Psycho-Spiritual Links
Resources related to Positive Disintegration, The Dark Side,
and Psycho-Spiritual Evolution
Contents
Evolving Collective Intelligence
Is humanity
inherently unsustainable? by Alex Smith 4/15/10 - A
milestone lecture by Dr. Bill Rees about our three brains: the reactive reptile
stem, mammalian emotions, and the late-coming attempt at rationality. Which
wins? After explaining years of research showing humanity has passed a
biological condition known as "overshoot" - Rees is examining an
evolutionary weakness in the human brain, which may explain our failure to
react to dangerous threats to our own survival. Full transcript or audio.
Six Degrees of Separation from Reality by Tom
Atlee 9/30/09 - Evolution
demands that we be aligned with reality as it really is. When any organism gets out of alignment
-- when it doesn't fit, when its ways don't work any more -- reality steps in
to correct the dissonance. Organisms, ideas, governments, businesses and technologies die or go
extinct while new ones arise that are more in alignment with What Is. There are
many ways to view civilization in this dynamic. One of them is that civilization is an exercise in making us
invulnerable to the efforts of reality to limit or correct our behaviors,
ideas, and systems. Whenever nature intervenes and says to us "Don't Do
That!", we take that as a problem to be solved -- and measure our
cleverness by our ability to keep doing that thing that got us in trouble. We
are geniuses at impacting the world while preventing impact on ourselves. As we solve our lives into greater and
greater separation from the built-in learning mechanisms of evolution, nature
has to stretch further and further to heal itself, to get us to pay attention, to stop treating feedback as a
problem and see it as an increasingly urgent invitation -- indeed a demand --
to change.
Charles Darwin and the tree of life - part 1/7 – David Attenborough narrates the evolution of
Darwin’s theories and of life on Earth, including the considerable
resistance (by religious and scientific paradigm police) to Darwin’s theories
of evolution, and how science has vindicated Darwin. Video with illustrations and musical accompaniment. Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7.
History, Meaning, and Choice by John Michael Greer 12/31/08 - Like biological evolution, the
cultural evolution I am proposing is in no way inevitable. The crises that
surround the decline and fall of civilizations very often become massive choke
points at which many valuable things are lost. One reasoned response to the
approach of such a choke point in our own time thus might well be a deliberate
effort to help the legacy of the present reach the waiting hands of the future.
The same logic that leads the ecologically literate to do what they can to keep
threatened species alive through the twilight of the industrial age, so that
biological evolution has as wide a palette of raw materials as possible in the
age that follows, applies just as well to cultural evolution.
History's Arrow by John Michael Greer 12/24/08 - Historicism is the belief that history as a whole moves inevitably in a
single direction that can be known in advance by human beings, and attempts are
always being made to stuff evolution into a historicist straitjacket. Some insist that evolution progresses
in the direction of increased complexity over time. However, although some evolutionary lineages have moved from
more simple to more complex forms over time, others have gone in the other
direction. The vast majority of
living things on Earth today belong to phyla that have not added any noticeable
complexity since the Paleozoic. The facts on the ground simply don’t support any claim that evolution
moves toward greater complexity. No other version of historicism fares any
better when applied to evolution, either. It’s crucial to realize just how deeply historicism has become
entrenched in all modern thinking: history’s arrow points in the direction of
progress, and so whatever happens, the result will be more progress. But historicism has a dismally bad
track record as a basis for prophecy. If we are to have any useful sense of the future ahead of us,
historicist belief systems are among the worst sources of guidance available to
us.
Why Dissensus Matters by John Michael Greer 12/17/08 - We have no idea what kind of society is best suited to a world
after industrialism. It’s far more likely than not that such a society will
have little in common with the notions that middle-class intellectuals in the
industrial world today might have of it. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t
try to imagine such a society; it does mean that attempts to push diverse
visions into a single consensus are as unproductive as they are futile. All any of us can do is pursue the work
that calls to us individually, cooperate with others who share the same
commitment, take the measures to weather the crisis that seem to make sense
from where we are, and remember that those who disagree with us most heartily
may be assembling their own piece of a puzzle that is, ultimately, bigger than
any of us.
Dissensus and Organic Process by John Michael Greer 12/10/08 - Dissensus is the opposite of consensus, and it comes into play
when consensus, for one reason or another, is either impossible or a bad
idea. Where dissensus is
encouraged, and individuals pursue their own visions rather than submitting to
a socially based consensus, the results can include dazzling creativity. The greatest master of dissensus is
arguably Nature itself. Evolution
is dissensus in action, the outward pressure of genetic diversification running
up against the limits of environment and, now and then, pushing through to some
new adaptation: the wings of bats, the opposable thumbs of primates, the
cultural evolution of human beings. As we enter a future of new limits and
unpredictable opportunities, this is arguably the kind of organic process we
need most.
Taking Evolution Seriously by John Michael Greer 12/3/08 - Much on my mind of late is the way the theory of evolution has been
manhandled into a surrogate mythology: the possibility that the approaching
crisis is part of our transition to a new evolutionary level. This sort of
question is almost always rooted in the notion that evolution is a linear
movement that leads onward and upward through a series of distinct stages or
levels – and this notion is a pretty fair misstatement of the way
evolution takes place in nature. Like populations of other living things, human
communities face pressures from their environments, and adapt or perish in
response. The evolutionary process
moves outward in all directions rather than ascending an imaginary hierarchy of
levels.
Evolve or Perish by Michael Dowd 11/08 - We are at a
turning point in human history. The quality of this century and beyond will be
determined largely by how quickly we are able to come into integrity -- that
is, how well we learn from and align with Life's One Great Law: evolve
or perish. It's no coincidence that we are facing what many
commentators suggest is a Perfect Storm of crises: the global economy, climate change,
terrorism, health care, the collapse of biodiversity and fisheries around the
world, and a host of other educational, social, political, environmental,
moral, and ethical challenges. Simply put, we are confronted by Reality. The
future of civilization depends on if, and how quickly, our personal worldviews
and the structure of our institutions come into alignment with this Reality.
Integrity (coming into right relationship with Reality at all nested levels
– what religious people call 'getting right with God') truly is
everything. It's the only thing that ultimately matters.
Learning from Our Evolutionary Past Into Our
Evolutionary Future by Tom Atlee - The
universe, life, and human history have been unfolding in a rough-and-tumble,
more or less unconscious fashion for quite a while. Today we have a chance to
change that. If we can learn what evolution has been doing and do it more
consciously -- with more wisdom, compassion, and choice -- we may be able to
avoid fatal disasters like collapse and extinction. After all, one of the main reasons evolution developed
consciousness in the first place was to enable organisms like us (and bacteria,
fish, and foxes) to anticipate dangers and opportunities and take timely and
useful action on our own behalf. Evolution responds to challenges with creative
leaps -- which usually wipe out something that seemed pretty solid before --
and then provides ways to sustain its novel creations until they get challenged
by some new circumstance. Consciousness, too, goes through this same process.
It is called "learning."
Teaching Business Sustainability by Molly Brown and
Joanna Macy 2004 - Teaching
sustainability to business people, or anyone else for that matter, requires
more than additional data, more than a list of rules. It requires a fundamental
shift in attitude, in the way people think and feel. We must address the root
causes of our unsustainable practices, which lie deeply in our assumptions
about the relationship of humans to the natural world, and in our relative
ignorance of the functioning of living systems, including human systems.
How Life Organizes by
Joanna Macy and Molly Brown - Instead
of looking for basic building blocks, life scientists took a new tack: they
began to look at wholes instead of parts, at processes instead of substances.
They discovered that these wholes--be they cells, bodies, ecosystems, or even
the planet itself--are not just a heap of disjunct parts, but are dynamically
organized and intricately balanced "systems," interdependent in every
movement, every function, every exchange of energy and information. They saw
that each element is part of a vaster pattern, a pattern that connects and
evolves by discernible principles. The discernment of these principles gave
rise to general living systems theory.
A Walk through Time: From Stardust to US - The Walk Through Time unfolds a scientific understanding of the
five-billion year evolution of life on Earth. The Walk progresses from the formation of the solar system to the
present. The Walk offers a rich
context for exploring fundamental issues regarding humanity and the future of
all life on Earth.
Awakening the Impulse to Evolve: The Birth of Evolutionary Spirituality - Interviews
with 20± ‘evolutionaries’ – spokespeople for an evolutionary
worldview. I recommend Brian
Swimme for the most cosmic ecocentric view. Also worth hearing: Michael Dowd, Connie Barlow, Duane
Elgin, Jean Houston, Elisabet Sahtouris and Tom Atlee.
Why Meditate?, How to Meditate and On Meditation by Chögyam
Trungpa
Mindfulness Meditation Instructions by Michael Carroll
Mindful Leadership: Meditation Instruction for Maintaining Sanity in the
Business World 10/17/08 - Michael Carroll,
corporate executive, Buddhist teacher and author of The Mindful Leader, gives mindfulness meditation instruction and
discusses how such mind training can cultivate natural leadership talents like
courage, confidence and poise. He
discusses how mindfulness helps us learn to adopt a realistic and inspiring
approach toward workplace leadership. (1-hr. video)
Meditation - The Shambhala Sun's 30th
anniversary celebration culminates with this twelve-part feature on meditation.
11/09
Is humanity inherently unsustainable? by Alex Smith 4/15/10 - A milestone lecture by Dr. Bill
Rees about our three brains: the reactive reptile stem, mammalian emotions, and
the late-coming attempt at rationality. Which wins? After explaining years of
research showing humanity has passed a biological condition known as
"overshoot" - Rees is examining an evolutionary weakness in the human
brain, which may explain our failure to react to dangerous threats to our own
survival. Transcript or MP3.
Into The Abyss by
David Edwards 3/10/10 – About the fear of looking into our own minds and
hearts, and learning to sit and observe our own emotions through contemplative
practice. The claim of mystics ancient and modern is that there is a treasure.
But where is it? It is hidden precisely within the “dirt” of sadness, boredom,
fear, emptiness, the feeling that our heart is an abyss.
Depression's Upside by
Johan Lehrer 2/28/10 - As a society we've
come to see depression as something that must be avoided or medicated away.
We've been so eager to remove the stigma from depression that we've ended up
stigmatizing sadness. The high relapse rate suggests that the drugs aren't
really solving anything. In fact,
they seem to be interfering with the solution, by distracting or discouraging
patients from dealing with their problems. We end up having to keep people on
the drugs forever. It’s as if these people have a bodily infection, and modern
psychiatry is just treating their fever. The new research on negative moods,
however, suggests that sadness comes with its own set of benefits and that even
our most unpleasant feelings serve an important purpose. Sadness makes people more aware and
attentive. Melancholy’s enhancement of mental skills might also explain the
striking correlation between creative expression and depressive disorders.
The Dark Side of the Bright Side: an interview with Barbara Ehrenreich by Anis
Shivani 11/4/09 - In her new book Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion
of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, Barbara Ehrenreich
traces the origins of contemporary optimism from nineteenth-century healers to
twentieth-century pushers of consumerism. She explores how that culture
of optimism prevents us from holding to account both corporate heads
and elected officials. This mania for looking on the bright side has given us
the present financial collapse; optimistic business leaders—assisted by
rosy-eyed policymakers—made very bad decisions.
Humanity's Rite Of Passage: A World Tended By
Adults by Carolyn Baker 10/12/09 - So-called "civilized" humanity has been exiled
from its rootedness in nature and the organic process of human development so
conscientiously observed and nurtured by indigenous peoples. Consequently, the
culture of modernity is not only disconnected from the earth, but in a large
sense "developmentally disabled". An integral aspect of the
disability is modern humanity's disavowal of the initiatory process in the care
and training of children. Carl Jung asserted that initiation is an archetype or
fundamental motif inherent in the human psyche. That is to say that something
in us wants and expects engagement in the initiatory process, not only at the
age of puberty, but throughout our human experience. If the reality of initiation is deeply embedded in our
humanity, it is likely that survival and navigation of the collapse of
civilization will be enhanced by our perception and response to collapse as an
initiatory process.
Sacred Demise: Walking the Spiritual Path
of Industrial Civilization's Collapse by
Carolyn Baker 2009 - The collapse of
industrial civilization is rapidly unfolding and offers us an opportunity far
beyond mere survival, even as it renders absurd any attempts to "fix"
or prevent the end of the world as we have known it. Sacred Demise is about the
transformation of human consciousness and the emergence of a new paradigm as a
result of discovering our purpose in the collapse process, thereby coming home
to our ultimate place in the universe. Our willingness to consciously embark on
the journey with openness and uncertainty may be advantageous for engendering a
quantum evolutionary leap for our species and for the earth community.
Sacred
Activism by Andrew Harvey - I believe we are heading into the eye of a perfect
storm, which threatens the human race and a great deal of nature. I think it is
extremely important that we all stop denying just how dangerous, insane and
savage this perfect storm of crises is, and just what it means for all of
us and the world. I believe this storm of crises is an evolutionary
possibility of unprecendented intensity. It gives us the opportunity to
gaze into the mirror of our destiny, and to see very clearly, that unless you
and I evolve to the next level of putting our deepest principles and holiest
compassion and greatest passion for life into direct, clear, radical
action on every level, we will simply not survive. This great death we are
living, that we are manifesting out of addiction, greed,
extraordinary apathy and fantastic lack of concern for life is also potentially
the birth canal of an unprecedented birth. A chastened, humbled humanity,
opened at last by tragedy, awakened by the knowledge of the shadow, may
really claim our innate, sacred consciousness, start acting from our
heart and turn apocalypse into grace, nightmare into
opportunity, redeem terrible tragedy by gathering together on a massive
scale to transform the world.
Clarissa Pinkola Estés: Diamonds in the
Dark - Interview
by Tami Simon 9/8/09 (Unedited
Transcript) - There are a lot of people in our world who have injured
instinct, injured intuition, because our culture, in particular, is highly
competitive and very interested in making people into competitors. The soul is torn or hurt when the ego
demands too much: going toward self-importance, self-aggrandization, caring too
much about what others think. This
is the symptom of broken intuition, of this fabulous gift that is given whole
at birth, into every soul, into every being on earth. The soul withdraws, usually, because the culture has cut it
out, or broken it or shamed it or said that it is absurd and not substantive
enough. ‘Seeing in the dark’ means that you would always see that the roots of
anything worth doing - the roots of anything worth protesting, resisting,
creating, making, forging - the roots are always in the waters of the soul.
Always. The minute that they are only in the layer of the ego, people are
incredibly unoriginal, uncreative, and in many ways turn into automatons
striving only to look like something rather than actually to be something in
depth.
Clarissa Pinkola Estés: Diamonds in the Dark - Interview
by Tami Simon 9/8/09 Podcast (56
min.)
Are We Possessed? by Paul Levy 9/09 - This is a long, very
thorough description of the process, characteristics and symptoms of archetypal
possession and inflation in individuals and in groups and masses of
people. Liberally supported by quotes
from C. G. Jung, Levy shows how, through consciousness, individuals can access
the creative genius of an archetype and thus avoid its diabolical and
destructive manifestations.
Glossary of
Archetypal Terms by
Paul Levy
http://www.awakeninthedream.com/GlossaryOfTerms.html#archetypes
Glossary of Archetypal
Terms - Archai: The Journal of
Archetypal Cosmology - Archetypal
cosmology draws upon certain
interpretive principles, methods, and terms employed in the conventional forms
of Western astrology. This glossary provides brief definitions of these
concepts and other terms specific to archetypal cosmology. Also included here
are paragraphs outlining the meaning of the ten major planetary archetypes
recognized in the astrological tradition.
Confronting the Terrorist Within by Chris Hedges 12/1/08 - The fantasy of an
enlightened West that spreads civilization to a savage world of religious
fanatics is not supported by history. The worst genocides and slaughters of the
last century were perpetrated by highly industrialized nations. Those who externalize evil and seek to
eradicate that evil through violence lose touch with their own humanity and the
humanity of others. They cannot make moral distinctions. They are blind to
their own moral corruption. In the name of civilization and high ideals, in the
name of reason and science, they become monsters. We will never free ourselves
from the self-delusion of the "war on terror" until we first vanquish
the terrorist within.
Abdicating The "A" Word, Frantically
Fighting For The Familiar by Carolyn Baker 11/16/08 - If we can allow it, collapse may take us into mythic territory
– to the place within us that civilization was designed to destroy but
hasn't and cannot, to the unveiling of a "new" paradigm that isn't
"new" at all because something in us remembers that it is how we were
meant to live with ourselves and the earth community. [A = apocalypse]
America the Illiterate by Chris Hedges 11/10/08 - We live in two Americas. One America, now the
minority, functions in a print-based, literate world. It can cope with
complexity and has the intellectual tools to separate illusion from truth. The
other America, which constitutes the majority, exists in a non-reality-based
belief system. This America, dependent on skillfully manipulated images for
information, has severed itself from the literate, print-based culture. It
cannot differentiate between lies and truth. It is informed by simplistic,
childish narratives and clichés. Nearly a third of the nation’s population is
illiterate or barely literate. And their numbers are growing by an estimated 2
million a year.
America's Crisis of Maturity by
Jessica Murray 10/08 - Spiritual maturity would
mean refusing to be infantilized by morally bankrupt leaders. We must try, like
big girls and boys, to rein in our fear and reactivity, and opt instead to
follow a planetary vision bolstered by a genuine curiosity about what is going
on outside our country's borders. Such maturity would mean rousing ourselves
out of denial and credulity, and taking stock of what our government is doing
in our name. It would mean using our thinking minds independently, grounding
ourselves in the facts while centering ourselves in the heart.
In Times Like These by Carolyn
Myss 9/24/08 - Divine chaos is a course corrector, a way of
bringing down the systems that distraction built in order that they can be
replaced with systems or structures designed with conscious thought. Divine
chaos is a course corrector, a force that demands truth be returned to the
system where it has grown dim. And truth has grown dim in America.
The Greatest Danger: Trying To Escape Despair by Joanna Macy
5/31/08 - Acknowledging
despair involves nothing more mysterious than telling the truth about what we
see and know and feel is happening to our world. When we
open our eyes to what is happening, even when it breaks our hearts, we discover
our true size; for our heart, when it breaks open, can hold the whole universe.
We discover how speaking the truth of our anguish for the world brings down the
walls between us, drawing us into deep solidarity. Truth-telling
is like oxygen. It enlivens and returns us to health and vigor.
Triggered by Evil by
Paul Levy 2007 - Could it be that our unconscious re-action against even
the mere mention of the word “evil” is touching a deeper, hidden part of
ourselves so as to reveal it to us? Is our being triggered the very portal through which we can potentially
learn how to effectively deal with evil? Is evil reflecting itself back to us
through our reactions to it so as to transform itself, and us, in the
process? Is the emergence of evil
in our world the revelation of the very part of ourselves which we need to know
in order to awaken? The answer to
these questions is to be found by turning the lion’s gaze of awareness towards
the darkness which is being triggered within us.
The Biospheric Dreambody by Paul
Levy 2007 - The extent of our collective madness has become hard to recognize
because it is so pervasive, it has thereby become normalized. Our collective
psychosis is an expression of the global dreambody amplifying itself to a
“tipping point” where we will necessarily have to go through a “phase-shift,”
that is, an expansion of consciousness, in order to survive as a species. The
dreambody itself is showing us that the solution to our world crisis can only
come through an expansion of consciousness. The biospheric dreambody’s
symptoms/messages are arising in a symbolic script written across our current
world crisis. We need to become fluent in the symbolic language of the
dreambody, developing eyes to see and ears to hear what is uttered forth by its
living unified and unifying field.
Meeting The Other Within by Paul
Levy 2006 - What is happening within us, the microcosm, is a
reflection of the same process that is happening collectively, in the macrocosm.
Just like the dark other within ourselves is the very figure that can awaken us
to a greater and more comprehensive state of being, the darkness that is
playing out on the world stage can potentially activate the light of
consciousness in our species, thus serving as a catalyst for collective
evolution. Becoming intimately acquainted with the dark other within us
empowers us to relate with and effectively deal with the darkness in the outer
world.
Demons
in Our Midst: Facing the Tyrant Inside and Out by Suzanne Duarte 5/08 - It cannot be an
accident, or mere "coincidence," that the movie trilogy of J.R.R.
Tolkien's Lord of the Rings became box office hits during the George W.
Bush’s first four years as the U.S. president. We needed those images of leathery-winged
monsters with huge teeth and claws, of the pathetic Gollum with the vicious
shadow, of the goodness of fellowship and the evil of greed for absolute power
over the world. Why did we need them? I think we needed those visual images to
remind us of the nature of evil and the existence of demons because, in our
secularlized, mechanistic world, we had forgotten about them. We thought we
were safe.
The Wisdom in the Dark Emotions - by Miriam Greenspan 1/03 - The alchemy of the dark emotions – such as grief, fear and
despair – is a process that cannot be forced, but it can be encouraged by
cultivating certain basic emotional skills. The three basic skills are
attending to, befriending and surrendering to emotions that make us
uncomfortable. Attending to our dark emotions is not just noticing a feeling
and then distancing ourselves from it. It’s about being mindful of emotions as
bodily sensations and experiencing them fully. Befriending emotion is how we
extend our emotional attention spans. This is a body-friendly process—getting into the body, not away
from it into our thoughts. At the least, it’s a process of becoming aware of
how our thoughts both trigger emotions and take us away from them. Similarly,
surrender is not about letting go but about letting be. When you are open to
your heart’s pain and to your body’s experience of it, emotions flow in the
direction of greater healing, balance and harmony.
Andrew Harvey's Dark Night of the Soul – Interview by Colleen
O'Connor 12/19/02 - The entire world is now going through a massive
crucifixion on all levels. It's going through an environmental crucifixion, a
personal crucifixion, and a crucifixion of all the patriarchal systems. All of the systems are being exposed as
illusory and as fantasy ridden -- as deeply corrupt and exploitative. Everybody is totally bewildered. They
know that the world is potentially on the brink of total apocalypse. It's quite
clear that humanity is now terminally ill, and can only be transfigured by a
totally shocking revelation of its shadow side. And this is what we're living
through, these shadow sides exploding in every direction because we have done
nothing but betray the sacred in us. It's extremely important that people
really come to understand the feminine and turn towards it, because it's our
betrayal of the feminine in ourselves and in the divine that has led to this
crisis.
Individuation, Seeing-through, and
Liberation: Depth Psychology and
Colonialism by Helene Shulman Lorenz, Ph.
D.
and Mary Watkins, Ph.D. 2002 - Our psyches and
societies have been forged on the anvil of colonialism. As depth psychology was
being born a hundred years ago, colonialism was stretching to its fullest
reach. Depth psychology's development coincides with the rise of national
liberation movements and the ending of the colonial era. To the degree that
depth psychology is a social critique of the narrowed vision of the dominant
aspects of Euro-American culture, it has considered problematic many of the
same dichotomizing and hierarchizing structures that are critiqued in
postcolonial theory. We would not see this as accidental if we understood that
the psychic structures and contents that depth psychologists have described reflect
the psychic corollaries of colonialism - despite the fact that the context of
colonialism is hardly ever named.
Silenced Knowings, Forgotten Springs: Paths to Healing in the Wake of Colonialism,
Part 1 by Helene Shulman Lorenz,
Ph.D. and Mary Watkins, Ph.D. 2002 - We
have each been educated in a system that grew out of, and reflects, 500 years
of colonialism, and are struggling for awareness in a new era of
globalization that leaves increasing numbers of people hungry and
disenfranchised. Our cultural legacy is profoundly imprinted by the often
silenced after-effects of the genocidal war against Native Americans, the
dislocation and forced slavery of Africans in America, and the oppressive labor
conditions of the poor. What kinds of suffering have we learned to avoid
knowing in ourselves and others because they are so widespread we have learned
to accept them as normal and natural? How have we learned to silence not only
many of our own feelings and insights, but also the wellsprings of imagination
that have the potential to create alternative visions? In this paper we hope to
clarify what some of the psychic corollaries of colonialism are and what some
of the psychological methods are that can address the suffering that issues
from them.
Silenced Knowings, Forgotten Springs: Paths to Healing in the Wake of
Colonialism, Part 2 by Helene Shulman Lorenz,
Ph.D. and Mary Watkins, Ph.D. 2002
- We are
convinced that from the psyches of its members, communities of all kinds could
have access to crucial knowings that have long been silenced; knowings that if
listened to could restore a sense of wholeness to what is now fractured,
denied, and dismissed. It is itself a moral choice to open our hearts and minds
to hear the pieces of story that have been depotentiated by their dissociation.
From the liberation of these silenced knowings a deepened sense of ethics can
emerge; individual development and ecological survival can coincide. No truly
sustainable development can develop out of the repression of silenced knowings. Through
small group exercises we hope to quicken an experiential sense of how our
silenced knowings are linked to dynamics of oppression; how what we experience
as most personal and intimate reflect culture and connect us to work in the
world where individual development and cultural liberation coincide.
Is the Modern Psyche Undergoing a Rite of Passage? By Richard Tarnas - We
have sought ever deeper insight into our individual biographies, seeking to
recover the often hidden sources of our present condition, to render conscious
those unconscious forces and complexes that shape our lives. Many now recognize
that same task as critical for our entire civilization. What individuals and
psychologists have long been doing has now become the collective responsibility
of our culture: to make the unconscious conscious.
Understanding Our Moment in History: An
Interview with Richard Tarnas by Scott London
- In order to understand our moment in history and where we can go in
the future, we have to know what brought us here. In order to be strategically
intelligent, we need to be able to comprehend the sources of our world. Our
world is shaped by our worldview. How we approach reality is defined by the
kinds of assumptions we have about that reality, and that, in turn, shapes
reality and feeds it back to us. The subject and the object are deeply
implicated in each other.
Archetypal Astrology Pt. 1/11 – Audio
interview with Richard Tarnas on his magisterial books The Passion of the Western Mind and Cosmos and Psyche. He
begins by answering questions about consciousness, animals, and how the
mechanistic worldview is an aberration in human history and experience. With part 2 he begins addressing
questions about astrology. 2007
Archai: The Journal of Archetypal Cosmology – Archetypal cosmology includes the study of the
correlations between cyclical alignments of the planets and archetypal patterns
in human experience (archetypal astrology), but goes beyond this to address the
theoretical basis of these correlations and their implications for the wider
world view. Consequently, archetypal cosmology is a multidisciplinary subject
drawing on scholarship from many other areas such as depth psychology, history,
philosophy, cosmology, religious studies, cultural studies, the arts, and the
sciences. Archai is dedicated to furthering the research orientation and methodology established
by Richard Tarnas in Cosmos and Psyche:
Intimations of a New World View.
Archetypal Principles by Richard Tarnas 2009 - In
an extract from his award-winning Cosmos and Psyche, the major text in the field of Archetypal Cosmology, Tarnas introduces
the fundamental concept of archetypal principles, describing their origins in
ancient Greek thought, some of their key attributes, and the many forms through
which they have evolved in the course of Western intellectual history. The earliest form of the
archetypal perspective, and in certain respects its deepest ground, is the
primordial experience of the great gods and goddesses of the ancient mythic imagination.
In this once universal mode of consciousness, memorably embodied at the dawn of
Western culture in the Homeric epics and later in classical Greek drama,
reality is understood to be pervaded and structured by powerful numinous forces
and presences that are rendered to the human imagination as the divinized
figures and narratives of ancient myth, often closely associated with the
celestial bodies. See Archai: The Journal of Archetypal
Cosmology Volume 1, Number 1 (Summer 2009)
The Nature of Our Power by Joanna Macy and Molly Brown - As
our pain for the world arises from our systemic interexistence, so does our
power. Yet the generative creativity operating in and through open systems is
very different from our customary notions of power.
Positive Disintegration by Joanna Macy and Molly Brown - In periods of major
cultural transition, the experience of positive disintegration is widespread.
Such is the case now for us in this time of Great Turning. Every-where anomalies appear:
developments that don't fit our expectations, or in systems terms, that don't
match previously programmed codes and constructs. Bereft of self-confidence and
old coping strategies, we may feel that we and our world are falling apart. It
helps to recall that in the course of our planetary journey we have gone
through positive disintegration countless times. The life living through us
repeatedly died to old forms and old ways. To let ourselves feel anguish and
disorientation as we open our awareness to global suffering is a part of our
spiritual ripening. Mystics speak of the "dark night of the soul."
To Know Yourself is to Forget Yourself by Pema Chödrön 9/98 - According to the teachings of vajrayana, or tantric, Buddhism, our
wisdom and our confusion are so interwoven that it doesn't work to just throw
things out. By trying to get rid
of "negativity," by trying to eradicate it, by putting it into a
column labeled "bad," we are throwing away our wisdom as well,
because everything in us is creative energy—particularly our strong
emotions. They are filled with life-force.
Dr. James Hillman Live at Mythic Journeys Part 1 of
3 - Archetypal
psychologist James Hillman examines whether the gods have really fled and who
is served by convincing people that they have. He discusses the confluence of mythology and pathology
through repression, and of myth and psychology in politics.
Feeding Your Demons: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving
Inner Conflict by
Tsultrim Allione 2008 - Allione brings an eleventh-century Tibetan
woman's practice to the West for the first time with Feeding Your Demons, an accessible and effective approach for
dealing with negative emotions, fears, illness, and self-defeating patterns.
She translates this ancient Eastern practice into a workable form for today's
Western psyche, explaining that if we fight our demons, they only grow stronger.
But if we feed and nurture them, we can free ourselves from the battle. She
also applies these lessons to collective demons in the outer world.
Soul-Sick Nation: An Astrologer's View of America by
Jessica Murray 2008 - For anyone dismayed by
the current state of the world, Soul-Sick
Nation provides a visionary perspective as extraordinary as the times we
are living in. Using the principles of ancient wisdom to make sense of the
current global situation, this book invites us to look at the USA from the
biggest possible picture: that of cosmic meaning. With a rare blend of
compassion, humor and fearless taboo-busting, Soul-Sick Nation reveals America's noble potential without
sentiment and diagnoses its neuroses without delusion, shedding new light on
troubling issues that the pundits and culture wars inflame but leave painfully
unresolved: the WTC bombings, the war in Iraq, Islamic jihad, media propaganda, consumerism and the American Dream. This
keenly intelligent book elucidates the meaning of an epoch in distress, and
proposes a path towards healing – of the country and of its individual
citizens. This book will leave you shorn of illusions and full of hope.
Dark Nights of the Soul: A Guide to Finding Your
Way through Life’s Ordeals by Thomas Moore 2005 - When it comes to spiritual growth, we humans are
solar-seeking beings; eager for the bright lights of clarity and the bliss of
illumination. Paradoxically, we all need to walk through the shadow of the dark
night in order to discover a life worth living. Unlike depression, which is
more of an emotional state, the dark night is a slow transformation process,
marked by profound doubt, disorientation and questioning. Loss, pain, conflict,
confusion, anger, excess, deviance and other disturbing feelings and behaviors
are not devils to be exorcised but angelic opportunities for deepening and
altering the self through spiritual cultivation. Ultimately, a journey into the
dark night will reshape the meaning of your life.
Evolving
Collective Intelligence
Links
for dialogue, circle and council practices
Evolving Collective Intelligence
Dissensus I: Dissensus and Organic Process by John Michael Greer 12/10/08 - Dissensus is the opposite of consensus, and it comes into play
when consensus, for one reason or another, is either impossible or a bad
idea. Where dissensus is
encouraged, and individuals pursue their own visions rather than submitting to
a socially based consensus, the results can include dazzling creativity. The greatest master of dissensus is
arguably Nature itself. Evolution
is dissensus in action, the outward pressure of genetic diversification running
up against the limits of environment and, now and then, pushing through to some
new adaptation: the wings of bats, the opposable thumbs of primates, the
cultural evolution of human beings. As we enter a future of new limits and
unpredictable opportunities, this is arguably the kind of organic process we
need most.
Dissensus II: Why Dissensus Matters by John Michael Greer 12/17/08 - We have no
idea what kind of society is best suited to a world after industrialism. It’s
far more likely than not that such a society will have little in common with
the notions that middle-class intellectuals in the industrial world today might
have of it. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to imagine such a society;
it does mean that attempts to push diverse visions into a single consensus are
as unproductive as they are futile. All any of us can do is pursue the work that calls to us individually,
cooperate with others who share the same commitment, take the measures to
weather the crisis that seem to make sense from where we are, and remember that
those who disagree with us most heartily may be assembling their own piece of a
puzzle that is, ultimately, bigger than any of us.
We Can Survive But
Can We Communicate? by Carolyn Baker and Sally Erickson 5/1/08 - We define community, in this context, to be a congregation of
people who have, by the commitment and skills they possess, learned to
establish relationships characterized by trust, understanding, mutual respect,
and bonding that transcends personality and allows and even embraces
differences of background or ideology. They can do this because they trust each
other enough to question and suspend the assumptions and core beliefs that
limit their insights as individuals. Such a group does not come together
for the purpose of healing per se. The purpose of the kind of community we
are speaking of is to come together to glean wisdom from listening and speaking
with one another and to offer connection, support, comfort, and mutual respect.
Such a group of people learns together to find better solutions, wiser actions
and more joy together than is possible for them to do as isolated individuals,
couples or families. What
follows are some "Principles Of Dialogue" that Sally Erickson has
synthesized from group development theory, Scott Peck's model of community
building and David Bohm's explorations of formal dialogue practice.
The Holonic Shift and How to Take Part in It by
Joanna Macy and Molly Brown 1994 - All living systems
– be they organic like a cell or human body, or supra-organic like a
society or ecosystem – are holons. That means they have a dual
nature: As both systems and subsystems, they are wholes in themselves
and, simultaneously, integral parts of larger wholes. In this step-wise
organization of living systems, emergence is a universal and striking feature.
At each holonic level new properties and new possibilities emerge, which could
not have been predicted. Yet, the
self-reflexive consciousness of human individuals does not characterize the
next holonic level, the level of social systems. Might not survival pressures
engender a collective level of self-interest in choice-making – in other
words self-reflexivity on the next holonic level? How can we as individuals promote a holonic shift and take
part in it?
Awaken
In the Dream by Paul
Levy - This
universe is a mass shared dream that all six-and-a-half billion of us are
collaboratively dreaming up into materialization. When we realize this, we can
put our lucidity together so that we can co-creatively dream a much more
grace-filled universe into incarnation. This is nothing other than an
evolutionary quantum leap in human consciousness, unimaginable until now.
The Art
of Hosting - The
challenges of these times call for collective intelligence gained through
collaborative learning. We must co-create the solutions we seek. The Art of Hosting pattern and practice
is based on our assumption that it is common sense to bring stakeholders
together in conversation when you seek new solutions for the common good. We believe that when human beings are
invited to work together on what truly matters to them, they will take
ownership and responsibility for moving their issues and ideas into wiser
actions that last.
Nonviolent Communication Part 1 Marshall Rosenberg - Rosenberg explains the origin and mentality of ‘predator culture,’
beginning about 8,000 years ago, as a system of domination and hierarchy in
which the few dominate the many through violent coercion and the language of
violence. He contrasts
this with the hunter-gatherer lifestyle in which violence was much rarer, and
says he developed nonviolent communication to help people to get back to a more
natural, empathetic way of communicating,
Center for Nonviolent Communication - CNVC is a global network of people and
communities committed to living and teaching NVC to resolve conflict and meet
the needs of all people.
Beyond
our Differences - A documentary
film conceived and directed by Peter Bisanz that explores the positive role of
faith in the world today and the fundamental unity of the world’s religions. To
disseminate this message of unity and hope, the method was to interview high
profile people of faith, whose words are interspersed with the extraordinary
experiences of lay people to illuminate the rich variety of religious
experience in the world. This site also includes educational
materials for encouraging dialogue.
Joanna Macy: The Work That Reconnects - Double
DVD 2007:
Group work, the Great Turning, Deep Ecology, Living
Systems View, Deep Time Work
Mapping Dialogue: Essential Tools for Social
Change (2008) by Marianne 'Mille" Bojer, Heiko
Roehl, Marianne Knuth, Colleen Magner - In a world of increasing complexity,
answers have a short lifespan and people have a growing desire to solve their
own problems. Sustainable social change is increasingly depending on successful
dialogue. This book provides a closer look at transformative dialogue tools and
processes for social change. It profiles ten dialogue methods in depth, and
another fifteen more briefly.
No Contest: The Case Against Competition by Alfie Kohn -
Contending that competition in all areas - school,
family, sports and business - is destructive, and that success so achieved is
at the expense of another's failure - Kohn, a correspondent for USA Today,
advocates a restructuring of our institutions to replace competition with
cooperation. He persuasively demonstrates how the ingrained American myth that
competition is the only normal and desirable way of life - from Little Leagues
to the presidency - is counterproductive, personally and for the national
economy, and how psychologically it poisons relationships, fosters anxiety and
takes the fun out of work and play. He charges that competition is a learned
phenomenon and denies that it builds character and self-esteem. Kohn's measures
to encourage cooperation in lieu of competition include promoting
noncompetitive games, eliminating scholastic grades and substitution of mutual
security for national security.
An Essay on BLIND SPOT by Kemp Scales 10/29/08 - Blind Spot is a subtle
and beautifully crafted documentary about a dense and devastating
subject – the profound changes coming in our lifetime as we
enter a world of ever increasing population combined with a shrinking supply of
oil, the life blood of our industrial civilization. It’s about the
polluted, impoverished, and diminished world we will be leaving our children if
we don’t get our act together – or perhaps even if we do. It challenges
fundamental assumptions on which our corporate economy and our consumer culture
is based – in particular, the unquestioned assumption that growth is
good, that “expansion is tantamount to progress.” See excerpts from the documentary here.
Ecospheric Ethics – Website of the authors of
“A Manifesto for Earth,” Stan Rowe and Ted Mosquin, with many articles on
ecocentrism.
Alliance for Wild Ethics (AWE) - David Abram’s website containing many of his
essays and some videos – a beautiful and profound site.
Future Primitive.org – A
site dedicated to paradigm change that has many interviews and links to other
agents of change.
We Are the World - Interview with Christian
de Quincy on paradigm change, sentience throughout matter, being present to the
nonhuman world, and the four gifts of knowing: sensation, reason, feeling, and
transcendental intuition. We need
to cultivate and integrate all the gifts. 10/10/06 (40 min.)
Date a Brain – Humor with a point!
The 2007 Shift Report: Evidence of a World
Transforming, attempts
to chart the transition we believe is underway from a rigid, mechanistic, and
materialistic worldview to one that is built on a foundation of
interconnectedness, cooperation, and the intersection of science and
spirituality. This 80-page document, highlighted with sidebars, charts, and
quotations, is organized into four major sections.
The 2008 Shift Report: Changing the Story of Our Future - Over the past several decades, new scientific
discoveries along with a surge in grassroots initiatives addressing social and
economic injustices have begun calling into question the view of the
universe—and essentially of ourselves—as ultimately cold and
mechanistic. Revealing both the mysterious directionality of the evolving
cosmos and the irrepressible humanity within our own natures, new evidence is
emerging that we are innately capable of far more than we realize. Yes, the
evidence is compelling that the arc of the human species is on a
self-destructive decline. And yet once the pieces are put together, there is no
denying that another reality is fighting through the cracks of the dominant
narrative. We are just beginning to tap into our potential as human beings
despite, or perhaps because of, the multiple crises that we are facing. 82
pages.
Reclaiming The Soul In A Soul-Murdering Culture by Carla Royal 12/12/08 - I want to tell people
that we CAN reclaim our souls; we can creep into the pale mist. We can
make a conscious and intentional decision to reclaim our souls despite the
insidiousness of this culture.
The Dissolution of the Old World and the Birthing
of the New by Tom Kenyon 9/22/08
- If you learn to live in appreciation, you will
enter a domain, a vibration that will carry you through the chaos of these
times. You will find a type of solace and comfort, and the vibrational rate of
your energy body will increase. At some point you will reach what we call
escape velocity. You will easily step out of the illusions and the lies of the
old world. You will see them for what they are, and you will become a joyous
co-creator of a new world that is being birthed even as the old world passes away
right before your eyes.
Psycho-spiritual Detoxification: Thoughts and Observations by Tom
Kenyon - Over the course of nearly thirty years as a
Psychological Counselor and Psychotherapist I have observed many forms of
mental and emotional toxicity in both my clients and myself. I have also observed how the body and
mind deal with these types of toxins, how they show up and present themselves,
and how they are transformed or neutralized during the transformational
process. The concept here is that there is a territory where the psychological
and the spiritual meet. And it is in this territory of the mind and emotions
that psychological material affects spiritual experience. And it is also here
that the spiritual dimensions of the individual can, and often do, affect the
psychological.
Catching The Bug Of Synchronicity by Paul
Levy 9/08 - Synchronicities are
those moments of “meaningful coincidence” when the boundary dissolves between
the inner and the outer. Synchronicities are expressions of the dreamlike
nature of reality, as they are moments in time when the timeless, dreamlike
nature of the universe shines forth its radiance and openly reveals itself to
us, offering us an open doorway to lucidity. Jung’s synchronistic universe was
a new worldview that embraced linear causality while simultaneously
transcending it. A synchronistic universe balances and complements the
mechanistic world of linear causality with a realm that is outside of space,
time and causality.
Illusions of inclusivity in the culture of
"whatever" by Carolyn Baker 8/26/08 - A seasoned elder understands, as she takes in hand the
youth of her tribe, that they must be guided, taught, reasoned with, and
invited into conscious dialog so that ultimately that young person can mature
into elderhood and carry on the wisdom tradition of the tribe. He or she is
instructed in the art of setting limits for him/herself and for the community
and is schooled in the fundamental realities of human existence, not by
avoiding, but by taking on the messiness of conflict. Above all, the elder
emphasizes that the young person's life journey is not about being happy, but
about becoming conscious.
Fluid Intelligence and Transparency - Fluid intelligence is the ability to step outside
of our beliefs and consider information which does not fit into our previously
accepted view of reality. The more transparent we are to ourselves and to the
world around us, the more consciously we can make choices. And the more fluid
we are in expanding our intelligence and beliefs, the more powerfully we can
adapt to and make good use of the changes that occur in our lives and world. It
is our emotional attachment to certain beliefs
that limits us and keeps
us from seeing greater realities.
The Insight Course: Be the Change You Want To See in the World
Taming Patriarchy: The Emergence of the
Black Goddess - An interview with Marion Woodman 1999 - The principle of the feminine is openness to life,
death, rebirth and the unity of all things within that cycle. It's the world of
nature, you see. And that's the world that's striving so hard now to be
recognized.
Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight - Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an
opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she
was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions
slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and
remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define
us and connect us to the world and to one another, but also about learning to
value our right brain.
Dying Consciously: the Greatest Journey - The Greatest Journey is a free service dedicated
to helping people die consciously. This means that we seek to maintain
consciousness intact through the journey of death and beyond. It is designed
for all persons involved in the dying process: the individual, family members,
and friends. It offers a message of hope that it is possible to bring
dignity and peace back to the dying process and teaches us how with easy to
follow steps.
Reconnecting with Life – A
web-based course that maps ways into the vitality and determination that enable
us to take part in the healing of our world. Developed by many people over the
past thirty years, this body of work has helped hundreds of thousands of people
find solidarity and the courage to act, despite rapidly worsening social and
ecological conditions.
Institute for Sacred Activism by Andrew Harvey – There is in our contemporary world an
arising of different groups of concerned people anxious for change. If we point individuals to an inner
compass that renews their passion, there is hope for real solutions and
inspired creativity. All that we
need is already here, in the currency of people, and it only needs to be tapped
into. Sacred Activism provides
people with a system of thought and traditional wisdom practices to help
support the kind of transformative change that is necessary for the world to be
preserved.
Feeding Your Demons: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict by Tsultrim Allione 2008 - Allione brings
an eleventh-century Tibetan woman's practice to the West for the first time
with Feeding Your Demons, an
accessible and effective approach for dealing with negative emotions, fears,
illness, and self-defeating patterns. She translates this ancient Eastern
practice into a workable form for today's Western psyche, explaining that if we
fight our demons, they only grow stronger. But if we feed and nurture them, we
can free ourselves from the battle. She also applies these lessons to
collective demons in the outer world.
Toward Psychologies Of Liberation by Mary Watkins & Helene
Shulman 2008 - Psychologies of liberation are emerging on every
continent in response to the collective traumas inflicted by colonialism and
globalization. The authors present the theoretical foundation and participatory
methodologies that unite these radical interdisciplinary approaches to creating
individual and community well-being. They move from a description of the
psychological and community wounds that are common to unjust and violent
contexts to engaging examples of innovative community projects from around the
world that seek to heal these wounds. Drawing on psychoanalysis, trauma
studies, liberation arts, participatory research, and contemporary cultural
work, this book nourishes our understanding of and imagination about the kinds
of healing that are necessary to the creation of more just and peaceful
communities.
The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire: Harnessing
the Infinite Power of Coincidence by
Deepak Chopra - The visible, rational
world most of us are familiar with is only a small part of life. Beyond that
visible world is a sea of possibility that connects us to every other living
thing and, thus, to a pool of intelligence that can help us move far beyond
anything we could strive for individually in the material world. The paradox is
that only surrendering the egoistic self to this broader intelligence gives us
the freedom to create our individual destiny. Chopra unfolds his ideas with
poetic conciseness and such thematic coherence that paying attention is
effortless. Using the ideas will be more difficult, as he says with Dr. Phil
clarity, in that only you can pay attention to the signals and create the
intention that manifesting your possibilities requires. Unabridged Audio CD
Courageous Dreaming: How Shamans Dream the World into Being by Alberto Villoldo - The ancient shamans of the Americas understood that we‚re not only
creating our experience of the world, but are dreaming up the very nature of
reality itself. When you don‚t dream your life, you have to settle for the
nightmare being dreamed by others.
Making Magic with Gaia: Practices to Heal Ourselves and Our Planet
by
Francesca Ciancimino Howell
2002 - We must always remember how
even small steps lead us closer to the divine in Nature and to the deep
interconnectedness that is magical Deep Ecology.
Wikipedia on Princess Mononoke
Cranky Critic review and interview with Neil Gaiman, English scriptwriter
Nausicaa: The Hayao
Miazaki Web
About
the title Princess Mononoke (Mononoke Hime in Japanese)
Illustrated Synopsis of Princess Mononoke in
English
STORYTELLING
THE RE-CREATION OF THE WORLD:
WHY THE
WORLD DOESN'T END
The books and workshops of Michael Meade
"The world cannot end unless it runs out of stories;
for more than a literal planet, the world is an eternal drama, a story told
from beginning to end, and end to beginning, again and again.
"When 'The End' seems near, it's the mythic sense,
the eternal roots, and creative imagination that are missing. Behind the
'ecological crisis' and the 'war of terror,' there lies a crisis of meaning and
a loss of the sense of the sacred in the immediate pulse of the world. The
blind exploitation of the earth follows upon lost connections to the realm of
nature, as if humanity has broken a secret bond with Great Nature and become
estranged from 'inner nature' as well.
"The problem isn't that the world might end
completely; rather, the issue is how to act when it seems that way. What's
missing is the imagination necessary to hold end and beginning together.
"In critical times, how people imagine the world
becomes more important; how people imagine humanity becomes of the utmost
importance. Increasingly the issue becomes living an authentic life and lending
one's true nature to the drama of existence -- to become a wick burning with
the flame of one's life-long story."
Only a naive and unhistorical mind can think that facts are more
powerful than myths. All radical
changes in human history are the results of the spread of a myth that, in a
totally convincing manner, answers a crucially experienced need at a period of
crisis. — Dane Rudhyar, Culture,
Crisis, and Creativity
©
2010 Suzanne Duarte