Again with the “you create your own reality” crap

Aren’t you tired of being told that you create your own reality?  All you can think is:

1. Why the heck would I create this reality?
2. When will I get it right?
3. I must not have enough willpower to make my reality better.
4. I don’t know how to make the decision to move on.
5. I don’t know how to let go and let God.
6. What is wrong with me?
7. Yeah but . . . . [fill in the blank with your past story of choice].

Listen to mystic and medical intuitive Caroline Myss put these thoughts to rest.  She helped to re-create my creation!

Teenagers: We should listen to them!

I had to put Mr. Campbell aside for the time being. We had a family gathering for my parents’ 60th wedding anniversary. As many of us as could gathered in their small southern town to honor them. They have been models of grace, love, fortitude, and success. We wanted them to know that.

Three of my younger sisters’ boys came with her. They are 11, 13, and 15. I don’t see them often so once I get over the shock of how much they have grown since the last time I saw them, I marvel at how much they have matured. For instance, my older sister and my mother had boxes of photos out, going through them to put together a montage for my mother. And the boys were surprised to learn that our family hails from the West. Circumstances took us to the South, all of us oddly enough ended up in the South, but our family comes from the West. They saw pictures of great-great relatives on a ranch doing cowboy things. Of course, we had more than likely talked about his before, but they are now ready to listen.

Watching them interact with my parents, disappear for a while to text and text some more, play with the Wii, then play cards, laugh with us, and listen in on conversations about current affairs, I saw the hunger in their eyes to be part of the family and be recognized and appreciated by their elders for their participation in even the hoakiest of games and talk. It was a marvel.

What was more astounding was coming to understand that what I had just read by Joseph Chilton Pearce was correct. At this stage, there are three important awakenings in the adolescent. We ignore them at the peril of our children. And unfortunately, I believe we do ignore these emeging qualities. Why? Not because we are ignorant or uncaring, but because we are too busy.

Take time to remember what is happening in the teenager. Maybe they have some valid ideas to offer during this stage of their lives that could possibly move the entire culture forward. Pearce summarizes below.

One is a high sense of idealism. They become very idealistic as early as 11 or 12. That’s part of the great brain change that takes place following the shift between concrete and formal operational thinking. They become very idealistic and look for models of this new idealism in their culture and when you get to thinking about the kinds of models we’re giving them, you shudder.

The second factor is the sense of hidden greatness. They’re convinced that deep within they have a core of themselves that is very great and that if people just realized how great they were they would respect them. Of course, all we do is try to capitalize on that and make them jump through our hoops to achieve success. But, they’re really talking about their own transcendence that’s involved in that big shift of the brain that occurs in adolescence.

Finally there’s a sense of great expectation, that something tremendous is supposed to happen, and they wait for it right around the next corner or the next hill moment by moment. They always gesture to the heart when they’re talking about this because, literally, their next stage of evolutionary development is in the offing.

Look for that heart gesture. And take advantage of this exciting stage of our children’s lives. Awaken them to the greatness within themselves.

Pathways to Bliss: The Necessity of Rites

I started reading Pathways to Bliss because it is Joseph Campbell who coined the phrase: “follow your bliss.” So, of course, one would find a map, a pathway to bliss here. After all, isn’t that what we are all after? Bliss?

Instead in chapter one, “The Necessity of Rites,” I am introduced to our modern “calamity.” He explains that because our current myths are not fulfilling all four primary functions of myth, we are floundering. The calamity needs to be addressed in order to know bliss.

Toward that end what follows is a summary of Campbell’s explanation of the four primary functions of myth. We can then know which functions our myths are not fulfilling and work on regaining function. When we live in the function, this is the path to follow.

However, before we can begin this enumeration, we must recognize that myth evolves out of our need to evade, avoid, deny the first law of existence. I quote at length because the poetry of his explanation carries the explanation.

Now, life lives on life. Its first law is, now I’ll eat you, now you eat me–quite something for consciousness to assimilate. This business of life living on life–on death–had been in process for billions of years before eyes opened and became aware of what was going on out there, long before Homo sapien’s appearance in the universe. The organs of life had evolved to depend on the death of others for their existence. These organs have impulses of which your consciousness isn’t even aware; when it becomes aware of them, you may become scared that this eat-or-be-eaten horror is what you are.

Myth functions to “reconcile consciousness” of this “horrendous presence,” this raw fact of life of which during our waking hours we prefer being unaware.

The four functions of myth are:

1. “To evoke in the individual a sense of grateful, affirmative awe before the monstrous mystery that is existence.”
2. “To present an image of the cosmos that will maintain your sense of mystical awe and explain everything that you come into contact with in the universe around you.”
3. “To validate and maintain a certain sociological system: a shared set of rights and wrongs, proprieties or improprieties, in which your particular social unit depends for its existence.”
4. “To carry the individual through the stages of his life, from birth through maturity through senility to death.”

So the first order of myth simply affirms life to “its rotten, horrendous base.” This is accepting life on its own terms and in no way “world-negating.” I think for the modern sensibility this seems contradictory. In fact, it is the paradox that what we call primitive man readily accepts. It is reverence for existence at its roots. When your meat is not served in plastic, you accept that life lives on death and you are in that cycle. As Campbell says, “World-weariness comes later, with people who are living high on the hog.”

The second order of myth is to create a cosmology, which science and religion have taken over. The third order of myth is sociological. And the fourth order of myth is psychological.

Functions two and three are in large part controlled by society. We go along for the bloody ride that is the journey we call history. Our focus as individuals is on function number one and four.

However, “civilized” cultures control or deny awe, an issue we will come to later. But without awe there is no motivator other than world-negating. The reverence of awe that puts us in flow when we surrender to it unwittingly becomes for the individual a struggle against culture.

And the fourth function is in dispute. The rites that take you through the stages of our lives are not servicing our needs. Thus we become neurotics.

Because we are so dependent on family and tribe for survival, we learn to think in terms of those primary relationships. However, what has evolved in the Western culture is the expectation of and need for critical thinking, which requires independence from authority. This contradiction causes personal turmoil. It is in fact, part of the uniquely Western and relatively very new dilemma of developing an individual personality.

Herein lies the necessity for rites. Rites lead us from dependence to independence. However, because our rites are no longer sufficient for transitioning us, we are in need of re-establishing them. This underlying issue is readily recognizable in the recent town hall meetings about medical care reform.

Pathways to Bliss: An Introduction

I went out to buy groceries and came back with a book. I forgot the groceries. But in my life, the two are almost synonymous. I went into the bookstore to find The Sacred Contract of America by Caroline Myss. Not in the store–would have to order. Too hungry. Browsed through the shelves and found this gem: Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation from the collected works of Joseph Campbell.

Bliss is what I believe we all seek: “. . . bliss is: that deep sense of being present, of doing what you absolutely must do to be yourself.” In our culture, most of us have lost the model for finding bliss because we do not have the guides to show us how to get there. Or even more disheartening, we chase the almighty dollar thinking that it will take us there. But as we are experiencing here in America, that plan does not work so well because one day you can wake up and the money is gone. And with it, your attempts at bliss. True bliss comes from having one foot in the here and now and one foot in the eternal. And it is myth that serves as our guide.

He suggests the first place to look if you are feeling lost, unable to find your bliss, is to look to the myths of your childhood. They are there whether you accepted or rejected them. I rejected my cultural myths and have spent a lifetime looking to replace them. Ironically, it looks as if the country I live in has caught up with me. She seems to have lost her myths as a loud and confused cadre attempts to taut the symbol of the myth as the myth. They are lost in their own hall of mirrors not understanding that the myth is “transparent to the transcendent.” They espouse one myth as THE myth thereby losing the transcendent quality of the myth. “And one of the problems with the popularization of religious ideas is that the god becomes a final fact and is no longer intself transparent to the transcendent.”

No Small Roles

I caught up last night with a friend. We chatted on line (I think it’s called IM–my technological prowess revealed!). I have never done that before. I prefer to hear voices and see faces, but the opportunity arose, so I jumped on board. I haven’t “spoken” with this woman in years–no need to count, but could be a decade. What I came away with is this: Women Rock!!

She is divorced, putting two kids through college, and taking care of an aging and ill mother. No overt complaints, but more importantly no implied complaints, and I didn’t sense it in her tone. She was being guided by love. She loved her children. She loved her mother. She worked in the office and then came home and worked. But she did so because she was grateful for her family.

Women throughout the centuries have lived unsung lives of service to others. No hoopla, no hullabaloo. Just women going about their days on the planet in love and grace. Women Rock!!!

In this age of superlatives, where everything seems to have to be the biggest, the best, the newest, the fastest, women go about the business of life and recognize that service is the ultimate superlative. But not service driven by duty, service born of love. Wiping the bottoms of babies and wiping the bottoms of parents too ill from chemotherapy to manage themselves, this is service born of love. There are no small roles. You are appreciated. You are loved. You are seen. You are heard. And the world is grateful.

I see you Mr. Obama!

Last night Mr. Obama made a cameo appearance in my dream. I rarely dream about people I know or people in the public eye, so when I do, I pay attention. I don’t remember anything about the dream except the little snippet of Mr. Obama standing at the window looking out onto the grounds of the White House. He was pensive, stroking his chin, his expression earnest. How I cleared security to do this, I have no idea, and it is the wonder of dreams that we can so manipulate reality, but I was standing on the grounds just outside the window. The only thing I remember outside of this is how I felt and my plea to him: “Step away from the window Mr. Obama!”

I was frightened for him. He was much too vulnerable there in plain sight. He was an easy target for a sniper. I just kept shouting the same phrase over and over. Didn’t he understand that he should be more careful? Didn’t he recognize that people are “gunning for him” spurred on by the hate mongers in the media?

So I woke up this morning with this image of our president in my head, wondering what such a dream would mean. And I have come to this: it is time for all of us to be “in plain sight.” It is time for me to be willing to speak my mind for what I believe. I am fascinated by the fervor over his attempts to do SOMETHING. And horrified that we seem not able to have civil conversations about what to do. What is certain is that with the level of divisiveness that we are experiencing NOTHING will change.

In the much ballyhooed speech to the children of our nation, he said in his way what President Kennedy had said:

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.

My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

I do not know what is the best way to handle health care reform. I do not know how to fix the education system. I care not to enter into the world of politics per se because that is not my forte. And as my sister-in-law has reminded me, I am probably too forthright to be a politician. But it is clear, people want to be heard. People want their voices to be heard. And this is where I can help.

I can contribute to the freedom of man by helping one person at a time understand the power of his/her story. I can contribute to improving your health by helping you to appreciate your life’s story and work on the trajectory of the plotline to include healthfulness. I can supplement the educational system by helping students to gain a love of the language and to strengthen their writing voices for practical and emotional reasons.

So in my waking state I say: “I see you Mr. Obama. And I thank you for your courage and your fortitude in these trying and transitional times.”

Waking Moments: Anarcho-capitalism

Be mindful of what you read right before you go to bed. It is wise advice to not actively use your mind for an hour before you retire, and I think from now on I will heed that advice. Last night somehow in my internet travels, I came across a blog by Anthony Flood. I cannot even pretend to retrace the thread of thoughts and words that led me there. Once there, however, I learned a new word, anarchocapitalism.

I had to turn to Wikipedia to get a fuller sense of what the word means though context alone had given me a strong sense of what it espouses: “Anarcho-capitalists see free-market capitalism as the basis for a free and prosperous society. Murray Rothbard said that the difference between free-market capitalism and ’state capitalism’ is the difference between ‘peaceful, voluntary exchange’ and a collusive partnership between business and government that uses coercion to subvert the free market.” Interesting delineation. I wonder what human fields either system would emerge from?

In Mr. Floods’ blog entry, he posted a presentation by Peter Schiff to the Austrian Scholars Conference that was over an hour of I-told-you-so about the collapse of the economy. I wish it had been an hour of here’s-what-might-work-to-repair-the economy. At any rate, it was interesting to hear the history of how we got where we are. The bottom line is: people will see what they want to see when we focus on the short-term. The systems in place seem to propogate folly in large part because everyone involved seems most interested in amassing wealth and material goods without understanding what role wealth plays in perpetuating the status quo and how long term perpetuation of the status quo affects the world and the myriad humans sharing that world.

I do think that the aforementioned gentlemen are thinking long term, though I do not necessarily agree with their viewpoints. But I am grateful that we live in a society where discussion occurs. Now if we could just get the media to participate in educating the populous rather than indoctrinating or entertaining. Entertaining indoctrination is deadly.

The bottom line is we need to stringently analyze our daily assumptions and this can only be done by listening to perspectives outside one’s own–as uncomfortable as that may be. Strident calls to muzzle opposing opinions serves no one, especially our children who will suffer mightily from our inability to do so. However, I suggest you do not engage in such activity right before bed. Quiet would better serve you–as it would have me.

Another Word About Grace

I have been watching videos of Caroline Myss workshops based on her upcoming book Defy Gravity. She discusses the axial shift that we are experiencing on the planet that many of us recognize in its most obvious form—the meltdown of our economy. Her structure for discussing this shift is based on the chakra system, but she has added a new layer to her understanding of the chakra system. She has shifted her thinking about our human energy system and prefers the word Grace to Energy.

It’s exciting to see the evolution of her thinking. She has truly claimed her role as a revolutionary thinker and challenges you to join her. And where are we going?:

“We are headed, all of us, into the global age, an age of the psyche and soul. This is the age of mystics out of monasteries, where the inner life will emerge as equal in authority to the physical.”

Are you ready for the ride?

Even though I have lived in a multi-cultural environment for most of my adult life, I have not felt prepared to accept the global age. But we are a global community. There is no denying it, no running from, no hiding from it. I’ve tried. This depletes your “grace-level.” And baby, we are going to need to replenish our grace levels as we step into the age of the psyche and soul.

Grace: My New Favorite Word

My new favorite word is Grace. I have come to a new understanding of its meaning, which is helping me to navigate my world in a new and more peaceful way. Below is “a word about grace” taken from the May Newsletter of Caroline Myss.

A word about grace: the ear-mark of grace is that it carries with it the power to transform the receiver. Grace is a “verb”, not a “noun”. The instructions that come through grace lead to action of mind, of heart, and of soul. As you listen with the eyes and ears of your soul, you hold the intention to “see what the other cannot see and hear what the other cannot hear” so that you may be a Light for that person in the Night. To request grace as a prayer, “I ask for the grace of Illumination so that I may see clearly what this person cannot see and hear clearly what this person cannot hear. May I serve as a Divine Light in the Night for this soul.”

The Gift of Dyslexia and the Power of the Wounded Healer

A colleague and friend of mine wrote a recent blog entry on her experience and expression of the wounded healer archetype. She describes in startling detail how it manifests in her as a struggle with dyslexia. She just came to a diagnosis in her forties. Not common. But she’s very bright and managed to skirt the educational system that demanded that she have a command of reading the written word. She “tricked” the system and received an Ivy League education.

[One by-product of her “trickery” is that she is an excellent listener which adds to the profundity of her healing talents: an important issue worth returning to at another time.]

I had worked with her intimately in a mastermind group for almost a year before she “confessed” her suspicions of the dyslexia. I was a bit suspicious of her self-diagnosis. I thought that maybe she had under-estimated the demands on her time and energy. She is the mother of four, a wife, a healer, and an entrepreneur busy growing a business. My thinking was that she was more overwhelmed than she cared to admit and that fatigue and the lack of time to focus were more at play than anything else.

Rather arrogantly, I dismissed her concerns, which of course, reflects my bias.

What was so hard for me to process was my knowledge that she had spent the better part of the year writing a book. She was writing a book for goodness sakes. And I knew that prior to that she had been working on Wall Street as a successful editor of marketing and educational materials for the world of finance. No other dyslexic that I had known was a wordsmith. Instead, they chose to express themselves in different media.
However, I did find myself getting frustrated with her when we would discuss the progress on her book.

I have my own experience as an editor. I have edited thousands of freshman and sophomore papers written in response to literature, research, writing prompts, emotional prompts, grammar studies, rhetorical studies. In short, I was in the business of helping students understand their relationship to language and the self as evidenced in that language. I helped them watch themselves think and feel and record those thoughts and feelings.

[As a university instructor, I was never trained in determining “learning disabilities.” And I never had a student “confess” to being dyslexic, nor had one that struggled to the degree that I would have suspected a learning disability. Perhaps such students had self-selected themselves out of higher education. Or perhaps this was prior to the remarkable increase in autistic spectrum cases. In another entry, I will be discussing Ron Davis on this rise in autism and his theories on “The Gift of Dyslexia.” He sees dyslexia as part of that spectrum.]

This woman is a prolific writer. She is most comfortable, however, with writing short pieces because she has difficulty seeing how the pieces fit together. She sees the scribbles on the page we call words in a very different way. She has difficulty reading the material as a reader of her work would. All writers have trouble seeing their work objectively, but she also has the added experience of not “seeing” the work as her mind intends readers to see it.

We both recognize the value of her thoughts and the need for her message to be shared. Here we are in accord. The frustration for me is that we were having difficulty finding a common ground for our discussion. I now recognize it is because I am so language based. She, I was learning, is image based. With this shift in our perception of each other, we are finding ways of talking with each other that helps to heal our confusion.

This clarity begins with the use of the word Wounded Healer because I can understand it as a metaphor. And the power of metaphor is that it can bypass the mind and go to the heart.

In the telling of the story of at last diagnosing the “problem,” she is discovering the gift inherent in it. As a result, she is healing this cultural wound. She is overcoming the cultural “infliction.” And as a Wounded Healer, she is overcoming what society deems an “affliction.”