Community Views

Subtle Activism: An Interview with David Spangler (Part 2)

Interview By Annabel Chiarelli

ANNABEL: Can you elaborate on “wrongly made” thought forms? For instance, is there such a thought form around the idea of racial prejudices? Also, can you clarify the distinction between a thought form as a thing that can be destroyed as opposed to a being that can be redirected or redeemed? Whose decision is it to destroy a thought form? Is this something that we as embodied humans can help with or is this something better left to our subtle allies?

DAVID: Let me begin by defining a thought-form or energy construct. A thought-form is simply any pattern of energy brought into existence by thought; it is energy of some nature molded and shaped in a particular way by an act of thinking and feeling. It is an energetic artifact, no different from things we design and make here in the physical realm. It is not a living being, although--just like our own artifacts--it is composed of living energy.

We create them all the time. If I see an ad for something in a magazine and think, "Wow, I'd like to have that," I've created a thought-form. But unless I put some emotional and mental "juice" into it, it won't last. I'll turn the page, see another ad for something else that I find more desirable, and a whole new thought-form is created around that object while the first thought-form now fades out of existence.

These kind of temporary thought-forms are being made and dissolved all the time. It's when a particular pattern of thought and feeling becomes a habit, something held and repeated over and over, that it starts to become a construct in the subtle worlds such as my inner colleague was describing. In other words, there needs to be some persistence and consistency of thought and imagination and some intent for such a construct to take shape and develop a potentially autonomous existence.

This is a complex topic and I've seen whole books written on this one subject alone, so I can't cover it all in this interview. However, for our purposes in discussing subtle outreach and subtle activism, let me describe two general kinds of energetic constructs.

The first arise from cultural habits and are collective in nature. You used the example of thought-forms that embody racial prejudices. As collective cultural constructs, such images can stimulate corresponding thoughts and feelings within individuals. A feedback loop is established between the thought-form and individual minds that attune to it.

In other words, if a collective thought form around African-Americans in the United States is one of fear, then if I am an individual influenced by this thought-form, I can have fearful thoughts and feelings when I see a black person on the street. The energy of this fear then feeds the thought-form itself, keeping it in existence.

Now, collective thought-forms such as this can be reduced in potency and in their ability to affect individual minds by subtle world intervention such as my colleague described, but they cannot be destroyed or mitigated entirely since they are also being generated and supported by incarnated humans. Energy hygiene is not enough here. There needs to be social change, institutional change, education, changes of mind and heart, and so on.

In other words, a collective thought-form being actively supported and energized by human beings cannot be erased by subtle means alone, speaking generally. I can't get rid of a habit like smoking if I continue to indulge and support it by smoking! So human level interaction and change is absolutely needed--physical activism, if you wish. But if this is present, then subtle forces can intervene more effectively and destroy the constructs themselves, as my colleague* described.

I should add here that thought-forms can be good and helpful or negative and unhelpful. The image of Uncle Sam is a thought-form of the American character; the American flag is another, one that can inspire love of country and patriotic acts. Every country has its collective thought-forms from which it draws its identity and positive energies.

The second kind of thought-form is the one that is deliberately created to achieve a specific end. You might do this as part of a manifestation project, for instance, in which you project a strong and clear image of what you wish to manifest into the subtle worlds. You might form a positive self image of the kind of person you wish to be, and that becomes an inspirational thought-form in your life.

But some thought-forms are created and shaped by negative and pathological thoughts. For instance, ISIL is deliberately propagating thought-forms of violence through social media but also, seen from the inner worlds, through the collective thoughts and intents of those who are part of that movement projected out into the mental environments of humanity. An individual can be radicalized and become violent partly through the influence of images on social media but also through the energies--the thought-forms of hatred and revenge--that lie behind those images.

Or someone becomes a mass killer, something happening with greater frequency, unfortunately, here in the United States. When interviewed the person may say, "I don't know what happened. I just felt I had to kill people." They can rationalize this in many ways, but fundamentally they were acting out of an energetic impulse which more than likely came from a "mass killing thought-form." The thought-form and its energy triggered or stimulated the decision to kill within the mind and emotions of an individual who was vulnerable and predisposed in some manner to such a prompting.

Such a thought-form could be deliberately created by someone filled with hate and violence, or it could be inadvertently created by thoughts of killing which vibrationally "clump together" through resonance in the subtle worlds and become an autonomous construct of energy seeking outlet in the human world through acts of killing. It's these kinds of thought-forms specifically that my colleague* was thinking of when he spoke, as there are many of them floating about.

Remember that there are just as many—indeed, more—thought-forms that are positive, inspirational, healing, and helpful in nature, so it's not like we're surrounded by a cloud of energetic constructs all seeking to do us harm. Far from it. But harmful constructs do exist.

What makes a thought-form something that can be destroyed, as differentiated from a being who can be redirected or redeemed, is that it doesn't possess life. It's like a robot. It has been programmed to act in certain ways, and it cannot do otherwise. It can have the appearance of agency in that it will seek to fulfill its "programming" and it can have an appearance of life simply because it is composed of living energies that seek sustenance. Remember, what is being destroyed is the form or organizing principle and intent that is holding the thought-form together, not the living energies that comprise it.

As to who decides to destroy them, there are guardian beings, both angelic and human souls, who have this as a task; think of them as a subtle world police force or as subtle janitors. They don't have carte blanche, for they cannot interfere with the workings of karma or human free will, but there's a lot of psychic garbage in the band of energy I call "The Scream" which can be cleaned up. Also, since you asked, an embodied human being who knows what he or she is doing can certainly disperse and destroy a thought-form.

ANNABEL: Can you elaborate on this strong place of soul? Are there instances where the warrior image can be helpful or is it something that should be completely avoided?

DAVID: Let me say that I come from a military background, raised on an American air base in Morocco, so the term "warrior" is not a red flag for me. And it's not particularly bothersome to my inner colleagues, though they wouldn't necessarily use that term themselves. If seeing oneself as a warrior helps a person evoke courage and strength and a positive self-image, then it can be helpful.

However, when doing any kind of subtle work, militaristic images are rarely helpful. We need to be very aware of what our own energy is doing within us and around us; we need to be mindful of what we're generating and projecting, or put another way, mindful of the "flavor" we impart to our inner work. And in this regard, militaristic images of any kind tend to give an adversarial "flavor" that can ultimately work against the very healing, harmony, or wholeness we seek to foster.

Yes, redemption and healing are keywords in subtle work. No one is ever abandoned, no matter, as you say, how complex or lengthy the process may be of restoring their wholeness and connectedness to the Sacred. And this should definitely inform our attitudes towards each other. For instance, I detest all that ISIL stands for and the violence and hatred they are promoting, but I hold the individual souls who are part of that pathological collective in love. That soul will deeply regret the harm it is causing and will seek redemption at some point. My prayer is that my love will ease that transformation when that soul is able to undergo it. At the least, I do not want to burden that soul with projections and thought-forms of hatred and fear from me.

But I would not hesitate to stop that soul's personality from doing harm in the world if I had the opportunity to do so, nor would I hesitate to protect others, on any level, from the malevolent energies this group is collectively and individually projecting into the world. I would just not go about it from a militaristic attitude. There are better ways energetically speaking. As you say, neutrality and strength are important.

Maybe I should say something about what I mean by neutrality. I don't mean being inert emotionally or not having feelings. I can be very passionate in my neutrality! What I'm talking about here is a condition of energy, what really should be seen as a kind of "subtle chemistry." What I don't want is to provide any resonance in my own energy field to which something like the ISIL thought-forms could attach.

Neutrality is not armor, it's not a shield, it's just non-interaction, non-reactivity. The classic phrase for this is to "Stand in the Light" which by its very nature disperses the darkness without actually "fighting" it. If there are shadows in my room, they disappear when I turn on the light or when the sun comes out. The Light is not "against" these shadows; it is neutral or non-reactive. But the nature of Light is that a shadow cannot exist in it. The Light doesn't have to "hate the darkness" in order to remove it by the nature of what it is.

This comes back to what I said earlier about altering the environment so that a particular kind of organism or force cannot live in it. Hatred cannot live in an environment of love, energetically speaking. (And part of our challenge is that we translate these words into emotional and psychological terms, which turns them into something else, something quite different from their energetic quality. We need to learn how to think in terms of an energy world, as well as a psychological and a physical one.)

Anyway, neutrality doesn't mean a lack or weakening of intent, and when speaking of strength in this context, I'm really speaking of clarity and firmness of intent. Think of Gandalf in the Mines of Moria saying to the Balrog, "You shall not pass!" Now that was a very clear and strong intent!

Click on the links to read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 of this interview.

Subtle Activism: An Interview with David Spangler (Part 1)

Interview By Annabel Chiarelli

ANNABEL: A popular stance in subtle activism work is that of the “spiritual warrior battling against dark forces.” You have cautioned against this, and I’d like to hear your thoughts about why it’s so important not to fall into that trap, as well as your thoughts on the nature of “dark” energies or forces and the band of negative energy you call “The Scream.” Do they have some kind of independent malevolent agency of their own or are they fueled by plain old human greed, hatred, aggression, and lust for power?

DAVID: Let me begin by saying that before I became a spiritual teacher when I was twenty, I was studying in college to become a molecular biologist. Thus, even today, fifty years later, I still tend to think in biological and ecological terms and metaphors. These are the metaphors I draw on to answer your questions.

The sources of evil in the human world are complex because humanity is complex. It's not as if there's a single entity who is the source of all malevolent and negative forces and actions, inspiring--if that's the right word--human beings to acts of violence and hurtfulness. As you rightly suggest, much of what motivates us to act in ways harmful to others, to the world, and to ourselves are simply unresolved and negative patterns and habits in our own psyches. It's our own greed, our own fear, our own lusts, and so forth. This is often quite enough to create the problems we see in our world.

What I call "the Scream" is a layer of negative energies in the subtle borderlands close to the physical plane that is the product of our own negative projections and actions. I think of it as a kind of psychic smog which in some cases is simply irritating but in others is truly toxic, just as pollution can be in the physical world. By itself, it doesn't actively or willfully seek to expand or promote its conditions; it has no agency. But given the right conditions, it can spread just as physical pollution can spread unless steps are taken through energy hygiene to prevent it or to clean it up. For instance, if an angry, vengeful energy exists in an area, people can pick up on it, feel their own anger amplified or augmented, and then add to it through their own actions and projections. We are the agency through which this psychic pollution makes itself felt and can grow.

It's important to understand that it's not making us do this. But it does create psychic or subtle energetic conditions that can make it easier for us to choose to go along with those conditions because of elements and habits in our own psyche. We can resist, and we can transform such subtle conditions if we choose to do so and are willing to do the inner and outer work of emotional, mental, and even physical hygiene that may be involved. In other words, we can choose love over hate, courage over fear, respect over contempt, and so on. It can be work to do so and not always easy, but that's the kind of work our souls call on us to do!

This is not a matter of fighting anything. I don't "fight" pollution. I recognize it and then I clean it up. I can be deliberate and focused in this cleansing process--I hesitate to use the word "aggressive"--but I am not being a "warrior," except in the sense that I am courageously standing in the midst of the pollution and not running from it.

But as a biologist, I know that any environment, including toxic ones, can become niches for opportunistic organisms which may in themselves be toxic. For instance, a local beach on a lake near our home was closed down this summer for a time because sewage had leaked into it and pathogenic bacteria had been detected. People who swam in the water got sick.

There are subtle forces that feed on negative energies such as fear, hate, and so on. The ecology of such forces and beings is complex. For instance, there are bacteria in sewage that will make you very sick and even kill you if you take them into your body, but they are necessary to help process the sewage; they are part of the natural cycle of decay and transformation. There are subtle beings and forces like this, and left alone to do their work, they have no malevolent intent towards human beings. But human beings sometimes don't leave them alone and do invoke them, much as people use toxic bacteria to create bio-weapons. When this happens, such beings may be let loose into the energetic world of humanity and can become a hazard that has to be dealt with through appropriate steps of energy hygiene.

On the other hand, there are beings and forces that are simply malevolent in nature. Their origins are, as I say, complex, and many come into being as products of human thinking; they are potent thought-forms that have been created by someone specifically to do harm and then are released into the world. And some have origins deep in the primeval past of our planet.

What is common to all these "dark" beings and forces, though, is that, like any organism, they seek to create environments and conditions conducive to their nature. They seek safety and they seek food, and because they are subtle beings, both of these are energetic in nature. So in a worst case scenario, yes, forces and beings can arise that actively work to generate and maintain conditions of fear, hatred, anger, lust, and so on within the human world. These beings are truly parasitic as they require human complicity to create the environments they need, and once created, they will seek to trigger human emotions and thoughts along lines that will continue to generate the necessary negative conditions.

So, do I fight these beings? Again, I think here like a biologist. None of these negative forces can exist if the environment becomes inhospitable to them. But to change an environment can require a combination of energy hygiene or subtle activism and outreach and ordinary physical, psychological, and spiritual work with the humans involved so that they stop generating the energies that such negative inner forces use parasitically to maintain their existence.

This involves, to my way of thinking, an ability to create and hold the desired environmental conditions of love, Light, courage, respect, safety, and so on in myself first and then to expand those conditions outward through how I relate to the environment and the people in it. This is why I have trouble with militaristic metaphors. They may make us feel powerful and good about ourselves, but it's all too easy for us to slip into an adversarial stance that actually ends up feeding more negativity into the environment.

Clearing up the more extreme areas of subtle toxicity is not a simple process, and there is truth to the idea that I want and need to stand in my sovereignty in a courageous and warrior-like way. Even something as relatively passive as the polluted psychic energies in the Scream can resist being changed. There can be some pushback, and I need to be prepared for this. If I'm dealing with a force or being whose current existence is dependent on a hateful, negative environment, then that pushback can be fierce. So I need to be clear, strong, stable, and above all loving in my ability to hold the qualities of the environment I wish to create. I'm not a warrior wielding a weapon of Light, but I am a "warrior" wielding a stout heart, courage, presence, and a fiery hope! (And as an aside, I shouldn't attempt dealing with such negative organisms unless I do have the skill, the knowledge, and the connections to deal with the possible pushbacks and consequences. I don't wade into the toxic water of a lake to clean it up unless I know what I'm doing, understand the nature of what I'm dealing with, and have the right equipment to help me.)

Are there malevolent dark forces seeking to take over the world? No, not in the sense of a centralized, vast planetary conspiracy. But are there "dark" subtle organisms that would like to expand the negative environment that protects and feeds them? Of course! It's what organisms, whether physical or non-physical, do. We don't need to "fight" them in a militaristic sense, at least not as a general rule--there can always be local exceptions--but we do need to be strong and clear about the kind of physical and subtle environment we wish to have and use our agency to make it so, drawing on whatever spiritual and subtle allies are near and dear to us. In so doing, our "stance" really does need to be one of love, for love is at the heart of the best environments!

[After David sent this response, one of his subtle colleagues offered a contribution to our discussion]

SUBTLE COLLEAGUE: Blessings! This is an interesting discussion which caught my attention. As I'm sure you realize, you are only scratching the surface here. But I thought I'd contribute the following from my perspective. I am aware of three kinds of responses to three kind of forces and beings that are sources of negativity in your world. One is healing and redemption, one is recycling and restoration, and one is destruction.

In the first case, we seek to heal and redeem those who to us are suffering diseases and pathologies of the soul, internal habits and ways of thinking that promote harm, whether to self or to others. This can be a simple process or it can be a complex and lengthy one depending on the soul involved and the nature of its consciousness.

The second deals with the forces you think of as energetic or psychic pollution. These are vectors of energy that currently are harmful but which can be realigned and reorganized to be harmless and restored to a pristine condition. Altering the environmental conditions as you have described is usually sufficient to accomplish this.

Finally, there are those constructions of thought, feeling and energy that are wrongly made from the outset. There is no being here, and the energies that make up such constructs are bound to its shape and purposes. Here is where we wield what metaphorically you would call the Sword or Spear of Light to break up and destroy the construct, thereby allowing its energy to be freed and redeemed. Some of these constructs are very ancient, formed in the distant past, and by now they have gorged themselves on human negativity and seek more, for they have become simply black holes of energetic hunger, never able to get enough. They are unstable at their core, but they can be very resistant to change. They cannot be changed simply by altering the environment but must be broken up by the surgical application of Light.

However, as you have perceived, this cannot be done in anger or even in a prideful way as one wielding spiritual power. It must be done from a neutral and strong place of soul. When confronted with such a construct, we do not interact with it but act to destroy it if possible (and sometimes it is not possible as incarnate humans are actively supporting and maintaining it for their own purposes). Thus, there is no compassion for the construct, only implacable will, but there is love for the energy trapped inside the structure. When the organizing impulse of this construct, that which holds it together, is destroyed, then we receive the liberated energies in compassion and love and set about their redemption.

This is all I have to offer. I thought you would be interested in hearing the perspective of one not in the body.

Again, blessings!

Click on the links to read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 of this interview.

Seeing in the Dark

By Susan Beal

I started wearing glasses when I was in fourth grade. At first I was excited—they were something new, and it was fun to see so clearly! But after a while I started to resent how they split the world into things I could see well within a little oval frame, and things outside the oval that were blurry. I learned to feel anxious without glasses, dependent on them to make the outer world clear to me.

In my teens, I became interested in vegetarianism, herbology, and various alternative approaches to health and wondered why eyesight seemed like the only part of our well-being that we couldn’t heal. I took a number of natural vision improvement programs and read various books about it, but I wasn’t able to cure my myopia. In fact, my prescription grew stronger through the years. Even so, I kept thinking there must be a link between the eyes and our overall well-being, a link that might explain why such a big percentage of modern humanity needs corrective lenses.

Not long ago, I went to a weekend course on natural vision improvement, this one based not on nutrition and eye exercises, but on the idea that our eyesight is a direct result of how we think about ourselves and the world as well as what we believe about reality.

The instructor told us that the anatomy of the human eye tells an interesting story about perception and consciousness. Only about 5% of the photoreceptor cells on our retinas—the cones—are devoted to the acuity, color, and detail that characterize daylight vision. The other 95%—the rods—are devoted to night and peripheral vision, to shadows and movement, and they are nearly 1000 times more sensitive than our cones. Our rods, he said, are not only a major part of whole vision, but intimately tied to our subconscious brain activity and the parts of our psyche involved with dreaming, imagination, and non-ordinary reality. In other words, our eyes are superbly designed to see in the dark, both literally and metaphorically, yet we rarely use them that way.

The instructor said one of the most healing things we can do for our vision and our psyches is to spend at least half an hour every day using our eyes in the dark. It takes at least half an hour of darkness before our eyes are dark-adapted and the rods come fully online, so to speak. Meditating or lying in bed with eyes shut doesn't count. By cultivating night vision we nourish our retinas, he said, and we also nourish the part of our mind that knows and perceives things beyond the conscious, well-lit, everyday world.

Which to me begs the question: what happens when we routinely rely on little more than 5% of our visual capacity? When we don’t take the time to see in the dark, might all kinds of wonders and mysteries we might otherwise perceive become nothing but vague shadows, things to be feared, ignored, or forgotten? For the first time in history, more than half the world’s population is urban. It’s significant for many reasons, not the least of which, to my mind, is that for the first time in the history of the world, most of humanity never experiences true darkness or a night sky black enough to see stars. Even for those of us who live in the country, it’s rare to spend 30 minutes or more awake in the darkness. Most of us keep the lights on until we lie down to go to sleep, and even then many folks have some kind of light in the room, intentionally or not. Given the link between night vision and the subconscious, is it any wonder that the world of dreams, of subtle perceptions, of imagination and realities beyond the physical realm, are dismissed as unreal? And is it any surprise that anxiety, the harbinger of information from the subconscious, is pandemic?

There’s a traditional Scottish poem that goes: “From Ghoulies and Ghosties and long leggedy Beasties and Things that go bump in the Night, May the Good Lord deliver us.” Before electricity, we spent half our lives in darkness. Whether the light and darkness was equally divided each day, as near the equator, or divided up by the season, as toward the poles, we spent many hours awake and seeing in the dark. Perhaps it explains why we also had more tacit acceptance of— as well as more overt fear of—the shadow realms. We couldn’t simply shut out the spectres or scatter our demons by turning on a light. We couldn’t medicate our fear, or dismiss as superstition anything that couldn’t be explained by scientific means.

Similar to the percentage of cones to rods, it’s often said that only about 5% of the activity of our brains is conscious, with the other 95% being unconscious. It's also supposed that the percentage of ordinary matter in the universe is about 4%. The rest is dark matter and dark energy. To me, there is an interesting pattern here. The conscious mind likes things neat and tidy, black and white, rational and physical. But it turns out those things are only a tiny percentage of what’s out there to know and perceive.

In addition to the lining of rods and cones on the retina, there is an area called the fovea, where the optic nerve connects and there are no rods or cones. It leaves a blind spot in the very center of our vision. In daylight, it’s hardly noticeable. But at night, if you try to look directly at a star, it will disappear, thanks to the blind spot.

As with stars at night, many things are difficult if not impossible to see by looking directly at them. Instead we need to open your vision wide and pay attention to the edges and peripheries, the liminal zones. The vision instructor taught us to stop trying to see accurately or clearly, and instead to try to see panoramically, with a wide perspective instead of a narrow focus. This approach, he assured us, would allow us to see more of what was really out there. He also said to let the light and darkness come into our eyes as if we were letting the world in, rather than staring at the world like a movie screen that is either in focus or not. And good vision is not just about accuracy, color and clarity. There are ambiguities, fuzzy places, shadows and movements we can’t always clearly define.

There is a parallel between approaching this liminal, shadowy boundary of daytime and nighttime perception, and the classic boundary between the everyday, human world and the mutable, shadowy realms of faeries and spirits and the things we have forgotten how to see or might rather not know. It’s reminiscent of dream recall, that moment between dreaming and wakefulness when the memory of a dream can seem as intangible and fragile as a wisp of mist in bright, hot sunlight. Even the memory of inner journeys and meditations can be hard to bring back into normal, daily consciousness, unless written down or recited while one is still between states of mind. As physical beings, we are grounded in a world of duality, of matter and spirit, of shadow and light, of conscious and unconscious. We are the bridges between realms, and we can learn to see beyond that duality, toward the wholeness of the world within and outside us.

It begins by learning to see in the dark.

Views from the Lorian Community publishes essays from a team of volunteer writers expressing individual experiences of a long term, committed practice of Incarnational Spirituality (and the general principles shaping such a practice.) Views expressed do not necessarily reflect the sentiments or thoughts of any other person in Lorian or of Lorian as a whole. If you would like to subscribe, please visit our website and click on Follow Our Blog Via Email. Or email the editor:drenag@lorian.org

Compassionate Conservatism

By Dave Shaw, Guest Contributor

Editor’s Note: The Lorian Association, as spiritual community, is nonpartisan, but our writers and readers come from diverse social and political backgrounds. Periodically we publish blog posts from both liberal and conservative perspectives that offer insight into how real people in our nation are working through our socio-political challenges and bridging divisions, even and especially the ones within themselves. Always our goal is to promote an Incarnational viewpoint.

Unlike many in the Lorian community, in last year's election I was not an enthusiastic supporter of Hillary Clinton and I did not, even for the briefest of moments, feel the Bern. In fact, my biggest hope was that a credible, thoughtful, moderate candidate from the center-right would win the Republican nomination. Then, I hoped, we would have a vigorous but very civilized debate between this candidate and the Democratic candidate on the appropriate role of government in general and the federal government in particular. This would have also led to debates on a wide range of specific policy issues.

Of course, this didn’t happen, and like many I have significant apprehensions regarding Donald Trump. In spite of this, I’m going to place my “Optimist” hat firmly in place and describe a political path forward that would align with my personal views, and might possibly work, at least in part, for many in the Lorian community.

My vision is based on the ideal of “compassionate conservatism.” (As some may recall, George W. Bush used this phrase when he first ran for president. I have no idea whether Bush genuinely believed in it, or whether it was instead just a campaign slogan for him; in terms of the value of the idea, it doesn’t really matter.)

One key aspect of compassionate conservatism is that the phrase is intended to describe a different type of conservatism than Ronald Reagan’s “government is the problem, let’s shrink it as much as we can” approach. (Those who have followed politics for a while are probably familiar with the film clip of Reagan’s famous quote “Government is not the solution to the problem, government is the problem.”) Compassionate conservatism acknowledges that government programs can do a lot of good, and that some Americans really need help from the government. That’s the “compassionate” aspect of the ideal.

The “conservative” aspect is based on the viewpoint that when a problem emerges, we should not initially or immediately look to large and intrusive government programs as the most likely solution. Instead, solving problems through such programs should be the exception, not the rule. One key reason for this is that most government services are delivered by an agency that faces no competition, and the absence of competition is often a real problem for those receiving the service. Another reason is that the compassionate conservative is reluctant to use government as a mechanism for redistributing wealth. (Note, however, the use of the word “reluctant,” as opposed to the word “unwilling.”)

Compassionate conservatism also emphasizes personal responsibility, but not without recognizing an important element of truth in the notion of “it takes a village to raise a child.” In fact, my personal interpretation of compassionate conservatism places strong emphasis on the fact that kids don’t get to choose their parents, and inevitably different kids are given vastly different opportunities. What I’d ideally like to see is government working passionately and effectively to give every kid a good shot at achieving his/her dreams, and then turning responsibility largely over to that “kid” when he/she moves into adulthood.

These ideas above are pretty theoretical and abstract, and it’s obvious that to make compassionate conservatism work, the devil would be in the details. But instead of delving into such details, I’d like to briefly connect compassionate conservatism to several spiritual themes. On a personal level, I’ve always felt a strong connection to the Buddhist tradition, and in this tradition, at least as I interpret it, there is a strong predisposition towards emphasizing personal responsibility. My understanding is that the historical Buddha claimed to be nothing more than a regular human being (i.e. not a god and not superhuman in any way) who achieved deep and great insights through intense, focused effort. It was this type of effort he prescribed for his followers. It should be added here that the emphasis on personal effort does not mean that the Buddhist tradition de-emphasizes the importance of compassion. And yet, I think there is also in this tradition a realization that the highest levels of compassion include discriminating wisdom, and that the solicitude needed by one person may not be the best thing for another person.

As these comments about the linkage I see between Buddhism and compassionate conservatism suggest, in my view the ideals embodied in the latter extend beyond politics. It is in this area where I currently do the most in my own efforts to “walk the talk” of compassionate conservatism. I am an instructor at a small regional public university, so I am employed by the government to provide a service that is partly funded by the government. This gives me a chance to try my hardest to implement the ideal described above: “… government working passionately and effectively to give every kid a good shot at achieving his/her dreams, and then turning responsibility largely over to that ‘kid’ when he/she moves into adulthood.”

In a nutshell, I try to do this by really challenging my students, while offering them help and support when they need it. I also challenge certain administrators at my school to move beyond an underlying viewpoint that, when stripped of its PR veneer, subtly encourages our school to settle for providing students a dumbed-down college education instead of the real thing. My efforts in the latter area have, I’m afraid to say, made me few friends and been met with little success. In spite of this, I continue with them. I was recently asked, “If your efforts aren’t succeeding, why do you continue? Why bother?” This prompted some reflection, and I realized the answer lies in a core value that I believe all spiritual traditions share: because I strongly believe what I’m saying is the truth, and, not to sound sanctimonious, I believe the truth is inherently a good thing.

Shifting back to the political domain, it would be reasonable for one who was skeptical of the notion of “compassionate conservatism” to ask for examples of this approach actually working. Without going into too much detail, I believe there are some. One is Orrin Hatch, the conservative Republican senator from Utah, working with Ted Kennedy to pass the legislation for CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program). It so happened that Hatch and Kennedy, while usually on opposite ends of political debates, were good personal friends, and Hatch supported the idea of giving more kids healthcare insurance. Going back in time even further, Republican Senator Everett Dirksen helped mobilize enough Republican support for the Civil Rights Act to pass in 1964. More generally, Republicans like Bob Dole and even Richard Nixon were often viewed as “moderate pragmatists,” at least on certain issues. (The EPA was created by the Nixon administration, and Nixon was once reportedly not too far from reaching an agreement with Ted Kennedy for universal healthcare in the U.S.)

In closing, I do not underestimate the enormous challenges in unifying the country to pursue the goal of compassionate conservatism. Progressives may well believe that the best way to achieve their political ideals is vigorous opposition of anything different, which likely will include compassionate conservatism on principle. Towards the other end of the political spectrum, the type of moderate Republican pragmatist I’ve described is often thought to be an endangered species in the  party; it’s sometimes said that Bob Dole, who served as Senate Majority leader, would not even win a Republican primary today.

The best counter-argument I can offer in support of compassionate conservatism is that on a range of important issues, such as climate change, healthcare, Social Security, and Medicare, we do not have time to waste. Change is inevitable in areas like this, and some modest steps forward are far preferable to moving backwards, because doing nothing is moving backwards. Moreover, the changes that truly last are usually achieved through compromise legislation.

Compassionate conservatism offers a path forward that doesn’t give the far left or the far right what it most wants, but does offer the hope of sustained, lasting progress.

This blog post was written on December 23, 2016, before the inauguration of President Trump.

Dancing with the Shadow

By Julie Spangler

As a parent, I recall the very special experience of watching my children learn about their world, often seeing myself in them, remembering how full of wonder the world really is. I saw a video the other day of a toddler seeing her shadow on the ground for the first time, and running screaming away from this dark thing that kept following her. I laughed to see it, of course, because it is funny from the perspective of people who know what this dark thing is. But from this child's perspective, it was terrifying. This is the way it is with the unknown and is why we spend so much time and effort avoiding it.

The "shadow" has become a powerful meme in our modern culture. I think there are few, at least in the western world, who are not familiar with the idea of the shadow as a representation of the unconscious parts of our personality. Carl Jung is probably best known for his recognition of the shadow archetype as the representation of our 'dark side' -- all that we refuse to look at in ourselves. But it is has been well represented in our culture through the arts -- visual, theatrical and literary -- throughout history.

The Star Wars story may be the best known modern exploration of the shadow, with the innocent hero, Luke Skywalker, confronting his darker nature (represented by his father, Darth Vader) in order to win freedom. By understanding and accepting his dark side, he also redeems that of his father, freeing Darth Vader from the grip of his own shadow self.

But my favorite shadow story is one by Ursula LeGuin, The Wizard of Earthsea. This Wizard starts the story as a young man, Ged, who is born with a talent for magic, which earns him a place in the prestigious school for wizards on the famous Isle of Roke. (This school predated Hogwarts by some decades, I must say.) Now, Ged is young and inexperienced in the world, coming from a small village in the mountains. He knows little of the world, and even less about himself. Thus, when the unconscious elements of his personality rise up, he has little defense. He encounters another student at the school who while being older and of a higher birth has less talent. Both boys find themselves at the mercy of the little shadows we call jealousy and pride... of course denying both. These attributes are shoved into the background of their consciousness because they are threatening!

One sorry night, Ged is challenged by his rival to a magical competition during which Ged, trying to prove how powerful he is, opens a door into the shadow realms, and unleashes a dark power into the world. Ged is haunted by this shadow, running from it, fearing it, is disempowered by it, and finally realizes that he cannot leave it loose in the world. He must hunt it down.

Once he turns to hunt it, this fearsome thing runs! Until then Ged has been running from it in terror, and it has gained power over him. Suddenly when he faces it, it runs! Ged knows he must name this shadow in order to command it back into its place. The story takes him through many adventures as he hunts for the name of this thing. But in the end, upon catching up to the shadow being, Ged finally knows its name and names it - "Ged". The two step into each other and become one. Ged is whole and free.

I have used this story in classes, since it is a wonderful allegory for dealing with our own inner shadows. What we fear will have power over us, and we will spend much energy defending ourselves from it. What we deny will sneak up on us and take us by surprise. What we can become conscious of, what we can name, becomes part of our wholeness, part of our power.

A friend of mine told me of a dream she had a while ago which shows another way of approaching the shadow. She was being chased by a giant spider, running for her life. The spider was gaining on her and her terror drove her faster. Finally, recognizing that it was going to catch her, and she would die, she turned to face it. As she did, and started walking toward it, the spider grew smaller and smaller until she reached down and picked it up. Here was something that was actually a beautiful and fascinating creature. Another powerful image for handling these shadow parts of ourselves. Stop running, turn and truly look at it. What gift is there?

As adults, we carry much from our past that is held as shadow. We have learned to be wary, to self-censor, and to fear. These are not attributes which encourage our light to shine. To be willing to take risks and surrender to the recognition that we are not perfect, to allow ourselves to see the flawed parts and name them, is to be freed from the past and to become new.

It is that unencumbered newness which we so enjoy seeing in children. When my own son, Aidan, was a toddler, I had the pleasure of being present when he first saw his shadow. We were outside in the sun, and Aidan saw it on the garage door. He stopped in surprise, staring at this dark shape. He moved, it moved. He stopped, it stopped. He lifted his arms and the arms of the shadow rose too.  He turned around and looked back, watching the shadow intently. He jumped and watched its feet lift off the ground. Then Aidan started to dance with it. I thought, "What a wonderful model for engaging with the shadow!"

Join Julie Spangler for a free one-hour teleclass on Standing in Presence. Click here for more information or to sign up.

Shine Through All Time – An Image for the Equinox

By Deborah Koff-Chapin

One of the joys of my creative life is to share my Touch Drawings online for the solstice and equinox, and at other moments that I feel call forth an image. Because I have an enormous archive to choose from, it is a somewhat intuitive process to choose an image that feels aligned with the time. As this equinox approached, I began to peruse some recent drawings. My focus was not the change of seasons but the balance between the light and the dark. I try not be ‘northern hemisphere-centric’!

This image just popped out at me.

 

I noticed the bright shining beings on the bottom, and their ‘ghostlike’ form on top of the page. They seemed to carry the sense of balance I was looking for. Then it was time to find the words to go with it.

I meditated upon this image in my inner vision. What felt strongest was the sense of shining in the people woven through the light and dark areas. I played with the words "shine" and "time" until they settled into a rhythm that felt right. Once complete, I realized it had become a statement about timelessness rather than time.

Shine Through All Time.

The same presence radiates within the light and the dark. It is there no matter the season, no matter the changes in our world.  With the overwhelm of challenges we are collectively moving through, this message to shine through it all has resonated in my being. I hope to take this message I send out to heart in my own life.

Shine Through All Time.

These days, an endless stream of images pass before our eyes. We are stimulated with so many alluring sights, but when do we slow down to take in a single image? Spend a few minutes gazing at this drawing. Let your eyes take a journey. Notice the textures, the shapes, the symbols – without trying to think of meaning. Rest into the image. Just be with it. Notice the ways your body responds. Notice the ways you align internally as you continue to gaze. Then close your eyes. Notice its after-effects within you. This might be visual or a felt sense. Allow your own words to arise in response.

The Vernal Equinox was Monday, March 20, but the emerging energies of spring are still unfolding. What images or insights come to mind as you reflect upon this Touch Drawing? We would love to hear from you in the comments below. 

Me and My Shadow

By Mary Reddy

I once was wildly attracted to a man who was my teacher. But I resisted acting on the longing this man stirred in me. Because he reminded me so much of everything I had loved about my brothers—mind you, I had spent years running from men who carried the same qualities as my brothers, the intellectual drive and curiosity, a dominating male confidence covering a deep vulnerability— I loved him wildly from the first moment. And that terrified me. 

This discomfort, this powerful swing between desire and fear, warned me that my shadow was at play. To describe Carl Jung’s shadow concept in my own words, I’d say my awareness shines like the sun on all the parts of my personality that I knowingly present to the world. But this light of awareness casts a shadow on the parts I learned to reject in growing from wild child to responsible member of society. Jung envisioned a descent into the darkness of the shadow as a journey toward wholeness, becoming aware of and then integrating the outcast elements.

I was already on that descent when I fell in love with my teacher. I had recently emerged from a broken marriage and was painfully re-breaking myself in order to reset the bones of my heart to heal properly. I was questioning everything about myself at the time and I sensed this man was not what I thought him to be. He was a wonderful person, no doubt, but the real man was hidden beneath the shimmer of what I projected upon him. I saw in him those qualities that had lived in the heart of my family identity, all that I had known of love in my childhood. Awareness of my shadow saved me from pulling him into an inauthentic relationship.

When we project onto another, we unconsciously surface a shadow element by assigning it to another. Such projection can be positive as well as negative. Perhaps we buried a vital talent of ours because we were scolded for appearing to be better than others. Then we lend that positive trait to another, elevating them to a pedestal that must inevitably topple. Whether positive or negative, projection generates discomfort all around. 

An early memory comes to mind where I struggled with projection, though I was too young to give it that name. My parents' friends had brought their toddler to a gathering—an adorable curly haired girl just a few years younger than I was. She became the center of attention and the adults exclaimed over her. I started following her around the room, mimicking her every move. This made her uncomfortable. She turned to look at me with fear in her eyes and then began to cry. The adults yelled at me to stop. I was astounded. Who was I to make a little girl afraid of me? Why had I behaved like that? Wasn’t I a good little girl? I always tried to be good! I could not understand at that age that I endowed the other little girl with the lovableness I could not own in myself. My shadow had sneaked out and taken over.

Once I met the shadow while reading the Bible. I became obsessed with Judas Iscariot, the man who betrayed Jesus to the Romans for thirty pieces of silver. I was in grade school then and I loved the rituals of the Catholic liturgical year. Holy Week was particularly intense. Praying at the stations of the cross, contemplating Christ’s every encounter, each painful wound, was both oppressive and mesmerizing. That Good Friday ritual followed the previous evening’s retelling of the Last Supper, when Jesus says that one of his disciples will betray him. He turns to Judas and says, "What you are about to do, do quickly." 

I worried a great deal about Judas. Hadn’t God placed on him the burden of being the betrayer? Surely, someone had to create the circumstances leading to Jesus’s capture and ultimate sacrifice on the cross. God must have asked this of him and then forgiven him, I reasoned, otherwise it would be unfair. Maybe I worried that some part of Judas was in me. Unwittingly, I carried my family’s shame. That shame in me recognized the shame in Judas. I knew what it felt like to be the outsider, to be judged harshly, to be left on your own to figure out what little of value you could grab. I was hungry for love and convinced on a deep level that it was my fault that I went wanting. Now I wonder, was Judas the shadow side of Jesus? He was an indispensable part of the drama, yet he was the part that everyone wanted to disappear. To feel safe, I tried to disappear in my family but then I worried that I would be forever invisible.

In spite of my difficult childhood, I still grew up believing in and continue to live out my own hero’s tale. As is true for anyone, I am at the center of events. I am the core actor, the Rosetta Stone, the sifter of meaning for everything that happens in and around me. In this central position, I project an image that fulfills what I believe about myself. I may shift emphasis, for example, pushing forward logical thinking and suppressing whimsy or intuition if the situation calls for it. But generally, this is the sphere of what I know and consciously acknowledge about who I am. I used to just barely tolerate this face I presented to the world. It was not the best of me. I believed that my better self lived in mystery, in my art, and in my dreams. But by just tolerating who I was in the world, was I not depriving myself of my own love, even as I’d felt deprived in childhood? What is the shadow of disliking who you are? I had always assumed it was an overweening egotism. Perhaps it’s actually true compassion and love. 

Something magical happens when I consciously acknowledge my own worth in all its complexity. I begin to soften into myself.  Accepting both the rough and the polished sides of my personality leads to a great curiosity and openness around who I am—beyond, behind, and within my public-facing self. I begin to love myself, resting more firmly in my incarnate self, in this life of mine. The more openness and compassion I offer to myself the more I am able to offer the same to others.

Now I watch for my shadow out of the corner of my eye. I open up to my possible selves. I posit the opposite of what I know I am feeling, to test the flavor, to see if I actually carry it as well. I imagine holding a brilliant prism up to the light. The facet facing me is my personality. Teasing out what’s hidden in my shadow is like turning the prism this way and that. The quality of the light shifts. Each band of rainbow colors takes on more or less emphasis. Both white and multicolored, both whole and differentiated.

 Views from the Lorian Community publishes essays from a team of volunteer writers expressing individual experiences of a long term, committed practice of Incarnational Spirituality (and the general principles shaping such a practice.) Views expressed do not necessarily reflect the sentiments or thoughts of any other person in Lorian or of Lorian as a whole. If you would like to subscribe, please visit our website and click on Follow Our Blog Via Email. Or email the editor:drenag@lorian.org

 

Conditions of Sun and Shadow

By Freya Secrest

Knowing of my interest in trees and nature, a friend gave me a lovely book this Christmas, The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohllenben. In it Wohllenben shares his experience in forestry, and as a manager of an ecologically friendly woodland in Hummel, Germany. His stories illuminate the lives of trees and other observations of the interconnected ‘social’ and ecological dynamics that help a woodland thrive. It includes many thought-provoking discoveries but one in particular struck me as I was reading:

“Scientists have determined that slow growth when the tree is young is a prerequisite if a tree is to live to a ripe old age.”

Wohllenben's supporting facts for such a claim were enlightening. “Under natural conditions, trees of 80 – 120 years are no thicker than a pencil and no taller than a person. Thanks to their slow growth (brought about by growing in the canopy shadow of the larger/older trees), their inner woody cells are tiny and contain almost no air. That makes the trees flexible and resistant to breaking in storms. Even more important is their heightened resistance to fungi, which have difficulty spreading through the tough little trunks.”

I am struck by the idea that shadow and growing slowly contributes in an important way to the health of the trees. I wonder if this principle applies to humans as well. How might slowing down deepen our vitality? How does embracing all of our life’s conditions – sunny and shadowed – strengthen us? What might this mean for us as individuals and how can we flow with our life systems to allow for the most resilient conditions of self in meeting our future?

Several years ago I wrote a short essay comparing the slow food movement to a “slow spirituality.” I noted then that the slow food movement advocates attention to the natural and essential qualities of food. A cook highlights those qualities by taking the time to purchase fresh, local products and then draw out the inherent nutrition and flavor through thoughtful preparation and presentation. A Slow Spirituality suggests that we focus on the inherent and essential qualities within ourselves and honor the natural field of life experience that molds those capacities. We can then direct our time and choices to bring our uniqueness into mindful service through our lives.

What is interesting for me to notice is that whether it is in the woodland forest, in the slow food movement or in ourselves, there is a delicately balanced interconnected system that facilitates the overall field of health. Slow or deep growth is not a single intention that limits focus, but a widening embrace that accepts and includes. All of life grows as part of an interconnected ecology that includes sun and shadow, soil and water, limits and opportunity. When we embrace the full range of our life experience with a respectful attitude, we are like the mature and shadowed forest community that prevents young trees from growing quickly. It is when we engage the whole system of interconnected life experience that we develop the most strength, vitality and sense of fulfillment. Slowing down to listen to, honor and participate in this interconnected field – the subtle and physical web of consciousness that is the wholeness of our planet – may have actual structural implications for each of us as it does in the health of the trees that Wohllenben observed.

The shadow of a dense and diverse woodland community slows growth and creates a condition that strengthens a tree’s core and contributes to its longevity and to the overall health of all trees in the forest. I find myself considering what conditions encourage me to grow "in", densify my core, and slow my one-pointed movement to build flexibility, strength and vitality so that I too contribute to the overall health of my community.

There's still time to join Julie Spangler and Susan Sherman, with guest David Spangler, for  Journey Into Fire. During this six week online class, we will explore our unique, human journeys and practical ways to experience the sacredness within.  For more information or to sign-up, click here.

Ashes

By Drena Griffith

March 1 was Ash Wednesday and, for the first time in a long while, I attended Mass. For the past several weeks I have felt a strong stirring to revisit the Catholicism of my childhood, yet as a Lorian Priest representing Incarnational Spirituality and also a member of a local Native community, I’m not entirely sure how to integrate all of these multifaceted, jig-saw pieces of my spiritual experience. It’s all still unfolding for me. Regardless, the first day of Lent felt an especially appropriate time to lean more deeply into this exploration.

Lent is, for me, a time for remembering, for focusing on important things inadvertently forgotten or lost in the details of living a busy, stressful life. It is also an opportunity to "re-member"—to call back the scattered pieces of myself and listen to the quiet voice of soul. Lent is about centering and returning to right relationship with the world. This year it seems I have more scattered pieces than I realized.

As a child I loved being Catholic. Regularly I memorized songs and prayers and reenacted the sacred rites in playtime. I was also rather precocious spiritually and had very high expectations: of myself, of God…of life in general. So I asked many questions of God and the nuns at my church and as I got older those questions became more intense. The pat responses I had accepted at ten stopped making sense. It wasn’t that I had any agenda or attachment to particular answers, but I desperately needed my faith to have a certain stability and solidity that looking back I can see my earlier years in general lacked. When a classmate at college insisted that she had found that assurance I was seeking and invited me to attend an evangelical service, I was skeptical, but curious enough….See, I never really consciously intended to leave the Catholic church, but when the fundamentalists promised me answers, promised me peace, I believed. Then the shackles came out…and on that story goes, for a decade. By the time I found the exit door, apart from one or two good friends, I didn’t leave with much I’d ultimately decide to keep. I swore I was done with Jesus, Faith, and Answers. Well, that clearly didn’t last. At least not the first two, though my relationships with both have definitely evolved.

As has my connection to Mass. Sitting in the sanctuary on Wednesday morning felt both familiar and completely foreign. For one thing, the church of my childhood was a hermitage compared to this labyrinthine structure. Hundreds of people were in attendance, and that service was one of a half dozen offered throughout the day. The rituals were, thankfully, the same, though some of the recitations have changed. I felt awkward. Exposed.

As a holy day of obligation, Ash Wednesday takes its name from the ritual marking of parishioners’ foreheads with ashes. This symbol of penance demarcates the season. “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” said Father Felix, marking my forehead with a sideways cross that covered nearly all of my brow with soot.

After so many years of renunciation, was repentance and reconciliation possible now? Perhaps more importantly, what was I even attempting to reconcile? I realized that the last Ash Wednesday service I had attended prior to my unconscious abandonment had been when I was eighteen, a senior in high school. Was I attempting to reconnect, not just with an old faith, but with an old me? An old me with wide eyes that attended Mass week after week alone—without parents or sibling—prompted by nothing but the stirrings of her open heart? An old self with soul-stirring dreams and seemingly limitless potential? Well, that was definitely a long time ago, before I lost faith in myself and became so consumed with finding the right spiritual answers that in the process I willingly gave away everything I felt in that open heart to be true. Well, way leads onto way….as Cherokee Strong Eyes said, “We can’t go back. The bridge is gone.“

Even so, I obviously attended Mass looking for something. For that matter, what do I go to Native Lodge looking for? And how does Incarnational Spirituality which celebrates the individual life as inherently sacred integrate with a faith where any discussion of the individual starts with sin and ends with the need to apologize? How does a Lorian priest wear a forehead covered in ash?

According to my Native elder, Coyo, this time of the year is known as the Void. We’re nearly through the dark of the year, so our minds and spirits are turning toward spring, facing forward with resolve toward fresh growth. Yet winter isn’t quite done with us yet. The seeds within are still turning. It’s not quite time to us take action. Instead, we sit with our desires and longings, sit with whatever stirs and strives within us. Then we allow those stirrings and strivings themselves to be cut open, revealing the wounds beneath and the hidden paths waiting to be reclaimed. If we move too quickly to action, we disrupt the process. So we must patiently and gently hold the seeds. We must attend to our inner needs so that what our souls want to grow can most fully align with the conditions of our lives when the time for growing comes. In spite of the stirrings of transition, now is not the time for decisions or answers. We are still incubating our new selves in the dark.

I was reminded of Coyo’s words as Father Felix gave the homily: immediately following Christ’s baptism, this most sacred spiritual initiation, he was led by God into the desert where he fasted for 40 days and nights. Isolated. Exposed. Incubated. Even Christ had questions and doubts. Even Christ experienced the void.

Bare bones honest: as a teenager and young adult I was never going to find the assurances I was seeking in my childhood faith, but there’s no way I could have known that then. The issues weighing on my heart at that time weren’t questions of belief so much as questions of life that I was making God responsible for because I didn’t know where else to turn. At eighteen I felt powerless and like so many vulnerable, lost souls, I placed my trust in someone, in many other someones, who, in order to save me gladly took from me the power I didn’t realize I had. But even my odyssey into evangelical Christianity was a sign of a deeper misalignment. I was never going to find answers in any religion, really, because that’s not what religion is for. We can only find our answers in direct relationship with the Sacred— in deep, abiding connection with ourselves. Faith is the tool we use to express our innate understanding of sacredness. Ironically, I have heard this core message, in one convoluted form or another, in nearly every church and spiritual center I’ve ever been part of. I am only now beginning to understand.

Ash Wednesday turned out to be a day full of great meaning and insight. And for the 46 days and nights of Lent, I will be paying attention. Sitting in quietude and stillness, I will, as Rainer Marie Rilke suggests, lean into and learn to love the questions stirring within. In spite of the darkness of the void, I feel open to releasing the jigsaw puzzle of my past to this newly emerging self still sleeping in her seed.  

 Views from the Lorian Community publishes essays from a team of volunteer writers expressing individual experiences of a long term, committed practice of Incarnational Spirituality (and the general principles shaping such a practice.) Views expressed do not necessarily reflect the sentiments or thoughts of any other person in Lorian or of Lorian as a whole. If you would like to subscribe, please visit our website and click on Follow Our Blog Via Email. Or email the editor:drenag@lorian.org

Your Calling is to be Here

By Julie Spangler

"Your calling is to be here. There is no higher mission, for each of us is a gateway that can open to allow the Beloved to step through. To give expression to the Beloved, to be that gateway, is why the universe appeared. It is the ultimate Call." —David Spangler

One day when my daughter Kaiti was about 5 years old we were driving home together, just the two of us. As often happens at such times when we are alone with our children, our conversation was more intimate than usual. Sometimes personally, sometimes philosophically, sometimes answering questions. . .. The question that came up that day was "Who is your favorite child?"

Anyone who has more than one child does their best to not play favorites. For me, with our four kids, there was not one that was better than another. Sure they were all different from each other, and each provided his or her own challenges designed to push parental buttons. But each one is equally treasured for who they are, unique and individual. And each child reflected his and her own individuality even before birth, each one coming in with their own personality and their own different individual needs.

So I was always aware that this particular child came in with a need to feel special. Kaiti once told me that she, the third among four,  should have been an only child. I thought this recognition of her need for complete attention was a remarkably astute bit of self awareness for one so young. (And I reminded her that in that case she should have chosen a different family, as her brothers were here first. . .which gave her pause.)

So this day, on this drive, when this child asked me, "Who do you love the most?". . . many responses ran through my mind:  the diplomatic "I have no favorite, of course!"; the tease, "Aidan!" (wink, wink), the affirming, "You are my favorite.", or even the tuneful, "The one I am with." What I did instead was ask her a question back. "Are you wanting me to say you, sweetie?"

Her answer surprised me a bit at first, but then it didn't. "No!" she said, tearing up, "Because I would feel bad for the others if you loved me more!" We went on to discuss the different ways we love and the ways we can love different people. The love may not be exactly the same, but it is quantitatively just as much.  

We all need to feel that we matter. Some traditions liken this need to egotism, an over-inflated sense of self which we must guard against: "I need to be more important than everyone else." It is maybe there in some part of the ID or even part of the survival coding in our DNA. But I think the need to matter is also embedded in the inborn function which creates identity— that part of us which can say not only "I AM" but also "I AM HERE". It gives rise to the need to be seen, to be loved,  and is a response to the deep innate need to be part of something that is bigger than us.   

In his book The Call, David Spangler says that we matter because we are here and especially when we can be fully consciously here. The call to be part of something bigger than ourselves is actually the call that was answered by us when we took life. And that call is, to quote David, " the call to treasure and value and love one another and all the other creatures and things of the earth. It is the call to acknowledge and to act from that knowledge that each person is just as valued and just as loved as the next, and all are invited to participate in the communion of that love. . .."

A deep call from spirit may not be a call to do something specific and spectacular. It may simply be a call to show up and love. In our home, which ever of our children shows up when the front door opens and they come in, a warm and loving shout of greeting meets them. When we show up, love is there to greet us, and we matter.  

"The call actually comes from the person standing in front of you, who in their heart of hearts is saying "Will you ...value me?...Will you see the sacred in me, the sovereignty in me?  It is my action in response to that call that draws me into a loving space.  It is what opens me to experience the background call of the universe."  —David Spangler

Do you feel that you are of value to our world and that you have something to contribute? Would you like to deepen your understanding of how you matter? Join us on March 1 for a free teleclass on The Journey Into Fire, where we will explore our unique, human journey. For more information or to sign-up, click here.

    

Be Still--But Don't Freeze

By Mary Reddy 

I live in the north. It is winter. I wake up hours before dawn and think about what it means to begin anew. The house is especially quiet on winter mornings. No open window means I hear no birds clamoring to announce the sunrise, no soft soughing of wind through the woods. Through my window, I cannot yet see the mountains on the horizon, but I know they are heavily wrapped in white, resting meditatively beneath a chilly cloud cover. 

Stillness belongs to winter. I look to these quiet morning hours for insight, a time to reflect. How do I want to re-orient my life? Everything seems possible at this still point of winter and yet, in the habitual march of the minutes and hours of my days, I see everything old continuing. Each moment replicates a history of daily moments that stretches back for years. The way I move to brew my coffee, the way I choose to sit in the same spot to drink it, next to the reading lamp near the big window that opens in these pre-dawn hours onto darkness. The way I greet my husband when he rises, the handful of breakfast foods I choose to eat, the particular sweater that I am drawn to wear this morning out of a handful of sweaters whose colors comfort me. I am woven into a net composed of so many repeated moments, of actions and interactions. Sometimes I feel them like a weight on my shoulders. How much can I truly change?

But that heaviness is fleeting. I recognize it as part of a cultural story we tell ourselves every January about self-improvement through discipline and making resolutions for change. That story posits a never-ending tug-of-war between habits or routine and desires to improve and begin anew. Instead, I think in terms of course corrections.

What do we know about change? In our human experience, we may say change requires a certain kind of movement through time. Let’s say its opposite is inertia. Yet inertia is not necessarily a state of immobility. I learned to my delight in high school physics that it’s the tendency of matter to continue as is, whether resting or in motion, until or unless an external force intervenes to change. Everything old continuing is a kind of inertia. 

Seems we cannot hold completely still, ever. My brothers and I used to play a game when we were young. Out on the grassy lawn on a long summer day, we’d start spinning like tops, spinning but also trying to move laterally as well. Zig-zagging around, trying to avoid a collision with a tree or each other, we’d laugh out loud with dizzy delight. The more frenzied the movement, the better. Then one of us would yell “Freeze!” and we’d stop abruptly, desperately trying to hold whatever contorted position our spinning body was in at the moment the command was issued. Of course, utter stillness was impossible. The winner was the one who only wobbled a little but stayed upright, the one who did not fall down. 

The stillness of winter still contains movement. It’s only a veil covering the energies of change that continue to move and work their magic. Outside, the cold darkness knows it will give way to a wintry, filtered sunlight. The apparent silence of trees belies the low chanting of their roots, which will in time become a singing up into the boughs. The plants in my yard, invisible at the moment, will face daylight in faded amber and dun colors against an evergreen background. Their activity, though invisible to me, is no less vital than the above-ground growth in spring. And inside, the house waits for me, for the call-and-response of the coming day, when I’ll clatter about while my table calmly holds stacks of things to read and my rug continues to talk to me about medallions and pomegranates.   

Movement, time, inertia, the external forces that shift course, disrupt inertia and thereby create the new—how does this play out in my life? Inertia cannot resist an external force. The force I apply to the habitual march of the minutes and hours of my days is one of presence and love. To be in relationship with the boiling water, roasted coffee beans and coffee cup, with my favorite sweater, with my sleepy husband, with the lovely imagery of the rug and the patient window awaiting dawn’s light—to be present to all opens me up to wonder. Wonder invites hope. Hope stirs longing. My exquisite longing for a loving and peaceful world stands in contrast to its current chaotic state.

Sometimes, course corrections are all that we need. But these days threaten an upheaval. Events are disrupting the possibility of “everything old continuing”; globally, the prospect of chaos looms, whether in uncertain international relationships or challenging shifts in weather patterns. Rudolf Steiner, in his agriculture lectures, said, “If ever we want to make the forces of the cosmos effective in our earthly realm, we must drive the earthly as far as possible into a state of chaos.” The apparent stillness of winter may itself be an incubator of chaos, of the dark formless precursor to the seed’s bursting forth into a new form of being. Apparently frozen in a polarized state of increasing hate and conflict, we teeter on the brink of something new. I recognize in that frozen state our so-human resistance to change. Going out to meet the change breaks the ice. Hope teaches us how to balance on the chaotically shifting floes. Balance, like hope, is internal.

David Spangler recently wrote, “Hope doesn't arise from what's happening around us. It arises from us, from who we are, from what we can do and how we can engage the world.  We are the creators of possibilities and potentials; we make the opportunities for something new and better to emerge in our world.” In the face of this uncertain year, I find stillness in the eye of the hurricane. I connect with the power of my own hope for a better world. And it’s not a passive thing. I am charged with the power to meet change with love and a vision of a new world. Poised in the still center, I am ready for whatever it takes. 

 Views from the Lorian Community publishes essays from a team of volunteer writers expressing individual experiences of a long term, committed practice of Incarnational Spirituality (and the general principles shaping such a practice.) Views expressed do not necessarily reflect the sentiments or thoughts of any other person in Lorian or of Lorian as a whole. If you would like to subscribe, please visit our website and click on Follow Our Blog Via Email. Or email the editor:drenag@lorian.org.

 

The Knight Of Fiery Hope

By David Spangler

A Visitation

I was sitting on a sofa in my home reading when a non-physical being abruptly appeared in the air in front of me. While this in itself was not unusual for me, the appearance of this being was. He looked like a knight out of a storybook, clad in shining golden armor, his face hidden within its helmet. On its chest burned a flame, as bright and radiant as a piece of sunlight. He said clearly, “I am a Knight of Fiery Hope! I speak to all humans. You are not entering a darkened age. You are entering a time when the Light of your creative spirit can manifest new vision and new life. Be what I am. Let fiery hope, not despair or fear, shape your world.” Having delivered this message, this being then disappeared.

As always when dealing with subtle beings, the felt sense behind an encounter or communication is at least as important, and sometimes more so, than the actual words that are used. The thought processes of such beings are invariably dense with interconnections and meanings, far more than can be accurately reproduced in a few lines of linear text. In this case, I was aware that what this being was saying had little to do with the future. He wasn’t saying, “Have hope for the future” or “Have hope because everything’s going to work out and your planetary problems will all be solved.” Rather he was describing a creative presence and potential within us—something “fiery” in the sense of being active and dynamic and something that holds open the door of possibility.

The Nature of Hope

Hope does not depend on external or outer events. There certainly can be and are hopeful things happening in the world that are seeds of change, of goodwill, of compassion, of vision and creativity. But many of the events reported in all the various media that now bring news of the world into our lives are not hopeful and can lead people to feel hopeless and helpless.

No, hope doesn't arise from what's happening around us. It arises from us, from who we are, from what we can do and how we can engage the world. We are the creators of possibilities and potentials; we make the opportunities for something new and better to emerge in our world.

Hope that lives in an individual because that person has a powerful vision and understanding of his or her generative and sovereign nature is important. It's the kindling from which Fiery Hope takes flame. But the "fire" of Fiery Hope, that which enables it to be a force for change in the world, is fed by connection and relationship, partnership and collaboration. It is a flame rising out of what we do together as well as what we do as individuals. 

A holistic vision of the world that includes acknowledgement of the subtle realms expands the possibilities of partnership to include not just other humans but the realms of nature as well, and it expands them to include not just physical beings but non-physical allies, too. It offers a scope for collaboration that is truly breath-taking. In so doing, it holds up the potential that the creative, life-changing, life-affirming "flame" of Fiery Hope can burn more brightly and more powerfully than we may have ever imagined before. We become participants in a world of Hope, bringing it into being, rather than victims in a world of hopelessness.

Fiery Hope

“Fiery Hope” is an affirmation that we are a source of hope because we are—or can be—a source of change and new vision. A particular course of events may be inevitable, but our response to it is not. We can respond in ways we could not have predicted or that a simple description of the event would have predicted.

Hope isn’t a wish; it’s an inner capacity, first to be open to possibilities for action and vision that refuse to be circumscribed or defined by circumstances and which thus can be transformative in the moment, and second, to add our energy to bring those possibilities to life through action of some nature. It is “fiery” because it taps into our passion, our commitment, our intentionality, our spirit.

Hope can change the future by opening us to new possibilities and choices which can make a difference; but just as importantly, hope can change ourselves. It can change how we meet events that cannot in themselves be changed for one reason or another but which can be altered in their effects by how we respond, especially by how we work together and care for each other. Hope can make us resilient as well as creative. It is “fiery” because in honoring ourselves and what we are capable of doing, we can burn away hopelessness and the sense of helplessness that comes with it.

Those of us of a certain age will remember Ecotopia, a utopian novel published in 1975. It tells the story of a new country formed when Washington, Oregon, and northern California break away from the rest of the United States in order to create a nation founded on ecological principles and technologies. It was hugely influential in the burgeoning ecological and environmental movements of the time. When its author, Ernest Callenbach, died, he left behind a farewell letter. It discusses the many ecological challenges and other difficulties facing humanity. He then asks the question, “Although we may not be capable of changing history, how can we equip ourselves to survive it?”His answers include mutual support, teamwork, altruism, working on behalf of the common good, and the “enormously creative” power of collaborative thinking, all things I’ve discussed over the years in various writings. But the number one survival quality on his list is hope. Hope makes all the other things possible by opening us to them.

Views from the Lorian Community publishes essays from a team of volunteer writers expressing individual experiences of a long term, committed practice of Incarnational Spirituality (and the general principles shaping such a practice.) Views expressed do not necessarily reflect the sentiments or thoughts of any other person in Lorian or of Lorian as a whole. If you would like to subscribe, please visit our website and click on Follow Our Blog Via Email. Or email the editor:drenag@lorian.org.

Dear Dorothy

By Freya Secrest and Friends

Our friend Dorothy Maclean is 97 this month and we celebrate a friend whose life and work has highlighted the sacredness within all incarnate life. If the work of Dorothy Maclean is new to you, perhaps the following reflections (from workshop participants and dear friends) will give you some idea of the impact she has had on those who know her and encourage you to explore for yourself through her books what she has offered to the world.

I think the way you, Dorothy, have touched my life the most deeply has been through your unwavering knowing of your relationship with God, the God Within. As you told my son once in a conversation at the dinner table, “I don’t have faith there is a God, I don’t believe there is a God, I know there is God.” In a time when using the word ‘God’ is often shied away from as outdated or limited, you have not been afraid to speak of your lived experience because the God you know is the “life force in everything.”

For me, your power as a model is that you held ‘ordinary’ and ‘mystic’ together, one experience strengthening the other. Sheena, your own teacher/mentor gave you the affirmation to trust in your inner knowing and follow its path and you have passed that gift along to all you have touched, from friends and family to the public through your many presentations, books and workshops. By stepping forward to share your encounters of the Joy, the Love and the Truth of the God Within, others, including myself, are affirmed in their own direct experience; we are stronger and the world is richer for it. You are a treasure! Happy Birthday, my friend – Freya Secrest

 “Thank you so much for the gift of your time. Your message of Love and God is a service to the world.”

Dorothy, one of my fondest memories of you is watching you swing on the hammock strung between two of our trees out our driveway. You were here holding a workshop. You were 89 or 90 I believe, an icon for me of aging with beauty, joy, and grace. When I first read about you and Findhorn in the seventies I felt connected. Close friends knew of my sense of you and gave me your various books of “messages” over the years.

When I found you holding a class in Issaquah I was there immediately, soaking you in. Your training with your inner guidance teacher was similar to my training, your connection with the Devas more lyrical than mine, yet I could always resonate with your truth deep inside me. I loved that you are a “just do it” kind of person and teacher. And I still use your technique of connecting with Awe, Beauty, and Love with clients to help them find a “God connection”.  

Although I was already communicating with plants, being in your presence cemented it into me and helped me to expand my exploration. That you love trees so deeply and were able to communicate their love to the human realm was truly inspirational. Oh my, I still read from your books and every one of your writings brings me reconnection and joy. How ordinary and extraordinary you are! –Christy Carl

Dorothy Maclean with Claire Blatchford

Dorothy Maclean with Claire Blatchford

“I found myself coming more and more into my true nature and seeing everything and everyone as beautiful, including me.”

As I read your book Choices of Love, so many passages remind me, Dorothy, of your wonderfully blue eyes, how you encourage as well as challenge all who speak with you, your incredibly tender tone with all that seeks to grow or share this earth with us, your interest in all spirituality that is eminently practical, and your abiding love for God:

"We (Eileen, Peter and Dorothy) have been taken as models, and our ordinariness is our strength: if we can touch something divine—and we did—then anyone can. The point is that anyone can. We are part of the sacred all the time unconsciously, or we could not draw breath or have a heartbeat or experience emotions or thoughts. To be aware of what we are, of our divinity, and to live it on earth is our loving destiny."

"…when I followed constant inner reminders to do everything with love, I felt better, things worked out, relationships with others improved. I have experienced many examples of the practicality of choosing love or connecting with the soul level and of how the results of these choices changed my life."

"Choosing love does not mean that we lose all discrimination or cease acting on behalf of the whole or of any particular situation. More clearly than ever we are open to recognizing inequalities, cruelties, harshness, and so on, and to taking any action for which we can be responsible. We need to follow our inner integrity with greater faithfulness than ever. We commit ourselves to the whole, to the planet."

Thank you for the endless nourishment within the story of your life, your faithfulness to your chosen path AND your wicked sense of humor!  May you have a joyous birthday and all the cake you crave!–Claire Blatchford

“Thank you so very much for the loving workshop. I loved being in your presence and hearing your stories- so human and real. I see what a life committed to God and Love can look like – kind eyes.”

Dorothy, you have always been a model for me of loving the earth, and listening to earth wisdom, in deeply practical and real ways. That practical aspect has been so important to me. When I was first starting to explore spirituality back in the 1970’s at Findhorn, I found plenty of resources for learning about the spiritual concepts that I responded to intuitively. But there you were, saying, “Where do you find joy, and beauty? Just listen to the flowers.  Listen to the vegetables. Listen to the soil, the mountains, the landscape, the water, the clouds. Listen to the God within.” You had even listened to the Rue deva!  

You helped me to understand that these spiritual concepts weren’t only beautiful and uplifting ideas, they were living presences that could shape my life. I loved your no-nonsense honesty. It gave me permission to be my Self, and have my own experience of spirit.  I am still learning how to do that.

Thank you, Dorothy, for being in the world. Thank you for your own inimitable unique presence. I am so glad and honored to know you.  Happy Birthday! With so much love. –Rue Hass

“What worked well for me (during this workshop)? Dorothy - her presence, her voice, her reading, her smile, her bright blue eyes, her laughter.”

Whenever I think of you, Dorothy, I think of yellow, of basking in warm sunlight. The first time I met you was at a weekend class with David. Your book, To Honor the Earth, had recently been published and you came to share it with us. You wore yellow and you glowed. I knew your name and relationship with Findhorn, but only in a superficial way.  As years past we came to know each other, first as participants in some of David’s workshops, then as friends. I might have been in awe of you but there was nothing about your no-nonsense, down-to-earth presence that would allow for that.

We shared a wonderful and adventurous weekend when we went to the annual Fairy and Human Relationship Congress together. You were offering a workshop and participating in a panel discussion. On the rural road to the Congress, we stopped for a white male peacock who stood in the middle of the road. He unfurled his magnificent tail and displayed before us in the morning sun. Time did not matter in the presence of that magic.  And I will always remember our drive home, you and I in our little silver car whizzing down the ribbon of highway, the Cascade Mountains on either side, with Beethoven’s 8th Symphony and the 3rd Leonora Overture playing as loud as we wanted, both of us grinning.  Shining, full of life, ready for adventure - that is how I know you, Dorothy.– Madelyn P.

Happy Birthday, Dorothy. This month, and always, we celebrate you!

If you would like to “meet” Dorothy and experience her wisdom, please visit the Lorian Bookstore. Lorian also offers a self-study module with recordings of one of Dorothy’s workshops in which she leads you through her “Doorways” exercise.

9-11 and 11-9

By Annabel Chiarelli

Editor’s Note: The Lorian Association, as spiritual community, is nonpartisan, but our writers and readers come from diverse social and political backgrounds. With the nation so divided and the future on nearly everyone’s minds, it’s inevitable that some of our blog posts may reflect certain political leanings. Always our goal is to promote an Incarnational viewpoint. In the upcoming weeks we will be publishing blog posts from both liberal and conservative perspectives that offer insight into how real people in our nation are coming together and bridging divisions, even and especially the ones within themselves.

Tarot friends of mine have pointed out the correspondences between 9/11 and 11/9 and the burning, collapsing Tower card.

two-towers11

In many ways, this election and its evolving aftermath remind me of my 9/11 experience, but not in the way you might think.

I was working in an office just 4 blocks away from the Twin Towers and was one of the many people escaping in that beige cloud of dust and particles that enveloped the whole area. We literally could not see two feet in front of us.
 
Rumors were flying, and as far as we knew there were other planes set to bomb all the major landmarks in New York. People were scared— to say the least.

And yet, in the midst of this tragedy and terror I felt the energy of fiery hope and joy–not the ordinary emotion, but the joy that is at the root of the generative mystery. I saw beautiful acts of humanity.

The director of my office, a family man with young children, had gone downstairs before the first tower collapsed to see what was going on and saw the towers burning with people jumping out of the windows. He could have easily cut and run to save himself for his family’s sake, but instead he came back upstairs to do his duty as the fire marshall of our floor, to warn everyone to evacuate immediately.

The building supers and doormen who waited in the lobby and handed out masks to all of us as we emerged from the stairwell.

The people who came with their private boats to help evacuees who lived in New Jersey get home.

The cabs who offered people free rides uptown.

The shopkeepers who handed out bottles of cold water to those of us covered in dust, making our way home on foot.

Our defenses were down and we were there for each other. Yes, there were a few people who thought only of themselves, a few shopkeepers who tried to take advantage of the situation by price gouging, but the vast majority stepped up and responded with love and human kinship. We were all in it together.

In a city where people go out of their way to avoid interacting with strangers, you could talk with anyone on the street and feel like you were talking with a friend. This most horrible day of my life was also in a strange way the most beautiful.
 
Right now a good portion of our country is caught up in anger and panic on the one hand, and gloating and denial on the other. I understand how that feels. Right after 9/11 and the spiritual epiphany of that day, the enormity of what had happened landed in my psyche with a huge thud and I descended into a dark period of worry and terror and rage. (Watching the news didn’t help.) I was furious with those who tried to lecture me about how this was karma, the result of U.S. foreign policy. I was furious with the perpetrators and with the people I saw on TV apparently ululating with joy. I was scared to ride the subway, sure that would be the next target. I was scared to go anywhere there might be a crowd.

But there was also some part of me that knew I couldn’t go on like that. Some part of me that knew that that wasn’t who I really am, who I wanted to be. “The Scream” (David Spangler’s name for negative energy on earth generated by human hatred, wars, rage, etc.) is powerful, and it feeds off of and abets our negative energies and emotions, but the Light is equally powerful, much more so in my experience. I think of that line by Leonard Cohen, “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in,” and that has proven to be true for me over and over again, through the dark times I’ve been through, even the one that most traumatized me and shook my sense of safety and identity.
 
What I mean is that I’ve found it to be very hard work to dwell in anger and fear over the long term. The Light is always looking for any little crack to get in and it takes a lot of work to keep pushing it away. It took me a very long time to understand this, but I came to see that all I had to do was let the cracks open, to not resist under the misconception that somehow my fear or my anger would make me safer or stronger.
 
I am well aware of the ugly facts and the potential dangers that we face. But I am also a “responder,” a servant of Gaia and of humanity, and this is where the rubber meets the road. The principles of Incarnational Spirituality aren’t just intellectual concepts, they are very real presences. David hadn’t even articulated them yet, but I didn’t need that mental framework to know in my deepest self that they were there for us on 9/11 and they are here for us now.
 
However you are feeling about the election, I share my experience with you in the hope that you consider allowing the cracks in your life to open where the Light can get in. That is where real strength and courage and safety dwells.

Happy Holidays! Views from the Lorian Community is taking a short hiatus to honor the season and will be back in January 2017. Much gratitude to all of our subscribers, readers and followers on Facebook for your support this year!

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Views from the Lorian Community publishes essays from a team of volunteer writers expressing individual experiences of a long term, committed practice of Incarnational Spirituality (and the general principles shaping such a practice.) Views expressed do not necessarily reflect the sentiments or thoughts of any other person in Lorian or of Lorian as a whole. If you would like to subscribe, please visit our website and click on Follow Our Blog Via Email. Or email the editor:drenag@lorian.org.

And There Was Light

By Claire Blatchford, Art by Deborah Koff-Chapin

Shortly after the election I felt the need to reconnect with someone I admire, someone whose way of being in the world has always been an inspiration to me. I’ve actually never met this man in person—only through his writings—yet regard him as a close friend.

 Jacques Lusseyran may also be familiar to some of you. He is best known for his book And There Was Light. He was born in Paris in 1924 and became totally blind from an accident when eight years old. Yet he discovered early on as a child that, although he couldn’t see in the usual way with his physical eyes, he could still see. And this “seeing” could grow, expand, and move in different directions. Here is how he describes the start of this discovery in his memoir:

I began to look more closely, not at things, but at a world closer to myself, looking from an inner place to one further within, instead of clinging to the movement of sight toward the world outside.

Immediately the substance of the universe drew together, redefined and peopled itself anew. I was aware of a radiance emanating from a place I knew nothing about, a place that might as well have been outside me as within. But radiance was there, or, to put it more precisely, light. It was a fact, for light was there.

I felt indescribable relief, and happiness so great it almost made me laugh. Confidence and gratitude came as if a prayer had been answered. I found light and joy at the same moment, and I can say without hesitation that from that time on light and joy have never been separated in my experience. I have had them or lost them together.

I saw light and went on seeing it though I was blind.

This may sound rather poetical to you-- Jacques’ writing is full of poetry—but for me, when I was 28 and first read of his different way of “seeing”—his words were more than merely lyrical, they rang true.  I, myself, am not blind but am profoundly deaf. Like Jacques I lost my hearing suddenly at a young age and began my journey into the discovery that there are many ways of hearing even if one’s physical ears are damaged. The larger discovery, though, was that I, too, found confidence and gratitude in the “radiance” Jacques describes. I was unable to name this radiance, this light, as he did till much later in my life. We can know and yet not know something-- and when I first read his book -- my immediate response was, “Yes, I am pretty sure I know what he’s talking about!”  This is why I go back to his words, and the way he lived out his understanding of and connection with light, that light which can be found within each and all of us, and especially when the darkness feels pronounced. As it does now in these confusing times.

Image Courtesy of Deborah Koff-Chapin at http://touchdrawing.com/deborah/

Image Courtesy of Deborah Koff-Chapin at http://touchdrawing.com/deborah/

In his book Jacques describes being able to “see” objects by way of the inner light. Because of it he was able to find his way not only around his home and the neighborhood he lived in, but when walking in the mountains as well.  The light stimulated other forms of seeing within him. For example, in his home or neighborhood, the felt sense of familiar objects around him, their placement, the spaces between them and their light-- for all that is incarnated has light-- enabled him to “see” and thus to move with confidence. When in the mountains an even deeper seeing was awakened in such a way Jacques could instinctively see the rise and fall of the land. He struggled to explain this seeing to his best friend who had normal eyesight:

The reality—the oneness of the world—left me in the lurch, incapable of explaining it, because it seemed obvious. I could only repeat: “There is only one world. Things outside only exist if you go to meet them with everything you carry in yourself. As to the things inside, you will never see them well unless you allow those outside to enter in."

Especially helpful to me was Jacques’ discovery that, if he was angry or fearful, in short wasn’t attuned to the light, he had great difficulty, stumbled, banged into things, was unable to find his way. He showed me how I can become altogether deaf when I’m out of sorts, lacking in gratitude, oblivious to the radiance in the world and myself.

When Jacques was fifteen, Paris was invaded and the German occupation began. A year later, with a few close friends, he formed and headed an underground resistance movement of six hundred youths. Because of what his comrades called his “sense of human beings”  Jacques was chosen to interview all recruits. He could “see” into men, could see the light or the dark of the thoughts they held in their hearts. Being able to use this seeing for the good of his country guided him day by day.

I was madly happy to be doing this work, to have men in front of me, to make them speak out about themselves, to induce them to say things they were not in the habit of saying because these things were set too deep in them—suddenly to hear in their voices the note above all others, the note of confidence. This filled me with assurance that was very like love. Around me it drew a magic circle of protection, a sign that nothing bad could happen to me. The light that shone in my head was so bright, and so strong that it was like joy distilled. Somehow I became invulnerable.

From there Jacques’ story took him into Buchenwald after the one man he was uncertain about was recruited, and later betrayed Jacques and his comrades to the Nazis. That he came out alive-- though mere skin and bones-- and went on to become husband, father, university professor and writer was a testament to the Light within.

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I hope at this point that I don’t sound as though I’m just writing a review of a book which is both luminous and incredibly suspenseful. What became clear to me as I tracked down my heavily underlined copy  is how very important the admiration connection is right now. It’s said we become what we admire. In this time of ugly words, thoughts and deeds I feel the need like a hunger: to draw close to the enlightened words, thoughts and deeds of those I admire —here and on the other side too.

Jacques’ discoveries as a blind man not only helped me make sense of my discoveries as a deaf woman, helping me to connect with the essential wholeness that is within everyone of us even if physically different or chronically ill, they showed how we can be blind and deaf in more ways than the physical. The conditions we are in can blind and deafen us to the light within and without.  Jacques’ message is more relevant now than ever: And There IS Light!

How are you finding Hope these days and kindling the Light within? Please email responses to drenag@lorian.org.