. Just how much this applies to the Trumps and Clintons, I donāt yet know, but the suspicious thought has in fact crossed my mind.
Now ā¦ as for the ādiabolicā part that you mention: Iām still cogitating on that. Iām not one of those who sees an actual incarnation for what is diabolic, but I also havenāt ruled it out yet either.
Iām still working on this.
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Yes, M. Gebser ā¦
Truth be told, it has been Gebser who has allowed me to think about and mentate upon things that otherwise just wouldnāt make sense (to me, or anyone else). I donāt know yet what I think he would make of all this. Of one thing Iām sure: he wouldnāt be surprised, nor shocked, nor put off by our little chat here.
If I learned anything from him, it has been that there is always a way to talk about whatever canāt be talked about. He provides both a framework and a vocabulary that enables all involved to, well, talk ā¦ interact ā¦ discuss ā¦ relate to one another.
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Thanks Ed for your close reading of my impromptu remarks triggered by this thread. Your previous comments about this current crisis helped my focus attention and develop some latent ideas I have wanted to get out into the public sphere but they are so weird I have backed up and pressed the pause button. Thanks for your kind attention and articulate response.
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This is marvelous, Johnny! Hey Marco, this text by Johnny might be lifted out of here (a mere comment section), developed a little more, but kept lean, not bloated, some images added to compliment, and featured. Itās passionately articulate and useful as a coherent directive, and even in places makes one think, āIs this guy crazy?ā - I mean this in a good way, Johnny: you really go āout thereā, as all creative types and artists actually do (in trance, in active imagining) and pull together different strands, tie together loose ends, hard earth in you too, and gravity (without those I do fear youād go unhinged, and scatter to the winds). You reach up into the cloud of unknowing, yanking surprises through the portal of human memory, your own personal experience, like a magician pulls a bouquet of flowers out of his tattered top hat.
āFor me? aww, you shouldnāt have.ā (blushing)
Good and stimulating comments by you too, Marco and Ed, and by Philippa over at Proposal for Metapsychosis Membership. Much to chew on. Time short for me presently, so canāt reply more at length. Errands to run and then later getting together with my sister Amy and my ailing Dad (good to get him up and out). Just wanted to drop in some words of sincere appreciation.
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I appreciate your reluctance, Ed, and I believe our friend Gebser would as well! I share a personal visionary episode from a difficult time with a few cautionary comments.
I was in a lucid dream state and I was engaged with three sage like figures on a raised platform with some documents on a table before them. I took them to be wise and so asked a burning question.
" Who was I in my past life?" I asked.
" Are you sure you want to know?"
" Yes," I replied." I want to know."
" Are you sure you want to know?"
" Yes I want to know."
" Are you absolutely sure?"
" Yes I want to know who I was in my past life!!!"
" You were Adolph Hitler!" They answered in unison. I pressed my dream hands together in a prayer and called out to one of my teachers and exploded into flames and flew through space. I was the Grand Inquisitor and all of the heretics burned through out history-
Since most traditions are very wary of visionary experiences it is perhaps wise to pause and reflect upon these strange events, the power struggles, that so upset the Apple Cart. When it happens on a grand scale as it is now we may have to accept that we cant sit on Pandoraās Box anymore. The diabolic is pretty much everywhere these days. And our deficient rational dominant culture has largely created the conditions for it to re-activate, to rear itās ugly head.
The Egoic is largely located in the head in most people. And because the Visual system can zoom in and out, and detach and disconnect, taking perspectives that can distort and separate, it is no wonder that the visionary impulse is suppressed and held suspectā¦
I report upon this visionary experience which I have mused upon for three decades.I conclude that yes I was Hitler and yes I was the Buddha and Jesus and all the slaughtered innocents. The vaster range of affect that the lower astral can express is much vaster than what the physical can sustain, hence the intensification, that happens as the subtle and imaginal bodies interface with the physical senses, and surreptitiously enter the social sphere. We can blow a fuse if we are not properly centered.
So I am working on this too!
" There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow."-Shakespeare
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Thanks once again, John, for you superb sponsorship skills. There are many teachers, mentors and coaches but very few sponsors! The capacity to find signal in all of the noise ( and I am alas very noisy!) is a great gift! Deep bows!!!
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Very much appreciate your response here.
Agreed, particularly with your insight as to the relationship between the (often wanna-be) rational/Egoic and peopleās heads. I, too, am convinced that too many are dealing with too much too inadequately, primarily because weāve banned the mythical and magical from our consciousness and we need them more than ever.
Having been raised in a an arch-fundamentalist household, the Devil was always present, but Iāve always had a problem with the Devil (as heās known informally, in our everyday existence) and Satan (his apparent official title when eternity is involved). I never got it. I didnāt know why āheā was necessary. He always struck me as a crutch, a poor reason, an excuse for oneās own shortcomings. Being a believer in free will, I figure we humans can manage pretty well all on our own.
It was only later on my quest that the notions of astrality made any sense and then, with Gebserās help of course, what concreteness can actually mean. Thoughts are things and, like a Golem, they can be enlivened, given life, and they can take on a beingness of their own, from what we call demons all the way to almost-all-encompassing egregores. We moderns, though, are woefully ill-equipped to deal with this and in the true vein of the Sorcererās Apprentice wreak far more havoc than should be allowed, due to our ignorance at first, but later maliciously once we get even the slightest taste of power.
We partake in much more than we are congruent with as all the rules of language (from sounding and alliteration through metaphor, synedoche, and more) and our vocabulary is restricted by what rationality will even permit to be expressed. Iām glad to see your taking the deeper path. Itās helpful and encouraging for the rest of us.
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This is an accurate statement, Ed, and brings attention to what we need to being paying attention to. Our ill equipped egoic structure will get blown apart by the taste for power ( I speak from personal experience) and without a humble regard for the Wholeness factor we are going to have a bumpy ride.
I quite agree that our politics and science reflects this disregard for Wholeness and without a sense of the Whole the partness of our nature can never find rest and we create havoc.
When each part can rest in the Whole we can interact with the Fields of infinite possibility safely and with integrity. We are just beginning to come out of the slime, we are a very new species and our role in the big scheme of things is far from clear, however, it seems that there are enough of us who are no longer willing to sweep the anomalies under the rug anymore. The presence of the awakening Integral is bringing the deficient Rational into sharp focus. This deficient mode has become lethal and I worry that Gebserās prediction might be right. If it didnāt happen he said in the next fifty years it would probably take a thousand years to make the Integral shift. I think the fifty year mark is near and it seems to me are struggles are global. There could of course be a huge transformation over night but it feels like most of us are dragging our feet.
We are laying down the foundations for the beginning of this next stage and we are privileged! Each day I come across something brilliant and this keeps me going in a healthy direction. I trust in the aesthetics of our relationships to bring us into harmony. We shouldnāt expect too much from the politicians.
Obama a few years back was predicted to be the first Integral president. I think that was pretty absurd idea. He has proved to be a big disappointment. But hey-you can lead a whore to culture but you cant make her think!
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Couldnāt agree more. One of the aspects of Gebserās thinking that speaks to me most is that this whole unfoldment thing is not evolutionary ā¦ it just doesnāt go to the next structure: the affected have to effect or it doesnāt happen, and here we are with the clock ticking on that half-century or so and I only have hope that weāre going to get it about half the time; for the rest of it, Iām just my old cynical self. I mean, I have seen what more or less innocuous power has done to healthy minds. When I see how much lethal power weāve forced upon such a fragile psyche as Mr. Trumpās, well, I believe Iām justified in having reason for concern. If the lethal gets the upper hand ā and we both know how self-destructive the rational is by nature ā we may be have to forget about that next millennium.
Disappointment doesnāt begin to capture the betrayal, and the remainder of your cogent statement should be the motto on the manās own self-designed coat-of-arms.
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Greetings Ed and Johnny:
Never fully read Gebser yet, but I understand this. In some ironic sense as well, it strikes me that rationality is thus being addressed while being perfectly rational. Rationality in itself is not the problem. Use made of it is. It can be put to diabolical ends, but I wonder to what extent it can be done so by any one individual consciously and willfully for long. A tapping into āmagicā or the occult usually accompanies that, and that involves pretending, hoax, charlatantry, though there may be some germs of truth in the chaos. It hides behind rites and mysteries and uniforms or costumes with signs and symbols on them. In its most radically automated form, as one example of rationality severed from conscience, all human traces eradicated out of it, mind thinking in relentless cold abstraction, man becoming a killing machine, and even being perfectly calm and casual about it, I think of the compartmentalizing bureaucratic mind of those who carried out orders in the Nazi Regime. That type of rationality has relentless drive to death in it. Not only does it destroy other individuals, cloaked in terms of justification, it ends up negating the individual who embodies it too, first by transforming him into an instrument for the larger diabolical purpose, then literally disposing of him, by the fatal sickness it inflicts because of its organic human unsustainability or by violence of one kind or another. āHe who lives by the sword dies by the sword.ā I think also of the horrible machine in Kafkaās In the Penal Colony, with all of its needles coming down into the back of The Condemned (who at first doesnāt know his fate), pulverizing him to death even as it manifests The Judgement in beads of blood on his flesh. Thatās rationality used with relentless cold calculation carried out by individuals who have been transformed into instruments, to serve the purpose of creating an efficient system which in its ultimate expression is the concentration camp, which in the blackest of ironies produces not goods for consumption, but corpses, hair for sale, and skin used to make wallets. But on the whole, humanly speaking, I donāt fear rationality on an individual to individual basis, as long as itās directed toward reason and making sense, and in the field of fair play is open to debate and question. I have more concern about irrationality and the uses to which it can be put, and the dirty and shady tactics it employs to shut down debate and fair questioning. You mention more myth and magic is needed, Ed. I think that needs to be distinguised and qualified more, and with caution. Propaganda appeals to our emotional centers and viscera beneath the threshold of conscious thinking. On the other hand, any artist or creative thinker dives into the subconscious and swims in the irrational, practicing trance or meditation, or other techniques to channel and guide the chaos, and then, further along in the process, more conscious mentation sifts out, shapes and tries to give some coherency to the matter.
I see this is where Johnny applies his practice of Clean Language and Clean Space.
I should probably shut up and read Gebser, right? (Iām definitely gonna get around to it.)
āBusiness Manā, by Rich Rethorn (1993)
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Johnny, such wisdom and clarity in this comment. I would really love to see you turn this into a blog or article of some kind. It tells so beautifully what this moment, this opportunity is, that so many people could turn towards healing which often looks like trance, interaction, art, processingā¦ If you are willing to expand on it or share it more widely, Iād like to include such a piece in the materials with which we will communicate about what Cosmos is aiming to be & do.
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Hahaha John, we thought alike once again! I made my reply to Johnnyās post, then I see that you had already thunk that same thought a whole day earlier! Delightful confluence!
"We are laying down the foundations for the beginning of this next stage and we are privileged! "
Johnny, there are nearly tears in my eyes, as I tell you that today, reading this whole thread has invigorated me in a way my heart and spirit desperately needed to touch.
When I look upon my life, I observe the relative consistency with which my grounded, nonegoic, and generally beneficial self and my ideas go undervalued and ignored, while baseless aggressive egoistic selves and ideas are fed with unthinkably-massive, horrible energy. To have this spaceāthis forumāto have this simple yet so-heartfelt-as-to-palpably-pulsate conversationāis a lifeline. It is a way I can orient to my evident reality that doesnāt indulge the narrativeāfor that is really what it is, a narrative that Iāve constructed for myselfāthat all I have worked for, personally and spiritually (in terms of bodhisattvaism), all its beauty and benefit, seems destined to be locked uselessly in the proverbial dank, doomed tower of my inner world, while I am compelled to bear witness out the window of hordes of frantic beings tearing one another to shreds with malice and relishāfor no more substantial a reason than our pure, natural ignorance.
Then I read this threadā¦ And I feel like my soul might not be destined to rot in a forbidden cell. I feel like there are others yearning as I do, grappling as I am, with the particular forms (and riding what particular winds) that our insights will take to in order to reach and touch those who are flailing, confused, hurt, disoriented. But intuiting that it involves being together, looking out for one another, perhaps even coaching one another into lessening ignoranceāintervening with one another towards a shared goal of becoming our best selves (fully realized/more peaceful, etc.). Talking to one another, above all. Taking the timeāwhich at this point might be looked at as a coup to reclaim our time from the Total Capital Consolidation Machine in its ever-flashy, emotionally-agitating and addicting formsātaking/making the time to connect. That connection in and of itself might be a viable lifeline to cling to, as we weather the social, environmental and political ultra-storms on the horizon.
I have been stuck on the matter of how to āpackage and presentā my insights, in an attempt to get them out, to spread them around. But tonight, I realize that that is not so importantā¦ whatās more important is that I stay in touch with the possibilities, that I make time to regularly visit these immersive, deep-well realms of imagination and wonderment, that I let myself sink and seep into my true self, irrespective of who sees me, how they see me, when and where they see me. Fearless and welcoming of their reactions as just another bit of reality to be worked with. I must cultivate myself as a waking/lucid dreamer. Here I find myself in a company of fellow waking dreamers and, like any grounded spiritual community, I feel inspired to spend the rest of my open evening in meditation, in absorptive trance, in writing too. Because we are mirrors for one anotherāand I am so glad to have you as a reflection for me in these waysā¦ your representations (in words, here) is a positive image by which to resonate. It is the only time I feel invitedāby anyone other than myselfāto go even deeper than I have gone, so far. Again, like a good sangha. Like a true cluster of holy (whole) people. (This, too, is in marked contrast to my exposure to ālegacyā social media spaces and how people express themselves there.)
These spaces on āCosmosā (or Infinite Conversations), and the inspiration they offer, are precious to me. And itās why I am so devoted to crafting a meta-space that can be a suitably-fantastic container for our mutual influences on one another to take even firmer root.
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Great, Caroline (ha ha). And thanks for the compliment, Johnny, though it appears to me that what we have here is a shared insight that weāre helping each other define and chart out, and I just came at it from my angle.
By the way, Johnny, hereās something amusing. At your comment above, sharing your remarkable dream, you spelled Hitlerās first name āAdolphā - when itās āAdolfā - and my middle name is actually āAdolphā (no kidding). My Dadās first name is Adolph, and he goes by āAlā for short. But weāre Lithuanian, not german. Adolph, furthermore, is actually short for āAdolphusā. My Dad told me he got plenty of teasing and ribbing when he was young. That played its part in pushing him to shorten his first name. I myself have gotten joking Nazi salutes from buddies, when they first see my middle name. Always have to correct 'em, orā¦ perhaps I, like you, was in some previous incarnation an hysterical tyrant who wanted to rule the world and ended up sitting on a heap of corpses?
āPhew, itās hot in here. I need to wipe my brow.ā
āCain, or Hitler in Hellā (1944), by Georg Grosz
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This is beautiful, Caroline, and thank you for your encouragement. And that yearning you express, that yearning is so poignant. We try to sedate, evade that yearning until we finally have the courage to finally stop keeping it in the dark and we touch it with our human presence and give it a voice and after some awkwardness we make adjustments and find we can work with this.
Sometimes it may be enough just to be with the impasse and just let it be. Our problems seem so insurmountable and that is why this is such an amazing journey we have embarked upon. We really have no good maps for the journey and when we donāt know what to do is when generative processes support us the most. There is no single intervention in a complex unstable system that is going to work. We are seduced by the simple as Trump demonstrates so well.
There is much evidence that if you imagine a compelling future you will have a more compelling present. And by operating out of an āas ifā scenario, touching the yearning, seeking fulfillment, there is a field effect, some mysterious force does respond and usually I have found at a much deeper level than we can get to with the narrow focus of the ego mind.
Much work to do, and thanks again for the encouragement to write up some new stuff. I have offer mostly fiction here because I am drawn to story telling but I am also drawn to more theoretical musings too. I will try to develop this Trauma and Transcendence theme so more because I sense we are, our communities are very stressed now.
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