Peckinpaugh?!?! Really?!? Peckinpaugh??!!??!!

Love Letters To The Dark

2012-01-23T18:11:00.000-08:00

Dear Darkness,

I am sorry. How many ways can I say this to you? I am sorry. I am so sorry.

I am sorry you are misunderstood. I am sorry no one trusts you. I am sorry that for millions of years---if not since the inception of the Universe---you have been the target of all sorts of false accusations: the biggest of which being that you are the home and residence of all that is evil. A shocking accusation given the fact that such figures as Satan--who have long been the personifications and embodiments of evil in the Universe were not "of the dark," or made of "darkness," but were actually creatures of light?

Have we all forgotten that the "brightest angels" are the ones who fell with Satan, the brightest of them all?

Darkness, I am sorry. I am sorry that I believed for years that you were the residence and abode of all that is evil. I am sorry I believed the lies borne of fearful imaginations that lacked real understanding. I am sorry I grew up naive and feared a relationship with you like all those around me did---and taught me to.

I am sorry that I never took the time to know you. For now I know that real understanding cannot be based on a lack of intimacy or contact. How can people think they know you and what your nature is if they are constantly running from you, constantly defending against your presence by always turning on the light and burning up all the matter in the Universe to illuminate that dark spaces we fear hold all kinds of monstrous beings? How can we know you when we shun you so? It is as if we have never even met.

We have, though. Now I know better. Whether through fate, dumb luck, or an intense commitment to not accept what is given at face value I actually have taken the time to know you. This is why I bristle at uninformed and ignorant associations of you with the essence of all that is evil. I know better.

Now I realize that when we don't understand someone or something we fear them. I see now how you are mischaracterized and charged with offenses that you never commit. In fact, all of your beneficence and goodness---which you bless the whole Universe with---is overshadowed by our own secret fears that, rather than own and hold ourselves accountable for, we throw onto the seemingly blank and black canvas you present.

You, darkness, I fear, have been our aeons long scapegoat. You have carried our own sins. We pinned them upon you like the ancient tribes of Israel used to do with a goat, in hopes that we would be free of them. It creates a vicious circle where we never understand you and your grace, nor are we ever freed from our own fears and phantasms of the mind. It simply does not work and yet we do it again and again.

Who stops, though, to ask if we are the crazy for doing this? Who stops to consider that if something is not working and we are confronted with the same issue again and again then why do we keep doing the same thing? Why have we made you the target of all that is negative in US, dear Darkness? Have we made ourselves so small and weak that we cannot hold and carry any longer in our own hearts that which we do to each other? Why must we make you responsible for it all? Why must we make your dark womb and lightless space the creator of all that is wrong with creation?

Why, dear Darkness, have we forgotten the passage in the Book of Genesis about God creating light? Why have we---time and time again---perpetuated this madness about light being the birther of all that is good, when it is light itself that is created, not the Creator? Why have we lost awareness that the Primordial State is null and void and---as such---is closer to your own nature, dear Darkness, than that of light.

"And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light." ~~~~Book of Genesis 1:3

How come we do not realize that light is not our primordial nature? That light was created and is a created entity and is given to birth and death like all beings..... like Stars..... like humans.... like dreams.... .like nightmares?

How come we are blind to you Dear Darkness? How come that blindness does not lead us to our loving you--as in the statement, "Love is blind?"----but, instead, to our fearing you? How come the lies and illusions are perpetuated in the light, with the light? How come we don't even realize that you cradle us and our dreams every night? How come we have rendered your ever-present embrace the thing of demons? How come we forget that the enlightening fires of Hell that scorch souls eternally is aflame with light and illumination? How come we----for far too long---have gotten it all wrong, and continue to get it all wrong?

How come there are so few brave enough to know you? And that when they become brave enough to know you they realize that bravery is not even required to know; that if we wait long enough you are there Darkness; that you are always there; that it is the light that is fickle; that it is the light that comes and goes; that it is the light that projects all the fears on your canvas; that it is the light that lies and hides and blinds us with illusory play of mirages on the desert scorched into infertility by too much of its own blazing glory?

Darkness, I love you. I say this truly. Because I have taken the time to better know you. I have felt you with my eyes closed. I have known your embrace in deep, dreamless sleep. I now know that the explosion of light is temporary---is the stuff of fear and fantasy. That dreams come and go but you, my Dark Love, are always here.

Excuse Me Dating.... But Has Anyone Told You Lately How Bad You Suck?!?

2012-01-17T11:27:00.001-08:00

Sometimes I feel like that little boy who wants to play baseball with his friends so bad, and yet he sucks so much at the game that he ends up always storming off in protest, stomping his feet and yelling as he leaves, "I hate baseball anyways! Baseball is a stupid game and it sucks!"

That's exactly how I feel about "dating." 25 years as an eligible "dater" will do that to you. Maybe even 5 years as an eligible dater will do that to some of us. I bet even the Dalai Lama has no compassion for dating. Dating really does suck!

For the most part, though, people don't. People are cool. Except when they are not. I generally love the process of getting to know someone. It is forever interesting discovering someone else's story and journey in life (provided that that "someone" is not spending the first hour going on and on about themselves.... that's usually me, though, so I am safe in that regard).

Perhaps it is this whole charade that starts out when we become interested in the process of "natural selection" courtesy of our biology. Stuff starts happening to us and we find ourselves oddly obsessed with activities that a year or two earlier never crossed our mind. I didn't feel like this when I was 12. It is all so new and fresh, and, as such, it tends to capture our fancy. Oh, the possibilities that exist.

When we don't have it, oh how we want it. When we have it, oh how we can't be rid of it fast enough! Be wary of growing up too soon kiddos! :-)

Fast-forward 20 or 25 years and the best some of us can muster is a roll of the eyes at the prospect of "dating." The sentence "You want to go steady," just doesn't have the same ring to it that it did in the 70's and 80's while we grew up watching Brady Bunch re-runs, does it? The allure has vanished in the Bermuda Triangle of human psychology. That and one too many romantic hangovers. Could of been the Jagermeister, too. Just a little.

At best, later in life, dating becomes full of irony. Little wonder that so-called "romantic comedies" are some of the most appealing and popular fare that Hollywood offers up on a monthly basis. Romance/dating is comedic, satirical. It may even be a farce! Tragically, with we ourselves being the cruel butt of the jokes. Hello, my name is Owen Wilson.

No one is going to cry for us, though, are they? We know that deep down inside so we get tough and act like we don't care. Just like Timmy who takes his baseball bat and glove home, kicking stones down the street as he walks, muttering to himself, "I don't care. Who likes baseball anyways. It is such a stupid game. Only dumb people play baseball."

Yup, Timmy. It is. It is the dumbest game around fit for only dumb people. A game where even the worst player cannot help but dream of someday hitting a walk-off homerun.

Stupid game anyways!

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall.... Who Is The Fairest of Them All.

2012-01-16T11:21:00.000-08:00

If Beauty is really an inside job, as the saying goes, then how come so many of us spend so much time and money improving the outside? Is there a contradiction here? Are we all, more or less, hypocrites on this?

Standing in front of a mirror we appear to ourselves as whom exactly? Are we a critical eye informed by popular culture---constantly and sinisterly examining our every nook and cranny for that which is not quite right, which can be improved, which can be cosmetically adjusted?

We change our skin colour at the tanner, whiten our teeth, pluck a few out of place hairs, have our hair coiffed and our nose adjusted, our eyes done and our forehead flattened of all appearance of wrinkles or folds granted us by the gods of time. We fight the battle against imperfection. Yet what is perfection? Who is perfection? And when they are there in the land of perfection as the perfect face and body and hair how can they make it last? Isn't impermanence slowly eating away at every perfectly placed hair? Doesn't wind blow our hair out of place? Don't unexpected tears smear our mascara? Doesn't age bring a little weathering to our face? Doesn't time have our way with us---regardless of whether we want it to or not?

Maybe we win a battle or two and fend of the agents of impermanence, yet do we win the war?

Ultimately, this flesh is a rotting corpse, is a skeleton, is but dust and ash waiting to return to its primordial state as dust and ash. The beautiful and the ugly share the same fate here. None escape it. I don't care if you have the credit limit and rolodex of a Dolly Parton. At some point the jig is up and the charade of maintaining appearances at any and all costs becomes yet another exercise in futility.

This is not to say that one should not bathe. Hygiene is healthy! It need not be vain, though. To spend so much time on our appearance comes at the expense of what. Does the poet never pass into birth? Does the musician not write that significant song because she was in front of the mirror obsessing about something that is maybe not worth obsessing over? Does the artist or genuis flounder because the voice from the depths is sacrificed to the gods of the surface?

My sense is that if true beauty does indeed come from the inside--and we actually believe it--then our time will match what we say our values do. We will give time to our insides. We will set aside moments to listen to our soul and not just to the voice coming back from the mirror as we stand there obsessing over that which is not worth obsessing over.

If beauty comes from the inside then cultivating our insides---our consciousness, our heart, our virtue, our character---is where beauty can be found by each of us. Perhaps we will even walk away from the mirror when we are looking for our own beauty, and instead pick up a pen or a paintbrush, an animal or another person, and then let the beauty that is inside us flow out into the world around us.... making the world a place richer with beauty precisely because we were not looking for it in a reflection, but in an active and ongoing gesture of Grace that is beauties insides flowing outwardly. Then... and only then... we might just discover how beautiful we really are no matter how we look. :-)

Caution Ahead: Grandpa In Training: Slow Driver In Outdated Sedan

2012-01-09T10:27:00.000-08:00

I drive slow. I mean, really s-l-o-w...... So slow that your Gran and Gramps roll up on me and tailgate my ass. I swear they even flipped me off. Simultaneously, I might add. I won't hold it against them. I am sure they are fine, upstanding citizens who go to Church regularly and gossip about their friends like all good Christians do.

The thing is that my 'style' of driving---yes.... I have 'style' when I drive.... is made for Sundays, only everyday of the week. I have no special day for driving slow and enjoying the scenery. Every day is like this for me. In fact, it is probably the one thing that I have found essential in disengaging from the proverbial "rat-race"---the one that even well-intentioned folks do not realize they are caught up in. Slow down. It is your foot on the gas, not someone else's.

I have wondered often what purpose getting on that hamster wheel and going as fast as possible serves? What is the goal? Are we racing to death? Does the person who drives faster get places sooner so they end up doing more 'things' in life? Or does the person who drives faster merely miss out on so many little things that are lost in the blur that is the view offered out the side window?

Does speed let us get more done? Or does speed rob us off sinking deeper into the one life we have?

I don't mean to pick on you lead-footers and NASCAR wanna-bes. I know you all pay your taxes and floss. I just think you all are fucking nuts riding my ass like you do. Literally. N-U-T-S!! Some of you are NUTS with small children. Which is double or triple NUTS according to wikipedia!

It's not like I set out with the intention of getting in your way when I left the house. No. Really. Contrary to what you may believe not all of us think about "you" all the time. Besides, what happened to savouring a moment or two? Do we all need to be perpetually freaked-out and live life like we are constantly 15 minutes late for an appointment (observation suggests that the answer to that question is "Yes.")? Where is the joy in that. Not to mention we make everyone around us a potential crash-test dummie. And no.... not in the sense of the Canadian band and our humming with them the song, "Mmmmm..... Mmmmmm..... Mmmmmm.... Mmmmmm..... God... something or other." Literal, crash-test dummies. Only without the attractive and stylish jumpsuits.

Yes, I know you have brand-new minivan and you want to see what it can do. I know I am impeding your progress to a better-life based on speed and efficiency. I know I am a roadblock in my 1991 Chrysler Imperial prepping for retirement in a gated Floridian retirement village where we all drive golf-carts and three-wheeled bicycles. I know I piss you off. And you know what? I am not sorry one bit. Why?

I am not sorry for me bothering to enjoy the road, the drive, the day. I am going to notice things that you whizz past and never see. I am going to avoid an accident or three that you will be in because you are moving too fast to effectively respond to other situations around you. I am going to live longer---on average. I am also going to have enjoyable conversations with the people who ride with me. We are going to stop frequently and look at things that we see alongside the road that interest. We are going to take more pictures of Sunsets and stop at more dumpy roadside diners and dives where we will discover secret culinary treats. We are also going to wave as you drive by with your foot to the floor, your blood pressure to the ceiling, and your middle finger raised and flying free like the true symbol of the United States of America that it is. Fuck yeah! We are going to enjoy ourselves and our journey no matter what. Because you know what the secret of peace on the road is: if you are the slowest driver out there no one ever impedes your progress, gets in your way, pulls out in front of you, cuts you off, or puts your life in danger.

So feel free to honk and wave as you drive by. I'll be having a nice day.

"I'm So Hungry I Could Eat A Horse!"

2012-01-05T12:12:00.000-08:00

Has anyone actually ever followed through on that and eaten a horse. I am talking a full-sized horse, not any of those pint-sized ponies that people keep in their house and end up needing an intervention from their friends because of. I don't think being a Cowboy in 1883 and being forced to eat your trusty stead because you got lost on the trail and ran out of food counts either. Same for the Donner Party. Which always troubled me, now that I think of it: did they NOT eat their Horses before they started eating each other?

Dog food doesn't count either. I don't care how tasty it is! We are talking Filet of Secretariat here.

Funny how cows and horses are about the same size and we actually eat cows---unless you are from India, then you allow them to piss and shit on your front lawn (do they have "lawn" in India ) and eat rice with your hands---but no one ever says, "I am so hungry I could eat a Cow!" I mean, it is not like a Cow is to a Horse as a Mouse is to an Elephant.

This is where you interject and inform me that it is not meant to be taken literally and is just a figure of speech. It is not meant to mean that someone is actually going to eat a whole Horse---even if they could.... or wanted to. It is just someone saying they are really, really hunger and have a monstrous appetite. Kind of like when a guy without the assistance of an erectile dysfunction says he is going to make passionate love all night long. He doesn't really mean that he can. Anymore than he ate a Horse 2 hours earlier when he was "stah-ving!"

That is the peculiar thing about desire and how relative it is. Before the desire is fulfilled---while it looms on the horizon like an oasis in the desert---that desire feels larger than life. I really think I could eat a Horse, and I really could play Mailman all night long without being assisted by any pills or powders. That is how it FEELS in the moment. The desire feels massive and ravenous.... all-consuming. The proverbial eyes are bigger than the stomach is.

We are not lying either when we say how we feel in that moment. We are giving shape and substance to our subjective feelings. Our desire is all-consuming. That is how it feels. The irony, though, is that our capacity to hold and contain the objects of our desire is not as big. The willingness of our desire---the desire of our desire---is greater, in many instances than is our capacity for our desire.

Is that a little too philosophical? Perhaps. It need not be, though. I am sure any one of us can find immediate and direct examples from our own lives where our willingness led us to overestimating our capacity. It happens in love and relationships all the time. We don't need to just be talking about eating Horses here. That person who has the willingness to be faithful in marriage may not have the capacity to do so. Their desire is true and legitimate while their capacity to enact that desire is limited.

The same can be said for the person who is suffering with an addiction: one can have the desire for sobriety, and overcoming the abuse of a particular substance, while not having the capacity to actually do so. They may not be lying. They may not be dishonest. The lover who wants and craves you passionately---in the moment of intense passion---can be honest about their passionate desire to have you forever, while not being capable of actually doing that forever. The willingness is real. So are the limits of our capacity; and oftentimes the nature of all-consuming desire is such that it distorts our own perception of ourselves and the reality of what we are capable of. The result is that we overestimate how hungry we actually are.

I'm so hungry I could eat a horse, but I'll just settle for a burger.

The Apocalypse Is Coming! Repent Now! This Is Your Last Chance!

2012-01-04T12:03:00.000-08:00

I haven't shaven in more than a week. Been drinking for days. I am making my signs and placards. You can find me on the corner of Franklin and Washington in virtually any majour metropolitan area. Remember to do your best to ignore me. To you, I don't exist. The message and messenger both meaningless.... insignificant. Their delivery an effort in futility.

Can you imagine being struck by the impact of something so profoundly that you feel compelled to share it? Can you imagine being "crazy enough" to invite shame and ridicule? Have you tasted such madness before? Have you known such passion?

Maybe you don't even have to imagine the power of such a message. Maybe you know both the impact of such an overwhelming feeling of necessity in having a message be delivered by you, as well as that messages insignificance to others. Maybe you know what it feels like to carry the most important message the world will ever see while also realizing at the same time that no one else cares. Really, they don't.

Is there anyone more ridiculed than the madman who thinks he has a message to share about the "end of the world?" This is clearly someone who does not know his place. While the common vagrant merely pushes his or her stolen shopping cart down the street---the one loaded with all of their belongings, from the cardboard shell to the dingy throw-away blankets, from the bottles as empty as their dreams to the stale bread collected from yet another alley's dumpster---the madman with a message actually is deluded into believing that his voice matters; that God would speak to him.

How ballsy, eh? Someone who cannot just put his or her head down and refuse to make eye contact with the public. Someone who cannot just beg and panhandle for spare change. Someone with enough gall to imagine that they have something important to share with others: a message, and a very important at that. Now that's balls.

How passionate does one have to be to stand and deliver a message like that in the face of overwhelming disgust and ridicule? Talk about faith. Being rejected more than a zit-faced 13-year old at his first High School Dance and still holding one's ground is something that I don't feel a lot of us can understand fully. To have no one talk you seriously, while you believe you are delivering the most important message the world has ever known.

I bet even a mustard seed dreams of having as much faith as the haggard old man donning his placards and heading out to the street corner to be ignored. In fact, even I am dreaming of one day having that much faith.

A Name Can Get You Killed Around Here

2012-01-03T10:24:00.000-08:00

“When I get older I am changing my name,” Uriah proclaimed to me as we watched Michigan State football team mount a comeback against Georgia.

“Oh, really?” I asked.

“Yup,” he replied.

"What’re you going to change it to?” I wondered aloud to him.

He came back with something that sounded like “Uhmmm Zee….. Zeeee …. uh…. Zeke.”

Short for Ezekial, perhaps?

Maybe Uriah hadn’t really thought of it that much.... or that closely. Maybe I caught him off guard in wondering what his first choice of new last name would be. Maybe he just knew that Peckinpaugh was not cool.... nor normal.

Normal. Please God, for the love of all that is good, true, and beautiful do not name me something that stands out and gets me attention, especially cruel and invective attention that is unwanted. Heaven forbid my name ends up actually rhyming with some form of genitalia or gross bodily function, like vulva or scrotum.

I sympathized with Uriah. When I was just a boy I dreamt of one day changing my name. I used to dream of being named “Marty.” I know. Really, I did. My favourite Motocross Racer was Marty Smith and he had long hair and apparently quite a following amongst the ladies. Yeah, let me be Marty for a day. This 8 year-old boy is not as innocent and inexperienced as he looks. Come on over here and talk to ME, Ms. Honda of 1978.

Truly, I did. I knew exactly the place Uriah was coming from. Even if it stung a little at first to hear him say he wanted to change his name----which is the same as saying I don’t like the name I have and was given by you, or inherited from you---I did understand the apparent power and allure of a name other than the one we are given. What child hasn't wanted to change their name. Hell, Zen monks and priests do it all the time. You don't have to be "spiritual" or bent on "enlightenment" to want to change your name. You may just be seduced into believing that all the cruelty in the world is tied to the fact that your parents named you after your mole-faced Great Aunt. Mabel?? Really, Mabel??

If it were only that simple, though. If we could just call ourselves something new and change our existence. If we could just give ourselves a superhero name and begin saving the day. If we could only have the popular names, the above-average names, the attractive names, the wealthy names. Anything other than the name we have. Anything other than Peckinpaugh. God, Peckinpaugh?? Really, Dad??

When I was 21 and writing and recording music in an attempt to have it become my vocation in life I changed my name. I took on the proverbial "stage-name." Not one with the ring of a porn star or a stripper…. nor a glam-rocker from LA in the heydays of the 1980’s metal scene like Blackie Lawless, Nikki Sixx, or Rikki Rocket. I was not Titiana or William Hung. I merely dropped the Peckinpaugh and went with Zoe for a last name. David Zoe. That is who I was. That is who I thought I became. On the music I released and any of the promotion to do that is who I became: David Zoe.

It had meaning for me. It was significant. Zoe was chosen by me because of its being the Greek word for “Life.” I wanted to be newly animate and animated. It was a very soulful choice for me. I was, in a way, attempting to bring some “Life” to my life.

Of course a name change doesn’t always accomplish this as readily as choosing a name out of a hat. Not like a transplanted pig liver can, or a new love, or a dream. Changing my name didn’t really change me. It certainly didn’t change other people’s impressions of, or relations to, me either. I was not more famous or respected or noticeable. I was not more at peace inside. I was not suddenly free of all instances of anxiety about what this life is or is for, and how the fuck I am supposed to make my way through it without getting killed because I was cursed with the wrong name.

It was just a word. It is just a word. Sadly, though, they are words that can be deadly. Have the wrong name and it can literally get you killed. Whether humans have been Jewish or Irish or Latino or African-American---a name can really hurt. It identifies us as a specific member of a specifically targeted ethnic or religious group----or even as one who simply is “from that family”---the one that lives on the wrong-side of the tracks.

In the 1930’s my maternal Grandmother—who was born in Oklahoma and was Cherokee---moved to Michigan to run from both her name and her heritage. She, like so many others who have had to do so, left an area where she was boxed in because of her name and her race. She went North and passed for “white.” She was a relative success at it, too. No one caught on. Few of her friends knew she was Cherokee. She hid both her name and her heritage.

At what price, though. What is the price of us seeking exile from our identity, from our history, from our name? Do we end up running from who we are in running from our name? Isn’t there a history and a story to our names that is as much us as any Buddhist notion of emptiness is or New Age proclamation of our being "spiritual beings?" Isn’t it our name that connects us backwards in time---and forwards, for that matter—to our ancestors, our culture, our human roots?

Isn't it our name that gives us a sense of continuity? Isn't our name a testament to our lineage?

My own name change failed. I gave up pursuing music as a vocation---as most musicians end up doing! Yeah, I still played. I just realized the business of music was not where my passion was. Not to mention that I was not that good!

I didn’t quite know what I would do next. I drifted. I hung out in bookstores. I was looking for a new name…. a new identity, a new me…. a new dream. It really never occurred to me that I had the perfect name already, or that I embodied the perfect self. Caught up in the fever of everyone else is better, and infected with the virus of “I need to change,” the thought of already having or being what I needed to be most was as far from my thoughts as any thought could be.

Unbeknownst to me that was all about to change. This is how great life is. This is what can happen when we least expect it---actually, when we are expecting nothing at all.

One day in my late 20's, while returning a book at one of those bookstores I hung out at, I was required to fill out a “return form” with my name and address on it. In order to exchange the book I bought for another I had to tell the lady behind the counter my name. "Peckinpaugh," she said. "Really? That is your real name?"

"Yup," I said, matter-of-factly, “David Jon Peckinpaugh?"

"Wow," she went on, "that sounds just like the name of a distinguished writer or something.”

FYI

2006-12-15T09:08:00.000-08:00

Hi,

For recent writings at a new site, called 'Zaadz,' please click on the following:

REFUGE

Thanks for stopping by....
David Jon Peckinpaugh

A Notification Of Impending Experiments

2006-02-27T09:13:00.000-08:00

I have decided to make of this life an experiment. My sense is that there is a need for me (for others?) to explore more deeply the potential inherent in standard, traditional forms of spirituality. What I am getting as it whether or not there are any objective indicators of the effectiveness of traditional transformative practices.

What do I mean by objective indicators of effectiveness? Am I talking about 'measurement' here? Yes. Yes I am. The 'reign of quantity' is not over. The process of objectification can have its place; it does have its merits.

For example, say I am going to pray for a month straight. Say I endeavour to engage in a prayer-full spirit for 30 days. Now, let me ask you what kinds of measurements can I take before those 30 days commence and after? What kinds of measurable quantities exist in life that might give me an indication of the effectiveness of prayer, the neutrality of prayer (no change), or the maleficence of prayer (harmful consequences/results)? Should I just take into account the numbers that exist under my name in the Credit Union as a measurable form of data? Should I wiegh myself before and after? Should I do a BMI (Body-Mass Index) to check my % of bodyfat pre- and post experiment?

Maybe I could have my blood drawn and have a series of labs done to check the status of the various bio-markers that are signs of health and/or disease? That is an objective, measurable form of data, isn't it?

Why?

I just want to know what works. I am interested in 'results' at this point. No. Not the mystical language and the poetic rimunations on the Non-Dual Source and Suchness of the Cosmos (Kosmos anyone?). I just want an effective form of existing; which includes being able to deal more effectively with difficulty and hardship. Not to mention I tend to prefer pleasurable states. So, how can these be generated. Is prayer a process whereby we can be strengthened in soul, spirit, mind, and body? Is prayer helpful when it comes to living?

Simply put, DOES PRAYER WORK!

How?

How am I going to conduct this experiment? What are the experimental parameters that I am going to be employing? What is the 'T-factor?' How much time am I going to invest in praying?

My interest is not so much in setting aside an allotted time for parying as much as my interest is in maintaining a prayer-full mode of being at all times! As it is put in the Bible by the Apostle Paul, I am going to 'pray without ceasing.' It is not so much about the 5 minute quickie prayer or the marathon retreat session of prayer on bended knee. After all, if prayer is going to be effective--i.e., it is going to manifest beneficial results for simple, ordinary human beings like you and I (oh, you are not simple and ordinary? sorry!)--then the experimental envelope in which prayer is being subjected to for analysis and inquiry has to be the same as the average living conditions we expect to encounter on most days. It does no good to set up 'special conditions' to pray while in experimental mode and then have no indication of whether or not those conditions will translate into the lives of the non-experimenting layperson (you and I, Tom and Sue, Steve and Ahmed).

Where?

Because our lives do not exist in isolation I see no merit in studying prayer as an effective transformational avenue in the laboratory sealed off from the messiness of the world. In fact, what we want to do is study and experiment with prayer in the midst of the messiness, chaos, and tumult of the world. Again, if prayer is going to be effective then it needs to be effective for the single-parent working two jobs and trying to support three kids as it is for the lone, hermit recluse on the mountaintop, or the monk at the Abbey.

So, with that in mind, I will experiment with prayer where prayer needs to work--provided it can work! And that is right in the midst of rush-hour traffic and cranky bosses who obviously didn't 'get any' over the weekend! ; o )

Who?

Who am I going to be praying to, you now ask. Allah? YHWH? Zeus? Cronos? Ganesh? Vishnu? Jesus? Who exactly am I going to direct my prayers to? Where is He/She? Who is He/She? Who am I hoping will hear my prayers?

In answering this the understanding gets really cool. I am so excited to be explaining this that I can barely contain myself. Really! This is awesome. It is awesome that I am going to be directing prayer to no one in particular and everyone in particular all at the same time. How so? Because there is no separation inherent in the nature and make-up of our existence in this-world (the Cosmos is a seamless energetic/informational Whole) any and all prayers are non-local the moment they are uttered. And the 'utterance' I take to be crucial. The emittance of sound-waves are akin to being the local corollary to the non-local nature of information.

It is as there is a reverbation of what we utter in our immediate surroundings---which by rule of natural law will make an immediate impact. So the utterance becomes the local and immediate expression of a non-local phenomena that has Cosmic implications. This is why I am saying that I am not going to be praying to a 'God' and yet I am going to be praying to 'just that God' and everyone and everything else at the same time!

For example, Buddhists often pray (yeah, Buddhists pray too!) for the 'liberation of all sentient beings.' His Holiness the Dalai Lama has confessed to praying for the 'happiness of everyone.' It is in that same spirit that I intend to pray during the experiment I am about to conduct.

A Prayer For The Cosmos Is A Prayer For Everyone

This isn't my attempt to get all 'New Age' and 'foo-foo' on ya'all. Hard-core, mainstream science conducted in state of the art laboratories with the latest technology, inquiring into the basest of elemental energies has revealed the permeability of what were once deemed static boundaries. We are shot through with the 'stuff of Stars.' And I don't mean Britney Spears and Brad Pitt! I mean that the Cosmos is a Field of Information and Energy that only appears to be frozen, fixed, and solid because of the normal manner in which so-called 'things' are perceived by us humans. At far subtler levels it is revealed to us that the apparent solidity is just an 'appearance' and not 'reality.' Reality is far more fluid in fact than it appears to us to be at first glance.

It is that fluidity of fact--rather than fiction--that allows for our transformation here on Earth as it is in Heaven. Apart from that fluidity we would be totally 'fixed.' And not 'fixed' in a good way either!! We would be incapable of growth. We would not be able to be transformed. If we were lost we would be lost forever. That condition would be unchanging. Thankfully it is not so. Transformation is possible. And my Heart of Hearts tells me that there are exceedingly 'traditional avenues of transformation' that have yet to receive the acclaim and merit that they deserve. That is why I am doing this. Because I want to know if prayer works firsthand. I don't want it to be a part of my life because Momma or Daddy said it was good for me; or because the Pope does it! Instead, I will be a 'lamp unto myself' for then there will be no doubt. I will know that prayer is effective or not. I will no beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Note: I'd like to thank Paul Salamone for his entries on his experience with the Integral Lie Practice Kit. He has proved himself both informational and inspirational. Thanks Paul (I just hope it was not a 'work requirement' that you do so!). ; o )

Urgency

2006-02-24T06:15:00.000-08:00

When you lay down at night, ready to drift off to sleep, waiting for the sandman to come, what burns in you to be lived?

What colours to you want to use to paint life with? What have you yet to taste? Whose smile beckons you in the still of the night? What visions captivate you, somewhat hauntingly, making you wonder if you will ever experience the 'life you seem meant for?'

This is a powerful experience of reflection we are all capable of: take into account what is transpiring in consciousness as you prepare to sleep and you will realize where you have an urgent need/desire to travel in the direction of. Maybe you want to express more affection and love for those close to you. Perhaps you want to be less sensitive and touchy, as you seem to be afflicted with generating 'drama' unnecessarily. Or maybe you just know that the life you are living now is not fulfilling you, not feeding you, not sustaining you, not anywhere near offering you the kind of nourishment and support that you need in order to continue.

So, I say, don't dream of dying and escaping from what has become of your life--no matter what the difficulties may be--but, instead, dream of that which is urging you to live. Find the fire in your soul. Find the bounce in the body. Find the melody in the mind. Find the song in the spirit of that which conspires to leave you contented at night. For it is present, whispering to you now in quiet, breathing life into your lungs, preparing you to fly above and beyond all that you may think is possible of holding you back. But nothing is. Nothing can hold back the one who knows the urgency of a life aching to be lived.

You can. You wouldn't even be 'aware of it' if you were not capable of it. That dream. That transformation. That vision. That 'you' that awaits in the distance that is no distance at all. Unite with the promise of that 'you.'

A Day of Utter Fulfillment

2006-02-21T05:24:00.000-08:00

I often wonder what the ideal day would be like. Would we find ourselves wholly activated in as many sectors as we exist in? Would all of our 'chakras' be alive, spinning, and fired up? Wouldn't we find ourselves stimulated in the best sense of that word on all planes/dimensions of our being--physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual? Wouldn't we be in such a state as one in which we are not able to deny any aspect of our beingness because that beingness would be 'called forth' in our day?

Would we go to work knowing that we didn't have to 'deny' some part of ourselves? And wouldn't that be lovely--to rise in the morning knowing that 'all of us' is welcomed into this-world once again?

Diverse Needs & Forms Of Expression

2006-02-20T09:16:00.000-08:00

I suspect that if we were only 'emotional' beings then the mere expression of our emotions would be totally satisfying. Likewise would intellectual pursuits leave us completely contented if we were only 'mental' beings. But we are not are we? We are not 'just this' or 'just that.' We are 'just this... and then some!'

It may be why drugs and psychedelic experiences leave us dry after a time. It could be why sex for the sake of sex is an inevitable dead-end. It could be why total immersion in any one single area of human endeavour is bound to leave us 'empty' inside.

And so, if the proof is in the pudding, as the saying goes, then have we not come to understand that no 'single thing' can ever satisfy the necessity bourne of our multi-dimensional nature? Do we not know enough to know that we can't find happiness in monotheism; where we make idols of romance, work, sex, drugs, mystical experiences, enlightenment, truth, philosophy, science, spirituality, guys, girls, children, lovers, and roles we hope will be 'The Answer?'

The Living Experience Is??

2006-02-15T09:29:00.000-08:00

One? None? Many? Neither?

What are we privileging? Are we able to formulate an unbiased opinion on the nature of sentient existence? Might our being raised in a culture of monotheistic leanings predispose us to a view of 'singleness' and 'essence' that indicates to us that we are a 'one?' And would we see ourselves differently and judge reality according to a different set of criteria if we grew up in a culture that had multiplicity as its existential basis?

How can we know? How can we determine the most factual basis for our existence? That is the real question I am begging to ask here: What is the real basis for our existence?

What view or perspepctive is going to best accord with Reality? How are we to establish that basis? Or, check that... how are we to best realize the perspective on our existence that most accords with what is Real?

Deep Subjects

For many the topic itself is just too deep to bother with. Just 'getting by' and 'making ends meet' is worry enough. There isn't time or inclination to consider such matters--even if such matters bear an ultimate weight and importance upon our lives. Therefore, many people just come to adopt the creeds of their forefathers. Those who, you guessed it, adopted the creed of their forefathers... who... so... on and so forth... on down the line, through the generations.

That seems to me to say much for what has come to be the case for humanity. The fact that we are faced with the bare, and often brute, facts of existence in this-world leaves us in a position where we cannot examine our basis for existence. That is left to others. It is all fine and well to do so if others are to be trusted. But if others have ulteriour motives then it is not fine. We can end up duped. We can end up victims of our own inability or unwillingness to realize 1) who we are, 2) how we came to be here, and 3) what that all means.

So... are we these single substances... these enduring monads? Are we an essence of some sort that is sure and certain, solid and unshakable?

Or... might we be a community that is in constant flux, flow, and exchange? A collective of entities that only seems to have some 'essence' in relation to the organization of the many parts that make us up into an apparent 'I?'

The Living Lab

Where can we go to begin such a study? Where is there a truly open and uncharted field of investigation that does not have its own already established creeds and methods? If we go the contemplative route and adopt the tenets of Zen Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, or any of the Christian Monastic Orders then are we really going to be answering that most vital of questions? Or, will we just be getting an answer that is already implied at the beginning; due to the innate assumptions of each of those systems?

I wonder if it is truly possible to be like the American maverick Henry David Thoreau any longer? Can we live life raw and strip existence down to the bone in order to arrive at what is essential? Or is that just a fool's game?

Was Thoreau--and others like him-naive? Or could have Thoreau been a wayfarer of something totally historic: a prime example of a non-dogmatic, creedless investigation that strives to discover first things through unmediated, direct experience, rather than through the second-hand of approved literature and/or popular opinion?

One & Many

2006-02-14T06:37:00.000-08:00

Houston we have a problem!

Anytime that we are going to propose a solution to the dilemmas of a living existence in a world such as this-one we are liable to run into a difficulty or two. For the monotheistic psychology based upon 'the One' that difficulty can be felt in a certain tightness and rigidity--a narrowness and constriction--that appears to deny multiplicity and difference for the sake of 'the One.'

A polytheistic psychology has its own problem, though. I don't suspect it could be termed a panacea for what ails us. The long-noted problem inherent in a polytheistic psyche is that of 'integration.' How shall the various gods get along? What shall bring us direction and order? We can't just have a cacophony of voices can we? We need some ordering principle do we not? We need 'the One,' right?

The Monophonic Self... Or The Polyphonic Self

2006-02-09T09:08:00.000-08:00

What Do You Mean? I have So Little Time On My Hands As It Is!

When I got make the argument that the Renaissance stands as some sort of human potential landmark that would serve us all well to consider more thoughtfully I am sure to get a few skeptics wondering how the hell they are going to fit more considerations into an alreayd overwhelmed existence. This is understandable. I mean, how can we be a world-class sculptor and painter ala Michelangelo? Isn't that a bit much to ask?

Maybe looking at it that way is to miss the point. Maybe looking at it from an 'achievment perspective' is the exact opposite of what I am getting at.

So, 'What am I getting at then?' you may ask. Well, I am getting at the psychology of the Renaissance. It is that same psychology--or, paradigm, if you will--that seems to have informed the Samurai of Japan, the greatest era of Liberal Arts Education as found in Europe and the Americas, and, I am contending, the burgeoning Integral Movement championed by the likes of the late India sage, Sri Aurobindo, Esalen's Michael Murhpy, and the contemporary philosopher Ken Wilber.

Despite the noticable differences in each of the philosophies, paradigms, psychology's espoused by the above, there is a common theme that each contends holds true: namely, that we are multi-dimensional beings; beings that we exist on mutliple levels of reality. Some put in the terms of the Perrenial Philosophy, stating that we are constituted of body, mind, soul, and spirit. Others delineate us according to quadrants, lines, levels (Ken Wilber). Someone like Sri Aurobindo suggest that the human-being is a multiplicity of potential 'states of consciousness' that unfold progressively through stages.

Like I said, there is a common thread that runs throughout each of these 'maps' or 'systems' that seeks to explain who we are. Each 'map' converges on the theme of our inherent multiplicity as human-beings.

The Efficiencies Of the Monophonic Self

Maybe it was the assertion of the sciences of increasing reductionism--those which sought to discover the 'essence of all things;' to find the 'lowest common denominator' of our humanness. Perhaps it was the Judeo-Christian concept of the soul as this inviolable substance that went far beyond the gates of heaven and hell in its existence; that was the 'one thing' we most certainly are. Whatever it was--the prime cause--there has come to be an emphasis on discovering 'who we are.' 'What is my True Self?' has been one of the chief questions of the past 50 years or so. People in the developed nations of the world have been asking this question with an intensity that has grown to the point that 'Self-Help' books are being found in supermarket checkout lines.

The Answer. What is The Answer? Who am I? Why am I here? What am I here for?

There is an assumption behind these sorts of questions that presumes there is a single answer! Can't you feel it? Can't you feel that assumption? Haven't you felt it? Hasn't each of us, in our own way, been on a search for the One Big Thing? The One Big Thing in the form of a wife or husband, a job or a mission, a plan or an idea, a winfall or a lottery-prize? Aren't we all seduced by the prime tenet of Monotheistic Pscyhology: that there is really only ONE!?!

What's Wrong With The One?

So many of us spend so much time looking for 'the One.' We bounce around from relationship to relationship, from town to town, from city to city, from bed to bed, from bar to bar--all in search of the 'that One.' Job after job and house after house we never seem to be able to settle. There is a perpetual agony with the search it seems to me. Shoot! I am no better and have spent a good portion of my time searching for 'the One' too!

The thing is, not unlike yourself, I wanted it to stop. I wanted to fine 'the One.' I wanted to locate 'the One' in space and time--i.e., in a job or a lover or a town or a guru or a philosophical system. I wanted to find 'the One!' I wanted my restless search to be over. I wanted the game of life as a game of musical chairs to end! I was dying to find 'the One.'

I don't think it is at all a stretch of my own imagination--nor anyone else's for that matter--to imply that this search... this desperate ache for 'the One'... is not just my own. I think it is pandemic. I personally have come to conclude that this desperate desire to discover 'the One' and fuse with 'it,' whatever 'it' might be, is a logical consequence of monotheism. And following from that conclusion I am daring to contend that there is a possibility of relief from the agonies/ecstasies of the search (or should I say agonies and false hopes?) in investigating the history of polyphonic humanity in the form of the Renaissance, the Sumarai, and the potential seemingly offered by the burgeoning Integral Movement.

Most of my evidence for contending that there is relief to be found from the cultural norm of 'monotheistic psychology' is founded on this logic:

1) If we are a multiplicity--a multidimensional species, a diverse conglomeration of varius entities, a community, a polyphony.. then...

2) no 'single thing' is bound to result in satisfaction, contentment, fulfillment, happiness, or what have you.

In other words, no 'thing' can be 'the ONE!'

According to that logic it would appear to indicate that monotheistic psychologies are inherently unsatisfying. That is an apparent truth that seems to be corroborated by the glorious degree of consumption of goods, services, commodities, and relationships that the Judeo-Christian West is infamous for--and all to no avail!

Balance, Symmetry & The Fully Human Being

2006-02-03T10:00:00.000-08:00

When I hold the image of the Renaissance in my mind's eye and consider the merit of the ideals espoused by those artisans and philosopher-kings that made the Renaissance what it is/was I am drawn to opening towards the possibility that the 'era of specialization' has as its congenital twin an inherent degree of inevitable pathology. In short, when we specialize we limit ourselves. We become imbalanced. We become assymmetrical.

Perhaps that is one of the reasons why there is such a devastating lack of the Feminine throughout the Age of Enlightenment. It is as if Modernity was an age of assymetrical human endeavours devoid of such qualities as emotion, feeling, intuition, sense and sensuality. It was a time when 'specialization' and its compadre' we call 'compartmentalization' held court. And I don't think we even have an inkling of how tremendous has the impact of these tendencies been on upon us and the world we have socially constructed upon their basis.

As I mentioned in the previous piece in this series (Might The Integral Be the Beginnings Of a New Renaissance?), there is sense that we as human-beings are only supposed to be 'one thing' and 'one-thing-alone.' A teacher. A auto mechanic. A drug dealer. A pharmacist. A father. The question posed to children is 'What do you wanna be?' And it is posed with a tone and tenour that suggests to a child that there is only 'one right answer!'

The foundation of such questions is established upon the basis of assumptions that tend to go unexamined. I want to look more closely at those assumtpions: what is their impact? are they tru? are they the best assumptions we can have? do we need them? might we better off without them? I would like to dig into the geological strata of such assumptions and discover what resides there. If only because my gut is telling me that we can do far better without such assumptions (and the type of existence/realtionships they lead to) than with them.

Subjective Experience, Objective Facts

I would be willing to bet (and I would even bet that it would be a safe bet!) that there are untold numbers of people just like me: people who have experienced the same difficulty in ultimately deciding and determing 'who they are?' and 'what they are meant to do?'

Again, monotheism. One god. One right way. One thing to do. One right answer.

The oneness can be paralyzing. It can be defeating. It can be crippling. I mean, shoot, where can we go in one-dimension? Who are we as a singularity? And why is diversity and difference viewed as problematic from a spiritual/religious/metaphysical perspective?

I am asking whether the whole foundational metaphysics underlying Western Civilization, which suppose that we are 'made in the image and likeness of God' are not themselves responsible for some less than benign consequences. Is the that way we both view our existence, and later come to live it, informed by a monotheistic psychology that we have not examined with a critical eye/I nearly enough? I propose that the answer is a resounding 'Yes!'--just in case you hadn't figured that much out yourself.

James Hillman & Ken Wilber

Not much, if any, discussion about a New Renaissance has included the mention of James Hillman and Ken Wilber in the same breath. And while their noticable differences from a philosophical perspective may be reason enough not to sing their praises in the same breath, I would beg to differ. Both the Archetypal Psychology of James Hillman and the Integral Philosophy of Ken Wilber point to the problematic nature of so 'singular a vision' that it becomes not just limiting, but pathological, in extremis. Hillman, in his many works has pointed to the detrimental effects of a 'monotheistic psychology' that undermines life's inherent diversity (up to and including the inherent diversity of the Psyche). Wilber, in his own inter-disciplinary way, has done much the same in contending that one of the graver issues before us is this matter of the 'flatland': the 'monochromatic' ... 'monological gaze' that has rendered many with a sense that there is only 'one-dimension' that matters in life.

While Wilber has gone his own way in naming the assailants perpetrating crimes against the human potential for a well-balanced, symmetrical existence (remember, Satan as a-symmetry?) I have drawn from his work, with much thanks, while taking a different approach in suggesting that the 'monotheistic tendency' is not locatable in a single field of human endeavour--be it Science or Spirit--as much as it is the tendency itself to bias a single dimensional perspective over all others.

In other words, monotheism is not a religious problem as much as it is a problem of consciousness. Monotheism is itself the creation of an idol in the vertical dimension (spirit) or an idol in the horizontal dimension (science).

What Is A Subjective Experience Of Goal-lessness Like?

2006-02-01T09:21:00.000-08:00

I know it is all well and good to rant on and on about the disasterous (or at least potentially disasterous) consequences of strict adherence to certain goals. This I have done of late and will also continue to do in the future as more evidence reveals itself through a deeper, more penetrating analysis of goal-makings side-effects--both long-term and short-term.

All of that being said I am also aware that one needs to present an alternative vision. If a goal-setting existence is not up to par than what is, or might be considered, worthy of one's devotion?
I say that because the one thing that I don't want to get into is a rant-fest where all sorts of criticism is offered and a constant finger is being pointed in the direction of this, that, and the other thing... but... and here is the big issue as far as I see it... there is no alternative presented that we find appealing, or even compelling.

It is a bit like someone having cancer and being told that chemotherapy has a very limited effectiveness in treating cancer, and offering that patient nothing else. If I am going to go out on a limb and expose a goal-setting existence for what it is (which I consider to be far less than benign) then I have to be able to present another option. So, if not the chemotherapy of 'setting goals' then what?

Who You Gonna Be Boy?

I have to admit that I really had no idea who or what I wanted to be (as if I were no one unless I decided to be someone--someone or something specific, e.g., a fireman, a footballer, etc. and so forth) when I was young. It didn't mean that I didn't have talents or gifts like we all do. I just couldn't decide on what I wanted to do. That 'one thing' that was precious to me above all other things--'My precious' in the words of the character Gollum from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings--was not evident to me. I was, I suppose a polytheist, a panentheist. God... the Divine... the Sacred... the Numinous resided in many apparent 'things.' I couldn't just have one Beloved.

For most of my teens and twenties (and I should add the first half of my 30's) I struggled with feelings of ineptitude. It was as if I was cursed. I saw so many people easily deciding on a career path, on a choice of lifestyle and vocation. I saw so many people easily realizing what it is that they wanted to do in life, while I continued to struggle with not-knowing.

Inherited Cultural Assumptions

It was not until recently that I began to consider the possibility that that 'not-knowing' was a gift rather than a curse. I didn't have to know what I was supposed to do because I didn't need to choose. The whole idea of choosing itself, at least to me, came under intense scrutiny. I realized that I had inherited the cultural assumptions which indicate that we are supposed to be this 'one thing' and 'only this one thing.' I inherited the fruits of the Modern West's Monotheism. That we are supposed to be a writer or a teacher. But only a writer or a teacher. That we are supposed to be a doctor or a mother. But only a doctor or a mother. I had been infected by the cultural assumption that states we must choose a 'single path' and adhere to that 'single path' (ala George W. Bush in case anyone hasn't noticed), because the failure not to do so is interpreted as both a sign of uncertainty and a sign of weakness.

The Cultural Secret: The Pathologies of Monotheism

There is so much that faces us in a direct and immediate manner, which indicates to us the virtues of adopting a more polytheistic stance towards our own existence. Even what appears to us to be a 'single-person' constituted of a 'single-mind/body' is not really so. Upon closer examination what is revealed is a community. A network of relationships made of distinct differences gives rise to a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. It is as if in order to have the appearance of a singularity we need a multiplicity. It is the old chicken and the egg dilemma: which came first?

Anthropologists have pointed to what appears to have been a far more polytheistic past predating the monotheistic leanings of the present age of humanity (a monotheism that still holds court, I would contend--ala Islam, Christianity, and Judiasm). Before monotheism held such favour in the hearts and minds of human-beings, not to mention the cultures and civilizations constructed upon the basis of monotheistic leanings, there was more an emphasis on the polyphonic diversity of both the sacred and the profane. In fact, the polyphonic diversity of totemistic Paganism, the Greek pantheon of the Gods, and Hinduism all realized the presence of the Sacred (the One) within/as the profane (the Many). As a result there tended not to be such a separatist mentality that we see in the consequences of monotheism.

For instance, you ever notice how the Monotheists want to have a 'place unto themselves.' The Jews are a prime example of this. Their homeland is a singularity. There is only one Jerusalem. And in a sense they are right--there is only one Jerusalem. The problem for them is that Jerusalem is a place claimed by many peoples at many times throughout history. Jerusalem was even the home of prehistoric sea-dwelling creatures who crapped right in the place where the most sacred of locales is held to be for Jews the world over.

That is what Monotheism does. It locks in the vision and freezes the consciousness to the point where ignorance attempts to pass itself off as knowledge. The analogue of Manyness--of polytheism--on the other hand, allows us the privilege of realizing that Jerusalem is not just meant to be 'one thing' for 'one peoples' anymore than any other locale in space and time is.

The Just Itness Of Monotheism

If we are being psychjologically informed by monotheistic tendencies then we are prone to being these creatures who attempt to strictly 'define' what things are. It is as if monotheism and atomism go hand-in-hand. Seeking to 'define what a thing is' and 'reducing things to their singular essence' are both the result of monotheism's psychological impact upon humanity (or, at the very least this is what I am contending). A thing--any thing... a person a plant and place... are just 'one things' and 'only one things.'

Good or evil? You make the call. Right or wrong? You decide. What is a thing? Who are you?

Remember, according to monotheism there is only ONE RIGHT ANSWER!! There can, after all, only be one.

Flying In The Face Of The Renaissance

I have intimated before that the Integral Movement for the Age of Globalization is akin to what the Rennaissance was for Europe several centuries ago. The Renaissance was the bridge that took Europe from the medival world to the modern world. Between, roughly, 1400 and 1600 there was a flowering of diverse accomplishments in art, literature, science, learning, and architecture. Some of humanity's greatest achievements took place in that time. And one of the prime reasons this was so is because there was a lessening of emphasis on the 'cult of monotheism' and a rebirth of a polytheistic perspective, as drawn from the Greeks--as well as from all the travels and adventures of explorers who began criss-crossing the oceans in search of 'new lands,' while bringing back tales and artifacts from those lands.

It was as if the closed-world of medival Europe was opening up. And as that physical landscape opened up so, too, did the psychological landscape of those persons who have become synonymous with the word 'Renaissance.' Da Vinci. Michelangelo. Donatello. Ficino. Paracelsus.

The Renaissance was a time when the diverse array of human potential flowered. It WAS NOT AN AGE OF SPECIALIZATION! Strict adherence to roles and rules slackened just enough to allow certain exceptional people to explore the polyphonic nature of their own being. It was an age marked by those people who stood in stark contrast to what is portrayed in Herbert Marcuse's book One-Dimensional Man.

Think about it for just a moment: an age where a sculptor was also a scientist and an inventor was also a poet. It was a time when a priest was also a physician and an alchemist was also a writer. It was a time when we saw how exquisite a dance of the Feminine and Masculine Faces of the Divine can be. It was as if we saw a cultural example emerging of Shiva and Shakti in delicate embrace. And while there were still tragedies and pitfalls associated with that Age I do believe firmly in my mind that the burgeoning Integral Movement can give birth to a similar (though unique in its own right) culture of that which could resemble yet another reassertion of polyphonic humanity.

Goals & Gods: Scoring Them & Saving Them

2006-01-24T09:17:00.000-08:00

In a way I am saying that 'goals' are bad. It is all too easy... perhaps even inherent in the nature of goals that they become these encrusted 'objects' in our minds that we presume lie 'out there' in space-n-time somewhere. Again, goals become objects; that 'thing' that we pursue, and often with a fever pitch.

The side-effects of pursuing 'goals' should be listed as a series of disclaimers right inside of any self-help book. The pursuit of goals may adversely affect one's perception of reality. Reality may become distorted. Reality may take on a diametric flavour opposing that which one percieves as 'affirming/assisting one's goal-gaining' and that which 'denies/obstructs one's goal-gaining.'

You are either for my goal or against my goal. Whether we like him and his political agenda or not, we each take on a Bush/Bin Laden psychological approach when it comes to our pursuit of the proverbial 'pot of gold' at the end of the rainbow. You are either for my goal or against my goal. An ally or an enemy combatant. Who are you? Shall I love you or hate you?

If I want to know that I just ask you what you think of my 'prime objective' and then your fate is sealed in my mind. I'll interrogate you. I'll question you as to the nature of your stance towards what my number 1 goal is--then I'll know what I think of you... then I'll know what to do with you and your kind.

Suzi Gablik, authour of The Reenchantment Of Art, among other works, has written that,

Many of the difficulties and conflicts we experience... are related to the framework of beliefs and standards of behaviour provided by our culture to serve as guidelines for our individual lives. We tend to pattern ourselves and our worlk view after our culture, taking as self-evident certain beliefs, values and beahviours; thus, if our model of culture is faulty and disordered, then we ourselves are disordered in precisely the same way.

Does that mean that a goal-driven, ends-seeking, pay-any-cost, bear-any-burden culture will tend to foster a similar mentality/disposition amongst its members? I'll let you answer that one for yourself. My answer, based upon my own experience, along with my observations of others whom I happen to share a certain emerging Global Culture with--one primarily based upon standards dictated by Modernity/Western Civilization--is a resounding yes!

Before you take issue with me and my appraisal of the situation I would like you to sit for a moment and keep in mind that this investigation is just getting under way. I have barely even started to broach the topic. So bear in mind that all of the evidence is not yet in; evidence that I am going to use to support the case I am going to make for a goal-less existence.

AIMLESS WANDERING?

One of the chief fears of those more conservative types who espouse the merits of intense goal-setting is that we are bound to become slothful vagabonds wandering the Universe if we don't have a direction and set a number of goals for ourselves. How will we know where to go? How will we know what to do? The asumption inherent in such questions is that if we don't have a goal then we must somehow be imbeciles. It is as if there is a sense that goals make us intelligent! Without them we are stupid and lazy!

But is the seat of human intelligence within the goal? Does the goal make us smarter, sexier, more beautiful? Studies seem to confirm that there is at leats some truth to this in that heterosexual women tend to be more attracted to a 'man with a mission.' I mean, shoot even Charles Manson was scoring with the ladies back in the day when he was far beyond 'driven.' Having goals... and perhaps, more importantly, pursuing them... can get you laid!

Maybe it's not so much the goal-setting that is sexy as it is the fact that those with strond desires to achieve a certain goal or agenda are psychologically reassuring to us. That maybe why George W. Bush won two elections (that and the Supreme Court's deciding vote). He represents--for all of his more obvious failings--an intensely driven psychological stance that portrays a sense of stability and security in the midst of a world in tremendous flux and impermanence. His... er, uhm... rigidity and inflexibility are psychologically reassuring to an American populace. And while I would not go so far as to proclaim him a 'Hitler' I would go so far as to suggest that the time in which he won office was perhaps a time not too dissimilar to the time when Hitler won office. It was a time of uncertainty and seeming ambivalence. There was talk of a loss of values and the country 'losing its way.'

At such a time, even a man who has the wrong convictions (or I should say, potentially harmful convictions) is still a man who represents strength to a populace begging for direction and leadership.

The election of George W. Bush also points to the failings of the so-called 'Left.' The overriding sensation provided by the Left-wing to the American populace is that there is no direction. What does the Left stand for? Can you tell me? What is their claim to fame of late? Can you tell me what the convictions of the Democrats are?

POLITICS AS SEXUAL LIAISON

If a majourity of heterosexual women tell us that a 'man with a plan' is sexier and more attractive than a man without one, then perhaps such evidence suggests that we are more or less attracted psychologically to politicians who evidence some erectness of the spine (even if it in that former Yale cheerleader cum Texas cowboy wanna-be way of George W. Bush).

The truth is that both sex and politics have a lot to do with confidence--or at least the appearance of confidence. It shouldn't be surprise that more than a few women have been 'conned' by a con-man (a confidence man). Nor should it be a surprise that much the same can happen to a whole nation in political terms. We sometimes only hear what we want to hear. A woman wants to hear that she is sexy and that she is 'the only one,' just as a nation of people want to hear that they are 'being protected' and 'taken care of.'

Not on my watch baby! I won't let anything bad happen to you (just so long as you overlook that last time I was on vacation and all hell broke loose).

And the lady and the people want to believe. We want to believe that we are THAT IMPORTANT! We want to believe that a person really means what they are saying. The trouble is that that only job of the con-man is to get us to have confidence in him. Because if we are 'just believers' (hello you Conservative Christians out there!) then we shall be saved and have everlasting life.

JESUS'S FINAL COMMANDMENT: MAKE BELIEVERS OUT OF ALL NATIONS & PEOPLES

All we have to do is believe in GW. Just like we believe in Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. he'll watch out for us.

In reality, though, that might be the problem. The problem might be when a cheerleader secretly wants to be the quarterback. The problem might be when a C student is forced to make decisions that even the Valedictorian would be challenged by. The problem is when we take as our example for living the life of one whose capacity far outstrips our own. The problem is when you set Christ as your goal and example, and yet get a nation to to follow you on the principle of faith in a world where facts suddenly seem to have no merit. The problem is when you gain a people's confidence, for all the wrong reasons.

The problem is that Jesus Christ is seen as a planetary saviour by the Christian faithful, and that the leader of the world's strongest military-industrial complex takes that same Jesus Christ as his political exemplar. So what does the leader of the world's strongest military-industrial complex need to do in order to be like Christ--to realize his greatest goal? Does he too need to try and become a 'world saviour?' And if so, then what is going to save the world from?

Maybe he should start with himself. Save us from you GW!! ; o )

Seriously. I truly do feel that there is a monumental problem on one's hand when one sets as one's goal that which one may not have the capacity to achieve. This is especially problematic when one is a politician of the executive order and is playing the role of leader. When we mix God and our earthly Goals in a pot we may end up with a disasterous set of circumstances on our hand because we are operating under the assumption that we have the omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient capacities of God with us.

Which is maybe why it is good idea to never mention what God sees the goal of the world as being. For once we are convinced we know what God wants from the world we then go about trying to make the world conform to some bastard goal we arrogantly proclaim God as the Father of.

Me? I don't know what God wants from the world. I don't know what the goal of everything is. I do know it is time for lunch though. Care to join me?

Driven: To Achieve Success We Must.... ?

2006-01-22T10:04:00.000-08:00

Success is something that is awfully hard to measure in a purely 'objective' way. That old saying that one person's trash is another's treasure exists for a reason. What someone considers 'valuable' another person may consider 'worthless.' The same applies to success. Just look at how women are having to redefine their notion of success in an age following the gains won by the feminist movement. Success in the workplace--or seeming success, I should say--has left more than one lady with a crisis at home, on the level of personal relationships. Problems with children. Problems with having children! Marital difficulties. Shoot... even difficulty with entering any relationship because success in the workiung-world has become a paramount achievement (I guess someone should have told the ladies that success at work is highly overrated! evidence: anyone else notice the increase in heart disease amongst women post 'equal rights?').

So does success in one area equal failure in another? I mean, we are supposed to be these integral mavens and mavericks, right? Aren't we supposed to work it all?! Aren't we supposed to be 'on top of our game' in all of the different quadrants, lines, levels, states, and stages---not to mention any other category that Ken Wilber has just included in version Wilber 5.1). Gosh, I get tired just contemplating the overwhelming task of considering the possibility of being a rousing success all across the spectrum!

I also wonder about the hubris inherent in the notion that one can be a success in multiple areas and fields given the spatial and temporal limitation that are innate to the human predicament. There are still only 24 hours in a day the last time I checked, 7 days in a week, and 365 days in a year. Perhaps this is why there is some fascination with longevity ala Ray Kurzweil and the like amongst certain sectors of the 'Integralians' to borrow a term coined by one Paul Salamone. Those folks are going to need an extra 20, 25, or 30 years to work on their pet body-mind projects!

I can imagine some 90 year-old male still trying to achieve that beloved 'six pack.' And all those ladies that will one day be the age of current nursing home residents will be getting 'boob jobs' and 'ass lifts' to celebrate their 100th birthday!

'What did you spend your social security check on this month Alice?'

'Oooohhh... nothing yet doll, I am still saving up for that pair of double D's.'

GETTING THERE

Success. What is it? is it 'getting what we want' in accordance with the shallower dictates of the ego and persona? Is it the 'boob job?' Is it 'scoring with the hot chick?' Is it becoming a rousing success in media terms? Is it fame? Is it fortune? Is it thin or fat? Is success being wealthy enough to rival Donald Trump's spending habits or Mohatma Ghandi's? How are we to define success? And as we define success are we aware and astute enough to consider the correlations of that success?

What do we sacrifice in order to be successful in any particular area of our lives? And is it worth it? For instance, how many men have been known for wishing to scale the 'greatest of mountains'--an Everest or Kilimanjaro, a McKinley or K-5--only to have a brush with death and wish for nothing more than to be at home with their family, close to the one's they love? How come so many men have to fail in their dreams and their presumed passions in order to discover where their 'Heart truly resides?'

Is there something within us that makes us pursue chimeras of our own imagination as if these were the pinnacles of human achievement, only to regret that we didn't spend enough hours under the Oak Trees playing with our children when they were young? Have we learrnt nothing from preceding generations if it is not that 'realizing our dreams' and 'achieving our goals' is often the worst thing that can ever happen to us? There is even that little saying about 'being careful what you wish for.'

You just might get it. You just might become successful and achieve your dreams. You just might become the next 'Apprentice' or win the Mega-Millions lottery. And on your deathbed you just might wish you never prayed for what you ended up receiving.

Why? Why would we regret having achieved our goals? Perhaps because our success in realizing our goals is tied in with a whole lot of ego and small-mindedness. Goal-oriented striving is like living life with blinders on. Like a race-horse we can only see what is in front of us. And that is good if you are in a race. That is all fine and dandy if you are ... uhm.... race horse! But if you are an actual living, breathing human-being then living life with blinders on can be more than just problematic. Take it from one who knows--living life with blinders on can literally render one ignorant of so many blessings and pleasant surprises surrounding one, seeking to engage us. It is as if the Hand of God is reaching out to us in the form of the 'ten-thousand things'... but we cannot see that Hand--nor the Divine Nature of what is among us (the Kingdome of Heaven anyone, the Pure Land, Heaven here and now, Buddha-Nature in trees and frogs) because our eyes (or uhm, I's) are where? On the goal? On the prize? On the 'one thing?'

Integralism As Diversity: The Democratization Of Being

Do you think it is possible that the strict adherence to a 'goal-oriented' existence is really an offshoot of 'monotheism?' You see, I have this theory that any strongly goal-oriented person is a disciple of Yahweh! The singular nature of goals seems to me to dictate a sort of archetypal overshadowing of diverse consciousness by a oneness that can become totalizing--which is to say, rigid, fixed, mechanical, hyper-masculine, and driven to the extremes that the fundamentally monotheistic are prone to--be they a Bush or a Bin Laden.

What I excites me about an 'Integral Methodology' for life and living (provided that this methodology does not become itself the 'one thing') is that it represents what I would term a 'democratization of being' that can result in the full flowering of unique human potentials within us, about us, and among us. The inherent core of the 'Integral' is that there is no 'one thing' that overshadows all other things. Every 'thing' exists in true mutuality and interdependency (which is why you cannot just work your mind without it affecting your body, and vicer versa).

The Integral Method in-forms us as to the inherent multi-dimensionality of our existence. We don't become slaves to Heaven or to Earth. Nor do we become slaves to success in any single dimension. The Integral Method can give us a deep and pervasive sense of 'lightness in life'--for we have not put all our eggs in one basket. We are democratized. We are diverse. We are a multitude--a polyphonic consciousness whose chorusing is all the sort precisely because there is no monotonous monotheism related to the striving after our 'precious one thing.'

Integral Golems

In the Lord Of The Rings trilogy the character Golem represents what can happen to us when the 'one thing' overrides all other things. We literally become sub-human. Golem represents the devolution of a human-being who has become trance-fixed on a singularity. Read that again... a singularity. A mother. A wife. A husband. A writer. A meditator. A scholar. A guru. Any apparent singularity can become an object of worship. Further, any object of worship is, by rule, a monotheism.

Singular devotion. To science. To religion. To sex. To drugs. To money. Monotheism. The secret behind monotheism to me is not that it is religious but that 'IT IS NOT!' There are closet monotheists in political office (can you say, Tom Delay?). There are closet monotheists who are avowed atheists. The equation of monotheism with religions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam is blinding; it is blinding humanity to the deeper current of monotheistic tendencies that become active and expressed anytime that we make an idol out of our 'precious one thing.'

Monotheistic Murder

The blood-soaked anals of our history have been tied to the presence of the monotheistic religions. And while this is true, the larger story gets lost in only proclaiming overt religions capable of monotheistic tendencies. What I am suggesting is that a vein of monotheism runs far deeper in the human psyche than just the overtly religious impulse towards Judaism, Islam, or Christianity. I am suggesting that there is a vein of monotheism that runs through the collective consciousness of humanity, thereby predisposing one and all to monotheistic tendencies.

Anytime that we label or categorize a 'single thing' as if it were separate and distinct from the ten-thousand, thousand things' we are acting on those monotheistic tendencies. A country. A religion. An ideology--be it conservative, liberal, or anarchist. A role. A gender. A sexual orientation. Anytime we set apart a single thing from out of the Matrix of Indra's Net we are acting and behaving in a monotheistic fashion and manner. That is why an avowed pro-feminist atheist can be a monotheist.

It is such 'singularizing' of various phenomena that arise within the Totality of Infinity that makes us capable of murder. We kill for the 'one thing.' We kill in the name of the 'one thing.' We also die and become martyrs in the name of the 'one thing.'

Reclarification Of One's Vision

2006-01-20T10:15:00.000-08:00

I am expecting to be a father any day now. Yeah, someone is going to grow up calling me 'Poppa.' How about that! It makes me smile and get all warm and fuzzy inside just thinking about it. It also leads me to other considerations pertaining to the writing that has been appearing on this blog. Most especially it has me thinking very deeply about this thing called 'vision.'

Having a child is certainly conspiring to get me to focus on more clearly and coherently on what exactly are the values and ideals--the teachings, the attitudes, the humours, the emotions, the feelings, the dreams, the possibilities... the realities even--that I see fit to share with Uriah. What, in short, is so important to me (has meant so much to me as a person) that I cannot help but share that with my son?

The irony in all of this is that rather than becoming an end to my so-called 'spiritual life' my becoming a father is resulting in a more intensely focused and clarified spiritual vision. Having a child is really cutting out the bullshit! I am only interested in what works. Meaning, I am only interested in what is going to have a beneficial impact on Uriah's development as his own person in communion with a world that will be shared with others, as well as unique to him.

Perhaps I won't be reading as many 'spiritual titles' as culled from the aisles of Borders. Perhaps I won't spend as much time surfing on the Net reading up on the latest escapades of Integral Institute, Ken Wilber, Human Potential, and Transpersonal Psychology. Perhaps I won't be meditating as much. Perhaps my waling meditations in the woods will be cut short now and then. And yet while all of this lies on the side of greatest probability, another more than likely scenario is that whatever spiritual illumination I have been blessed to glean from all of these years of investigation and practice will be refined in the fires of 'what matters most.' The wheat gets separated from the chaff.

Don't take this to mean that I am going to make Uriah's development some personal project of mine; that raising him will be a job fit for efficiency and cost-effectiveness. I understand that raising Uriah will be as much about my own personal, psychological, spiritual development as a human-being as it is his. I guess that is one of the things that I feel is too often overlooked---perhaps most by those in extreme spiritual settings: which is that becoming a parent is as much about the parent's development as it is the child's. We are, after all, no more static than a growing, developing, emerging child engaging the world fresh and anew each and everyday. Our development is at issue in our having children as much as the child's development is. We are, as parents, either realizing our deep reserves of Being, or not!--and perhaps we do so (or fail to) to the exact degree that we assist the child in the discovery of their own authenticity and genuineness.**

So, as I sit here and await the birth of Uriah I consider very deeply the 'shape of things to come.' The proverbial rubber is about to meet the road! I have a feeling that a lot of crucial distinctions are about to be made concerning what matters only peripherally, and what is of central and utmost importance. Distinctions of significance hang in the balance.

Uriah's imminent emergence into this-world is refining consciousness like no previous meditation I have had the privilege to take part in ever has. His birth according to popular spiritual (mis)conceptions is not overtly spiritual. It involves not the Himalayas or the Ganges, the River Jordan or Mecca. It is not the Wailing Wall or Sedona. It is not a loin-clothed hermit sitting alone on a mountaintop. And yet, for this man it is the spiritual blessing of a lifetime; having already done more to refine and clarify 'what is significant' vs. 'what is superficial.'

**(by the way, ever get that genuine and genuis share similar etymological roots? is being genuine being a genuis?).

Vision: The Work & Community

2006-01-19T10:32:00.000-08:00

A powerful vision can hold people together in community perhaps like no other force. Not even necessity seems to have the social glue that 'vision' does. Think of the Mormon faithful trekking across the North American Continent to settle in what is now known as Utah. Think of the millions who have 'envisioned' for themselves and their families a better life in the 'New World.' Think of the radicals and revolutionaries who have cohered together in groups large and small in the effort to transform the world in accordance with the vision of some prophet, guru... or charlatan.

The power of such visions, though intangible and largely unseen in 'this-worldly' terms--as it cannot be touched, tasted, smelt, held physically or pointed to in space or time--are monumental in their ability to remake the world in both healthy terms and pathological ones. Perhaps the neo-conservative agenda for the remaking of the Middle East--as evidenced in the ongoing War in Iraq--is an all too stark notification to us of the consequences of envisioning on a communal basis. Visions can kill. Just as they can give birth and create new worlds--if not New World Orders.

When you go to an interview for a job at a prospective employer you may hear the following question touching upon your ears: 'How do you see yourself contributing here? What can you bring to the company?' Even the smallest, most seemingly insignificant job, can carry with it a vision of contributing to a community. The prospective employer wants to understand how you 'see yourself making an impact' to the benefit of the already established community at work. Whether a Corporation, a Church, or a College, there is this realization of how immediately powerful is the capacity for human envisioning.

If you can see yourself making a positive contribution then you probably can; just as if you can see yourself eradicating Jews from 1930's Germany when interviewing for the SS, then you probably can. That points to a law of work and life that seems to hold true no matter what: that the capacity to imagine what we can do precedes our capacity to actually do it. Vision comes first.

Why did/do Native Americans and other Indigenous Peoples send their children out to 'vision quest?' Was it because they realized that a life without a vision is a life without meaning? Was it because they understood that a contribution to the community can only come through the receiving of a Vision via the Grace of Spirit? Was it because they innately understood the primacy of vision?

The Yoga Of Uniting Effort With (Com)Passion

2006-01-18T10:09:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I wrote about the 'Yoga of Work' and how that can be a manifestation of the potential for human transformation: that surrendering to work can be an act of devotion that literally remakes us as a person. Now, I know that me saying that can seem at odds with the experience that a helluva of a lot of people have when it comes to 'work.' I understand. I have had my fair share of jobs that I was not at all thrilled with.

I have also been involved in work that I absolutely adored, but for various reasons became less and less thrilled with my involvement in such work. Sometimes there are circumstances surrounding the 'following of our bliss' that make the experience of bliss less and less frequent. We may love our job but find ourselves surrounded by what the magus from Carlos Castaneda's books, Don Juan, termed 'petty tyrants.' Suddenly our love and passion for our work may ebb. We may find our enthusiasm waning.

Perhaps it is not that we don't enjoy our work as much as we don't enjoy those whom we work with. This is why I have mentioned that work and intimacy--work and love, our vocations and our relatedness--are congenital: they are forever joined at the hip. We can't really separate out relationship issues from work issues. The two are... well, as a Vedantic sage might put it, 'not-two.'

My experience currently is in keeping with what I was just written above. I play professionally in a rock-and-roll band. I LOVE MUSIC! And to me it is all about the music. That is why I play. Not to be cool. Not to be 'seen.' Not to be 'big-man on campus' or any of that other adolescent crap that masquerades as authenticity. I just love to be a channel through which Muse-ic comes: Muse-ic that moves people and allows them to process their own life experience in a more genuine way. I, in a way, live for those moments.

There is a problem with my 'working situation,' though. My problem currently is that I am not at all sure I am playing with others whose intent and interest are the same. The truth is that my impression of my fellow band-mates is that they are not in it for the same reasons. And because there is growing tension and conflict between us, I am left tp reason that it is the result of a what I would call 'a divergence of intent and interest.'

If we are involved intimately with someone in a romantic way and there is a divergence of intent and interest (what are we trying to get out of the relationship? what is our vision for the relationship? where is our heart really at in the relationship? just some sex? a life-long commitment? etc. and so forth) we tend to comprehend how such a relationship will eventually unravel. It will come undone sooner or later.

If we are not united--yogically speaking!--then we are moving in different directions, and that movement will cause tension in the same way that stretching a rubber-band in at least two different directions will cause tension. Eventually something (or someone!) snaps!

People inevitably quit jobs that they love--the path of their bliss takes a little detour--for no other reason than that the direction that the work is going in, according to those they are involved with, is at odds with their authentic self. 'To thine own self be true,' Shakespeare once wrote. To wit he also added that if we are true to thine own self then we can be false to no one. Sure, people may not always like us--but at least we will be legitimated by the absence of internal conflict within us, i.e., we won't be a liar to our Heart. Thus, we will be spared the consequences of living a peaceful little lie, quietly resigning ourselves to a life of unspoken desperation because we know we are not where, or with whom, we envision ourselves to be.

Am I saying I am going to 'quit the band' or 'fire the drummer?' Maybe I am. I don't know at this point. I do know that I am not going to 'sell out' on a matter so close to my heart as to be the very life-blood of any being I am blessed to have and hold. Just as I understand that sometimes 'following our bliss' may put us at odds with others from time to time. Which is a a profoundly good thing. It is good to know where our differences lie. It is good to know where there is a divergence of interest and intent; for then we can be honest with each other. And if we can be honest with each other we can beTrue... and if we are True... we shall also be Good... and if we are Good... then we shall also be Beautiful.

The Yoga Of Work

2006-01-17T06:23:00.000-08:00

A certain degree of inertia--the quest for homeostasis, perhaps--tends to conspire within us against any incentive towards growth, change and transformation. Whether we are speaking about work or about love we are also implying that there is an ever-present possibility for our being transformed in a radical way. That is what work can do to us--it can remake us, pull new talents and possibilities out of us, help us realize our Self even.

The Hindu Wisdom Tradition points to the possibility of our being radically transformed by work through what has been called Karma Yoga. By immersing ourselves in service (read, work) we are offered the possibiliuty of being totally transformed, right to the very core of that self-contracted, narcissistic root that has been proclaimed cosmic enemy No. 1 by non other than Adi Da.

In Western-speak, though, this possibility held out by work is not often spoken of. In the West there is a tendency to speak of work in terms of what we do... and not what work does to us. The very act of work is a movement that is reciprocal in how it in-forms us and trans-forms us. Work is one of the primary means for 'realizing the Self'--even though work is often thought to be an obstacle to that same realization. In fact, my gut feeling is that there is a prejudice against work in terms of how work does not allow one to engage one's passion or dreams in the deepest sense. For far too many there are assumptions centered around as if it were far too mundane, tedious. And yet within the Wisdom Tradition we call Zen there is an appreciation of the transformational potentialities inherent within the tedious and the mundane. Hence the pithy phrase, 'Samsara is nirvana.'

Buddha-Nature resides within the tasks too often labeled as obstructions to the realization of that same Nature. Work demands something of us. Work can engage the best within us. And most of that depends on what we imagine work to be, as well as how much we bring our Self to the Yoga of Work.

Recoil: Avoiding Relationship As Avoiding Work

2006-01-16T06:27:00.000-08:00

The crazy wise adept who has gone by various names--from Bubba Free John to Avabhasa to Adi Da--has used as one of his primary points of inquiry the question 'Avoiding relationship?' According to Da there is an inherent self-contraction within the makeup of all sentient beings that conspire to having us literally recoil from relationship and relatedness as a 'fundamental fact.' In short, there is an ongoing, near total tendency to self-contract into a desire/instinct for separation.

Cutting ourselves off from others can take on many forms--from the grossest of murders to the subtlest of slights. Each form is a way of seeking to reinforce a sense of separateness from the world around one's self.

I bring Adi Da's inquiry up because I am wondering if there is a similar tendency that plays out with regards to work--as work is a form of relationship. Might lazy and apparent lethargy be the body-mind's instinctual tendency to recoil into self-contraction? Might we not want to 'show up' because we are contracting from relationship? Might there be certain meta-physical reasons like the aforementioned behind unemmployment and tardiness? Might we refuse to work because we are refusing to relate?

And if that is the case then why this 'self-contraction' on our part? And what if anything can we do about it---whether we are talking about work or intimacy, creating or loving? Why are we given to recoil so from the world around us?

Work As Fundamental Interaction

2006-01-12T05:29:00.000-08:00

The more that I am delving into a discussion of work it seems to me that there is less and less a distinction that can be made between loving and work--or, should I say that how we express ourselves in relationships is how we work?

Is there really any difference between the ways in which we work and deal with our ability to interact effectively with 'a world' around us and the manner in which much the same plays out in our intimate engagements with others? Isn't work itself a form of intimacy?

The primary ethos of the writings on this blog is centered around the syntegral (synonymous and integrated) aspects of love and work, play and work, love and death, and life and loss... and it is beginning to become apparent to me that there is always already a non-duality that exists in relation to these. That it is not our duty to make love and work more integrated but to realize the ways in which they already. It means to see and better understand the 'patterns both conscious and unconscious' that in-form both our loving and our working.

Building A World

2006-01-10T05:24:00.000-08:00

Isn't 'work' really about our relationship to the world and what we are in the process of constructing moment to moment? Isn't it that we are 'creating worlds' as we work? And if that is the case then isn't 'work' reflective of our capapcity for imaging what this-world can be, what this-world is, what this-world is destined to become?

Perhaps that is why work and our notions of a career are so intimately conjoined with our passions and deepest of dreams: for work is literally the active aspect of us implementing our dreams into this-world. It is how we express what we think is possible. It is how we daily 'labour'--give birth--to what the world will become.

Isn't that how important... vital... essential... fundamental... and significant work really, truly is?

On Our Leading & Being Led

2006-01-07T12:14:00.000-08:00

Any discussion of work necessarily includes a discussion of our capacity to lead others, as well as to follow directions and take guidance. Even if we are Donald Trump we are still in a position of having to address the needs and interests of our clients. We have to be able to listen effectively and feel where a particular job needs to go in the interest of serving the client. And for those whose task it is to 'hold the vision' there is a need to effectively communicate that vision to our comrades for the sole purpose of bringing the vision into manifestation.

As you may know, there is trouble with implementing a vision when we are dealing with large groups of people. We have egos that clash and emotional needs, there are psychological issues pertaining to Mommy and Daddy that enter the workplace. This is all pretty much inevitable. For as much as we try we cannot keep Psyche out of the workplace.

For the effective leader it may mean that he or she has to become a virtual psychologist. That leader has to understand people's predominant psychological issues. Where some thrive on a challenge--under the intense pressures of a looming deadline--others may wither. Then there are those who thrive best when they are not 'over-managed,' if you will.

No matter how we work with people, though, there is always the possibility that some are not called to greatness at this moment in time and may need some additional ripening in a different atmosphere. One can see this on the TV show starring the aforementioned Donald Trump--The Apprentice. 'The Donald,' as he is affectinately called, places the wanna-be executives in positions where their mettle is going to be put to the test. Do they rise to the occasion? Do they wither under the pressure? Do latent psychological issues--unresolved emotional obstacles that impair relationships--enter the scene? What happens in terms of one's ability to work with others: to both lead with passion and to follow another with that same enthusiasm and passion? It all gets played out before millions of viewers on the TV screen, becoming as much a study in human beahviour and a latent psychoanalysis as much as anything else.

What we see on The Apprentice--and discover in our own working atmosphere--is that some people just fall flat on their faces. 'They bomb,' as they say in the entertainment industry. They so obviously 'don't have what it takes' to realize their own peculair genuis at that time. Perhaps they need some more maturing. Perhaps they need to work on some issues in a more intensive therapeutic setting (Omarosa anyone??). Or perhaps it is just that their destiny does not lie in being Donald Trump's 'apprentice.' No matter, what is discovered is exactly 'where people are at' in terms of their capacity for work; which necessarily means their capacity to lead effectively, and be part of a team, all at the same time. After all, no matter where we work we are doing so with others.

Even if we are just a solo artist working with the medium of our choice we are following the grain of the metaphorical wood in seeking to extract a material manifestation of a 'vision' being called into being. That is why a sculptor may rummage through a whole pile of wood looking for that perfect piece that will allow him- or herself to most exquisitely bring the 'vision' into being. And I suspect that much the same happens with people: that when we are working towards the collective manifestation of a vision we may have to rummage through a whole bunch of potential comrades, up until we stumble upon those whose destiny it is to see 'the Work' through with us unto the end.

Adhering To Our Internal GPS For Greatness

2006-01-06T12:56:00.000-08:00

If we cannot just adopt a 'bull in the china shop' approach to realizing our own peculair capacity for genuis then what approach can we adopt? After all, we don't want to be a Stalin or Pol Pot--or even the office politicker who runs roughshod over his comrades and peers in order to make a name for himself in the company--do we? Can we realize our capacity for genuis and do so in a way that does not diminish others? Can we become truly 'great' in working and loving without having to undermine someone else and his or her capacity for unique genuis? I think we can. Rather, I know we can.

My deepest intuition tells me that we can be a true genuis in a unique way ( and that the Cosmos is even calling us to do so as this is being written) without our having to compete with others in order to do so. As everyone's voice... gift... talent... genuis... is unique there does not seem to be any reason to be concerned about what others are or are not doing. Let us just worry about the further unfolding of our won genuis. Let us just focus on what we can do to actualize our capacity for greatness--in whatever way it might manifest itself in this-here-world--and know that others may or may not do the same.

Does a Miles Davis ned to worry about a Charlie Parker? Does a B.B. King need to be concerned about a Muddy Waters? Does a U2 need to worry about the new 'up and comers' in the popular music field?

The larger story seems to me to be that in as much as we are concerned about what others are or are not doing we lose our own compass. Our internal GPS is ignored--which means that our compass for greatness is given up so that we can orient oursleves to others. The problem is that we cannot be 'others;' we can only be who we are!

At work we have unique qualities that will result in our realizing some degree of success (though how that success is defined may vary according to the person in question), but only if we attend to our gifts. Maybe we are the one who is supportive of others. Maybe we are the one who encourages our fellow employees in times of stress. Maybe we are the comedian who keeps the mood light when too much tension is inhibiting our collective greatness. Or maybe we are the one who 'holds the vision' so that it is not lost sight of in a mountain of ever-shifting details and circumstances. Whatever it is, we will be rewarded for it so long as we 'stick to our guns' and don't waver from what our genuis is, even as others seek to realize their own.

Are You Enthusiastic About Your Own Potential For Greatness?

2006-01-03T09:39:00.000-08:00

Even though there will be rebellions manifesting within us in the form of various pathologies (psycho- and otherwise) there is still within us that which seeks for comfort in the known. Maybe it is the sheer demand of those billions of years of deeply programmed incentives aimed towards survival; that one ought not dare push the envelope too far; that one ought to stay safe; that one ought to remain in Plato's Cave, if you will.

Conflicting with that, though, is a discomfort with too much stasis and non-change. Boredom sets in when there is a performance and re-enactment of too much ritualized behaviour. Our being too deeply programmed makes us little more than machines--which was the contention of the cantankerous mystic G.I. Gurdjieff. We go through our days and we say, 'Same old shit, different day.' And even while we say that we know that something precious within us is being stifled. That there is untapped greatness buried within us like some fine treasure lost at sea.

A real leader of people--either in the workplace or as a parent in the home--has to deal with the issue of seeking to extricate people from their comfortable little niches. The tendency to get caught up in a rut and therefore deny the unfolding of further possibilities and potential is, by all accounts, pandemic. Yet, the leader faces the task of inspiring others to 'rise up' out of the comfortable little ruts of their lives without offending their need to feel safe and secure. In other words, as a leader you have to push... challenge... and instigate, but not too much!

In many ways it like dealing with a car stuck in the mud. Sometimes you have to 'rock the car' back and forth in order to gather enough momentum so as to get unstuck. It does no good to just push and push and push. So you push a little and let the car fall back into the hole, and then you allow the car to become like a pendulum, only pushing when the car is moving in the direction of becoming unstuck. Finally, provided the hole is not too deep the car will emerge from where it has been stuck.

Returning to ask the question of how we are to access our own glory--or assist others in realizing their own peculiar genuis--we could use the analogy of the stuck car as a starting point. As such, our pressure is not constant. We are not challenging them all the time to get unstuck, but only giving them that little push when they are already moving in the direction of their genuis.

Back to the car. When the car is rocking back into the hole it would be foolish to push. That would be a waste of energy. But when the car starts moving forward again our little assist in pushing is just the thing that is needed to get the car unstuck. And my sense is that the same thing works with people. Don't push yourself (or others) when you (or they) appear to be regressing. Don't challenge them. Challenge them when they begin moving in the direction of their genuis. Give a little assist. Add a little energy to their own (rather than trying to fight their momentum) so that they can emerge from where they have become stuck.

Push, yes. But know when to push.

Gathering Our Glory

2006-01-02T10:10:00.000-08:00

I'd like to revisit a question posed in the preceding entry from December 26th--which is to wonder how we can access the reserves of glory that follow us into this-world. Of course, to suggest that we come 'trailing clouds of glory' is to suggest that there are innate qualities that we carry with us into this-world as a part of character. Galen seemed to believe that we were inherently predisposed towards a specific temprament (melancholic, sanguine, irritable, anxious etc. and so forth), so that we can gather that there is a long history of affirming that there are indeed inherent propensities towards certain psychological characteristics within each of us.

Even Buddhists are aligned with the belief that we come into this-world carrying a certain amount of baggage, if you will. And while Buddhists also affirm that this baggage is not inherently ours--it is just that we have identified with that baggage as a way to 'solidify a sense of self' to the point that we become attached to certain modes of being, ways of relating, and stances towards the world--the consensus seems to be that we are not that proverbial tabula rasa others have contended.

That blank slate upon which a world comes to be a painted is not evident. For children, like adults, there appears to be more of a potential for unfolding innate tendencies towards specific ways of being that are both a blessing and a curse. For instance, a 'natural born leader' can also come across as an insufferably domineering control freak; a person who is emphatically gifted--by being able to resonate emotionally with the experiences of others--can become overwhelmed by his or her pourous psychological boundaries, which seem to make the influx of feelings too powerful to contend with.

So we can be liable to fall to forces that are in some sense our greatest of strengths. The paradoxical nature of our 'clouds of glory' is that they sometimes conspire against our own capacity for genuis. One given to adventure and exploration may end up becoming wishy-washy and unstable. Another given to self-reliance may not be able to let others near him- or herself emotionally. And that is often why in the work-place you will find the best managers of people putting their team in the best possible position so that their strengths are maximized without becoming weaknesses that bring the whole project down.

The Reclamation Of Subtle Energy

2005-12-26T09:27:00.000-08:00

How are we to access subtle energy? How can we lay claim to those hidden reserves? How might we open up to what is made available to us by the mere fact of our existing, such as we do? After all, in terms of work and love, any increased access to subtle energy on our part is liable to have an impact on our capacity for both working and loving. It means we can love more and work more. It means that our loving and working will both have a more 'energetic feel' to them.

Think about it from the standpoint of physics, and consider what has been mentioned elsewhere on this blog: namely that the work we are able to do is contingent upon the energy that is available to us. So, if we have more access to subtle energy do you not think that it will stand to increase our capacity for work. All of which we might take to mean our capacity for creativity--i.e., for giving to the world, for birthing, for purposes of emergence.

Subtle Energy As Clouds of Glory

The English poet William Wordsworth wrote that we come into this world 'trailing coulds of glory.' We come, in other words, with a subtle body that has energetic properties. For the fortunate few in this-world those 'clouds of glory' are honoured and respected by those who are given to embrace the child's (re)incarnation into this-world again. For such children there is no painful experience of dissociation from the subtle body; one that results in a pervasive sense of emptiness and passionlessness deep inside of one's self. For those fortunate ones their subtle body, hence subtle energy, is welcomed into this-world.

If those metaphorical 'clouds of glory' are respected in the form of a child's innate energetic disposition and feel, often manifesting in the form of some gift or innate talent, then that child will tend to bring more energy to his or her play as a child--which means that if all goes well the child will be able to bring more energy to his or her working and loving as an adult.

Now, for those who are made to experience a denigration of the subtle body there is a need to reclaim the subtle body for one's own sake. Many who experience such a fate end up entering into therapy of one sort or another. It is summarized in what has become known as 'regression in the service of transcendence': the need to go back and re-connect with the subtle body in the form of those 'trailing clouds of glory' so that one can have more a sense of fullness and passion in one's loving and working.

And that is how it must be. I mean, how can we relate gracefully in an energy-deprived state? How can we work well in such a state? Do we need not energy to engage the world--not just gross energy in the form of food and respiration, but that energy that is tied up with our subtle body; those 'clouds of glory' that are the birthright of each and every child?

How's This For Subtlety??

2005-12-20T10:30:00.000-08:00

I am sure that the first person to stumble across some petroleum bubbling up from the ground may not have realized the energy that it contained--at least not until a flame came into contact with it. Then an eventful, world-transforming Ka-Boom! disclosed the energy locked within what may have appeared to have been an innocuous black sludge.

I often get the sense that this is just how subtle energy exists: that it is ever-present and totally evident, although unrecognized until the energy is released via some form of ignition. We are immersed ina fields of subtle energy yet know it not. For instance, have you ever been around someone who 'just went off'--who went into what appeared at the time to be a totally inappropriate emotional storm or tirade when there seemed to be no rhyme or reason for it. I know I have. And I bet you have too.

Obviously when that happens there is a ton of energy that is being released--emotional energy, psychological energy... subtle energy. It is like a 'subtle form of energy' has been ignited to the point where there is a literal explosion of power and forcefulness. And yet, just a moment before that and one would not have been able to see any evidence for the existence of this 'subtle energy,' i.e., one would not have been able to confess to the existence of that energy.

But it must be there somewhere, right? I mean, if energy can neither be created nor destroyed, in accordance with the Law of the Conservation of Energy, then the energy that we see being unleashed in a torrent of cursing and slamming doors must have been stored somewhere. Like the innocent enough looking sludge, there is no clue, no hint of what devastation or destruction is possible by our unwittingly lighting someone else's subtle fuse.

After the fact we may look around at others with that quizzical, beffudled countenance that says,'What the hell was that all about?' Even the person who 'went off' may wonder what the hell happened. They may even confess something like, 'I don't know what got into me... I really don't... I just lost it there for a minute.'

Perhaps they didn't really 'lose it,' though. Maybe they found it. They found where 'subtle energy' had become trapped. They found where energy had become bottled up and where pressure had built. And it is an important discovery to find out where 'subtle energy' tends to accumulate in us psychologically (as well as physically in our musculo-skeletal system). Because once we can discover that energy we have the possibility of accessing it for the purpose of creative and worthy pursuits in accordance with our passion for love and work. To me that is a better path to take than having all of that 'subtle energy' stored away in some unconscious corner of the body-mind... only waiting for the day when someone finally 'sets us off!'

Looking Into The Nature Of Subtle Energy

2005-12-19T10:48:00.000-08:00

There are many ways we can approach a discussion of subtle energy--i.e., of what it is, and what it isn't. One of the more relevant ways of doing so, in line with the central enquiry informing recent writings posted here, is to look at how the use of subtle energy plays a role in managing people.

How do leaders get the most out of those whom they are given to lead? How does management inspire the workforce? How do presidents mobilize the populace? And, in turn, how do parents and educators alike encourage the best in children? It can't just be a matter of supplying the requisite degree of gross energy, can it? It is not just a matter of feeding our children, of giving a paycheck to our employees, of providing safe communities for our citizens. Doesn't an effective leader, parent, manager, or educator use subtle energy to guide, inspire, and encourage others?

We will often see real leaders and educators employing the use of dreams and visions, purpose and meaning to inspire others to mobilize themselves. You don't just feed people and let them wander about in the desert of meaninglessness (postmodern nihilists or otherwise!). Rather, one can more effectively mobilize the energy of the gross realm if there is skill in how the energy of the subtle realm is dealt with. And mayI say that disregarding the energy of the subtle realm is never an option for the effective mobilizer of peoples--in fact, it can't even happen.

Hitler didn't mobilize the German people through dangling carrots of material wealth before their eyes as much as he mobilized them through the use of subtle energy (and obviously towards a very (self) destructive and inhumane end. Like the energy of a fire that can destroy a house or burn well-contained in a hearth to warm a house, subtle energy can serve various purposes, depending upon the designs and intents of those employing subtle energy to mobilize people. Advertisers use and employ subtle energy--in a sort of media-drenched voodoo--to mobilize the masses to pursue various products and services. Images and emotions rule in advertising (which is a point any marketing expert certainly understands).

Yet one cannot fix the power of an emotion or an image in space and time. It shows us just how directly the energy of the subtle realm can affect the energy of the gross realm: that a vision coupled with enough emotion can become a force that change the landscape of the material world.

There is no seeming substance to the energy of the subtle realm; it is not as fixed and solid... not as concrete... as the energy that becomes manifested in the gross realm. For example, a mere thought or idea does not appear to be as potent as the explosion of an atomic bomb as it sears across the landscape; yet, in truth, that thought or idea is far more powerful and potent--there is much more energy contained in that little, immaterial thought than is in the atomic bomb. If only because there is no bomb apart from that amourphous initial thought that sets the ball rolling in the gross realm.

It is perhaps why Ken Wilber has implored, time and time again, that the world cannot be transformed by focusing on material conditions alone; the gross realm is not where the answers lie. It is a change in consciousness (the subtle realm, if you will) that results in a transformed world: healing in the subtle realm = the eventual healing in the gross realm. In Wilber's own words, 'The revolution, as always, will come from the within and be embedded in the without.'*

*Wilber, Ken: Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (P. 197), Boston, MA: Shambhala, 1995.

The Way(s) Of Energy

2005-12-17T13:21:00.000-08:00

Work requires energy. So any question as to 'How?' or 'Why?' we work must necessarily include an enquiry into the nature of energy: where does it come from? how many forms of energy are there? can we generate energy? or is energy but that which is transmitted through us, i.e., we are but a channel through which energy travels?

Trying to work without energy--to work while being depleted--is one of the more frustrating experiences for the labourer as well as the manager seeking to get the best from his or her charges. Working in an energy-depleted state tends to result in shoddy work. Quality suffers as our energy wanes. Think about it for a moment. If you have a very important task you are given to handle late in a day that has already been long enough, don't you tend to feel better about that task if you are able to set it aside until morning, so that you can come back and tackle the task with all of your reserves fully charged? I know I do. I know that my work performance is directly related to the degree of energy that I have access to. In an energy-depleted state I tend to get foggy and scattered in my thought processes. I have a harder time focusing. I find it easy to be distracted. It is like I don't have enough energy even to hold my attention steady!

That is how important energy is to work. No energy = no work. And so I would propose that if we are going to be talking about 'Integral Work' then we have to look at energy from an 'integrally-informed perspective'--in other words, we must look at energy as it manifests in three generallly related, albeit distinct, realms. These are:

1) Energy as it pertains to the gross realm.

2) Energy as it pertains to the subtle realm.

3) Energy as it pertains to the causal realm.

While I intend to go into each of these realms in further depth and detail, let me just suggest to you at the beginning that while the energy of the gross realm is very much understood (having been long studied by everyone from nutritionists concerned with carbs, protein, and calories to physicists concerned with thermodynamics) this has not been the case with the energy related to the subtle realm and the causal realm. The energy we have access to via these realms is just as crucial in terms of the work can or cannot do as is the energy related to the gross realm. As Jesus said, 'Man cannot live by bread alone.' And I would add, neither can he work effectively by bread alone!'

For example, if our 'heart is in our work' then I would contend that our work becomes empowered by a reservoir of 'subtle energy' that would not be present if our heart where absent our work. Just imagine an object created by an artist who pours herself into her creations, and compare that with an object created in mass fashion out of molds that number in the tens of thousands. Now tell me what object is infused with subtle power.

The point is that you cannot point to the infusion of subtle energy in an object even though you can sense its presence (or lack thereof). Sacred objects, like talismans, have been known to be charged with a power and force that is not of the 'gross realm.' The energy is not in the gold or the diamonds, but in the infusion supplied by a conscious being who injected subtle energy into the seemingly material object.

It is why every truly authentic artist works with subtle energy in the artifacts that they serve to bring to fruition. And it is why we can all sense the presence of that energy, even if we cannot quantify in the same way that we can quantify mass or charge. It is there. Those artifacts--whether a five-course meal created by a master chef, or a necklace made be a metalsmith--reveals the presence of more than just energy from the gross realm.

Energy & The Physics Of Work

2005-12-16T10:25:00.000-08:00

In keeping with an 'integral view' on the matter of work I thought it apropos to consider the 'physics of work.' What is work, objectively speaking? How is worked defined in the realm of physics (which is considered the most fundamental realm of objectivity we are privvy to)?

According to physics, work is little more or other than the 'transfer of energy.' The application of force over a given period of time is said to be what 'work' is. The movement of objects from one location to anther is 'work.' Energy being transferred from one body to another is what work is.

For example, when we go to work in building a house we apply force to the head of a nail, via a hammer, in order to drive that nail through one piece of wood and into another. The work we do in that moment is a transfer of energy that results (provided we know how to drive a nail effectively) in connecting one piece of wood (object) to another piece of wood (object). After many such moments the result of so many 'transfers of energy' culminates in a house that a family can call 'home.'

Now, without work (energy transfer) there would be no house built to call a 'home.' Work is what makes our homes, our works of art, our highways and the automobiles that drive upon them. Work is like a ceaseless act of 'giving birth' by contracting muscles in order to generate force so that the generated force can be applied to various objects in the world (both for moving those objects around, as well as for creating new and novel combinations/syntheses of those objects).

Even sitting at a computer screen moving a cursor around is a form of 'work' that involves the transfer of energy in order to manipulate objects. These might look like words with a decidedly subjective side to them (as they convey meaning and significance in the form of information), but they are also objects that are generated through the application of force to a keyboard. Thus, even that which does not appear to involve a lot of intensely 'physic-al' effort follows the basic protocol of what physics dictates: that no work can be done without, and apart from, the transfer of energy from one body to another.

Perhaps such an understanding can lead us to ask, 'Then where does the energy come from in order for us to work?' How do we get energy oursleves so that we can then work by our transferring that energy to other objects/bodies? Does it mean that the question of work--through the lens of physics--is a question of energy?

It would seem to be the case to me. After all, how many times have you woke up in the morning without feeling the necessary 'energy' in order to go to work? Or, how many times have you experienced an afternoon lull, when your energy waned and you found it nigh unto impossible to be 'productive?' Do not those subjective experiences convey something as to the validity of physics objective definition of what work is? In other words, do we not have direct, subjective experiences of what science has come to discover about the world of 'objects,' and what Ken Wilber has termed 'Its?' That we can't do work--move bodies/objects--when we can't even move our own body/object!!

Work, in the objective sense, is not associated with personal feelings and dreams and passions as much as it is viewed as being the ways in whihc we apply force in order to move various objects.

Following Your Bliss Firmly, Resolutely, Unwaveringly

2005-12-14T10:09:00.000-08:00

I am fond of those stories about the would-be Zen practitioner who is forced to sit outside the gates of the monastery as an expression of his or her sincere intent. Because of the inherent difficulties along that path of devoted practice there seems to be a need to test the 'fire' of the would-be monk or nun. Are they serious? Is their motivation pure? Do they have the mettle to endure swallowing that 'red hot iron ball' that is zazen?

Numerous other examples are evident in other traditions, whereby the young apprentice is forced to endure severe tests and trials. It is a way of seeing if someone 'has what it takes.' I mean, shoot, if you can't sit outside the monastery gates for a day or two in the snow how the hell are you ever going to endure the rigours of a lifetime given to meditation!!??

In the business world--the world of our careers--something similar happens when the younmg hot-shot out of Yale or Harvard is given some huge responsibilities in order to see if they can hold up under the pressure. Certain managers, like Lamas, Roshis, and Rinpoches, want to see what the person is made of. It is important to see how reliable someone is. They say that is why the rigours of residency for would-be Doctors are so demanding; often brutally so. After all, if you are a Doctor you WILL have to perform under pressure, making life and death decisions, and perhaps doing it on little to no sleep at all. So it is important to 'weed out' those who are not going to be able to handle the pressure.

It is kind of like getting thrown into the 'deep-end of the pool' without ever having been taught to swim. Because instincts can't be taught, but are inherent, it is important to disocver what kinds of instincts a person has underneath... deep inside. Do you have 'ice in your veins?' Can you 'stand the heat' and not wither? Are you 'firm and resolute' in your resolve?

Being forced to sit outside the monastery in the cold and snow is one wayof finding out? ; o )

Those who would not make it in the long-run usually give up easily; while those who are destined to be included in the contemplative proceedings will stay in the snow as long as it takes. Just like the young prince, Siddhartha, who was firm and resolute in his resolve to sit beneath the Bodhi Tree, and not rise until he was 'enlightened'--until he became a Buddha, an awakened one--we, too, can realize our ultimate success in those endeavours where we are incapable of wavering.

When we follow our bliss down a trail of tears and through all manner of pain and hardship we know our intent is pure. It can't help but be! For why else would we endure what we must in the name of that which matters most to us--be it our children or our enlightenment, our lover or our aging parents, our environment or innumerable sentient beings. That is 'taking your seat' in the truest sense. Not moving mountains... but becoming one!

Not Following Your Bliss: The Consequences

2005-12-13T10:37:00.000-08:00

My suspicions are that if we are not 'following our bliss'--for any number of different reasons--then we will not be able to continue on in the midst of the challenges and trials that will inevitably come our way. We will falter. We will break-down. We will likely collapse in the face of those challenges.

On the flip-side, though, if we are following our bliss it seems that we are empowered to overcome any challenge that we are confronted with. We are able to persevere that much more when we are pursuing that which we are passionate about. We won't cave. We won't collapse. We won't give in or throw in the towel when the going gets tough... and yes, the going always gets tough somewhere along the way.

Tibetan Buddhist Lamas and Rinpoches, when considering the validity of why someone wants to take up 'spiritual practice,' usually focus on that person's motivation: why does this person want to take up spiritual practice? why does this person want to go on retreat? what is this person's primary motivation for coming to see me? want are they here for? The reason motivation is taken into account is because the Lamas and Rinpoches know from personal experience that if the practitioners motivation is not pur and noble then they will falter. For instance, if someone is practicing to have specific experiences of the 'spritual' or 'mystical' variety then they will probably not endure the inevitable hardships of spiritual practice that are simply part and parcel of the journey being undertaken. They will grow discouraged and frustrated if such experiences do not come. They will start to lack motivation to practice... because practice is not giving them what they think they want from it!

Applied to work--and what I am calling Integral Work here, in these pieces--an inability to align with one's bliss, in order to be empowered and motivated by such an alignment, will tend to result in some failure of motivation. We just won't be able to get up and go to work. The money will not be worth it anymore. We will become physically and/or psychologically unwell. We will feel like our ass is dragging all day long... and we won't seem to know why! A total lethargy will set in. Our whole being will feel as if it has gone on strike: physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually depleted we will feel.

The result is that even the smallest thing can set us off. The tiniest challenge at work will feel like we are staring Mt.Everest in the face. We just don't seem to have that passion to tackle the big jobs given to us. Why? Because our heart is probably not in it!!

That is the thing about 'following your bliss'--no one has to convince you to do anything! Empowerment comes from within. Our very soul becomes an unending source of encouragement so that mountains seems to us like moleholes. That is the beauty of aligning with your bliss... with pursuing the progress of your own peculiar passion: the journey feels as if it is blessed--like you have already succeeded, because you are on a path where your Heart is also.

(Pray everyone could be so fortunate.)

The Challenges Of Excellence & The Mark Of Character

2005-12-12T10:16:00.000-08:00

Though it is not necessarily an 'integral' tenet, as it has been around as long as there have been earnest human-beings seeking to make a valued impression on their surroundings, the call to excellence does bear a mention when it comes to 'Integral Work.' For one, there is the well-known tactic bourne of evolution that conspires to have sentient beings take the path of least resistance. If there is an easy way out it seems that sentient beings--be they in the form of a White-Tailed Deer or a White-Haired Executive--will opt for the path of lesser resistance vs. the taking of a more arduous path.

Unfortunately, when it comes to quality and the challenges that come along with pushing ourselves to grow and develop not just our character, but our multi-facted skills, there is an imperative that we go the way of the difficult. It is summed up in our 'going the extra mile.'

Where others might take 'short-cuts' in the hope of achieving the aim of excellence, those who know better realize that quality is often a struggle with the lazy, selfish, slothful, ignorant aspects of our 'self' that would prefer to only do enough so as to 'just get by.' Excellence, then, is really an ongoing psychological and spiritual struggle that places us in a position where there is a degree of conflict present. Perhaps it is a conflict between what St. Paul called the 'weak flesh' and the 'willing spirit. Though some may argue with those terms there is an indication of the inherent struggle that comes with excellence and an earnest striving to 'transcend inherited conditions and circumstances.'

In Buddhist terminology one might say that the 'weak flesh' of St. Paul is not unlike the various 'sheaths' that in the Pali Canon are said to make up the conditioned self. Those sheaths, in their aggregate form, keep for a relatively inert manner of existence that can be seen as being habitual and addictive in the most insidious of ways. Overcoming the inherited momentum of those sheaths (transcending the power of their persistent pull, if you will) is where true growth, transformation, evolution, and enlightenment are said to reside.

Pop psychologists and self-help gurus often point out that 'If you keep doing what you have always done you will keep getting more of what you already have.' If we want more out of life than what we now have (or, if we want less, i.e., less drama and suffering and poverty and pain) then we have to enact new ways of doing things. In order to do so we have to resist the inherited urge to conditioned ways of being and doing that just offer us more of the same.

For example, if we are eager for excellence and desire to have our person associated with words like 'quality' and 'skill' then we need to exert and extend ourselves in ways that we may have never done so before. We can't just assume that habit will be the way to go and leave it all to conditioning. Nor can we just assume that following others and 'fitting in' with the status quo and the mediocre masses is the way to go. We have to be willing to push against our own internal boundaries that have defined what is possible for us. We have to be that 'willing spirit' that has faith in the fruitful future for the ones who can beyond the averages. That is, after all, where our excellence and evolution reside--in our going beyond the average; in our doing what others are un-willing to do; in our exerting ourselves in unison with where our true passions happen to reside. For in that synchrony of personal passion and strident effort true success in Integral Work emerges.

Might The Challanges Of Love and Work Be Much The Same

2005-12-09T11:01:00.000-08:00

Discovering the work we were meant for, is not, oddly enough, unlike the process of seeking out the one whom we were meant to love more than any other. There is both a sincere desire to finally 'meet our match,' as well as a healthy dose of 'romanticism' in searching for the perfect job as there is in searching for the perfect lover.

On the side of romanticism rests both our sense of possibility--as we feel what can be (that stirring in our soul that compels us to head in the direction of a fulfillment we can sense on the periphery of our lives, a fulfillment we desire to draw nearer and ever nearer to)--along with many exaggerations of what those possibilities both include and invite into our lives. Romanticism in work, as in love, seems to suggest that we are going to be able to 'have it all' and forever rest easy in our being able to 'have it all.' The perfect job will bring our soul to rest. The search will be over. Our being will relax into its appointed destiny.

Many a college graduate has struggled with the fact of their having gotten a degree in the field of their choosing, only to go to work in that profession that is aligend with their passion and discover that they are not ultimately satisfied. Just as in love, the deflating hangover bourne of one's 'great expectation' comes about. Why are thing still difficult? Why is there still struggle? Why is there not that peace and perfect satisfaction that one imagined there would be back when this day was a faint dream of adolescence? Why is there not more 'bliss' if we are indeed 'following our bliss' as Joseph Campbell invited us to?

Integral Work Is A Stretch

I certainly went through a stretch in my life when I assumed that 'following my bliss' would result in me 'feeling bliss'... and feeling it all the time! Now, though (after a few years more exerience with the vagaries and vicissitudes of human existence), I am firmly convinced that you can 'follow your bliss' and not experience deep, penetrating bliss for extended periods of time.

Direct, personal experience suggests to me that there are peaks and valleys in the experience of 'following your bliss.' It is perhaps like realizing that you have disocvered your soul-mate, only to go through the delfating period of post-honeymoon blues that are oftentimes just a simple 'fact of life.' If this is the case--as I believe it to be--then there is a danger that comes in our assuming that difficulty is synonymous with our no longer being where we belong, i.e., we are not with the person we belong with; or we are not in the job we belong in.

I have not personaly heard this expressed by anyone. Experience, however, tells me that you can 1) be actively following your bliss, while 2) not feeling particularly blissful about it!

Just as you can be in a relationship with the man or woman of your dreams, and still go through difficult stretches of time--times that usualy 'strengthen the relationship'--so, too, can you be 'following your bliss' and go through periods of work that seem nothing but tedious and pain-staking. Perhaps this suggest why bailing out when the 'going gets tough' is often the worst thing we can do for ourselves, let alone for others. For it may be in the 'blissless' moments that we are moving towards a much greater and deeper experience of bliss itself? It may be that difficulty and struggle are passages---birth canals--where intense pressure is felt as we are bourne into a whole new dimension of experience--experience that leads towards more Integral* Work... and more Integral* Love.

*(By 'more Integral' I mean to say, 'less partial.')

Back To Work (for the time being... )

2005-12-08T08:53:00.000-08:00

With a lot of time on my hands during our hospital stay, I did have a chance to contemplate this matter of 'Integral Work' some more. Being put in a position where I didn't have the comforts of home at hand, having few distractions, and several sleepless nights on a cot covered in one of those plastic mattress pads (I guess, just in case I peed the bed!) left me with a considerable amount of time for further thought on the matter. One of the initial things that struck me about 'Integral Work' was not that it would be easy and effortless, as much as that a truly 'Integral Vocation' would challenge one physically, mentally, psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Perhaps it is owed to the ideals of my 2o's. Perhaps it was a misunderstanding of what 'following one's bliss,' ala Josepch Campbell, really consisted of. I guess I thought that finding the 'perfect job' like finding one's soul-mate (the perfect lover) would make everything easy as pie. Life, in other words would be effortless in both the bedroom and the boardroom.

I am not so naive now. Nor do I suspect that it would be beneficial to not be challenged. We--provided we are going to evolve, transform, grow, develop, mature... or whatever word-concept you happen to prefer as a stand-in for those terms--require challenging circumstances and conditions that call on us to extend our capacity. Yes, our capacity for creativity under fire. Yes, our capacity for calm under pressure. Yes, our capacity for insight at just the right time, in just the right way. Yes, our capacity in terms of the ability we have to do work that engages us in as many areas as possible.

To get a sense of what I am conveying here, recall a time when you laid your head down at night, prepared to go to sleep, and realized how you were both totally and completely spent, as well as deeply fulfilled. This is what 'Intergal Work' serves to accomplish: we are both spent and satisfied at every level of our Being. It is a contented exhaustion. We don't have anything more to give. We gave the world all we could that day. We know it. We don't go to bed unfufilled and discontented--nor do we need a drug or pharmaceutical to put us to sleep because we left a stone or two unturned and we know, i.e., our guilty conscience haunts us into restless fits of tossing and turning. We lay down at night with nothing held back either physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. We go to bed empty.

Is This Our Greatest Power?

2005-12-06T11:31:00.000-08:00

I want to thank anyone and everyone who was given to lean their hearts and thoughts our (Monica, Uriah, and myself) way over the past few days. I am deeply honoured and humbled. Thank you so much.

The truth is that I am quite in awe of the 'power of caring' that we carry within us as human-beings. A power that we can cultivate and intensify, that we can encourage and amplify (or, conversely, a power that we can neglect and allow to atrophy). I am so amazed by the generosity exhibited by the Doctors and Nurses at both Otsego Memorial Hospital in Gaylord as well as Munson Medical Center in Traverse City. Doctor MacKay of the Women's Clinic in Traverse City gets a special nod. He really came through for us at 'crunch time' (and you know when someone comes through in the clutch when you can see the initial look of concern on their face when you first meet them, as well as how they inform you as to their lack of certainty in terms of the outcome--in other words, he was not sure of what would happen with us, but made the noblest effort anyways).

It is that sincere and genuine caring for the welfare of another that has so deely struck me. I suspect that all of the intellectual knowledge and academic scholarship--as well as the technique of modern medicine--is fairly impotent without the engine of caring behind it. It is just something that you can feel. Monica and I spoke of this frequently over the past few days. You can literally feel someone else's warmth towards you (or lack thereof!). Each of the nurses exhibited a varying degree of this warmth and caring. It was not something evident in their skill as a nurse (they can all set up a monitor to check the unborn child's heartrate; they can all check your vitals) as much as it is that which is exhibited in the character of their person, i.e., in the 'how?' of the 'what?'

I suppose it came across to Monica and I like this: it is not in 'what?' the nurses and doctors did for us, but in 'How?' they did it. How did they express their knowledge and understanding of what was needed? How did they (or did they not) exhibit the fact that they cared deeply about the 3 of us? That is where the power was... and is! That is where it is felt... sensed... perceived. Not in the cold instruments of their trade, but in the tenderness of their application at just the right time, in just the right way, for just the right reasons.

Not just skill then.... but the vibe wherein the skill is demonstrated. The Heart creates an atmosphere of warmth and healing energy that no naked instrument used in a cold and calculating manner--no matter how technically exacting--can ever duplicate or approach.

The power is in the Heart.
The precision is in the skill.
Together you have
A True Healing Force.

Making It Home

2005-12-06T11:14:00.000-08:00

We have made it home
after seeing/hearing quadruplets
bourne into this-world
at 25 weeks.

(Amazing gift!)

We have made it home
after being dealt with soft
hands and
softer hearts.

We have made it home
after travails that incited
a riot of prayer
in our hearts.

We have made it home
after (re)awakening
to the omnipotent
power of community.

(the wealth of relationships)

We have made it home
after being both
exhausted and buoyed
by circumstances beyond our control.

We have made it home
to once again
await the penultimate day;
the birth of a new light into this-world.

We have made it home
grateful for that which cares,
as well as those who allow
caring to be their very Nature.

(thank you).

How This Is Truly Enough

2005-12-03T11:10:00.000-08:00

Things have mellowed over the night here at Munson Medical Center, in room 1103. It seems the Magnesium Sulfate has lessened the pre-term contractions Monica was experiencing. This is something to be thankful for, very much so. The Doctors have confessed that they can't stop a pre-term labour if it is going to come... but they can buy some much needed time: time that our unborn son needs to develop just that little bit more, especially where his lungs are concerned.

So we are sort of exhaling here, waiting to see what is going to happen. It is kind of calming for us after the tumult of the past two days. And it is also kind of eerie, maybe even a little anxiety-inducing. We would like to know what is going to happen (just as thousands of other people who are either staying in this hospital or are related intimately to someone who is).

We drift in a sea of uncertainty. The baby could come at any time. Monica has not yet dilated any further than she initially was (again, thanks to the Magnesium the Doctor's say), even though it is no guarantee that she won't in a moment's notice. After all, that is how this all began: just preparing a meal... then boom!... our world was transformed.

I have found it helpful to focus on the small things. The 'big picture'--because it is so uncertain and hazy--only seems to generate further feelings of anxiety and concern about things that I have no control over (that we have no control over). It has resulted in a very Zen-like approach to being here. Just washing Moncia's feet. Just putting lotion on her back. Just sitting here looking out the window at the snow-covered boughs of a Black Spruce. Just breathing this breath. Not another. Not another breath. Not the next one. Not tomorrow's breath. Just this breath. Just this moment's moment breathing us into Being now.

Oddly, that is enough.

Just When You Think You Know What Life Is About...

2005-12-02T17:22:00.000-08:00

Any illusion of having things figured out--of how things are going to be, of what one is going to do, or of what one is not going to do--fade in the increasing glare of a direct confrontation with reality (or maybe I should have wrote, REALITY there?).

Logging on from a hospital room in the neo-natal unit of a hospital 90 miles from home is not where I had intended to spend this Friday evening. But here I am. Or, rather... here we are. By 'we' I mean to say my girlfriend of almost 2 years, Monica, our unborn son, Uriah, and yours truly.

It all started so suddenly last evening after Monica returned home from work. She was getting ready to cook supper when she started to have 'contractions.' Contractions are not a bad thing at 39 weeks... but at 31 weeks they can be a very serious cause for some very real concern. So we rushed to the nearest hospital--which in our case happened to be 30 miles away in the small Northern Michigan town of Gaylord. We ended up spending a sleepless night there, hoping that some of the measures taken by a very sincere medical staff--including our OB/GYN, Dr. Minor--would take hold and ease the contractions some. The last resort of an IV solution of Magnesium Sulfate didn't ease up the contractions one bit (much to our frustration... and, I should honestly add, tears). So we were all rushed to the nearest hospital with a NICU (neo-natal intensive care unit). And now we sit here in Traverse City, having been transported through a blizzard that has delivered over 12" of fresh snow in the last 24 hours (yeah, when it rains... or in this case, snows... it really pours... or should that be 'blizzards?').

It is going on 9:00 PM now. Poor Monica has had intermittent contractions every other minute or so for more than 24 hours now. She is wore out! I can't imagine what she is going through. I am just trying to be there for her as best I can. Giving her occasional drinks of cold water, putting a cool rag on her head, buzzing the nurse, massaging her back, giving her a sponge bath, reassuring her as best I can. They seem like such trifling things... but damn if that isn't the best I can do. Damn if that isn't all I can do!

It reminds me of how much we are still at the mercy of so-called 'Mother Nature.' For good or ill too! Even the best trained Doctors, who have been schooled in the best learning institutions the world has to offer are powerless to determine the course Nature is want to take. We are prey tor forces beyond egoic control here. I could kick and scream and shout and demand and beg and plead. And it would be to no avail. So I am just trying to be a clam presence in the midst of a storm-tossed little boat in the middle of this wide, brilliant, frightening Ocean of Existence. An Ocean where birth and death are perpetually knocking at our doors, whether we realize it or not. An Ocean upon which I pray--pray for safe passage. Not for I alone, though, but for we.

I pray for strength for us to be able to ride this wave out... come what may.
I pray for peace to arise in the center of the anguished cries of labour come too early.
I pray for wisdom to know what to do when doing is a must... a necessity... an urgent command.
I pray ceaselessly, without end. Just as this note to dear friends far and wide is itself a form of prayer. Just as this note is a 'call to prayer.' Hear me shout from the top of the Mosque. Hear me cry out to Allah in good faith. Hear me beseeching the Ocean of Existence to carry us to a friendly shore.

Integral Work Anyone?

2005-12-01T09:14:00.000-08:00

Unapologetically, I am going to be quite idealistic over the course of the next few weeks. I want to explore what a thoroughly 'integral-working situation' might look/feel like. I want to dream a little here. I want to explore. And that is precisely what I am intent on doing: seeing if I might not be able to divine the depths of a decidedly integral working environment.

Let's begin with the theory behind the concept of the 'integral.' First, let's quote the primary authourity on these matters, namely one Ken Wilber. He writes in his journal cum book, One Taste that,

"There are many ways to explain 'integral' or 'holistic.' The most common is that it is an approach that attempts to include and integrate matter, body, mind, soul, and spirit."

Does Mr. Wilber not mean to suggest that the 'Integral Approach' is one that seeks to honour, as well as engage actively, the full totality of our being on all the levels upon which that being (or Being) is expressed? Which we might also suggest is merely another way of saying that the 'Integral Approach' is one that seeks to do justice to the fullness of our humanity in both its immanent and its transcendent aspects.

Applied to work we already have a sense of how it is that certain 'working-situations' only engage us in a partial manner. I am sure we have each experienced 'mind-numbing' work that is tedious in the extreme. There is also work that only engages us as material beings--i.e., as matter, as a body. Such work also seems to have a detri-mental effect over the long run. The other dimensions of our Being atrophy. Mind gets dull. Soul goes dormant. Spirit gets dissociated. We literally can 'go numb' in those critical areas that make us fully human. Hence we become in-human or sub-human as a result of the 'working-situation' that does not engage us in an integral manner.

Those dis-engaged dimensions (soul, spirit, mind--as well as the body for those working in excessively mental environments such as those we see more and more in the age of the Information Revolution) can also raise a ruckus within us; as expressed in various symptoms we might call instances of pathology. That which is not actively engaged at work--in our labours--can manifest elsewhere. Not unlike a child, if we do not actively attend to every plane/dimension/level of our Being we could well experience ourselves being made to attend to them by their acting out in ways that appear to be destructive.

That is why exploring the full-range of implications of what 'Integral Work' might look like is so very important. After all, if we don't work in an 'intergally-informed environment' then we are working in a partial one. Which is an environment that is bound to be debilitating in time. Maybe not today. But somewhere down the road 'partial-work' cripples us.

And perhaps even more importantly don't we all want to be able to 'show up fully' at work and not have to live out the tired scenario where we are only partly there... and partly elsewhere... dissociated in the moment... precisely because the working-situation itself is not totally engaging?

The # 1 Reason For Work Is...?

2005-11-29T07:26:00.000-08:00

Why would we work when there is not even any financial obligation for us to do so? Does it mean that work is not merely a labour-intensive means to some financial end? Does it mean that work is more than just money?

For many work seems to offer a semblance of meaning, as well as structure. After all, who among us adults does not find their day structured around this cornerstone of life we call 'work?' It consumes the greater part of our hours. And for all those who despise the work they are made to do out of necessity there are those who work for reasons that are compelling in their own right. Reasons such as this: that work offers us a sense of belonging. This is work as the building and maintaining of community. Work as communion.

Most of us work in a collective setting. Even if we have our own personal desires and designs empowering us to go work on a daily basis (i.e., our daughter needs braces for her teeth, the car needs a new muffler, we have Christmas coming up) there is also the ever-present collective dimension of work whereby we are joined with others towards a common goal. It can run the gamut of 'defending the Homeland' to 'ensuring public safety.' It can span the spectrum of 'schooling the next generation to come' to joining as one with all the other 'shiny, happy people at Wal-Mart' ready to great this season's throngs of commodity hungry consumers.

We can even, at times, find oursleves 'falling in love' at work. Just as it was back in the day at school, one of our motivations for getting up everyday could be the fact that a hot new associate has just joined the team. We are eager to spend time with this attractive person. Our intrigue and more than slight sexual interest can inspire us at work in ways that can be quite surprising. We could find that our creativity takes a quantum leap, simply because we are eager--in that evolutionary way--to impress this person with our skills. We desire to make a good impression.

We end up buying new clothes, courtesy of American Express. Which leads us back to what is perhaps the most primary reason for work: economic.

Work As A Fluid: Moving & Taking Shape

2005-11-28T10:00:00.000-08:00

One can easily chart the supposed 'evolution of humanity' (which anyone who has been to Las Vegas could easily disupte) through the lens of human work and labour. Agricultural Revolution. Industrial Revolution. The Age of Information. Each suggests a movement or progression in a collective sense. They seem to stand out as the passages by which a species has evolved, come into itself, adapted, changed, transformed. As such, work may be defined somewhat differently in each age or era.

When I first went to work it was not to take care of a family. Being a child who was the product of preceding revolutions in agriculture and industry it came to pass that work became more of a means to satisfy my own personal desires/inclinations. I did not have to work in order to survive. I worked not because I needed to, but because I wanted to. My own desires (rather than, say, necessity) made work appealing. Work was the road I would travel to satisfaction (or, at the very least, the illusion of satisfaction!).

Anthropologists have attempted to understand various human cultures in relation to their form and manner of work. In Marxist terms, it is to ask and ponder the question of 'How does a specific culture acquire the material means to subsist, if not prosper?' Do they hunt and gather? Do they produce commodities for exchange? Do they rape and pillage? Do they sow and reap?

The potential answers that reveal themselves in the asking of such questions can disclose much about who we are, what we value, as well as what will be expected of us by the members of the culture that we are embedded in. For work evolves. Work is transformed relative to the individual as well as the collective. It is a more increasingly known fact that the average person can expect to change jobs upwards of 10 times in their lifetime. It seems to indicate to us how very fluid work is becoming. The era of adopting a vocation and adhering to a particular path (though still relevant for artisans, craftsman, and artists alike) is not the apparent fate of many. It is even moreso becoming the case in an era marked by global competition where multinational corporations can leverage the work-force/people of one nation against the work-force/people of other nations. Those corporations threaten the worker with constant flight if the workers do not concede to concessions across the board--that include the end of healthcare and retirement, as well as the cutting-back of wages and other benefits. It makes work an even more tenuous place for human-beings to inhabit.

Which maybe makes 'following one's bliss' all that much more appealing. I mean, if you are going to have insecurity at work, then you might as well have it while doing something you love, right?

When I Was A Young Boy

2005-11-26T09:58:00.000-08:00

Early in life I didn't really consider the nature of work so much as I just wanted a job--any job!--so that I could make a few bucks. I remember wanting 'things.' I remember desire and how desire made work and getting a job a virtual necessity. Work, for me--as for so many others--became a means for satisfying those desires that spoke to me in private.

I wanted a new bicycle. I wanted to be able to purchase clothes that I wanted--above and beyond what my parents could (or would) spend. I wanted--later on--drugs, alcohol, a car, new music, a guitar, an amplifier.

For several years in my teens--throughout my adolescence--that is the way it worked. I worked whatever job I could get merely for the pleasure of being able to feed those desires. Work was the means by which I could satisfy them. Apart from a life of crime I would have to delover papers and mow lawns and rake leaves and baby-sit the neighbourhood children. Apart from a life of crime and theft I would have to earn the right to satify desire. I was on my way into the adult world. Transitioning.

There was nothing selective about my early experiences with work. I was certainly not an idealist. Nor had Marx entered my consciousness except as a passing reference mentioned in World HIstory class at school. I had no idea what I wanted to do. I just wanted to do anything so as to make money... so as to satisfy desire. Fulfilling desire was the end. Any means would do.

I was fortunate, I suppose, in that I was able to secure some relatively innocuous work, making a little money, satisfying those teen-age desires. Work was, at that time, not something that I sought to derive meaning from. More meaning and significance came from relationships to and with friends. Work was just something that we all did on the side so that we could go out on a Friday night and cruise the backroads drinking, smoking, and sexing. Work gave us freedom to explore the often illicit nature of our burgeoning desires.

For instance, if I had enough money to purchase and support a car (gas, insurance, maintenance) then I could perhaps convince one of the young ladies to join me on a Saturday night. We could go to the dance in Ithaca. We could then take the backway home. We could then park down off the road a ways on one of the quiet two tracks that led back into a cornfield. We could then move our way to the proverbial 'backseat' and explore the sensual nature of each other's bodies. We could find out what our desires meant. We could discover together---her and I--what it was like to be free to follow the avenue of desire. And it was work--that often dirty word to teenagers all across the world--that made it possible. For without work we would be traveling back and forth to the dance in one of parent's cars. We would have been one of the kids who had to wait for their older sister to come and pick us up at midnight. We would have left the nature of our desires unknown. We would not have known the touch of another's skin, the taste of another's lips, the smell you can only gather as you move along the sensitive slope of another's neck.

Work opened up so many avenues by which I could explore sex and sexuality--with both positive and negative consequences. I could purchase clothes to make myself appear more stylish to the ladies. I could buy my way into a 'hip' self who would attract attention not by who he was, as much as by what kinds of surfaces I could afford. And it was all, in a manner of speaking, an exploration. I was naive and innocent in the way that many of us were. I was just going along with the crowd doing what I thought was expected of me. I had the same needs for attention. I had the same craving to be noticed... to be special.. to be seen... to be wanted... to be desired.

And not until today, have I realized how work was the primary means by which I sought to make myself more 'desirable to the ladies.' Not unlike the diligent little man-bird who builds a nest in the hope of it being satisfactory to the interests and intents of the lady-bird, I, too, busted my ass to try and get uhm... lucky. Even if 'getting lucky' back then was to just cop a feel. Translation: 2nd base.

I

Birthing Worlds

2005-11-24T10:56:00.000-08:00

There is more than a fair share of earnestness and striving when it comes to work and love. There is both so much desire and frustration of that desire. We want, long, plan, plot, scheme, beg, plead, and pray for meaning in both our jobs and our intimacies.

Careers and relationships have truly been a 'hot topic' for many, many years now. There may have never been a time when we didn't wonder, 'What am I to do?,' along with 'Who am I to do it with?' This 'What am I here for?' and 'Who I am to be here with?' are central questions that we strive to answer in the journey that is our life. People who have traversed continents and travelled across oceans are living examples of the significance held by those questions.

Perhaps our life is really an ongoing attempt to answer those questions: to find meaning and significance in terms of who or what we give birth to as well as who we give birth with. Do we give birth with Exxon-Mobil? Do we give birth with the United States military establishment? Do we give birth with the Giovanni crime syndicate? Do we give birth with Ken Wilber and his Integral Fellows? Do we give birth with that young man who caught our eye last night? Who do we dance with in the 'making of a world?'

Isn't that it? Aren't we in the process of constructing worlds in alliance with those we dance with? Whether that dance resembles a 'mosh-pit' or a 'tango,' isn't the primary point that we are in thge process of 'giving birth to a world' in the form and manner of our relations with others. Worlds of War. Worlds of Peace. Worlds of Strife and Vengeance. Worlds of Welcoming Warmth and Friendly Faces. Worlds arise in our dancing, in our commingling, in our exchanges.

We build trust or we build animosity in our relations. The nature of our exchanges largely determines the nature of the world we will come to inhabit. We cheat others and the unconscious guilt we feel over that will plague us with fantasies of paranoia. We will literally feel threatened--attacked by our own conscience.

The world is being made now.... and now... and now... and yes, even now worlds are coming into being on the qualitative basis of our exchanges. And where do the primary exchanges take place if not in our working and our loving?

The Work Of Nature As Birthing

2005-11-23T10:12:00.000-08:00

The German mystic Meister Eckhardt spoke, in one of his many sermons, about the nature of the immanent-God--the Divine here and now, the Suchness/Thusness of... well... just this!--as being one of constant labouring. God is perpetually creative. The Divine is uhm... er.. obsessively, chronically, compulsively pregnant!

God seems to be (and I am sorry you Conservative Christians out there) not unlike the stereotypical 'welfare mom!' Barefoot and pregnant? Indeed! Yes! That is the nature of Nature, the thusness of the Suchness: constant, unending labour in the act of giving birth to worlds within worlds within worlds as both natural as well as super-natural.

Multiply. Create. Give birth. Labour to manifest that which it is in your nature--the Tao, the Dharma--to do so. These are the commandments given to all persons, to all beings--to all of Creation and Createdness! Labour deliciously. Sweat and bleed and groan and agonize over what you are destined to have pass through you; to that which shall come out of you one way or another!

And though there is that sweating, that bleeding, and that agonizing, there is also the natural ease and effortlessness of the gently falling snow that does not try to fall, nor intend to be blown upon the wind, nor will to be what is in its nature to both be and do. Snow is just snow. You are just you. I am... well, just me! The nature that expresses itself in exquisite ease and effortlessness via falling snow is the same nature that permeates the totality of our existence as apparent human-beings; meaning that our work can be as effortless and graceful as the falling snow.

Perhaps it comes about for us in our capacity to crystallize a specific form of work in the same way that snow crystallizes within a 'perfect set of conditions' that make the transformation of elements into 'falling snow' just happen so easily. It may be that we have to wait on our work in the same way that evaporated moisture waits on cold winds aloft. It may be that we are turned over and tranformed through the seasons and the cycles--seeming to never attain our chosen direction--only to be pleasantly surprised one day when we find ourselves 'falling into our labours' like a delicate crystal birthed in the midst of the openness of the sky.

The same work... the same labours... that pull on us with a gravitational force... gently, though persistently...so that it seems as if we have 'no choice' in the matter of what we will do. It just happens! Or, we can say that our nature (falling snow), in accordance with work and labour, may have an element of choicelessness that invokes images of Taoist sages and reclusive Zen masters who seem to be so 'in accord' with the nature of things as they are that no movement is ever wasted. Every gesture seems perfect because there is no conflict between who one is... and what one does.

Just like the falling snow does not second-guess itself half way down to the ground... ; o )

Makes me wonder if... just being who we are... is such that the doing of that which one is always takes care of itself. It is done. It just happens.

Is it our alignment with Being (healing the split, resolving the illusion of separateness from our own Nature) that makes all of our doing not unlike the falling of the snow?

Following Bliss As Goal... Or... As Process?

2005-11-19T09:52:00.000-08:00

I suspect that there are couple of different ways that one can look Joseph Cambell's injunction to 'follow your bliss.' For instance, there is the way of bliss as related to a goal. The actual process involved may not be particularly 'bliss-inducing' and/or 'bliss-generating;' however, the perceived outcome or goal of the process is one that we may be able to associate with the production of bliss.This is probably what happens with parents who work a labour intensive job for years and years--all the way up until their death--simply so that they can experience the bliss of knowing that they set the stage for a better life for their children (not to mention their grandchildren!). The bliss comes in knowing we have attained the larger purpose of caring for another in a way that will make their life better. Perhaps they can even go on to 'do something that they love' with all their heart, mind, spirit and soul.

The above example points to what I happen to see as being some lvery limiting (pre)conceptions with regards to a thorough understanding of what it actually means to 'follow your bliss.' Not everyone needs to be an artist or an authour in order to be able to experience the production of bliss. Bliss can arise through the simplest of tasks. Bliss is in setting an exquisite table and serving your family a delicious, healthy, nourishing meal. Bliss is is knowing you have laid your new-born son down for a comfortable nap, well-fed and swaddled in fleece. Bliss is in knowing you are present for your dying grandmother, as she recounts her final story. Bliss is in showing up for what is being demanded of us, now.

Bliss is, in large part, merely the result of 'answering the call of the moment.'

What if I go to work and I spend time earning money so that my son can eat a healthy meal? Ought that not leave me with some sense of utter satisfaction? What if, then, no matter what I am doing, there can be experienced a residual degree of bliss... precisely because of 'why I am at work.'

It may mean that the why of the process (even though the process may be pain-staking and labourious in a physically-demanding sense... even though the process may be classified in the category of mere drudgery) can result in a most supreme sense of satisfaction and pure bliss. It can mean that bliss is not so much the result of what I do for 'my so-called 'self' as much as what I am 'doing for others.' Bliss, then, as tied to the future and a following generation of descendants for whom I gladly swallow the bitter poison of coaldust in the dank hallows of a West Virgiania mine.. so that a better life might be had by those who come after.

And that to me is the interesting side of Cambell's 'follow your bliss' injunction. The aspect that has not been spoken of as if it existed, let alone mattered. For how can I smile at night when I lay down to sleep when I have been in trenches of the mundane all day long? How can I shiver with bliss when I did nothing for my own sake this day, but everything for everyone else's sake? How can that be? How can I lose myself for the sake of others and go to bed at night so damn full? How is that possible?

Is it because there is one who breathes... one for whom I live for--who doesn't answer the call of the 'I,' but whom that 'I' serves?

Emanating Bliss In The World Now

2005-11-18T09:26:00.000-08:00

'Follow your bliss' is that oft-quoted instruction on a life well-lived from the late mythologist and scholar Joseph Campbell. Do what you love, in other words. Do what brings you joy. Do what resonates with your inmost nature and Being. Do that which leaves you with a fulfilled heart and a satisfied conscience at the end of the day. Do what brings you peace.

The alternative to doing so, is to continually and chronically radiate suffering out into the world. If we are constantly and chronically dis-satisfied with what we are doing on a dialy basis (oftentime upwards of 10, 12, or even 14 hours a day) then imagine the 'vibe' that we are sending out into the environment around us. It is as if we are a 'suffering generator,' a 'duhkka-machine' that is churning out discontent and dissatisfaction the majourity of the hours of our day.

It may then be part of the Bodhisattva's task to 'invest and engage in activities that are in accordance with the production of bliss.' Not just to alleviate the suffering of others, but to also make sure that acquiring 'our daily bread' is not done so with an underlying tone of chronic, pervasive discontent. The twist would be that in 'following our bliss' we would be doing far more to relieve the suffering of others than if we were to adopt some virtue of 'noble suffering' while at the workplace so we can fork over a few charitable contributions at the end of another dreadful work-week.

The question we might want to ask then is this: not 'What can I do to relieve the suffering of others?' so much as 'What can I do that will produce bliss and generate peace?' Such that bliss (the absence of suffering) and peace (the absence of strife and conflict) will then radiate outward into the world... thereby affecting others in a subtle manner... if no less transformative and powerful.

Worldly Resistance To Soul-Emergence

2005-11-15T06:53:00.000-08:00

If we are authentic in what we do (our work, specifically) then it seems to follow that we are going to encounter resistance of one sort or another. In fact, one might even be able to suggest that the level of resistance that one encounters in terms of actualizing soul in our work is directly proportional to the level of soul in that work. No resistance, on the other hand, may be said to be more or less evidence for a 'lack of soul.'

Soul is that provocative. In a way, soul is alien to this-world. We are, as soul 'not of this-world,' as a wise man once put it. Therefore, it would seem to follow that to the degree that we are actually embodying and expressing soul in work would elicit some sense of alien-ness from the world. The world (the status quo, the given, pre-constructed traditions based on the wasness and the isness alike) is perplexed by soul. Soul seems 'other' to a world formed on the basis of so many yesterdays. Soul appears odd and disconcerting to the world. Hence, the resistance soul provokes.

Where's Your Conflict Lie?

2005-11-14T11:45:00.000-08:00

Is the struggle to free ourselves up to work better and love more a contest whose battlefield resides in the social and the cultural, ala Marxism? Or might it be better to suggest that the battlefield resides within, ala Freud and psychoanalysis?

For example, if we do something we are not particularly aroused by in terms of working and loving we are going to experience an internal conflict. The Self, ala Jung, will plague us. The soul will rebel; she will generate symptoms until we align with our Muse, passion, daemon, and so forth.

The alternative conflict seems to be one where we align with the Self and then experience resistance without--in the social and cultural. The struggle becomes one of finding our Way amidst the crowd, the herd, the masses. We may expereince peace and harmony psychologically, while experiencing a degree of conflict in our relationships with others--meaning, those who may not understand the designs and contours of the soul that can only be called 'our own.'

Freeing Energy Up To Relate & Create

2005-11-13T09:46:00.000-08:00

Freud realized that there were various and diverse inhibitions within people that prevented them from realizing a fuller capacity for life and living. Love and relationships were frustrated in the form of repressed/denied libido. There were chains on the human capacity to be free and unfettered in relationships.

Work and creativity were also frustrated due to similar reasons. Human-beings, Freud saw, were paralyzed in their creative pursuits. And whle Freud saw mainly psycho-social reasons for such a state of affairs (inhibitions that manifested in the psyche in the form of what Freud termed the 'superego') it was Karl Marx who saw mainly historical-material reasons for humanity's troublesome relationship with work.

For Marx work was difficult for far too many people because of historical forces that lay outside of the individual. Marx tended towards an 'outside-in approach' relative to work. If the conditions within a society were made friendly to human labour then labour would thrive and people would be far more prone to self-actualize. This is why Marxism has tended to give rise to a revolutionary zeal: just remake the social and cultural fabric (e.g., Mao's Cultural Revolution) and people will experience a newfound freedom in their labours.

Of course, we know that in practical terms that has not tended to be the case. It doesn't mean that there isn't a need for social and cultural revolution in certain circumstances, though it does point out how it is not possible to 'change people from the outside-in.' People oftentimes, make their own chains. As Freud saw too well--and as many of his intellectual descendants have in his wake--there is a prison-house within that no amount of external manipulation in the social and cultural value-spheres can ever touch.

It is a point that has been argued convincingly by Integral philosopher Ken Wilber. In Sex, Ecology, Spirituality Mr. Wilber expounds on the necessity of an 'transformation of consciousness.' Short of an internal shift--a further unfolding of Spirit in the form of human-beings--there is no hope. This is not Mao's 'cultural re-education' we are talking about, as much as it is a way of pointing to the fact that unless human-beings become free and unfettered within--in relation to the Psyche--there can be no free and unfettered loving or working, relating or creating.

The Kingdom of Heaven is indeed within, as a wise man once proclaimed. Trouble is it is often concealed behind the mists of our own inherited guilt and cultural shame. Those societal shoulds and organizational oughts cripple the soul of man, the spirit of woman, the essence of everyone. As Mr. Wilber also has stated, 'we fall into hell,' and it becomes as close as our own mind. Something that no manipulation of matter can ever address in a way that results in a freeing up of the energies locked within us so that we might love more and better, not to mention work with a full heart.

The Mutually Infectious Nature Of Love & Work

2005-11-12T10:10:00.000-08:00

From a psychoanalytic perspective--indeliably owed to Frued no doubt--there are seen to be really only two areas of general concern. And while the manifestations of actual pathology (our human difficulties, struggles, dis-eases) can be diverse and multiflorous, those manifestations tend to arise as a result of issues within the arenas of work and love. Those twin towers remain the two principle regions wherein human-beings have their greatest defeats, not to mention victories.

It is really another way of saying that 'relationships' and 'creativity' are the essence of what it means to be human. Relate and create. Create and relate. And so, if there is a problem in one area there will tend to be a bleed through into the other area (this has been discussed in brief here before, please see here (http://syntegral.blogspot.com/2005/10/eros-of-marx.html) for more). For instance, many hetero-women may notice that they have problems in relationships with men who have yet to establish themsleves in a career--meaning, work. A vague worker who has yet to devote himself to his own peculiar passion in life sort of makes for a vague, non-committed lover. This is probably no surprise to many women out there!

On the positive side, while a man can become obsessed with his work to the detriment of his love, there is a bonus in the man who has chosen to align himself with a purpose he can call his own. Such a man tends to have the sort of 'backbone' that turns a woman on in not only a sexual way, but in a psychological and emotional way as well. This 'firmness of conviction' is not the ideological sort of some neo-con conspiracy to remake the Middle East, as much as it is the 'firmness of a man who has discovered his dharma.' That man knows what he exists for. He is easier to love and be in relationsihp because he is not constantly plaguing his lover with a steady stream of concerns about 'What am I going to do in life?' Such a man 'just does' and then comes home so he can 'just love.'

There is a steadiness that is present in the committed working-man that allows a woman to 'just melt' as her softness. Her juices can flow all that much more freely when she can surrender in an open way, precisely because she trusts that her man has discovered his own firmness. In other words, she doesn't have to try to spend her time being 'firm' for her man because her man has embodied his own firmness. She can be woman. Together they can relate. With work having been decided it is out of the way--i.e., it is no longer an open question, as much as an ongoing journey that commenced with a commitment--such that the two can open towards one another in their loving. Now both worlds flower. The dance becomes mutual. The working and the loving feed one another. Both thrive in a non-competitive cooperation of the Spirit.

How this can be fostered? Let's go there next, ok?

Impediments To Mindfulness During Work

2005-11-11T09:14:00.001-08:00

There are definitely distinct impediments that arise during work; impediments that often serve to set us apart from our activities. We are talking about divorce at work--alienation, dissociation. A full engagement of our whole being in the midst of work is both the problem of the one who is working, as well as of the product or service being rendered, not to mention the leader striving to get the best out of his or her people.

For instance, if we are the worker whose mindfulness is being disabled--such that we are not fully engaged and present in what we are doing--then we suffer an irretrievable loss of our own existence. Moments escape us. Our life slips through the cracks. We miss out on the simple fact of being because we have gone elsewhere. Body and mind are not one--fused, united, whole, or cohesive.

Second, our work suffers because of the alienation we experience when mind and body are not one. Any service we render will be less than it can be. Any product we are in the process of constructing will suffer too. The consequences of an ongoing impediment to mindfulness during work will have their say for both the one who is working as well as that which is being worked. Value for both the worker and the object of work--whether tangible or intangible--will be diminished.

Lastly, any leader who is experiencing deficits of mindfulness among his or her charges will find that any stated goals are more difficult to achieve than they otherwise would be. The trick for the leader is to engage those in the midst of work. In this sense, it is for the leader to seek to minimize the impediments to mindfulness. This may take the form of simply 'inquiring into the worker's condition.' If we see someone struggling, and we are a leader, then it is up to us to not put more pressure on that person, but to find out the reasons why they are already feeling/experiencing a pressure that is dividing their attention--literally splitting them into pieces; a pressure that is an impediment to mindfulness. An impediment to mindfulness that is a detriment to work (meaning, the value in the midst of being created) as well as a detriment to the work-experience as a whole.

The Total Value Of Mindfulness

Mindfulness is never not a rewarding addition to any moment. In fact, if I were to ask you if you wanted to enjoy life more, and I played to the selfish interest of human nature to capitalize on the fullest enjoyment of existence possible, and you said 'Yes, I do want to enjoy life more... i do want to capitalize on each moment,' I would point you in the direction of mindfulness.

Want better sex? Mindfulness.
Want a better career? Mindfulness.
Want better finances? Mindfulness.
Want to be a better leader? Mindfulness.
Want to do well in school? Mindfulness.
Want your work to stand out? Mindfulness.

There is really no area of human endeavours where the addition of mindfulness will not be a blessing. Why has Buddhism tended to have at its nexus the cultivation of mindfulness? Because as the Buddha is reported to have said, 'All things have mind in the lead...'

If our mind is scattered and discordant then so, too, will our work come across as scattered and discordant; so, too, will our relationships be such as our mindfulness is. Whatever the quality and nature of mind in each moment will be the quality and nature of our work. As a result value will be extended or diminished relative to mindfulness. And that is why mindfulness (as well as the impediments to mindfulness, which I intended to touch on, but will now save for another day) is so important a topic in every area of human endeavour and concern. Parenting. Education. Finance. Politics. Sex. Relationships. Sports. Entertainment. Art. Everything!

So, if you want to do one thing that will add 'value' to your world--meaning, to your experience of the world, which will inevitably touch, affect, and colour your every relationship--then be mind-full; understand the impediments to mind-fullness; and do what you can to bring your-Self to your each and every moment. If you do, I promise you that life will never again be the same for you. The value of everything you do (or don't do) will most definitely increase.

Impediments To Mindfulness During Work

2005-11-11T09:14:00.000-08:00

Mindfulness As The Soul Infusion of Being Into Doing

2005-11-09T09:24:00.000-08:00

There are times when even the best of us just 'go through the motions.' We are not really present to what we are doing . Our body may be involved in the task, but we are mentally, psychologically, emotionally--and maybe even spiritually--elsewhere.

Perhaps the task doesn't interest us. Perhaps we are not totally engaged in the activity in question. Maybe the task is ordinary, hum-drum, boring. And if that is the case we presume to have reason to 'tune out' and not really 'invest our hearts, minds, bodies, and souls' into what we are doing. It doesn't matter. We are just washing the dishes. No big deal.

No Excuses To Dis-Engage The Immediacy

If you buy into the validity of Zen then we are never just washing the dishes. No task is un-worthy. No doing is to be divorced from being, alienated from a fitting and proper infusion of soul. This is why the 'ordinary' is such a steady influence when it comes to the training ground of that pristine attentiveness to the uninterrupted flow of the present tense that is Zen (and is also vipassana and the Buddha's Four Foundations of Mindfulness). After all, it is easy to be alert and attentive when our interest is piqued in accordance with our desires or preferences. That is easy. Everyone can pretty much do that. But not so with the ordinary and banal. There is no excitement inherent in the activity of the ordinary unless we infuse our doing with being. Where we care about every act. Where we come to assume a worship-full stance in relation to even the most trivial of events and instances, because 'just this' is our life... just this is Eternity expressed in the everyday. For the practitioner of Zen (and some might say all of the world's Non-Dual Wisdom Traditions) there is never a worthy excuse for dis-engaging the immediate. No matter how colourless and bland it may seem, if we bring the totality of being at our disposal into our doing then it all comes alive. The Buddha in the dishes and the diapers, the dust and the driving is revealed. As soon as we show up, so does the Buddha.

No excuses.

Another Of Life's Maxims

2005-11-08T09:56:00.000-08:00

I fully realize that there are times when we need to be willing to 'do what we prefer not to' in order to be able to 'do what we wish to.' And while this sounds like something simple in words, in terms of life/practice it can be much more complex and nuanced. That is why I am inviting you to stick around--to, I suppose, tune in over the next week or so--as we look into such matters all that much more closely.

(with a bow and nod to my comrade e-buddha--check him out at http://integralpractice.blogharbor.com/blog)

A Labour Of Love

2005-11-06T09:43:00.000-08:00

How many people can say that they 'love what they do;' that their daily efforts in the work-world are full of being, infused with all they are? 1 in 10? 1 in 50? Worse yet, 1 in 100?

Think about it for just a moment: If our doing were so infused with our being then there would be no divide such that we were left fantasizing about 'doing something else.' Our work--and the world constructed on the basis of that work--would be, quite literally, soul-full. Full of soul.

A World Bereft of Substitute Gratifications

2005-11-04T08:40:00.000-08:00

It is hard to say what the exact numbers are, but suffice it to say that the greater majourity of human-beings are unhappy with work. Few are those able to do what they love. Few, in other words, are those who have found an exquisite balance between being and doing.

For the majourity of us, then, life is a constant, pervasive, often unending conflict between who and what we feel we are (being) and who and what we are asked to do the majourity of our waking hours (doing). The general result of this situation is that we are compelled to seek forms of gratification intended to act as substitutes for the huge deficit we experience in our working life. We are, in other words, forced to try and find immediate forms of substitue gratification in order to compensate for what is severely lacking in our work--which is that our being and doing are not in harmony, acting in concert with one another.

For example, many experience a near total absence of psychological presence while at work. The body is present and accounted for in form only, but not in spirit. Because we don't love what we are doing we cannot invest, immerse all of our being into that doing.

Ideally, in some sense, our work and our play ought to be joined. This notion--outdated, archaic, and deadly as it is!--that we ought to know a sharp division between work and play is about extreme a fallacy as one can arrive at. The best workers are those who are able to experience and express an element of play in their working. It is the same with lovers and loving. The more playful the lover and the loving then the more genuine does tend to be the experience of the lover and the loving on behalf of the beloved.

Overly serious work, like overly serious play, is psychologically exhausting. It will drain you like nothing else. Much of that attitude derives from a sense of work as this arena of conquest where we are always and forevermore locked in mortal combat with some competitive element that is going to squash us if we don't get serious and get serious now! Yet, no one can long survive in an atmosphere totally devoid of play, let alone thrive in that atmosphere. And mounting visits to the Dr.'s office to be prescribed drugs to 'get you up' (SRI'S) and drugs to 'get you down' (barbituates) is some of the clearest evidence we have for the fact that human-beings must be able to bring their whole being into their work-doing or there will be severe psychological, physical, and relational (not to mention financial) consequences.

Some of those consequences are in the form of attempting to 'consume our way to happiness and well-being' because we are not fulfilled in our doing. Others are addictions to alcohol and drugs, sex and domination. The ways that we seek to compensate for failures in our working-environment is probably one of the more little understood facts of (post)modern existence. And it is also something that Marx was driving at in his analysis of Kapital: that work must nourish us directly, not indirectly; that our labours must feed us first, in every sense of that word, for then can we feed others.

But that is not how Kapital tends to work. It does in some cases... but not in the majourity. The way current tendencies are is that work leaves us exhausted and deprived; then we go in search of gratification and fulfillment 'outside of work.' And that is, according to all signs and indications, a un-winnable proposition for each of us. It is but a brutal cycle upon which the breaking of depends much of humanity's happiness--yours and mine, ours, our childrens, and their children as well.

Marx & The Individual: Work As Primary Means Of Self-Actualization

2005-11-03T07:32:00.000-08:00

There are numerous assumptions when it comes to Karl Marx and his peculiar brand of philosophy/enquiry. Thanks to our friends Stalin and Mao there has come to be an insinuation that Marx is to be equated with 'collectivism'--and, as such, is against the individual. Nothing could be further from the truth though. When one actually takes the time to read Marx what one notices, again and again, is a deep and abiding concern with the specific human-being and his or her capacity to derive the fullest benefit (read, value) from his or her labours. Marx's philosophy--the spirit of his own labour--was the farthest thing from the sort of collectivism and state-controlled communism that has come to be associated with his name. Karl Marx was for the individual and the actualization of each individual's unique gifts.

One of the things that was often noted about the former Soviet Union was the way in which each individual's work was decided for them by the State. The individual had no freedom to decide or determine his or her own working-existence. What one gave birth was not up to the individual and his or her peculiar passions, as much as it was up to the State itself. One was plugged into the 'system' and made to 'fit in' to the network of a pure socialist system. The individual suffered. Dreams died. Passions became pathologies.

The peculiar thing--at least to me--is that the assumptions has been that this is only the fate of the individual in the pure 'socialist system.' The fate of the individual within Communism is a burdensome one. As Ken Wilber might put it, pathological communion rules the day. And being a forced communion it is really no communion at all.

Of course, all of that does not happen here in America does it? Nor does it happen in Western Europe, where free democratic republics rule supreme, where Capitalism holds favour. Or at least that is what we have been told. The assumption is that the individual is able to follow his or her bliss to a much greater degree in Capitalist systems than in Communist ones. And that is largely true. However, it does not mean that there are not in-born tendencies which conspire to generate the same sort of fate for the individual as was suffered by those in the former Soviet Union. It does not mean that Capitalism has its own pathologies that afflict the indiviaul with the burden of 'fitting in.'

One has only to consider the 'Self-Help' aisle of any majour bookstore and you can see instantly the burdends of work within the Capitalist system that everyday people struggle with. One has only to consider the fate of the teenager faced with the option of only joining the military and being shipped off to fight in a War he or she barely understands--if at all. One has to only consider the elderly gentleman who realizes too late that he never lived his life--the life he wanted to, the life he was given, the leife he had dreamt of, because he was too busy always 'fitting in' and measuring himself against the standards of the 'System' and not against the call of his own Heart. One has only to look around one's self as you sit in the office reading these words while on an unsolicited break from crunching numbers to realize that Capitalism is not anymore innately concerned with the fate of the individual than was/is Communism.

But Karl Marx was. He was interested in asking how one could self-actualize one's unique gifts in a world where there seemed to be a constant conspiracy against the individual doing so. And that is a thread within Marx's body of work that has been little noticed--let alone a story that has been told.

The (Dis)Empowered Worker

2005-11-01T07:04:00.000-08:00

One of the central questions that Marx sought to address, that so much of his analysis of Kapital was interested in discovering, was how to enable a society wherein the worker--the producer, the creator, the artist, the birther--would be able to derive the full value of one's labours.

Why Marx was concerned with this matter is easy to see. It has to do with the fact that there is a 'surplus value' that is derived from the labours of the working man or woman, but that does not go to that working man or woman. The working-(wo)man does not received the full value of his or her labour. The worker works not for him- or herself, or even for his or her family and friends. The worker also works for the 'capitalist'--i.e., the one who capitalizes on the dis-advantaged position of the worker. The surplus value--or I should say, a percentage of the value of a man's or woman's labour--in the current Capitalist system, goes to one who is not even present in the act of labour and birth.. That missing agent, the 'invisible hand' of capitalism, accrues a degree of value from the labours of those who produce and do the work without ever actually being involved in those labours.

How this all comes about is a story in itself. Suffice it to say now that there is an unconscious tendency within the Capitalist System to have a perpetual state of affairs where there are these intense zones of desperation. In a manner of speaking, Capitalism thrives on a 'lack of opportunity.' Such a 'lack of opportunity' creates a set of conditions where there is an abundant supply of workers that can be taken advantage of so that 'surplus value' can be derived from their labours. That 'surplus value' is Capital.

It is not so much a state of healthy competition we are talking about here as a state of exploitation. The desperate conditions that many live in around the world happens to be a 'boon to the tried and true Capitalist.' In fact, what one can do is leverage and hedge one nation's dispossessed against another nations. This goes for both those illiterate and under-educated as well as those literate and educated to the hilt. The threat of 'losing the job' is the point of leverage for the Capitalist. It is what allows the proletariat to settle for scraps, for less, for 'just getting by.' It is what also leads to frustrations in love and relationships. The disadvantaged position of the worker leaves him or her feeling like they are 'being taken advantage of'. However, that person may not know why. So that person tends to blame those closest to him- or herself. Thus, one's family and friends--one's significant others--can come to be the unwitting scapegoats and verbal punching bags taking the brunt of frustration that is owed to a system based on the worker never deriving the 'full value' of his or her labours.

The Eros Of Marx

2005-10-31T08:39:00.000-08:00

Or ol' buddy Dr. Freud stated that there are really only two actual pursuits in life--love and work. Our only concerns are with a) what will you create, give birth to, produce, and b) how shall you relate to, communicate with, engage the world around you. That is all. The rest is of no consequence. Or, there is no 'the rest.'

When I invoke Karl Marx, and a discussion of the 'proletariat,' what I am really invoking is the 'spirit of work/creativity.' What my real concern is--and I sense Marx's was as well--is how can we work well. Because, after all, our working touches and affects our loving (just ask a child whose parent comes home pissed from the office or factory and you have a good idea of how true this actually is!).

What I gather Marx was interested in was addressing the 'working dimension' of humanity and how this 'working dimension' is often conditioned by certain historical circumstances that have resulted in the oppression of human creativity--all of which would necessarily become infectious with regards to our loving dimension. If we can't work well we can't love well. Work frustrations are also frustrations of loving.

One cannot separate working and loving, loving and working. A handicap in one area tends to lead to debilitation in the other. That boundary of leaving 'shit at the office' never holds. It is a porous membrane and our homes are infected/affected by what takes place while working; just as our working is infected/affected by what is taking place in the home. Kids are a prime example of how porous a membrane the supposed demarcation is between love and work. Many a child's difficulties in school have been discovered as stemming from difficulties at home. The child's working (learning) is frustrated by the child's loving.

What the child shows is of the interrelated nature of home and school (their love and work) is a fact that never changes. It is a relationship that never is altered in any way, shape, manner, or form. And it is the fool who thinks it is or can be.

So, now when we turn to Karl Marx and his discussion of labour, surplus value, modes of production, the proletariat, Kapital, the bourgeousie, and so forth, one can hopefully see how what Marx was discussing (in often very technical language) was really one of the two central concerns/pursuits of our life. It makes Marx a friend of not just our 'working/creating' but of our 'loving/relating.' Just imagine if the shackles of what humanity were often lead to feel around their working were removed--what would that mean for our loving? How might we relate better to and with one another if we eliminated some of the unnecessary frustrations of working? What if there were no wage-slaves, but everyone did what was in tune with their passion? If that were the case--and everyone were aligned with their passion in working--would that not possibly result in more com-passion in our loving and relating one with another?

I, for one, think it would. My own experience tells me as much. When I come home excited from working and feeling fulfilled in what I have either created myself that day, or helped to create in concert with a community of others, then I experience a much more harmonious expansion of that fulfillment into the home. And if that has not happened I come home looking for some 'substitue gratification'--generally in the form of some sort of pathologicallly addictive behaviour (drugs, alcohol, sex, co-dependence, shopping, couch-potatoing, hyper-media consuming) that is a hopeful, albeit shallow, attempt to redeem and heal my 'self' of those frustrations experienced while working (or, in some cases, slaving).

Now who would have thunk that Karl Marx was a friend of home and hearth? That is opus Das Kapital's underlying concern happened to be with the shackles that can, and still do in many cases, burden human creativity. As well as how those burdens on human creativity/work/labour are a detriment to the Whole of Humanity: as the inhibit not just our working, but our loving.

Wow, Karl Marx as lover!

We Are The Proletariat

2005-10-30T10:52:00.000-08:00

Anyone remember Y2K? And what the hell happened to those 'End of the World' prophecies that foretold of what was to transpire once the New Millennium dawned (got some freeze-dried rations to sell? anyone with a slightly used generator up on the auction block?)?

I guess many were just preparing for the worst; part of human nature. What with the recent proliferation of mass casualties at the hand of Mother Nature (and with a not too slight assist from humanity's contribution to warming the Oceans of the Earth) it may turn out to be that those rations and forecasts, those doomsday scenarios and generators, were not only apt responses to a historical turning, but increasingly necessary items in one's daily affairs.

The Y2K'ers could have the last laugh after all. Look at the situation in the majour metropolitan areas when any disruption of basic services has taken place. Evidence Katrina and Wilma. A disruption in public services shows, in stark and unrelenting light, just how dependent (mark that word, dependent) that the Metro-Polis is. The Metro-Polis has no independent existence (sorry you New Yorkers and Los Angelinos) of its own. It is a body that requires a constant and unrelenting influx of energy and resources just to be maintained, let alone to grow. One can see the kind of chaos that ensues when those flows of resources and energy are disrupted.

There is no river one can go to. And if there is it is a heavily trafficked and chemically polluted Mississippi or Hudson. There are no trees from which to pluck dead limbs and stoke a fire to warm the hearth.There is no capacity to hunt and gather some mushrooms or berries. And there sure as hell ain't no game to trap and snare, so as to cook over a warm fire (but one can always go to the Zoo and harvest a Panda or two!).

Seriously, though, one cannot help but realize the tenuous nature of Civilization in the form of the Metro-Polis when one is given a glimpse of momentary disruptions such as we have seen lately. One is given a realization as to the 'interdependent nature' of all entities--whether those entities be cities or salamanders, cultures or crawdads. Everything that exists depends upon 'others' for its continued existence. The Metro-Polis depends upon the farmer and logger and oil-rig hand. The Metro-Polis depends upon the unfair labour practices and the plantations of South America; where sugar, bananas, and coffee are grown under conditions any American would find deplorable (and don't we need immigrants George W. Bush says to do work that Americans will not do--and why, because we are too good? or because we would not tolerate working under such conditions? but hey, if we can coerce others to do so via games of economic blackmail and existential coercion then so be it, right? its our capitalist-imperialist advantage/right/prerogative).

Karl Marx was one of the first to comment, in at least any analytical form, the materialist basis of high-society. Those who may see themselves as being of another race or breed--purer, more exalted--have the proverbial rug pulled out from under them when and if the flows into the Metro-Polis are disrupted. Without the surpluses of energy and resources (and they are not really surpluses, but that is for another discussion) being made available to the Metro-Polis there is no Wall Street, no Guggenheim, no Metropolitan Opera, no Saks Fifth Avenue, no Rodeo Drive. Each of those entities subsist on the back of the 'working class'--the proletariat in Marx's terminology.

Proletariat? Yeah, proletariat... by which Marx meant those who actually produced the material means by which a society/culture were sustained upon the basis of. Those who grow the food, who mine the resources, who deliver the materials, who transport the goods are the proletariat. And when the movement of the proletariat is disrupted Civilization falters. It is always and forevermore an empowered, functioning, flowing, mobile proletariat that sustains culture; that allows for extensions of culture and society into previously unknown realms--whether good or ill.

There is no adventure into Space or the Human Genome without the proletariat. Culture and Technology flow from the ground up. It is perhaps why America succeeded where the Soviet Union failed--the American proletariat was empowered (upwardly mobile, much moe free to a larger degree) where the Soviet proletariat was essentially held captive by governmental pressures that robbed that culture of its Eros.

That ability to rise and move and express and create and give birth and be mobile in a free and uniterrupted fashion and manner is what can be seen as the 'Engine of Culture.' Eros as the force of the flow itself. And where Eros is disrupted and the erotic movement of that 'rising force' is denied then the Culture which depends upon that movement and mobility will suffer.

It is why Civilization requires an empowered proletariat. It is why Capitalism needs Marx. It is why Culture is not bland with an 'empowered working class'... but the best it can be because of that 'working class.'

The Business Of Dying To The Isness.

2005-10-29T10:20:00.000-07:00

Anytime one thinks of adding something to one's life it seems to be a requirement that some room be made available for that addition. It is kind of an addition by subtraction. And if Nature truly does abhor a vacuum then we cane be rest assured that any loss, opening, absence will be filled in due time.

There is also that widely recited tale of the encounter between the Zen Master and a visiting Professor; one whose cup had indeed runneth over. The Zen Master could not possibly add anything to the Professor's existence in terms of knowledge, insight, realization, or understanding. The Professor was already too full--too full of himself! There was no opening. There was no absence. There was no emptiness. The Professor had not yet sufficiently died to the known. And a 'death to the known' was what was necessary before the Zen Master would even be willing to impart anything of substance to the Professor. Aside from such a dying to the known there was no use in the Zen Master transmitting anything in the direction of the Professor.

So a prerequisite in terms of psycho-spiritual discplines such as Zen is a literal death. And much time is spent initially in breaking down the known. All of those preconceptions and assumptions and taken-for-granted assertions are eroded through hours upon hours of 'just sitting.' In the process we are not 'building,' but dismantling. A dismantling of psychological structures and conceptual systems that must be made to give way so that there is a Space for Transmission of the Dharma.

That dismantling seems to happen to seem for some in an explosive, earth-shattering way. For others it is more like the rain gently eroding a crusty hillside to reveal a treasure long buried, and just as long forgotten. In either case, there is need for emptying and eroding; there is need for a clearing to be made; there is need for Space in which Transmission can occur.

The dying to the Isness--What Is Now--opens us up for... ?

Which is where our faith and trust come in.

Transformation As An Invocation of Death

2005-10-28T10:57:00.000-07:00

I am not sure I have given this any consideration before--at least not in the way that I am about. Nor have I heard it mentioned by anyone else in quite this same way: namely, that a call for transformation is an invoking of the forces of death.

Not life initially. Transformation is a call for reform or reorganization of the present elements and conditions of life as it is. Transformation is a desire for the Isness of Now to be other than what it, well... IS! And quite simply put, if we are desiring transformation (ITP, ILP, psychoanalysis, metanoia, enlightenment, satori, samadhi, social and cultural revolution, a New World Order, what have you) then we are in a position where we are invoking... asking for, begging, pleading, demanding... the death of what IS so that something 'Other' might come to replace what we have come to feel diminished and/or oppressed by.

So, in a nutshell, transformation is death. Real transformation comes in the guise of the ghosts and ghouls and goblins of our popular imagination; those creatures whose season is now--'All Hallow's Eve:' Halloween. Transformation is not--at least initially--all that is sweet and nice and cool and hip and fab. It may seem to be like that in the end--after our Resurrection. But it is not like that in the beginning--as the momentum of our Crucifixion builds, as the Days of Death mount, as the Four Horsemen saddle up and head our way, making a housecall that begins in our own plea transformation. That transformation we are all too shocked to discover coming in the guise of our own demise.

It is how we ask to die... when we say we want change in our lives. So don't be at all surprised when that Menace comes. You probably asked for it. You wanted it. You begged for things to be different. You begged to be slaughtered, sacrificed, dismembered. You prayed for the Angel of Death.

Trouble With Transformation

2005-10-27T09:05:00.000-07:00

I've had this thing with 'transformation.' Change. Change for the better. Growth. Maturation. Novelty. Becoming. This deep and earnest desire for things to be different. Different for the world. Different for others. Different for my self.

Part of this may be a sense of the incompleteness of 'things as they are.' One's potential lies waiting to emerge. So a desire for change is a desire to become--as the US Army put it in an ad--'all you can be.'

The irony in this becomes apparent in realizing that a desire for transformation is a perhaps a desire to become one's self... to realize one's essence... to attain one's destiny... to fulfill one's own dharma or drama. The trouble with this 'journey of becoming' through an ever-unfolding transformational process is the unrest that tends to become a constant. Growth is like perpetual unrest. Transformation... uhm... like a dis-ease.

A Blog Is Reborn

2005-10-26T08:46:00.000-07:00

It became increasingly obvious to myself that I was not being 'real' enough here. The writing was simply not confessional enough--lacking authenticity. I was left feeling like I was too busy 'talking around the central issues' of my life at this point, and not busy enough dealing with what is confronting me in stark terms.

Of course, there is some fear and trepidation in being too confessional. I may reveal too much. Maybe I won't be seen by others how I wish to be seen. Maybe I will be looked down upon if people see me for who I really am. Perhaps I will be scorned and castigated if I reveal the hoary details of my life.

Or maybe I will feel shame over my own existence if I dare confess the man I have become.

That last one is probably nearer to the truth than those other concerns. In fact, I can feel it. I can feel how much I hide, have been hiding. I can feel the 'withdrawn self' wanting to hide from the light of day for fear of being revealed as the 'monster' he is/I am. I can feel not wanting to disclose the messiness within, the heart of darkness that is this man. I can feel myself not wanting to confront my own person--and how my previous attempts at writing were these earnest attempts to hide from myself.

And I can feel how that just will not do any longer. I can feel the confrontation building within--that monumental moment where I... I... I must must starkly face who I am; including the choices I have made, the choices that I didn't--meaning, the sins of commission and omission alike that in my acknowledgement of stand to break open that fragile facade of a character I had become.

A character unreal. A character I am hoping to sacrifice for something far more real and authentic.

Protecting The Innocent From The Real

2005-10-07T10:21:00.000-07:00

'You want the truth?! You can't handle the truth!' Perhaps you remember that line from the movie A Few Good Men, in which Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson starred. It pretty much sums up how many of us come to feel relative to our need to protect those we happen to see as being innocent. Some of the harsher realities going on in this-world need to be shielded from our eyes. Governments do it to their citizens. Parents do it to their children. And Freud reminded us all that we are at least potentially capable of hiding the truth from our own conscious awareness.

Maybe you have heard of what Freud called 'repression.' It was suggested by Freud that we find a way to repress harsh truths because we are psychologically incapable of dealing with the consequences of those truths. We can't make a place for it in our current conceptions of the world we live in, so we deny its existence--i.e., it becomes buried in a psychological sense, our unconsciousness some new inhabitants.

Hiding from the truth--or just hiding the truth--to me seems to confess some belief in human frailty. It is as if we are confessing that the psyche is a fragile little child that we need to protect and shelter from 'what is' for fear that exposure to 'what is' will undermine the psyche. All of which makes me wonder if the psyche is, in someway, the locus of fantasy and illusion--of how we wish things were, of how we wish things could be, of how we would prefer to see the world as being.

Are we psychologically as fragile as our apparent need to protect oursleves from 'what is' would seem to suggest? Or might we not admire our inherent strength and psychological resilience for what it is? What if we don't give each other enough credit--as governments to citizens and as parents to children (as well as ourselves psychologically)? What if the notion that we can't handle the truth is a false one--a notion that presupposes weakness and fragility? What if we struggle with Reality because we have not yet admitted to each other, as well as to our self, what has happened, what is happening now, and what is in the works for happening tomorrow and the day after?

What if we can handle the truth but never know that we can because we don't give each other the chance? What if our children are forced to rebel from us because we are not honest with them? What if the citizenry revolts and rebels in the name of Revolution because there is a thirst for the Truth that cannot be quenched as long as Big Brother is being overly protective? What if we are made for the Truth and the Truth is made for us?

Doubt, Paralysis, and Parental Avoidance

2005-10-05T09:52:00.000-07:00

It is probably not a surprise to you that the generalized, Western conceptions as to the nature of doubt tend to include some sort of paralysis. Doubt stops us. Doubt freezes us. Doubt collapses our world into an intense moment of undeniable pressure--crippling pressure. We can't move. We can't do anything. We can't... uhm... even... know. We become lost.

Maybe I should say, 'adrift,' that we become adrift--as if unleashed from the firm conceptions of the world the way we thought it was. For instance, Hamlet upon hearing the news of his Father's assasination by his Uncle--an Uncle who then bedded down with Hamlet's mother--is the archetypal symbol of doubt and paralysis in literary form. And you tell me that such as what Hamlet came to know would not cause you to doubt your world: that everything that you ever thought you knew: Gone. Every assumption you had about what was taking place: Gone. Every notion about the nature of what was transpiring around you: Gone. Gone... gone... gone... totally gone... totally and absolutely gone. All a dream. All a fantasy. All an illusion.

Siddhartha, the Buddha-to-be, had a similar experience when he finally glimpsed suffering for the first time. The young Prince had been sheltered by the King, his Father, for fear that Siddhartha's inherently compassionate nature would be stirred and he would leave the palace grounds for search targeting the Truth... targeting Healing... in search of the Answers. The King's fears were warranted as we now know. Siddhartha's world too collapsed. The illusions of perfection and bliss and comfort were revealed as 'empty.' The only substance behind the 'absence of suffering' was no substance at all. It was a performance, an act, a manufatcured event meant for Siddhartha's consumption. It was a media event! A media event intended for one person--so as to give that person, the Prince, an impression of existence in this-world that was illusory, untrue, false.

The King edited Siddhartha's world for him. The King deleted all the scenes that might 'break' Siddhartha's Heart Wide Open!

What parent doesn't attempt to do that for their child--to give them the best, to shelter them from suffering, to protect them from the grotesque and the ugly and the cruel and the inhumane. And what parent doesn't ultimately fail in that regard, just like the King failed to shield Siddhartha from the often gruesome and troubling 'facts of life and death?'

Doubt As Doorway To The Original Sin

2005-09-29T11:39:00.000-07:00

Doubt would seem to be especially problematic from a Judeo-Christian perspective. After all, it was the 'seed of doubt' planted in Eve's ear by the serpent in the Garden of Eden--as told in the Book of Genesis--which is believed to have catapulted Humanity into a whole other realm. And that realm has not been kind to us! Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. Toil. Fruitless labours. Painful births. Dukkha all around. Enough for everyone and everything.

So, if doubt itself is mythologically portrayed as being responsible for Humanity's Fall from Grace then one can see how there may be anawfully aversive relationship to doubt from a psychological perspective. It ends up generating a certain degree of dis-comfort within those who have been privvy to the tale of doubt in the Garden of Eden (especially those exposed to that story in a formative way, which generally means in childhood).

This story of doubt in our heads, pervading our culture, and at the epicenter of our Civilization, can create a climate where certainty and conviction are valued tremendously over any inkling of uncertainty or vagueness. And yet, being that we are not omniscience beings with an omnipresent perspective on anything, it stands to reason that doubt is essential if we are to be honest with ourselves. In fact, doubt may be a more honest path aligned with self-awareness than any sort of certainty or raw conviction. Doubt is the path of humility... and by that I don't mean humility of the self-depracating variety but of the intensely self-aware variety that takes into account or partial and incomplete understanding of things.

If only Cain and Abel were capable of doubt. If only Jew and Palestinian were capable of doubt. If only George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were capable of doubt. If only Karl Rove and Richard Pearl were capable of doubt. If only Adoplh Hitler and Joseph Stalin were capable of doubt. If onmly Jim Jones and David Koresh were capable of doubt. How much different would the world be? How much more benign?

How much more friendly would the world be if we were all a little less certain in our understanding of others; such that we were not so quick to judge and determine that so-and-so is a such-and-such? How much less likely would we be to pull the trigger? How much less likely would be to think a child is deserving of abuse; or that a lover is in need of some smacking around? How much different would the world be if we prevaricated in those intense moments were lives hang in the balance: where imminent death and destruction are only a doubt-free moment away?

Whadda Ya Mean Your Not Sure?!?!

2005-09-25T14:32:00.000-07:00

The self-assured man. The confident, take-no-prisoners approach to life. We know it well. Some of us live it. Others live with it. And still others see it portrayed in the movies via the psychologically narrow portrayals of the hero who doesn't bat an eye, questions nothing, but just does. The pure doer. The man of action.

Though a sure stereotype the 'pure doer' has more than his share of problems--as well as generating much the same for others. The pure doer--with American President George W. Bush certainly standing as a prime example (so much so that he is almost a caricature of the overly self-confident man, the one presuming absolute knowledge in the face of a world rife with uncertainty, incompleteness, and relativity--read Heisenberg, Godel, and Einstein lately Prez)--is the one who doesn't waver; though perhaps he ought to. The pure doer is the total opposite of someone like Shakespeare's arche-character, Hamlet. The pure doer has no time for questions, no time for self-reflection--which last I checked was one of the chief characteristics of being-human, the capacity for reflection.

What if the pure doer, the heroically self-confident and self-assured, is under the sway of, and allegiant to, a primarily animalistic tendency--meaning, a far more base evolutionary impulse that we could say verges on the in-humane? The one who just does without any inclination to doubt the course of one's actions is, like I said, the obverse of Hamlet. That Hamlet who has become a sort of modern archetype of the human psyche in light of our ever-increasing knowledge of the world: our knowlede of how and where paradox reigns; of how and where contraries are inherent in almost everything we do; of how and where no 'thing' seems solid or certain; of how and where all that we commit to seems to come with an almost terrifying cost, the awareness of which freezes us in near total impossibility. Like Hamlet. Not unlike Hamlet.

The pure does just does, though. This is why the pure doer is one whose life is not unlike a 'bull in a China shop.' As the more reflective former Secretary of State under President G. W. Bush put it, 'If you break it you fix it.'

The heroic archetype---the complex of the pure doer acting on us psychologically--is awfully naive though. There is a sense that if one just charges in then everyone will gladly welcome us, bow down before us, praise our very name. The heroic complex, in the current world of increasing awareness of relativity is a complex that is more and more problematic each and everyday. It is a psychological complex fitting for emergency situations--when urgency of action is paramount. But as a form of politics it makes life hell for more people than it could ever be said to save.

Eroding Self-Importance & Our Healthy Doubt

2005-09-24T10:00:00.000-07:00

At one level we need to believe in what we are doing in order to even get the momentum to get up and running. If there is not a sense of import and/or urgency to our actions then they probably never even get off the ground, i.e., they remain just dreams, imaginings, wishful thoughts and thinking.

At the same time, our sense of self-importance relative to whatever we are involved in must go through periods of intense doubt and self-scrutiny in order to remain authentic. The healthy doubt and that necessary erosion of self-importance relative to our work can serve to keep us in a state of penetrating inquiry as to whether or not we are really whole-heartedly invested in what we say we are... or pretend to be.

For instance, when we are feeling doubt around a particular area of personal investment--a relationship, a career, a hobby, a vocation, a sense of duty and calling--we may need to bring an abrupt end to such a pursuit--its time may have come. Or, we just may need to re-evaluate the whole situation and adjust ourselves in some way so as to better actualize our capacities in synchrony with external conditions and circumstances.

Doubt, in such a sense, is really a necessary growth factor in all of our pursuits. I suggest that doubt is what we need to become more comfortable with because it keeps us honest with others as well as with our self--not to mention our work. Doubt is like the sense that we can do more; the sense that our time may be better spent; the sense that our calling has shifted; the sense that an old road, well-traveled is reaching its end; the sense that our spiritual practice needs to shift into another realm. It is as if doubt is 'hidden potential' within us forcing us to question what we are currently involved in because there is something yet waiting in us to be born, to emerge, to flower and grow, unfold and unfurl. Doubt today is the seed of tomorrow's hope.

But only if we entertain that doubt. Only if we walk with it. Only if we have a conversation with doubt. Then tomorrow's hope reveals itself, in the face of doubt.

Worldviews In Crisis: Nature's Fatal & Formative Blows

2005-09-23T09:51:00.000-07:00

Seminal events happen to each and everyone of us. In one way or another there are births and deaths--beginnings and endings, findings and losing, gains and losses--that forever alter the topography and trajectory of our lives. Someone is born into our lives. Someone leaves us unexpectedly (which forms the underlying emotional tone of my last published work, Buddha & Shakespeare: Eastern Dharma, Western Drama). In either case, whether through emergence or departure, our world is thrown into a state of crisis. And by crisis I mean that which is both upsetting as well as potentially transformational.

To paraphrase the Buddha, 'Birth is crisis. Death is crisis. Sickness is crisis. All of this is crisis.' Or, to quote a lady that I happen to be a fan of, Victoria Lansford www.victorialansford.com 'The truth hurts... and sets you free.'

But why should the truth hurt in setting us free? Why should that which leads to freedom be so upsetting? Why should being stripped of our illusions be so painful? Is it because 'ignorance is truly bliss' and we adore our beloved ignorance? Isn't that why people can often be heard saying, 'I don't want to hear it?'

Perhaps it is because we are more the creatures of habit than we like to confess in all honesty. We grow comfortable in our little traps. Growth is painful. We have to 'let-go' of certain things in order to be capable of embracing others. And yet, while we are being asked to 'let-go,' by the seminal event in our lives--a crisis--we see nothing on the horizon to fill the space of what we are being asked to give up; which can quickly result in making our grapsing and clinging all the more tenacious. We may even feel like we have to 'hang on for dear life!'

The metaphors of death and sacrifice in terms of our being initiated into 'new ways of being' are not without considerable merit. Those metaphors exist--and have existed--for a reason. Psychologically speaking the death is real. I repeat, psychologically speaking the death and dying process is a literal one in terms of world-views, emotions, feelings, images, and self-conceptions. A crisis brought on bu birth and death literally forces us into a place of deep re-imagining. We become a father or a mother, a husband or a wife, a widow or a widower, and in doing so we have to re-imagine who we are. We have to die, in so many ways, to who we have become prior to this one event we cannot so easily dismiss or deny. And, in spite of all the sweet talk of 'transcend and include' ala Ken Wilber and Integral Spirituality, the process itself can be far more harrowing than what those cute little words would seem to indicate. There are parts of us--sub-personalities, if you will--that refuse to move on... that don't want to leave our psychological New Orleans. That don't want to evacuate. That don't want to change with the times. That resist the impetus that is the crisis: that is the painful, hopeful, challenging, difficult, enlightening, transformational, death-dealing and death-defying opportunity brought to bear upon our whole being via a seminal event.

Can't Even Imagine The Pain

2005-09-22T12:31:00.000-07:00

I simply can't imagine what a parent must feel in the face of powerful forces that are going to impact one's son or daughter so directly--forces beyond one's ken and control. Hurricanes. Homelessness. Unemployment. Dislocation. Disease.

Death.

The level of pain and heartache that clearly commences in the wake of being unable to protect one's child has to have no comparison in this-world. I suspect that it is the greatest of all pains, the most momunmental of all tragedies--not to suffer a loss romantically, but to feel powerless and impotent in being able to protect those whom we have been blessed and given to care for: our children.

If it happens to us when is there not a time when we don't look back and wonder what we could have done differently. If only could easily become a way of life. If only I had left sooner. If only I had not stayed. If only I had called. If only: the life of regrets.

Perhaps because there is no other greater duty in life than to care for our children, it crushes our spirits like no other loss when we feel ourselves to have failed in some way, in that regard. Mothers and fathers alike suffer when faced with circumstances and/or conditions that they cannot overcome; forces that they as a simple human-being pale in comparison to; forces that verge on the godlike, the demonic, the catastrophic. Forces with names like Katrina and Rita. Names that sound like they could those of our friend, and yet names that leave us separated, disjointed, homeless, and grieving, no doubt, for lifetimes to come.

Every parent knows that they can fail at everything else, and as long as they feel themselves to have done their duty in caring for and protecting their child they are ok. You can fail at a career. You can lose a dream. You can be a fool in the eyes of the whole world for what you have done. Still, if your son or daughter feels loved and appreciated and cared for---and you know you did your best on their behalf--then that is all that matters. I said, then that is all that matters!

Unfortunately, for each of us, and for parents especially, there are forces beyond our powers of determination. Contrary to what some New Age gurus and wanna-be prophets proclaim--the complete powers of creation are not within our jurisdiction. We are as much prey to forces as we are predator to the same. We are as much those who must adapt and deal with unforeseen circumstances and conditions as those who define the circumstances and conditions. All of which leaves us vulnerable to being 'acted upon' in ways that we seem to have little say in. We are like the Biblical character Job, one who suffers gravely all of these tragic events and wonders why: 'God, what have I done? Have I displeased you in some way? Have I not held you up? Have I not been honourable in your eyes? Have I not loved enough? Why God? Why must I/we suffer so? Why is such ruin being visited upon us?'

That level of suffering and affliction seems to make us what we are, a philosophical-being--one prone to religion, susceptible to spiritual inquiry. Homo sapiens. One seminal moment in time--a personal and familial tragedy we could not control or contain--becomes the centerpiece of our psychological lives as we ask and ponder and pray and contemplate and seek and question and query everyday the nature of a single split second when everything changed. Everything.

The event that we cannot undo. The moment when we watched in horror as our son or daughter cried their last. A fate no parent should suffer. God... I can't even imagine the pain.

That's Awesome!

2005-09-16T11:05:00.000-07:00

Before... and this is the crucial phrase here... before a child's sense of innocence and wonder are crushed, trampled upon, beat to hell and back--via a dawning awareness of some of the harsher realities of the world being handed to them, they are so full of wonder over even the smallest, most trivial of things. The things that we overlook as adults, the things that we take for granted, the things that we have grown accustomed to--if not habituated to--are for children some of the 'coolest things in the world.'

So much is decidedly novel to the child. It means that the capacity for wonder as a child is that much greater than it tends to be for adults; adults who end up going through life as if it were a 'routine' to be habitually re-enacted day after tiresome day. You know, the 'same old same old.'

I think it was some dude named Jesus that said one must become as a 'little child' if one were to know the Kingdom of Heaven. The Zen Buddhist parallel of this is epitomized in the late Suzuki Roshi's 'beginner's mind': where each moment is realized as fresh; where nothing about the world is stale or flat.

And that is the thing, isn't it? The 'world-as-it-is' is never stale or flat. The world is constantly emerging in total and unequivocal freshness. Each moment is raw and naked. It is we, we humans, who become stale and flat in terms of how we perceive--i.e., in what I call the attitudinal stance we take towards each moment. If we are a vibrantly aware of the novelty and freshness of each moment then the world can never be boring, stale, or flat. The world will be seen as singing with life and sex and frivolity--with so many 'cool things' that are for the child within all of us so many reasons to be astounded at the awesomeness of it all.

The Philosophical Pragmatism of Children

2005-09-15T10:07:00.000-07:00

Children are awesome. They really are. Of course, in a world hell-bent on being productive and efficient and getting things done 'on time' children can be a pain-in-the-ass. Really. Children in a world of efficiency are a problem. Children take time. Children--if we are to honour them--require us to slow down and address their questions and concerns.

And what is a child's question generally referenced to? Something pragmatic and practical. If I am working at my friend Brice's house and his second oldest son Gavin sees me using tools he wants to know what their name is--number 1--and what it is used for--number 2. The child's pragmatic philosophy is centered around two fundamental questions: what is it called--its name; and what is it used for--its purpose.

To me the notion that children are dubious 'Romantics'--thank you very much Ken Wilber, who has certainly been no friend to childhood philosophy/spirituality (and pardon me if I am wrong here)--who have these pie-in-the-sky notions of what things are--i.e., that children are wraught with the pernicious offshoots of mythical and magical thought and thinking--belies the central facts evident to anyone who has ever spent any time with a child (can you hear me now Ken?), which is that children are deeply pragmatic.

To suggest that children are all about fairies and unicorns and dragons and monsters is to create a caricature of children. It is offensive to anyone who cares about children, period! For it paints a prejudiced, one-sided picture of children and their philosophical tendencies that does not even an iota of justice to the child,n or to what a parent might be able to glean from the philosophical pragmatism of his or her children.

The truth is that children ask all sorts of questions. Not just 'Why is the sky blue?,' but also 'What is that called,?' and 'What's it for?'

And I would dare to say that children ask more of the latter type questions than the former: questions that have to do with creating a sense of intimacy and familiarity with the world around them. And gosh dang it folks--who couldn't love that!?!

The Conspiracy Against Wisdom

2005-09-13T10:11:00.000-07:00

Any parent knows the inquisitive nature of a three or four-year old child. Once langauge is in place look out!! 'What's this?' What's it for?' 'Why?' Endlessly pointing to things, picking things up, looking at things, wondering, asking, asking all those questions... Good Lord the questions!!

Many a parent is put to wit's end by a child's innate curiousity. It can be exhausting. And that may be the danger for the parent, the child, and the world of the future that the child will one day inhabit. Why? Well, when the parent grows weary of the child's questions the parent may be liable to snapping at the child and making the child feel some sense of guilt or shame relative to asking questions.

In short, the parent can send the message to the child that kills wisdom at an early age: Questions are bad! Don't bother Mummy and Daddy with all of those questions? Don't, in other words, bother endeavouring to better understand the world around you.

Obviously children are not comfortable with ignorance. Children have an innate bent towards understanding and wisdom. Children want to know. They are thirsty for knowledge. They have an innate predisposition to overcoming ignorance. And yet, if there is conveyed to the child a sense of the 'bothersome nature of too many questions,' then the child can quickly come to a place where he or she is forced to be content with ignorance. So the result is that very thing that the child aches to overcome, to dispell, to do away with--namely, ignorance--becomes the very thing that the child is forced to live with everday thereafter, lest he or she upset his or her parents with yet another question. And we all know that the child doesn't want to do that!

Then the child goes to school, where there is pressure to know and understand before one has even been taught. You know what I am talking about--the reticence on the part of children to ask questions lest they be seen as 'stupid' by the other classmates.

Again, be content with ignorance: Don't ask the questions because a) you will upset and bother the busy parent; and b) later in life you will ridiculed for being stupid by your peers.

It all tends towards a Conspiracy For Ignorance.... or, if you prefer, A Conspiracy Against Wisdom.

My Life With Homo Ignoramus

2005-09-12T12:04:00.000-07:00

I can remember getting drunk as a teen-ager with friends, and then, rather than shagging me a babe for some extracurricular activities I would have this tendency to want to wax philosophical. It should be no surprise that I heard on more than one ocassion--'Dude, you are getting too deep. This is a frickin' party man. Lighten up!'

Of course, to me, in my own mind, I was not the strange one. I wasn't the wierd one. Hell no! The wierd ones were the one who didn't seem to give a rat's ass about the 'Big Questions' in life. The wierd ones were the ones who were happy to not know, understand, inquire, wonder, ponder, investigate, look, observe, pray, meditate, or contemplate anything, anyone, or anywhere. It floored me to no end to think about how no one seemed to care. No one even seemed interested.

It usually left me with myself--alone, walking out underneath the stars, looking up at the night sky wondering to myself why no one seemed interested in the world around them except to the degree that the world was able to satisfy some basic need for pleasure. 'Is he/she going to fuck me?' 'Will I get laid tonight?' 'Am I going to get lucky?' 'Does so-and-so really like me?'

Poor, pathetic Dave here was outside sitting underneath the tree, listening to the obnoxious laughter and hysterics of a game of quarter-bounce: 'Drink mother fucker! Drink up!'

Don't get me wrong. It is not that I am disparaging people I grew up--friends or family members, teenage acquaintances, etc. and so forth--as much as I just don't get how people don't seem to care about what strikes me as THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS A HUMAN CAN ASK!

Me? I desperately wanted to understand more. I didn't (and still don't) want to walk through life blind to so much of what is going on just because I didn't care to ask the big questions. I didn't want to stumble into a teen-age pregnancy... or end up in the hands of the law... or fall into a job that I was going to hate for 30 or 40 years or more. I felt something else and other stirring. I couldn't fake like I was having a 'good time' sitting around a table bouncing quarters into a shot glass just so I could get my best friend smashed (or the girl from the next town over to the West of us, the one none of my buddies had gotten to yet).

Besides, I felt like if I really cared about the world---about the people close to me, about my frends and family--then I had to become wise: I had to find a way to understand more, to grow in Wisdom, to discover the Truth, to find the Way. All of those rich metaphors for becoming 'fully human' were goading me out of the smoke-filled rooms and into the open air; in order to have a conversation with the Cosmos, simply because no one else wanted to dance the Big Questions of Life and Death with me.

And I still don't understand why so few want to consider the implications of Wisdom in our lives... or the disconcerting lack thereof. Especially when the world around us--those we love, cherish, and hold in our Heart all seem to be in such desperate need, need of Wisdom: in need of a species that will finally live up to its name: Homo sapiens.

Philosophical Musings As Grounds For Revolution

2005-09-11T09:30:00.000-07:00

Even something so simple as wondering how we can live a better life has as its basis a fundamentally philosophical disposition. To even consider life's possibilities is to tend towards philosophy; and this follows whether we consider our own possibilities or those of our children.

My argument--or contention, if you prefer--is that we are all philosophically inclined in that we want to live the best life imaginable, that we desire understanding, that we thirst for knowledge. We are Homo sapiens!

Obviously if there were not more or less skillful ways of existing there would be no need nor rhyme nor reason for wisdom... or for the love of wisdom. Yet there are more and less skillful ways of existing which tend to predispose us as human-beings to endeavouring to understand how best to live.

Developmental psychologists argue that a child's initial mode of learning is through modeling and mimicry. The child attempts to repeat what the child sees and hears and notice and is aware of. Children are born imitators of that which they see. The unfortunate side of this is that if the world around the child is not setting an example of grace and ease and well-being and strength and tolerance and compassion then the child will be less prone to mimicking those sorts of behaviours. After all, in the early stages of development there is not capacity for reflection on whether or not what the child is modeling and mimicking is proper and fitting (or if there are other ways that might be more skillful and beneficial in the long-run). It is not until later in development (pre-frontal cortex, the seat of abstraction, the emergence of forethought and better judgment) that the child becomes capable of reflecting on the 'ways of the world' modeled to him or her, and whether or not those are in fact the best ways for existing.

It may emerge with something as simple as 'wondering.' There is a sense of 'Hhhhmmmmmm.... is this all there is? Are these the only ways we can exist? Must racist remarks be a part of our world? Do we need to perceive certain ethnicities as beneath us? Is that really wise? Is that in keeping with what is ultimately True?

Philosophical tendencies in humanity. Feminism. Civil rights. Emancipation. Reformation. The Declaration of Independence. When someone begins to wonder if all that seems to be is all that really is, that is when the world starts to shake. It is that quiet wondering in secret that is the ground of Revolution. Has been. Is now. Will be.

People pondering: The world starts to tremble.

Notes On A Love That Is Not Blind

2005-09-09T10:28:00.000-07:00

What could be more valiant and virtuous than a 'love of wisdom'--a loving wisdom? After all, haven't many of the pronouncements made by arguably the world's brightest human lights been related to the disasterous consequences of ignorance in human affairs. And if they are right--Christ (the Kingdom of Heaven is among you and you know it not), the Buddha (avidya, and the mighty conceptual errors owed to such 'ignorance'), Ramana Maharshi (and the Self that is posited as MIA--mising in action)--then only a love for wisdom and understanding is alone capable of undermining the root causes of unnecessary human suffering.

It could mean nothing more than that those given to love are those given to philosophy. Love wants to understand the 'ways of being-well.' Love wants to know how to touch and teach and hold and comfort without coddling and co-depending. Love wants to understand. Love grows in wisdom.

So, contrary to popular opinion, love doesn't want to be blind! Love wants to see... to realize... to be made wise. So love asks the tough questions rather than just assuming love's knows best. Love asks, 'How would you like to be held? What would nourish you best? What is your favourite meal? What can I do for you that would make you feel loved?

In short, to love is to ask the question, 'How might love best be expressed in this situation?'

Which may mean that being philosophical is taking out the trash, cooking a meal, delivering your grandmother to the doctors, or even helping a stranger pick up items that have fallen from her shopping bags. It is philosophy hitting the streets. Right where it needs to be! Set free from the pointless debates over intellectual minutiae that have little to do with love and everything to do with semantic quibbling.

Philosophy: two words: Love: Wisdom.

Philosophy As Loving Wisdom

2005-09-08T11:53:00.000-07:00

Imagine stumbling around most of your life not knowing up from down, in from out, or right from left. Imagine not being able to orient yourself appropriately to the world. Imagine not being 'wise' to what is going on. Or maybe you don't have to imagine. Maybe you live--at least part of the time!

The etymological roots (Greek) of the word 'philosophy' have to do with the 'love of wisdom.' Philo = love. Sophos = wise. Loving wisdom.

Philosophy, then, is not about big words like epistemology and phenomenology and qualia, or pithy little Latin references like a posteriori and a priori. Philosophy is an affair of the heart. Real philosophy is erotic.

Philosophy is a form of love. It is one of the aspects that Love can take on in this-world. And there is, dare I say it, romance inherent in the original intent behind philosophy. It is a romantic vision of what the world--the human world, our relationships and our politics--can be like if we become wise, if we grow in our understanding, if we learn more, if we remain devoted to what is Good, True, and Beautiful.

Philosophy, then, if it is real philo-sophia, and not just pure mental masturbation, is from the Heart. The Heart is the locus, the center-point of our inquiries. We want to grow wise because we love... because we care. And better loving comes about through 'loving wisdom'--through philosophy.

Our Innate Thirst For Understanding

2005-09-06T09:35:00.000-07:00

I would argue that everyone is philosophically-inclinced; to the degree that we want to understand the events in our lives. A world that makes 'sense' is important to us. Thus, there is a desire so deep and so pervasive in the very constitution of what it means to be human that compels us to try and discern the rationale behind the reality. Why are things the way they are? Is there some 'grand conspiracy'--an invisible, secret cabal controlling the events that are, well, beyond our own personal control? Or is everything sort of haphazard and random, with only minimal human control able to be exhibited on any one level of our lives?

I would also contend that when things are 'going well' we don't seek to understand the reasons and the rationale behind why things are the way they are. We are just grateful. Maybe even a little superstitious so we don't dare ask too many questions or pose to many queries, lest we jinx ourselves. Besides, when things are going well we are often caught up in the 'flow of events' to the point that there is no sense of separate self-hood that wants to look back and reflect on events so as to analyze them for their logic. This is why, as I mentioned yesterday, there is a mutual relationship between suffering and philosophy. Suffering is good for philosophy, for psychology, for religion, for inquiry of any and all sorts--even scientific.

Let me hit this one again: If things are moving along nicely you are just enjoying yourself and the world you are in harmony with. There is no need to ask, to inquire, to investigate. Just enjoy what is! Just being caught up in the 'flow' is enough.

However, if things are not moving along so nicely you are not enjoying yourself! So there is an inhernet incentive to inquire and investigate into the potential reasons why things are not going so smoothly. Philosophy, psychology, and religion seem to me to emerge in that context--the context of suffering. Dukkha (Sanskrit for 'unsatisfactoriness') is like the thorn in our side that compels the questions that compel the philosophy.

The happy, meanwhile, are somewhere 'immersed fully in the moment.' ; o)

The Basic Human Freedom & Right To Inquire

2005-09-05T09:37:00.000-07:00

When we suffer, or are made to suffer, when a tragic fate befalls us we each become a little like Hamlet, wondering why this is happening to us: who are the main players in this tragedy, what are the reasons for why we are suffering--the unnamed and unknown sources behind our tragic dilemma.

Something deeply philosophical strikes us. We can't help but ask 'Why?' We can't help but inquire. There is something basic and fundamental behind the right to ask questions about the nature of our suffering. I mean, who hasn't? Who hasn't pondered the nature of a tragic confrontation with one's fate or destiny? Who, in short, has not waxed philosophical when suffering has imposed itself upon us?

Philosophy doesn't stop nor cease. People might consider philosophy to be this arcane, high-faultin', esoteric display of erudition--an edneavour inherent with big words that few can pronounce correctly, let alone understand. But if you have ever sat on the front-porch with your Granny or your Gramps, and listened to them tell a tale of and about their life--a tale from the distant past--then you have had a course in being philosophical. Because when you boil it down, to be human is to be philosophical--no matter the conditions. In fact, some would even argue that the more we suffer the more we ask and inquire as to why things are the way they are. Suffering of the sort found in the counties and districts of Mississippi, Alabama, and Lousiana don't make us more material, as much as more philosophical. The result is that questions we may have not asked for a long time suddenly come out of everyone's mouth. And it's probably high-time they did.

The irony is that something so seemingly brute and raw as a natural disaster could serve to collectively dispose us towards being more prone to inquire--meaning, far more philosophical.

Philosophy As Our Shared Inquiry Into 'Why?'

2005-09-04T09:46:00.000-07:00

Something happening in a cataclysmic way--via an act of Nature such as Hurricane Katrina (even though questions of human induced 'global warming' could possibly be tied to the intensity of the storm itself)--are not immune from philosophical inquiry. Even those who have not gone to Dartmouth and majoured in Political Philosophy, or taken an introductory course in Philosophy at their local Community College, still ask the question 'Why?'

In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina people began to wonder why help was not more forthcoming. Was their only a material reason for the lack of help (i.e., roads out, bridges washed away, supplies were short, masses of citizens and government not yet mobilized), or was there a political reason, a racial reason--a reason based upon the division of classes that still so much exists in what is supposed to be the most free of all Nations?

To me, the prevalence of the 'Why?' question is direct evidence for humanity's inherent philosophical tendencies, even in the immediate aftermath of a monumental tragedy. People want to understand. People thirst for meaning. Why are troops mobilized so quickly for white-folk and not for black-folk? How come so many underprivileged African-Americans were forced to ride out a Category 5 Hurricance in a football stadium of all places, only to be shuttled to another one in Houston days later? Why are so many left to live (or is it die?) in squalor?

These questions have been with us for some time now. It is only the nature of recent events that have stripped away a Nation's denial and shown us how much work there is yet to be done in the name of social justice (work to be done on both/all sides of the divide). Questions that have been asked by some of the world's greatest social prophets---Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X to name but some of the most prominent few. Questions that make philosophy as important as it ever, as important as it is now, and as important as it will be well into the future. So long as there are those who are made to suffer more than others are, we will ask 'Why?'

Who The Hell Needs Philosophy At A Time Like This?

2005-09-03T09:32:00.000-07:00

Considering the nature of recent events in the Gulf Coast region of the United States, with estimates placing more than a million people suddenly homeless, one wonders what if any merit philosophy holds at such a time. After all, people's primary concerns are material--i.e., where am I going to live? where is my family? what am I going to eat? how are my babies going to survive? how are we going to do this? how?

Surviving makes especial sense at such a time. There is no wonder or shock to people's concerns. Yet, there may be wonder as to how and why people can wax philosophical at a time like this. When people are suffering in droves over basic material concerns that have to do with their day-to-day survival, then how can any merit be seen in a blog such as this, or in detailed commentaries and analyses of the situation as a whole? Who the hell needs philosophy now, at a time like this?

This is not an apologia for my own tendency to want to inquire and write on those matters inquired into. Or maybe it is? Maybe this is my own way to try and rationalize to myself why I still feel led to write when so many are suffering what still comes so easy to me. I turn on the faucet at the kitchen and water comes out---clean water! I lay my head down on a pillow and go to sleep reastfully. I still have a home. My friends and family are all accounted for. I am very fortunate. I know this. I have counted my blessings on more than one occasion over the past week. And stilll, still I see the separation of class and race and I wonder 'What the fuck is wrong with us.' Did it take a friggin' hurricane to blow away the American denial regarding class and race?

My gut reaction is that yes, yes it did. It took a Category 5 Hurricane, of monumental--some say, epic, even Biblical--proportions to shatter the illusion held in American political circles that class and race are but the issues of the past. Now, suddenly, shockingly, anyone with eyes to see the misery and devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina is able to realize that class and race are still THE CENTRAL ISSUES pertainging to any whole-scale politics of liberation.

It is scray to think about just how much class and race have fallen out of our political discourse. It is frightening. The American lackadaisacalness with regards to authentic, liberative political discourse has to be disconcerting to the rest of the world, as well as the American population now suddenly confronted with the monster of race and class that has been shut-up and locked away for far too long.

Perhaps Americans grew weary of discussions regarding race and class after all of the hardships (as well as victories) of the Civil Rights-era. Maybe there was a false sense that victory had been won and now we could all get on with our own lives--one nation under God.

But are we really 'one nation under God?' Or are we still a nation divided by race and class? Races that are 'left-behind.' Classes that are 'left-behind.' 'Left-behind' to suffer the trials and tribulations of a monumental tragedy--something eerily resembling the Christian Rapture, popularized in, not so strangely enough a series of Contemporary Christian books entitled 'Left Behind'--as others are given the means to safe passage to another world; a world where a lack of life's vital necessities, as well as human decency and dignity are not in such short supply?

Perhaps we are onto the true meaning of what is meant by 'Left Behind.' That the primary demographic that such a series of books caters to are precisely those people with the social, economic, and political means to get out of the 'eye of the storm,' if you will. Those who are not 'chosen' are... you guessed it... 'Left Behind.'

And should it really be considered a coincidence that this all happens under the watch of a President elected to office twice by a political base heavy in so-called 'Evangelicals'---those who are precisely the ones who are not to be 'Left-Behind?'

Check that: The ones who weren't 'Left-Behind.'

Appreciating A Little Sex In Your Politics

2005-09-01T08:52:00.000-07:00

It is relatively silly to think that in depriving the lower--in any way, shape, manner, or form--that the higher will stand to profit. Unfortunatley, though, this silly sort of thought and thinking is what much of the spiritual and religious rhetoric has been oriented towards: robbing the base in order to prop up the penthouse.

No one would even dare consider that there would need to be an effort to deprive the roots of a tree in order that it will be allowed to grow all that much higher. The ascent of the tree is not fostered by depriving the roots of that same tree. Yet consider the attitude of humanity towards what is considered base and underground and beneath us. Consider the human attitude, in general, towards that which is seen as being 'lower' than us in some sense. The aversion to the base--to that which winds and wends its way through the dark humus of the Underworld--is such that there is this mad and vain hope that we can deprive the below in order to accentuate the above.

Sacred texts have tended to include the example of Trees as somehow being synonymous with the life of a human-being. In the Book of Genesis there is both the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Everlasting Life. The Buddha sat under the proverbial Bodhi Tree during his Enlightenment. Trees are somehow profoundly archetypal in how they convey, symbolically, the nature of what it is to be human. Even our arteries and veins branch out, our nervous system as well. Dendrites in the brain also exhibit a very Tree-like nature.

And what do we know of the Tree? Could it be that the Tree-above is one with the fate of the Tree- below? The leaf-Tree and the root-Tree are joined in a common fate and destiny. To the extent that the root-Tree is deprived then that is the extent to which the leaf-Tree fails to unfold its potential. We simply can't rob Peter to pay Paul without some dire consequences arising along the way.

It is as if the lower chakras, in a sense, feed the higher chakras. Our sexuality and passion nourish from below our psychology, our politics, our art, our science. Perhaps it is high-time we grew wary of being led or informed by those whose politics is devoid of sex and sensuality.

The Immortal God & The Prison Made Of Guilt & Shame

2005-08-31T09:31:00.000-07:00

Our ol' buddy Dr. Freud was ridiculed for seeing 'sex' in damn near everything. The joke that 'sometimes a cigar is just a cigar Dr. Freud' sums up the position of many who saw a little sexual extremism in Freud's version of psychoanalysis--like he was a fundamentalist of a different stripe.

Unfortunately, all joking aside, there are some problems inherent in too readily dismissing the pervasive nature of human sexuality in our everyday dealings. First, such an off-handed dismissal can serve to make us blind to those hidden factors that seep their wat into even the most mundane of settings. Second, that dismissal can serve to deprive ourselves of the vital energy and passion that can be sublimated into our creative acts and efforts in this-world. The result, then is that a failure to inquire into our fundamental sexuality will serve to make us blind and passion-less, ignorant and vacuous. In short, like a zombie.

Freud saw libido as being consonant with a fundamental energy that could be seen as being synonymous with the notion of an elan vital, a Kundalini, an Eros. If we can grant a little lee-way to the discourse surrounding human sexuality--such as I hope is taking place here--then perhaps we can see how both an ignorance pertaining to human sexuality makes us the subjects destined to be acted on by forces that we don't understand (because we refuse to look, let alone consider) as well as the energy-deprived subjects of a life that is felt to be draining and sluggish; precisely because the majourity of Eros/Kundalini/libido lies trapped in a tight ball at the base of the spine.

For many white folks--guys especially--there can be felt a tightness in the area beneath the belly. Not a lot of movement in a white guy's hips does there tend to be. It was initially noticed by Wilhelm Reich in his discovery of the formation of 'character armour' that served just as much to keep energy locked in as to keep a cruel and invasive world shut out. And that is the side of the story that has been little heard from in psychoanalytic circles--how armouring and defense are not just about keeping 'others' out as much as they are also about keeping 'Eros' locked up inside. Like I mentioned before, it is possible to see how it may be that the God of Love is imprisoned in the human body (some more than others).

Imprisoned in such a way that Eros is buried under piles of guilt and shame and denial. We don't want to be sexual. We wish we weren't sexual. We pretend we aren't sexual.

And yet... and yet there is that which we can't eliminate in spite of our guilt, shame, and denial. We simply can't kill the God. Eros is an immortal after all: a fire that we can't put out.

The Erotic Human: (A)shamed Sexuality & Our Vital Lack

2005-08-30T08:42:00.000-07:00

Human sexuality is perhaps one of the more--if not the most--intriguing area of interest to anyone with philosophical leanings. Whether we are talking about religion or we are discussing the seedier side of life evidenced in pornography and prostitution, the sexual slave trade or East Asian bordellos, there is a sense of both intrigue and interest on the part of humanity, as well as disgust and aversion. Human sexuality is the beast desired and the beast despised. There is really no other way to say it. It is the primary element in human existence that we seek to control and contain (shame and guilt, taboo and ritual) as well as unleash and let loose.

Consider for a moment if you will how it is that human sexuality is seen as both salvific (that is, human sexuality needs to be unfettered from social mores and a repressed cultural milieu, so that we can be happy and free--i.e., Hippie Generation, Free Love, 1960's) as well as being seen as verging on the satanic (which means that human sexuality needs to be avoided, controlled, contained, and even exorcised from our person in some cases like a demon or spirit might be--i.e., Victorian era, Puritanical Colonies of the Americas, Monastics). It is as if human sexuality were an ink-blot upon which we project both our fears and our longings.

Inter-generational speaking, it is possible for parents to pass their 'sins' (missing the mark) around the nature and significance of human sexualtiy to their children. A mother uncomfortable with her own sexuality may tend to pass that sense along to her child--thereby conveying to the child that sexuality is 'bad' or 'evil.' You are simply not supposed to touch yourself there (even though damn near everyone does!). Which sends the message that you are not supposed to feel there--sensitivity in the root chakra is, well, to be ignored, dismissed. And I wonder when that is the case how much human vitality is lost, not to mention barred from ascending serpentine like up the higher centers of humanity for the purpose of en-light-ening those higher centers.

So, in covering ourselves we symbolically send the message that Eros is better left in the dark, which leads me to ponder if whether or not a God has been banished to Hades by our own discomfort with being all that we are--sexually, sensually, spiritually (and again, remember that an erotic deprivation is a psychological one as well--as the Fate of Eros and Psyche is one and the same).

The distinct possibility that arises, then, is that in being (a)shamed sexually we are in a sense also being (a)shamed psychologically. Much more than our sexuality is lost in trying to hide or distance ourselves from our sexual nature--a part of our humanity goes too, and I would suggest so does a large part of our divinity. Like I said, do we banish the God of Love, Eros, to a fate of darkness; essentially leaving Eros no choice but to work in the underground, plying the black-market, precisely because of our personal and political discomfort with the bare fact of our sexuality?

And when we fight the God of Love--when we fight Eros--how much vitality (libido) is lost? How much (com)passion is denied the world so thirsty... so parched... so in need of a drink from Love's Waters? How might our ages long tangle with human sexuality result in some of the geo-political storms we see raging in the world? After all those busy loving, full to the brim with Eros, do they have time to make bombs... or even an inclinatino to do so? Isn't a bomb just a highly potentt phallic symbol often meant to substitute for the impotent status of Erotic man?

The Erotic Nature of Personal and Collective Well-Being

2005-08-29T07:28:00.000-07:00

Can we be happy and function well without a decided activation of the Erotic in our lives? Can we be all that we can be, to borrow a popular advertising slogan, if we are not 'turned on' by at least something in this-world? Can we really be alive if we are not erotically-inclined and/or disposed?

Personally speaking, if I may be so bold, I don't think it is possible to experience well-being apart from Eros, apart from the erotic. We require activation at the deepest level, what those familiar with the Hindu system of chakras call the 'root chakra.' I mean, what plant can be healthy and flower in abundance if the roots are not likewise in a state of premium health? What tree reaches skyward if its roots are debilitated in some way?

This is not to say that well-being is all a matter of sexuality (though that may be the case for some), as much as it is to indicate that unless we are activated 'down-below' we cannot even have hope of actualizing those 'higher capacities' that may lie in a latent state until the sap of life flows upwards, i.e., what those familiar with Eastern mysticism know as 'kundalini rising.'

Even the infamous Dr. Sigmund Freud deemed a functioning 'libido' essential for psychological health and well-being. A frustrated libido resulted in everything from ordinary neurosis to excruciatingly debilitating instances of psycho-somatic distress. This is work that Wilhelm Reich built on, with his notion of the 'orgasm' being an indication of psychological health and/or distress. A tightly controlled and or bottle-necked libido/kundalini/eroticism resulted in what he saw as the inability to have an orgasm (the frozen woman) or in the rush to 'get it over with' ... and as soon as possible... (the prematurely ejaculating man). In both cases there is a repression/constraining of the libido/erotic nature of the human-being.

For the man who is in a rush to get it over with, the belief that premature ejaculation is about him achieving his own pleasure at the expense of his lover is a misnomer. Premature ejaculation is about fear and repression of the sexual energy. In short (pun intended), if it has to happen then it better happen quick... so we can be done with this! Such a man doesn't want to linger in the Erotic. The Erotic is an element to be repressed and feared. or we could say this: that Kundalini is supposed to remain tightly controlled and contained at the spine (tight-ass white guys please take note... though not just tight-ass white guys).

The result is that libido is only allowed to emerge as a trickle; meaning that such a man's life and world essentially become starved for Eros (which, ironically enough, makes the 'erotic' in the form of pornography all the more alluring---how strange we humans are).

The same happens for such a man's internal world. After all, Psyche and Eros share a common, united fate in Greek Mythology. Perhaps they do in fact, as well, as I would certainly attest to. All of which suggests that any erotic deprivation becomes a psychological deprivation. In terms used here on this site, it means that any lack of Eros results in a lack of Psyche.

Kundalini, then, remains trapped at the base of the spine; is not allowed to flood the higher centers of which humanity is capable. The result is a disconcerting lack of psychological development. And because psyche is often used synonymously with 'spirit' it could also be seen as indicating that a lack of the erotic is a lack of the spiritual. Meaning, just as in the Legend of the Fisher King, a wound in man's groin results in the Kingdom turning into a veritable wasteland--both within and without, psychologically and socially, spiritually and culturally.

The world suffers from lack of Eros. Just as Psyche suffers from Eros's absence in both myth and fact. The higher centers starve for the fruit of the lower. Oh, what yet lies trapped in man... in humanity... in this species?

It's The Love... Stupid!

2005-08-28T08:38:00.000-07:00

Eros. It's what turns you 'on?' It's whom or what you desire?

There is something basic and fundamental with regards to Eros vis-a-vis human existence. You can sense the utter difference between someone who is 'turned on' by life--by living, by being alive--and someone who has lost (or perhaps never fully integrated) the erotic nature of being human into their daylight character. I am not talking about getting an erection, nor feeling that heat build in the soft space between one's legs (though that is part of the story). What interests me is how we are 'excited' or not. What intriguies me are the ways that we are 'turned on,' and how even the most mundane and a-sexual examples of being 'turned on' are the province and domain of the Greek God of Love, Eros.

For instance, I wonder if the discussion regarding sexual differences (Homo- and Hetero-) would be better left behind for a discussion of the common feature shared in both cases--which is the unambiguous presence of Eros. Eros rules. So what if someone is 'turned on' by sexual sameness or sexual otherness. Big flippin' deal!

What I suspect is lost is the forest for the trees--that, in focusing upon the different trees of sexual orientation we lose sight of the fact that each of these trees are an embodiment and expression of the forest, the forest of Eros. Eros is the atmosphere and the climate; the pervasive environment wherein we find ourselves 'turned on.' Archetypal psychologist James Hillman might say that in our fixation on the particular and the different we are more susceptible to losing sight of the archetypal presence of a God... a Deity. The result is that we don't get a sense of how it is that Eros rules the roost of our attractions. We come to think of Homo- and Hetero- as these alien species, one to another... rather than being the common subjects operating under the law of Eros.

As you may sense, my gut feeling is that the dialogue surrounding our sexuality could stand much benefit from honouring and acknowledging the omnipresent nature of Eros in Hetero-, Homo-, Bi-, and Trans-sexual circles. So that rather than defining ourselves (and our orientation) in relation to strict differences that only serve to separate and divide we could instead appreciate those differences as the diverse expressions of Eros. An Eros that is so full of Love that there is no end to the ways that 'excitation' expresses itself. An Eros that is so abundant with Love and (Com)Passion that there is simply no avenue of desire and longing and devotion and worship and connection that is not explored.

An either/or approach to sexuality is simply to limited for Eros. Eros is a God, thus, infinite in the expression of excitation over the existence of Male and Female, Man and Woman, Flower and Bee, Trans- and Bi-, Earth and Sky. Eros is, in other words, supposed to be infinitely creative and omnipresent in its workings. Eros is not supposed to be localized into a fetish of Hetero-sexuality... or any other narrow definition of whom or what is worthy of being loved.

Lack & Legitimation In Hetero- & Homo-

2005-08-23T11:18:00.000-07:00

I am going to broach a very touchy subject here, and hope to do it with some delicacy--provided that is possible to do so given the subject matter. So please bear with me as I venture into the often heated and contested waters of sexual difference vis-a-vis Hetero- and Homo-.

Even when we look at the etymological origins of the words that we use in the English language to describe and define our sexual differences we see that there is an acknowledgement of 'otherness' (Hetero-) and 'sameness' (ala Homo-). The Hetero- finds 'otherness' erotic. It is summed up in the 'opposites attract theory of eros.' Different sexual organs. The otherness and alien-ness of the 'other' is something erotically longed for--with the sense that this 'otherness' will somehow complete us. After all, if the 'other' has what we lack and we are able to unite or join with the other than we will become more than we were prior to such a uniting with the otherness of the Male or Female.

The psychological dimension of Homo-sexuality takes on a decidedly different cue. This is also where I feel some hesitation. I hope to tread lightly and give some added meaning and significance to 'Homosexuality'---not take it away.

If we consider the etymological roots of the word 'Homo-' we are pointed in the direction of 'sameness' and 'similarity.' The erotic nature of homosexuality is referenced to this sameness. Similiarity is what is found to be primarily erotic. And what I suspect is behind this is the psychological call or need for confirmation. Whereas the Hetero- seeks completion of his or her being through the sexual unification of difference, the Homo- seeks confirmation of his or her being through the sexual unification of sameness.

The desire, need, longing for 'confirmation of one's being' is one of the central themes of homosexuality in our times. Acceptance. The homosexual desires and longs for acceptance--wants to have his or her sexuality confirmed. The longing is for legitimation of an erotic longing for sameness and similarity.

Maybe I should be said again: the Homo- desires a legitimation of his or her erotic longing for sameness and similarity, in the same way that Hetero- longing of otherness and difference is already legitimated by most peoples/socieites/cultures.

All of which leads me to ask a question: What can we say about a society/culture/peoples who find that they are unable or unwilling to legitimate the eroticization of sameness and similarity? Does it mean that the erotic dimension of humanity is only supposed to be reserved for difference and otherness?

We can see and note similar evidence for the above in terms of the de-legitimation of masturbation and self-pleasuring by those very same cultures/peoples/societies that have tended to de-legitimate Homosexuality? The message is loud and clear: Thou shalt not experience Eros in relation to 'what you are' or 'are similar to', but only in relation to 'what you are not,' or 'are dis-similar to.'

So, as a Man or a Woman the conventional sexual rhetoric tends to point in the direction of finding the erotic not within us, as much as apart from us.... outside of us... in the Otherness of Male or Female. The result is the sense that our own being cannot be erotic... a holder of Eros, a place where we can find it, discover it, know it, revel in it. Instead, you/I/we have to seek it elsewhere. You/I/we lack it. So now you/I/we must go and find it in what is dis-similar.

Either completed erotically in the other...

...or confirmed erotically in the similar.

The Erotic Nature Of Hetero-Male Lack

2005-08-22T10:07:00.000-07:00

What I wanted to initiate yesterday was an inquiry surrounding lack and human sexuality. It struck me so deeply as I was standing there at the bar watching grown men hoot and holler, basically falling all over each other to get a closer look at some sizable knockers on display. I realized then that the erotic nature of what was taking place had to do with what was 'lacking' for each of those men personally. The distinct and peculiar otherness of a Woman's Breasts were fixing their gaze, captivating their attention, holding their awareness in a vise-like grip that they could neither shake themselves loose of... nor even appeared to want to shake loose of!

So the Breast is an Erotic Object for Hetero-Man because of its Otherness.

For Hetero-Man the Breast seems to be something that is paradoxically so close... yet so far away. It is both that which one is familiar with (the residue of childhood) as well as that which is so far removed. There is a longing there. Which I take to mean that Freud was at least partly right (true but partial once again) in indicating that there is a symbiosis between Breast and Child that becomes a sort of psychological stain or residue that compels the longing. For the Adult-Child now lacks the Breast that was once so comforting, so nourishing, so near and dear... if not also at times absent, therefore tending to become a 'hated-object,' ala Kleinian psychoanalysis.

I suspect that sizable Breasts also indicate an abundance of that proverbial milk and honey that has long been associated with the Promised Land. And that can also serve to create 'envy' in the Male of our Species. For even after the Child is out of the Womb, the Woman continues to bestow and bless the Child with Life via the Breast. This has been known to create more than a little animosity in more than one man: as the Man neither has the Life-Bestowing Breast to offer to the Child, nor does the Man have access to the Woman's Breast (his wife or lover) as an erotic object--because now the Breast is just a functional object for the Child's welfare and well-being.

So, the erotic element of the Breast is dissipated by the act of Breast-feeding (which I contend may be at least partly responsible for the American aversion to public displays of breast-feeding). Why such aversion though? Is it because America collectively (big generalization, I know) tends to not want to have the erotic element of the Breast eclipsed by the functional element.

Let me restate this differently, if only because I have the feeling that this is key: namely, that America(ns) tendency is to fixate on the erotic nature of the Breast as an object longed-for, which means that the functional nature of the Breast tends to appear as threatening to the erotic nature that America(ns) seems to collectively prefer. We don't want to see breast-feeding as a public display because it shatters the erotic projectons surrounding the Female Breast. It shatters our collective illusions about what Breasts are for.

The aversion to breast-feeding, then, on a collective level, is really a way to protect our fantasies of and about the Female Anatomy.

Lack & The Eroticization of Otherness

2005-08-21T09:43:00.000-07:00

A bit of prime redneck Americana was on display lasy night in the small town of Glennie, Michigan. I was invited by a booking agent to go and perform at The Oasis, which was to be the anniversary celebration of what appeared to be the only drinking establishment within a 30 mile radius (that's life in the backwoods, off the beaten path, folks). Anyways, I arrived at about 8:30 PM, in plenty of time for the 10 o'clock slot I was pegged for. Just in time to witness the 'Wet T-Shirt Contest.'

Unfortunately, my date for the evening, Monica, was not nearly as intriguied by the whole thing as I apparently was. After getting a tall drink for myself at the bar, and upon sitting down there at said bar, she promptly decided to turn her back to the whole affair (God, I love fiesty chicks like that!). Me? I proceeded to check out the freak-show aspect of the whole thing. I reassured Monica that it was merely an anthropological interest on my part--not a testosterone laden one.

My initial observation was that Northern Michigan isn't just a place where Big Trees grow. My goodness! Morganna would have felt right at home there on the stage with the 5 other beauties. And being a redneck-haven I would have to guess that this was an au naturale, God-given, Goddess-bestowed display of monuments to fertility. Silicon or saline need not apply! These were the real deal: inherited traits, not manufactured ones.

Afer the first round of elimination--going from 5 contestants to the final 2--my view from the bar was becoming increasingly scarce. A mass of guys about 3 or 4 rows deep congregated in front of me. I could hear the comments that now filled the bar as the girls jogged in place to the tune of OUTKAST'S 'Hey Ya':

'My Baby don't mess around cuz she loves me so and this I know fo sure...'

Like a polaroid picture fo sure! ; o )

Monica was still glaring in the other direction. Gotta love that girl's backbone. I swear she didn't even peek once. Unlike the guys hooting and hollering 'Skin to win baby!' 'Gotta flash for the cash!' (Yeah, this is all true shi-ite folks!).

Standing there swizzling on a tall mug of Amber Bock it dawned on me that this was a prime instance of many of the things I have been writing about on this here blog over the past couple of weeks. It struck me how the utter fascination on the part of the men was relative to what they each lacked!! It was like a form of worship and devotion to some sort of innate otherness. It hit me so hard how guys were so keenly interested in seeing some Big Hooters because, well, they didn't have them. There was a sense of being this other-worldliness to the large breasts. I swear, a UFO could have landed out frickin' side and not a head would have turned to notice. 'Oh aliens have landed! Big deal... we got Grade A Tits in here!'

That is what I was left with last night--that and a date none too happy for the first part of the evening. (Can you hear me now, 'I swear Babe, I didn't know this was going to be part of the gig... I swear! I had no idea!' ... which was true, by the way). It left me with some distinct relaizatons about the nature of eroticization and sexuality: the sense of extremely large breasts being viewed by the majourity of hetero-males as objects that are fit for worship and adoration. I kid you not, though there was something freakish, not to mention objectifying about the proceedings, there was also a sense of spirituality and religiousity present. That many of those guys would not only kill and die for their God and their Country... but would do much the same for a hellacious pair of Tits!

The Soul Of Artifacts

2005-08-20T09:37:00.000-07:00

It is a widely held view that 'things' are not just 'things.' Artifacts both invented and discovered are repositories for personal and collective meaning and significance. They become containers of our ideals, our fantasies, our fears and our fictions. Things, then, are alive with soul.

Things are animate objects relative to the human psyche.

To me it is not so important to disocver whether or not 'things' are animate in fact, or whether it is a mere fiction as a result of projections of the human psyche onto 'things.' What is important, is the mere realization that for us--for humans, for humanity--things are alive with meaning and significance by virtue of our psychological relationship to them. Artifacts have soul; they are ensouled.

For instance, someone may literally pour their soul into an artifact to the point where others are able to intuit soul in that artifact. Art is the great repository of the human soul for just this reason. It is not just the material conditions of anartifact that are resonated with. People--well, sane people anyways!--don't partake of an ensouled artifact and then go about analyizing the spectrum of colours used and employed as if it were a mere technical achievement. Sane people sense the existence of soul in the artifact. It could be Beauty. Or it could be Pathos. Either way, what captures the imagination and fixes our attention is the presence of soul.

Perhaps this is why there has been such a steady union of Art and Religion through the millennia. The symbology of Art has tended to serve a Religious function of 'binding' us to soul: the Passion of Christ; the emptiness and space of a Zen Garden; the polytheistic orgy of a Tibetan Mandala. Art communicates. Artifacts communicate. And I suspect that what we are coming to discover in an age of increasing commodification is that there really is a difference between ensouled artifacts and artifacts devoid of soul--which is perhaps another way of saying that there is a difference between ensouled artifacts and mass-produced artifacts generated in an act of devotion to the gods of efficiencyand quantity.

It is a difference that a young child knows directly, intimately, beyond conceptualization. The replacement Teddy Bear newly purchased is not the Teddy Bear dripping with soul. It is not the living, animate Teddy Bear that has been there through thick and thin. It is not the Teddy Bear that smells right, that has scars and torn fabric in all the right places. It is a Teddy Bear devoid of soul--the one thing, soul, that matters more than any other to the child. The difference that makes all the difference.

The Search Of The Absent Father

2005-08-19T08:36:00.000-07:00

Why is the single-father the exception rather than the rule? Why is the single-mother the rule rather than the exception? Why, also, are 'absent fathers' existent in such epidemic proportions, from the backwoods of the Kentucky hill-country to the boroughs of the inner-city?

In considering any sort of sane and well-reasoned response to such questions I find that personally I am tending to shy away from the conventional views that postulate man's basic nature as an 'asshole' or 'dickhead,' a 'prick' or a 'mother-fucker.' Although there may well be some truth to those accusations, I would contend that much of why the above-mentioned realities are so chronic and persistent an element in so many people's lives--not the least of which are the children--is due to Man's search for compensation related to His Most Obvious Lack.

Again, my hunch is that Man does not feel children to be his in the same way that Woman generally does. He did not carry the child. Man did not birth the child. Man did not nurse the child. So Man oftentimes is compelled to go on a search that has him compensating with his 'little baby' of a red sports car. In short, Man goes on a search--hence the absenteeism--for some 'thing' that will become his 'little baby!' Some 'thing' that Man can nurse and nurture. Some 'thing' Man can give birth to and embrace. Some 'thing' that is his--that belongs to him, that reminds him of his capacity to express care and concern.

The irony, then, is that Man's Feminine-side tends to come out not in his relationships with people so much as his relationships with 'things'---i.e., with artifacts. Though he many love his children, in his imagination those children are really hers, they belong to Woman. He did not bear them. He did not birth them. Heck, he only had a hand (or is it a penis?) in their creation for all of the five minutes it took him to prematurely ejaculate late one September eve!

But his 'stuff?' Those are his babies... his little creations... his little bundles of joy. That's why he spends so much time at the office, in the studio, in the workshop, out in the garage tinkering with his car or motorcycle. That is why he is missing, gone from home, absent, sometimes never to be seen again: because he is searching for his feminine-side to emerge in relationship to some 'thing' that will allow him to say, for the first time, 'Now that is some thing I can nurture and nourish. I could give my life for that.'

The Most Obvious Lack & Man's Compensatory Creations

2005-08-18T09:47:00.000-07:00

The most obvious lack of manhood, as pointed to in the preceding article, is the lack of fertility and generativity as evidenced by Woman and Earth. I can imagine Man watching Woman give birth, watching the Earth flower and fruit and blossom and emerge, and wonder to himself why he is seeming to miss out on something so fundamental to existence. Man ponders: What's wrong with me?

The sitting President of a majour Ivy League University, Lawrence Summers, created quite a stir in the academic world when he was reported to have been under the impression that innate differences were the reason why women were not more influential in the scientific community. The reason that women were not more involved in engineering, mathematics, physics, astronomy and the like was the result of a specific sort of lack in their female constitution. Needless to say, his comments drew a lot of ire from many well-informed people, and not only women. Many called for his resignation and asked that he step down from so prominent a position in America's educational community.

Mr. Summers indication of some sort of deficit or lack was right on the money, as far as I am concerned. The only problem was that his indication of lack was pointed at the wrong sex. The lack, as I understand it, should more properly be put in the direction of Man: that it is Man's lack of fertility--the ability to carry Life and have it emerge from one's person--that I suspect is what has driven Man to search out compensatory ways of creating.

If we look at the history of Art, Religion, and Science we see a trail riddled with the achievements of men. Music. Sculpture. Literature. Painting. Philosophy. Politics. Each realm has tended to be the province of Man. Some have suggested that this is due to the fact that Man sought to keep Woman down and out: that it was oppression that relegated Woman to a subservient role on the sidelines of where all the great artifacts of Civilization were being produced. Yet, to me that is an old, outdated argument that has some truth to it (true but partial), but not enough truth so as to be explanatory as to why Man held such sway over all of those realms for so long.

My gut feeling is that Man held such sway over the realms of Art, Religion, and Science because Man was attempting to give birth and create in his own way. I don't suspect that Woman felt such an absence of generativity and life-giving capacity because of Woman's ability to carry and give birth to children. Man very much did, though. Thus Man sought for ways to compensate for the inability to create and give birth to living beings (such as Woman and Earth do) by focusing on the creation of symbols and signs, systems and statues.

Man is still very much involved in that process to this day, still vainly attempting to make his inanimate creations come alive. Cyborgs and Robots. Frankenstein. Frankenstein people! Man's substitution for the lack he is reminded of constantly everytime he sees Woman and Earth is what Man is hoping to one day overcome. The irony in all of this is that Man is envious of Woman (Freud got it at least partly wrong)--as Man wants to know what it feels like to be that close to Life. He wants a baby. His baby! He wants to create a 'living being' in the hope of overcoming his sense of lack. It is how Man has compensated over the course of thousands of years. And little has changed. Just go to MIT. You'll see.

The Primal Lack of Manhood

2005-08-17T09:26:00.000-07:00

I feel a real need to backtrack a bit today; to talk natural history, the evolution of a species, the dilemmas of sexual differences and what these have meant for us. I have in mind a discussion related to the primal lack experienced by men, by the male of our species. Guys and girls, this primal lack is, in a word, the lack of fertility.

The Earth is fertile; the land is fertile. Woman is fertile; the female is fertile. Man, however, relative to the Earth and Woman alike--the primary, twin manifestations of the Goddess--sees the lack that he has, is constantly reminded of the lack that he is. Both Woman and Earth remind Man of what he is not. They are a constant indicator of the primal lack embodied in Manhood.

So, how has Man dealt with this fact of natural history in the past, and how does Man still tend to deal with this fact of natural history? In other words, how has Man substituted for the primal lack that he embodies?

Perhaps Man turns aggressive and become territorial in response to his lack. Because Man lacks fertility he has to secure that necessary fertility outside of himself. So Man is compelled to become controlling precisely because of the Primal Lack that is the epicenter of his Manhood. This very tendency has been evidenced in War, when and as the victorious Warriors secure for themselves the Earth and the Women of the conquered. Meaning, it is possible to suggest that Man has gone to War and has sought to conquer so frequently in order to attempt to secure what Man lacks. That is, War is but the effort to secure more fertility... increased fertility... the generative capacity of Life itself. Man has to get it by any means necessary, precisely because in and of himself he lacks it.

Colonization. Conquering the land. The intensified effort to control externally. The unchecked aggression. All of it, to my way of undersanding things, is the direct result of lack. What is perceived to be missing is sought after. And because Life issues forth from a hidden well-spring of fertility and generativity Man understands that his connection to Life comes through Woman and Earth. Man, then, fights his own perceived emptiness through attaching himself to a Lady and the Land--either through cunning and stealth, power and aggression, or a genuine heart open to his own vulnerability, and what that vulnerability indicates in terms of his relatedness to Woman and the Earth--the Goddess.