Friend's Conference on Religion and Psychology, Annville, 2007
I went to a lovely conference over Memorial Day. One of the nice side effects of taking my notes on a computer is that now they're available for easy sharing via the intarwebnests. I've put them all behind the cut. The speaker was Bill Plotkin, and I quite enjoyed it all, even the discomfort. Enjoy, if you wish.
He used poems interspersed throughout to illustrate his points. I'll be reproducing them in the comments to save space in the initial post.
FCRP 2007 Plenary Notes
Bill Plotkin
The NorthEast way I understand my work is to evoke the wild in humans.
A Story of His:
My first ecstatic break was during my first public presentation in 3rd grade. It was a book report - “Born Wild”, maybe. As I was saying, what I liked about the book - my crisis was I didn’t like the book. I asked my teacher if I could say what I didn’t like. She agreed. I started to say what - and I started to laugh - and everybody started to laugh. I was laughing out of control - fell to the floor.
Teacher: “William, I think that’s enough.”
I howled.
“William, I’m going to count to five.” She did.
I laughed louder.
“Willian, we’ll have to take you out of the classroom.” She dragged me to the Principal’s office by my ankles. “William is out of control today.” They sent me home. It was fine with me. I knew Miss Quinn loved me.
Experiential exercises - 8 total. 1 tonight, 1 tomorrow morning.
What does wildness mean?
-wildflower, for example.
-a wildflower is indigenous - it is designed by it’s environment, but is also a co-designer of its universe. Everything is what it is by virtue of its relationship to everything else. That’s what I think wild is, and we are .
What did the universe design us to be?
Each of us is unique, and we don’t get to decide.
-each of us can find out
-The answer is soul- the greatest conversation that we jave with the world. Its not really inside of me. There’s really no in/out duality. There’s just the world - everything has a soul - place - destiny.
-Wildness is even in the city - even in thie auditorium.
Examples of wildness in here:
-gravity (but no one knows what it is)
-you and me - we bring wildness/nature here
-we may be th eonly being with a capability to distance ourselves from our wildness.
Green man visits on stage
-Bill reads “The Green Man” poem
-gives images of our own wildness
-wildness shows up in our major life passages
-however, we suppress these
-there are nine major life passages - we miss about five
1) Birth
2) No name - about age 4, when we realize that we are each a self (“naming” in society)
3) Puberty - It’s the 1st where you are conscious before and after
4) No name - Bill says “confirmation. You have a personality that works in the village - now let it go. Late teens. A passage into the mysteries - big questions come. What is romance? Poetry? What will I do? In many societies, initiation. Poem - Mary Oliver The Journey
5) Major change in the world & consciousness - can be several years or more. “Soul Initiation” I know what I am to/in the world. What is the mystery? “A promise that would kill you for break.” - poem, David White, Revelation must be terrible
6) Induction - I have the responsibility to manifest my gift in a way that has never been seen before
7) Crowning - You realize it’s not about you and your mystery - you realize that you have a responsibility to care for the Soul of the World
8) Surrender - We complete the passage from doing/striving/achieving to being - Life is not about accomplishing anything anymore
9) Death
Note: Puberty is a big deal - It becomes the conscious template for later passages - It’s not the threshold to adulthood only to adolescence
Plotkin's book Soulcraft is to help people get through passages, dealing with the human cocoon
New culture comes from the vision/revelation, not from thinking - Thomas Berry
How did I come to doing this work?
Many answers
Two days ago, I was half asleep - really embarrassing - the muse said “girls”
That was right, as an adolescent, girls were alluring, and dangerous
Mayans wait until young people start courting to initiate
They wait till a move became particularly eloquent
At Duke, Bill did yoga, sufi, Dr. JB Rhine’s lab was there
No one though talked about the difference between Spirit and Soul
Stephan Foster and Meredith Little - talk about mysteries
Dyad: Tell a story about wildness in your life
Saturday and Sunday - Nature-based map of the human Psyche - Covers all the elements of our human wholeness - Jung’s Self
Tomorrow - The 4 dimensions of Self
Sunday - The 4 dimensions of our woundedness
Monday - The nature-based stages of human development and what happens in between
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Rilke
How surely gravity’s law, strong as an ocean’s current, takes hold of even the smallest thing and pulls it toward the heart of the world.
Each thing, each stone, blossom, child, is held in place. Only we, in our arrogance, push out beyond what we each belong to for some empty freedom.
If we surrender to earth’s intelligence, we could rise up, rooted like trees. Instead, we entangle ourselves in knots of our own making and struggle, tangled and confused.
1) Nature can teach us how to fall - how to fall into an underworld journey, into a cocoon
2) What does it look like to be a whole human being?
3) Nature can teach us how to grow old, stage by stage.
Best therapy We are born with one or two of the functions strong and three to two are harder to develop.
Introvert/Extrovert, Intuitive/Sensing, Thinking/Feeling, Perceiving/Judging
The four functions - imagination (instead of intuition); his examples were always of imagination, not necessarily intuition.
Steve Gaagos - intuition works differently; 25% through imagination, 25% through thinking, 25% through feeling and 25% through sensing.
Thinking - N; Sensing - E; Feeling - S; Imagination - W
Intrapersonal
Outer (whole) -
(N) Nurturing Parent,
Competence and Knowledge; middle of the night; winter
There’s no such thing as a toxic emotion.
Everything that happens to us is grist for our growth
When you’re ready, go strive deeper - no security blanket
Screwing up is ok
Poem - David Whyte: All The True Vows
Interpersonal
Outer Circle -
(N) Generative Adult, Leader, Teacher, Parent, Healer, Empath,
Competence and Knowledge; middle of the night; winter
Poem - William Stafford: The Way it Is
Risk is good
People will not understand what you are doing; it is a mystery
Dyad - Time when you embodied this part of yourself.
Richard Schwartz - Internal Family Systems
Intrapersonal
Outer (whole) -
(E) Sage, Fool, Trickster, Innocent
Transition from dark to light; things going up; dawn; lightening up; Spring
Lao Tzu - example of the East (name for self: “A Simpleton”)
Seeing things simply
Poem (Innocent) - Mary Oliver: Peonies
Poem (Trickster) - Kabir, Robery Bly translation
Interpersonal
Outer Circle -
(E) Sage, Fool, Trickster, Innocent,
See above
Dyad - Stories from the East
Intrapersonal
Outer (whole) -
(S) Wild, Enchanted, Emotive, Sensual, Indigenous, Magical Self
Indigenous humans - all people are indigenous because we’re born on Earth
Full body flow of emotionality
Wild
Evoked to be the way we are by the “others” the kami/wights
Erotic
Summer
Interpersonal
Outer Circle -
(S) Wild Man (Green Man), Wild Woman (Artemis),
Poem - Robert McLean: Nass River
Poem - Mary Oliver: The Way of Self
Poem - Rumi: The Guesthouse
Poem - Eskimo (Nglaniyak): Magic Words
Poem - Mary Oliver: Wreckless Poem
Dyad - Times when you embodied your wild self
Intrapersonal
Outer (whole) -
(W) Muse, Guide to Soul, Anima/Animus, Beloved
Fall, downward journey into darkness with it’s own intrinisic value
Poem - Adrienne Rich: Prospective Immigrants, Please Note
Poem - Rilke: You Darkness (Dave Whyte trans.)
Poem - Rilke: “You see, I want a lot”
Romance, alluring, longing, core of mystery
Poem - Rumi: “I would love to kiss you / the price of kissing in your life”
Interpersonal
Outer Circle -
(W) Wanderer, Soul Guide, Magician, Psychopop
Dyad - A story about a time when you embodied your west self - muse, beloved, etc…
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Jung - the goal of integration is not perfection, but wholeness.
Conformist says with her behavior, “I don’t really know who I am, but I notice these people are getting the rewards, so I’ll be like them.”
Rebel says with her behavior, “I don’t really know who I am, but I really don’t like those people over there, so I’m going to not be like them.”
Wanderer says with her behavior, “I don’t really know who I am, but I’m going to wander around and try to find out.”
3 worlds - Upper world, middle world, lower world. Not so much separate worlds but identities.
Middle world - identity in relation to other people.
Upper world - identity in relation to The One
Lower world - identity in relation to the Self
Sub-personalities: we get stuck here a lot; wounded or fragmented varieties of the dimension of the self on the outside circle.
A major goal of individuation is to be in dialogue with our wounded self from the perspective of the Self. “Acting out,” stuck in a sub personality and acting it out (often unconsciously).
Inner (our fragmentation)
Intrapersonal
(S) Wounded Children
Poem - Rilke: “You musn’t be frightened if a sadness rises in front of you”
Poem - Rumi: “Sorrow appears before joy”
Poem - Persha Gertler: The Healing Time
Interpersonal
(S) Victim, Conformist, Rebel, Prince/Princess - Orphans all
Victim - Fear: Really bad things happened a long time ago, and this morning at breakfast, and can’t someone save me
Conformist - Fear: I don’t want really bad things to happen to me, so I’d better do what they do
Rebel - Anger: I’m really angry because of what happened to me as a child, and this morning at breakfast, and so I hate those people who did it to me.
Prince/Princess - Anger: I’m really angry because of what happened to me as a child, and this morning at breakfast, but luckily I’m rich so I’m going to take it out on my family and friends and dog.
Intrapersonal
(W) Shadow & Shadow Selves
Those things you don’t know about yourself - either which you would be horrified to find out or which you think are too good to be you.
The more light, the more shadow
Creating a shadow is inevitable; it is a part of having values.
Shadow: The repository
Shadow shelves: release valves -
Interpersonal
(W) Monster, Devil, Guru, God
Poem - Rumi: Shadow and Lightsource Both
Poem - Juan Ramone Jinenez: Facing the Virgin Shadow
Poem - M. Truman Cooper: Fearing Paris
Intrapersonal
(N) Loyal Soldiers
Forms before we become conscious as human beings - predates ego.
Keeps you small; keeps you from being abandoned; find a way to be pleasing - “co-dependency is not all bad”.
Stay in line, stay in tune with society, loyal soldier shovels things into the shadow to keep you form being yelled at, mocked, insulted, and rejected.
Interpersonal
(N) Rescuer, Co-dependant, Enabler/Tyrant/Dictator/Critical Parent,
Poem - Robert Bly: One Source of Bad Information
Freud: “Wherever I go, I find th epoets have gotten there before me.”
Poem - David Whyte: The Fire in the Song “If you only stop singing, I’ll make you safe.”
How do you know if the war is over: “If I put myself out in the world, as big and beautifully as I can, and people reject me, laugh at me, throw me in jail and I will be ok - I have resources both internal and externally to deal with the worst the world can throw at me.”
Never argue with your internal soldier; he has been protecting you and he loves you.
Beginning soldier work - welcome soldier home
Advance soldier work - do what the soldier is protecting you from and be humiliated; the humiliation will shape your gift to the world.
Intrapersonal
(E) Escapists, Addicts
“Meditation can be used as an escape” - Chongyum Trungpa
Spirituality often counts toward this.
Interpersonal
(E) Blisshead, Puer, Puella
“Oh, yeah, yeah, I know there’s some really bad stuff out there, but I’m doing the inner planes. We do our meditation, and some chanting, and we project our love out into the world. That’s all you can do, really.”
Poem - J. Leaming: “Trying to get rid of your ego is like trying to get rid of your garbage can.”
Poem - Donna Markova: I will not die an unlived life.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Poem - David Whyte:
Dysfunctional culture - severely pathological because it is out of sync with nature.
Thomas Barry: Can only reinvent a new culture by the same process healthy cultures were engendered from the beginning. Can’t think ourselves out of this mess. Have to sink down into our pre-rational consciousness; dream, revelation, visions.
The way to progress developmentally is to fall in love with the tasks and gift of your stage.
The way to move on is to work on the psycho-spiritual tasks of your stage - not the next stage but the one you’re in - and then you’ll be magically popped into the next one.
Nature task & culture task at each stage, which reflects the balance of humanity between nature and human-created culture.
Stage 1: The Innocent in the Nest - form a cohesive ego that is socially acceptable
Parent has to foster this
Our culture tends to have either basic obedience training or basic entitlement training, not necessary enculturation.
Stage 2: The Explorer in the Garden - Discovering the natural world and learning the cultural ways of the world.
Four dimensions of nature (the OUT DOORS)
1. The world (Nature Deficient Disorder - David Luve)
2. The body
3. The emotions
4. The deep imagination (Living By Wonder - Richard Lewis)
Steve Gaillagos - 4 ways of knowing (sensing, feeling,thinking, and imagination)
Stage 3: The Thespian at the Oasis - Craft a personality (a way of social belonging) that is authentic and craft a personality that is socially acceptable - one task with two dimensions
Masculine - let’s get this going, I’m going some where, don’t get in my way
Feminine - look here, lets flesh out what’s here and adorn here
75% (or so) never make the jump to stage 4
Stage 4: The Wanderer in the Cocoon - Leave the home of your adolescent family and cross into the mysteries of nature and find what your Soul Message to bring to the world is
Soulcraft - stage 4 book.
Stage 5: The Apprentice at the Wellspring - Learn a delivery system for bringing your gift to the world and getting to know that deep structure soul better and better
Tracks in the Wilderness of Dreaming by Robert Bosnack
Stage 6: The Artisan in the Wild Orchard - Create a never before seen delivery system (culture) for soul (nature)
Ends when mystery says: “Enough’s Enough”; you’ve figured it all out, so let it go on autopilot.
Stage 7: The Master in the Grove of Elders - Care for the soul of the more-than-human community
“Anasazi” is the Navaho word for “enemy;” many in the SW call them the ancient pueblo people.
Joanna Macey - suspected she was in stage 7
Stage 8: The Sage in the Mountain Cave - tending the universe; no real tasks.
Thomas Berry - suspected she is in stage 8; very mystical - tending the universe.
The Chinese Emperor did nothing - essential for his role - during the Period of the Warring States (Mushu). Simply had to coordinate his life with the cosmos, and the cosmos will cease if he does not. He needed to change with the seasons; clothing, living space, music, etc…
June Dillinger - Hyroglypic Stairway
He used poems interspersed throughout to illustrate his points. I'll be reproducing them in the comments to save space in the initial post.
FCRP 2007 Plenary Notes
Bill Plotkin
The NorthEast way I understand my work is to evoke the wild in humans.
A Story of His:
My first ecstatic break was during my first public presentation in 3rd grade. It was a book report - “Born Wild”, maybe. As I was saying, what I liked about the book - my crisis was I didn’t like the book. I asked my teacher if I could say what I didn’t like. She agreed. I started to say what - and I started to laugh - and everybody started to laugh. I was laughing out of control - fell to the floor.
Teacher: “William, I think that’s enough.”
I howled.
“William, I’m going to count to five.” She did.
I laughed louder.
“Willian, we’ll have to take you out of the classroom.” She dragged me to the Principal’s office by my ankles. “William is out of control today.” They sent me home. It was fine with me. I knew Miss Quinn loved me.
Experiential exercises - 8 total. 1 tonight, 1 tomorrow morning.
What does wildness mean?
-wildflower, for example.
-a wildflower is indigenous - it is designed by it’s environment, but is also a co-designer of its universe. Everything is what it is by virtue of its relationship to everything else. That’s what I think wild is, and we are .
What did the universe design us to be?
Each of us is unique, and we don’t get to decide.
-each of us can find out
-The answer is soul- the greatest conversation that we jave with the world. Its not really inside of me. There’s really no in/out duality. There’s just the world - everything has a soul - place - destiny.
-Wildness is even in the city - even in thie auditorium.
Examples of wildness in here:
-gravity (but no one knows what it is)
-you and me - we bring wildness/nature here
-we may be th eonly being with a capability to distance ourselves from our wildness.
Green man visits on stage
-Bill reads “The Green Man” poem
-gives images of our own wildness
-wildness shows up in our major life passages
-however, we suppress these
-there are nine major life passages - we miss about five
1) Birth
2) No name - about age 4, when we realize that we are each a self (“naming” in society)
3) Puberty - It’s the 1st where you are conscious before and after
4) No name - Bill says “confirmation. You have a personality that works in the village - now let it go. Late teens. A passage into the mysteries - big questions come. What is romance? Poetry? What will I do? In many societies, initiation. Poem - Mary Oliver The Journey
5) Major change in the world & consciousness - can be several years or more. “Soul Initiation” I know what I am to/in the world. What is the mystery? “A promise that would kill you for break.” - poem, David White, Revelation must be terrible
6) Induction - I have the responsibility to manifest my gift in a way that has never been seen before
7) Crowning - You realize it’s not about you and your mystery - you realize that you have a responsibility to care for the Soul of the World
8) Surrender - We complete the passage from doing/striving/achieving to being - Life is not about accomplishing anything anymore
9) Death
Note: Puberty is a big deal - It becomes the conscious template for later passages - It’s not the threshold to adulthood only to adolescence
Plotkin's book Soulcraft is to help people get through passages, dealing with the human cocoon
New culture comes from the vision/revelation, not from thinking - Thomas Berry
How did I come to doing this work?
Many answers
Two days ago, I was half asleep - really embarrassing - the muse said “girls”
That was right, as an adolescent, girls were alluring, and dangerous
Mayans wait until young people start courting to initiate
They wait till a move became particularly eloquent
At Duke, Bill did yoga, sufi, Dr. JB Rhine’s lab was there
No one though talked about the difference between Spirit and Soul
Stephan Foster and Meredith Little - talk about mysteries
Dyad: Tell a story about wildness in your life
Saturday and Sunday - Nature-based map of the human Psyche - Covers all the elements of our human wholeness - Jung’s Self
Tomorrow - The 4 dimensions of Self
Sunday - The 4 dimensions of our woundedness
Monday - The nature-based stages of human development and what happens in between
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Rilke
How surely gravity’s law, strong as an ocean’s current, takes hold of even the smallest thing and pulls it toward the heart of the world.
Each thing, each stone, blossom, child, is held in place. Only we, in our arrogance, push out beyond what we each belong to for some empty freedom.
If we surrender to earth’s intelligence, we could rise up, rooted like trees. Instead, we entangle ourselves in knots of our own making and struggle, tangled and confused.
1) Nature can teach us how to fall - how to fall into an underworld journey, into a cocoon
2) What does it look like to be a whole human being?
3) Nature can teach us how to grow old, stage by stage.
Best therapy We are born with one or two of the functions strong and three to two are harder to develop.
Introvert/Extrovert, Intuitive/Sensing, Thinking/Feeling, Perceiving/Judging
The four functions - imagination (instead of intuition); his examples were always of imagination, not necessarily intuition.
Steve Gaagos - intuition works differently; 25% through imagination, 25% through thinking, 25% through feeling and 25% through sensing.
Thinking - N; Sensing - E; Feeling - S; Imagination - W
Intrapersonal
Outer (whole) -
(N) Nurturing Parent,
Competence and Knowledge; middle of the night; winter
There’s no such thing as a toxic emotion.
Everything that happens to us is grist for our growth
When you’re ready, go strive deeper - no security blanket
Screwing up is ok
Poem - David Whyte: All The True Vows
Interpersonal
Outer Circle -
(N) Generative Adult, Leader, Teacher, Parent, Healer, Empath,
Competence and Knowledge; middle of the night; winter
Poem - William Stafford: The Way it Is
Risk is good
People will not understand what you are doing; it is a mystery
Dyad - Time when you embodied this part of yourself.
Richard Schwartz - Internal Family Systems
Intrapersonal
Outer (whole) -
(E) Sage, Fool, Trickster, Innocent
Transition from dark to light; things going up; dawn; lightening up; Spring
Lao Tzu - example of the East (name for self: “A Simpleton”)
Seeing things simply
Poem (Innocent) - Mary Oliver: Peonies
Poem (Trickster) - Kabir, Robery Bly translation
Interpersonal
Outer Circle -
(E) Sage, Fool, Trickster, Innocent,
See above
Dyad - Stories from the East
Intrapersonal
Outer (whole) -
(S) Wild, Enchanted, Emotive, Sensual, Indigenous, Magical Self
Indigenous humans - all people are indigenous because we’re born on Earth
Full body flow of emotionality
Wild
Evoked to be the way we are by the “others” the kami/wights
Erotic
Summer
Interpersonal
Outer Circle -
(S) Wild Man (Green Man), Wild Woman (Artemis),
Poem - Robert McLean: Nass River
Poem - Mary Oliver: The Way of Self
Poem - Rumi: The Guesthouse
Poem - Eskimo (Nglaniyak): Magic Words
Poem - Mary Oliver: Wreckless Poem
Dyad - Times when you embodied your wild self
Intrapersonal
Outer (whole) -
(W) Muse, Guide to Soul, Anima/Animus, Beloved
Fall, downward journey into darkness with it’s own intrinisic value
Poem - Adrienne Rich: Prospective Immigrants, Please Note
Poem - Rilke: You Darkness (Dave Whyte trans.)
Poem - Rilke: “You see, I want a lot”
Romance, alluring, longing, core of mystery
Poem - Rumi: “I would love to kiss you / the price of kissing in your life”
Interpersonal
Outer Circle -
(W) Wanderer, Soul Guide, Magician, Psychopop
Dyad - A story about a time when you embodied your west self - muse, beloved, etc…
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Jung - the goal of integration is not perfection, but wholeness.
Conformist says with her behavior, “I don’t really know who I am, but I notice these people are getting the rewards, so I’ll be like them.”
Rebel says with her behavior, “I don’t really know who I am, but I really don’t like those people over there, so I’m going to not be like them.”
Wanderer says with her behavior, “I don’t really know who I am, but I’m going to wander around and try to find out.”
3 worlds - Upper world, middle world, lower world. Not so much separate worlds but identities.
Middle world - identity in relation to other people.
Upper world - identity in relation to The One
Lower world - identity in relation to the Self
Sub-personalities: we get stuck here a lot; wounded or fragmented varieties of the dimension of the self on the outside circle.
A major goal of individuation is to be in dialogue with our wounded self from the perspective of the Self. “Acting out,” stuck in a sub personality and acting it out (often unconsciously).
Inner (our fragmentation)
Intrapersonal
(S) Wounded Children
Poem - Rilke: “You musn’t be frightened if a sadness rises in front of you”
Poem - Rumi: “Sorrow appears before joy”
Poem - Persha Gertler: The Healing Time
Interpersonal
(S) Victim, Conformist, Rebel, Prince/Princess - Orphans all
Victim - Fear: Really bad things happened a long time ago, and this morning at breakfast, and can’t someone save me
Conformist - Fear: I don’t want really bad things to happen to me, so I’d better do what they do
Rebel - Anger: I’m really angry because of what happened to me as a child, and this morning at breakfast, and so I hate those people who did it to me.
Prince/Princess - Anger: I’m really angry because of what happened to me as a child, and this morning at breakfast, but luckily I’m rich so I’m going to take it out on my family and friends and dog.
Intrapersonal
(W) Shadow & Shadow Selves
Those things you don’t know about yourself - either which you would be horrified to find out or which you think are too good to be you.
The more light, the more shadow
Creating a shadow is inevitable; it is a part of having values.
Shadow: The repository
Shadow shelves: release valves -
Interpersonal
(W) Monster, Devil, Guru, God
Poem - Rumi: Shadow and Lightsource Both
Poem - Juan Ramone Jinenez: Facing the Virgin Shadow
Poem - M. Truman Cooper: Fearing Paris
Intrapersonal
(N) Loyal Soldiers
Forms before we become conscious as human beings - predates ego.
Keeps you small; keeps you from being abandoned; find a way to be pleasing - “co-dependency is not all bad”.
Stay in line, stay in tune with society, loyal soldier shovels things into the shadow to keep you form being yelled at, mocked, insulted, and rejected.
Interpersonal
(N) Rescuer, Co-dependant, Enabler/Tyrant/Dictator/Critical Parent,
Poem - Robert Bly: One Source of Bad Information
Freud: “Wherever I go, I find th epoets have gotten there before me.”
Poem - David Whyte: The Fire in the Song “If you only stop singing, I’ll make you safe.”
How do you know if the war is over: “If I put myself out in the world, as big and beautifully as I can, and people reject me, laugh at me, throw me in jail and I will be ok - I have resources both internal and externally to deal with the worst the world can throw at me.”
Never argue with your internal soldier; he has been protecting you and he loves you.
Beginning soldier work - welcome soldier home
Advance soldier work - do what the soldier is protecting you from and be humiliated; the humiliation will shape your gift to the world.
Intrapersonal
(E) Escapists, Addicts
“Meditation can be used as an escape” - Chongyum Trungpa
Spirituality often counts toward this.
Interpersonal
(E) Blisshead, Puer, Puella
“Oh, yeah, yeah, I know there’s some really bad stuff out there, but I’m doing the inner planes. We do our meditation, and some chanting, and we project our love out into the world. That’s all you can do, really.”
Poem - J. Leaming: “Trying to get rid of your ego is like trying to get rid of your garbage can.”
Poem - Donna Markova: I will not die an unlived life.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Poem - David Whyte:
Dysfunctional culture - severely pathological because it is out of sync with nature.
Thomas Barry: Can only reinvent a new culture by the same process healthy cultures were engendered from the beginning. Can’t think ourselves out of this mess. Have to sink down into our pre-rational consciousness; dream, revelation, visions.
The way to progress developmentally is to fall in love with the tasks and gift of your stage.
The way to move on is to work on the psycho-spiritual tasks of your stage - not the next stage but the one you’re in - and then you’ll be magically popped into the next one.
Nature task & culture task at each stage, which reflects the balance of humanity between nature and human-created culture.
Stage 1: The Innocent in the Nest - form a cohesive ego that is socially acceptable
Parent has to foster this
Our culture tends to have either basic obedience training or basic entitlement training, not necessary enculturation.
Stage 2: The Explorer in the Garden - Discovering the natural world and learning the cultural ways of the world.
Four dimensions of nature (the OUT DOORS)
1. The world (Nature Deficient Disorder - David Luve)
2. The body
3. The emotions
4. The deep imagination (Living By Wonder - Richard Lewis)
Steve Gaillagos - 4 ways of knowing (sensing, feeling,thinking, and imagination)
Stage 3: The Thespian at the Oasis - Craft a personality (a way of social belonging) that is authentic and craft a personality that is socially acceptable - one task with two dimensions
Masculine - let’s get this going, I’m going some where, don’t get in my way
Feminine - look here, lets flesh out what’s here and adorn here
75% (or so) never make the jump to stage 4
Stage 4: The Wanderer in the Cocoon - Leave the home of your adolescent family and cross into the mysteries of nature and find what your Soul Message to bring to the world is
Soulcraft - stage 4 book.
Stage 5: The Apprentice at the Wellspring - Learn a delivery system for bringing your gift to the world and getting to know that deep structure soul better and better
Tracks in the Wilderness of Dreaming by Robert Bosnack
Stage 6: The Artisan in the Wild Orchard - Create a never before seen delivery system (culture) for soul (nature)
Ends when mystery says: “Enough’s Enough”; you’ve figured it all out, so let it go on autopilot.
Stage 7: The Master in the Grove of Elders - Care for the soul of the more-than-human community
“Anasazi” is the Navaho word for “enemy;” many in the SW call them the ancient pueblo people.
Joanna Macey - suspected she was in stage 7
Stage 8: The Sage in the Mountain Cave - tending the universe; no real tasks.
Thomas Berry - suspected she is in stage 8; very mystical - tending the universe.
The Chinese Emperor did nothing - essential for his role - during the Period of the Warring States (Mushu). Simply had to coordinate his life with the cosmos, and the cosmos will cease if he does not. He needed to change with the seasons; clothing, living space, music, etc…
June Dillinger - Hyroglypic Stairway