I took a zen writing class a couple of years ago. It was called, Writing Down the Bones.  I would like to try writing here today; as best I can, paying attention to my thoughts and emotions arising,the physical sensations taking place in my body, what I am looking at, and what I am hearing.  My practice is Present Moment Living.  I fall into delusion all the time, but continue to do this practice, because deep in my heart, I know this is the most joyful way to live...letting go. 

Of course, my ego is very cunning; so I am adding two animals to my animal totem:  coyote and mouse.  The coyote moves fast. Very tricky animal.  You see it, and then you don't. The mouse pays attention to details.  To practice Present Moment living, you have to watch your thoughts like the mouse, because the coyote is always popping up in different disguises in your mind's House of Mirrors.

START NOW!  ( I will do 3 minutes of Present Moment Writing)

I changed the font to blue so people could differentiate the two areas of this Group Journal Post.  I hope they like it.  Why am I concerned whether the readers like two different colors.  The dryer is making noise; and I can see the rims of my eyeglasses, my fingers typing away, the speakers to my computer, the cup of coffee in front of my computer screen, I am thinking ofFinding Meaning in Modern Life because I will post this article there. I thinke i will stop worrying about writint correctly now, and just type without looking at the secreem I can see the pic tur of the bear on my  group profile the left nostirlil is itching and tmy leg is crossed pressure is on my calf uncorss legsm y lef andke is sore  maybe form the long walk I took yesterday.  I looked at the time, and i have one more minute to write i have anitch on my stomach, and the peanuts tasted good  deep breathe people are goingin tothink you rar nuts. buyt why should you care what they think.  the arto of love is to learn to love yourself with abandon.  theyn you do not feelineedy to engage in relationships because you need something for yourself...which is love.  so it over.  lets see how i did here.

The Grace In Dying

How We Are Transformed Spiritually As We Die

By Kathleen Dowling Singh

Published by Harper San Francisco
Publication date: October, 1998
332 pp.
ISBN: 0062515640 (hard cover)
 

Synopsis

Many people living in industrialzed cultures lack a spiritual context for both living and dying. But as author Singh writes:

The transformational possibilities inherent in suffering demand a context of meaning, a framework that creates sense and order out of chaos. (p. 56)

In this challenging book transpersonal psychologist Kathleen Dowling Singh presents a coherent and profound framework for thinking about the spiritual aspects of dying which will resonate with many readers. In doing so it becomes an important addition to contemporary literature on death and dying.

Like other transpersonal psychologists Singh believes that human consciousness rises out of and ultimately returns to a Ground Of Being which is greater than our ego. As death approaches the ego struggles against dissolution, but ultimately is transformed by the healing power of the Ground Of Being as the individual self prepares to return to its source. This model is built mainly upon cases in which death was anticipated and there was time for psychological resolution to take place. Singh believes that these spiritual changes take place even when conditions of death are less conducive to growth.

The concept of "stages of death" was brought to a popular audience by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her seminal work On Death And Dying. Singh extends the Kubler-Ross model by presenting three basic stages of dying:

• Chaos
• Surrender
• Transcendence

Comparisons with Kubler-Ross are difficult because Elisabeth's thinking on spirituality deepened later in her life and she only elaborated on spiritual themes in her later works, which Singh does not review at length. Singh's Chaos phase of the Nearing Death Experience embraces all of Kubler-Ross's five stages (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) but extends them by adding a different theoretical structure to the nature of the profound inner changes which are taking place as the personality restructures on a deep level in response to transpersonal forces.

The Chaos phase entails the ego's struggle for existence against hopeless odds. This struggle is gradually replaced by a surrender to a deepening sense of Unity Consciousness as the individual is suffused with the healing energy of the Ground Of Being. As death draws near the duality between the self and the Ground Of Being fades away. This change in consciousness is often noticed by those who work with dying people. Fear and anxiety are replaced by a sense of safety and love, and a sense of the sacred begins to emerge. It is this positive energy that led one dying person to say "I have never been more fully alive." And the life-affirming effects of working with dying people can only be understood by those who have become more alive as a result of witnessing this gift of grace.

Singh draws a direct contrast between her own work and that of Sherwin Nuland, whose popular book How We Die studies physiological processes in detail but does not step onto psychological turf. Nuland makes a point of warning against overly romanticized views of the dying process and explains many mental processes as side effects of changes in oxygen levels, endorphins, and other bodily changes as death approaches. Singh believes that everyone, no matter how suddenly he or she dies and even if only in the last few moments, dies in experienced grace. But she is aware of the fact that in some cases frenzied medical interventions can make it more difficult for the dying person to maintain focus on the inpouring of grace which is taking place. Medical practitioners may themselves be so uncomfortable with death that they filter out seeing the spiritual transformations that are taking place before them. A benefit of the book may be in helping practitioners accept the reality of spiritual changes just as firmly as the reality of changes in blood pressure.

Her openness to the diversity of human spiritual experience is a hallmark of the book. The psychospiritual phenomena involved are inherently difficult to put into words, and many different cultural interpretations of the same events are possible. While she has her own way of thinking about things, she encourages readers to find whatever spiritual terminology and practices make sense to them when trying to apply her insights to their own lives. Her thinking is most clearly influenced by Sufi traditions, Tibetan Buddhism, Indian Vedanta, and medieval Christian Ars Moriendi practices. She speaks freely of doing "energy work" with dying patients and shares some of her own moving experiences with hospice work.

If there is a criticism of the book it is that in her search for commonalities in spiritual changes at the end of life she sometimes downplays the role which specific religious dogmas can have in conditioning death anxiety. The cross-cultural student of religion may fall into the trap of translating distinctive religious attitudes into their own more universal viewpoint, obscuring rather than revealing the fundamental differences in the traditions under study. Singh works primarily with Christians because of the demographics of her practice. Her insights on the parallels between Christian mystical traditions and Eastern non-dualistic philosophy will not find agreement among all Christian groups. But this is a small quibble, and one which would be hard to avoid in a work which explicitly seeks to present a transpersonal interpretation of what most people think of as a singularly personal event.

The book is too intellectually challenging to make good "comfort reading" for those who are in immediate need of support while facing terminal illness. It will be most powerful in helping caregivers find a way of thinking about spirituality that helps them be compassionate companions to those who are undergoing these sea changes. We would put it on our recommended reading list for every hospice worker.

Singh makes the point that the growth in Unity Consciousness which is forced upon us by dying can be actively encouraged during life through meditation and other spiritual disciplines. She urges her healthy readers to find a spiritual practice that works for them and to use it to gain familiarity with the Ground Of Being while we are in the midst of life rather than at its edge.

Kathleen Dowling Singh, Ph.D., has experience in both transpersonal psychology and many spiritual traditions. She works with dying people in a large hospice in Florida and regularly addresses audiences on death, dying, and the hospice movement.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Living, Dying, and Transformation

The Journey To Ego

The Consciousness Of The Ego: Halfway Home

The Path Of Return

From Tragedy To Grace

The "Special Conditions" Of Transformation

The Psychospiritual Stages Of Dying

The Nearing Death Experience

Entering The Mystery

At The Edge Of Life

Appendix I: The Sufi Cartography Of Levels Of Consciousness

Appendix II: Karnofsky Performance Status Scale

Appendix III: Comparison Of Cartographies

Notes

Glossary

Selected Bibliography

Index

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 The vast majority of individuals never "wake up." It is a mystery why. But there are forces here which generate the potential for all persons on this earth to wake up.

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There are many religious traditions. Some promise an agenda of ‘waking up", while others do not address this issue. But for those who wish to investigate, there are resources to bring to this issue. For example, we might want to know "from what does a person wake up?" Or perhaps the question is "What would a person need to wake up to?" And then there is the most basic question "What IS waking up?"

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The most basic issue in becoming more conscious is that most people don’t realize the reasons they feel the way they do, or the reasons they have the values and beliefs they do, or the reasons they possess the ideals they do. They believe themselves to be acting as individuals, but all these behaviors are based upon societal programming, molding and sculpting of their personalities. They have been convinced that they have been given the "good" or "best" values, while all along they have been manipulated into being controllable and malleable children, employees, and citizens.

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We all experience life in such a way that we have taken in ideals, values, beliefs, rules of behavior, and rules of morality which cause us to respond to life unconscious of why we do what we do, feel what we feel, and view ourselves as we do.. Mankind consequently operates on the basis of assumptions about himself and life that lead to repetitive behavior patterns that create suffering for himself and others.

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Most people never challenge those assumptions or realize how they are devaluing of their human potentials and the quality of their lives. Waking up amounts to realizing how these "programmed" values and belief systems have decimated the quality of our life. People who "wake up" come to realize how much of their lives have been lived "unconsciously", believing themselves to be acting as individuals while in fact believing and behaving exactly as most others who also have acculturated to these societal values and belief systems. We are truly "the unthinking masses".

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"Individuation" is the archetypal process of psychologically "growing up", abandoning these values and belief systems inculcated by life experiences and parental training, and becoming more individualistic. In becoming an "individual", a person is able to realize far more of the unique potentials he or she was given at birth, but which…because of social programming…he or she never realized was a part of their possibilities. Individualization means a person becomes able to be self reliant and to speak their own individual truth rather than unconsciously parroting the beliefs promoted by society’s opinion makers and vested interests who are constantly promoting themes, values, beliefs, or morals that benefit themselves.

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While "waking up" may SOUND like an action that any person might choose to do voluntarily, there is actually an energetic factor that promotes and guides it, and that is the reason for this brief summary of what is going on "under the surface". Perhaps you will recognize your own experience in this summary.

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The Embodiment of Spirituality

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We are indebted to Michael Washburn’s book Embodied Spirituality in a Sacred World for a description and theory explaining the energetic of "waking up" at mid-life. For the first time, we have a energetic explanation that lays out the psychological, spiritual and energetic "stages" of human growth into maturity underlying the "individuation" process.

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Washburn advances the theory that human development follows a "spiral path." This is actually a very old idea, but some modern spiritual theorists, notably Ken Wilber, have refuted the concept on the basis that it implies a "regression" of some sort into infantile states of mind. Washburn argues, and I think fairly effectively, that there is a temporary "regression in service to a Transcendence" that leaves an individual at a higher level spiritually and psychologically than before; ergo, on a "spiral path" of growth. Spiraling implies that the individual returns to an earlier stage in his development but continues on to a higher state of consciousness; he returns to issues that he had passed through already, but only as a stage on a path spiraling higher and higher. But to understand why an individual would need to do so, we need to get into the process itself.

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The Ecstasy of the New Born

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Washburn’s point is that there is an Energy Field…he calls it the Dynamic Ground…which is the Energy Field of Spirit that manifests as each human life. That energy field is the Deep Psyche Itself, alive and intelligent, and at the time a child is conceived that Field floods the growing mind and body with energy and vitality. This energy field carries the instincts, the sources of affective human response, and the creative, symbol producing imagination to be inculcated into the growing fetus and after birth, into the growing infant. Washburn describes the Field in this way:

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Organized in this most basic way, the Ground is the enveloping "water" of the so-called oceanic experience, the state of blissful suspended animation that precedes ego differentiation.

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Although the nascent ego [of the growing child] emerges from the Ground during periods of wakeful engagement, it does not yet recognize a world beyond itself. It does not yet divide experience into immanent (self) and transcendent (not-self) domains.

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Washburn, in fact, is summarizing well documented studies of infant behavior and development in terms of its ability recognize differences between its self and "Other" in the world. It takes some time for this to occur. In fact, during its early months, the new-born is not generally able to distinguish between itself and its caregiver…normally its mother. "The new born", says Washburn, "does not recognize its bodily boundaries as forming an interface between itself and the world. Not only the caregiver…but also the world as a whole exists within the newborn‘s bodily but boundless self." It is during this very early stages that the unconscious belief system forms that it is connected and inseparable from its experiences.

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The energetic underlying the new born early experiences, according to Washburn, are important, because the Dynamic Ground is very active during this very early period in a child’s life. This Field pours energy into the infant’s body, creating a body for the infant of extreme sensitivity, and out into the world that it perceives. All that the infant touches thus provides a field of delightful and pleasurable experiences. To be touched by the caregiver or to receive the attention of its caregiver is an intensely pleasurable experience for the child. The world of a well cared-for child is therefore a source of intense pleasure and delight.

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During the stage of growth from four to five months of age to fifteen to eighteen months of age, the infant enters a period known as the pre-oedipal stage of growth. During this time, the infant’s "ego" or individuated sense of separated self begins to emerge from the Dynamic Ground. It begins to recognize its own body-boundaries and that there is a world beyond which is separated from its body. Initially, its realization of its separation is only partial and incomplete. It is not sure what is separate and what is not separate and only gradually forms hypotheses that it can test through experimentation.

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During this time, the power of the Dynamic Ground…its plenipotency… assists the child in its exploration of its world by flowing out into the world, imbuing it with a high intensity energy that intensifies and magnifies the world, rendering it superabundantly alive: fascinating, magical, and miraculous. Its world is made by this plenipotency into a veritable Garden of Eden for the child, imbued with a numinous and powerful Presence that IS the Dynamic Field.

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As its energy pours out, it also encompasses the Child’s caregiver, imbuing her with a powerful and archetypal significance. The caregiver is given, by the Field, the archetypal symbolism to the child of the Great Mother while also the physical, emotional, and mental characteristics of the mother are taken in. There is both an inner symbolic identity that the caregiver takes on in the psyche of the child and an outer identity that is formed. The Great Mother is symbolically a great, nurturing and unconditionally loving aspects of the child’s outer life and its inner psychology.

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The Pre-oedipal Stage of Growth

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Between 15 and 18 months of age, the child begins to understand that external objects, and the caregiver in particular, can exist "elsewhere"…not within the child’s restricted field of vision and hearing…and therefore might not be accessible when not perceived. With this realization, the child awakens to the possibility that it might be separated from its caregiver and not be cared for. It awakens to the possibility of abandonment and with this realization, it begins to know "fear."

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In fear that its mother may "go away", the child begins to cling to her and to experience anxiety whenever she is out of sight, and the mother begins to condition the child’s behavior by rewarding "good behavior" and punishing/not rewarding "bad behavior". The conditioning of the child is begun with this change in her treatment of her child. Now, there seems to be two mothers to the child: a "good mommy" who is loving, attentive, caring, playful; and a "bad mommy" who leaves, in inattentive, punishes or prefers other persons to the child sometimes.

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This "splitting" of the child’s perception of the caregiver’s behavior into good and bad categories presages an event in every child’s life known in psychological circles as the "primal split." It is brought on by our experiencing our loving, caring, nurturing caregiver as well as our exhausted, distracted mother who needs a rest from her demanding child. This split in the recognized behavior of the child’s actual mother brings about a corresponding split in the inner, archetypal image the child holds within her psyche: the Great Mother is split by the outer events into an nurturing image, the Good Mother, and an opposing image, the Terrible Mother, both with fearsome power. This Good Mother is caring, attentive and unconditionally loving. And the Terrible Mother is uncaring, inattentive and hostile to the child’s wish to receive attention. When the Terrible Mother is "in attendance, the child’s response is fear, anxiety, self-blame, and sorrow.

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This split in the Great Mother image is likewise paired with a split in its own self concept. The Divine Child image within is split into an image of the Good Child and an image of the Bad Child. The child begins to think of itself in terms of two beings: an all-good child and a separate all-bad child. This splitting is actually a strategy for defending itself and its value, because the all-good child is not lessened in its value or importance to the caregiver by the presence of the all-bad child within. The all-good child behaves as the mother wishes, and can gain the love and attention of its caregiver by "behaving himself." The all-bad child is then "repressed" and pushed away psychologically by the child as "not me." The problem is that the needs that drove the child to "mis-behave" in the first place are also its normal, natural needs for care, so in repressing and denying its bad-child behaviors, the child is actually denying its own wishes and its own needs in order to please its caregiver and reduce its anxiety at being uncared for.

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The splitting of the Great Mother is at the same time the splitting of the Dynamic Ground, or Deep Psyche, itself because it literally was the Great Mother experienced as love and bliss. The Ground now becomes both a nurturing Ground and a dangerous Ground. And with this splitting, comes the beginning of the child’s effort to push away, or repress, the aspects of the Ground that it fears. The power of the ground is thus compromised and lessened. This division of the Dynamic Ground into "good" and "bad" is a conceptual possibility only, for in Nature, good and bad have little real meaning. There is only what is in Nature, and the judgment by a human being of what is good and bad are judgments relative to the human’s point of view, belief systems, moral values etc. The Dynamic Ground, in fact, is Life Itself, and its nature if bivalent.

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By this splitting of the child‘s self representation (into a ‘good child‘ and a ‘bad child‘), the experiences of the child are divided into good experiences and bad experiences: pleasurable and happy experiences and fearful, anxiety-producing experiences. The Good Child experiences the approved of pleasures. The Bad Child experiences the bad experiences because he is denied his will to meet his own needs rather than the needs of another person. The Good Child is permitted certain pleasures because it obeys its Good Mother. The Bad Child experiences painful experiences and forbidden pleasures.

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This splitting of the psyche, self concept, and caregiver of the late pre-oedipal stage of growth causes an outer split in the world beyond into "opposed realms of safety, togetherness, and delight on the one hand and danger, abandonment, and dread on the other. As Washburn describes it:

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The world, which had been a child-centered garden of delight, is now at times terrifyingly transformed, becoming a vast, haunted realm in which the child is alone and exposed to invisible ghosts and monsters. Just as the child now clings to a loving and protecting caregiver who can no longer be taken for granted, so, too, the child now clings to a small, safe world that is slipping away. The child desperately avoids acknowledging that its world is changing; nonetheless, the child senses precisely this, for the world is now subject to the terrifying transformations just described. Such transformations typically occur when the child is punished or put to bed at night, but they can occur at any time, whenever abandonment anxiety surfaces. (p. 17)

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The Oedipal Stage of Growth

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From approximately 3 to 6 years of age, the child passes through a stage of development known as the Oedipal stage. It during these years that the conflicts arising during the pre-oedipal stage of development are worked through and egoic development is stabilized in a state known as "latency." The oedipal conflict involves the conflict arising between a child’s orientation towards its mother to include his father and his father’s place in his life and his mother’s life. Gradually, during this period, the child is "weaned away" from its mother and comes increasingly under the authority of its father as primary authority figure.

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When the child begins to wean itself from its mother, Washburn points out that it simultaneously "shields itself inwardly from the energized images of its archetypal mother symbols within, and these are energetic, instinctual needs, imaginal thoughts, and other spontaneous reactions to its mother that arise from the Dynamic Ground. So as the child rejects its mother in outer life to begin feeling its way towards its own independence, it simultaneously rejects these inner feelings and reactions that arise from the Dynamic Ground or Energy Field supporting its life force.

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The splitting in the concept of self and in the caregiver (begun during the pre-oedipal stage of development) is matched within by a splitting of the Dynamic Ground or Energy Field supporting the life of the child. As Washburn explains, there is a simultaneous splitting in the Dynamic Ground caused by the child‘s splitting of its Great Mother archetype into good versus bad poles:

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The Ground, accordingly, now becomes both a nurturing Ground, a fount from which many of the graces of the Good Mother flow, and a dangerous Ground, abyss from which many of the dark powers of the Terrible Mother emanate. The child, of course, has no idea that its principal other, the awesome Great Mother, is a fusion of outer caregiver and inner Ground. For the child, the Great Mother is a being belonging entirely to the world "out there." The Great Mother, however, does in fact derive from both outer and inner sources, and the splitting of the Great Mother, therefore, of necessity has both outer and inner dimensions. (p. 16)

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This inner rejection of the Dynamic Ground (and its energies associated with the child’s relationship with its mother) is referred to as " primal repression." The separation that occurs between the growing child and its mother in its outer world is referred to as " primal separation." Primal repression and primal separation is two views of the same healing of the splitting occurring during the pre-oedipal stage of infant growth and together are referred to as " primal closing."

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This transition has both negative and positive effects upon the child’s perception of the world, but in the short run Washburn argues that it enables the child to further develop its ego and "heal" the splitting in its self image, its mother image, and the world. Being weaned from its symbiotic relationship with its caregiver allows the child to reassess the reality of its inner images of a Good Mother and a Terrible Mother and to put these polarities back together into one "more realistic" image. Healing this split allows the child to decide that its real mother is actually " a pretty good mother" after all, and the two images can be realigned into a single "humanized" Mother image that no longer is polarized into a duality of Good and Terrible. Through its growing independence, it comes to recognize that it is neither so bad nor so good, and so it can put back together its split self-image of a Good Child and a Bad Child into one "pretty good child". And also it can realize that the world has both good and bad in it, but that abandonment is really not a likely thing, and even if it were, its growing independence would allow it to survive in the world. And so the split between the Good World and the Fearsome World is healed. Finally, primal closing allows the child to continue to develop its immature egoic concept beyond its bodily limitations into an egoic nature that is psychic in its nature rather than so bodily centered.

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But this healing all depends upon the role of the father, who draws the maturing youth away from its mother and introduces him to the World at large, showing him how to navigate safely within society. If there is no father in the family or if the father is 'distant' and uninvolved in the parenting of the child, the closing may be delayed or even be left incomplete. In the absence of primal closing, the child remains bonded to his idealized human mother, struggling against a repressed "bad" self he cannot accept, separated from his Dynamic Ground, frightened of his emerging sexuality, conditioned to act as a "good son" or "good daughter", locked into his mother's worldview, beliefs and morals, and intimidated by a hostile world he knows not how to navigate. The child can only follow it's mother's model of behavior rather than its father's, because it does not know its father or have a bonded relationship with its father. It remains split, and consequently is weak and uncertain about who it is and how to survive in the world.

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There are notable disadvantages stemming from primal closing of course, Among these are a loss of trust and innocence about the goodness and safeness of the world outside itself, a loss of the ability to be intensely intimate with others, the loss of imagination and creative potential, the loss of "groundedness" and the will to live in a potentially dangerous world, and the loss of that feeling of intense aliveness and pleasure that came with the active Dynamic Ground flowing into and through one’s body.

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And in a sense, although Washburn speaks engagingly of a healing of these splits, the splits can never be said to be healed until the repressed material is recovered, the needs lost into the unconscious mind are recovered, and the traumas of growing up are mended. And that doesn’t happen until much later in life, if at all. In fact, this writer experienced all these splits as late as his 50s, and had to reconcile and mend them as part of his own inner work. It therefore remains a possibility that many people who passed through these early initiations into life emerged into young adulthood wounded and split, handicapped throughout all their lives by an incompletely developed ego and self concept. These kinds of wounds "set up" the psyche for a disastrous experience at the Crossroads at Mid-life.

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All of these re-alignments stem from the breaking of the symbiotic connection between child and mother because they all were brought into being by the splitting of the Great Mother image in the first place. When the child reaches the stage of development where it is able to stand the stress of separation from the mother and begin to meet its own needs in the world, the basis for maintaining the split no longer exists.

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By 5 or 6 years of age Washburn continues, the oedipal stage of the child comes to an end, and a period of latency begins, characterized by the non-ionic potentials of the Dynamic Ground. Primal repression provides the developing ego with a period of stability and calm needed to grow outward and explore the world with some assurance. The repression of the Dynamic Ground causes it to submerge and begin to take the form of libido, or sexual energy, and psychic energy. The repressed side of the young person’s self concept, his mother, his father, the world outside, and the Dynamic Ground’s non-egoic potential become the "shadow" or subconscious mind. And inner psychic space is formed that provides "an inner place" the child can go into for privacy. This inner psychic space is a place its conscious self or ego can reside within that feels "within" the body and yet separate from the body. In this period of latency, the intensity of bodily sensations are far lower than were the ecstatic new infant experiences, the imagination is quietened, and other non-egoic potentials of the Dynamic Ground are subdued. The world of latency is no longer "enchanted" or "ecstatic" as was the case for the new infant. The world is no longer ‘magic’ nor ‘numinous’ and new. Now, the Dynamic Ground is "an invisible realm of instinctual drives, instinctually organized energy and primitive imaginal cognition. The ego now becomes a mental ego, separated from the body, which in turn becomes a ‘thing‘ not of mind.

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The oedipal stage is followed by successive stages of individual development, including puberty and adolescence, and early adulthood. And the individual goes forth into these life stages, under the influence of his primal closing and subdued power of the Dynamic Ground. But later in life, the individual comes to a stage in his life Washburn refers to as the "Crossroads" when the tide changes its direction, and the energy of the Dynamic Ground begins again to rise.

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The Crossroads

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Some people as they age appear to reach a crossroads later in life where they "suffer a profound loss of faith in the identity they have developed over the years, or in the possibility that they might succeed in developing their intended identity, and in reaching this point of realization, their desire to continue collapses. They experience defeat in life of such a scope that they give in. Along with these events, the person experiences frustration, loss of motivation, loss of hope, and the sense that life is without meaning. Life begins flowing out of their psyche and libido as they experience deep depression and despair, and may suicide.

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Washburn describes this alienation in this way:

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The world in this way ceases being charged with the attracting, amplifying energy that had made it an inviting, living, natural world. The world becomes remote, arid, flat, and unreal. It becomes a desert. Everything is dead; nothing stands out as urgent or important or even noteworthy. The alienated person is cut off from the world, and the world for this reason appears remote and unreal to the alienated person.

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Most perhaps who arrive at this difficult place in life suffer only temporarily. They endure a period of depression and existential dissatisfaction, a "midlife crisis", and then return to the work of redefining their identity and life’s course. Others continue into a spiral of ever deepening alienation…a dark night of the soul…in which the depression and despair do not depart. These people do not see a possibility of returning to their life as it was, and they see no future. They enter a deep despair that, in the end, becomes a transforming experience.

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For some, this alienation progresses into denaturalization and pathology. For others, it seems to be a stage-appropriate expression of a spiritual awakening set off by the withdrawal of the energy of the Dynamic And it is not unusual for persons caught up in this experience to demonstrate traces of both…such as the symptoms of schizophrenia (known at the "mystics disease" and periods of mani-depression, weeping, and pathelogical states of mind. It is as if the energy field of the Dynamic Ground within them pulls back out of the world and the body of the person, drawing his attention inward and out of the outer world, forcing him to turn within.

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As the energy of the Field pulls back, the ego is de-energized as well and is pulled inward toward the Dynamic Ground which is recharging within itself. This de-energizing of the ego causes the person to see himself and his identity as a "lifeless mask" and not at all authentic. The conscious mind, the ego, finds itself caught in an "undertow", a powerful gravitational pull that carries it inward and away from life. At first, the ego knows not what is happening to it, and may react in fear and panic, because the person has no precedence in experience with which to compare what is happening to it. Ego may struggle to survive, caught in its fear that it is dying one moment and then recovering to struggle to live. But in a sense, the ego is experiencing a death process. The person soon loses all respect for the inauthenticity of his former identity and self concept and abandons its roles in life. And as the ego continues to deteriorate, so too does the ability to function in the world at large. He dwells in a state of restless confusion, not recognizing himself in others needs nor in their pretensions and inauthenticities. He is unable to continue relating to others or to his close relationships at all. And so he may break off relationships with colleagues and friends of many years, disgusted at the shallowness of his relationships. And as a result of his depression and confusion about life, his marriage may dissolve and family break up..

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The de-energizing of the ego is matched by a concomitant de-energizing of the body. The body becomes numb, feels detached, and de-personalized. Emotions become numbed and flat. Bonds between people previously linked by love and affection break and relationships are sundered. A person going through this experience "can’t feel anything". But bodily feelings arise of fatigue, heaviness, clumsiness, loss of interest in food, loss of desire for sex, dulling of the senses. In general, the body loses its vitality, suppleness, appetite, and capacity for pleasure as the energy of the Dynamic Ground withdraws.

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The Awakening of the Dynamic Field at Midlife

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At some point in the life of such persons, the withdrawing energy of the psyche and libido suddenly begins to reverse its flow out of the body, our consciousness, and the world. And this reversal creates a re-energizing and resurrection of all that had died going into this crossroads. This re-energizing of the body and mind brings with it new life. What it amounts to, says Washburn, is a re-emergence of the Dynamic Ground in all its plenipotency. What this energy is is Spirit, which begins returning in all its original power. And it brings with it all the potentials, the creativity, the instinctual needs, and affective responses it once had when it flooded our bodies as infants.

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As the tide turns and the Dynamic Ground begins flooding back into the body, the person experiences many changes in his ability to feel his body and get better grounded in it. This bodily reawakening can be slow or it may be quick. If quick, there can be pain and some distressing symptoms. If slow, the reawakening can proceed with fewer difficulties in adjusting. These are sometimes discussed in esoteric literature as an "awakening of the kundalini" at the base of the spine, and the difficulties in as pre-mature awakening of this energy are well documented. Among the effects of too rapid an awakening of this energy are the following: (p. 163)

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Muscle twitches, cramps or spasms

Energy rushes or immense electricity circulating the body

Itching, vibrating, prickling, tingling, stinging or crawling sensations

Intense heat or cold sensations

Involuntary body movements…including jerking, tremors, shaking; feeling an inner force pushing one into postures or moving one’s body in unusual ways

Episodes of extreme hyperactivity or ….overwhelming fatigue

Intensified or diminished sexual desires

Headaches

Racing heartbeat, pains in the chest

Pains and blockages anywhere; often in the back and neck

Spontaneous vocalizations (including laughing and weeping)

Hearing an inner sound or sounds, classically described as flute, drum, waterfall, birds singing, bees buzzing, ringing in the ears, or thunder

Heat, strange energetic activity within the body, blissful sensations in the head

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The Awakening to Numinous Realms

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As the body begins experiencing these kinds of physical symptoms, the ego begins to revive. The person/ego begins to feel like a participant in something amazing and awesome. The energy flooding body, mind and world has a numinous character to it, and it awakens the religious impulse within. The person is likely to define his enlivening as a spiritual experience and define what is happening to him as a Spiritual Awakening. The ego therefore begins to try to align with the incoming changes and to cooperate with them.

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Until this energetic process is complete, the ego cannot align completely with the changes sweeping over its body. The process of independent of the ego, and the ego feels as if it is caught up in a tidal wave of power, for the returning power of the Dynamic Ground is both violent and painful at times, as well as nurturing and controlling at times. The ego cannot "push" to hurry its awakening along, nor can he stop it. The process runs its course in its own time, so some disequilibrium remains throughout a substantial period in trying to smoothly deal with the bodily changes and to overcome the clumsiness and spontaneous movements and desires awakening within.

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The ego will, for a long time, experience fear and resistance to its revival, because these energies are so strong and awe inspiring. It experiences the Ground as living energies that have an intelligence of their own. The energies respond to thoughts and emotions with surges and pressure or tingling. They seem to present ideas and promote issues to the mind. They affirm and argue. They even abandon the field, so to speak, occasionally, and leave the impression that one‘s body is filled with living Spirit.

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As the energy returns, the person’s attention is tuned much more to his body and to pleasurable life experiences than was previously the case. Not only is life experienced more vitally and pleasurably, but the world too is enlivened and vital. As a result, the ego is slowly returned to a state more akin to an infant’s body-ego, in which the infant experiences the ecstasy of being alive, than a dull mental ego. Thought is much reduced, and the person is able to live in the Present far more of the time than ever before. This body ego experiences new pleasures from its body, which is often flushed with renewing energy, and ecstatic states of consciousness, and even manic depressive episodes as mood swings move from ecstasy into depression. The chaotic nature of these swings and feelings can easily overwhelm the ego, and in an effort to stabilize its moods in order to deal with external reality more effectively, it may resist the swings and energizing effects coming from within. Yet as it struggles with its feelings of fear and overwhelm, it WANTS the feelings of pleasure and ecstasy to continue and never end. Gradually, as the surge in this Dynamic Ground evens out, the ego is able more and more to release its fear and surrender to it.

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These experiences transform the nature of Reality for the ego. As Washburn expresses it:

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The immensity and irresistibility of numinous Spirit alter the ego system in fundamental ways. The ego is shaken at its foundations because, in becoming aware of numinous Spirit, the ego discovers that it is not the unchallenged master of its own existence. Far from being master of itself, the ego here finds itself a small, weak subject whose fate is to be decided by Spirit’s changing bivalent winds. The ego here realizes that it is not the sovereign power of the soul but is instead a mere subject, a subject subservient to sovereign Spirit. The ego, although awakened to Spirit has not yet been reborn in Spirit and, therefore, although no longer a worldly ego, is not yet a spiritual ego . Spirit does not yet play a role intermal to the ego system. The ego is thus betwixt and between mundane and spiritual orders. Having died to the world of everyday life, it stands a the entrance to supernatural realms. (p. 113-114)

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As the world and his relationships are re-energized by the inflow of Spirit, the relationships of the person are also re-energized and the energy is by far more loving and accepting of others. Washburn describes this new way of relating as: "it is a transpersonal intimacy of true joining with others rather than a pre-personal intimacy of not yet being fully differentiated from others. It is a radical intimacy without sacrifice of independence." (p. 160)

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The Ego Returns to the Dynamic Ground

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The stage which begins at this point, Washburn describes as a journey of the ego into the supernatural realms. The apparent intent of the Dynamic Ground at this point is to draw the conscious mind into itself with the purpose of de-repressing all the materials and memories lost into the subconscious mind through the years. Washburn refers to this submersion of the ego in the Dynamic Ground as a journey of "regression in the service of transcendence."

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In this process, the ego experiences a new kind of ‘splitting’ of its perspectives; it becomes aware that it is being pulled towards a Spiritual energy that has both light and dark aspects, and in identifying with Spirit as "other", the ego feels itself split between light and dark. Ego feels pulled apart in two directions…light and dark. Feeling ‘separate’ from Spirit still, it is inspired by its light potentials and tempted by its dark potentials. It recognizes that, with this way of looking at things, it could go towards the light polarity of Spirit or the dark polarity.

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But as it struggles with understanding the duality within its nature, it soon determines that both the light and the dark potentialities of its spiritual nature stem from its own natural, instinctive needs. Instincts, it realizes are neutral and are survival oriented. They may be expressed positively within society or negatively as violence and aggression. Instincts appear to have their own nature and will, and it is the ego, itself, that must employ its own will and mind to control them and shape their initiatives into positive expressions that are life affirming. Ego recognizes the ‘separateness’ from these instinctual needs and wills, but also recognizes that they are an aspect of the body‘s defenses. They operate independently of the ego as a result of the natural body senses and will to survive of an animated body will within. And as it sees this, the ego becomes aware that it has a role in choosing how to express these numinously determined wills. It can control and reshape the instinctual nature of the body-mind, but it must not again lapse into repressing these natural needs of the human will.

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As the person experiences these changes, the ego begins to be transformed. Among the changes that are occurring are:

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The emergence of a new superhuman ego ideal

The emergence of what Jung called the archetypal shadow

The emergence of a new superego (conscience), which exhorts the ego to seek its new ideal

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Washburn is concerned here with the tendency of this new spiritualized ego to go into fantasy seeking to perfect itself and get caught up in its fascination with the Light aspects of Spirit’s potentials. The ego may be deceived in its perception that Spirit is something ‘separate’ from itself, but must realize somehow that it is complementary to its own higher spiritual nature, that it is truly Spirit itself functioning as a lower will, and therefore has all the light and dark potentials of Spirit. The light and dark aspects of Spirit are only points of view, choices by animal life of how to express their wills to survive and be well here on earth. Both aspects must be accepted, and with that acceptance, the responsibility comes to make choices that reflect the best interests of all parties in life.

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The work of recapitulating one’s natural needs comes with this inner work…some call this ‘shadow work’…in which the repressed memories and needs lost into the subconscious are retrieved, reframed, and recovered. And as these ancient instincts/wills are recovered, the ego experiences new interests and new potentials opening up in life. The natural needs of the body and its gender-related propensities are cleansed of their previous association with evil or ‘badness’, and the ego is able to consider its full range of instinctual inclinations as a blessing and necessary for a full life.

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The de-repression of instincts and will is felt, experienced, within the body as a reawakening of sensation and pleasure, anger, aggression, lust, and self assertiveness. But even as the ego welcomes its ’feeling nature’ back as a renewal of life force and the will to live, it struggles with its bivalent nature for a long time…seeking to be pure and better on the one hand while wanting to experience the pleasures of its physical aspect, sex, violence, and other extreme expressions of its instinctual nature too. It comes to know that somehow it must resolve its own paradoxical nature and accept both while also accepting the responsibility of ruling them. The seeking for perfection and purity must stop; recognizing this is the first instance of love for ones own needs here. And the unfettered surrendering to one’s gross instinctual nature must also be stopped so that these needs do not rule the person’s life paths.

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The Transformation and Integration of Ego by Spirit

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As the energetic return of the Dynamic Ground runs its course and stabilizes, the ego moves into a relationship to Spirit of deep love. Spirit becomes a Higher Self capable of determining who one becomes and providing guidance when needed, through images, thoughts, synchronicities and dreams. And ego becomes the partner of its Higher Self. Ego also comes to fully accept all of its nature, both light and dark and to assign itself the task of ruling its physical nature and maintaining wellness in its mind, body and spiritual aspects. Ego no longer defines itself relative to how perfect or pure it is, but accepts its faltering and inconsistencies as limitations or constraints imposed by its physical and instinctual nature. It stops considering its resistance and the arising of negative or adverse instinctual impulses as threats from its evil nature, and simply notes them, reshapes them into more positive expressions, and forgives them.

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This is not to say that the ego can maintain a consistency of purpose and intent during the chaotic journey through these huge changes. Ego falters periodically, grows weary, becomes confused, gives up, comes back, tries again and again to understand what it happening to it and choose the best course. As these things happen, Spirit supports its ego to reclaim its identity and self assurance. As Washburn says:

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When the ego is lost, transforming Spirit sharpens the ego’s vision; when the ego is weary, transforming Spirit rekindles the ego’s strength and desire for spiritual growth; when the ego is resistant, transforming Spirit impels the ego to act; when the ego is defensive, transforming Spirit forcibly opens the ego; and when the ego is arrogant, transforming Spirit humbles the ego. In these and other ways transforming Spirit is a motivating power internal to the ego system, a power that both inspires and disciplines the ego. Transforming Spirit both illuminates the path on which the ego is traveling and insists that the ego keep moving forward on this path. (p. 120)

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The ego system becomes a loving, respectful relationship of both Spirit and human ego; in effect, the ego finds its meaning in something greater than itself and in the meaning it finds in "serving" its higher nature. As integration is completed, Spirit ceases its violent transformative excesses and stabilizes into a functioning mind-body. Spirit is no longer perceived as ‘separate’ by ego, but as residing within the Temple of the Body and Mind…ego recognizes itself and the body as ‘the means by which Spirit enters and plays within this world."

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Strengthened by its new self assurance, the ego at last is able to reclaim in part the identity it had previously disassembled at the Crossroads. The skills and roles it had played earlier in its life are reassembled and utilized to develop a new identity guided by Spirit. Ego is again able to embark in life on a new identity project, building its own needs here as it goes.

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The ego, in reaching the end of the spiral path, is once again rooted in the Ground, enlivened and graced by the power of the Ground in its plenipotency, intimately joined with others, fully embodied, and at home in a hallowed, resplendent world. In sharing these deep foundations, however, the beginning and end of the spiral path are otherwise maximally different; for the ego at the beginning of the spiral path is only starting to emerge from the Ground, whereas the ego at the end of the path is mature and established in the world. The beginning and end of the spiral path are alike in being points at which consciousness is at one with the fullness of life. They differ by the widest possible margin, however, in the extent to which this unity of consciousness and life is developmentally unfolded. At the beginning of the spiral path, the unity of consciousness and life is only a primitive pre-personal unity; at the end, in contrast, this unity is a completely actualized transpersonal unity, a higher integration of a fully developed ego with a plenipotently active Dynamic Ground. (p. 36)

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A lot of people today’s world are becoming aware of how much violence, anger, and sorrow there is in this world. As we watch and react to the news on television or our newspapers, we get caught up in these emotions, feeling sometimes as if this world of sorrow is altogether too much. Too many people fall beside the wayside in mental illness or psychotic episodes. Huge numbers languish in depression. And these feelings of despair emerge in a shocking number of domestic episodes of child or spousal abuse, suicide, murder, robbery and theft, and other crimes against people or property.

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There are ancient teachings that can help us with these negative emotions and their societal expressions. We can, by ourselves in our daily choices, utilize these teachings to bring some measure of sanity back into our own lives. This brief article endeavors to describe these techniques so that our readers might do so if they wish.

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These teachings come out of native American experience and are given here so that all may find a better way to live on the planet. These teachings are about staying in elemental balance. The elements are water, earth, wind, fire and the void; and each element is linked inextricably to our aspects of being human. Water is linked with our emotional states. Earth provides our physical body and bones. Wind is linked with our mental states. Fire is associated with our spirits. And the Void is associated with our sexuality.

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These teachings are about the ways in which we choreograph our energy in each of these aspects, or the way in which we use our minds, bodies, emotions, spirits and sexuality to stay healthy and growing. There are specific ways in which the proper use of our energy in each of these aspects lead to good health and happiness.

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The teachings are as follows: we use our energy most efficiently when we...

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• Give with the emotions with tenderness
• Hold and transform with the body through intimacy
• Receive with the mind with caring
• Determine with the Spirit with passion and lust
• Catalyze with sexuality through open heart-to-heart communications

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The person who can live by these simple rules can restore himself or herself to wellness in short order, unless they have stayed in an imbalance so long that they have called in an incurable illness. Not living in balance leads to stress and addiction to food, sex, alcohol or drugs. So when we witness unbalanced use of such substances in people’s lives, we are witnessing the effects of elemental imbalance. But it requires understanding of these rules and the self-disciplined use of the Will to live in balance. So lets examine each rule and clarify its meaning.

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Giving with the emotions

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The emotions are a powerful aspect of our lives. When our emotions are calm and positive, we can be happy or contented. We are meant to live in a state of Joy and community, but when we become lost in other negative emotional states, we become separated out, isolated, and are out of balance. And when our emotions are out of balance and in turmoil, we are miserable and we lose energy.

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Most of the time when this happens, our emotional state is subject to experiences in our past that "trigger" us into emotional turmoil. For example, our experiences as children with our parents may have been unhappy, and anytime those experiences are recalled by some present event, we are thrown into those past emotional patterns set up long ago. Those past experiences have taught us a particular view of other’s intentions and worldview which encourage the "projection" of our own interpretations out onto other people. We interpret their comments and actions based upon our past unfortunate experiences, and we react to those interpretations instead of what is actually happening in front of us. So some event in the present causes a painful memory from our past to be recalled. And then we are back reacting emotionally based upon our inner interpretations of what is happening. We are, in effect, caught in past patterns of perceiving life, relationships, and selves. We are caught in pain and a repeating cycle of negative emotional wounding. When this happens, we are said to be "holding" with the emotions. Passive aggressives "hold" with their emotions. Usually, such people cannot expressive their emotions or feelings. They "hold them in." When we "hold with our emotions", we will suffer from repeating cycles of pain from the past and deal with life passively.

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Some people live in a state in which they "receive with their emotions". There are those persons who, for a variety of reasons, want us to take care of them or take responsibility for their problems. They constantly ask for help or favors, and when we see them coming, we want to go the other way. These persons are "energy vampires", and they are constantly pulling on your energy and seeking for you to take care of their needs. These persons need to learn self-reliance and to respect boundaries. In dealing with such persons, it is important to maintain one’s boundaries and not accept responsibility for their needs fulfillment, or else we are encouraging such behavior.

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Still other people, "determine with the emotions". These are kinds of people who react emotionally to everything they experience. They are at the effect of everything and everyone around them, often living in a state of anger and suspicion, paranoid about the world and the intentions of others. They are constantly going on emotional binges. These people are "determining or making choices from their emotions." This too is a painful state to be living from.

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A fifth group of persons do what is called "catalyzing with the emotions." Catalyzing is purging one’s emotions through an explosive release of energy in the body. A husband who periodically falls into the pattern of explosive bouts of anger at his wife may be catalyzing with his emotions. Religioius fanatics tend to catalyze with their emotions, ridding themselves of their surpluses of negativism through violence and rage. We all experience frustrations and stress through our work days, and as those stresses build up, we find ourselves sometimes boiling over and feeling frenetic and overwhelmed. When a person allows this kind of stress and pressure to build up, he may discover himself periodically exploding in anger and frustration as his wife or children. Afterward, he feels more level headed and stress free. Such a person is "catalyzing with his emotions." Fanatics "catalyze" with their emotions. But the consequences of such behavior will come home to haunt him in isolation, psychotic episodes, relationship problems, divorce, and traumatized children.

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Finally, there are those persons who learn to "give with their emotions with tenderness." Giving with the emotions means that we each endeavor to give love, encouragement, nurturing when needed to others, and that we avoid holding, receiving, determining or catalyzing with our emotions. This means that we must learn to live in the present, stop our selves from spinning into either the emotional cycles of negativism from our past experiences, maintain our boundaries from others experiencing emotional turmoil, avoiding making choices from our emotions, and avoiding behaviors in which we are catalyzing with our emotions. Giving with the emotions with tenderness is a form of selfless behavior in which we support others and avoid falling into the negative patterns of emotionalism based upon self-pity in our own lives.

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Holding with the Body in Intimacy

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When we "hold with the body with intimacy", we endeavor to make ourselves physically strong and vigorous through better health and habits of exercise and eating. We each require good health to be able to hold ourselves well in this life. We require the energy and capability to work, play, and do. We want to feel good and maintain wellness in our bodies. Therefore, we treat our bodies with respect and give them what they need to be and feel well. We "hold our bodies in intimacy and respect" and treat it with affection.

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When we do this, we are "holding with the body with intimacy." When we don’t, we are practicing one of the more negative patterns of using energy in the body. Those other negative patterns result in the loss of energy from the body and ill health, and include "giving with the body," "receiving with the body," " determining with the body", and "catalyzing with the body."

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"Giving with the body" is a pattern of dealing with the world through giving away one‘s energy unnecessarily. Many in our society live by a law of "hard work". Workaholics live this way…giving and giving and giving their energy in their stress filled lives, believing this is the way they must survive. They delete and exhaust their bodies, lost in their own worldview of hard work and survival. This behavior system weakens their bodily immune systems and opens them to disease. They do not understand that they must always retain enough energy to meet their own needs first.

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"Receiving with the body" is a pattern of dealing with the world through accepting physical abuse. A wife who keeps peace in her marriage through repeatedly accepting a beating from her husband is receiving with the body.

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"Determining with the body" is the pattern of being a bully, wife-beaters, and obsessive compulsive persons. Such a person uses the strength of their bodies to control their lives.

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"Catalyzing with the body" is a pattern of seeking illness to exit life. Those who catalyze with their bodies attract disease to distract themselves from the painful character of life. Such people are ‘accident prone.‘ This behavior is a cry for attention and help.

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Receiving with the Mind with Caring

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When we "receive with the mind with caring", we open our minds to the world like an empty cup. We keep our minds quiet and receptive, not constantly thinking or planning or worrying about the future or filling our minds with memories of the past. We "receive" whatever is going on right now; simply take it in. In choosing what to take in, we use the criterion of caring for ourselves by deciding what we will take in and what we will not take in. We learn through this process. What do we want to learn? That is the question.

Receiving with the mind with caring is the efficient way to use the human mind; it uses energy efficiently and preserves our balance among the elements.

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One of the more inefficient ways of using our mind is to "hold with the mind", which means that we come to the world of experience with our cup full. We already know what we believe and know and are not open to learning or relearning from present experience. Learning is a process of constantly re-evaluating what is true and what is not. As we age, we realize that we never hold the full truth of any situation, so we are constantly discarding what we learned earlier and replacing it with a whole new set of understandings. When we hold with the mind, we are refusing to grow and move to higher levels of understandings of life and wellness.

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Another inefficient use of our mental gifts is "giving with the mind." Here, people constantly talk without listening or checking what they are saying against reality. When we give with the mind, we are asleep to reality and at the effect of everything. We are in delusion.

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Those who "determine with their minds" are ruled by logic and reason and are blind to the limitations of the assumptions upon which they base their thinking. They relate to the world rigidly. They can’t make intuitive leaps in understanding nor see the values nor frames of reference underlying others’ points of view. They cannot empathize or move into other frames of relating to others than logic.

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Those who "catalyze with their minds" are tyrants, are regimented and rigid in the ways they treat their bodies, and are often dangerous to be around. Bosses who catalyze with their minds are tyranting their employees to be the sources of change in their worlds.

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Determining with Spirit with Passion and Lust

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Spirituality is a factor in all human life, whether we accept it or not. We are in fact Spirits being here as choosing beings. But we can make mistakes in how we steer our lives in this area just as in the other elemental areas of our lives.

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When we "determine with Spirit with lust and passion", we are guiding our lives through wisdom, through caring choices, and by asking Spirit for guidance in living our lives. It is the answers we receive here that we use to decide what to "take in" through our minds. We feel ourselves in Spirit by pursuing Beauty in our lives, by living our lives pursuing our passions and our dreams. Living in such a way "feeds our souls" and energizes our living.

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When we "give with the Spirit", we are giving our dreams away and living our lives meeting others needs. We are going to sleep and living our lives unconsciously, unfulfilled and disappointed.

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When we "hold with the Spirit", we become disillusioned and can’t see the bigger picture. We are stuck in some view of Reality and unable to catalyze our will to move along further.

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When we "receive with the Spirit", we are receiving a vision for life but can’t finish the project. We just keep receiving and receiving and can’t quite catch the picture or the image that is yet unfinished.

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When we "catalyze with the Spirit," we burn ourselves out early because we can’t process or integrate what we’ve experienced. So we go back to sleep.

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Some few live their lives in a state of "controlled folly", living their lives in a way that their personal growth and development is in everything they do or say. We feel that everything that is not the Great Work doesn’t matter. Determining with Spirit with passion and lust guides everything for us few.

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Catalyzing with Sexuality through open heart-to-heart communication

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Sexuality is a very important factor in the efficient use of energy in the human energy body, beyond even the use of life energy for procreation. When we catalyze with our sexual soul force energies, we leap into creative and loving states beyond normal consciousness. We can achieve states of creativity that surpass us and exceed our abilities. We can reach states of loving, selflessness and bliss that catalyze our lives. We reach these states of consciousness and creativity only through loving states of mind, states in which we feel a state of love and intimacy with the Beloved.

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When we do not use our sexual soul force energy in this way, we lose energy and go asleep. When we "give with sexual soul force energy" for example, we use sex to manipulate others and to get what we want from others.

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When we "determine with our sexual soul force energy", we are acting out the role of rapist or child abuser. We are allowing our anger or rage to control us.

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When we "hold with sexual soul force energy", we are punishing ourselves by not being sexual, not having sex. This results in illness and our bodies are not being cleared of excess energies and emotional discord.

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When we "receive with our sexuality", we are usually alone and are living in a fantasy world. We hold out for someone meeting our ideals or fantasies and never find anyone enough for our love or commitment.

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When we feel out of balance sexually, we can make ourselves feel well by having sexual relations with another, giving ourselves in intimacy, and having heart to heart communications.

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When You are Out-of-Balance and Need to Work towards Wellness Again

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When you are out of elemental balance, there are things you can do to move yourself back into balance. Here are several suggestions that were made to me…

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• Having sexual relations and having an orgasm will rebalance our energies
• Get out in nature to align with the elements
• Go where Beauty is
• Make something beautiful by gardening, painting, sculpting, writing or creating

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If you find yourself holding with your emotions, take a bath or go swimming.

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If you are determining with your mind, go stand in the wind.

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If you can’t find your way to determine with Spirit, sit beside a fire or light a candle.

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I acknowledge my debt to the Elders and teachers of the Deer Tribe of Phoenix, Arizona for these wisdom teachings.

I was doing some reading in astrology this afternoon, and ran across some discussion of "death." You might wonder why such a topic was discussed in an astrology book, but in fact one's destiny or fate is in one's chart, as is the search for meaning...and where meaning is likely to be found for each of us. Life, we all discover, is filled with suffering. And one of the most frightening prospects for us in the physical is the prospect of dying. So we don't think about it for almost all of our lives. Then, when it is time, we go into shock, denial, avoidance, fear, depression, and finally acceptance...that is, if we have time to go through those steps. Death comes suddenly for many through accident, heart attack or stroke, or cruelty from others.  But those who have studied the issue of dying teach that it is very helpful to contemplate and prepare for our death, for in preparing for it we have an opportunity to use our death as a teacher and mentor. And we have the chance to accept our death as OUR death...something that is not an ending but a transition...and perhaps even an adventure for the curious. (Not to say morbid!)

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I'm a Sagitttarian Sun, a Taurus Moon (Intercepted), and a Gemini Ascendant. Basically, that means that for most of my life, I was not able to reach a state of consciousness where I could FEEL alive. I am mentally adroit (Gemini) and even intuitive/imaginative (Sagittarian Sun with Neptune in Libra/5th House), but have never been particular attentive to this physical body walking around under my head. Well, that's where the trouble was, because it is very difficult to find a meaning in one's suffering--and we all suffer--when we don't feel alive and feel the sensation of pleasure in our bodies.

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So many of us go through life racing to get ahead, striving to be safe, struggling to keep a marriage afloat, the children in school and out of jail or the hospital, hold on to a job, maintain the standard of living. I remember distinctly a teaching exercise I had some years back to work through a maze blindfolded.  The maze represented my life. I was told that, somewhere in this incomprehensible passage, there was a treasure. But no one would tell me what the treasure was nor where I might find it. So I struggled, climbed, went under, wiggled through that maze, uncomprehending anything except that it was a very unpleasant experience. I had one thing on my mind: getting to the end of that maze as quickly as possible.

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Well, I did finally get through that d**d experience after two hours. I was weary, bored and battered when I got to the end. That is when I remembered the Treasure. So to make a long story shorter, I had to go back through that maze backward, blindfolded, looking again for the Treasure. I would have never found it. In the end, I cheated, peaking out and seeing where others were grouped. The Treasure was above everyone's head, in the ductwork running across the ceiling. Now, how was anyone to every find that Treasure blindfolded. Stumbling around the way we were, we were all LOOKING DOWN to keep our feet under us and not trip.

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Once I was out of that room, I realized something. I had lived my life exactly as I had passaged that maze. All I had in my mind was getting to the end safely. All I understood about life was that I had to survive my working years so I could reach retirement. And retirement was the "reward" of inactivity for all those years of slaving away. I was controlled by my fear of insecurity and poverty. Never once had I every "looked up" to find a higher purpose to living or to find any thing that would motivate me to live my life in a better way for me, specifically.  In fact, I had never thought of myself as an individual at all, or a person who might choose to live his life in a unique way compared to all those others working dads. The Maze was a hard lesson for me, but an important lesson. Life is too precious to live unconsciously. And yet we nearly all do live our lives in this way.

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The other thing about the Maze experience was that the "treasure" was located very near the beginning of the maze. You might think, as I did, that the reward would come near the end, because that is the way we all live our lives. We live our lives "putting off" the rewards we associate with careers and marriage and wealth until late in life because we are busy earning the rewards when we are younger. We live those early years stressed out of our minds, putting in the hours at work, fighting our kids and our spouses, trying to pay the bills for things we or our family purchased that everyone else had or wanted.

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One of the big shocks I had in my forties was the unexpected deaths of close associates and famous people in the news. Those people, I knew, had like me, put off the rewards of their lives until later, working themselves into exhaustion. But their time had run out. They got no reward. And it occurred to me after this Maze Experience that I had made a mistake. I had misunderstood what life was all about. I had chosen the wrong goals for my life early on and had struggled to hold onto those inappropriate goals all my life. I thought "All those years wasted!"

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So in short, I spent a number of years going back to find my own unique "treasure"...a dream I'd had as a child that had been dropped and repressed and forgotten many years before. I needed to find out what that was that was so clear then and so cloudy now. I realized that in my rush through life, I had forgotten the magical feeling of living that I'd had so clearly as a child. Then, I FELT alive and experienced such pleasure in play and imagination. Now, I felt deadened, numb, weary and my life was so existential. I realized I experienced no sense of meaning in my life. Why had I gone through all that suffering and struggle? For others? Because my parents taught me this was the way to live? Because I naively believed my school teachers? Because I thought a career was supposed to supply me with a meaning for life?

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I realized that this is MY life, and these years are the only chance I'll ever have to experience this world. I couldn't put off beginning to live one more moment. NOW is the time to start living.

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But as you know, there are so many distractions and insecurities in this society. We have to keep a job, pay the bills, pick up the groceries, go to the doctor, get the car fixed, attend PTA, plan our next vacation etc etc etc. We'll deal with this issue of life and meaning later. But death is no respector of our plans. Later is too late.

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When one begins to accept the finality of death, he realizes that there is no later we can count on. Death walks behind our left shoulder, waiting to reach out and tap us on the shoulder. This moment is all we have, all we can count on. If we accept our death and live each moment, we are never unaware that THIS IS IT. This moment, this precious moment, is the moment we have to collect our reward: experiencing being alive, ecstasy, pleasure, Beauty. That reward is being alive in this moment. It is all we had when we were born. We will leave it behind when we die. We experience this moment as a pleasureable experience or as suffering and boredom. How can we make it into a pleasurable experience?

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Act on our feelings rather than our logic. That is the key to pleasure and happiness. Happiness comes from doing what we FEEL like doing rather than what logic tells us we should do. Pleasure is experienced through the body and through the emotions. The mind feels nothing. The mind, in fact, has no idea what it wants. The body knows what it wants. It wants pleasurable sensation. It wants delicious food. It wants to see beautiful sights. It wants sexual experiences and the intimacy of friendships with both men and women. It wants to smell the wonders of this earth. It wants to feel awe and spiritual ecstasy. It wants to love and be loved. It wants to touch and be touched. It wants to hear lovely music, the soft voice of a lover, the wind in the mountains and the trees. It wants sensation, emotion and to explore this world. The mind wants....ideas, concepts, goals, budgets, timelines, beginning and end points, and other practical things society demands.

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But when the mind turns to supporting the body and its needs, wonderful things start to happen. The mind becomes aware of how it can act to support the body's needs and pleasures and wishes. The mind notices that it experiences feeling, emotion, sensation through the body. And this idea changes a person's whole idea about how life should be lived to FEEL alive and ENJOY being alive. Every moment can be pleasure. Every second can be a pleasurable experience when the mind comes present and pays attention to the sensations of being alive in the world. But to live this way, the mind must grow silent. Mind must not be permitted to go off into daydreaming or planning or remembering the past or into wishing we were someone else going somewhere else. There is no time for woolgathering any more.

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This moment is our reward and the sensation and experience of being alive is the reward we get for being born. All the work we feel we have to do, all the responsibilities we feel encumbered with, all the expectations others have for us draw us away from this moment and the pleasure awaiting us right here, right now. We all to easily surrender our reward in exchange for suffering and dullness. And this is madness.

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Society is Mad...Insane. Everyone is making this choice without realizing that their reward for being born is being given away thoughtlessly.  Those who wake up, realize that death walks behind our left shoulder, and ask "What the heck am I doing?" There has got to be a way to live in which I feel a sense of meaning to my life, in which I feel alive and happy to be here, in which I feel well and sane and content. And this is not it."

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Let death be our teacher and mentor. Each moment we let pass unconsciously living in an insane world is a terrible loss. Wake up now. Come to your Self. Take your power and your treasure back.

Here is an important talk by Dr. John Breeding on the terrifying effects of anti-psychotic drugs. Worth listening to:

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uf3uFEXiofs&feature=sub

Don't give your self away for money or security. There is no security in this world, and the pursuit of security or wealth will lead you into slavery to things, the trap of seeking power over others, and meaninglessness. Live for now...not for tomorrow.
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Forget the past and don't get trapped there. Living in the past only holds one in pain and excuses for why one didn't get what one needed. All a person has is right now. Don't waste time blaming others or regretting the past. Do what you want and like to do now, or else you just may lose the chance to do that too.

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Don't live for tomorrow either. Living in want now because you don't have something you may never have means you miss living the life you have now in the best way.

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Don't count on a job to give your life meaning. Live your dream right here and find meaning in that.

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There is pleasure and beauty in the life you've got. Find that beauty and live right there in that spot.

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Live close to your own basic needs--your instinctual nature--and avoid repressing or labeling that nature as "evil." Stop all repressing of natural hunger needs, sexuality, the impulse to action, or reflection, and challenge all taboos dealing with these instinctual needs. Psychological wellness comes when we live according to our basic nature as human animals.
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The pleasure of being who you really are is its own reward.

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Self-expression, speaking your own truth, is its own reward. Don't expect others to agree with you or accept what you say. Just speak your truth and move on.
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If you do have a creative interest, don't sully its value by turning it into a business. Be creative for its own sake. Do what you want rather than what the "marketplace" or some expert thinks you ought to do. The opportunity to be creative is its own reward too.
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Living the life you have is also its own reward. Don't waste it doing anything you don't want or need. Most people spend their entire lives doing "what they have to" and never ever do what they want to. Your mother will be disappointed in you, and your siblings will tell everyone that you never amounted to anything. You get to wear a smartass grin every time they start up on you because you'll know that you are the only one in the family who ever did what they wanted to.

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Don't expect others to meet your needs. They're interested in their own needs. You can become manipulative and keep them on the hook, but that really uses up a lot of energy and makes enemies.

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Don't expect others to be who you need. You be who you need.

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Don't have ideals of others. They'll only disappoint you. Or cheat you. Common sense is a better guide in judging others than idealism. Trust yourself first.

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Don't expect appreciation from others for what you do for them. Do what you want. If you enjoy certain others, then do for them because you appreciate them. Their company is the only reward you can expect for that.

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Base what you do for others on the love you feel for them; never on what you get back from them. This is what unconditional love is.

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Growing up is the best we can expect out of life. If we miss the chance to do that, we die without understanding what life was all about. Life will teach us how to live if we but pay attention. Emotional pain means we're doing something wrong. Wake up to what we're doing that is causing the pain and stop doing that.

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You can't avoid emotional pain, no matter what you do. So live with it.
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Whatever you choose has an opportunity cost.

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Choose to be happy with the life you've got.

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Don't give yourself away for love or relationship. When you do, its for naught. A person who "needs" another to feel complete is asking to be controlled by the other or used.

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Live by your own moral standards or conscience. But don't judge another's morals. Don't buy the Brooklyn Bridge from them either.

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Accept people just the way they are. But you don't have to like them or live with them. Spend your time with those you like.

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Don't be a follower. A lot of people follow others into trouble. Cut your own path and live with it.

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Try to ignore those who reject you or criticize you. You can ignore and criticize them back if you want, but it usually takes more energy than its worth. If others' views hurts, it usually means you have too much self-importance or self-pity. Let go of trying to satisfy others.

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Don't do things for recognition or the approval of others. Its just another form of giving ones self away and leads to your being controlled and used. Individuality is more important than conformity.

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Don't give yourself away for acceptance by others. You lose your right to be yourself and lose your individuality. The price is just too high. Choose freedom or your self.

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Relationships provide a testing ground and a mirror for us all. We learn who we are in relationships. We recognize our natures in those we like (or dislike). Our awareness is "purified" through relationship. We learn to love another in relationship as well as about our own nature as a human being.
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Good relationships require healthy boundaries, just as "good neighbors are made by good fences." Maintain good boundaries for your selves. Meet your own needs first. Love yourself and take care of your own wellness. Except for those who are unable to take care of themselves, take care of our own needs.
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Be aware when you have personal needs that lead you into "serving others" in ways that are really a subtle form of manipulation. We all encounter people who want us to tell them answers to their pressing problems. It is all too easy to fill that void in their lives where we constantly find ourselves meeting with or filling friendship needs for others in pain. In effect, we open our boundaries and let them step inside. It is their pain that drives them to accept realistic answers. Most people refuse the obvious answers and excuse their behaviors because they can't let go of their compulsions. Their solutions will come when they let go of their unrealistic attachments. Until they do, outside advice will never "stick." Don't get caught up in counseling or advising others who are not able to take responsibility for themselves or release their own compulsions. They are here to learn this and have to do their own work.
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Live simply. Avoid duty or responsibility for others whenever you can, but be loyal to those who you care for. Don't rescue others. Let them meet their own needs.

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Choose freedom. It sometimes means you live alone, but that's the price.

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Do something with your freedom. Enjoy it. That's what you worked for.
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Life's stability is constantly challenged through loss. Surrender to the losses life brings, as well as enjoying the wins. Move and flow with life as it comes and goes. Stay present. Avoid too much dogmatic logic in dealing with life's need. Allow spontaneity and playfulness into your responses to life.
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Life is lived through the body. One feels their life through bodily sensation. Allow sensation to guide your responses and lifestyle. Allow pleasure in the body to have a major role in determining our lifestyles. A life lived through the mind along is a deadening experience.
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Act without regard to outcomes.

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The purpose of life's will is to free you to be your own person. In that regard, the pursuit of power, power over others, power through wealth, or warriorship can draw one off into pursuits that bind one into karmic relationships and impose heavy burdens upon us to work off the harm we've done to others.Such forms of power all stem from fear of life. Those who have rid themselves of the fear of life or death quickly grow bored with the burden of responsibility and choose freedom. The higher expression of a person's power is to free ones self from society's programming and demands that he conform to its will. This conformity binds one to the karmic intention of its leaders and those who manipulate policy for their own ends. Work towards freeing yourself from society's values, society's rules, society's moral standards, nationalism, economic ideologies, religious fanaticism, and all forms of compulsion or conformity. Be your own person. Stand alone where necessary to become your own personhood and live from your own center. You will discover that you have become powerful.

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A time will come when personal will collapses and you feel few needs for anything beyond the basics of life. Then will come wellness, peace, stability. Then, if you are like me, you will hear the command to take command of life's will. Be well with this. You are now Him of Love. Feeling few needs, life will move from day to day with a feeling of changelessness. You are now to operate through Will rather than through personal needs. To be in this world is all there is now. Go out into the world without needs or interests to guide you, wandering or cycling into all there is. You yourself bring change without doing anything. Your presence will catalyze others.

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Kathleen A. Brehony, Awakening at Midlife (Riverhead Books: New York)

James Hollis, Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life (Gothem Books)

__________. The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning (Inner City Books)

__________, Swamplands of the Soul: New Life in Dismal Places (Inner City Books)

__________, Mythologems (Inner City Books)

__________, Tracking the Gods: The Place of Myth in Modern Life (Inner City Books: New York)

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One of my favorite Jungian authors, Hollis has many other books he's written on the transformation at mid-life. He's a great, readable author and I love everything he's written. Here is a link to his page on Amazon:

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http://www.amazon.com/James-Hollis/e/B000AP7GGQ/ref=ntt_aut_sim_1_1

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Robert A. Johnson, The Fisher King and the Handless Maiden (Harper SanFrancisco)

_______________, He (Harper SanFrancisco)

_______________, She (Harper SanFrancisco)

_______________, We: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love (Harper SanFrancisco)

_______________, Balancing Heaven and Earth (Harper SanFrancisco)

_______________, Living Your Unlived Life ( Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin)

_______________, Ecstasy (Harper SanFrancisco)

Robert A. Johnson and Jerry Ruhl Contentment ((Harper SanFrancisco)

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Robert A. Johnson has written many other short books on the inner journey.They are all great. Rather than list them all here, I'll just give you a link to his page on Amazon.com:

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http://www.amazon.com/Robert-A.-Johnson/e/B000APIDYA/ref=sr_tc_tag_2

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*Charles Ponce, Working the Soul (North Atlantic Books)

Robert Graves, The Greek Myths: The Complete Edition

Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Robert Avens, Imagination is Reality

C.G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections

Charles Ponce, The Archetype of the Unconscious and the Transfiguration of Therapy

C.G. Jung, Answer to Job

Frank Pittman, M.D., Man Enough

Bud Harris, Sacred Selfishness

Michael Washburn, Embodied Spirituality in a Sacred World

Richard Lind, The Seeking Self

Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Power

Thich Nhat Hanh, Nothing to Do, Nowhere to Go

Hugh Prather, The Little Book of Letting Go

Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance

Patricia Reis, Daughters of Saturn

Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning

Viktor E. Frankl , Mans' Search for Meaning

Pema Chodron, Start Where You Are

___________, TheWisdom of No Escape and Path of Loving Kindness

___________, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

___________, The Places That Scare You

___________, Comfortable with Uncertainty

___________, Perfect Just as You Are (audiobook)

Karyl McBride, Ph.D., Will I Ever Be Good Enough? Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers

Peg Streep, Mean Mothers: Overcoming the Legacy of Hurt

Susan Forward, Ph.D., Toxic Parents: Overcoming their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life

Linda Schierse Leonard, Meeting the Madwoman: Empowering the Feminine Spirit & Breaking through Fear and Destructive Patterns to a Balanced and Creative Life (Bantam Books)

Sakyong Mipham, Ruling Your World (Morgan Road Books: New York)

Christina Baldwin, Life's Companion: Journal Writing as a Spiritual Quest (Bantom Books: New Yorki)

 Ken McLeod, Wake Up to Your Life (Harper SanFrancisco)

Liz Greene and Juliet Sharman, The Mythic Journey: The Meaning of Myth as a Guide for Life (Simon & Schuster Publishers)

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We are the world.  Not as some warm fuzzy image, nor as an intellectual concept, but in actuality, in form and substance, in truth.  No line separates you from the world. There is no division, no wall.  No entity exists to observe the "not me" from a position of separateness. Your consciousness, your thoughts, your ambitions, your values, your striving--all of these are the world.  You are the world and the world is you.  It is an unescapable fact, a tangible reality. 

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Fabric of Self - John McAffee

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If you set out to meditate, it will not be a meditation.  If you set out to be good, goodness will never flower.  If you cultivate humility, it ceases to be.  Meditation is the breeze that comes in when you leave the window open; but if you deliberately keep it open, deliberately invite it to come, it will never appear.

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Meditations - Jiddu Krishnamurti