Lorian as a Contemporary Mystery School

Editor’s Note: The following is a conversation between David Spangler and James Tousignant for Lorian’s Uncommon Conversations podcast. This transcript has been edited for clarity and the introductory and ending material in the audio version of the podcast has been omitted. You can learn more about the Uncommon Conversations podcast and subscribe here.

David: William Bloom sent out an interesting e-letter to his mailing list called “What is a Contemporary Mystery School?” When I read it, I thought this is a very good description of both the situation we're in vis à vis where people would have been 1000, 2000 years ago when the mystery schools were flourishing, and also he gives a précis of what a possible curriculum might look like. I couldn't help but be struck by the similarity and correspondences between what he’s suggesting and what we're actually doing in Lorian.

James: I found that to be the case as well, David. I know you sent it out to the faculty and board and most of the comments were - Doesn't he realize that Lorian already is meeting most if not all of the requirements that he laid out in his paper?

David: Yes. I honestly don't know how conversant William is with what Lorian’s doing.

William and I have had a good relationship and friendship for many, many years, but our paths are focused in different ways. He’s been very focused on the healing arts. I have been very impressed with what William does, I think he is one of the leading spiritual teachers in Britain at the moment. So I don't know if he had Lorian in mind–probably not–when he wrote this because he certainly has his own background in the esoteric and occult arts.

I think perhaps where William and I might diverge–and I say that with some hesitation because I don't know his full thinking in this area–but where I would be differing from this is that I would not choose to use the term “Mystery School” to describe what it is we're doing, for reasons that he actually brings up in the beginning of his paper when he talked about what's different between the contemporary scene and 2000 years ago, or 1000 years ago, when the Mystery Schools flourished in different cultures. One of the things he brings up is the fact that there just aren't any secrets anymore, that the things that the Mystery Schools taught are now common knowledge because they're represented in thousands of books and classes.

When I first heard about the mystery schools, I was in my late teens or early 20s and my response was, “Boy, I'd really like to join one of those!” because I was fascinated with the idea of probing the mysteries and gaining access to hidden knowledge and so on. Looking back on that now from 50 years of perspective I realize this is the spirit that I try to bring into Lorian–to realize that the world itself is our mystery school. 

I become suspicious of anything that draws a boundary that says, this is a special domain, and if you enter this special domain, you will gain special knowledge. And in some ways, there’s a kind of separation between the initiate and his or her world. And I realized that that's just a surface perception because if a Mystery School is actually successful, if it's a genuine Mystery School in the sense that it's genuinely introducing individuals to the great spiritual mysteries of life, then the graduate of such a program would feel more at one with the world as a whole and with life as a whole. 

So one of the objectives of a true Mystery School is to break down the separation, to break down boundaries that exist between the individual and others, or between our human nature and the non-human world. But nevertheless, there still exists this glamour around the idea. There's still this sense of, well, if you're participating in a Mystery School, that must make you something pretty special [chuckles]. And you see that in advertisements–it’s not that we actually lack for Mystery Schools these days. There are some…what I think of as more or less credible ones that have been around for 30, 40, 50 years, or more-100 years, and they spring up too when somebody decides, well, I'm going to sell myself as the Hierophant of a Mystery School [chuckles]. It still creates this sense of specialness that I think actually takes away from what the Mystery School program is trying to develop in an individual.

James: When you were talking about helping an aspirant…well, you didn’t use that word…the participant in the mysteries of life…It’s your life that’s the mystery and you're delving into your life. The specialness for me comes in recognizing the mystery of being alive and all that entails, and how I can be here within that mystery and be of service within that sense of awe and wonder of just being alive, of being incarnate.

David: Yes. And William, actually in other things that he writes and what he teaches is very good at conveying that well. My ambition has been to enable people to experience their everyday surroundings–their home, their work, whatever–as a sacred space and to find within their everyday surroundings the connections that in the past probably would have been called mystery connections, connections to the deep soul of things, or the spirit behind the appearances of matter. 

I also know and I appreciate the value of getting out of our ordinary routines and our familiar places for periods of retreat or periods of study in ways that shake things up a bit and you're forced to look at things anew. I understand that it can be challenging to be sitting in your living room and see your familiar sofa that you've had for 20 years and this antique table that you grew up with that was passed down by your parents and things like that. You're so familiar with them that they have lost their sense of magic for you. It's a certain effort of will and a shift of perception to see them afresh as if they were new to you and to see them as the living presences of energy that they are. But I think that that effort of will is worthwhile, and it's what you would be taught in a Mystery School in any event [chuckles].

So, yes, let's look at what William has proposed here and compare it to what Lorian is doing and hopefully that will give a sense of the way in which we're actually implementing what he's proposed.

I love his criteria for an applicant. They are, “My heart is open, and I prioritize compassion; I have a sense of connection with the benevolent cosmic mystery; I have a sense of subtle energies, patterns and archetypes; I am humble in the face of this wondrous Cosmos; and I am responsible for myself.”

For me, it’s not just the humility. I would add to that “I have a sense of joy that I am a participant and a partner with this wondrous cosmos.” To me, that's very important.

James: In my early youth I was all excited about entering a Mystery School and getting all these mysteries. But I go down this list, and I can see that this describes me today, not as I was at 17. 

David: Yeah, that's exactly right. When I was a teenager, I was looking for things that would give me…I’m going to say it would give me power in the world, it would give me the ability to navigate my world successfully and to have influence–not ‘influence over’ necessarily, I wasn't interested in that; but I could shape things and make a difference. All of that kind of got subsumed under the notion of power. And yes, what William is proposing here doesn't have that, and that's true for Lorian, too–that we do want the people who study Incarnational Spirituality to become more effective in their lives and better able to meet the events and the opportunities and the challenges of their lives. But the idea of developing occult power over things, in some way having a dominion over the earth, so to speak, and over the subtle forces–that's not part of our curriculum, and it's not part of William’s either.

When you're 16, 17, 18, you may feel very confident. You have this sense of immortality and you have this sense of possibility, but at the same time there's a lot you don't know and you're trying to discover how to make your presence effective in the world. But when you're our age, James, we've done that in one way or another and we're looking for different things.

Well, let's look at the curriculum that William has suggested. The first thing he says is that it would offer a spiritual experience: “Using person-centered teaching methods, each student is enabled into a deepening daily practice of spiritual connection.” There's two things there that are important to me, and that I feel are there in Lorian. One is the idea of person-centered teaching. That is, I don't set myself up as a guru and nobody in Lorian does that because we see the participants in our programs as partners, and really what we want–and you've expressed this well in your classes–what we want is to empower and enable people to discover their unique sovereignty and to be able to express it. But I think through practices like the Presence exercise, the Spectrum of Love, Grail Space–these are all ways that we encourage people to have a daily practice of connection with the spiritual realms. So I would say we can check that one off.

James: I agree. We have books, but they're not dogma; they encourage individuals to take the exercises and make them their own. You're mostly the finger pointing to the moon.

David: That is something I try to emphasize with the exercises–that they are really more illustrations of a direction of what's possible than they are sort of rigid energy-manipulating, energy-producing technical exercises.

So the next one is reflective psychology. And here I can only speak for myself and say, this is an area where I think Lorian could offer more. But I feel that you do and Rue does, and there are certainly people in our programs who are professional psychologists and psychotherapists, but it's not my background, and so I don't approach the things that I teach through that lens. But I recognize the importance of it. Sometimes I get asked in our classes, and I know others do too, “Why don't we talk more about how to deal with trauma, how to deal with the shadow?” I have a couple of reasons why that's so. One of them is simply that the subtle beings that I work with have chosen not to put their emphasis in that direction. But I think that’s a very personal thing because of a particular kind of work that I'm called to do and that they've been doing with me. But I do feel that understanding and having tools to deal with trauma and what Jung called the shadow or the negative aspects of our personality are important. And so I look forward to that kind of knowledge being more integrated into I.S. at some point. The caution for me is to avoid psychologizing everything and in the process misunderstanding the energetic dynamics that really have little to do with our psychology, but have a lot to do with the energy state of our subtle bodies.

James: Let’s go on to esoteric meditation.

David: I wouldn't call what we offer esoteric meditation, but I think what we do offer in Lorian has the same effect which is to enhance the individual's awareness of the subtle and energetic worlds around them, and to be open to the impressions that come from that world. Classes like Working with Subtle Energies, and The Alliance Paradigm, are a large part of what is being covered there. The idea there really is just to say that we inhabit a whole world that contains both physical and non-physical elements and we have the capacity to interact with both and to integrate both. And so, let's develop those capacities. 

I know what I wanted to say earlier. It relates to this as well. It is that the resolution of psychological trauma and psychological effects is increasingly being seen as lying within the body. That is, somatic therapies and somatic forms of psychotherapy are growing. They have the advantage of restoring us to our wholeness by saying, this is how we access the whole system. I feel that would be true for how we approach our ability to access the subtle worlds–that we do it not through any specific organ or a specific part of the body, like seeing through the eyes, or hearing through the ears. But, we do it through the whole somatic field that we inhabit. That’s what we’re trying to teach people.

James: Yes, I look at the words that William uses here–“to be quiet scanners and receptors, wisely guiding and assessing subtle sensations and impressions.” It doesn't just happen while sitting on a meditation cushion. It's in my living room, it's walking down the street, it's at the grocery store.

David: The next one is the soul’s journey. William writes, “Before birth, through life, and after death, students explore the nature and purpose of this journey.” That's essentially what Incarnational Spirituality is about. So we definitely check that box.

James: Yeah, I get that as well, David. That’s our reason for being for Lorian.

David: The next one is psychism. “Students understand their own psychic interpretive mechanism and how best to manage and develop it.” This one I'm less sanguine about. Actually, I don't see a whole lot of difference myself between that and the esoteric meditation, really. For what we do at Lorian, those two get combined. It’s what you said earlier–the ability to walk down the street and be aware of the subtle forces that are at play in one's environment. I think what William’s talking about here is the development of specific psychic senses, like clairvoyance and clairaudience, in an individual.

James: I took this a little bit differently. For me, this is developing my own vocabulary, my own images. How is my soul speaking to me? How does life speak to me? And it's like, well, you speak English and I speak cockney, you know? So it might be still English, but they're slightly different dialects, right? So you would have your dialect and I would have mine.

David: Well, that's interesting, James. And looking at it, I can see why you would say that. I think that's probably right. The words “psychic" and “psychism” have very specific meanings for me coming out of my background. I've been trying to help people move away from purely psychic interpretations of things. But yes, you're quite right–that each of us does inhabit our own psychic world, our own inner world that we interpret and define in our own unique ways. And actually, that is what we teach in Lorian - don’t depend on what David says or James says or Rue or Freya, or Julie. Rather, what are the symbols, what are the images, what are the patterns that are most natural to you and that represent your relationship with the cosmos?

James: Well, that fits really well with the next one–a map of subtle dimensions and beings.

David: Yes, we do that with the understanding that all maps are conditional and provisionary and a map has never been the territory itself. We do provide, I think, fairly comprehensive maps of the possibilities and the characteristics of the various subtle dimensions and beings.

James: And then I see that we then get to take our own coloring crayons and pencils and whatnot, and color in that map with our own interpretations, our own symbols, our own images, our own sensations of our experiencing of those dimensions and beings.

David: Yes, exactly. Because the territory exists within us. We’re really mapping our own internal being as well as the larger subtle dimensions of the world around us. That's sort of the adage of “as above, so below” and the microcosm and the macrocosm reflecting each other. This is very definitely an important part of what Lorian offers.

And then he ends up with “compassionate magic and energy work.” That’s what we do with energy tending and subtle activism and Grail Space. That’s really the objective of a lot of I.S. and what Lorian teaches is to enable people to be compassionate magicians and workers with subtle energy.

Just using the outline that William has presented here, I feel that Lorian definitely falls into the category of being a contemporary Mystery School. 

But I would rather say we're a school of integrative spiritual learning of ways to become part of our world as partners and collaborators. There’s no mystery to it [chuckles].

When I read this–and it was the reason why I sent it around to the faculty and to the board–because I thought, yes, Lorian does correspond to what William is presenting here. But the actual feeling I had that prompted me to want to share it was one of pride in what we're doing and acknowledgment of the role that Lorian is playing in the world at the present time. We approach this without undue glamour–we’re not trying to puff ourselves up and say we're the new Mystery School, we're the new this or that. We’re really just getting about doing what needs to be done to help the world using the tools that we have and the knowledge that we have and empowering others to do the same. But I think we have done a good job, are doing a good job and will continue to do a good if not better job in the future. And to some extent, there is power in acknowledging that we're fulfilling a role in society that would have been fulfilled by the Mystery Schools in the past. That is the niche that we're occupying, and the service that we're offering.

There's one other side to this, though, that we haven't talked about and I would like to do so briefly. And that is the role of the aspirant, the person who has actually been admitted into the Mystery School. 

Traditionally, that was not an easy thing to do; you couldn't just show up and say, here's my 100 shekels, let me take a class. There were certain requirements. In a way, William mentions this a little bit in his entrance requirements. There is an understanding that when you enter into this course of study, it's not like attending an ordinary school where you're simply a student and you're learning information for your life. You really are taking on a mantle, you're taking on a responsibility because you’re being invested with knowledge that does give you power. It does give you influence and you need to be accountable to that and be responsible to it. 

I am sure that people, human beings being what they are, entered into Mystery Schools and ran Mystery Schools for all kinds of motives and reasons. But the ideal was that the aspirant was one who was saying, I want my life to be of service. I want my life to be a blessing to my fellow humans and to the world in which I live. 

I feel that’s the same charge that we communicate to those who participate in our programs. At one level we're offering tools that anybody could use to help improve their lives. But if you go a little deeper, and the people who take our advanced courses I feel are going deeper, you're saying, I'm taking on a mantle of service. I have a role to play in the world and that's why I'm studying this. I'm not just trying to develop myself for personal reasons, I'm acknowledging my responsibility to the rest of the world and I'm willing to make myself a partner in service to the world.

James: David, I'm smiling both inside and outside because what you're describing is what we experienced in having our conversations for the Cultivating a New Gaian Ecology year-long program within Lorian. Every individual who said yes to the program has a commitment and a calling for the work. This class is now a program of study where the individual is making a commitment to show up and take on a mantle and invest themselves in service to the world.

David: Yes, that's right. If Lorian itself in its educational program is a contemporary Mystery School, then the ChaNGE program is the most mystery schoolish part of it. [chuckles]

James: And it does require you to take some foundational skill-developing classes, to make an investment in yourself for your own development, and also to listen deeply for that “to be in service” call.

David: Exactly. Yes, individuals sign up for our programs and then suddenly realize, hey, wait a minute–I’m in a Mystery School! [chuckles]

James: Yeah, well, they will after this recording! [David laughs]. Is there anything else you'd like to address, David, in this writing? 

David: I think we’ve covered it pretty well, James, and I'm appreciative to William for his e-letter highlighting this particular topic because it definitely gave me an opportunity to appreciate exactly what we are doing, what we have, and an appreciation for all the people who are aligning their lives with I.S. and with Lorian through the Commons.

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David's Desk is my opportunity to share thoughts and tools for the spiritual journey. These letters are my personal insights and opinions and do not necessarily reflect the sentiments or thoughts of any other person in Lorian or of Lorian as a whole. If you wish to share this letter with others, please feel free to do so; however, the material is ©2023 by David Spangler. If you no longer wish to receive these letters, please let us know at info@Lorian.org.

Making All Things New

The New Year is a human invention. Although I’m sure they are aware of the changing of seasons, I doubt whether the maple trees in my backyard or the crows that sit in its branches know that a “new year” has begun. They don’t keep calendars or mark certain days as special.

But we do. The idea of “newness” is important to us. We believe in renewal, in new beginnings. We make resolutions and say that this year will be different. In our iconography, the new year is pictured as a baby, something yet to be formed, filled with potential, alive with hope.

For many years, I wrote and lectured about the idea of a New Age. Although this is a complex idea with historical antecedents and mystical and cultural overtones, at heart, it’s an expression of the same desire for newness and for making a fresh start. Whether it’s a New Year or a New Age, there is a feeling of a door opening onto new vistas and new potentials.

More importantly, what we celebrate at New Year—resonating with the idea of newness itself—is not an event in time but a power within us. We have the power to change.We have the power to make things new.

When we make our New Year resolutions, we are acknowledging this power. We may do so laughingly, recognizing that in the face of habit and inertia, change can be difficult.  We may ruefully acknowledge that the resolutions we made probably won’t survive into February, but the point is that we make them in the first place, recognizing that, whether successful or not, we do have the ability to change. We are not irredeemably tied to or shaped by our past. We are not prisoners of our history. We can begin anew.

Recognizing this ability, this power to make all things new, is particularly important at this time when humanity is being asked to make unprecedented changes on behalf of the world and our own survival. 

As an event on the calendar, the New Year will come every January 1st. But as an event in our hearts and minds, it comes each time we open to hope, to new vision, to possibility and potential, and act to be a source of newness in our lives.

May you have a blessed and wondrous New Year!

An Experiment

One of the advantages of David’s Desk being digital is that I can do things I couldn’t if it were printed. My Lorian colleague and friend, James Tousignant, and I do podcasts together. He thought it might be interesting to you, my Reader, if he and I were to have a discussion around the theme of that month’s essay and then add the audio at the end. That way, you could both read my thoughts for that month and also listen to me talk about them with James. So, without further ado, here is this month’s conversation. I hope you enjoy it and the added dimension it brings to David’s Desk.

Celebrating a Gaian Solstice Festival of Wholeness

I am sitting in the kitchen of my family home–an old log cabin from the 19th century, brought down from a Tennessee field over forty years ago and reconstructed on our land in north Alabama. It was my parents’ dream to recreate a home from another time, and to co-inhabit with deer, bobcat, raccoons, snakes, squirrels, spiders, coyotes–all who call this mountain of forests and limestone ridges home. A place where human beings are decidedly in the minority! The Winter Solstice draws near–the longest night and the shortest day. Cold wind and rain pelt against the windows, but inside I am cozy, with a roaring fire crackling in the stone fireplace, a sparkling evergreen tree bedecked with lights and ornaments in the corner, and a wreath of cedar vine, deer antlers and candles on our old oak table. All these bring me quiet warmth and good cheer on an otherwise dark and dreary December day. 

Far away, in Australia, the Summer Solstice draws near–the longest day and the shortest night. This year, the weather where Linda Engel lives is hardly different from the weather I am experiencing in Alabama. She writes that “it is hailing, heavy rain, squally winds, cold. I have the heating on…Usually I can be in my garden, but the weather is really too cold and wild to do any gardening in it. The poor plants don’t know what to do–my tomato plants are just waiting. The zucchinis and cucumbers gave up. With this wild weather I wonder if the Devas of the winds, the rain, the hail, the thunder, are a reflection of the emotions swirling around our planet.” 

Linda calls the strange weather “destabilizing” and shares how she is longing for the usual sunlight and warmth of high summer there. She adds she “always feels scattered at this time, most of my family including myself have their birthdays, lots of Christmas parties, the year is ending, people are preparing to go away, everything is hectic–so I am not settled. Too much to do.”

I was struck, reading Linda’s words, with how similar our experiences as human beings can be at this time of year, no matter what hemisphere we live in. Whether we are experiencing the ascending outward expansiveness of light and growth of summer, or the descending and inward contraction of light and dormancy of winter, or whether we live on the equator, where seasons are less defined–many of us are challenged by the incredible busyness and distractions of our cultural “holidays.” Yes, in these activated times, it is difficult to stop and breathe and simply be. 

And yet, that is what the Solstice time asks of us. “Solstice” means the “sun standing still”–a holy pause, a sacred stillness in the year. Creating an intentional sacred festival time that helps us pause and recognize and honor that point of stillness–whether it be summer or winter or something in between–this can be a much-needed gift of stability and peace in our turbulent lives and times.

At Solstice time, Gaia is breathing out in a great expansion of breath in the Southern hemisphere and breathing in and contracting in the North. But, for the planet as a whole, there is really only One Breath, one rhythmical Circle of Wholeness. The Lorian team of festival makers–Freya Secrest, Linda Engel, Ara Swanney and I, Lucinda Herring–are inspired this year to create a Circle of Wholeness, rather than the Spiral, which we had people create for last year’s Solstice celebration. We want to create a different pattern, and a gesture of movement that will invoke our deepest sense of Wholeness, and our living connection with Gaia, no matter where we are.  

It is in this Solstice spirit of rhythm and connection that we invite you to create your own Circle of Wholeness in whatever way you feel called. Allow your breath and beingness to be a center of balance and wholeness in the midst of seasonal celebrations and changing conditions.

Some of us are inspired this year to create our Circles from stones with gateways for the four directions/four seasons of the year. Some will be honoring the Sidhe and the times when humans and Sidhe gathered at stone circles around the globe to celebrate the festivals of the Earth’s year together. If you have the Card Deck of the Sidhe, you may wish to use that portable Circle in your festival time as well. You could also create a Circle that honors your allies in life–the devas and plants you love and work with, branches from a favorite tree, a circle of figures representing your beloved animals or humans. Be creative and ask for inspiration from your own piece of land or garden, and from your unseen friends and allies who would love nothing more than to join you in sacred festival making and fun.

Another inspiration: We want to encourage everyone to work in co-creative ways with the seen and unseen realms of life, in service to all. The Earth festivals are natural thresholds where we can commune with other life forms and beings of nature more easily, and, in our experience, the natural world loves to be included at festival times! Choose one ally with whom you wish to deepen your relationship in the coming year. Bring something to your Circle that intentionally invites and supports that ally to be present with you at the festival and in the year ahead. Because I am here on my Alabama land, I will be inviting the waters that inhabit the limestone caverns beneath my feet, those that pour out whenever it rains enough, rushing down the mountain in gay abandon. I am also inviting an ancient nature spirit of our forest, who once accompanied me all the way from Alabama to Orcas Island in the Pacific Northwest to be part of a workshop I was helping teach on “Spiritual Landscape.” I have lost touch with this being, and I want to find him again, and ask if he would be willing and able to help our family steward this land in ways that are regenerative and healing.

A Solstice Ritual

On the Solstice, or whenever you wish, stand at some place in your Circle, and feel your own sacred Self-Light radiating from your being. You may wish to have music playing that captures the mood and spirit of your festival experience–deep contemplative music that honors the close and holy darkness for Winter Solstice, and joyful lilting faery music for the time of greatest light at Summer Solstice. In your own time begin to walk or dance around your Circle–clockwise for those in the Northern Hemisphere and counterclockwise for those in the Southern lands. This is a Dance of Darkness and Light, one that you are creating as you make your way around the Circle, weaving the brief dark days of the North with the long light days of the South into a living Circle of Wholeness. When you feel ready, stop and stand in a sacred pause of Stillness, honoring the Solstice time. Feel your Self-Light in that pause, your unique individual sovereignty and all that you are in your power and beauty as a human being. Feel other sovereign individuals and beings standing in their Self-Light there in the Circle with you. Then open to the Light and Presence of Gaia, and the Sacred Wholeness of all existence. Stand in that Wholeness, together, present and powerful at the Still Point. Feel your allies in that Sacred Wholeness. Feel what it means to be a living emissary for Gaia in this time. Then walk or dance again around the circle, co-creating this time with Gaia, with your allies, and with each other in Sacred Emergence and Love.

For those of you who are part of the Lorian Commons, we will be creating this Circle of Wholeness together online via Zoom on December 21st, the actual Solstice day at 12 noon Pacific time. There will be Solstice seasonal sharings, music, a guided Dance of Darkness and Light with Gaia and our allies, and sharing stories over festive food and drink together. All are welcome! (See the solstice topic announcement in the Commons for more details)

Solstice Blessings be Yours!
Lucinda, Freya, Ara and Linda

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David's Desk is my opportunity to share thoughts and tools for the spiritual journey. These letters are my personal insights and opinions and do not necessarily reflect the sentiments or thoughts of any other person in Lorian or of Lorian as a whole. If you wish to share this letter with others, please feel free to do so; however, the material is ©2022 by David Spangler. If you no longer wish to receive these letters, please let us know at info@Lorian.org.

The Light is Born

This month we are celebrating the Light of the Sacred, the Light of Life. Depending on our traditions and preferences, we are celebrating the return of Light, the birth of Light, the miracle of Light, the presence of Light, or all four

In thinking about this, what interests me is the relationship between Light as a universal quality and Light as embodied and manifested in individual people such as you and me.  There is often a curious dichotomy here. In my work over the years, I have often met people who can readily accept the existence of a universal presence of Light active in the cosmos but who have difficulty accepting that this Light is in them, as well. The jump from the universal to the individual is too great to take. This may be expressed in phrases like “I’m not worthy,” “I’m no saint,” or “maybe someday, I’ll get there.”

Of course, the reality is that if Light is truly a universal quality, then it is everywhere, in everything, and in everyone. In Incarnational Spirituality, there is the concept of “Self-Light,” which is simply the Light that each of us always carries innately as part of who we are. It is our unique embodiment and expression of a universal quality. We may not recognize it, we may ignore it, we may forget about it, but it is always there, nonetheless. 

Part of the challenge of recognizing our own inner Light comes, I believe, from a dichotomy that has become part of Christian teaching. This month, Christians celebrate the birth of Christ, the Light taking flesh in the person of Jesus. The idea that the Sacred, the Source and Presence of Light, can embody in a human individual is the original incarnational spirituality. Unfortunately, early on in the history of institutional Christianity, it was proclaimed that this embodiment only ever occurred once and only in one individual, which is a denial of the very essence of Jesus’s teachings.

But it’s not only Christianity that can separate the universal from the individual. In my years in the New Age movement, it was commonplace to hear people talk about “Christ Consciousness” or the “Cosmic Christ” while leaving Jesus out of the equation. But this can leave us out of the equation, too. We are not universal people, we are specific people, with specific characteristics and connections to the world. We are the dream made flesh, not just the flesh dreaming.

Some of this was certainly in reaction to the institutional Christian teachings that made a Christed awareness and presence the exclusive property of only one person. But universalizing the Christ without also celebrating its grounding in a human person only risks perpetuating the separation between the universal and the particular. 

As long as the Light, whether I call it Christ or by some other name, is something I aspire to, it is safe. It’s “out there.” It’s the embodiment of the Light that can be scary. After all, who am I if I become the Light? Do I become more than human or other than human?  We may fail in our attempts to embody the Light only because we cannot imagine the Light as other than universal. We can’t imagine how Light can be part of our ordinary lives. It has to be extraordinary, we may feel, which means that we have to be extraordinary, too. How many of us feel up to that? What we forget is that if Light is truly a universal, cosmic quality, pervading all existence, then it is supremely ordinary and normal. To be Light is the most normal thing in the universe. It is divinely ordinary.

This is one reason I’m happy to celebrate the Christmas nativity story this month as a celebration of the mystery of the universal becoming specific, the Light becoming embodied. It is a birth, I believe, that is happening in all of us, if we will only acknowledge it.

A few years ago, for one of my classes, I developed a Self-Light exercise using the Christmas Nativity as a template. I offer it here as my gift to you this Season. May the Light be with you AND be you always!

NATIVITY SELF-LIGHT EXERCISE

Picture in your mind the nativity scene in the Christmas tradition. Three kings, shepherds, animals, Mary and Joseph, and angels are all around a crib in which a baby is lying, while in the sky above, a bright star sheds its radiance below.

Now imagine your point of view shifting from that of an observer to that of a participant in this Nativity scene. And not just any participant. You are the baby lying in the crib.

Imagine yourself lying there, warm in swaddling clothes, your loving parents looking at you from above. Kings are watching over you reverently. Shepherds are gazing upon you with awe. Animals press close to be one with you, the life of the earth surrounding you and welcoming you. Angels looking protectively and lovingly down upon you.

Feel yourself held in the gaze and love of all these people and beings. Feel yourself sinking into the warmth of the cradle. Feel yourself being embraced by Earth itself, welcoming you and rejoicing that you are here.

As you lie there, allow yourself to sink deeper and deeper into this welcome, this warmth, this love.

As you do, you feel yourself surrounded with Light, sinking into Light, your own Light expanding in response.

In the midst of this Light, you feel the Light of the Star above shining down into you, merging with your Light.

In the midst of this Light, you feel the Light of the earth below shining up into you, merging with your Light.

As you lie in this crib, surrounded by parents and angels, kings and shepherds, animals and birds, all the creatures of the world, feel the Light of the Star, the Light of the Earth and your own Light blending, becoming one. And as they do, YOU are born.

YOU, a Being of Light, one with Stars, one with Earth, one with humans and creatures and angels.

YOU, an emergence of Light, the Light that Renews, Heals, Blesses, and Unfolds the sacred within all the world.   

YOU, an embodiment of Gaia, the spirit of the whole Earth, human and non-human, land and sea.

Feel yourself as this Light.  It is your Self-Light…..your Christmas Self-Light.

As you feel this Light that you are, you rise up, no longer a baby. You have been born, and you are now a Person of Light, standing free, strong, sovereign, and connected upon the Earth, a Gaian Person.

Let this Light that you are now be a blessing to your world. 

An Experiment

One of the advantages of David’s Desk being digital is that I can do things I couldn’t if it were printed. My Lorian colleague and friend, James Tousignant, and I do podcasts together. He thought it might be interesting to you, my Reader, if he and I were to have a discussion around the theme of that month’s essay and then add the audio at the end. That way, you could both read my thoughts for that month and also listen to me talk about them with James. So, without further ado, here is this month’s conversation. I hope you enjoy it and the added dimension it brings to David’s Desk.

Gratefulness

It is impossible for me to see the moon and not rejoice in its beauty. I am so grateful that we have a moon that sails through the dark night skies, never the same, always changing, but always an ethereal beauty that makes me pause to inhale joy. What a treasure it is, and what a gift to the life of the planet, as the seas roll in and out from the shore with its irresistible pull, like lungs breathing for the planet. Would life have emerged from the birthing seas without the oceanic dance with the moon?

This photo above was shared by Heather Cox Richardson in one of her blogs this month, and I had to pause and take in this beauty. No matter what is going on in the world, there is always a chance to pause and feel grateful for the beauty and life around us. 

In his book Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer, our dear friend and brother, David Steindl-Rast, writes, “Most of us, if not all, have moments in which we are overwhelmed by a sense of belonging, of universal wholeness and holiness, in which everything makes sense…Gratefulness pervades every aspect of these experiences.” Gratefulness is the heart of our deepest experiences of the sacred.

For me, gratefulness is a full-body experience. When I focus my attention on gratefulness, my heart opens and breathes in the sacredness that is rooted in all the manifest life around me, and it is a breath rich with joy. And with that enriched breath, my boundaries both expand and thin so that my body is also the body of nature. All the life around me, seen and unseen, breathes with me, and all that shared communion sings with joy and the ‘gratefulness of prayer’. It is as though life sings hosannas to the Great Mystery, all together in harmony. Every life form is a prayer to the Sacred, and my gratefulness opens my heart to this chorus of life. Joy and love overflow into blessing.

Gratefulness is not the same as gratitude. It seems to me that gratitude is more about giving thanks for something given to me. It is transactional. But gratefulness is a state of being, a presence of love within the heart. It is a universal quality of being much like Joy and Love. It has no reason for being other than that it simply is part of the song of our souls.

This time of year in the north is the time of harvest, a time of gathering the fruits of the season’s labors and celebrating by sharing food and warmth and community.  In the US and Canada, we have Thanksgiving–a traditional time set aside to gather together and share a feast. In other countries’ traditions, there are Harvest Festivals of various kinds with similar intent. Having a special time set aside to honor and to give thanks for the abundance in our lives and for gifts given is important. In my family, it was a treasured time for the scattered uncles, aunts, and cousins to come together in the joy of just being together, sharing food, playing soccer, and laughing a lot. It was a celebration of joy and love and was always looked forward to. I can’t say enough about how important it was to us all. 

But gratefulness is an everyday state of being, an attitude of heart intentionally and mindfully open to the beauty of the world and the gifts of the sacred. Gratefulness, for life, for a body that breathes and feels, for the joy of being in a world that is so rich with beauty and vitality, is a whole-body experience. Even during pain, we can be surprised by joy and a flood of gratefulness that fills the heart to overflowing. And it is that overflowing that offers the blessing that Brother David speaks of, casting its light all around the world, joining with other lights in their blessings, for no other reason than simply because that is what we are made for as human beings. In this overflow, the whole is gifted.

I watch the moon shrink back to disappearance and rejoice again in its thin sliver of beauty, giving the stars more stage for their light to shine. This also is part of the breath of my heart’s joy–the distant twinkling beauty of the stars! And the dance goes on, the fullness of that bright full moon night light will again illuminate the dark skies…and again…and again…

Brother David also says,“To bless whatever there is, and for no other reason but simply because it is, that is what we are made for as human beings.”

Gratefulness opens me to love, and love is the blessing the heart gives the world. May your heart be filled with gratefulness and your eyes be surprised by joy in the world around you.   

David's Desk 186

David's Desk is my opportunity to share thoughts and tools for the spiritual journey. These letters are my personal insights and opinions and do not necessarily reflect the sentiments or thoughts of any other person in Lorian or of Lorian as a whole. If you wish to share this letter with others, please feel free to do so; however, the material is ©2022 by David Spangler. If you no longer wish to receive these letters, please let us know at info@Lorian.org.

Liminalities

Liminal space is the threshold between two states, neither fully here nor fully there but somewhere in transition. For someone in such a space, a “liminalite,” it can be an exciting place, full of novelty and opportunity, and it can be a terrifying place as well. The familiar and the old are falling away but the new hasn’t taken shape yet. Promise and peril seem equally possible.

All around us, if we look, we can see the seeds of a new consciousness, a new way of being in the world, beginning to appear, taking root, forming sprouts. Some are more robust than others; some, like the seeds in Jesus’s parable, have fallen on inhospitable soil and others on fertile soil.  

Although this new consciousness is taking many forms as it experiments with what works and what doesn’t, two elements are consistent. It is global in its outreach and its concern, exhibiting a compassionate caring for all life, and it takes a long-term approach to human and planetary affairs. That is, its vision is not captured by the short-term but considers the long-term consequences of our decisions and actions, believing us responsible not only for our own immediate welfare but that of our distant descendants, hundreds of years in the future. What kind of world are we leaving for them?

This new consciousness, which I choose to call a “Gaian consciousness” to reflect its planetary inclusiveness, is still in the background of human affairs; it has not yet coalesced sufficiently as a compelling and necessary worldview to change the course of human affairs. And, unfortunately, it might never do so. That is up to us, to the choices we make and to the vision we hold of the world we wish to inhabit.

However, the evidence is piling up around the globe that the institutions, habits, and ways of being that humanity has developed over the past two and a half millennia do not have the capacity to hold and express this new consciousness. They are creaking at the seams and breaking as a new world emerges around us. They are increasingly proving unequal to the task of gracefully and successfully meeting the challenges of this liminal period.

What is sad and dangerous about this time is that, seeing that what we have isn’t working, there is a reaction to replace it not with something new but with something older and familiar. We see this in the rise of autocratic rule around the globe, including the Western democracies, and in authoritarian leanings in the United States. It is a reversion to hierarchy instead of networking, to power over rather than power with. It is an impulse born of fear and a longing for stability and the known, an impulse that confuses conformity with safety. It is an impulse that values winning over collaboration. It is an impulse that would impose a monoculture, stifling differences of belief and custom, forgetting or ignoring that monocultures are highly vulnerable to change and never survive in nature.

Being a liminalite is not easy. Depression, hopelessness, anxiety, and cynicism can be daily challenges. But at the same time, being a liminalite means being open to creativity and opportunity, open to hope and vision, open to thinking and acting outside the box.  While we may be living in liminal times, we don’t need to be liminal in ourselves, caught between old and new. We can embody our vision of the new right now. If our vision is of a world of ecological wholeness, compassion and respect for each other, collaboration and mutual support, then we can embody those qualities in how we act in the world right now. In some ways, the new, whatever it may be, needs to live in us before it can fully live in the world.  

Being a “liminalite,” someone living between one world and another, doesn’t have to mean being confused. It can mean taking the opportunity provided by an emergent time to be a seed for something better. That is the seeding the world needs right now.

An Experiment

One of the advantages of David’s Desk being digital is that I can do things I couldn’t if it were printed. My Lorian colleague and friend, James Tousignant, and I do podcasts together. He thought it might be interesting to you, my Reader, if he and I were to have a discussion around the theme of that month’s essay and then add the audio at the end. That way, you could both read my thoughts for that month and also listen to me talk about them with James. So, without further ado, here is this month’s conversation. I hope you enjoy it and the added dimension it brings to David’s Desk.

A Generational Perspective on Healing and the Energy of Social Media

Editor’s Note: The following is a conversation between David Spangler and his daughter Maryn Spangler, hosted by James Tousignant for Lorian’s Uncommon Conversations podcast. This transcript has been edited for clarity and the introductory and ending material in the audio version of the podcast has been omitted. You can learn more about the Uncommon Conversations podcast and subscribe here.

David Spangler: This conversation arose out of an earlier conversation that Maryn and I had just comparing different worldviews between her generation and mine, seeing both where they were congruent, where there were similarities, and where they differ. Maryn, how would you like to go with this? Would you like to start and speak for the whole of your generation [chuckles] while I speak for the old fuddy duddies?

Maryn Spangler: I feel like I can I can speak first.

David: Okay

Maryn: I’ll jump in on that.

David: Thank you.

Maryn: The things that I see and feel and experience going on in my generation is, there's this big focus on personal development, self development–deep healing on our psyche, inner child, how we show up in the world. There’s this intense focus on personal healing, but there's this huge disconnection from the world as a whole. And sometimes, I wonder, just from my own experience of being in a body, I wonder how much of this is just that with the rise of the Internet and intense globalization, it’s just overwhelming to think in that large of a scale. It's overwhelming to be so interconnected. And so I see a lot of people that are more intensely focused on smaller individual issues–because if I can advocate for myself, then I know that at least my world, my small world is safe. There’s this almost wall, this almost block, this resistance to experiencing that we are all so deeply interconnected. A lot of the circles that I personally run in are with people that are trying to help people. I know a lot of healers, I know a lot of personal development people. And even there, the focus is so on the individual that when I see someone who is talking about how does this affect the whole, it's so different, and they usually don't get that much response. It's not in mode right now. That’s what I'm seeing right now.

David: Of course, we're talking in abstractions here in a way, because any given generation is a complex critter that has people have all kinds of persuasions. But because I remember back in the 60s, I was working at the time in the San Francisco Bay Area and that was at the time that Humanistic Psychology and Transpersonal Psychology were coming to the forefront, particularly there in the Palo Alto, Menlo Park area, which was basically where I was living. I knew a number of the people who were pioneers in that area. There was this interesting kind of controversy because, on the one hand, with the development of humanistic and transpersonal psychologies, there was a lot of focus on the individual, on individual development on self-actualization–the Maslow book on peak experiences and self-actualization was very popular, and it was also a fairly new idea. People were interested in the hierarchy of needs and getting your needs met in order to provide the foundation for greater and greater levels of awareness and engagement.

And on the other hand, there was the anti-war movement and there was the Civil Rights movement, which were very oriented towards larger collectives and larger social responsibility. The Bay Area at that time was interesting because on one side of the Bay you had the San Francisco Peninsula, where all the psychological and, to some extent, spiritual stuff was going on and it was very much oriented toward individual development. And then on the other side of the Bay was Berkeley, where you had the student sit-ins and the attempts to take over the university and the anti-war riots and all of that.

There was this kind of splitting of my generation, between those who were dropping in and those who were taking part in larger social things. And during that time, as you say, there was this movement towards communities. Kids began forming intentional communities. And of course, the one that I became involved with Findhorn, became one of the most famous at the time.

There was a sense that a new world was was possible. Something new was emerging. You could engage politically and socially and civilly and you could make radical changes. Things were changing, change was possible. And that drew out a lot of idealism and energy towards acting in relationship to the whole and the sense of ecological awareness was dawning around that time with Rachel Carson's Silent Spring book and awareness of the damage of pesticides and other chemicals and just a dawning realization of how interconnected and interdependent we were with the natural environment around us.

In essence, it was an exciting time in terms of feeling that things were changing and transformation was happening. And of course, the New Age movement sort of surfed on that and gave that a particular language and a particular form.

I think part of the challenge today is that the status quo seems very set even though there's obviously change going on, particularly with climate. Yet at a political and social level, things seem more frozen and people feel disempowered rather than empowered. That was the one thing that we felt in the 60s, was a deep sense of empowerment, however illusory it might have been. But in many cases, it wasn't. I mean, you look back, and you see the changes that people made in civil rights and in politics and so on.

It's a different wave, isn't it, it’s a different need, that the world has. In my own case, that whole period from 1970 until about 1990, that's 20 years when I was involved with the New Age movement and that was very much oriented towards taking care of the whole but it also had that individual aspect of self development. In fact, that was the thing that took me out of the New Age movement in the 90s–it shifted gears from being a movement towards cultural change and became a movement toward individual psychic development, in particular psychological development. But then, in the 90s, my own work changed to focus more on individual development. In a way Incarnational Spirituality is an attempt to blend both of those–to have that strong individual foundation and yet to have that in service to a larger whole. This whole idea of synergy in which the part and the whole are both benefited, they’re mutually beneficial–it’s a very important part of I.S.

Maryn:  So you got to really experience eyes wide open that shift into individual focus.

David: Yes, yes, I did. And just like anything, the pendulum swings in ways that it goes from one extreme to another extreme. And like you were saying, there was this extreme that said the individual doesn't really matter, what matters is the community or the larger whole. And then the other extreme is saying, well, no, it's my way or the highway, never mind what's happening in the world.

Maryn: I am always hearing stories from that time–not necessarily from you, but from different students that you've had and different people that I meet from that generation of growing up in the the hippie age, the hippie times where you have these intentional communities, as you were saying, that then became a little cult-like, and a little damaging on the individual level for a lot of people. Amazing aspirations that maybe couldn't be played out perfectly, if that's even a thing, just because of this disconnection from the individual as well.

David: That’s exactly right. There were certainly instances of what I would think of as community trauma, or I should say, the individual experienced trauma in community.

James Tousignant: It also sounds like there was a time when individuals felt empowered enough to say that we can make a difference in the world, and we can make a difference in this way. And then they went through this period of yes, they could make a difference, and they made a difference in some very significant ways, and then it looked like there wasn't enough foundation for that to hold in the individual, there wasn’t a strong sense of what in I.S. we call Sovereignty–your place in the world and that strength of being able to be here and then to act out from that place, to act in a way that’s supportive of the world, from that sense of that inner land or inner strength.

Maryn, you speak about the individuals who are in your circles and how they have a sense of there's something that I need to unfold within me (which is a way of saying healing within me), so that I am able to be in this really intensely interconnected world at the moment. And it's like, well, do I feel that I have that ability? At this time, we take it for granted, right? My grandchildren are connected–they can do things on their phone that I could never do unless they sit down and teach me in terms of gathering information. It's like everything's at your fingertips, and it's like a fire hose. How can I manage without losing myself in that? If I focus on myself, in my neighborhood, at least I have a place to stand and a place to make a difference, as you were saying in the beginning.

So it's swinging back and forth, but it's also leveling up. In that sense, I feel it's a stronger position to come from–the strength of your individuality, your sovereignty, in the relationship with your neighborhood, in places where you can literally see the difference that you're making with the activism or the actions that you can take. And then when those neighborhoods join together with other neighborhoods around the world, that becomes a very interesting way of making a difference in a societal cultural way. But you're working at the level of this little group talks to this little group, and they become something more through their ability now to communicate across the world with the Internet.

Maryn: What I see a lot, because this is such an age of information, is so much more awareness of what internal wounding actually looks like and how it plays out. Things like communication issues, things like what did I inherit from my parents, and from my community and culture and society. What are the things that I've inherited, that I don't even realize that I'm inheriting, but that I'm playing out in real time? It's this focus and information on how to shift that and actually create healthy personal relationships, create a healthy relationship to self and to heal what has come before, to heal these unconscious patterns that have come before. I see it a lot as there's just this kind of wave of energy coming in to clean everything up. Let's clean up all this baggage that we've been holding on to, let's clean up the fields that we've been incarnating into, and then we can move forward and build something on that that's stronger, that's clearer, that has a foundation of really good communication, not being as triggered by each other, not as much anger and reactivity. This is the dream.

David: That’s absolutely right. One of the experiences that your mom and I had all through the 70s and 80s being aware of communities that had high aspirations, particularly spiritual ones, but foundered on the inability to resolve personal issues and emotional issues. The baggage that people brought into the community ended up sabotaging it. I think you're absolutely right, that the work you're doing and people like you to help clear up a lot of that baggage is vitally important. Would you like to say more about personal empowerment in your work as a coach?

Maryn: This is happening on such an individual level. Yes, there are people that are stepping up to help facilitate it. One of the greatest things that I've ever felt is having someone hold space and having someone provide you with direction and support as you're going through that. This is why therapy has become so mainstream now when it used to be something that people were ashamed to admit that they went to therapy, it was a taboo kind of thing. And now you're seeing people get into relationships and immediately sign up for couples therapy, not waiting five years down the road when they're having issues, but they're starting at the beginning. So it's definitely amazing to have support. And it's something that everybody is doing themselves as well. I don't want to say that it's something that you have to have a coach to do. That's what I don't want to say, because it's just an individual journey. Support is amazing, and guidance and help, and it will get you there a lot faster, in many cases. But most of the work that I did was pretty individual, getting to where I am now. I think that that is also empowering to know–that we are our own healers, and we are our own leaders. We’re the ones leading the way for ourselves and for the generation to come after us and the world as a whole. We're leading every single moment.

David: I understand that your role as a coach is to really help the person discover, as you say, the leadership and healing qualities that are always there. That's basically what we do in Incarnational Spirituality too–it’s an affirmation of what the individual already possesses in the way of resources. But the work tool needs to be done and that's where we can help each other in doing that. Sometimes it's hard on your own to get a reasonable grasp of what needs to be done and how to do it.

Maryn: There are times in our lives that we go through where it's almost this desperate call for someone–please help me through this, I am putting everything into it and can't seem to figure out this one piece. That’s when it's so helpful to have another pair of eyes, or a mirror someone to provide support. There are specific times when it's so helpful.

James: To just go back a moment, when you were talking about this impulse stirring up and bringing to the surface a lot more stuff for individuals to see easier than it was in the 60s and the 70s. It seems like the wave that's moving through now is bringing to the surface opportunities to deal with the baggage. It's like the flood came in and cleaned out everyone's houses basically, and now you've got this stuff floating down the street that you can see “Oh, that's mine. Okay, I'll deal with that.” Or “That's yours. You deal with that one.” It seems like there are more opportunities to see things, to see the truth. It's like things are moving in a way that it's hard to avoid.

Maryn: Ain't that the truth?

James: And it is a time for I.S. as well to provide that because there's significant tools that we have to do that.

Maryn: This is something that I love. I see so many people my age, in the current spiritual generation who are talking about concepts that I've seen you guys teach for years. You guys have been helping people do this for decades. And now the next generation is coming in saying, “Hey! I’ve figured stuff out!” And that's perfect. Every every generation will have its own flair on it, but I am always very proud to see that influence. Good job, guys!

David: Yay!

Maryn: Yay! Exactly.

David: We began talking about different generational perspectives. And I really do believe that that is a reality. Every generation, as James says, is responsible for carrying through a certain impulse. Some impulses are more dramatic and change insistent than others may be. But at the same time, there's a consistency because we're all human beings operating in a continuum of our humanity. It doesn't matter what generation it is–a lot of the challenges remain exactly the same, and the solutions remain the same. But I do believe that new possibilities and new ways of using old tools that in effect, make them new tools are always there as well.

One of the things that puzzled me a few years was the fact that I didn't see young people–people in their late teens and 20s and early 30s–I didn't see them agitating for change in the way they did in our generation. I didn't see them moving out into the world in the same way. And actually, that was why your discussion with me was very enlightening. I came to the point of saying, well, this is a different generation, and the needs are different and the approach is different. It's just as valid as what we were doing back in the 60s and 70s. It's valid, because it's still part of that same wholeness, it's still the human collective struggling to know who it is, and how to make sense of this being here in the world, and how to engage with the world in creative ways. And now the emphasis seems to be very much on individual empowerment and healing–particularly healing. How to deal with a legacy of trauma that all human beings experience in one way or another from all this millennia of human struggle.

I see what you're doing, I’ve seen you over the years, follow your calling, of wanting to be an energy healer, somebody who works to heal the wholeness of the individual, treats the individual as a whole being–not just a body, not just a mind, and not just feelings. You've been exploring different modalities for doing that, but in the end, what it comes down to is you bring your presence to them. The different tools you've developed through your training help you to do that, but still, in the end, it is your presence that is the x factor, the healing factor, just like the devas were the x factor in Findhorn that got the garden going. That really is an Incarnational Spirituality approach as well.

But it's in that level of presence that we find the connection. We about the firehose of information and engagement that happens because of social media–we’re all vulnerable and exposed in ways that we never used to be to social media, especially young people. Learning to handle that, to stand in sovereignty and find their individual wholeness in the midst of all that–I think that is such a valuable skill for moving ahead in the future.

Maryn: Because it's not going away.

David: No. From my point of view, looking at the subtle dimension as an important ingredient here–in a way, social media is a kind of a crude, physicalization of what the subtle dimension is like. It’s infinitely more connected than what we experience here, and yet individuals exist–you’re not subsumed, you're not engulfed in some amorphous wholeness. But you are exposed to immense amounts of…not exactly information, but presences. How do you blend that and hold that without shattering in yourself is, I think, what your generation is learning to do through the phenomenon of social media, developing some skills in that direction.

Maryn: Emphasis on “developing” because it has been such a trial and error. I see that with so many people, so many areas of it. There are people that really struggle in it and there are people that really thrive in it. I find that fascinating. I think that a lot of it comes down to, if we can actually think of social media as an energy web that we're stepping into when we engage in it, a lot of the same energy practices that we take with all the rest of our personal relationships come into play. Like we have to have strong boundaries. Energy hygiene is so important. If I go too long without a good cleanse, a good cutting of cords when being on social media, I find myself angrier and more fearful and experiencing a lot of self doubt. All it takes is just like a cutting of cords and I'm back to center. I think that if more people did that, it would be easier to engage with social media.

But as it is, people are using it unconsciously. They come on and they put all sorts of energy out there that they might not have an outlet for in their everyday life. It becomes this melting pot of wildness. It's the Wild West. And then you're unconsciously signing into it and you're opting into all of that energy. So it really takes intentionality and sovereignty and awareness to be able to use it in a way that's helpful and actually opening and empowering instead of something that's a detriment to yourself.

I see people that don't even have a framework of how to work with it from that perspective and it ruins their lives. I see teenagers who have terrible eating disorders and terrible body dysmorphia, because of filters on TikTok and Instagram, and suicides and depression and anxiety and just terrible stuff just because they don't have the tools to be able to differentiate in that way and they don't have that strong establishment of sovereignty. A lot of them don't.

David: This is really interesting, Maryn. It just got me realizing that what you're describing, what the environment of social media these days is uncoordinated information, just as James said. It’s a firehose, which is actually not true in the subtle dimensions, even though you are exposed to a great deal more information or a great deal more experience or presence. In the subtle dimensions, it’s coordinated, it’s not just all dumped out there. This brings up this interesting idea, which we've been saying in different ways, that the same tools that help you to navigate subtle realms successfully are the tools that would help you navigate the social media environments successfully.

Maryn: I was just going to say, from the same perspective, you can bring that intentionality and those tools to create something really beautiful on social media. Creating it as art, creating it as a gift to the world. There’s so much potential there, it doesn't just have to be a melting pot of terribleness. It can be something really beautiful.

David: It seems to me that this is an experience that's allowing us as incarnate human beings to gain skills that we need in order to take advantage of our engagement with the subtle dimension in the future.

James: It actually sounds as well that here's an opportunity for Lorian to reach out with a very specific program of study. Literally a program of study taught by Maryn, supported by David and James,  to actually do this because it's needed. As you were describing it, I was seeing the pieces come together for this program of study. So we're with you!

Maryn: Excellent!

James: Thank you very much for this opportunity to get together and have this not only stimulating, but also advancing conversation.

Maryn: We hit on some good things.

David: So that just means we need to do it again.

James: Yeah, we need to do it again. So thank you very much for this morning.

David: Thank you, James.

Maryn: Thank you so much. Thank you to you both

David's Desk 185

David's Desk is my opportunity to share thoughts and tools for the spiritual journey. These letters are my personal insights and opinions and do not necessarily reflect the sentiments or thoughts of any other person in Lorian or of Lorian as a whole. If you wish to share this letter with others, please feel free to do so; however, the material is ©2022 by David Spangler. If you no longer wish to receive these letters, please let us know at info@Lorian.org.

Responsibility

In 1973, my wife, Julia, and I were in London taking part in a conference. We had an evening free and were out walking, taking in the sights and sound of that world city at night. We came upon a large crowd all standing behind a line of limousines waiting outside a movie theater where the movie Lost Horizon about the mystical, mythical city of Shangri-La was being premiered. Large floodlights illuminated the scene and cast their beams into the night sky. There was a buzz of excitement in the crowd. They were obviously waiting for something rather than lining up to go into the theater. We asked someone what was happening and were told that Queen Elizabeth was attending the premier and was soon to come out. Everyone was there to see and to greet her. Julie and I decided we would wait to see her, too.

Across the street from the theater was a small park surrounded by an iron fence. Holding on to the pole of a streetlight, we were able to climb up and stand on the top of the fence, which allowed us to see over the heads of the crowd. Although there were police present in the crowd, no one seemed to mind us being there. Everyone’s attention was focused on the theater entrance, so no one may have even seen us.

We had only been there a minute or two when a sigh went through the crowd. It was at that point that the Queen came out, accompanied by her husband, Philip. She was wearing an all-white gown that looked encrusted with diamonds, and she had a tiara in her hair. When the light from the floodlights hit her, she suddenly burst into radiance, as if she had transformed into a being of Light. It was breathtaking, and an audible gasp went up from all the people there. I think it was especially dramatic for Julie and me given our elevated vantage point.

As she moved toward the waiting limousine, she smiled and waved to the throng, and they cheered back. You could feel the love flowing out from these people towards this woman and her love flowing back. For me, the energy was palpable.

That was nearly fifty years ago, but the memory came back to me as I watched Queen Elizabeth’s funeral, seeing the thousands of people who lined the streets in mourning and in celebration of her life. She was a truly global figure, a point of connection for millions of people. Whether they supported the British monarchy or not, people could still admire and love Elizabeth for her seventy years of dedication and responsibility to something larger than herself.  

This word, responsibility, was one that kept coming back to mind for me throughout the days of mourning for the Queen. We all have responsibilities, to families, to jobs, to our society, and our own well-being. But these days, we tend to hear more about “rights” than about “responsibilities.” The gaining or losing of rights is a major issue for many people, and so it should be. But an acknowledgment of our mutual responsibilities to each other can get lost in the clamor. Milenko Matanovic, my good friend and one of the original founders of Lorian, said to me recently that America has a Bill of Rights but what we also need is a Bill of Responsibilities, something that lays out the duties we have to each other, to the nation, and to the world we all share.

When the American Constitution was written, the ideas of public service and civic responsibilities were taken for granted. The struggle was to obtain rights; responsibility was assumed. But I don’t think we can make such an assumption today, especially when so many political factions fight to secure their own power and their own point of view with little regard for the well-being of society as a whole. This is one reason Queen Elizabeth was held in high regard for her ability to transcend factionalism in support of all her subjects. She modeled responsibility for the whole, not just for a single part.

Given the world condition, such responsibility for the whole is precisely what is needed, not just by one or two leaders or a few exceptional people but by all of us. Though it hardly seems so from the headlines and news that confront us daily, the time when the right to act without responsibility for humanity and the world as a whole has passed. What the Queen modeled in an institutional way is a quality we all need to embody and express in the years ahead: how to serve and be responsible for that which is larger than ourselves. We don’t need to be a monarch to do this, but we do need to love the world in which we live and all the lives who share it with us.

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An Experiment

One of the advantages of David’s Desk being digital is that I can do things I couldn’t if it were printed. My Lorian colleague and friend, James Tousignant, and I do podcasts together. He thought it might be interesting to you, my Reader, if he and I were to have a discussion around the theme of that month’s essay and then add the audio at the end. That way, you could both read my thoughts for that month and also listen to me talk about them with James. So, without further ado, here is this month’s conversation. I hope you enjoy it and the added dimension it brings to David’s Desk.

September Equinox: Gaia’s Celebration of Balance and Equilibrium for Us All

It is September, and we are approaching our Gaian Equinox festival time once again as summer gives way to autumn in the Northern hemisphere, and winter welcomes spring in the Southern lands. We find ourselves in the fourth festival gateway of the wheel of Gaia’s year, having begun our shared exploration of planetary celebrations in December of 2021. At that time, Freya Secrest and I met together to envision how we could celebrate the Solstices and the Equinoxes in a new planetary, whole Gaian way. We invited our Lorian friends in the Southern hemisphere–Linda Engel from Australia and Ara Swanney from New Zealand–to create Gaian festivals with us, and to share those festivals with members of Lorian’s Commons via Zoom. We looked forward to the challenge of creating festivals that would mirror each other, honoring the diversity and differences of not only the seasons, but the land and ecosystems and climate that each of us were embracing in our co-creative celebrations. That exploration has been a fascinating and joyful endeavor together–one that has generated a growing friendship and partnership between the four of us, while weaving a web of connection and delight with all those who have joined us for these festival times. 

In planning the September Equinox celebration, Freya invited the four of us to write our own words or poems this time, rather than share a reading we found that invoked the spirit of the festival gateway. Freya liked the idea of us going back and forth, weaving the hemispheres together with our words, creating a Gaian dance of wholeness, a woven living net of planetary connection and celebration. So we will share our words in our time together in the Commons online, and here in the blog, and we invite all who will be joining us or who are reading this blog, to write or create something of your own that invokes what Equinox means to you. 

We also invite everyone to join us in creating an Equinox lemniscate or figure 8 pattern in your garden or in your house which you can decorate and walk in the days leading up to our Gaian Festival online, which is Sunday September 18th at 1 pm Pacific, or on the actual Equinox point, which is Thursday September 22nd in the Northern hemisphere, and Friday, September 23rd in the Southern Hemisphere. We walked the lemniscate together for the March Equinox and wanted to complete that gesture now for September’s Equinox celebration.  

The September Equinox is a Doorway/Threshold where Gaia’s breath and light, expanding and widening since the Winter Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere, and contracting and narrowing since the Summer Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, meets in the middle, so to speak, at the equator. Our lemniscate festival gesture/movement will be one of “invitation and inclusion.” Picture the lemniscate stretched out horizontally, with the point in its center being the Doorway/Threshold where everyone around the globe stands in Balance and Equilibrium together, no matter what season one is moving from and toward. From that place in the center, we can experience together the pause, the balance and the moving flows of life. As the light lengthens in the Spring, Gaia’s breath and energy widen, expanding into leaf and bud. As the light decreases in the Autumn, Gaia’s energy and breath narrow and focus, concentrating summer growth and life force into seed and bulb. We honor the wholeness of Gaia’s breath and cyclical life when we weave Gaia’s two hemispheres together in one planetary festival of celebration.

As we walk our lemniscates, either physically or meditatively, we can invite and include the spirit of our homes and land, our local nature spirits, house angels, the Sidhe and all unseen allies and companions to join us in weaving our seasons together, and standing at the moment of pause, equilibrium and balance together.  (Click the button below for more detailed instructions on creating a lemniscate and ritual for your Equinox celebration.) 

In closing, we offer our Gaian creative inspirations to enrich your Equinox celebration, wherever you find yourself.   Blessings of Balance, Peace and Equilibrium be yours!

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Equinox Poem by Linda Engel

Currawong woke me this morning
Its mournful cry
more full of hope and joy.
Spring is coming!
Spring is coming!
Wake up–it isn’t dark now.
It is Light
The Sun is coming back.

There is a feeling of awakening
Seeds are germinating
Buds are bursting
Signs of new life beginning!

The scent of violets wafts through the air.
The Southern land is awakening
from its cold sleep.

Casuarina–my spirit guide - sways
singing to me softly.
My love! Come join with me,
in celebration of Light returning.

In the North, a slowing down
changes of light and colour
Rich hues of red, orange and gold
fruits ripening

In the South
kookaburras are laughing
at our little foibles.
They laugh in celebration of her wondrous beauty,
Always at dawn and dusk
Be joyful they cry
Celebrate…the Light is returning!

Soon North and South will be One
Balance. Pause.
Time for reflection.
As our beloved mother celebrates her endless journey
of death and renewal.

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September Equinox by Lucinda Herring

I wake at dawn,
Gateway between night and day,
Darkness and light.
Barefoot, I walk outside
Down a woodland path,
Green golden in fledgling air.

I come to a steep meadow,
Covered all over with glistening dew,
Where the sun keeps up with me as I climb.

A betwixt and between time,
With the sky a growing brightness of blue,
Promising a hot summer’s day;
Yet the morning air so chill I am shivering in my nightgown,
And my wet feet are numb from traipsing through the dew.

I stand on the hill with the sun’s rays
Casting a long straight shadow of Me across the land.
Spreading my arms and legs wide,
I become a place of equilibrium and balance in the day.

Equinox
Summer’s waning warmth.
Autumn’s promise of presence.
Gaia’s Breath, Her Pause, Her Stillness.
Equinox
When all seasons have a Voice
All sing and dance as One.

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Aotearoa/ New Zealand Spring Equinox–First Signs by Ara Swanney

The Tui begin their spring antics, flying and chasing recklessly as they prepare for their new family, wooing and mating, nest building and drinking the sweet, sticky nectar of the Harakeke flowers on their tall Lilly like stems, which also feed the Bellbirds and Kereru as they jostle for positions, not wasting a drop of the free flowing nectar.

The Kowhai trees and their yellow flowers also provide nectar, often seen with the glossy blue/black Tui hanging off the drooping branches like decorations, the white wattle-feathers at their neck glowing in the sun.

The Manuka give the impression of snow as the white flowers cover their branches, attracting the bees to gather the ingredients for the healing honey they will provide.

The sun shines directly along our porch from the West when it sets and again from the East.

The Māori word for Spring is Koanga . . Ko meaning digging tool . . . time to dig and plant in the warming ground.

The Godwits (call Kuaka in Māori) return from Alaska, 80 thousand of them, having flown 12 hundred kilometers non stop for 6 days, and land back in their own appointed estuaries dotted along the East coast of the North and South Islands . . . in Christchurch they ring the bells in welcome. These birds truly weave between the hemispheres.

The magic of the Spring Equinox holds such promise of the new life.

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Equinox Weaving by Freya Secrest
(Freya has woven a piece from a poem “Spring” by Eila Savela and her own poem “Fall”)

Spring is an act of Imagination
When all is still grey and dingy white
With snow on the way and
Sidewalks slick with ice
And weariness.
We say, “Welcome Spring!”
In the drip, drip dripping of the eaves
And the first softened breaths of the thaw
In the sloppy wet streets
And damp earth smell.
To you, we say, “Happy Spring!”
May its gentle beauty offer itself to you,
Singing like the Budding trees.

The gift of Fall is renewal
Seed and fruit burst abundant
The promise of growth is fulfilled.
Through the summer
Imagination
Is drawn in and down
Rooting in soil
Committed to stretch and swell and bloom.
Coming to rest at last in its seed.
To you we wish an abundant harvest
May its nourishment fill you,
Centering in its essential presence.

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David's Desk 184

David's Desk is my opportunity to share thoughts and tools for the spiritual journey. These letters are my personal insights and opinions and do not necessarily reflect the sentiments or thoughts of any other person in Lorian or of Lorian as a whole. If you wish to share this letter with others, please feel free to do so; however, the material is ©2022 by David Spangler. If you no longer wish to receive these letters, please let us know at info@Lorian.org.

World Embracing

I’m always exploring and playing with words when it comes to describing the ways in which we can interact with the non-physical, “subtle” dimension which form the other half of our world. It’s easy to pin down most phenomena in the physical world and give them a name: “that’s a fireplace,” “that’s a glass,” “that’s making a cup of tea.” Such things have clear boundaries that define them in time and space. But spiritual and subtle phenomena and activities exist beyond time and space as we experience them–this makes their boundaries, if they have them, harder to perceive.      

We are an example of this. Each of us is well-defined physically by our bodies. I can say without any doubt that as I write this, I am sitting here in my house in the Pacific Northwest and nowhere else. I’m not in Ukraine. I’m not in the American Southeast where floods are ravaging the countryside. I’m not anywhere else in the world but here. This is a very clear boundary.

However, in my subtle nature, physical boundaries are less important. My spiritual, energetic presence can be in a war-torn Ukrainian city, seeking to bring qualities of comfort and blessing to the subtle and psychological environments there. My spiritual, energetic presence can be in places where floods, fires, heat waves, and other disasters are occurring, acting as a lens through which blessings can be added to the situation. Whether through prayer, imagination, ritual, or meditation, I can make use of the comparatively boundaryless nature of my subtle being to participate in healing or supportive ways anywhere in the world, something my physical body cannot do.

I know where the boundaries of my physical body are. Where the boundaries of my soul or my subtle energy field may lie are harder to discern.

This ability to project into areas of need anywhere on the planet qualities of love, compassion, calm, courage, healing, creativity, and so forth is something I have called world work. My friend, David Nicol, coined the term subtle activism and wrote a book about it by the same title. Subtle activism is a phrase I have used many times as well.

But I don’t find either of these terms, useful as they can be, completely satisfying when it comes to describing what is going on. “World Work” suggests a task, something hard to do. It conjures up images of having to make an effort, even of having to strain at it. It’s the opposite of play. Yet, the actual process of performing this kind of subtle activity is grounded in joy and a kind of creative playfulness. Effort or strain can get in the way. Yes, one is working (in the sense of expending subtle energy) on behalf of the world, but it’s not a “job.” Thinking of it as such can prove limiting.

There is a similar objection to the idea of subtle activism. Being active in using one’s subtle resources and nature to bring help to world conditions is a wonderful thing, but the idea of “activism” can also conjure up expectations and images that get in the way. For many people, being an activist means taking an adversarial stance. It carries the flavor of protests and opposition to the status quo. These may be effective ways of working in the physical world where confrontation may be the only way to initiate change, but it can backfire in the subtle worlds where thoughts and energies of imposition and opposition create the very resistance and inertia they are trying to overcome.

The real problem here is one of identity. Whereas in the physical world, acting and doing create change, in the subtle world, it is the quality or nature of one’s presence or beingness that does so. If I think of myself as a “worker” or as an “activist,” I am substituting a mental concept for a quality of being. I may find myself trying to “manufacture” qualities through my imagination that I will then “send” into the world, rather than experiencing qualities that I can be in the world. While the former can have an effect, it’s the latter that has the greatest impact and does the real work.

This brings me back to exploring just how to give language to the process that “world work” and “subtle activism” seek to describe and name. Both terms have their uses and benefits, but both are lacking. Perhaps something like "world embracing," which suggests that, in this subtle energetic process, I am gathering the world into the embrace of the qualities that I am holding and embodying in that moment. There is joy in such an act and a sense of love and caring for the world as our partner.  

Or maybe we might call it "world being." It’s a clumsy phrase, but at least it suggests that I become and embody the qualities of the world I wish to bring into manifestation. Thus, in a situation of crisis where the subtle and psychological environments are filled with anxiety, fear, and confusion, the energetic presence I project into that condition is that of a world of calm, of help, of strength, and of blessing.

I think my search for the perfect phrase may be fruitless, as there may be no single term that fully captures what we are about when we commit ourselves to bringing love and blessing into our world, especially through the ability of our subtle nature to act at a distance. For each of us, the reality of this act comes through the experience of it, not through what we call it. In the end, it is our loving relationship with our world that is the name.

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An Experiment

One of the advantages of David’s Desk being digital is that I can do things I couldn’t if it were printed. My Lorian colleague and friend, James Tousignant, and I do podcasts together. He thought it might be interesting to you, my Reader, if he and I were to have a discussion around the theme of that month’s essay and then add the audio at the end. That way, you could both read my thoughts for that month and also listen to me talk about them with James. So, without further ado, here is this month’s conversation. I hope you enjoy it and the added dimension it brings to David’s Desk.

Embody Your Magic

We are going through a time of massive transformation. Identities are shifting and crumbling. Energetic structures are more malleable and flexible than they have been. Old structures that were built on greed, separation, hierarchy, competition, and scarcity are crumbling. And yet, amidst the turmoil lie profound opportunities for positive change.

I want you to take a moment to imagine exactly where we could end up. Imagine the future that we could create. It is a future based on cooperation, abundance, safety, sovereignty, respect, deep love for our Selves, each other, and our World: a world based on divine union energetics, held in balance. A “Golden Age.”

This future doesn’t just happen, it is created. WE create this world, through our conduct, through healing our wounds of separation, through unbecoming everything that a toxic society has taught us to be, and through the embodiment of our own soul essence here on earth. Our natural state truly is already in alignment with Golden Age energetics. We are already whole. We are already an embodiment of light and love. All we have to do is heal and integrate that which is in the way of our full embodiment.

This is what I work with. I am a coach. I help people to embody their wholeness here on earth, through somatic integration, rewiring neural pathways, somato-emotional release and healing their relationship to Self, and to Other. I help people create a life that is in alignment with the future they desire. A life of abundant love and resources. A life that is in partnership with Soul, with Spirit, with the cyclical flow of nature. A life that is inherently oriented towards safety and connection in the body.

I see there being two parts to this. First, there is the deep healing that we engage in because our wounds and hurts desire healing. The body seeks to be whole but doesn’t always know how to do that.  

The second part arises naturally from the first. As we heal ourselves, we heal the collective. As we shift somatically and discharge stuck energy, we become an anchor point of light that lifts the collective. We have removed ourselves from the energetic gravity that the wounds of the collective hold. As more and more people do the same, the collective wounds lose critical mass. The gravitational pull starts to move in the other direction. Suddenly more and more people are healing, embodying wholeness, and stepping forward in harmony. And the more people who do, the easier it gets. The energetic pathway towards wholeness becomes well worn, and healing begins to happen exponentially faster as the balance shifts.

Understandably, choosing to partake in this work is daunting. We are creating the foundation for a world that none of us have experienced. We intimately know what it feels like to be scared, to feel like we will never have enough, that we are unsupported and have to fight our way to the top. We know what it feels like to struggle. So how do we create a world that is different, one that we have no context for?

This is where leadership comes in. 

We are the ones creating the world we live in. Not only through our actions, but through our energetic embodiment. Through being what we believe. Being the change we wish to see in the world, regardless of what we see around us. Regardless of the violence and greed and distrust. Regardless of how unsafe it feels. 

If we wait for the world to change first, we’re going to be waiting forever. 

But if we become the version of us that lives in the Golden Age, then we create the Golden Age. Our embodied transmission changes the world around us and weaves an energetic web of information for others to follow. 

Not just through action, although that is a necessary step, but through our beingness. 

For instance, I have always had difficulty connecting to my age group. I felt that the vast majority of people in the world don’t speak the same language as I do and are draining to spend time with. A few months ago, I realized that because of this belief, I was creating a world based on scarcity and judgment. This was not the world I wanted to live in. I wanted to live in a world where I found deep soul connections easily and effortlessly. So, I chose to restructure my experience. I decided that I was “a woman who was surrounded by the most magical people in the world”. I went through my day, not only repeating this mantra, but embodying the energy of it as well. If I truly were surrounded by the most magical people in the world, what would it feel like? How would I move, or speak, or act? What else would I believe?

I continued this embodiment for a few days, mildly expecting that I might stumble upon new soul connections or be invited to a gathering of like-minded individuals, but something else happened that I wasn’t expecting. One day, I looked around at the people I worked with, and I saw magic. I saw that I was indeed surrounded by the most magical people on the planet, and they had always been there. There was magic alive in all of us. And with this awakened vision, I invested my energy into connecting to them. Their energy responded to my openness, and suddenly I was having deep conversations and meetings of the heart with people that I had previously discounted. 

This is how we lead ourselves. I choose to believe that I am surrounded by magical people, and therefore I do the work to embody it in my being, no matter what. When I feel the energy of judgment, contempt, or separation come up, I listen to it, feel it fully, and do the somatic work necessary to move it through my body, something I teach my clients to do. Then I choose to experience a different reality. Again and again and again. 

We lead ourselves to the Golden Age, through creating an internal ecology of thriving, through choosing to experience and create the world of our dreams, not in the future, but in this moment. We choose to believe that our wholeness matters. We choose to believe we are infinitely supported. We choose to embody more and more of our soul here on earth, even the parts of our being that we have been taught are shameful or unwelcome. We choose to lead, and the world follows.

We know that our magic lies in our wholeness, and we know that our magic is exactly what the world needs right now. Our voice matters. Our actions matter. Our being matters.

And by choosing how we “Be”, we become.

We become one who leads the way. We create a new paradigm.

We do not embody our magic or our leadership by welcoming one part of ourselves while cutting off another. That has been the theme for thousands of years. Now, we are creating an age where all of us, in our wholeness, are not only welcome but required. 

David's Desk 183

David's Desk is my opportunity to share thoughts and tools for the spiritual journey. These letters are my personal insights and opinions and do not necessarily reflect the sentiments or thoughts of any other person in Lorian or of Lorian as a whole. If you wish to share this letter with others, please feel free to do so; however, the material is ©2022 by David Spangler. If you no longer wish to receive these letters, please let us know at info@Lorian.org.

Where it Starts…Again

Three years ago, I wrote the following David’s Desk. It’s one of my favorites.  Some ideas deserve to be repeated, so in the midst of summer, I thought I would repeat this one. Also, we are starting an experiment with this David’s Desk. The information is below.

I live in a suburb about twenty miles east of Seattle, Washington. The city itself is on Puget Sound, a large body of water that separates us from the Olympic Peninsula to the west and that ultimately opens out into the Pacific Ocean.  Here are some pictures of what the Sound looks like:

My home is about twenty-five miles or so from Puget Sound itself. Beautiful as the Sound is, I normally don’t think about it as I go through my day at home. I can’t see it from where I live, so it’s easy to forget. It seems removed from me.  

Unless I walk through our neighborhood….

Throughout our neighborhood, there are storm drains where rain water can run off. They look like this:

They are not beautiful. But they are very useful and necessary when it rains!

If you examine the picture of this drain, you’ll see a little sign embedded in the concrete of the curb or sidewalk above it. Here’s a closeup of what the little sign says:

This sign tells me that in terms of being connected and thus of potentially having an impact upon it, Puget Sound is not twenty-some miles away but right here at my feet. Right here where I am standing by one of these storm drains, I am connected to the large body of water that is the Sound.

In effect, this:

Is also this:

Something small, utilitarian, and locked in concrete is connected to, and thus part of, something majestic, beautiful, and spacious.

Rather like the relationship we have with sacredness

Every time I take a walk around the neighborhood, I am getting a little lesson in connectedness. Each time I see one of these drains with its accompanying sign, I’m reminded that what I do in my neighborhood (at least in terms of putting things down these drains) affects Puget Sound. Truly, the Sound starts here.

For me, this is a perfect metaphor for how we are connected with each other and with the world and the universe beyond in many unseen but nonetheless impactful ways. If there is one lesson humanity struggles to learn right now, it is this lesson of just how interconnected we all are. It is a lesson of how our actions can have an effect on people and places in ways we can’t measure by physical proximity. It’s a lesson in our interdependency. 

What we generate in our lives through our thoughts, our emotions, and the ways we choose to express them can have a far-reaching influence in a world that is so much more than just its physical nature and appearances. Love and hate both connect, though with very different consequences.  

It is also a metaphor for how we in our ordinariness and individuality are also part of something vast, special, and all-encompassing. Whether I call it the World, the Universe, or God, we are each part of a source of beauty, spaciousness, and abundant life. We are each part of something larger, a Wholeness affected by all that we do.

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An Experiment

One of the advantages of David’s Desk being digital is that I can do things I couldn’t if it were printed. My Lorian colleague and friend, James Tousignant, and I do podcasts together. He thought it might be interesting to you, my Reader, if he and I were to have a discussion around the theme of that month’s essay and then add the audio at the end. That way, you could both read my thoughts for that month and also listen to me talk about them with James. So, without further ado, here is this month’s conversation. I hope you enjoy it and the added dimension it brings to David’s Desk.

Sovereignty Walking

Sometime last year there was a question posted in the Gaian Commons, “How can I possibly be a presence for peace?” This intrigued me. After all, it seems like a lofty and worthy aspiration. It reminds me of an experience I had when I lived in Oregon. There was a monastery I would go to when I needed a retreat–when my work life became difficult, when I needed a place to be quiet and still. It was a beautiful environment with an ambience of calm, love, serenity, and peace. I discovered a little hidden garden that became a favorite spot to sit and reflect. There I found a sweet homemade ceramic plaque attached to a tree which read:

Keep your heart open and free.
Make time to dwell in silence.
Become a peaceful presence in the world.

I loved this. Every time I read it, I felt a wash of joy flow through my body. My muscles relaxed, my heart expanded, and I could sense a rightness, a meaning to life, a raison d’être. I took this saying back to work with me and posted it above my desk. And I wondered how I could become this peaceful presence. How could I bring the calm and serenity from the monastery back? How could I find that space inside myself separate from that physical place? How could I remember the feeling I had when I was in the hidden garden?

Fast forward a few years to my discovery of Lorian and Incarnational Spirituality. I began taking classes and practicing the exercises. Sovereignty is a fundamental principle in IS; by diving into this concept and with practice I began to get a sense of the core of my Self. I found that if I became off balance, or if situations and forces outside of me exerted their pressures, if I remembered my Sovereignty, I was able to find my center again. Sovereignty is an integral part of my morning practice now.

I still wanted to find this presence outside of my sanctuary, however. I wanted a way to remember it always. One day, on my walk, as I was noticing the beauty of the trees, gardens, and waters that surround my town, I suddenly remembered Sovereignty. As soon as the word entered my mind, I noticed my spine straighten, my stride becoming more fluid, and my perception of what was around me gently shifting. Things became more clear, crisp and bright. I thought to myself, “this is Sovereignty Walking”. It was more than my body walking, or even my consciousness walking. It was Sovereignty walking. I felt equal with the plants, houses, and birds. I realized that we all share Sovereignty and we are all part of a unified Wholeness. So when I entered my own Sovereignty, I entered the Sovereignty of all. And in this way, I became a presence for peace.

David's Desk 182 Life and Freedom

Back in the Seventies, I was visited by a mother and her teenage daughter who had become pregnant. They were debating whether to have an abortion. The boy who had gotten her pregnant was also a teenager and had neither the wisdom nor the desire to be a father The mother had been a single parent, and she didn’t want her daughter to go through that experience. The daughter herself was unsure what she wanted.

They came to me to see if I could contact the soul of the developing child and ask it what they should do. This was not something I usually did. When people came to me for advice on life-altering decisions, my standard response was to encourage them to use their own best judgment and not give the power of their agency away to someone else. In this case, however, I found myself almost immediately in touch with the child’s soul who asked that I convey a message to the young mother. I don’t remember the exact words anymore, but essentially it told her that it would abide by her decision but that if she accepted the challenge of motherhood, she would find that this soul was an old friend who would bring blessing into her life. I shared this communication with them, they thanked me, and then they left. I never heard from them again, and I had no idea what the young woman had decided to do.

Twenty years later, I had just finished a large public lecture and was talking informally with a small group who had listened to me. A lovely young woman came up to me and took my hand. She said, “You don’t know who I am, but twenty years ago, my mother came to you for advice on whether to have an abortion. You told her that the child’s soul said that it would bring blessing. I am that child, the soul that you spoke with, and I wanted to thank you. My mother and I have had a wonderful life together.”

This was a powerful moment, one I shall never forget. It was thrilling to see the woman that that soul had become. I was filled with gratitude that I had been able to make that contact at that time.

There have only been two other occasions when a pregnant woman has come to me to ask whether to have an abortion. In one instance I said that I had no inner contact one way or another and that she had to make up her own mind in consultation with her doctor. In the other case, though, as in the first, a soul immediately presented itself to me and said, “Please tell my mother that this pregnancy is out of timing. I got caught in an energetic vortex and should not be incarnating. She has my blessing if she wishes to terminate this pregnancy, though I shall abide by her choice.” I conveyed this message to the woman, who was relieved as she and her boyfriend had not intended to become pregnant and had thought they had taken protective measures…which obviously had failed.

Two pregnancies, and in one case, the soul wished to be born and in the other case, it didn’t. The point is that life is complex, especially when we take the subtle realms into account. In my experience, the beginning of an incarnation is when the soul connects in a permanent and intimate way with its physical form. But this can happen anytime along a continuum of development, making it problematic to say that this is the moment when that life begins. We know when the biological processes of body-formation and gestation begin, and we know their stages of development.

What a purely materialistic approach cannot tell us is when “soul impregnation” occurs. These biological processes can take place whether a soul is involved or not, though, past a certain point of fetal development, the magnetism of the physical organism will attract an ensouling presence. But just when this happens is not the same for every individual. We may say that life begins physically at conception, but in my experience, soul-life—or the ensouling of the fetus—does not necessarily happen then (though other soul-forces such as those of the mother or the father may be present supporting the embryo). I have encountered souls that were only very lightly connected to the form developing in the womb and who, as in the example I mentioned above, were not averse to its termination (which could happen anyway through miscarriage), and I’ve encountered souls that keenly desired incarnation and were engaged in the subtle formation of their body even before their parents actually had intercourse that would lead to conception.  

But knowledge of the subtle dimension of life and incarnation is rare in our society. We have medical knowledge, religious beliefs, an evaluation of our life situation, and a sense of the value and sanctity of life, and from this, we draw the wisdom we need as best we can.

We are witnessing a collision between two spiritual principles: the sanctity of freedom, especially the freedom to choose as well as the freedom to take responsibility for our choices, and the sanctity of life. Life requires freedom and freedom requires life. They are complements to each other. But in our society, we have turned them into adversaries. How we resolve this will determine how whole and healthy our society can become.

There is no question that our society—and humanity in general—needs a strong dose of what Albert Schweitzer called a “reverence for all life.” There are so many ways we celebrate death (or the threat of death) as a way to solve problems or to remove what we don’t like or what is different from us. When a politician claims he or she is pro-life and pro-gun, or a society celebrates saving babies while also celebrating arming adults so they can kill other adults, there is a contradiction here that would be ludicrous if it weren’t so tragic. Life is sacred. One can’t agree to this on the one hand and deny it on the other.

In a similar way, we need the freedom to shape our lives and to make our own decisions. A monoculture is a vulnerable ecology, one lacking resilience or a capacity to change as the world changes. It requires more energy to sustain because life moves towards diversity, not uniformity. When we restrict peoples’ right to make their own decisions, to be diverse in their individuality, we create human monocultures, and we weaken ourselves in the process. Life is harmed, not helped by diminishing an individual’s sovereignty and ability to make his or her decisions.

What must be added to this discussion is a third element, a third spiritual principle. This is the principle of limits. Life unchecked without limits devours itself and its environment; it becomes a cancer, and the result will be collapse and death. Freedom without limits is anarchy, a state in which we become less free because we become less responsible to the larger wholeness of which we are always a part. If I claim the freedom to pollute as I see fit, my environment will suffer, and I will suffer with it. A selfish freedom creates limits that make it no freedom at all.

There is no question that we are grappling with momentous questions and challenges as we move ahead in the twenty-first century. Our best chances, I believe, arise when we can honor the sanctity of life, the sanctity of freedom, and the sanctity of limits. This may seem paradoxical and even contradictory, but only because we are choosing one or the other of these and not seeing how they come together, as we must, in a larger wholeness.

Celebrating a Gaian Festival of Light, A Festival of Wholeness

It has been six months since we celebrated our first Gaian Festival of Light and Wholeness together in December of 2021. Lorian members of the Gaian Commons Community from both northern and southern hemispheres gathered on Zoom to honor the Winter and Summer Solstice together. We created Spirals of Light, either out in our gardens, or inside our homes on floors, tables or altars. In the northern hemisphere, our spirals were the traditional evergreens or beautiful stones, beads–whatever we wished to create. Our gesture was to spiral inward to light our candles from a single source at the center,  honoring Gaia’s greatest in-breath, the cold and darkness of winter, and the longest night. At the same time, in the southern hemisphere, we created spirals from blossom and flowers and summer greenery, walking out of the spirals with our candles already burning, to honor Gaia’s greatest out-breath and the longest day of heat and summer light. At our December gathering, we walked our spirals meditatively together, pausing at the end to honor the sacred stillness of Gaia’s breath uniting us.

In March 2022, we gathered once again on Zoom to celebrate the Vernal and Autumnal Equinox together. For this festival, we created a lemniscate pattern for the time of equal day and equal night. It was inspiring to discover that walking this figure eight pattern created a natural embracing and widening gesture, with a potent pause of sovereignty and balance in the center of the lemniscate loops. We experienced together a moment of peace and stillness that echoed the Solstice stillness, but held a deep equilibrium unique to the Equinox time–one that embraced and united us throughout the Gaian world in its strength and potency and power.

Now we find ourselves once more at Solstice–the Gateways of greatest Light and greatest Darkness. It is June, 2022, and at this turn in the Earth’s wheel, we are celebrating Summer Solstice in the northern hemisphere, and Winter Solstice in the southern hemisphere. It will be interesting to experience the opposite mirroring gestures of what we initiated and celebrated in December of 2021. We have the opportunity to contemplate all that has happened to us and in our world since we last walked a spiral, and we can discover who we are now in the present moment. We can breathe with Gaia, be Gaian, as we pause once again in sacred stillness and celebration of life together across the globe.

We will be celebrating Summer and Winter Solstice together via Zoom on Sunday, June 19th, 2022 at 1 pm PST. All are warmly invited (membership in the Gaian Commons Community required).

Whether you join us that day or not, we invite you to create your own Spiral of Light wherever you are, to honor this Solstice time, and to cultivate a new Gaian Festival of Light and Wholeness in your lives.

A Shared Spiral Ritual

Creating a spiral, whether for yourself, or together with family and friends, can be a creative, fun and meaningful ritual in the days or weeks leading up to Solstice. In the Southern hemisphere, creating a spiral of winter greens can be beautiful, as it invokes the age old meaning of bringing green life back to the barren land of Midwinter. For the Northern hemisphere, creating a spiral from all the beauty and life of summer’s bounty–flowers, blossoms, herbs - would be a wonderful thing to do with family, grandchildren and friends. Use your imagination to create what works for you. If making a large spiral to walk is too much, create one from sand on the beach, or stones from a river. The possibilities are endless!

Have fun with this. Perhaps the spirals you create could honor the four kingdoms of nature–Earth, Water, Air and Fire, and the elementals representing these kingdoms – Gnomes, Undines, Sylphs and Salamanders. Midsummer’s Eve/Day June 23/24th in the Northern hemisphere is a traditional time (linked to Summer Solstice) to commune and make merry with the faeries and elementals of the land where you live. Lucinda Herring will share about this at our June 19th gathering. Ara Swanney will share about the traditional Maori festival of Matariki (meaning Pleiades) a new year’s celebration held in New Zealand near the Winter Solstice. This year, Matariki coincides with Midsummer’s Day, June 24th in the Northern hemisphere, which is a special alignment.

Festivals are living gateways in the Earth’s year, liminal times where we can connect more deeply with our selves, and with the seen and unseen realms of Gaian life. The spirals we create can be gifts to our homes, land and place. They can serve as focal points and an invitation for our local nature spirits, house angels, genius loci of land, unseen allies and Sidhe companions to join us in our preparations and celebrations.  Such co-creation is a Gaian work–reweaving the web of life as the wheel of the seasons turn, and cultivating joy and lightness of being for troubled times.

You might wish to wear something festive or representative of the Solstice season you are honoring. Please bring a candle, as we will be using these in our ritual time together, and, if you wish, something seasonal and festive to drink and eat. You might also want to bring a spiral you can trace with your finger, if you want to include a bodily gesture, or you might create a spiral in the room where you will be, to actually walk during our shared meditation.   

Our Solstice gathering will be the third exploration of what it means to create new Gaian Festivals for this time of great transformation and change on our planet.   We welcome your presence,  either at the Sunday gathering, or in your feedback and sharing online, for each of us holds a unique and valuable perspective and understanding of these questions:

What does it mean to celebrate the Solstices and the Equinoxes in a Gaian way?

How can we “think like, breathe like, be like our beloved planet,” not only at festival times, but in every moment of our lives?

How can we cultivate joy and sacred wholeness, in service to life and to our world?

Download How to Create a Festival of Lights Spiral Ritual  below for more specific instructions and inspiration.