Descent–Into the Belly of the Whale

For this month of May let’s explore here the stage of the Hero’s Adventure which requires Descent and Re-emergence.  Once an adventurer set upon their glorious Quest crosses the (first) threshold to enter into the domain of their field of action to achieve fulfillment, they are often initially “swallowed up” or they descend into a “forbidden (verboten) zone” of a sort that accords with their needs.  Descent signifies allowing oneself to explore the fertile realms of archetypal unconscious potential. Descent is a necessary process to undertake before you can claim any true progress in attaining your most worthy purpose or goal.

Many an epic narrative illuminates the rich though challenging encounter with ‘denizens of the Deep’, such as is represented by the biblical story of Jonah and the Whale. This is a descent into the “dynamism of the Unconscious” according to archetypal psychologists including Carl Jung, James Hillman and Joseph Campbell.

Your unconscious psychological Innerscapes that you may feel are “below” or ‘beneath’ your surface level of conscious awareness are vital like rich loam, oozing with multiple, too often “buried” perceptions, feelings and insights.

Halloween, for example, is a time of year set aside to release and engage with such a ‘dark,’ shadowy level of consciousness that may actually represent your own unconscious, ‘inner’ worlds. Who do you like to dress up as on Halloween? What might that say about your own archetypal ‘shadow’ selves?

This month I invite you to “step down,” to accept and listen more closely to your own subconscious and deeper unconscious–often called “gut”–voices. They are YOU; facets of your own total consciousness that derive in part from the various roles and lived experiences you have accumulated and enacted in your life, including those usually more ‘hidden’ parts of Self that might feel stunted, silenced or in “Shadow”.

Sink Into Deep Waters: A Creative Visualization Activity

As a self-discovery, active imagination technique that you can use to facilitate the psychologically energizing experience of Descent, I invite you to imagine sinking deeply into a body of water. Remember the scene from The Graduate when Ben Braddock (the title character played by Dustin Hoffman) is overwhelmed by his conflicting feelings and relationships, so he dives into a backyard pool and lets himself sink to the bottom? He stays there as long as he can in this depth domain, performing a sort of soul searching.

Try this in a bathtub.  You can fill your tub with bath bubbles (if you wish), with time apart from family or others, and sink back (not really putting your head under the water for so long!).  Imagine sinking to the bottom of a pool or of a lake or even of an Ocean. You can breathe, though; do make sure you give yourself this ability.

Now explore: what is ‘on your mind’ or heart?  What deep questions or decisions are you contemplating, do you need answers about from your own inner parts of Self or inner guidance?

I just did this exercise myself about an hour ago and loved it. When I asked my Self what I needed to better understand I found it is my fear of being alone in my retirement.  My dog Sophie was at the bathroom door and I knew she and my cats will be with me, but I do have a fear of leaving all my friends and outer spiritual community behind me in Colorado when I move in just over a year across country.

So I stayed in the tub, continuing to imagine being underwater like Ben in The Graduate. (Actually this turns out for me to be a very apt fictional analog, as I conceptualize retirement as a graduation from Academia as a professor.) I found my inner selves piping up about the various aspects of Self I could connect with in seeking new friends at my new location. I can connect with writers, and readers, and retired teachers; with pet lovers, Scrabble or other game players, hikers, neighbors and of course my family will mostly be closer, plus a highschool friend still there. Even further, the thought arose that through today’s social media, I don’t have to wait until I make this Big Move before connecting to seek out some like minded others.  I can find online networks and begin connecting even before I leave. I have a full year left to do so before I leave. This last awareness felt very liberating to me; an idea I had not focussed on very ‘deeply’ before now!

pictures are from pixabay.com

And so, dear fellows, Go For It! I invite you to try this creative visualization technique, either in the tub or in any environment that allows you to engage in an active contemplation session.

I invite and welcome your comments and story!

Build a Bridge to Your Destiny

Who Are You? How did you get where you are today? Where are you wanting to go from here? How will you get there?

Here’s a quick creative Tool to help you discover a pathway to a desired next step that you might feel it is too hard to attain:

On a piece of construction paper of a color you associate with Fulfillment, paste or draw an image of a BRIDGE. This can be any sort of bridge you choose, but make sure it is strong, a bridge that will definitely convey you from one side (where you are now) to another (where you wish to “belong”).

You can place or draw images of where you are and of where you wish to arrive at as a destination on either side of the bridge.

On or above the Bridge Path itself, place action words, phrases or images that are actual steps or transitions you CAN make in the foreseeable future that can lead you clearly n the direction of your goal.

For example, “pay off debt” or “exercise 2 times per week” or “write a chapter outline” could be statements you write on the bridge.

images are from pixabay.com

Then, DO THIS!  Place one action before you that  is easy to set into motion and let that motion carry you over the bridge, across a threshold to your desirable new state or condition.

I welcome YOUR comments or story!

Contemplative Hopping (Internal Threshold Crossing)

Story 1:  Yogic Flying

Sometime in the late 1970’s, a group of Transcendental Meditation practitioners first stunned the world with their release of video (before the Web even!) demonstrating “yogic flying” or “hopping” while in a deep meditation state of consciousness. They would levitate and shift position on their mats apparently as an exercise of Mind over Body.

Yogic Fliers reveal that we are capable of controlling the body directly through thought or Mind. What else can we take away from their example?

Story 2:  Conscious vs. “Unconscious” States of Consciousness

For a graduate school assignment in linguistic semantics one week, our professor asked us to compose better semantic accounts than standard dictionary references for a related set of terms.  I chose CONSCIOUS and UNCONSCIOUS and compiled a wide range of definitions in order to sort these out and arrive at a holistic semantic analysis. What I discovered was that any state of consciousness that is not “conscious” or a “waking state” perception or experience people tend to lump together under the very large umbrella of “unconscious” in American English parlance.

Included under the far-reaching semantic domain of “unconscious”: unconscious, subconscious, dream state, daydreams, ‘other side’, Mind, (unconscious) thought, brain synapses, Self, soul, precognition, memory, lack of awareness. What I noticed about this wide range of concepts is that, simply put, Americans comprehend on the whole very little about anything they cannot directly See, Hear, Taste, Smell or Touch. All the rest, which in my view is the whole-enchilada iceberg under that tiny tip of “conscious” sense awareness, is lumped together as “unconscious.”

As one who has engaged in daily, active contemplation and dreamwork for at least 44 years, I have discovered that the “Inner” is much more vast and is much more open to exploration and freedom of experience than the “Outer” realm of matter and conscious awareness.  There are many (perhaps infinite) levels of consciousness beyond the outer physical senses and body, and you are free to explore this diverse multiplicity of states and levels of consciousness through various modes of meditation, contemplation, active imagination, dreamwork, prayer, paranormal investigation and/or mindfulness techniques.

That which is BEYOND the physical body states is neither defined by the mind nor contained or controlled by the Brain.

Implications for Contemplative Hopping—Internal Threshold Crossing

Using Jung’s approach of active imagination, a mode of contemplative envisioning and inner action, I encourage you to try your beyond-the-physical wings!  You do have them, at least figuratively speaking.  Dreams of flying (with or without wings as they are usually not needed!) are a very common early mode of inner travel or shifting of attention inwardly.  Explore an inner landscape, for instance, of an outer place you will soon be visiting “out here.”  Or actively contemplate the results or consequences of some anticipated move or action by yourself or others.

When I  was to make a big move from Buffalo (East) to Arizona (‘Out West”)  some 38 years ago, every night I asked to be shown something about the life I was about to embark upon plus I asked questions to trouble shoot this grand adventure. I was shown four people I would later meet (independently of one another) along with some glimpse of their role in my upcoming life.  I was also shown that  the experience would not be without its hardships but they would be necessary (karmic, let’s say), and when I later experienced what was foretold in these dreams very directly, I had been forewarned so was better prepared to meet the challenges.

images are from pixabay.com

Let’s call your active inner explorations (past, present or future) to be forms of inner Threshold Crossing. I like to say, you don’t have to die or nearly die in order to explore the Heavens as well as really anything/ any state your Heart desires. Sages like the poet Rumi, actually, encourage us to “die daily.” This means you have the spiritual freedom to explore and investigate beyond the limited reaches of brain-mind or body.

See? I welcome your comments and stories!

Cross the Threshold to Your Greatest Adventure

The greatest adventure is living life fully in the NOW (see “Alternate Futurescapes” recent post). Now then, the NOW is not necessarily but does include the Present of time-space. NOWness as well includes your own Past and Future lived and liveable experience (as arrays of possibilities) and the total range of possibility arcs in this lifetime, in parallel (e.g. ‘past or future lives’) and in the mulitiverse at large! Have I blown your mind yet? What the heck am I suggesting here? Yes, that You, as a Soul divinely gifted with a capacity for perception and vision–i.e., your creative, active imagination, not just your mental memory banks or existing synaptic networks–are free to explore, examine, and create forms from formless substances; you as Soul are indeed a Creator of and in your own worlds.

So, I encourage you to exercise your innate freedom of consciousness! You needn’t hesitate to daydream, and pay attention to your nighttime revelations as well as to those waking dreams that bring a message to you in the moment. If you were to lock your keys in your car, for example, how might that be a waking dream for you? Maybe it is telling you to pay closer attention, or not to close yourself out of a potential vehicle for moving forward. Take that job offer, for instance, when this sort of waking dream symbol occurs.

images are from pixabay.com

Crossing the threshold to your Greatest Adventure signifies living your life to its fullest potentials, Now, and Now too, and also NOW! In this sense the nature of your life event may be less important than how you experience, frame or respond to it.

Life is transitory: its constructs of imagery, form and emotions ebb and flow as your consciousness focuses or directs your attention (or else as we react, based on former constructions; so, far better the former).

So now, take heed and celebrate every blessed moment, not only in this lifetime you are creating but in the Wholeness of Life Itself.  The mystic sages tell us, and I do believe, that in the most ultimate awareness of truth, Life of Itself is only LOVE.

Love (or, Spirit) is: “…that thread, so fine as to be invisible, yet so strong as to be unbreakable — which binds together all beings in all the worlds of God, in all universes, throughout all time, and beyond time into eternity.” (Paul Twitchell, The Shariyat-Ki-SUGMAD, Book 1).

I enjoy and welcome your Comments. I also invite you to send your own stories on these themes that I will post or reblog with a byline for you, by sending them to my email at lwatts@uccs.edu.

Draw a Cornmeal Line (Don’t Look Back!)

Pueblo Native American cultures (e.g. Hopi, San Juan and Zuni) of New Mexico and Arizona have strong traditions for ‘drawing a line’ between that which has ended and that which continues forward. This takes several forms in ceremonial use and is very evident when a person has died, transcending this surface plane to move on to higher worlds spiritually. Because the emotional bond is so strong among family and loved ones, at a ceremony a cornmeal line is scattered on the earth to signify that the departed shall go on spiritually while the bereaved must allow that spirit to go on and let them go. Otherwise the deceased Soul might want to linger and visit their loved ones psychically and the bereaved might be tempted to follow their loved one to the other side.

To cross a threshold from one domain of life experience to a new Life Chapter full of ripe opportunities, it is important to draw that line, to make a clean departure or separation; to not look back once you have committed to your new direction forward.

For example as I prepare to retire in just over a year now, to launch a second career around writing and services related to Life Path mapping (see sidebar), it is hard not to let doubts belay my forward progress. Shall I really retire to a lakeside community where just this past month I was beset by a throng of pest invaders? Maybe I should just sell the house but relocate in my present Colorado town: easier, safer?

But, no! Life carries us forward and we must discern Its directions and accept and walk upon the path that opens up before us based on our own life purpose and mission. I must trust in Spirit, relying upon all the insights gained along the way.

So yesterday I did an Alternate Futurescapes journaling myself (see previous post). I still envision myself (in most of the alt-scenarios, not all) moving to the lakeside community, but now it is to a recently built or well-maintained, very pest resistant sort of home, maybe a condominium or town home with homeowners fees that tend to pests regularly, or I could buy land and place a modular or a cabin on that. Anyway, my experience was a wake-up call for self (and pet) protection and vigilance, but it was not a barrier to stepping forth, come what may, to Live My Dream.

images are from pixabay.com

So, draw a cornmeal line. Say your goodbyes, allow the past to pass while you turn your shoulders, brace against any inclement symbolic winds, and step cleanly and fully forward into your next step, the next Life Chapter of your mythically charged Life Story.

I welcome your comments and stories!

Alternate Futurescapes: A Crossing-the-Threshold Tool

As Shakti Gawain presented in her excellent book, Creative Visualization, it can be of utmost value to put into practice your divine gift of Imagination when you wish to manifest positive attitudes and experiences in your life. The quality of your consciousness affects your capacity to create the life of your dreams, and you are responsible and therefore free to establish and maintain a positive state of consciousness.

In my book YOUR LIFE PATH, I will be providing 75 self-discovery Tools you can engage with as a life mapping process that will let you review your Life Story; reflect on your Life Themes, Life Chapters and your archetypal parts of Self; and also engage in future prospecting or what I like to call Future Casting.

One fun Future Casting technique to help transport you via creative visualization to Cross the Threshold into a desirable future is to journal or creatively represent in any medium a set of Alternate Futurescapes:

Write in first person (I), present tense(from assuming a NOW perspective)about a possible future that is desirable to you because it fulfills your sense of your Life Purpose, Values, and Goals. Describe the conditions you have established in this Futurescape of your fertile imagining. Where are you, what are you doing, what relationships and activities are prominent in this Future dream-come-true. Describe in detail the distinctive features of your Future landscaoe of consciousness. The more descriptive you can be, the more you can assume a perspective within this possible future; the more of a probability it becomes!

Now then, envision a different alternate futurescape, maybe one even more desirable than the first, more ideal. Or imagine where you will arrive if something you need to change currently you do not change. Write several of these Futurescape scenarios, perhaps limiting yourself to one page each.

Later, look back at these Alternate Futurescape scenarios you have described. Are there some common denominator factors that your more desirable futures share? Can you further envision a pathway to bring about the most desirable future conditions you have imagined?

images are from pixabay.com

If you can conceive of a desirable future you can perceive a path to attain that.

I welcome your Comments and I invite you to share your stories!

Making a True Departure / Shifting to Here-Now

I recognize a distinction between the Present as a current moment in time-space and the Here-Now as a spiritual focus. The NOW experienced in contemplative spiritual practice is a liberating orientation while the notion of Present from a time-space frame of reference is artificial and can be self-limiting. It is a matter of perspective or more accurately it depends upon where you place your attention. If we accept, as I do, that time is an illusion or an artifice of context, then as we shift our focus of attention such as to look ahead with creative visualization or to re-envision a former state of being by reactivating a stored memory, we can focus our consciousness in such a manner as to alter our Present reality. From this angle, the Past is NOW, the Present is NOW, and the Future is also available NOW.

When I was first in college in Buffalo, New York, I had a friend Ann who was an artist specializing in sculpture. Ann created this amazing piece of conceptual art which was comprised of a five foot tall vertical array of multicolored fabric cords with simply a one foot tall plexiglass tube around them. The art was interactive so it invited you to change the position of the tube up or down along the colored cords, slightly compressing the bundle of colors as you would shift the transparent tube. To me this has always been an excellent metaphor for the practice of contemplation or active imagination. We simply shift our consciousness from Here-Now to another Here-Now to OBSERVE; we focus our locus of attention as we choose. We thus can place and activate our consciousness in any dimension of Nowness at will.

pictures are frompixabay.com

Locked within a Time orientation, the Present is a bubble from which we never seem able to escape. The freedom to Act is in the Now. To bring about a true change of life conditions as in realizing a desired future that is a true departure from present conditions requires only a subtle shifting of your attention to a Now of your imagining.

See?

I welcome your comments and viewpoint.

Crossing the Threshold

I attended my dear mother Betty’s early-90th birthday gathering along with 17 family, caregivers and friends this past Saturday. Mom has been enduring the ravages of late stage Parkinsons for several years in an excllent nursing home facility in Western New York. Those of you following theis blog can appreciate how wonderful it was that I could be there with Mom and family at this amazing event that my sisters planned and orchestrated beautifully with great love. After a month’s road trip during which I encountered all manner of what I’ve been calling here “creepy crawly threshold guardians” I actually fled for home with my car and dog in 3 days to deliver my dog Sophie safely (and to separate us from affecting one another plus to deal again with the car)to Colorado. Then my sister graced me from her frequent flying miles to bring me by air right back to Western New York!

Long story short, I can happily report that this after-the-trip trip has resulted in much better health, happiness and encouragement. My family is tremendous. The birthday gathering was all and much more than planned! My sister set Mom’s wheelchair in the center of a worship area room at her nursing home. We formed a semi-circle around her (and the strawberry cheesecake and cards and decorations). My other of 3 sisters had created/ published a beautiful book and slideshow from over 350 photos of Mom and our family from her birth to now. The slideshow ran continuously on a laptop accompanied by a soundtrack of Mom and our favorite songs.

“You are my Sunshine” is a favorite of favorites that we sing to Mom, and she sings along as best she is able! “My Bonnie lies over the Ocean” and Elvis tunes were also in the mix. For a couple of hours we celebrated Betty, our mother, sister, aunt, grandmother and great-grandmother, and Friend. She was fully with us the entire time and even came to full waking clarity for another hour or so afterwards in her room with my sisters and brother-in-law and me for a short while.(Usually she can stay alert and awake for only minutes at a time or through a fed mealtime encounter with her nurses.) When I had a few minutes of alone time with her before I needed to leave, she stared open eyed and we exchanged a loving moment.

“You survived!” she uttered clearly.
“I survived,” I answered gratefully. I told her how much I and all of us love her. I said, “After all of this trip I realize that Family is more important than anything!” (I will be retiring to be closer to my family in a bit over a year now. The trip has only reinforced this resolve.)

So, this entire trip which has also included some amazingly positive experiences including a final format editing of my book manuscript which I will send to the publisher today or tomorrow and meeting/sharing with some wonderful new friends including a B&B owner/ EMT and two new wonderful friends who are publicists forming a team with me and my agent around this project, has finally resolved to the rim of a Threshold Crossing. I have met daunting challenges impeding my progress but I have survived and continue to advance. I arrived at the destination of my mother’s pre-90th birthday. We all laughed and sang, hugged and updated. We shall progress only forward from Here!

pictures are from pixabay.com