Soul Empowerment Coaching

My Top 5 Articles

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 16:21:54 GMT

My Favorite Writings from the Last Seven Years

I have written publicly now for almost seven years.

I started my first blog, Mystical Revival (RIP), in March or April of 2019, with the article “ Why You Should Form a Relationship to Nature .”

There have been so many experiences since then, and I have learned so much. Taking this pause to review my work has me aglow with a healthy sense of self-admiration. It is a really wonderful feeling to see yourself producing quality work over the years, seeing yourself fall, and seeing yourself improve. They stand as the record.

Something that I notice about my older articles is that they relied much more on original photographs. I took more adventures back then (way easier when you’re in California). I know that having more prolonged periods in Nature is something I wish to return to. I’m not sure how much time I will find in 2026, but I’m sure an opportunity will present itself.

Below are my five favorite articles from across the years and why I have selected them. May there be something in these texts which speaks to something in your heart which needs speaking to.

5) Healing & Wholing through Somatic Dreamwork

I wouldn’t say that this is the greatest example of my writing, but it is the most in-depth source of information I have on dreamwork outside of my mini-course .

I don’t really use the term “somatic dreamwork” anymore. It doesn’t quite fit my style, but I thought it would perk up some folks’ ears.

The things you do to try and get eyes on your work!

In any event, this article has my basic philosophy regarding dreams , how the Buddhists use dreams , and a practical technique for exploring dream energies in the body .

Read the full article here .

4) The Fall of Jordan B. Peterson

This one gripped me in a flurry, and it would be the last article I would write for a year and a half .

In April 2024 , good ol’ JP came through Austin. I had fallen in love with his earlier works such as Maps of Meaning and his Biblical Lecture Series (Jordan was much more critical about these things then), and was excited to hear him speak about our current times.

To my unpleasant surprise, his conclusion was that the righteous were under a culture war with the left, which wanted to wallow in arbitrariness and victimhood (how ironic) and destroy all the good that capitalism was trying to work.

This was met with great applause by most audience members, though I suspect less so up in the nosebleeds where I was (more on “the nosebleeds” later).

I listened with quiet contemplation, as well as frustration and envy, as I heard people remarking on the genius of Jordan Peterson as we made our ways back to our cars.

I left the lecture that evening and, arriving home late, set almost immediately to writing the first draft. I believe I posted it the next day, marking my entry into cultural criticism while proudly, humbly, respectfully critiquing someone I had once greatly admired.

And really I was speaking the difficult truth that he had spokenin his earlier years, before fame and power had inflated him . If we earn criticism from those who admire us, we very much ought to listen. In that way I view this article completely as an act of admiration and hope for redemption on his behalf .

Bonus: a masculine embodiment coach got triggered by my article and dissed me on his social media with the words “I don’t want to hear from you if you’re in the nosebleeds, I want to hear from you if you’re in the arena!”

No direct words were ever said.

That’s right, folks. A MASCULINE EMBODIMENT COACH went and tweeted to his followers about what I had to say, rather than engage with me directly.

Stands to reason that you probably shouldn’t go to him.

I think it also indicates that I really struck a nerve.

I realize I’m doing the same thing now, but goddamn it I’ve carried that humbly for awhile now (and now I will speak no more of it). Feels good.

Get the full scoop here .

3) Death of the Adolescent

This was a deeply personal piece concerning a young man who was pulled out of the water at Common’s Ford not long before its posting.

I was deeply impacted by the event, and saw many things unfolding – the unbearable tragedy of a family, an event etched into the very air around us , fractaling out through the lives of all it touched.

Of all he touched.

Read the full story here .

2) Healing in Nature – Sojourn to Sedona

Remember those adventures I said I used to take? This was one of my favorite, and it was my first vision quest experience . While I didn’t know that’s what I was on at the time, events would soon affably convince me.

No sooner had the country gone on lockdown from COVID-19 did I find myself driving towards St. George, Utah to hike through Zion National Park, which eventually took me into Flagstaff and Sedona.

This cemented my relationship with soul and the identification of my path as semi-shamanistic . It was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life, one that I hold very dear to my heart.

God it feels good to know you are not alone .

Read the full article here .

1) My Spiritual Experience with a Medicine Ball

There’s a couple reasons why this one tops the list.

As the title suggests, this article is very silly but also consequently, I feel it has more wisdom to share than any other. Using just a little dash of mêtis I’m able to portray the enormous practicality of being impractical while poking a bit of fun at all those spiritual people that take their experiences just a little too seriously. Who can see the divine in ayahuasca ceremonies and divine visitations but fails to see it plainly in their dirty dishwater or behaviorally challenging child.

I also offer a new nomenclature: "Playout" as opposed to "workout." Semantics are important, and rather than a "playout" being less effective than a "workout," I argue that the former are ultimately more effective in terms of volume of exercise, minimization of energy, and the establishment of positive self-conditioning (e.g. I return to this because it's fun).

Here's an excerpt:

“The language of ‘working out’ and other fitness related self-improvement activities is saturated with the language of conflict and duality. Often there is the reification of an actual battle or war, sometimes against an articulated feeble self. Joe Rogan sums this up nicely in his statement ‘Conquer the inner bitch.’ It stands to reason that if it is indeed such a bitch, why are we involved in such extraordinary conflict to conquer it?”

I feel this article concisely and quietly conveys entirely my philosophy of healing. We don't have to deny any part of our being. When we embrace things openly, joyfully, when we go beyond the boundary of our sense of self, true magic happens.

Read the full silly article here , with a statement from the medicine ball.

Thanks for reading!

Never Met a Pig

Mon, 29 Dec 2025 18:18:48 GMT

Listen to this Poem

We live in

glamorized rot

Endlessly polished turds

Entertainment

Enter payment

Enter-pain-ment

The ugly and sinful

reign while

virtue of every kind

suffers their enormous creativity

in generating ever diverse methods of

desacration.

The world will not change

so long as they remain

in a position

to pull the strings.

They will always lust for power

as well as what is

not for sale

but even they

are not beyond

redemption

even while they seem beyond

reconciliation.

They call our pleas for change

and justice

violence

While exercising every manner of violence

against us.

What madness is this

that we permit this to continue?

How can we forget our forebears

who survived famine and frost, conquest

and every manner of calamity?

Who took their corrupt kings

and flayed them publicly to

restore the king’s spirit?

While the wicked make no disguise

of their hatred and intentions for us?

To leave blood unspilled is

an act of violence greater than

any aggression.

But then, of course,

they would have their justification

as well as the support of

100 million dipshits.

How long I have prayed over you!

To open your hearts!

I know that you’re hurt

Must scream

without a mouth.

But so long as you perpetuate violence

you remain the tool of

The Enemy.

Not our group versus their group

Their group versus all groups.

Our stories often tell

that it takes a common hatred

to find unity.

Will we be friends or opponents

to freedom?

That is the

real question.

One that cannot just be decided

Willy-Nilly.

The stakes are the absolute highest

that you could ever

play for:

The Future of Humanity

What will the lives of your

children and grandchildren

look like?

Do they even have lives

at all?

This is no hyperbole

The exact opposite, really

In my estimation,

the soberest presentation

the

facts.

They’re coming, readying

troves of bullshit

for us to eat.

There are some behaviors

which simply must be culled.

Denying this invites

warranted calamity upon

your flock.

The will to domination,

I must admit,

I have no better solution.

And I’m not saying that

this is it.

But experience and history

instruct me

that things change drastically

when neither side

believes themselves to be

invulnerable, untouchable.

To bow down in the face

of enormous oppression

is not human.

No, it is cowlike.

And aren’t we habitually

reticent to compare ourselves to

an animal?

Though the cow’s virtues

exceed many of our own

and certainly those whom

we would call our

leaders.

I never met a pig

dirtier than the President(s).

The Gnostic Teachings of Christ: Jung the Gnostic Prophet

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 17:50:22 GMT

Resurfacing the Buried Flame

Listen to this Article Narrated by the Author

To review, so far we have discussed Gnostic Christianity, the mystical injunction made by Christ to awaken to our living identity and relationship to the Father, and how the union with the Father is achieved through a descent into Hell or the Underworld. This entails an embrace of the primordial layers of our being that religious dogma prevents us from moving towards : through the dark underbelly that lies beneath the world of appearances, and the golden light which courses through all the events and identities we would most like to forget.

This is why the core of Christ’s teaching is not simply kindness and generosity towards others, and certainly not a dogmatic and sheepish acceptance of imprisoning him within the solitude of prophetic suffering . It entails a dramatic descent through the parts of our being that we have not learned to accept and care for, and in that great morass finding the greatest relinquished pearl of all.

It has always been the task of prophets to keep alive what tarnishes in human hands . We can be theives in the night, taking only what we deem is valuable while leaving the most precious jewels undisturbed . The thread must be carried by a living tradition, and the Gnostics took on that task: the task of suffering alongside Christ and descending through our own personal and the collective Hell world – through the worlds of our own discarded history and character, as well as the transpersonal realm of suffering.

Gnosticism became alchemy, and alchemy would spawn the naturally inquisitive spirit which would come to exemplify the modern sciences of chemistry, physics, biology, and eventually, psychology. However, through this transformation, and in no small part owing to the dogma-fueled consolidation of power in the Church, Western civilization began to turn away from there being an unseen world at all , no less a wise creator. And in a strange twist of irony the forces which sought to liberate us from dogma imprisoned us into another: that of so-called scientific objectivity .

"It has always been the task of prophets to keep alive what tarnishes in human hands."

The thread must be carried, and carried in a time that is incredibly hostile to the spiritual or intuitive perspective. In order to sew a truly religious perspective – religio in the true sense of “re-membering” – into modern awareness, a succession of powerful spells must be cast using all the tricks a sorcerer has in his bag: namely the powers of sight, persuasion and her companion, deception. You must be a sorcerer while concealing yourself as a sorcerer, speak prophetically though deny any involvement whatsoever with such esoteric nonsense.

None did this so masterfully in the collective consciousness in our day as Carl Jung.

The Disappearance of Mythical Validity

Western rational consciousness has done a lot to diminish the vitality of many things. It is exceptionally myopic and cannot realize that just because mechanical means exist it does not mean that everything can be based in them. It is fine to assert that you will pursue a course of study which examines only the consensus reality, the world of phenomena or phe-noumena , “on top of the numinous/divine.” To forget this assumption and demand all our endeavors adhere to it is lunacy, a willing disposal of reality .

I believe we can see this most aptly in our own time as our people suffer the consequences of a much smaller segment of our people getting more and more absurdly rich.

Jung was preeminent among our collective figures in understanding what happens when one model of reality , especially one as narrow as materialism, predominates over all others . First Christianity then scientific empiricism systematically eliminated the thick flowing roots of primordial tradition. When these are severed, people lose sense of themselves as whole . There are few elders with whom we can discuss the grand task of our lives.

Jung’s career began when the glorious inquisitiveness of the Enlightenment had petrified into a force of cultural stultification – God, religion, all those superstitions and rites of our ancestors (e.g. advanced consciousness technologies) - are not the way forward. They have only weighed down our forebears, we alone have evolved to the point of reason to leave all that silly nonsense behind. Jung would have his “encounter with the Unconscious” precisely 30 years after Nietzsche proclaimed that “God is dead and we have killed Him.”

But this respect and recognition would not wane from Jung’s eyes. He trusted the Unconscious more deeply and did not regard it as the wastebasket of consciousness as did his mentor, Freud. He knew there was something more mysterious behind it, and the strength of his conviction led him to make a stand that would cost him his relationship with Freud, including the prized heirdom of psychoanalysis.

And it is in the wake of this fissure that Jung would find his teachers: the fount of images and affects that came flooding in – so much so that at times he had to grip the table in front of him, holding on for dear life – and the mythic and otherworldly figures he would meet with there, preeminently the one he referred to as “[his] Father,” Philemon.

Jung the Psychologist (Personality No. 1)

One of the principle things Jung stressed about himself was his duality. He described a “spirit of the depths” which was in dynamic tension with the “spirit of the times” (Jung, 1961). Jung realized this tension was necessary, and that one can play one’s spirit of the times (e.g. personality No. 1) with the grace of a seasoned actor when one’s center is in the spirit of the depths.

However, Jung very much considered himself a scientist, but he meant this by what the term used to mean . That is, he was looking at all the facts, not just the physical happenings that others could verify immediately. Again and again he stresses throughout his writings that exploration of the psyche is an exploration of empirical fact (Jung, 1947), not in the sense that our affects, thoughts, and feelings about things are necessarily correct or justified, but that we experience these affects in relationship to deeper rumblings within our being. Unbeknownst to us, these familiar yet often paradoxical behaviors lead us to a psychic function that we do not yet know.

This is the path of individuation , exact in its spirit and its methods to its arcane predecessors, but updated for modernity – a new chapter in the Biblical canon that reveals once and for all the Book of Mormon as a cheap fake. Its goal is the same as gnosis or the alchemical procedure.

So Jung was a scientist, and much more a scientist that those only willing to boast the dogma. So is anyone willing to regard the psyche as an empirical fact. We are scientists in the ancient sense – investigating into the inner workings of the Universe, which invariably leads us to explore the wide world within.

Jung the Mystic (Personality No. 2)

When most of us speak of Jung, we speak with reverence to this part of himself that he was able so fully to inhabit. His followers still offer him the sacrament of service and, according to Peter Kingsley, dilute his works so that they’ll be palatable to the materialist consciousness Jung was so vehement in warning us about.

There is an air of mystique around Carl Jung, an ever-present scent of synchronicity . Almost nothing could get past him (and he’d be delighted if someone could!). His patients and analysts testify at length to his uncanny ability to predict things before they would happen, lay all these clever traps for people to fall into.

In short, it was great therapy .

But this only brushes the surface, and such fascinating anecdotes are won at the hard expense of tremendous personal suffering and the outcasting that results from seeing what is only too obvious.

Most of us stay within the realm of personality No.1, our spirit of the times, and more than a few have no clue about personality No. 2 . Even those of us that have this sense often struggle, so remember the dynamic tension I mentioned between these two personalities. Tension is not an abberation but what is needed, what drives all manner of growth – psychic, material/technological, emotional, etc.

Growing into personality No. 2 has always meant death. Death, dismemberment, re-memberment, and resurrection are all themes associated with this journey cross-culturally. In our own time that offers no pathways to mythopoetic initiation and that only honors personality No. 1, this process is particularly confusing, painful, and perilous.

"Most of us stay within the realm of personality No.1, our spirit of the times, and more than a few have no clue about personality No. 2."

In many ways we are forced into the same confrontation. Though I would not compare it fully to Jung’s experience, we all have felt the solitude that he knew so deeply. We have looked for mentors and been found wanting, so we are driven back to ourselves and our inner world, but with fractured attention and instability which make it very difficult to apprehend the subtleties of the inner world.

Jung the Gnostic Psychologist

While Jung maintains his scientific attitude and identity as a psychologist, it is clear from his writings and people’s many experiences of his uncanniness that he was a healer and prophet belonging to a lineage of Christian and Western mysticism , which included such esteemed members as Enoch, Elijah, Empedocles, and Mani (Kingsley, 2018).

Jung was vociferous on issues of the present state of the Christian Church, particularly in his later years, berating them for their “stiff-neckedness and pig-headedness” (Jung, 1955), their total inability to reconcile the forces of good and evil within them, to even recognize the latter at all.

Stiff-neckedness and pig-headedness are manifestations of the great psychic epidemic of our time , an increasingly unilateral worldview that grows more and more distant from the roots which offer it vitality. It does not belong to just the spiritually faithful, but is a constituent element of many large groups of people. This gives further evidence to the impact of Christianity on the psychology of Westerners . Whether fundamentalist Christian or ardent athiest, people behave in a religious, if not dogmatic, fashion in regards to their own most cherished ideals.

These dynamics correspond to the Cyclops and the Tower . The Cyclops for its narrowness of vision , lacking any sort of depth, and the Tower for its lofty distancing from flesh and blood matters , a smugness and superiority . These symbols are combined in the image of Sauron’s tower, Barud-dûr , in The Lord of the Rings. Principled to one thing and one thing only, scouring the land for weakness to root out and exploit.

Such dogmatic modes of thinking afford no ability to reconcile with the psychological Other.

Coming to know this psychological Other constitutes the entire basis for Jung’s therapy . He knew it was healing, and he knew that Westerners were not going to like it . If revealed out the outset, they would reject it outright. If planted secretly in the night, the fruit might reveal what they have been searching for all along .

The Challenges of Resurrecting Mysticism in a Materialist Society

Jung was faced with an unfathomable and lonely Truth: if he was to be successful in his mission, his “Sermon on the Mount” would have to take the form of lectures and scientific writings, dutifully and intricately cloaked . The secret would be his presence and his relationship to the psychological Other within him .

Jung understood that the Unconscious is not unconscious . It is not the repository where consciousness keeps all its bad news but is the fount from which consciousness arises, a consciousness which blossoms to a new level in humanity. In reality the Unconscious is supraconscious.

Gnosticism would arise out of Judeo-Christian mysticism and flower into the arcane science of alchemy. Alchemy would become chemistry, at which point the mystical thread of these traditions goes underground.

"Stiff-neckedness and pig-headedness are manifestations of the great psychic epidemic of our time, an increasingly unilateral worldview that grows more and more distant from the roots which offer it vitality."

To resurrect this mystical root in a time that is violently opposed to consideration of the inner worlds (think roots trying to push up through concrete and asphalt) seems an impossible task. Jung would have to embody this scientific attitude with regards to the inner world, maintaining scrutiny in his methodology and satisfying the spirit of the times . serving the purpose of creating a space in which a mystical renewal can take place. The teachings of alchemy remained unassimilated until Carl Jung was able to identify the real goal of the procedure, and to realize with great surprise that his analytical psychology followed the procedure’s spirit to a t , though the external methods might have looked somewhat different.

For Gnosticism, it was the mystical union with Christ, God, the Devil. The alchemists described it as the coniunctio, or “joining,” the hieros gamos or “holy marriage.”

For Carl Jung, his was just another label on an eternal process: individuation .

Jung’s Therapy as a Gnostic Treatment

Jung was never overtly concerned with curing trauma in the sense that we are today. To him such healing was incidental to the procedure. It required all of oneself, especially the parts we are wont to deny. One’s compassionate heart , ruthless bloodlust , stunning wisdom , and daring foolishness are of equal importance . It is easy to see the preferences our society holds as well as their manifestations in the Shadow.

Jung’s task was to show the reality of a person to themselves in a way that could not be mistaken . His work was not so different from that of Socrates, going around and festering out everyone’s deepest insecurities and biases. There is nothing more life-sustaining than helping a person bridge into their own awareness so that they can consciously take up their own task of individuation.

This requires a deep compassion, yes, but it also requires speaking truths which might hurt, which the person seeking help is inclined to reject.

"The shadow necessarily serves as the road to the numinosum..."

This is the descent into Hell that we described in the previous article, and anyone familiar with Jungian psychology will recognize it immediately as shadow work.

But shadow work is not about bettering yourself, not about eliminating the shadow. Within the shadow is contained all one does not know about oneself, including the most cherished secrets we buried away from our own sense of ourselves. The shadow necessarily serves as the road to the numinosum , to this path of the Inner One – something in which both our highest and lowest potentials across lifetimes are personified – a transpersonal and supraconscious being.

Spiritual Growth Requires Life

Dialoguing with this internal teacher is not meant to take the place of living one’s life , but to live it most excellently. Esoteric instruction , contrary to popular belief, offers exoteric practicality in addition to its vital-spiritual components. Coming into relationship with this suprapersonal Other within means a dutiful respect to the instructions that it carries , taking one’s dreams and life experiences as reflections of oneself and one’s place in the cosmic web, then going one deeper to where that place is personified en toto , existing and waiting for us to step into it, alongside the many alterations in our awareness and perspectives that will accompany this .

The trouble of trying to treat anything directly, including trauma, is the fixation upon it, the attachment. There is the danger of identifying primarily as a traumatized individual, rather than as that which survived and managed well enough to integrate it to a later date . Jung’s veiled gnosis introduces the individual to that field in which was sewn their trauma , or their sacred wound , which would introduce them to the fundamental place in themselves where their deepest soul dwelleth as well as the niche carved out for them in the grand ecology of being, meaning, life and death.

Jung the Prophet

Jung was persistent in describing all religions as “psychotherapeutic systems” (Jung, 1937). Jung’s psychotherapuetic system would end up being the religion that the world did not know was needed. And indeed, many mistook it for the “bow down and worship” kind of religion, where you accept the postates of the Master and dutifully bow down to them. Despite his myriad attempts to get even his closest followers to see the truth, Jung would always report incredibly loneliness amongst his apostles (Kingsley, 2018) .

This task is fundamentally concerned with the preservation of humanity, which is how Christ is often described – as the Preserver of the World. Jung’s task set him in accordance with this mission. If humanity is to continue, it must have a means of investigating the depths. His Red Book, self-titled as Libra Novus or “New Book,” is the next chapter in our collective mythology, a bridge from the old and new testaments into the present day.

Thus, Jung’s status as a prophet stands above those of St. Thomas Aquinas, Meister Echart, for his ability to substantiate such a profound effect on the culture within his lifetime. He found a way to make it assimiliable to Western consciousness . Even if the hordes would confuse his message and dilute the Shadow to “shadow work” and young intellectual snobbish men talk about the wantonness of their “anima,” without ever letting what sits behind the veil tear it apart, Jung’s work holds a particular sway in our collective consciousness, and many of us have no idea to what extent…

"Faith is not merely believed in but built up over a lifetime. Nothing else will do."

Thus Jung’s work is in league with Christ , perhaps even stands on His shoulders . This is tricky, as observing this ruffles a lot of tender feathers. The cooperation is not seen; there are some who cannot tolerate any outdoing of the Savior.

But that’s to miss the point, and it points us to the maddening bias in our consciousness to regard lower parts of the ladder as morally inferior to the higher rungs. Because Jung continues Christ work, it does not diminish Christ, but brings that shared work to a deeper completion . So it is with the so-called “lesser” prophets I mentioned earlier.

We are not redeemed by petty beliefs , good advice or rationale . We are redeemed by contact with the primordial within us , the Uroffenbarung, who teaches us our actualities, tends our wounds, and pushes us towards the task of our lives. Faith is not merely believed in but built up over a lifetime. Nothing else will do .

The ramifications of our failure to take up the task are too dire to discuss in the space we have left here.

Conclusion

Christ injuncts us to look within, to see ourselves in the light of His divine compassion and meet the parts of ourselves that we fear and are ashamed of, to descend through the many layers of ourselves to see what it is that we are really made of , and how we are meant to carry out the task of redeeming Humankind .

All of us are implicated, all of us responsible. In our own ways we carry out the task of covering things over with falsity, disguise our intentions to suit our idea of ourselves, following dogma rather than the soul. Without knowing what lies at the base of your own awareness, you might as well be walking in a blizzard .

Our blindness has exacerbated more and more with each passing year.

Sources

Jung, C.G. (1937). Psychology and Relgion . Yale University Press.

(1947). On the Nature of Psyche . Bollingen Press.

(1955). Mysterium Coniunctionis . Bollingen Press.

(1961). Memories, Dreams, Reflections . Crown Publishing Group.

Kingsley, P. (2018). Catafalque: Carl Jung and the End of Humanity . Catafalque Press.

Wilber, K. (1995). Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution . Shambala Publications.

The Gnostic Teachings of Christ: Descent into Hell

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 15:16:42 GMT

The Link Between Gnostic Christianity and Jungian Psychology

Listen to this Article Narrated by the Author

In the first part of this article, we explored the esoteric teaching of Christ to follow His example and awaken to a living relationship to the Father through direct experience of Oneness or God , otherwise referred to as mystical experience or mystical union. We also discussed how it is natural for the esoteric teachings of any tradition to tend towards calcification into dogma.

You can find the first article here .

There is a reason for this natural tendency towards dogma. As logical beings we want to take the most direct route, and thereby go about searching for it out here. Who else has been there? What can we learn from them? Most importantly, what techniques do I need to learn?

And to be sure, there is a place for techniques in any seeker, as they can help to provide crucial clarity and discipline with which to navigate the journey of life, as well as prepare us for initatory experience.

But there is nothing that we can “do” to invite our relationship with ourselves. With this, there is always an element of fate and circumstance. An event or, more often, a confluence of events in an indivdual’s life brings them to the place they can no longer avoid. It begins in a moment, and the practices are fine so long as they’re used as means and not as ends. One needs mental clarity, endurance, a readiness to let go, a curiosity about all manner of experience, internal and external.

There is another reason why we avoid the internal path, the path that Christ recommends. If accumulating practices and knowledge is the “easy” route, then the route of going into oneself and meeting the Father, or what Carl Jung would call the process of individuation , is an incredibly arduous one. It entails descending, like Christ, into the Underworld, into Hell and death. This is the redemptive principle at work, the injunction from wisdom tradition after wisdom tradition that we must “die before we die.”

This is to awaken to the undying and unborn nature within one’s own being, the fount of all manifestation from which all being arises, present everywhere, at all times, and in all things. This is what Christ means by being “One with the Father,” and Carl Jung defined it as the “Uroffenbarung” or “primordial experience.” It entails not a lofty escape from all the bitter mudiness of our humanness, but descend straight through and into it, leaving nothing behind.

The methods, practices, and tenets of the scriptures, of any scripture, can only help us to meet God, they are not God themselves, and to practice this unconsciously is to commit the ultimate hybris.

While we may first hear God in choruses of angels, heavenly music, and beatific experience, this fundamentally serves the task, too, of hearing Her in the deep burblings of gladular secretion and corpuscular action, in the grotesqueries of decay, and the formidable darkness and overwhelm of the dark reaches of the Earth.

As well as perniciously in our most embarassing and intractable human problems such as relationship issues and addictions.

We must look for God in the places we are least willing to look, most apt to deny His presence, for where is God not? It lays deep in our entrails, the Spark that gave rise to It All.

Until you can see the Heaven in Hell, your conscience will beleaguer you towards that higher awareness , and

you will call it the Devil.

The Descent into Hell

Carl Jung starts to enter into the picture here because his psychology was modeled on Gnostic teachings, and moreover, Jung himself was a living Gnostic ( Kingsley, 2018 ). The idea of God as the Devil points us straight to Jung’s work regarding the Shadow – those parts of ourselves we abhor identification with and exile to the wastelands of our awareness where they inevitably sew the seeds of our failures.

The ardent philanthropist overextending themselves financially and energetically to compensate for a fundamental lack of self-worth, the murderer who tried to physically kill off something in himself externalized to another human being, the priest who exercises his abhored sexuality in the secrecy of a child’s trust… these are all examples of manifestations of the shadow. Rather than indicate our sordidness, they lead us to something which cannot be reckoned with and therefore is the guiding principle. In all of these examples there is potential for extraordinary healing and wholeness; redemption and re-union may take place.

"Until you can see the Heaven in Hell, your conscience will beleaguer you towards higher awareness, and you will call it the Devil."

And so it is with our own proclivities, our own secret nature, our own unmentionables. The place where you are beset by an unbearable contradiction – that thing that you both most want to stop doing and least want to end – is where the numinosum, this secret nature or inner man/woman/spirit, seeks to enter you.

These insights are not limited to Gnosticism. It shares many of its foundations with indigenous wisdom traditions, with Sufi Islam and Tibetan Buddhism. In all of these traditions, there is a descent.

What is the descent?

Descent as Initiatory Experience

The descent is the departure from all preconceived knowledge and the complete unraveling of individual identity. Once the tasks of childhood and adolescence have been accomplished and the individual has found a stable enough place in a living culture, they must now learn the truth about all of it – go back to the living past from which they and It emanate.

This is the role of initiatory experience. In order to meet one’s fullness, one must arrive at an experience of uncontestable, unreckonable, unspeakable reality, which includes their unique place in it , the mythopoetic role they were born to play in the Kosmic ecology.

This also entails meeting with the transpersonal realm of suffering. Of witnessing viscerally the enormous pain of Humankind, so lost in a world where they were meant to be righteous rulers.

This is very inimical in our day when we grow timid of holding any hard or fast distinctions or definitions. We are careful about people’s ideas and identities (did you catch that one?). Experience, of course, flows through the lens of the individual. And we have thrown out the pearls of our historical wisdom which directs us to the source that flows through that lens, that direct observation of this source, of God, is achievable.

Unfortunately, we denied ourselves such value long ago.

The form that we build to occupy our place in our culture is properly contextualized through initiatory experience – through experience of uncontestable Reality, the primordial experience or Uroffenbarung – giving space to other parts of the personality to grow. This is what the Gnostics referred to as gnosis , or knowing, what the alchemists would come to discover in their art of sacred union or hieros gamos , and the sacred process that Carl Jung described as individuation .

Because the form that we inhabit: the body, the personality, the character – is only the crudest yet clearest representation of the Divine Will in matter , the glorious peak of an incredible iceburg. Who we have become cannot possibly be who we are becoming, and for those that try to hold on the suffering grows greater and greater as age accumulates. We must meet with the parts of ourselves which we deny, to ourselves and to God. Like our prophetic tradition, we too must evolve.

To contend with the unseen parts of ourselves has always been a tremendous task, one that required a consciousness that was differentiated enough to see it. The Gnostics and alchemists had no idea of physical matter – the unseen world held an uncontended validity in their time. Historically, Christ serves humanity as the harbringer of new collective awareness – a process that will take millennia to unfold. In our world where the unseen holds an uncontended invalidity – written off as mere scrap – the task is equally as arduous, as so many of our ideas about who we are derive from our parent culture(s).

Many of our ideas concerning ourselves stem from this materialism, from this assertion that the material world – i.e. what can be gleaned with the senses and instruments - is what constitutes the fundamental base of reality. As such we are apt to regard ourselves as machines. It is why many are apt to define their moods as “dopamine depletion” or to relegate themselves to a syndrome.

From the start, this process is already tremendously painful, made more difficult by the fact that it arrives naturally when life is in calamity. The descent is a death and rebirth cycle depicted in our ancestral myths the world over as dismemberment and disembowelment, obliteration in fire and rising out of the ashes like the Pheonix , and death and resurrection of the God-Man. Of course, in our myth, the God-Man is crucified. One is out of one’s depths and all previous modes of adaptation fail to accommodate the influx from the Unconscious. It is unbearable, insolvable, and yet it is born.

"Rather than indicate our sordidness, [the Shadow] leads us to something which cannot be reckoned with and therefore is the guiding principle. In all of these examples there is potential for extraordinary healing and wholeness; redemption and re-union may take place."

How this looks in lived experience is that the previous structures that had given form and meaning in an individual’s life have given way , often during a time of abrupt transition - deaths, breakups, job losses, injury, etc. You are “up Shit Creek without a paddle.” This throws one into the pit of one’s own being, all of one’s unreconciled conflicts, the patterns of identity laid down long ago that served specific purposes particular to an environment which we have now recreated in our present day – no matter how far we may be physically removed from our past.

This is where the Uroffenbarung is to be found .

If the individual is to climb out of this morass, they must find something within the darkness of this night, this great fissure which has opened up in their being through which now pours unbearable psychic content .

Because amongst that content is everything the individual needs: all the love they feel they never received, the nurturing hand of compassion eloquently married to the hand that guides and discerns, all the threads that bring together that individual’s destiny – their place in the immortal Universe alongside their temporary manifestation in the world of forms.

The Collective Descent

There is something of a conundrum here: on the one hand, the process of descending into one’s own being seems to be made more difficult by the fact that we are currently experiencing a Collective Descent. On the other, the Collective Descent sets a fertile ground for the descent and individuation both of individual persons and communities. Our largest impediment is the underresourcing of communities, which have long stood the barage of environmental pollution, criminal medical practices, educational sabotage, financial subterfuge, as well as many forms of discrimination.

If we find the physical plane lacking, our spiritual environment is considerably more anemic. They are contaminated with ruthless self-improvement, that inevitable sadomasochism of the Messiah complex. The routes to initiation are narrow, and even when they are successful, there is not necessarily a shared local commuity to return that to. We have the grand task of navigating the deeply impersonal community, this notion of all peoples and nations on earth – while also sewing the seeds for deeper community within our specific environs.

"We, of course, do not see the course of history and the myriad magical spells which were cast in order for it to be natural for us to look at a world of stuff rather than a world of spirits."

The one ethos we have had: the American Dream, which at its core contains the admirable and widely cherished ideal of personal soverignty , has grossly deteriorated. It can no longer maintain the illusion, revealing itself more and more to be a spectre. The ways in which people have oriented their lives have, for the most part, ultimately failed them. The energy within the Unconscious is growing, with all indications leading to some kind of open conflict among either major world powers or transnational events involving the human majority and the small class of ultra-wealthy elites.

Yet this is fertilizer for growth – physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. We can imagine there is a similar imperative in the process of an acorn becoming an oak, something of a psychic pressure which it experiences. The deeper down its roots plunge, the higher and stronger its canopy. We must imagine that there is some sort of hunger or pain which drives the oak, helps it to make that desperate push through the shell of the acorn.

In a strange twist of the marshmallow experiment, now being given to all Humankind, we have the interesting choice of experiencing an unbearable Hell now or an even more unbearable Hell later.

This was the descent Christ made after his crucifixion. Do you ever wonder where he was for those 3 days?

He was in Hell.

"He who journeys to Hell also becomes Hell; therefore do not forget from whence you come. The depths are stronger than us; so do not be heroes, be clever and drop the heroics, since nothing is more dangerous than to play the hero.” – C.G. Jung, The Red Book (2009)

Christ as Model of the Self

Numerous allusions are made throughout Gnostic and alchemical literature of Christ as the idealized form of the Self – for the Gnostics it was the deity trapped in matter that is revived through direct knowledge and experience of one self. For the alchemists, Christ is the philosopher’s stone , the lapis, the goal of the work, that which is capable of transmuting all experience (perhaps especially suffering) into gold.

Through the process of taking on a divine task, meeting with the world, and letting it crucify you into your higher being – because the process is as painful as it is elative – you die to your former self and are reborn anew. This process takes time, patience, and clearness of awareness. It will also unfold naturally within itself, and we must emphasize just briefly here that part - most - of awakening to our own “Resurrected Christ” is in the hands of the Unconscious. To say it ultimately depends on us is to commit that grand hybris I mentioned earlier, putting our fragile egos in the place of God. To meet with this deferently is to practice the compassion of Christ.

Modeling oneself on the Christ carries with it some dangers, all of which many of our fellow humans have fallen into. The preeminent one is that of identifying with the Savior, making one’s process His process, what Christians often refer to as being “ saved ," or in the more secularized versions of being virtue-obsessed and self-defeating . This carries with it the inevitable human “frailness” which cannot measure to such an idol, along with its resultant sadomasochism.

Christ as the template does not mean to live a perfectly pure life, and submitting to Him as a savior is an escape. Should there be discipline, some structure to our lives? Of course. Must we live perfectly and always be certain in our actions and their effects? Of course not.

Because what shines through in Christ is not simply His Godliness but his humanness.

It is always our humanness which leads, invariably, to our Godliness.

Christ had his karma. You have yours.

"To say it ultimately depends on us is to commit that grand hybris I mentioned earlier, putting our fragile egos in the place of God. To meet with this deferently is to practice the compassion of Christ."

This is where the esoteric instruction becomes so crucial, because there is no one that can tell you what is going to come alive in your inner experience, what your particular path will look like. Like Christ, you bear a Kosmic destiny , and as alchemy teaches us – the stone is always present! It may take lifetimes to burn off the cruder forms and reveal the prima materia , similar to the Hindu idea of karma .

You cannot come to understand your Christ nature if your comparisons ubiquitously trend towards describing Him in terms of everything you are not.

Spirit demands variety, not uniformity.

The aspect of Christ’s compassion should always be emphasized, so often lost in the clamor of mass mindedness. Whoever preaches hatred in Christ’s name has not yet accepted His compassion for themselves. There are still many dark reaches to explore, and for this we must take full account and responsibility. What’s more, we must learn to willingly be that which we deny , not as an exercise, but as a whole hearted embrace of the many territories and peoples of our inner kingdom.

Rekindling the Divine Word

All of this language of Christ as the Self, conscious suffering, making the descent to Hell/the Underworld, all of it sounds… well, esoteric. In our modern world in which the archetypal energies have lost our respect and validity, we are apt to reject such religious sounding nonsense. We make the incredible mistake that our forebears were competent in other ways but that they did not have the divine gift of rational sense and scientific objectivity that we enjoy so naturally today. We, of course, do not see the course of history and the myriad magical spells which were cast in order for it to be natural for us to look at a world of “stuff” rather than a world of “spirits.” And we certainly do not see how palely our competence compares to those of our ancestors.

Thankfully for us there was a modern person who recognized full well what the ancients knew , and was chosen by the Unconscious to take on a most arduous task . He accepted and built a conduit from the past into the present, cloaking a living Western esoteric tradition and grafting it skillfully into modern culture with all the skill and dexterity of a lifelong botanist.

His name was Carl Jung.

The Gnostic Teachings of Christ: Awakening to Direct Experience of God

Mon, 24 Nov 2025 16:46:57 GMT

Early Christian Mystics Sought Mystical Union with Christ Consciousness

Listen to this Article - Narrated by Author

Christianity is the largest religion in the world, comprising about 2.3 billion people, nearly a third of the world population. In America they represent, ironically, 69% of the population, or roughly 235 million people.

But few of its adherents ever really get to walk the path of a true religion. They are treated to what religion inevitably becomes: dogma - loss of direct experience of God. There is no emphasis on direct experience of God, simply admission of one’s faith, both in God and in the institutions which tout His name and works.

Gnostic Christianity is a non-dogmatic sect which began in the early centuries after Christ’s death. Like most mystical sects, they were persecuted and labeled as heretics, their teachings pronounced demonic because they followed the Spirit, not the letter, of Christ. Their tradition would ultimately evolve into the arcane art of alchemy, which I have written on at considerable length (see my article and email series, Alchemizing the Future ).

They did not look upon Christ merely as savior, but exemplar, and that the work of Christ could only be completed within the context of every individual soul. This was equivalent to the alchemical objective - completing the work of the lapis philosophorum or philosopher's stone. Christ is the guide and exemplar to perfecting Christ in one’s own being with all of its difficulties, impurities, and peculiarities: that heart of infinite compassion which saturates every experience – of love or of hatred – with awareness.

The idea strikes Christians even today as heretical.

But as we will see, this is exactly what Christ was about. He did not want to continue suffering alone for all eternity while his so-called devotees are happy to keep him there, avoid taking up their own task. Rather, He invited others to awaken to the same reality He knew in Himself, and for which He was to become the cornerstone in Western civilization. In doing so they would consciously take up the path of suffering that we have relegated, imprisoned him, into.

And if the world consciously suffers, it suffers far less than in unconsciousness. While unconsciousness brings Hell on Earth, as we are seeing the ramifications of: increasing surveillance, political and economic inefficacy, genocide, and so much more.

"He invited others to awaken to the same reality He knew in Himself, and for which He was to become the cornerstone in Western civilization."

Consciousness brings its opposite, namely Heaven on Earth. Thriving societies in which people of all kinds are integrated in their environment, like North America pre-colonization.

Dogma takes an esoteric teaching and robs it of its vitality. By trying to parrot out some idea you don't fully understand, you put yourself under the spell of something (which defies your understanding even more). Dogma transforms the direct experience of God into something to be avoided rather than strived after.

And this way lies madness...

What does the truth of Gnostic Christianity have to offer our Western world which is, whether you agree or enjoy its tenets or not, a thoroughly Christian one?

Read on.

The Teachings of Christ

Christ gave many wise teachings and spoke through His action more than His word. Among these is his guidance to feed the hungry, tend to the sick, clothe the needy. One must be wary of pharisees, and not just the historical ones, but the ones that walk among us today and have no real knowledge of God. To commit one’s life to the service and infinite love of the Father.

These are all well and good, but they do even better when cast in the light of His most earnest and urgent teaching:

The awakening of Christ consciousness within the individual.

Yes, He is capable of great works, but His will pale in comparison to what our hands will work once we have come, like Him, through the Father. That is – once we awaken to our inner reality and have a very personal relationship with God in a form that we cannot wholly expect or understand – then our works will be in league with the Christ. For nothing remains hidden to us, and we are no longer blindly groping about. We are no longer just pitiless humans in need of divine savior but are “…one with the Father,” are now prophets ourselves.

Because Christ’s message was the same of all true prophets in all times: until you look within you have no idea what is happening “out here.” The greatest intentions in the world might beset the world with horrors if the motivation is unknown. This is the process that ultimately produces relationship conflict and dissolution, as well as genocide and war.

Keeping God at Bay

As above, so below. There is nowhere that God is not present. The places where you most deny Him is the place where He dwelleth the most. God is present in the trees, the animals, every corpuscle of every cell and every electron charge between every molecular bond.

This was central to esoteric Christianity.

Who are you to deny Him in yourself?

And in this way, by holding Christ as the frozen savior who forgives our sins no matter what because we “know not what [we] do,” we commit the unspeakable and unspoken hubris of denying the teaching of the prophet whom we supposedly worship - place God in our own mouths and puppet out what we would like Him to say.

We have had our unconsciousness permitted and incentivized so that our Christ nature may be put into the service of nefarious works. I believe that we can all agree that this has not gotten us to the place where we want to be.

The Problem of Dogma

I do not wish to single out Christians here. While they represent 69% of the American population, nearly 100% of us are responsible for the shifts in today, because the seeds of any true religion have been lost to us. All of us behave dogmatically, whether it is for science, religion, our livelihoods, or even for civil liberties.

A true religion is one that helps prepare an individual to have an experience of Oneness, of God, as well as to integrate that experience back into the community. These direct experiences are what foster living prophetic traditions - what many today might call experiential religion or inner trnasformation. Living prophetic traditions set excellent cornerstones for society.

This is the wisdom of a living tradition, as being anti-dogmatic it is diametrically opposed to forcing beliefs on people, so it finds ways to keep them relevant. More on this in Pt. 2.

Without this kind of emphasis on both direct experience and communal integration, a living tradition calcifies into a dogma. The practices meant to take you to an experience of Oneness become the end in themselves, practical assurances that your soul would be saved. Nothing more to see here.

One need only think of the scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian where an exasperated Brian tells an adoring crowd, so eager for his teachings they’ve shown up at his home, to “Work it out for [themselves]” and that “[They] are all individuals,” to which they dutifully shout back: “Yes! We have to work it out for ourselves!” “Yes! We are all individuals!”

These are only clever delusions. You must still find out for yourself, and, if you are a Christian, your Savior commands it.

When the people asked Jesus how many times they should pray, whether they should fast, what were the particular things they needed to “do” to be holy or get to Heaven, he said “Do not tell lies, and do not do things that you hate.”

Which is to say, if you are going to fast, do it with love and reverence. If you are going to pray, do so with conviction. If you are going to make love, partake of consciousness altering substances, grow, make mistakes, die, rise again – you should do so with passion and full measure. Commit. For as Christ says in Revelation 3:16 -

“If you are neither hot nor cold I will spit you out of my mouth.”

And while every human life is honored, every attempt valued, those with the most conviction are the ones that know themselves most intimately, have found the indwelling of God within their own hearts and are in union, “one with the Father.”

I’ll explain this in more detail in Pt. 2, but Christ – both his gentle and loving aspect in the gospels and his stern, judgmental Revelations destroyer – are cornerstones of the Gnostic teachings. The Gnostics honored this descent and return as the heart of mystical Chrisitianity. While Christ’s sacrifice redeemed Humankind, our sacrifice redeems and renews Christ and participates in the preservation of the world.

Click here for Part 2: Descent into Hell

Sacred Androgyny: Anima and Animus Integration in Jungian Psychology

Wed, 01 Oct 2025 13:50:45 GMT

Reconciling Our Masculine and Feminine Energies

In the previous article, we discussed the hermaphrodite as a symbol of psychological wholeness, its broad emergence among many different cultures, and the presence of contrasexual personalities or complexes within male and female individuals.

In Jungian psychology, anima and animus represent the inner feminine of the male and the inner masculine of the female, respectively. We’ll explore how these different faces of our personality interact within and between individuals.

Anima and Animus Integration

Anima and animus are one example of what Carl Jung called psychological complexes. Let’s dig into these further.

A complex is an autonomous component of the unconscious. Think of it like a subpersonality, something akin to an alter ego. These unconscious complexes rise up in moments where our awareness, our sense of ourselves, cannot endure. It takes over, or possesses, the personality.

There are a variety of circumstances in which this can happen. The most obvious example is one of intoxication: a person has too much to drink, and all of a sudden they are a totally different person, acting completely out of character. Question them about it the next morning and they will have no recollection of it and may even disbelieve you.

But there are many times in which we retain full memory of the circumstances, but we are perplexed by how we acted - often finding some clever way to explain it away. If we are aiming for integration, this is something you will have to stop doing. Simply acknowledge that you are encountering a part of yourself with which you are not intimately familiar, and resolve to meet with him or her on their terms.

Anima and Animus in Relationship Conflict

We are discussing masculine and feminine energies and how they are embodied in male and female individuals, as well as the secondary and contrary spirit in each. That said, it is worth noting that what we are discussing are generalizations: men tend to embody masculine energy more naturally, women embody feminine energy more naturally.

This is not always the case, as there are women who are more inclined towards masculine expression and men more inclined towards feminine inspection. They may or may not be homosexual.

"Balancing our masculine and feminine energies in relationship is key, no matter our identity."

But as we referenced in the previous section of the article, hyper-masculine men tend to act quite feminine in their unconscious, i.e. in their conflicts with life, friends, and partner. Likewise, hyper-feminine women, out of touch with their masculine side, will present as overtly masculine in these same areas.

Men may default and use their emotions as weapons, principally anger, and storm out or refuse to meet. Women may grow quite stubborn or ram-headed, and may even deflate or puncture those around them in the process.

Nearly all intimate relationship issues, straight, gay, queer, non-binary, poly, etc., are due to anima and animus issues. Balancing our masculine and feminine energies in relationship is key, no matter our identity.

Animus Integration in Women

The animus is a woman’s capacity for reasoning, logos, and entry into the world. Through her masculine essence, she is able to take the germ of an idea and seed it out into the world as a work of art, business, or other endeavor. The key here is that her contrasexual personality gives form to the depth of being embodied in her femininity, from pure relatedness and being to particularlity and discernment.

Animus Integration Case Study

A woman has a dream of becoming a writer. She has notebooks filled with ideas, conversations, and stories. None of these ideas ever reach fruition. They languish away in her notebooks, never meeting anyone’s eyes, never being flushed out as she becomes overwhelmed by the task.

Underneath this are harsh internal criticisms, a fear of organizing, and tainting her ideas with the imperfection of the writing process (something every creative must confront), and a self-limiting belief that she is unworthy of success.

This woman routinely dates men who are creatives or successful in their endeavors, and she idealizes them until she doesn’t, swinging a sword in times of conflict. She hopes for a savior and despises one, not knowing she is working towards her own mature interdependence.

" The animus is a woman’s capacity for reasoning, logos, and entry into the world."

She begins taking writing classes online or at her local community college, and most importantly, she starts setting time aside for the tasks that make her most uncomfortable, like taking one of her inspired ideas and flushing it out, creating material, providing something for the editing process.

She relinquishes fantasies of producing the perfect manuscript on inspiration alone, and develops a structure whereby she can write reliably but also allow for her feminine expression and versatility.

Animus Integration Reflection Questions:

What creative aspirations do I have that never “get off the ground?”
What critical voices and phrases diminish me and discourage me from pursuing what I find joyful and meaningful?
To what degree do I depend on my partner(s) to provide structure and meaning in my life? In what ways is this healthy? In what ways is it not?
What swords will I draw in conflict?

Now let’s see an example from the other side of the coin.

Anima Integration in Men

The anima is the man’s capacity for relatedness and eros, his ability to be sensual, soft, and intuitive. Through his feminine essence, a man ceases to be a machine, a locomotion for doing. He learns to accept and define his own seasonal rhythms, and is able to relate to Nature, the feminine, and himself in a whole different way. He sees himself not only as a means to an end, such as finanical independence or entrepreneurial success, but as a living creature with its own wants, needs, limitations, and whimsies!

Anima Integration Case Study

A man highly accomplished in business is unsatisfied. His portfolio is well-diversified, his retirement fund airtight, yet he has trouble getting on with himself. He feels bored, often looking forward to a bottle of wine or a bowl of cannabis.

Even during his time off, he has difficulty knowing what he would enjoy and defaults to passive leisure: TV, video games, porn, beer and weed for good measure. He struggles in his relationship with his wife whom he looks to to meet all of his needs for being, nurturing, and belonging.

His wife, after threatening divorce several times, contacts a lawyer and initiates the process. He sinks into a heavy depression. After languishing in drink and drugs for several days or weeks he knows he needs to make a change.

"The anima is the man’s capacity for relatedness and eros, his ability to be sensual, soft, and intuitive."

He turns to yoga, first for the lovely young ladies in their tight and revealing spandex outfits, but then for the peace he finds in his breath. He is encouraged by a depth psychotherapist to begin journaling in the morning and paying close attention to his feelings, particularly his less familiar feelings of sadness, longing, and real joy. He is also encouraged to begin walking in wild Nature, not as a way to exercise, but as a way to notice the living world around him and how he is connected with it.

Through his experiences, he learns that he is a fundamental part of Nature and that Nature is aware of him. He begins to have dreams and to see meaning in them. Through this process he comes to a greater understanding of his own needs as a human being both as an individual and in relatedness.

He apologizes to his wife, weaving a simple but potent ceremony where he asks for forgiveness for his pig-headedness, for indulging his feminine in the spirits of alcohol and marijuana, and finds more equitable relationship among them all. He can find joy in his own company, and routinely does things for their simple pleasure rather than trying to meet some demand or expectation.

Anima Integration Reflection Questions:

What are my rituals of pacification, and which substances are involved? (ex: TV, beer, etc.)
In what ways do I look to my partner(s) to be responsible for my emotional well-being? In what ways is this healthy? In what ways is it not?
How do I weaponize my emotions during times of conflict?
Where do I make time simply to be, not to “do” something, but to be and receive?

Integration of the Contrasexual Personality in Spirituality

These have been two simple examples of how our contrary nature, unrecognized, can wreak havoc upon our personal lives, our bodies, spirits, and beloveds. In the final part of the article, we will explore what this contrary side of our nature holds for our spiritual life, and the journey towards spiritual wholeness that Jung described as the integration of contrasexual archetypes.

The Alchemical Hermaphrodite as a Symbol of Wholeness

Tue, 23 Sep 2025 18:44:18 GMT

The Hermaphrodite Symbol in Jungian Psychology & Alchemy

One of the most esoteric symbols in all of mysticism is that of the hermaphrodite. Comprising attributes of both male and female anatomy and psychology, the hermaphrodite stands as a symbol both of allure and distrust. Here we will discuss the psychological, spiritual, and cultural significance of this blended being.

Sacred Androgyny in Mythology and Psychology

Many cultures across time and geography have given great spiritual significance to the symbol of the hermaphrodite. The term comes to us from Greek mythology as the child of Hermes and Aphrodite (Hermes + Aphrodite = Hermaphroditus). We see it in alchemy as the hieros gamos , in Gnostic Christianity as the pleorama ¸ in Vedic culture as Ardhanarishvara - the composite of Shiva and Parvati¸ and in indigenous tradition as people of Two-Spirit , who played crucial roles in spiritual and cultural tradition.

The hermaphordite figures greatly into Jung’s analytical psychology as well. Drawing on many traditions (including alchemy, Gnosticism, and Hinduism), Jung was also preoccupied with the significance of balancing one’s masculine and feminine energies. His approach included a coming to know the contrasexual personality, the anima and animus, which we will discuss shortly.

Why does the hermaphrodite, which appears inimical and may even signal disgust in our being, have such a profound significance for many different cultures across time? The answer to that is simple, but it will require some fleshing out.

Ultimately, the alchemical hermaphrodite as a symbol of psychological wholeness appeals to us. Masculine and feminine energies are in perfect balance and harmony with one another. Because, as we will discuss, this idea of resonance and harmonization is at the heart of all sacred power . With the right degree of resonance, even small amounts of energy can be amplified to great effect. Internal opposition and the tension between them is not a design flaw to be overcome but a gift to be worked with.

As we will see, this sacred androgyny holds crucial wisdom for our culture at a time when the masculine and feminine are at war with one another and all distinction between them begins to fade.

Sacred Androgyny as a Symbol of Wholeness

These symbols do not describe actual androgyny or people whom we would call intersex today, although perhaps they will hold a more heralded place in our culture if we can start to ease away from our hyper-literalism and masculine bias. The amalgamation of our feminine and masculine energies produces a harmony within the individual, which in turn can produce greater harmony in our egocentric hyper-masculinized culture.

And for >99.5% of us who are not intersex, this entails a psychological change, not necessarily a physical one, though I also do not rule that out for those individuals who feel called to that transformation from a deep place. This is just to say, for the vast majority of us, our hieros gamos will entail changes that go beyond the physical and that encompass another side of our being, one that is rarely talked about.

But in order to understand how it is to amalgamate these energies, we need to be able to understand what we’re talking about. For that, we turn to none other than Carl Jung.

Jung and the Alchemical Hermaphrodite

It is no secret that Jung was a most serious student of alchemy and a practical adept. He wrote several books on the subject, including his last the Mysterium Coniunctionis, so named for the mystical conjuction achieved in alchemy in which the masculine and feminine beings within an individual achieve their greatest balance and harmonization. This process, also referred to as the hieros gamos or “holy marriage,” results in the formation of a hermaphroditic being.

Many people have no idea just how radical Carl Jung was, and that he necessarily had to shroud his ideas in veils of arcane secrecy in order to be taken seriously as a clinican and a scientist. He is still today the foremost expert on the empirical investigation of the psyche in the Western sphere, and much of his work remains inimical to our modern masses and establishments. Jung dictated that his Red Book not be published until 50 years after his death.

One of Jung’s most radical ideas right out in the open is that of a contrasexual personality. Put simply, within a man there is an unconscious personality of a woman, within every woman an unconscious personality of a man. He dubbed these the anima and animus, respectively. Anima and animus integration in Jungian psychology is one of our most overlooked paths of personal and collective development.

If we are to achieve harmony within ourselves, it is imperative that we have a felt-sense understanding of our opposite. Like all unconscious energies, until they become conscious they will rule our lives unconsciously, taking hold of us at crucial moments. We can recognize such moments because our will will go out the window and we will be compelled. This is what Jung referred to as anima/animus possession, and they go something like this…

The Unintegrated Masculine and Feminine

Very masculine, macho men are at greater risk of anima possession. That is to say, their ego or persona is obsessed with its masculinity at the disregard and often denigration of its feminine counterpart.

This man is likely to be taken possession of by his feminine, which he may explore in ways that are typically considered “masculine.” Let us explore some anima possession examples.

Anima Possession in Men

Indulgance in all sorts of addictions and dependencies such as:
alcohol, cannabis, or nicotine
masturbatory fantasies which he may attempt to realize physically through promiscuity if he is single or adultery if he is partnered
Pornography
Idealizing women (i.e. searching for an ideal that a human partner cannot live up to)
Demonizing women through religion, sexuality, etc.

In times of argument, he will often utilize his emotions to put an end to it and claim dominance, oftentimes through anger but not necessarily. Anger is the emotion that most men are the most comfortable with, and it is effective in stifling the others.

The masculine man afraid of his femininity disregards her. Disregarded psychic elements do not disappear: this is a childish belief. They simply go on acting without our awareness, and are generally pissed by their outcasting.

Here are some questions for reflection:

How do you approach conflicts in relationship?
To what extent can you tolerate imperfection in yourself and in your primary relationships?
What are your rituals of pacification? How do you seek comfort, say, at the end of the day?
How do you nurture, acknowledge, and speak with your feminine side?
What women do you idealize?
What women do you demonize?

Animus Possession in Women

Women, on the other hand, will have a tendency towards animus possession that takes the form of a Mephistophelian figure, a shadow form of the Logos. This presents itself in an impersonal logic which cannot be reasoned with, despite good evidence to the contrary if such exists. Other animus possession examples:

A preoccupation with being right over highly subjective facts, with little room for debate
Utilizing dogmatic absolutes, a kind of impersonal, lofty, authoritative “logic”
Intense internal criticism (I’m horrible, stupid, ugly, etc.)
Searching for the ideal man or “Prince Charming” to ride off with on a white horse into the sunset
Demonizing men

Questions for Reflection:

Where do you tend to dig your heels in during arguments?
What swords will you draw?
What rigidly held opinions or arguments do you use in conflict that you later reflect on as not being your true opinion or belief?
What men do you demonize?
What men do you idealize?

We’ll look at some practical applications of what it means to start to integrate one’s contrasexual personality in part II, and what integrating the feminine would look like on a collective scale. Stay tuned by signing up for the newsletter or following us on Instagram.

From Crisco to Surveillance Capitalism: Seeing Through Illusion and Awakening Collective Consciousness

Wed, 03 Sep 2025 18:19:18 GMT

Shaping the Future in the Age of Deception

When it comes to the modern era, where we are, and where we are headed, we need to know what we're up against .

What I am about to share will create some urgency, but I do not want to alarm anyone. While the circumstances may be dire, perennial wisdom teaches us that all oppositions, including good and evil, are two sides of the same coin, the Universe in the process of balance.

While the feeling may at first strike you as terror, if you continue to meet it, it will transform into opportunity and sure-footedness .

You might agree that the world seems out of balance. I'll provide some examples below, but first I would like to explain how things have gotten out of balance, and it has to do with consciousness, illusion, and deception.

The Narrative

Perennial wisdom has always taught us that this world of manifestation is an illusion. Vedic philosophy refers to it as Maya, Gnostic Christianity as the Deluge, Sufi Islam as Dunya, and so on.

We currently inhabit the materialist paradigm of modernity, which turns perennial wisdom completely on its head. Rather than see the world of matter and manifestation as a helpful illusion, our current society holds it to be the only thing which bears any reality. Seeing how spirituality has been used to keep people from reality rather than meeting it , we can see why we would have wanted to start to investigate the material world and deny the spiritual one.

That is precisely what the alchemists were doing when they were investigating the natural world for a way to complete Christ's work, i.e. to bring Humankind to a place where it could fully awaken to its Self, to turn our leaden consciousness into a golden one.

The Age-Old Problem of Deception

Deception is not anything new. This world being an illusion means that deception is alive from the very beginning. Just because this world is an illusion does not mean it is apart from reality, but a part of reality.

Things get very tricky, however, when we deliberately attempt to deceive one another. This could be lies in our intimate relationships, lies to ourselves, or the lies of nations towards its people.

The big lie that the United States has been telling for the last half century or more is that it has the best interests of "the people" at heart, when in reality it has been using people primarily as consumers. As consumerism and mass marketing have taken over more and more of the globe, the American Dream has spread far beyond its borders.

One example would be the myriad of processed food products marketed as “healthy” when actually they were ploys to turn waste products into cash mines (see the thread of lead into gold here?). Notable examples are Crisco where Proctor & Gamble turned an inedible cottonseed oil byproduct into a billion dollar product , marketing it as a modern, healthier alternative to lard and animal fat, as well as breakfast cereals , which likewise turned milled grain byproducts which had no financial (or nutritional) value, and marketed them as nutritious “breakfast staples”.

Deception to Influence Public Opinion and Justify Violence

The lies do not end at consumer products, of course. In the 1950s the United States painted Guatemala as an unstable dictatorship due to their agrarian reforms, justifying a CIA-backed coup which implanted an actual dictator . The proposed reforms, which would have given unused land to peasants and subsequently increased banana export prices, did not sit well with the United Fruit Company, who used their ties with Washington to implement the martial takeover of the country, as well as Edward Bernays , father of American propaganda and public relations, to create the social justification for it.

"...to have the same buying power that Boomers had in the 1970s, the minimum wage would need to be $43/hour..."

Bernays is famous for his " Torches of Freedom " campaign in 1929, which essentially made it cool for women to smoke cigarettes, associating the cigarette as a symbol of women's rights and equality.

This is just one example of many. The entire Vietnam conflict was likewise a campaign based on lies that sold a great deal of arms at the cost of some 60,000 servicemen, just on the US side. Somewhere between 1 and 3 million inhabitants of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laotians died as well.

Deception Today

Our folks did not have the luxuries of truth that we now enjoy, but the luxuries of a well-painted illusion. The world was a smaller place then, and the American Dream was alive and well. The greatest broadcast technology that existed was the television, whose programming ended at the end of the day. Someone working a technical job with only a high school education could easily purchase a home, support a family, and enjoy a reasonable level of freedom.

Fast forward to today and there are more cameras than there are people. The internet has connected us all and loosened—to some degree—the monopoly on the media and the narrative. We are wise to the sins of our recent ancestors, as well as disgruntled at the economic difficulties we face.

For comparison, in order to have the same buying power that Boomers had in the 1970s, the minimum wage would need to be $43/hour (it is currently $7.25/hour, which it has been since 2009).

While it is beyond the scope of this article to discuss the systemic economic policies behind wealth inequality, disappearing middle class, and surveillance capitalism, the reality of it cannot be denied.

And these folks on top: Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Alex Kamp, and others, are all making decisions beyond us, without any sense of democratic or civic discourse, that will be painted as "for our safety and best interest."

Meanwhile Thiel wanted to build a bunker in the one place in the world that can survive Nuclear Winter (the local council said "no" last month, citing environmental impact).

Chalk up one for the people.

Do Not Look Outside for the Truth, Look Within

You probably have felt stirrings within your being. Perhaps you are meeting them, perhaps you are avoiding them. Has your action increased? Are you finding yourself in unfamiliar circumstances, or doubling down on what you already know?

This is where it starts to get real.

Carl Jung, the German psychologist, was able to peer behind the veil. His initiatory experiences are documented in his Red Book .

Jung had several premonitory experiences, most notably his vision of the German countryside filling with blood in October of 1913. The Great War, of course, would begin less than a year later and plunge Europe into chaos and bloodshed to the tune of ~18 million souls.

Fewer know about the vision he had at the end of his life where he saw whole continents burning .

The vision so terrified Jung that he shared it only with his closest followers, like Marie Louise von Franz, who likewise kept the vision locked away in a drawer, both literally and psychologically.

Premonitory visions show us what is in store if the collective consciousness does not shift . If we can bring the past forward, remember that visions have power and real meaning, then I believe we can avoid a genocide that will shock even those of us in the 21st century, we who understand cognitively and at some deeper substratum viscerally the scope of what Humankind is capable of—genocide, war, nuclear weapons unleashed on civilians.

Just as the Great War and WWII after it shocked our forebears, there is something coming which we dare not imagine.

But if we wake up, if we strive towards what is burgeoning inside of us, which will call us to our highest both within ourselves and our communities, I believe disaster can be avoided and the beautiful future that we dream and yearn for can be brought forth.

We do that by embodying our archetypal potential, our mythopoetic identity.

Explore below to see what your strengths and edges might be in the coming transition.

Ketamine-Assisted Therapy in Austin

Fri, 08 Aug 2025 01:14:35 GMT

Is Ketamine-Assisted Therapy Right for You?

What is Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy?

Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP) is a modality that uses low dose ketamine alongside talk therapy to access non-ordinary states of consciousness, helping clients process trauma, depression, and anxiety in a new and deeper way.

One of the most common complaints about traditional psychotherapy is that it can take a very long time for unconscious material to surface, even after a solid relationship has formed with your therapist. While there are techniques we utilize in our practice that do not require substances (e.g. dreamwork, sentence completion, automatic writing/drawing, etc.), the introduction of intentional medicine work can reliably shift one into an altered state of consciousness, catalyzing access to unconscious material.

After a brief introductory period, you will take ketamine under supervision from your therapist either in-office or virtually in the comfort of your own home. The therapist will guide you to take your own journey as well as direct you towards areas that might benefit from exploration in an alternate perspective.

Learn more

What is Ketamine?

Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic acting primarily on the glutamate neurotransmitter system. This differentiates it from the traditional psychedelics like LSD and psychedelic mushrooms which are much more prominent in the serotonin system.

Ketamine increases neural plasticity, meaning that the brain becomes more flexible to change, open to new insights and behaviors.

Ketamine has been used for over 50 years as a surgical anesthetic. It has no impact on the respiratory system, making it one of the most safe and effective medicines available. It is classified as a WHO top 10 essential medicine, and it is so safe that it is still the anesthetic of choice for children.

It is a schedule III medication approved for off-label use in assisted psychotherapy, meaning a healthcare professional must be supervising in some capacity.

Screening is essential, see below for more information.

How KAP Works

One of the things we like to stress is that the medicine is taking you to a place within yourself. It is not the ketamine "doing" anything other than relaxing your emotional defenses and allowing for exploration of consciousness. That said, you will feel a degree of relaxation in your body as well as your mind, which allows things which we keep buried to come up to the surface.

By shifting into an alternate state of consciousness, we are able to sublimate many of the barriers we have in place that remain opaque to us. Oftentimes simply allowing this material to surface creates greater harmony, and you ma find yourself saying "Oh - this is what I've been afraid of for so long? It's not so big and scary after all."

This is not always the case, of course. The nature of what is hidden can also be very painful, which is why the presence of the therapist as well as the therapeutic relationship is imperative when first working with alternate states of consciousness and healing trauma.

What Does KAP Treat?

Ketamine's claim to fame comes from its potent and immediate anti-depressive effect . While this requires lifestyle change and further exploration - greatly benefitted by depth psychotherapy - this can be incredibly helpful to those experiencing treatment resistant depression. It does this primarily through breaking up rigid neural networks (enhanced neuroplasticity), limiting one's ability to ruminate. Ketamine for depression can be powerful, indeed.

In a meta-analysis of over 2,500 patients, it was found that 45% of people had significant drops in clinical depressions inventories, with 30% in remission. The benefits were often sustained at 6-month follow up.

Ketamine-assisted therapy can be helpful for those who experience post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD . The clinical evidence here is quite strong, with multiple meta-analyses and an open label study showing durable and significant reductions in PTSD symptoms in as many as 69% of respondents and up to six-months' follow up. Ketamine for trauma is widely studied and efficacious.

Anxiety is also significantly reduced after brief KAP treatments.

In a glimpse, ketamine can treat:

Treatment-resistant depression
PTSD and trauma-related symptoms
Anxiety and existential distress
Addiction and maladaptive coping
Spiritual exploration or life transitions

What Does Treatment Look Like

At Ebb & Flow Depth Psychotherapy, we believe in the importance of a strong therapeutic relationship to help sustain the positive effects from ketamine treatment. To this end, prior to any medicine session, there are 6-8 preparation sessions (this can be reduced to 2-4 if you are already working with another therapist).

From there, we will conduct two initial dosing sessions with an integration session in between each. We would then conduct another 6-8 dosing sessions, also with an integration session in between each.

Our Approach

During each session, you will be gently guided into your body utilizing a simple meditation or, if preferred, ambient music.

We utilize sublingual lozenges, tablets which will be dissolved and swished in the mouth for 10-12 minutes, then spit out. This offers a psycholytic approach rather than a psychedelic approach.

We prefer the psycholytic approach for two main reasons:

1) This helps to make ketamine-assisted psychotherapy more affordable, as the presence of a medical professional such as an RN is not needed as they are in IM (intramuscular) or IV (intravenous) injections.

2) Psychedelic ketamine therapy can be effective, but in our hustle and bustle world, the subtle work often gets overlooked, and it is the subtle work that carries us the farthest.

If you’re seeking a full psychedelic experience, I often recommend doing so on your own time and terms, ideally in nature or a supportive setting. There are few practitioners I would trust to guide me through such an experience, and they come at an extraordinary financial cost more often than not.

With psycholytic ketamine therapy, we are nudging gently and entering into an altered state but not breaking open the doors of reality.

Through the experience and through the journey you've taken thus far, which includes your triumphs and your traumas, we will expand not only on who you are but who you are meant to be. Your exuberant and mature presence is sorely needed in this world, and it requires reconciliation of our darker nature and highest aspirations.

Who is KAP for?

Ask yourself now: "Am I in a place where I am ready for deep self-exploration?" "Am I open to the idea of letting go of things which both pain and comfort me?" "Can I remain off of substances and away from process addictions (such as pornography, over-eating/bingeing and purging, sex, etc.) for at least three days?"

You may not be ready for KAP if:

Are experiencing active psychosis or mania
Have untreated Bipolar I or II disorder
Have a personal or family history of schizophrenia
Are currently struggling with active substance dependence

If you are in a grounded place and ready to make shifts in your life, KAP may offer the support you've been looking for.

Ketamine Therapy In Austin, TX - How to Get Started

Contact me today for your free consultation to see if ketamine assisted depth psychotherapy might be right for you. Myself and the fine clinicians over at Journey Clinical are ready to help you find deeper meaning in life and be the change in the world you wish to see.

We conduct ketamine-assisted therapy in Austin, Texas as well as virtually all over the state. Reach out to us today!

The Fall of Jordan B. Peterson

mjebbinghaus2@gmail.com (Michael Ebbinghaus) — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 16:01:37 GMT

Fallen Idol, or Fallen into Idolatry?

I found the work of Jordan Peterson in 2018 while working as the personal assistant to the CEO of Onnit at the time. My good friend and mentor Erick, a mutual devotee of Carl Jung, introduced me to his work. I watched his biblical lectures over the course of the next year and was greatly intrigued by the nuance and curiosity he brought to bear on complex topics. He was and still is notoriously methodical and detailed in his analysis, as he spends the first of the lectures extrapolating on what exactly the idea of God is and how stories utilize the collective imagination and analytical functions of vast numbers of people.

Peterson used to be able to speak to the mysterious aspects of existence, that source from which all manifestation springs. Now he toutes statistics as if they have any bearing on the ontological underpinnings of reality and minimizes or otherwise completely overlooks the effect of any biases, something as a clincial psychologist he should be trained to eek out. He seems to have fallen from a genuine explorer of the Mystery to idolatry, vehemently defending his position and holding it up as the “right one.” Increasingly over the last few years his worldview has become wedded to the Christian mythos, which I have not heard him say directly, but which is evident in his choice of programs, courses, groups, and advertisements running on his podcast.

Here we give serious consideration to the phenomenon of self-righteousness, mob (un)consciousness, martyrdom, and the mongrel horde’s need of a Prophet or Savior. First we will explore where Peterson has devolved into a demigouge, utilizing his past and current interpretations of the Cain and Abel story to illustrate this transformation as his popularity, fame, wealth, and power have all grown. Second, we will discuss his participation in the culture war that he claims to despise. Finally, we will end with a riveting discussion of the archetype of the Savior in the forms of Christ as well as another prophet shaking our zeitgeist, Paul Muad’Dib Atreides.

"He seems to have fallen from a genuine explorer of the Mystery to idolatry, vehemently defending his position and holding it up as the 'right one.'"

When Peterson gave his initial lectures on the Genesis stories, he wore a plain black suit. He had already cleaned up his health and had hair plugs put in. I highly recommend these lectures , as they go into deep layers of Western civilization with a genuinely curious eye. It is my position here that Jordan has lost some of that curious eye. His countenance appears altogether different these days, wearing a coat of many colors , adorned in religious iconography. The notion of his psychic inflation should be a point of considerable thought for many, most of all Peterson himself.

7 years ago, when Peterson gave his first analysis of the Cain and Abel story, he said pretty much the exact same thing that he said on that Tuesday evening, with a crucial difference. The story may not be familiar to some of you, so I will summarize it here:

Cain and Abel are the first humans, born of human flesh (Adam and Eve were directly created by God). Abel is a shepherd, Cain a sewer of plants. Each is called upon by God to make a sacrifice of their fief. Abel gives the best of his animals to the cause, and Cain gives his offering. God finds Abel’s sacrifice more pleasing, and lets the brothers know as such. Cain is inflamed with hatred of his brother, and slays him with a stone.

This is a rich story. In his initial analysis, Peterson does indeed highlight that Abel’s sacrifice seems to be of a higher quality than Cain’s. He gives his absolute best effort and is therefore rewarded by God. There is perhaps something of the half-ass in Cain. But in the 2017 lectures Peterson brings his brilliant curiosity to bear on this ambiguity – was Cain’s sacrifice really of lesser quality, or was the favoring in some way arbitrary or beyond conscious effort? He goes on to say that one can indeed sacrifice a great deal and still not be rewarded for it, that even in the face of our best effort, of doing everything within our realm of agency, there are still many things, in fact the majority of things, which lay beyond that agency. We can only hope that some of Jordan’s next explorations include the story of Job.

Any of that curiosity or sense of exploring the ambiguities was not present in Jordan Peterson that evening. It was clear from his rhetoric and from the baying of the crowd that he has been influenced by public opinion to take a more unilateral stance, as we can be sure that the mob is not concerned with nuance and shades of grey. The problem cannot exist in me, but in them! No longer is there any sense that Cain may have just been unfortunate. We can derive differing but useful interpretations that perhaps you could sacrifice more or do better, and perhaps also you did your absolute best and chance has not favored you, as is so often the case. Joan of Arc certainly offered her greatest sacrifice, and like Abel was similarly slain for it by the demagogues of her day. There are two useful interpretations here: we can hold that we can offer a greater sacrifice and we are prone to keep the best for our little s-selves, for our ego. But it is also a lesson in not taking things personally. There is so much that gets wrapped up in the idea of righteousness.

"There is nothing more dangerous in this world than self-righteousness..."

I’ll offer that Peterson thinks himself and his group Abel and those who oppose him (leftists, post-modernists, LGBTQ, etc.) Cain, and he has grown increasingly disdainful of these groups. While these groups are not beyond reproach and are in many ways problematic, the culture war of which Peterson speaks and claims reprehension towards is clearly inflamed by his polarization. He has betrayed the wisdom of our mutual teachers such as Dr. Carl Jung, who insists that any rising in the tension of the opposites will only increase the force of their inevitable collision and reconciliation. He ignores the warnings of the mystics that the crowds are no source of wisdom. He betrays even the wisdom of his own Savior, who proclaimed “I come not to bring peace but a sword” (Matthew 10:34-6). Read that as: I have come to set asunder any ideas you have about the Almighty, because any idea that you or anyone or any group comes up with will fall hopelessly short of describing It. It cannot be described; It must be awoken to and directly experienced. Instead Peterson has promulgated Judeo-Christian morality, which has ever been in the self-righteous service of saving the souls of others, crystallizing their own lack of faith in their ardent desire to convert the world, a jihad under a different name.

No, Dr. Peterson secretly loves this culture war because it confirms his limited ideas about God and morality, and it is the same for the mob that finds credence through his authority. Abhorrent clashes and cataclysms would even be welcomed, as it would confirm their putting up the good fight against an evil tyrannical force. They have not yet sought to locate the Cain and Abel within themselves. There is nothing more dangerous in this world than self-righteousness; no perpetrator of great evil has ever considered themselves evil. We can look to the recent historic examples of the Nazis, the Russian and Chinese communists, etc., who created Hell on Earth in the name of their holy leaders and creeds, but Christians are among the greatest perpetrators of evil throughout the last two millennia. We can look to the Inquisitors, whose compassion and fear of heresy and damnation led them to contrive sadistic tortures of unimaginable cruelty, all in the name of saving souls. We can look to any colonial force which has looked upon the indigenous land-based traditions and thought to themselves “My God, these poor heathens! They have no idea their ways will land them in an eternal pit of Hell! We must save them and give them our ways (religion and economics)!”

Here we have the vital crux of our argument. I will quote our aforementioned teacher, Carl Jung, who said “The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances; if there is any reaction, both are transformed.” This is vitally true for any contact of differences or opposites, and here we may consider these groups as personalities: The Jordain Evangelists on the right(eous) hand, the Gender Asunderists/Post-Modernists on the left (yet both part of the same body). Those on either side consider contact with the other abhorrent, and will not even rest to digest their ideas. Make no mistake, those on the other side do not escape my critique, but they are not the focus of the present article. If there is to be any reconciliation, the crystalline walls which prevent the entry of such ideas must come down. Again we can look to the wisdom of the opposites to show us that if you are afraid that such ideas might change you, then you really have no faith in your own ideals.

I say this as I left my comfortable surrounds of Austin, TX, to go and study clinical pyschology in the heart of Leftist mania, San Francisco, CA, in 2019. Armed with my sharp wit and ideas honed by Dr. Peterson’s lectures and books, I met with people whose ideas differed sharply from my own and was able to find commonality in them. I did not adopt their ideas, but neither did mine remain ultimately unchanged. They morphed into something sturdier, something that could represent a more complete picture, as my faith continues to grow.

“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances; if there is any reaction, both are transformed.” - Carl Jung

This is all to say that Peterson benefits implicitly from a proliferation of the culture war. Any act, no matter how disastrous or abhorrent, that may prove his underlying assumptions and those of his followers will be celebrated and used as further fuel for derision and schism.

We will now turn to the final phase of our argument, one that I hope will shake the foundations of each of our ontology. Because the greatest threat to the highest in Humankind, to the Savior, is human beings who are in need of a Savior, i.e. those who do not recognize that they and the Father are One.

We only know so little of the person of Jesus of Nazareth, as so much of him is bound up in mystique and myth. It is clear from his teachings that he meant to be no Savior, and the scripture is hesitant to paint him as anything but “pure” in their puritanical sense. It is unlikely that Jesus of Nazareth died a virgin or even as a celibant. His injunction is not to bow down and worship him as the Savior of Humankind but for everyone to awaken to the fact that they are God in flesh. This is the true Savior of which Christ is our greatest cultural blueprint. Because even Christ himself, while he ultimately accepts his fate, does not go to his death without dissent. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). It is interesting to imagine what would have happened had Christ not been crucified, but he conflicted with the people’s image of God. Of the many miracles he performed, he spoke that: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do, and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father” (John 14:12). One can take this as an injunction to follow the Christian impulse to “accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior” and thus shall you be redeemed, but my word what considerable misery and unconsciousness such a childish interpretation has led us to. Christ is instead the instruction to arise to the full awareness of both Cosmic origin and consciousness as well as the real limitations of our incarnation.

Lest we forget that Christ aligned himself with and spent time among the rejects and outcasts of society – the prostitutes and the lepers. Ultimately he is bound by prophecy to die upon the cross, and it is difficult not to see this as a mistake, as a sign of our collective myopia, though I withhold any final judgments on this.

A new story of the Savior has taken a hold of the collective consciousness at present, that of Dune and the legendary figure of Paul Muad’Dib Atreides. Paul is very much in the position as a savior and messiah, the one who will lead the people of Arrakis to paradise and freedom. He, like Christ, finds himself at grips with this, and resists the strictures of his fate until at last he drinks the Water of Life, the raw spice mélange, in which he awakens fully as consciousness Itself. Thus awakened, he sees that he can do nothing but to take up the mantle that has been sewn for him by the Bene Gesserit, the dark feminine force secretly pulling all the strings, otherwise it will be inhabited by another tailored for that role, such as the insidious Feyd Rautha. Like Arjuna in the Baghavad Gita , he must accept his place in the great drama. Without spoiling the greater story beyond the portrayal of the current films, it suffices to say that it does not go well for Muad’Dib in much the same way that it does not go well for Christ, for their message is ultimately one of disruption of all ideas and hierarchies of being. And I will admit that this may also be exactly what Peterson is doing, accepting his place in the great drama of things.

I have been able to somewhat divest myself of any certainty or moral high ground in these matters. I seek only the reconciliation, and this essay, this message, as my part to play in the great world stage. I will not deny the utility, beauty, and wisdom of any religious teaching, because I agree with Peterson in that they are reflections and technologies which span great generations of time and persons, a way for us to think with one another, those who have come before us, and those who will come after. But there is so much that is out of our control, and to assume that if one does things the “right” way that everything will turn out peachy, and it is only those who do not follow the “right” way that inhibit the full coronation of Heaven on Earth, is a dangerous foray that inevitably maintains and accelerates the motion of the wheel of Samsara, and secretly binds us in alliance with those we would call our enemy.

Peterson actually noted this famous saying of Christ to love our enemy in the lecture which is our current subject. But he notably shrugged it off and offered no further elaboration. Like most Christians, he cannot bring himself to internalize the deepest of Christ’s teachings, lest he be revealed to his true face.

Because if we are to bring about the kingdom of Heaven on Earth, it will not be through conquering of the wicked. We have tried this for millennia, and reap what has been sewn. No, Heaven will not come to Earth by elevating the human spirit, but by demystifying and dirtying our image of God in the putrefactio, by seeing that there is nothing in which the divine is not present, least of all ourselves, and certainly those whom we would call our enemy.

My Spiritual Experience with a Medicine Ball

mjebbinghaus2@gmail.com (Michael Ebbinghaus) — Wed, 06 Sep 2023 13:42:59 GMT

Cosmic Union is Just a "Playout" Away

I’m feeling good, in tune with my body. A pain in my calf had me take a new approach. I move to the open floor space and gather a heavy kettlebell and medicine ball to me. I love the feeling of the weight, of the natural coordination of my body. To be able to shift such weight with grace is something that fills me with immense joy.

I set to work and enter the flow. As I lift the medicine ball over my shoulder again and again, I have the feeling I could do this all day. I exchange it for its heaviest brother. Something happens to me over the next set, a shift in my awareness. I’m in the beingness now, ego artfully in union with the space around it. I imagine it is how a satisfied parent must feel, or of looking out over creation with a glimmer of pride and joy.

The language of “working out” and other fitness related self-improvement activities is saturated with the language of conflict and duality. Often there is the reification of an actual battle or war, sometimes against an articulated feeble self. Joe Rogan sums this up nicely in his statement “Conquer the inner bitch.” It stands to reason that if it is indeed such a bitch, why are we involved in such extraordinary conflict to conquer it?

My approach to working out and fitness differs greatly from when I began as an adolescent and progressed as a young adult. While I didn’t have the sense of conquering weakness, I was very much infatuated with my ability to push, to grow, to throw the weight around. Me vs. the weight. Now my workouts could be said to be more of “playouts,” relying more on dynamic shifts in my body and movement to emerge. I know the perfect workout lays therein. It does not ask me to abandon my senses, knowledge, or tradition, but rather exercise them to their fullest extent and relax them entirely when appropriate.

"It stands to reason that if it is indeed such a bitch, why are we involved in such extraordinary conflict to conquer it?"

As I began to repeat the exercise with the heavier ball, I felt it come into me. I felt its weight become my weight, and seamlessly I moved a single body. I could feel the delight of the ball in being thrown like a child. “Weeeee!” it would exclaim. But more prevalent was that feeling that our weight was one, and there was this beautiful dance of coming together and launching apart, then joining together.

Taoist psychologist Arnold Mindell speaks of the flirtation of objects, how certain objects “flirt” with our attention. This is in contrast to the more prevalent notion that we are sole arbiters of our attention, and that we are egos encapsulated in a bag of skin acting on a world which is "out there." Experiments in playing with this mode of awareness have yielded interesting fruit for me and for many others.

The great criticism often made is that this notion or state of consciousness is not practical, and that such experiments into subjective awareness cannot be repeated except under certain circumstances. Ultimately, it cannot be trusted. To be able to relax into this mode of consciousness is not something we are trained to understand. We are, rather, instructed in the opposite, in devoting great energy to thinking. We think that we have got to think all the time. From that place of cognitive obsession, the psychological undercurrents, or what Mindell refers to as “the dreaming,” are not easily perceptible. One must be able to witness it, then they can come to their own conclusions.

" Weeeee !" - 50 lb medicine ball at Crux

That it is impractical, however, is entirely without merit. The fact that we are looking for there to be purpose in relaxation is to utterly miss the point, but of course it has benefits to our health and well-being, which in turn tends to make us more productive and fulfilled human beings. However, using this simple example of entering into union with an object, we can see the practical implications at play. Because I am not at war within myself, because it is not me vs. inner bitch me or me vs. the medicine ball, but just energy existing as two entities coming together and separating, it does not become a task to be completed but a play to be engaged in. Therefore, I spend more time doing the exercise, I’m able to expand further into my ability while being fully aware of my body, and the movement is integrated. By integrated I mean that it is a compound and natural movement, not a rigid exercise isolating a muscle group. It can be said, therefore, that “playing out” as opposed to “working out” is more effective in producing the results that working out aims for.

And such is the story of many a neurotic or ill Westerner.

It is also important to highlight the lightness of this experience and compare it to the spiritual exhibitionism that is so common in our day and place. Many of us have encountered this phenomenon, and certainly I love to weave a tale around my most extraordinary experiences, but after awhile I find these things to be draining. We, on the whole, take things so seriously, and so miss out on many opportunities for joy in seemingly mundane circumstances.

The desire to be good or compassionate is referred to as the golden chain in spiritual tradition, as opposed to the iron chain of the flesh. It is just as effective as any other identity in keeping us out of the present moment and within the narrower tunnel of our conceptions. We confabulate as to how our mode is more effective, but the truth is that the proper balance of analysis and surrender brings about our highest potential, not just in terms of productive output, but in a felt-sense of presence and well-being.

Death of the Adolescent

mjebbinghaus2@gmail.com (Michael Ebbinghaus) — Fri, 18 Aug 2023 13:41:57 GMT

Acknowledgment of Death Implies Richness of Life

There is much going on at Common’s Ford park today. Workers complete the repaving that was done over the weekend, and the day is especially hot. A covered bed black truck with blue and red flashing lights asks for directions to the water.

I proceed slowly, my legs heavy. I have been in my office with clients for most of the day, and am overall enjoying myself. Most days I am thrilled about my work. Common’s Ford is only a ten minute drive from the office, making it an ideal place to hang between longer breaks. I enjoy taking books, writing materials, and the occasional guitar.

As I enter my familiar spot in the trees off the banks of the river, I am greeted by a friendly striped dog. Small safety orange buoys about the size of milk cartons dot the water, patrolled by two police boats. They honk their sirens when others approach, a no wake zone. “Divers in the water” their words ring out over the megaphone.

The dog’s owner, a longtime resident of central Texas, fills me in on the scene. All the orange buoys mark obstructions in the water, fallen trees and such under which things, and people, can become trapped. He tells me about the land prior to the damming, and how his old fishing maps precisely locate each one of these orange buoys and the sedimented debris they mark.

The divers are searching for a body. There was a boat crash here the previous day. A teenage boy went overboard and could not be located. It was only as I was packing my things to return to the office that the officers closed the park; the boy was found within two or three dozen yards of where I sat.

I was thankful to be at the head of the group as we made our exodus. As I passed by I heard conversation from groups of young people, one of whom I overheard was turning 17. Probably not much older than the young man that would soon be pulled from the river. I hear one among them say “I want to see it!” The it sticks in my ear. This statement reflects many of our transparent feelings: a morbid fascination, but a reluctance to see our own face in that mirror.

"Many of us live with the fear of death, and believe it is a subject to best be avoided until it becomes most pertinent."

As I drove away what came most immediately was the thoughts of the family. My knowledge of their child’s end was very close to theirs. We were among the first to know. I thought of the sleepless night they had already endured, prayers for safety and miracle, and the undeniable presence of a nightmare that would soon become a reality.

It was not long before the experience of the deceased entered my awareness. Like his family, he had had plans for himself. I imagined he was enjoying the last days of summer vacation, with the thought that the school year was not far away. And while I of course do not know his disposition, it stands to reason that death was not an imagined possibility, that he would never make it to that first day of school an unturned stone. Many of us live with the fear of death, and believe it is a subject to best be avoided until it becomes most pertinent.

I mourned with the family with a degree of harmonic separation. I was in shock, rife with moral inventory, and grieving, over what in particular it is hard to say. There are many things in life to grieve, mourning our most powerful antidote.

Then there was his image in the river. I imagine him with hair that extends past his ears, floating and golden, his skin white with death and his eyes peacefully closed. This is, of course, a part of me. The details of the synchronicity are not pertinent here – suffice it to say that the timing was flawless. Death of the adolescent is an important part of human development, one that allows one’s True Adult and Elderhood to emerge.

This is, of course, the myth of Narcissus, the young man who fell in love with his reflection and died near the banks of the river, a flower growing from him. His opportunity is in the image he sees in the water; he catches a glimpse of the totality of which he is a part. His tragedy is that he confuses that image for the totality itself. He cannot yield from his own reflection, as it is the source of his identity. He does not realize his role is to honor both the reflection and what it symbolizes, and to more and more root his identity in the latter.

"I imagine him with hair that extends past his ears, floating and golden, his skin white with death and his eyes peacefully closed."

This is what Swiss psychologist Carl Jung referred to as individuation, what all cultures have always known on a deep level as the cycle of death and rebirth, and in Ken Wilber’s integral framework: waking up, growing up, and showing up. In a magnificent work by Nathan Schwartz-Salant (1979), he explores the myth of Narcissus and its application to healthy human development. Rather than regard it as a cautionary tale of self-infatuation, it sees Narcissus' acknowledgment of what he glimpses in his reflection as something transcendent and ever-evolving. His error and his demise are precipitated by his confusion of the reflection for the totality itself, an error perpetuated throughout our culture to our great detriment. But the adolescent will die (and be reborn) in one way or another.

The death of the adolescent means many things, but chief among them we can identify a greater source of internal validation, one that is not based upon image, group identity or participation, or the attainment of socially cherished ideals. It does not require us to throw out the adolescent, in fact doing so is a tremendous blow to spontaneity and vitality. It merely asks that we begin to uproot that as our foundation, so that we can follow a fountain of Truth that is sourced from within, one that we are ultimately and benevolently subservient to. We are asked to examine the ways in which we abdicate responsibility in favor of adolescent and childish behavior, all while embracing the ferocity and friendliness of the adolescent.

These parts of ourselves, when killed, tend to reemerge transformed.

Before I deviate too far from the tragedy of the boy who lost his life, I’ll simply say this. That someone I do not know or could not identify could have such an impact on me is a testament to how deeply interconnected we are. That particular bite that the young man’s words had: “I want to see it!” could barely dull the bells for a moment. I have witnessed a part of my own Self die, now in the process of rebirthing.

We can turn our thoughts now upon those most directly affected by this sudden intervention of death’s omnipresent hand. His parents, any siblings and friends he leaves behind, will all be going through grief, these events now a primary part of their stories, their identities.. I pray that they are in a place where they can mourn properly, where death is not glossed over with glimmering promises, where its premise of unconditional surrender is understood and appreciated. I hope they are surrounded by a community who will support them. To whomever this young man was, I say thank you for your life. I pray Kharon offers you safe passage into the next stage of the journey.

How to Get Started In Therapy

mjebbinghaus2@gmail.com (Michael Ebbinghaus) — Sat, 15 Jul 2023 19:47:52 GMT

Finding the Right Therapist For You

Entering therapy is a major decision. It is a substantial investment in oneself, and it is good to find a knowledgeable clinician with whom you can form a trusting alliance. Therapy is by its nature a mysterious process, and while entry into the unknown can be a vital part of therapy, a delineation of the pathways can serve to seek the clinician who is right for you. There are many choices, particularly here in Austin, and the overwhelm of option is one that stifles many who are otherwise interested. In this article I’ll discuss how to narrow your focus, discuss how to find a great therapist within your budget, as well as explore the common modalities as they relate to therapeutic goals.

Beginning Therapy

Psychotherapy is a major commitment of temporal, personal/relational, and financial resources. Our world moves rapidly, and the time and money needed to see a therapist can be daunting. Thankfully there are several ways that systems and clinicians increase access.

Using Insurance

If you have a health insurance policy, there is a likelihood that you can see a clinician in network with your insurance and pay either a copay or a coinsurance. Private pay for LPCs (licensed professional counselors) and other master’s level counselors averages roughly $150/hour, with psychologists averaging around $180/hour. Insurance can help whittle this down to anywhere between $10-30/hour, depending on your policy. If your therapist is not in network with your plan, there is the possibility they can submit superbills to you or your insurance company. Insurance can then reimburse a portion of the cost.

Sliding Scale and Training Clinics

Therapists differ in their fees, and it is not uncommon to find folks that charge more modestly, on the order of $60-80/hour. Some clinicians offer a sliding scale to help meet financial strain, and will prominently advertise it on their websites and Psychology Today pages.

Training clinics offer another opportunity for low-cost care. These clinics, like Capitol Area Counseling , offer free and low-fee therapy by licensed clinicians, associates (provisional licensees), and graduate students. While there is certainly a tradeoff with regards to experience, graduate students still can make excellent therapists. While they do not yet have the experience, they are enmeshed in their own inner work and digesting their sessions through direct supervision, group supervision, and personal reflection and inquiry. Likewise associates are discussing their material with licensed clinical supervisors. The relationship between the therapist and the client owes a great deal to the success of psychotherapy, and in this regard many aspiring and new therapists are already gifted and aware.

Quick Tips

- Find therapists that take your insurance, offer a sliding scale, or consider a local training clinic to ease financial burdens of therapy

- Consider if you might benefit more from virtual options or an in-person approach

- Find a therapist who is curious and open, and with whom you feel safe

- Compare treatment modalities and healing philosophies to narrow your final decision

Finding the Right Therapist

Assessing your financial capability is a great way of limiting the field of clinicians. Other limiting factors to be considered are whether you would like in-person or virtual sessions, which varieties of psychotherapy you are interested in, and considerations for the background and identity of the therapist.

In-Person or Virtual?

There are advantages and disadvantages to both in-person and virtual sessions. The former’s greatest strength is the embodied and ritualistic engagement, some might say a sort of pilgrimage, to a closed comfortable office where one opens the gateway to one’s heart and mind (clearly I have some biases here). This ritualistic aspect is not necessarily absent in virtual therapy, but it does make it easier to easily jump from one thing to the other or to otherwise consider it with lesser gravity.

In-person emphasizes the relational aspects of therapy, whether one works with short-term behavioral treatments or longer-term analytic/relational treatments. Each person gets a better sense of the other, from their posture and gait, scent, and full-bodied presence, highly preferable to a bust on a screen. While deep bonds can form across distance, it cannot quite achieve the direct experience.

In our fast-paced world, it is often difficult to set aside enough time and find someone near enough so that we do not have to intensely reorganize our lives. In-person therapy necessitates commuting to and from the office. Therapists also tend to be clustered in urban areas, making it nearly impossible to find a therapist in rural places. Virtual therapy’s greatest virtue is its ability to increase access to many that would not otherwise be able to attend therapy. This is true for those with physical and practical constraints as well as those that have any social or relational anxiety.

Identity of the Therapist

There are some important considerations to make in regard to the person of the therapist. I find that ethnic and social identity runs secondary in importance to the outlook and philosophy of the therapist, the degree to which they do their own inner work, and to what degree they are identified with their role as therapist. As Ram Dass used to say, “Don’t go to someone that thinks they’re a therapist.” What he meant by this is don’t go to someone who is totally attached and identified with their position as a healthy helper helping a sick individual. A good therapist will acknowledge their shadows, including this crucial one of the healer or helper, and will be active to limit their authority and instead support the process of the client.

That said, there are social and personal realities to consider. Members of marginalized groups may fear therapy due to past negligence and exploitation from the medical establishment as well as (valid) fears of being erroneously pathologized. For this reason, members of these groups often seek out others who identify similarly. This also helps to create a ground of shared experience, and the empathy of someone that shares the particulars of our personhood can be a tremendous gateway to healing, self-acceptance, and self-discovery.

“Don’t go to someone that thinks they’re a therapist.” - Ram Dass

In addition to seeking out therapists that are similar in these ways, we may also wish to work with people who do not remind us of our victimizers. This explains in part why women are more likely to request a female therapist. If physiological safety, or safety within the person’s body, has not been reasonably established, having a basic sense of safety with the clinician is crucial. When it is tolerable, however, working with someone that reminds you of those that wronged you can be one of the most powerful gateways to healing.

Healing Philosophy

This brings up a crucial point regarding the therapeutic process that is pertinent to our discussion. Therapists place a great deal of emphasis on creating safety and acceptance for their clients, however this is not the sole aim of therapy. In addition to creating safety, the therapist is also responsible for guiding the client’s awareness and helping them understand the way in which they pattern perceptions. This necessarily includes the therapist challenging assumptions and perceptions of the client, particularly those which seem relevant to the client’s treatment goals and relational issues. Therapy is ultimately about undermining limited identifications of self and initiating a journey of self-discovery that will hopefully last for all time.

If a therapist offers blanket acceptance, little good therapy can be done. The clinician has already assigned themselves the role of professional enabler. It is possible to be both curious and challenging, allowing the client’s own faculties to work themselves out. This light playful touch is the surest sign of a talented clinician, one who can step into the unknown with the client.

Therapeutic Modalities

While there are countless schools of therapy, we can reasonably divide them into three arms based on their goals. There are the behavioral treatments which are optimized for shorter-term treatments on specific problems, and generally focus on the validity of the individual’s thoughts and assumptions, and working from that plane. The other are what I will call the depth psychotherapies, as they dive further into the ocean of psyche of which thoughts are the surface waves. This reveals my bias towards the latter, but the results are in: behavioral therapists on the whole hire depth therapists, while depth therapists go to other depth therapists.

Behavioral Psychotherapy

Behavioral treatments focus more on what can be objectively perceived, namely thoughts and actions. They look to examine the dissonance between a person’s thoughts and actions, and through this exploration seek to create more objectively based thoughts and beliefs. Such structured skills can be helpful in developing ego structure from those presenting with personality disorders and emotional overwhelm. While they can provide short-term relief, positive coping skills, and influence healthier decisions, these benefits tend to deteriorate in the absence of a longer-term relational treatment. As we are working with the surface of the ocean and not the deeper currents, the surface patterns must be maintained by habit and practice, and inevitably this falls off once the client stops meeting with the therapist.

Therapists specializing in this field will advertise that they practice cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or another evidence-based method. If you struggle with emotional overwhelm, someone practicing dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) could be enormously beneficial, especially if they use it in the context of a broader relational or depth treatment. While eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) can be considered a behavioral technique, its ability to liberate stored trauma for conscious processing is one that requires a great deal of skill on the part of the therapist and sufficient stability within the client.

Depth Psychotherapy

When the individual is stable enough, when there is enough of a self there to start prying it up, as it were, depth psychotherapy can begin. While this is obviously not a discrete stage, depth psychotherapy operates under the hypothesis that unconscious identifications and assumptions rule the personality, and it is by exploring our unconscious that we resolve inner conflicts, develop stronger and more authentic identity, and derive tremendous energies from the base layers of the psyche in which to drive our work and further self-exploration.

Depth psychotherapy is, by its nature, mysterious. I must confess that it is only after more than five years’ experience and study that I can capture the first glimpses of understanding as to the process, an understanding I know will never be complete. The Self, after all, is also basically mysterious, and Self-exploration is the broad aim of these therapies. I differentiate between little-s self to mean the ego, the “I” of experience, our limited identification with ourselves, and capital-S Self to mean the Highest Self, the Self we are becoming, which is also the main investigation in all paths of spiritual development.

There are many forms of great relational/depth psychotherapies going under many different names. The more relational depth therapies will be those clinicians who advertise they are Rogerian, Adlerian, Relational or Person-Centered, Gestalt, and those utilizing the Neuro-Affective Relational Model (NARM). Therapists emphasizing relationship to Self will describe themselves as Jungian, Freudian, transpersonal or humanistic, integral or eclectic.

While entering therapy can seem like a daunting process, the value derived from self-exploration and discovery that psychotherapy cannot be understated. Ultimately we obtain higher consciousness, freedom from our past and enhanced agency in the present, more full-bodied living, and the pursuit of our deepest passions and interests. It also makes us more conscientious participants in this grand play called the world, and therein lays the potential to transform the trauma-inducing inefficiencies of our social systems.

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Descent to Soul Canyon

mjebbinghaus2@gmail.com (Michael Ebbinghaus) — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 23:52:28 GMT

Try Less; Get Out of the Way

Nothing can prepare you for what follows in the wake of Soul Initiation. Plotkin makes it out to be an arduous and painful process, but he writes to those that are deeply embedded in the illusions or maya of the middleworld. Some of us are gifted with tendrils to the underworld, but these often come at the (fair) price of pain. The hall of mirrors of my childhood and my sensitivity to the truth of the Unconscious forced much of me into the shadow, and much of my strengths into academic pursuits. Some of this is melodramatic – my family resourced me in many brilliant ways. They taught me to value joy over money, and encouraged me in many different endeavors, both artistic and intellectual, practical and nonsensical.

I remember the immense fear associated with losing the locus of my identity. Now I realize that there was never anything to lose. The vitality I traded for security is, at present, pouring out of me, and the myopia of my former position so apparent. I feel safer than I ever have in my life. I am adrift on a raging river, and my trust in its flow is fundamental. My heart more and more with each day transforms into the philosopher’s stone, that substance which can turn all experience into gold. I see my heart, community, relationships, and work transforming as a result.

I described some of my previous soul encounters in a previous article . The process of transformation has proceeded gradually over the last five years and is the basis for my first book, The Light of Inner Guidance: A Practical Path to the Ineffable . There was nothing that could prepare me, however, for what would occur when a group of friends in communion with their soul work gathered in the deserts of West Texas to fast, pray, and commune with the wild wanderings of the Earth’s Dream…

Our destination is Big Bend National Park. Our caravan embarks early, the threads of soul spinning wildly. Our conversations dance and flow with an amazing lucidity, parts of a singular organism. We deepen. Our love for ourselves and each other begins to pour out like a flood. I am no longer with the people that I have known, but with the living dynamic beauty of Soul in action.

We set up camp in a desert valley in Terlingua, just outside the park. While the others gather firewood and explore the surrounds, my compatriot and I venture into the park to obtain our backcountry permits. We will hike up the Laguna Meadow trail the following morning when we are 40 hours fasted and with 50lbs of water and gear. It will be the most arduous physcial experience of my entire life.

When we return, we all venture towards the top of a local hill, dancing in the wildflowers and delighting in all of the whimsical features of that strange land. We are coming into a greater communion. Cacti calls to one of our number with precarious vocality. The views are incredible, the landscape magical. As night descends, we build a fire, trading tales and experiences, desires and pain. The fire dies down, and we join hands around the coals. “I am the one who…” we all take turns saying. We offer our prayers and one by one retire to our bed rolls and tents. There is no turning away.

Morning comes, and we say our farewells. The two of us that have a long hike ahead venture out first. Within the first half mile of the hike, it is clear that this journey will demand everything of us. The hike up the Chisos is ~5.5 miles, with nearly 2,000 feet of elevation gain. Everytime we stop to rest we are in delirium. With no energy to spare our egos, the prolonged hypnagogic state is achieved. Strange visions emerge everytime I rest my eyes. By the time we arrive at the campsite, we are absolutely gassed. Our rejoicing is brief, followed by a lengthy midday slumber. Potent dreams await us at night…

The following day is where we each find our soul encounters. Mine was more of a soul nudge – I feel that I have been clay in Soul’s hands for the last few years, and this was simply an indication of one place in particular I was not paying much attention to.

I have always deeply loved music and had a natural sense of rhythm. I’ve played alto sax for about 20 years, and have a melodious voice. I have felt a call to be a country/folk singer, but have never made much effort towards that endeavor other than singing consistently on drives, at home, and at the occassional open mic.

While wandering on the third day, I began to hum a tune, and began to put words to it. The song came out more or less like this in its fullness:

Here we are my friends

In the valley of surrender

No common sense

We chase the de-hew of dawn

With flowers in our hair

And torches of dry blooms

We’ve come to dare

That death will not be our doom

Keep all your blessings

They abound out here

Take all my transgressings

Transmute them into air

I’ll never know

Just what this plane’s about

Oh but what a joy it is

To-oo-oo find out.

My heart broke open as I sang these final words, delivered gingerly from the Muse. I sobbed uncontrollably. I felt the utter recognition of my strength and beauty, and mourned all the time I spend outside of this feeling. I wept for my family, my mother, my father, the Earth.

For the remainder of the day, I wandered and pondered. A heaviness came over me, a felt sense of being on the wrong path, of being utterly lost, what Plokin and others refer to as subpersonalities, a part of myself not fully in my own consciousness that can take me over and that causes distress in my relationships (precisely so that we may come into consciousness of them – it is how wounded children meet their needs). This dejected, lost sub appeared to me that night in the form of a homeless African American father and son.

I had seen these two before in a previous dream a year and a half ago. Then he took the form of a homeless young black man on the streets of San Francisco who had come up to me saying that I “owed [him]” (see Embodied Dreamwork Practices Part I ). I did not recognize him at the time.

In this most recent dream, the father and son were dear friends of mine, and I was able to give them a place to stay (I still employ them in a wounded way in order to draw a romantic connection closer to me, but progress is progress). This is why I look to my dreams with such fervor. I feel they reveal us so delicately and perfectly, and to witness the transformation of our unconscious parts cements a joy that is difficult to describe.

All of this is well and good, but the real work began as we returned to the middleworld, back to our homes and habits. Many of us have had major shifts even in this week, and for myself, what I needed to let go of and what I needed to welcome in have been very apparent.

I remember the call of my soul. I remember the strength, vigor, and clarity that is my birthright. I am Rekindler of the Arcane Flame to Feed Hungry Hungry Hearts . The fire burns so brightly in me that it draws others near where their own wells may grow hot.

And this is just the beginning…

The Trial and Triumph of Soul Encounter

mjebbinghaus2@gmail.com (Michael Ebbinghaus) — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 17:24:44 GMT

Treasures Await at the Bottom of Soul Canyon

Tomorrow a group of close friends and I will journey out west to Big Bend National Park, experientially inviting soul to visit us with its wisdom and direction. The impetus for our pilgrimage has been our reading and implementing of Dr. Bill Plokin’s Journey to Soul Initiation . In this masterwork, Bill provides a great map of the terrain of Soul Canyon, that place we descend into ourselves to discover our true becoming and identity, an inseparable and magnificent piece of this incredible more-than-human world.

Soul encounters are among the treasures possible when we take the arduous descent into soul canyon. A Soul encounter is not merely an epiphany or revelation, but a deep knowing of true identity that will require us to embark upon paths not outlined for us in our consumer-capitalist culture. Our soul encounters lead us to a place far more ancient and wise than the machinations of man, a place far more interconnected with the true field of reality. When we access the dreams soul has dreamed for us, we tune into the dream of the earth and become part of a much greater synergistic organism, one that is capable of integrating our powers into a harmonious dance of technology, cerebrum, branch, and soil.

Soul encounters may occur without any warning or invocation, during near death experiences or mind wanderings on the train. They also come to us through dreams and other altered states of consciousness. Our method will be a prayer, a seduction, an invocation: the vision fast. Three days of hiking in the Chisos mountains with only water and electrolytes. The fast empties our bodies in preparation for spirit, and the exhaustion will loosen the ego’s hold. It guides us into a state of consciousness similar to the hypnagogic state, that liminal period in between sleeping and waking in which rules are suspended and creativity reigns. The landscape will take on the pallor of our dreams, and our dances and rituals will invoke Soul to bring us a message.

"When we access the dreams soul has dreamed for us, we tune into the dream of the earth and become part of a much greater synergistic organism, one that is capable of integrating our powers into a harmonious dance of technology, cerebrum, branch, and soil."

Soul encounters are vital to shifting our perspective from an egocentric viewpoint to an ecocentric one, recognizing on a cellular level the degree to which we are cells in the breath of the Kosmos. This is no denigration of our humanity, but an illumination; they reveal the particular ways we embody and are close to the divine. The show us our true face or our mythopoetic identity , that great journey and mission which will require the full integration of our entire lives. Soul initiation is not a rite, a passage, or an experience, but a way of being in the world that is irrevocably alchemized into greater Truth that cannot be unseen, a way that will call to us for the remainder of our lives. It requires us to grow into the mysteries revealed by soul, and though sacrifice is required, we are richly rewarded in meaning and experiential connection to our human and more-than-human communities.

In order to illustrate these topics, I will give three of my soul encounters, each of which was experienced under very different circumstances. The first are dreams that have stayed with me and developed, the second a chance encounter in the wild connected with a vision, and the last the results of my first vision quest in 2020 which I undertook intuitively and under no guidance or knowledge of what I would receive. Just following the feelings and the threads.

Soul Encounter #1 – Dream of the White City and the Mystery School

My first soul encounter came to me when I was fourteen. I dreamt that I jumped into a hole in my best friend’s backyard, a wild place among the suburbs where our imaginations could run wild. I was transported to a great city made of white stone. There was a canal that ran all through it. Where I stood at the city center the canals converged in the circle of the four directions. The city was totally vacant, its inhabitants long absconded. I had no idea what this dream meant at the time, but it stuck with me. It would resurge at random times in my awareness, and I could always return to the majesty of that safe and powerful place.

Over the last few years, it became evident that my mission is to catalyze the evolution of education in this country, in this world, particularly in the realms of esoteric instruction and connection to spirit. The white city is a real place, not in its particulars, but in its foundations. The white city is ancient and subterranean, hidden in the dream of the earth. Though its inhabitants have gone, it remains perfect and sturdy. It is representative of ancient and perennial wisdom. I am to repopulate this ancient city, to fill it with life, revelry, conversation, and dancing, intellectual discussion and joyful explorations, being wedded to the land and the deep layers of our being.

"Soul encounters are vital to shifting our perspective from an egocentric viewpoint to an ecocentric one, recognizing on a cellular level the degree to which we are cells in the breath of the Kosmos."

The dream surfaced again in new form last year in 2022. This time the white city was no longer subterranean, but here on the surface of the Earth, and it was a bustling university, the New Alexandria that my heart wants more than anything to see actualized. It was near a forest and a river, and the river fed a series of canals through the grounds, the canals feeding back into the river (integration with Nature). Athenian buildings dotted the land. There was one, a Pantheon-like structure, exactly half submerged in the water. I swam underneath it. One of the students warned me we were not supposed to go in there. But this was my school, and I knew there was no danger (transcending rules with mastery). I was then a floating point of perspective following the river away from the grounds, which culminated in a breathtaking U-shaped cistern, a place I imagine may actually exist out here in the world, a place I will likely be called to one day to set the foundations for a new civilization, a task that will call me to grow and expand in tremendously uncomfortable ways. This uncomfortable expansion is the seat of soul work.

Soul Encounter #2 – Visions and Meetings with Deer

Soul encounters may stretch over long periods of time, free as they are from its bounds. As far as spirit animals are concerned, I always identified with the owl. I have found that our sprit animals are often ego animals – folks generally identify more with predators in this culture. They find them more powerful, captivating, dominating. How appropriate then that they act like herd animals in the shadow. But as my encounters with deer unfolded, I knew that these gentle yet powerful creatures were the seat of my heart.

On a run one morning in 2018, an enormous buck came out of the trees directly onto the path in front of me, perhaps 10 feet away. He turned his head to look at me. I gazed on in amazement. His head stood a little above mine – he was incredible. We stood there briefly before he galloped off, and I could feel his weight and power in the earth as he left.

Esoteric events surrounding deer have occurred on at least five occasions. The most notable was a high-dose mushroom ceremony out in Nature in which I saw out of the singular eye of a hermaphroditic deer goddess, but that’s a tale for another time. The most vital have been visions received during non-psychedelic altered states. During a morning meditation, I saw myself 10 years in the future, wearing a great green cloak and a headdress of antlers. Perhaps two months after this vision, I attended a soulcentric dreamwork intensive at Bill Plotkin’s Animas Valley Institute in Cortez, CO. On day 3, we were gathered in an alcove where people had slept, cooked, and lived for thousands of years. The facilitators did nothing more than keep a steady drum beat, and instructed us to work with our process. I followed the intuitive movements of my body, rubbed myself into the earth, rubbed earth into my hair and my face. I stopped moving and laid on my back. I knew that I needed to take the earth and cover my eyes with it, so I shut them tightly and grabbed fistfuls of dirt, filling my sockets. I completely lost connection with the physical world and fully inhabited my dreambody. I was in a wigwam lit by a dull fire. Sitting on a raised platform was the deer-headed enchantress, a beautiful woman with a deer skull for a head. Her eyes are yellow and piercing. A dark rhomboid, blood red constellations at its center, floats just above her outstretched hand. She pushes it outwards into my belly, and it fills me with vitality and power.

Soul Encounter #3 – Vision Quest in the Southwest

I’ve already written at length about this experience in my article “ Sojourn to Sedona ,” so I will briefly cover it here. In 2020 as lockdown descended, I felt an inexplicable and potent call to journey to the southwest and hike through Zion National Park. Storms steered me towards Sedona, but a day hike through Zion at the beginning of the pandemic harkened me home. Snow fell almost as soon as I began my ascent. I felt welcomed, acknowledged, and it became clear to me from Women Who Run With the Wolves , the book I selected out of many to deeply study during the trip, that I was to contact the wild feminine.

Over the course of three days, I hiked 31 miles. For many of those miles I was singing, calling the divine/wild feminine to me. On the final day I hiked 13 miles (13/31), one of the many incredible synchronicities that occurred. But the real soul encounter occurred as I felt called to sit in a specific place on the land , a beautiful red slate rock waterfall. There I contemplated the ending of a five year relationship, and a thought occurred to me: that the version of myself I was trying to hold onto was already dead.

Something broke inside of me, and a flood of tears and moans came. Behind my closed eyes I saw my former partner floating just beneath the surface of a lake. She wore a white gown and her golden hair extended radially. I gripped her dress so tightly that it was wound around my wrists. She looks at me with a gaze of pure compassion and understanding. We nod to one another. I release my grip, and she sinks into the depths below.

More tears. More emptiness pouring out of me. A deep and maternal voice enters my awareness: “I know, child. I know coming to consciousness hurts.” The wild feminine contacted me. Her voice was clear. She had been relentless in giving me this vision, and so tender in holding me once I had faced it: the action of a divine mother. What’s more, that very day a favorite band of mine released a song called “Empress,” which I listened to 40+ times on the way home with exuberance and sadness, a deep knowing that the Universe is infinitely intertwined and cares genuinely about all of us.

There was nothing really that had to be done. I have always been gifted with the ability to honor what is true for me, and my own knowing has always been my greatest ally. All of these experiences have informed me about parts of myself that I was unaware of but were all deeply true, and provided much needed direction to the question of what do I do with this sacred life.

Listening for and Embodying the Dream of the Earth

mjebbinghaus2@gmail.com (Michael Ebbinghaus) — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 14:09:34 GMT

Awakening to Our Real Face

The depth psychology book club I have hosted over the last year will soon finish its reading of Journey to Soul Initiation by Dr. Bill Plotkin. The values and practices described in the text are reflected in the process we have undertaken, how we came to this text in the first place, and how we are enacting its principles together as a group. Only a few weeks remain before we venture out West into the Texas deserts to cry out with great devotion and longing for vision and anchoring within the Great Spirit of the World.

And this is principally what the journey to soul initiation is. It is not an initiatory rite of passage, nor a set of practices, nor a welcoming into a human community (but a more-than-human community). It is the alignment of our ego with our ecological niche. So often at odds with it, supported by the dynamics of our culture, soul initiation is a process by which the personality transforms so as to be capable of occupying its ecological niche and becoming a true Adult and later a true Elder who can weave together vision ecologies or soulcentric communities . The more and more of us take this journey, the more and more the collective will be in symbiotic union with what Thomas Berry calls the “Dream of the Earth.” Far from being some romanticized image of primordial dependency, awakening to the dream of the Earth means to become an active and collaborative member of the greater Earth community, a powerful agent of evolution.

Soul initiation, however, can occur spontaneously, often through sacred wounding. One does not need a manual to initiate it or facilitate it, but such guides can be invaluable on the path. I took my first vision quest a year before I had ever heard of Bill Plotkin, acting on nothing but my own intuition. I did not try to undertake anything, it happened merely as a consequence of living, just like breathing. It was during that quest that, despite my lack of intention towards receiving a vision, I was granted my first intimate encounter with an embodiment of the wild feminine, a strong, deep, and nourishing voice which took me to the shores of my pain and held me as I wept into the lake.

The final chapter of Journey to Soul Initiation is a heavy hitter. It provides a clear vision of what is possible both individually and collectively when we allow our course to be charted by a far wider wisdom within. I want to include some excerpts from that chapter and share them with you:

“What would it look like if we really loved this world, our more-than-human world – as fully as we’re able, both individually and collectively?

If enough of us got good at living this question, we’d be well on our way to building a healthier society that is not only sustainable but life-enhancing. By getting better at loving this world, we’d also be doing all we can to foster species and human diversity, ecological health, climate stabilization, and life-enhancing governance.”

“What does it mean to love the world?

For everyone, it means to intimately know, deeply care about, and actively care for a particular place on Earth – its creatures (including its humans of all races, ages, classes, creeds, and genders), landforms, waters, soils, and air; its health, integrity, and stories. For those who have been through the journey of soul initiation, however, the single most effective way to love this world is to embody what was discovered on the journey.”

What, exactly, do we discover on the journey?

We discover our ecological niche, the place that Soul carefully designed for us. We discover that which wants to live through us. The Soul is blessed with the omniscience of interconnectedness but lacks the particular incarnation in order to carry it out. That must be carried out by all life, by the nitty-gritty particulars of sculpting, practice, work, minutiae, microbial and smooth muscle action, all the way up to the workings of the human mind and personality.

The ego is not an aberration, just a risky experiment with the potential for the highest rewards. As Plotkin reveals “Our human liability to assign and believe unhitched meanings is the origin of our ability to destroy the world.”

The severity of our situation is evident in the number of people awakening earlier and earlier from the collective dream. The dream has become so destructive that individuals can no longer participate in it meaningfully and have a felt-sense of satisfaction and security. It is clear on a primordial level that to uncritically perpetuate and prop up our culture as is means widespread ecological and democratic disaster. It is also clear that if we believe it is us (meaning the ego) that has the answer, we are just as doomed. The solution, then, is individuation and awakening into our archetypal identities based upon our strengths, skills, and soul callings, rather than our trauma, and to do this on a collective level.

I’ll continue to weave these threads through writing and narrative over the next few weeks. As of right now I envision two more articles, one centering on my own soul encounter experiences and ways of cultivating confrontations with Spirit (which many of my articles such as Soulcentric Dreamwork , Somatic Dreamwork , and Parts Work contribute to), and another that focuses upon the delivery systems I am currently exercising and crafting to bring my Soul gifts to the world.

At this juncture, I am filled with more hope and vigor than I have ever been filled with in my life, and I only see the process amplifying in the long term, particularly as more and more of my vision ecology (or soulcentric community) begins to weave itself together.

Stay tuned!

On How to Know Thyself

mjebbinghaus2@gmail.com (Michael Ebbinghaus) — Fri, 06 Jan 2023 20:52:33 GMT

Knowing Yourself Should Eventually Take You Deep Outside Yourself

I can feel confident in my position. I spent a great deal of time educating myself and opening myself up to different points of view, all to ensure that my words and perspective could most effectively contribute to a collaborative narrative. There is a great deal of grand-standing in this world, and it pays to be patient and weigh one’s biases and desires. What are we in a hurry to do, exactly, and from whence come our aspirations? Even if we have passed the point of no return and this world descends into calamity and chaos, the intrepid and hard few will stake a claim for the rest of our kind and make way for a Great Reincarnation.

We are cosmic beings incarnated in flesh. Why resent our corporeal fact? Everything must be a heroic journey, every insight an epiphany, every event a cataclysm. Yet nothing changes; the condition remains the same. We explore our Self so that we may put in proper proportion the little-s self of the ego, not aggrandize it. This is no insult. The ego has its purpose, and we forget the enormity, eternity, and fullness of who we are so that we can descend into matter and become a myriad of forms. When the infinite is aware of Itself as such, when all differentiations are blurred, when All is Known, spontaneity and surprise, those elements which underlay the most ecstatic of states: laughter and orgasm, are diluted.

"We forget the enormity, eternity, and fullness of who we are so that we can descend into matter and become a myriad of forms."

If you knew how your own particular game would go, would you even play at all? If it could be made known to us, wouldn’t the Universe throw us yet another curveball? The knowledge of the future would alter the future. Awareness is as much a part of the present as our own respirating cells. We forget what a gift it is to be willfully unaware, to possess limited consciousness.

So long as we are not oblivious to It entirely.

I will not relinquish my position as a skeptic and inquisitor of my own experience. I continue to go on the journey of loving my form, painful at times though it may be. I do not know why I am this way. I do not know why a pallor of blackness falls upon my heart on occasion, why there is a voice in my head that visits me with visions of horror and suicide. Yes, part of it is my own limited identification, believing in the world my little self-created world as if it were the reality of God.

Also…

It is good that there are a great variety of people. Whatever it is that makes me vulnerable to depression also engenders a deep curiosity and strong empathic capacity. We are all too eager to fat ourselves on our own power and ability. The ravenousness of our technology is all too apparent, poised as we are on the cliffside of thermonuclear, biological, or ecological catastrophe. Such hubris applied to genetic engineering could allow us to produce any kind of human we desired, and sow in the predispositions towards whatever traits our society finds valuable. The issue with this is that there is so much we do not know. We do not know what the future will bring or what varieties of people might work best together. If we short our capacity to adapt on the front end through genetic engineering, favoring our intellect and its predictions, we undercut our intuition and the grand intelligence that weaves Itself through us. Some majesty is at work, after all, and the reality of our present moment and the degree of freedom we possess and are sharing with the world, is testimony to that.

"When the infinite is aware of Itself as such, when all differentiations are blurred, when All is Known, spontaneity and surprise, those elements which underlay the most ecstatic of states: laughter and orgasm, are diluted."

I do not indulge the painful parts of myself, nor do I make them my enemy. I engage in the imperfect attempt to befriend and work with these vital energies and acknowledge the immanence of my demise, living this life that I, the creator, have put myself here for.

Our greatest weakness, while also our greatest strength, is our rugged materialism. We do not recognize the existence of anything that cannot be collectively observed and replicated in a laboratory setting, that sterile ground meant to remove the variables that stymie our predictive power. The enormity of Creation is threatening to our sense of separate self. In the same way that medieval Christians distrusted the Earth and the Body, modern scientists distrust the subjective experience of individuals. While individuals are flawed and biased, our institutions and the people which comprise them make no distinction between disciplined and undisciplined approaches, holding the experiences of the Tibetan adept commensurate with the ramblings of fanatics and false prophets. All the while they neglect the very faculties that make analysis of such “objective” data possible, opening us to doomful ignorance.

"Our position is indeed an exalted one, one that we should be humbled and grateful for."

The most obvious and important realities, the ones that are with us all of the time, in the words of David Foster Wallace, are the ones that are “the most difficult to see and talk about.” Wallace’s acknowledgment of this and the incredible power of his intellect did him little service in the matter, gone from this world by his own hand. It is good to have a solid sense of self, and there are times when confronting our demons and shadows is indeed an act of heroism. But if we contend with our entire reality as a matter of the upmost importance, unbalanced by an air of joviality, humor, and absurdity, we run the risk of aggrandizement, undue urgency, and miss out on fantastic opportunities for fun. We embroil ourselves in the very drama that we feign desire to alter, improve, etc. Those of us raised in Western culture have long been under the spell which leads us to believe that this whole affair we are enmeshed in is ultimately serious, and that the role of humanity is of the upmost importance.

Our position is indeed an exalted one, one that we should be humbled and grateful for. But our position is not to Lord ourselves over the material world, just as the medieval God Lorded Himself over all Heaven and Earth. In some respects, our role is the conductor of a symphony, in others as the players which hold careful watch over the baton. To conceive of ourselves of any one thing is to Fall from Grace. To lose ourselves in the enormity of possibility is to be torn apart by the forces of Hell.

"If we contend with our entire reality as a matter of the upmost importance, unbalanced by an air of joviality, humor, and absurdity, we run the risk of aggrandizement, undue urgency, and miss out on fantastic opportunities for fun."

We are ever on the hunt for this one thing, the Philosopher’s Stone of the alchemical process, that will bring us everlasting peace. Historically this was cemented by the religious concept of Heaven in the afterlife, and by our culture as “making it,” establishing financial freedom through economic crucifixion and rebirth. Medicine retreats, therapy, culture war, ideologies: it is no wonder we attempt to aggrandize every insight we have, for this to be "the one." We are so dissatisfied with the present that we fail to recognize any wisdom it might engender towards a more satisfying, just, and gorgeous future. However, the alchemical process is one in which both the substrate to be transformed and the process that transforms it are altered. What is yielded is not a product, but a deeper initiation into creation, greater levels of understanding and embodiment. We will not visit the nigredo only once, but many times in our individual lives and throughout time. These processes are not limited solely to humans; humans are merely one extension of the One. The heart of the Tibetan lama is not free from suffering – however, how he relates to suffering is utterly what transforms it, and therefore he is free from suffering. Suffering does not have him.

The soul incarnates into the body of a beautiful baby. The baby grows into an adult, demarcated by her capacity and stature. Through time, disease, or injury, the adult gives way to death. As the cycle progresses, just as the mollusk gave way to the rat who became the swinging ape who stood upright into the human, so too the human will become something else. Always, that force of the numinosum funnels Its way toward a more beautiful and encompassing form. In us that numinosum saw fit to encapsulate Itself within our own internal frame of will. We are the marble and the sculptor. Those of us at the integral stages are charting territory that our brethren will follow. Regardless of which stage of development we are at, we are all creating the culture and the world that we live in. Our differences, whether in perspective or levels of awareness, is what makes the whole affair so funky and interesting.

It is popular to criticize the current epoch without creating any cultural change. We are fond of obliterating boundaries and focusing on ever-evolving markers of identity, an ultimately narcissistic affair. Change your outward appearance and define your gender however you wish, self-exploration has a limit at which it ceases to be helpful and nourishing and becomes cancerous. The difference between a medicine and a poison is the dose. If we were as eager to develop structures as we were to destroy them, the fervor with which I write these words would not be so great. The youth (though it is not limited to them), in their zeal to rebel, end up far more like their parents than they would dare consider. Defining oneself in antithesis is no more authentic than defining oneself in conformity. We become fully ourselves not only for our own interest, but for that of all. The journey of that discovery is one that we should all hope should never end. In any case, it will not.

Healing & Wholing through Somatic Dreamwork

mjebbinghaus2@gmail.com (Michael Ebbinghaus) — Mon, 28 Nov 2022 21:12:19 GMT

The Royal Relationship to the Unconscious

Freud called dreams the royal road to the unconscious. Before Freud, initiated indigenous peoples looked to dreams to tell them what their eyes could not see. They were appreciated as messages from the beyond, a source of incredible and intangible wisdom; gifts from the gods.

Today, very few of us have any appreciation for our dreams. They are never discussed in schools, oftentimes written off as purely random signals from REM sleep. Their imagery seems amiss to us, and due to our emphasis on the material aspects of our experience, dreams seem to make little sense. Even if we remember them, they seem to be confused about the basic laws of reality.

Or, perhaps, is it the other way around?

Carl Jung is famous for saying “He who looks outwards, dreams. He who looks inward, awakens.” There is a great deal of talk about awakening and dreaming in religious and spiritual circles. Awakening is glorified as rising out of the web of illusion, maya, the matrix, casting off the fluffy dream and coming into direct contact with reality. But when we start to investigate the fabric that dreams and consciousness are a part of, what precisely does it mean to dream and to be awake?

What are dreams, exactly? Where do they come from?

What do we know for sure about dreams? We know that we have them, and we begin to remember them as soon as we are able to remember. They are just as vivid and complex in childhood as they are in adulthood. Many of you no doubt remember certain dreams from your childhood that contain a certain mystique – perhaps they have always stuck with you but you don't know why. If you are unaccustomed to dreaming now, look to these dreams to begin to see the great wisdom at work and reignite your dream engine.

"Dreams present the working of your mind as such, unclouded by personal taste, predilection, and biases of your ego."

Why Should We Pay Attention to Our Dreams?

There are three dreams that I remember vividly prior to starting therapy at 24, at which point my dream life exploded. The dreams that I remember from this first half of my life, from ages 3-14, detailed the work I would have to do to heal, and what my mission was in the early part of my adulthood.

There are, of course, multiple interpretations. The beauty of dreams is their symbolic and timeless nature. As we move forward, new messages and synchronicities will emerge from the world of dreams, both those in our past and those lying in wait behind some unforeseeable corner. The very nature of symbols is their ability to serve as vertices of fractal meaning, a fancy way to say living. But this is our very nature, to aggrandize the mundane! The interconnected web of meaning becomes viscerally apparent the more one pays attention to their dreams, as well as the many mysterious tendrils of life flowing through all vectors of the Kosmos.

This is one way to look at dreams, as something that shows us where our work is. In terms of what we call “shadow work” these days, dreamwork is the whole banana wagon. I think this is a useful, although limited, perspective of what dreams are. Yes, they show us where our blind spots are.

Go underneath.

How is it that they do this?

Dreams present the working of your mind as such, unclouded by personal taste, predilection, and biases of your ego. Your dream presents Truths to you, the Truth of how it is that you live, and the self-perpetuating nature of both your personal and our collective problems. It is your mind freed from the constraints of your ego, showing you the constraints the ego puts upon it. Here the repressive barrier has fallen asleep! All elements of the unconscious are welcome on this ethereal stage.

"[Dreaming] is not just a creation of the mind, its perpetual wanderings and closures – it is also the force of evolution and consciousness as we know it."

The store of knowledge and perspective that comes with deepening into our dream state is incredible. Dreams are woven by the same wisdom which remembers the dreams that you have; that wisdom is thine and thou. To establish a relationship to your dreams is to establish connection with a part of yourself that is grand and transcendent. It gives the unconscious a voice, precisely because it is done through the spirit of play.

Buddhist Interpretations of Dreams & Dream Yoga

Dreams sit at a different level of consciousness. Because they are in the unconscious, they manifest some form of our habitual tendencies and our deep-laid schemas. This is why the Buddhists do not concern themselves much with the content of dreams – they are simply the ways in which you fell out of knowledge with yourself, articulated – and they are transformed through expanding awareness beyond the limited sense of self into union with the entire Kosmos. On the contemplative path, this entails deepening of awareness. One result of this is greater subject permanence – i.e. a subjective awareness is maintained into and beyond the dreaming state into deep dreamless sleep. It is learning to identify with the Witness.

When one “awakens” in the dream, one becomes master of the dream state, able to travel through many realms in the course of the night, accessing great wisdom and deepening one’s practice as an individual . Here all activities may be pursued without constraint, but not without ramification. What we pursue in the great freedom of the lucid dream landscape will have an impact on our waking awareness, something we should use to our full advantage.

When working with dreams, the lines between dreaming and living, asleep and awake start to blur. We are dreaming all the time. It is a more fundamental layer of our psyche, one that is mythologically oriented; it is in a different order of time and space. Dreams contain our personal myths we live out day-to-day, as well as the keys to our healing and integration. Our personal wholeness, fragmented in trauma, is restored, and our suprapersonal wholeness, the potential of who we could be, is expanded.

The Practice of Somatic Dreamwork

Dreams give you keys, but we must know how to use the technology of our body to work with them. The people, figures, animals, sentient beings, landscapes, even houses, when encountered in the dreamscape, are not random apparitions. They arise from energies that are part of the psyche as such. Our relationship to them: the degree to which we acknowledge them, our conscious attitudes towards them, how we have welcomed or disowned them, will influence how they appear. It is our nastiest nightmares that are in most need of love. Grand callings from the Self may appear transcendent or frightening, depending on our level of preparation and internal state.

I utilize several methods of working with dreams. The first is very akin to classic interpretation, particularly within the Jungian tradition, where dream figures are interpreted as fragmented aspects of the client’s personality, such as shadow, anima/animus, etc., and exploring what archetypal themes are present so as to know the client’s mythological trajectory, drawing upon our knowledge of patterns to navigate towards preferable outcomes. Our experience, after all, does tend to follow certain trends and motifs, and recognizing the well-trodden paths can help us to change from a tragic to heroic direction. The appearance of certain animals, characters, settings, and storylines - all symbols - can be valuable messages to the dreamer.

"Dreams give you keys, but we must know how to use the technology of our body to work with them."

Left on its own, interpretation misses a vital opportunity to come into direct relationship with dreams, a dynamic in sore need of reversal. When we take the role of the scientist or “objective observer” of our dreams, we inflict our traumas of abandonment and intimacy-inhibition, and miss fruitful opportunities for deep talks, great laughs, and recognition of the utter grandiosity, mediocrity, and absurdity of it all! It is why my other method of working with dreams is directly relational, and we do this through bioenergetics and active imagination, a process I refer to as Somatic Dreamwork.

Any autonomous entity encountered within the dreamscape can be found somewhere in the body, so there is much in common that this particular practice shares with bioenergetics. One need not have dreamt to engage in this type of work, but merely look to the presence of body signs. A body sign can be anything from a nausea that arises after an uncomfortable situation, a chronic pain – particularly those which involve chronic muscular tension – a strange feeling in your big toe – really it can be anything! They are signs of an unconscious energy wishing to be made conscious - the very reason for which they are now haranguing you.

But the landscape of the unconscious includes far more than these disowned archetypal elements, for within that same realm hidden beneath all the muck we did not want is the golden majesty we would sacrifice everything to attain. This is the Golden Shadow, the mysterious heights of our own potential. These can be felt through the body just as well, so body signs are both pains and blisses!

There are five principal channels that body signs work through are:

- Physical sensation (tingling, warmth, cold, nausea, pain, tightness, etc.)

- Movement/locomotion

- Sound/breath

- Words/thoughts

- Visions/images

It is through working through these various channels that body signs, and the dream figures that lead us to them, may be worked with.

The relational process of dreamwork – what I refer to as somatic dreamwork – is an amalgam between Carl Jung’s active imagination and bioenergetics. I also wish to thank Arnold Mindell and Bill Plotkin for their relational style, whose foundations uphold the structure of my own work. As we said before, this process can occur independently from dreams – we need only recognize the body sign. But dream figures lead us to very particular energies and particular complexes or subpersonalities. Cut off psychic energies take personified forms – they are personality fragments that turn into fragmented personalities, i.e. personalities that are cut off from the love of our awareness as well as the balance from other aspects of the personality (this also makes our own psychic organization, in some ways, unstable, or off balance).

When you have an encounter with a dream entity, whether it is a house or building, creature, or person, call that entity into your awareness. See it as it was witnessed in the dream. Close down the eyes, breathe deeply, fully, and slowly. Enter the space of sleep without falling asleep. Breathe into the image. What are you feeling now in relationship to this figure? What sensations arise in the body? Breathe into these. Start to shift them through the other channels. What is this particular figure asking for? What do they embody? Mimic any movement they made, or speak to yourself as they spoke to you. Allow their presence into your body – this is the work of the alchemists. Conscious and unconscious are coming together, the disparate opposites finding colluded truth and connection.

Through engaging the various channels and having a multi-dimensional conversation with the energies that present themselves in the form of dream figures and body signs, we integrate into a larger whole. We claim broader portions of our identity: personal, ancestral, organismal, planetary, and Kosmic, which bring with them more and more capacity for energy and creation.

Sign Up for my Somatic DreamWork-Shop Jan. 12th, 2023

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Individuals in Society - Society in Individuals

mjebbinghaus2@gmail.com (Michael Ebbinghaus) — Tue, 11 Oct 2022 20:57:58 GMT

The Difficulties We Face Individually and Collectively Have Similar Solutions

The notion that it is only the cortex which possesses consciousness causes a great deal of damage. We congratulate ourselves on our ability to manipulate Nature and other aspects of the material realm all while we kill the roots that permit us our rational capacity. It has led to the mass denigration of the feminine in all its forms, including that which resides in men. The natural world grows festered, contained, and concretized, women across the globe face subjugation and ridicule, and men are so divorced from their feelings that they become identified with patriarchs and victimizers, while the victim within them feeds their tyrannical turmoil.

I’ve studied biology and psychology seriously for nearly fifteen years. It is clear to me that this masculine or hylotropic mode of consciousness is only one element, that it rests on other, more fundamental levels of consciousness, and that it is by the virtue of these “lower” levels that we have rational minds in the first place. Our emotions are conscious, our bodies are conscious, our cells are conscious, as are the molecules and atoms that comprise them, though of course not in the way that we are. It is by an immense coordinated intelligence that we can reflect on our own organism and experience. This immense intelligence comprises all the levels contained within the human organism, including self-reflective awareness, and moves incomprehensibly beyond it.

More and more of us become aware of this, yet little has changed. How?

Reinforcing Identity

Is it a quest for power, the power over others? Many of us would like to believe this. It’s all those greedy white men that don’t want to come down from beyond the glass ceiling, building modern estates that grow closer to fortresses. Certainly these people exist, but no one acts without reflecting their own internal process. They hold pieces of a psychic puzzle just as we do in our communities and families, a certain role. And there are those that take the role of the marginalized race, the downtrodden, the ridiculed immigrant, and the social justice warrior (often white) who has made it their task to speak up for and save these others.

One of the biggest issues in any healing journey is in breaking identifications. They are built upon beds of the loosest sand, and we defend them vehemently. No matter where we look, there is no place to stand. For seemingly good and meaningful reasons, we solidify who we are. Through grace and trauma we line the shelves of our self. When the titles conflict with present reality, we rush to dust and polish them. The conflict that occurs in many dysfunctional families when one member begins to break their connection with a certain role is well-known. People collude to maintain each other’s identities. It happens in families, couples, societies…

And of course, we do it to ourselves.

Individual and Collective Pathology – The Same Forms at Different Levels

Individuals and societies do not behave differently – they are different levels of the same reality and the force that creates it. It can be described by fractal/transinfinite mathematics. But largely we identify people with their roles because this is easiest to do, reflective of the level of our collective consciousness. When we recognize the ecology of souls within us, we can actually begin to form a synthesis of this energy. This is why Roberto Assagioli called his therapeutic approach Psychosynthesis, and he referred to this ecology of souls, these autonomous beings within, as subpersonalities . He was one of the first ones in the Western canon to detail a simple yet sophisticated system of parts work, similar in its scope to Internal Family Systems. IFS focuses more on communicating with and integrating these parts to heal trauma. Assagioli’s psychosynthesis was concerned with correcting trauma in the grander scheme of transcendence, of accessing what he referred to as the supraconscious .

"The idea that our society really gets behind, whether its people can admit it or not, is that more is better."

Carl Jung must be mentioned as well, as his system of analytical psychology recognized the existence of autonomous energies within the psyche that were outside the person’s awareness, namely the shadow, the anima/animus, and the Self. He specifically mentions four, and indeed, these are the four main archetypes of the individual (the ego, the shadow/unconscious personality, the oppositely gendered being within, and the transpersonal self). The number of our subpersonalities, however, is idiosyncratic, and often many. These lesser or smaller energies that are more idiosyncratic than the archetypal four (but still possess collective patterns) he referred to as complexes . The term rings with scientific and linguistic efficiency but inspires an intellectual distance, which is why I prefer the term subpersonalities. I give mine actual names and encourage my clients to do the same. Among mine are Leary, the doubter, the critic, Markos, and August Mayne (and others – it’s a wild party in here). This permits more lucidity and greater relationship between the parts. Treat them as equals, and they will have greater respect for you too!

Individuals and societies do not differ in how they function. They suffer the same benefits and pathologies. Our current predicament, at its very core, is a problem of over-identification and under-communication. We identify something or someone as conscious only with their words, those they utter and the ones they utter only to themselves. Despite our immense knowledge of the unimaginable intelligence of beings that do not fit our definition of conscious (a slime mold created a better subway system than Japan’s finest engineers), we continue in old ways, eschewing pleasure and enjoyment over efficiency in many regards. Monocropping, suburbanization, converting more and more of the Earth’s biomass to humanity while its people grow sicker and sicker divorced from their natural and mystic roots.

You're Caught!

When we are caught in our roles and in our minds, we will fixate on ideas because they are all we can see. We take an entire world of coca and make cocaine in all of its various manifestations. Too much of a good thing is easily perceptible when the senses are integrated. The child that goes wide-eyed when he spots a tremendous chocolate cake will be disappointed to discover he cannot eat the whole thing in one sitting, and if he does he will be quite sorry he attempted it. The idea that our society really gets behind , whether its people can admit it or not, is that more is better . More wealth, more fun, more freedom, more sex, more food, more more more.

But we have no way to know when we have satiated ourselves. The homeostatic mechanism has been unceremoniously ripped out like a defunct carburetor. Our people are the fattest they have ever been! They are crumbling under the pulpit of MORE.

"Through grace and trauma we line the shelves of our self."

The ego must create artificial scarcity in order to convince the other internal nations that it is best suited for getting what little there is. It pains me to write these words and know they are true of my own nation, exemplified by our agricultural techniques which eviscerate the soil of all the things that make it nutritious. Glyphosate, GMOs that can withstand the glyphosate, and monocropping, after all, will ensure the nation gets fed! You see the problem? Our solutions are killing us!

When we assign someone a particular role: have, have-not, misogynist, clown, politician, scoundrel, good guy, etc. etc., we collude in their identity just as, if not more powerfully than they do on their own. It is difficult to grow beyond our limitations when we consistently condition each other into perceived roles and identities, small bastions of consciousness dammed off from the great sea. There is a greater fullness, and it is achieved through communication and a willingness to play with different thought forms and ideas even if we may not initially agree with them, even if they fill us with disgust. The nakedness required of us can feel so dangerous that the difficult conversations simply go unspoken, the most dangerous place for all of us to be.

"When we assign someone a particular role...we collude in their identity just as, if not more powerfully than they do on their own. "

And as individuals? How often are we convinced of our own identifications, as good or bad, productive or unproductive, as relational roles and occupational titles? Are any of these things actually you? What were you before you became what you now call yourself? If you make careful observation of yourself, the ecology within will be apparent. This is the nation you have been tasked with setting to order. By setting your own being to order, you invite harmony beyond your organism, too. And when our nations are set in order, they will assist in creating citizens that are more in harmony, and the process can feed in on itself in a beautiful way.

Set the inner structure to order. Be in the world, work your dharma, and watch the social structures align. Magnificence can proceed even further .

Reconciling the Good and the Bad

mjebbinghaus2@gmail.com (Michael Ebbinghaus) — Wed, 24 Aug 2022 23:10:37 GMT

Consciousness Expands in All Directions

The game of power and domination was a fun one for certain members of our species to play for a time. There is a sense of order as to why it became a principle part of our psychology. From as best I can tell, it was a necessary evil to our existence as self-aware beings. We became aware enough to know that ourselves and our kin were of the same constitution; it would take longer to recognize this in other groups of people and with the whole of nature at large. It is this latter movement that we are in the painful, messy phases of moving through and integrating.

It is also a trauma pattern, a way of creating safety for our kinship groups by defending against the “others,” because the fact is that we have been engaged in warfare and subjugation regardless of our ancestry. The fair and dark skinned are equally guilty, victims and victimizers all the same. Though the enslavement of African peoples is more recent, the fears and scars are just as present in all. This does not discount the greater intensity of social consequences for non-European peoples due to this recency effect.

"Growing in consciousness brings both an increased capacity to do good and evil."

This collective trauma pattern, due to its ubiquity, is sewn into every human soul. Humans possess greater access to the whole of the psyche, which is why we act in ways that are more cunning than the animals, good or bad. Elk do not seek to devise a way in which all their kin may be fed (they still display these same territorial characteristics, in fact), and chimpanzees, vicious though they are, do not conceive of the rich horrors we have perpetuated on each other.

Growing in consciousness brings both an increased capacity to do good and evil. There is no one without the other: arising to a new stage solves the problems of the former one but brings about new issues that can only be reconciled by rising again. New, previously inconceivable issues arise, and the cycle keeps going.

I wish I could write to you with an earnest heart and say that an increase in collective consciousness will end all unnecessary suffering. It will not. Our capacity to enjoy existence and to suffer it are each magnified – there is no one without the other. The great hope of increasing collective consciousness is that more and more people come to the stage where they truly feel their brethren’s pain, that the pirate who rapes the girl that throws herself off the boat recognizes that he is also the girl. But in that statement you can see the futility of trying to convince him of this. I can already hear the masses exclaiming “just give him psychedelics!”, but the experience would absolutely be interpreted at his present worldview, and he would be in grave danger of declaring himself God over all others, perhaps making him viler and more exploitative.

It is good to wish and work for a better world. But what does that mean, exactly, and how can we appreciate the majesty of where we are now? It is no doubt that there have been appalling consequences to globalization by European societies: many nations and groups of people remain fractured, we are addicted to social media, pornography, and every manner of material/substance, we have grown divorced from the ecology of our lands and of our own selves. Yet the stage is set for a major integration, one where our magnificent technological prowess can marry the roots of our natural upbringing, and we come into harmony with the planet, our environment, and each other in such a way that this becomes paradise.

"The great hope of increasing collective consciousness is that more and more people come to the stage where they truly feel their brethren’s pain..."

I know these views seem inimical. Here I’ve asserted that Heaven can be had, while earlier I acknowledged that Hell never leaves. Consciousness cannot expand in only one direction, and in fact we wouldn’t wish this. The dance of good and bad keeps the game going and makes it fun. Perhaps it is the conception of good and evil as irreconcilable opposites that has put us in the incredibly divisive situation we’re in.

I had a vision recently while falling asleep of a vivid demon priest. It was as if I were on medicine – I could see him so clearly, and the rotting flesh of his face was being interpenetrated with shadows, vines, regrowth and decay. He wore a blood-red robe, and he had the head of a rotting ram with dark yellow sockets, no eyes. The only words that came to me were: “Your power pales in comparison to the Almighty, from which YOU are also a creation.” He really did not like this. As much as they might try to deny this, it is true. Even the demonic is a creation.

The real difference in between creating Heaven on Earth vs. creating Hell, as we did in some parts of the 20th century, is the degree to which we are conscious of this. When our being, or parts of it, remain in unconsciousness, they grow dark and fetid. When they are brought to the light of consciousness and loving awareness, they flourish and grow.

Yet the opposite is also true – when we consciously promote the dark elements of our being, Hell really can manifest on the Earth as it did in the concentration camps and occult fascination of the Nazi high command.

I can’t say to what degree we should deny the demonic in ourselves – one really is playing with fire there. Gandalf, one of the most powerful wizards in all the land, is capable of facing the Balrog, but it does kill him. What I can say is that projecting it onto others while denying it in us is certainly not the answer. It is a recipe to ensure suffering.

The way forward, then, entails taking responsibility for and setting order to our inner kingdom, then replicating that process in our communities and nations. This means that we relinquish the narrative and dynamic of doer and done to. It does not mean that we relinquish boundaries or our right to life. But there is a way to channel our aggression, our greed, and lust towards a beatific and shared vision of living in a world that most of us would enjoy living in: a place where we can be free, where we and our children may play without fear, and where possibilities are continually expanding.

Which is all to say that doing our inner work so we might do our outer work has never been more important. There are many helpful guides and teachers along the way, both living and deceased, to whom we can learn from. The ones I admire and value are listed on the resources page.

And while we are doing our inner work, confronting the shadow, and taking responsibility for ourselves, we should also remember to (while forgetting everything else!) walk in the forest, swim in the river, make love, break bread, and do what is delightful to us. For that is available to many of us right now, and is the true expression of Heaven on Earth.

A Guide to Parts Work and Subpersonalities

mjebbinghaus2@gmail.com (Michael Ebbinghaus) — Sat, 06 Aug 2022 18:49:26 GMT

Autonomous Energies of the Psyche

There are many methods of cognitive reorganization going around these days. Most of them fall under some umbrella of rewriting belief systems through recognition of their arbitrary nature and how they organize our reality, however accurately or inaccurately.

Conscious recognition of how our patterns can be maladaptive is an excellent first step, and working on the cognitive plane can be done almost immediately. In my experience, however, I find those belief systems which can be linguistically or cognitively accessed to be more surface manifestations of deeper, non-verbal dynamics.

The techniques available, such as rewriting self-narratives and reformulating belief systems, falls under the category of what we would call cognitive-behavioral therapies, and the accumulating empirical evidence suggests that these types of therapies can produce short-term improvement, but the longer the individual is out of treatment the more likely they are to return to maladaptive patterns or find them arising in other areas of their lives.

This is a case of treating the signal, not the deeper problem manifesting it. It would be like visiting the mechanic after your check engine light has come on, only for the mechanic to pull out the sensor that indicated there was an issue and saying “see, no problem!”

This only paves the way for disaster later on.

In order to treat the real issue, we have to explore through non-verbal, as well as verbal means. Being able to consciously recognize our belief systems is the first step in changing them, but interventions purely at the cognitive level will do little to influence the parts of us that communicate primarily through symbols – because the expression is symbolic, it can take the form of sounds, movement, images, etc.

When we speak of belief systems or schemas, the ones that are most fundamental to us are the ones that are not consciously or verbally formulated. We did not choose them of our own volition, but gravitated towards certain interpretations based on an ipso facto organization of our own psyche. This is why two people experiencing very similar circumstances may have very different outcomes, even identical twins! They cannot be reduced to their genetics or experiences because there was the fact of their distinct and separate existence as individuals. All of this combines together in a weird, beautiful dance to show us who we are.

"When we speak of belief systems or schemas, the ones that are most fundamental to us are the ones that are not consciously or verbally formulated. We did not choose them of our own volition, but gravitated towards certain interpretations based on an ipso facto organization of our own psyche."

The idea of autonomous energies or entities within us should not strike us as surprising. Why exactly do we act, at times, in dissonance with our deepest wishes? Why do we sabotage ourselves and our relationships, fall into addictions where the dreaded outcome is so known but the transient high too irresistible? Why does a person plunge a knife into their own arm or put a bullet through their skull?

It is because we are comprised of multitudes.

These multitudes are the basis all parts work, the most famous being Internal Family Systems (IFS) and its theoretical predecessor, psychosynthesis, both of which refer to these entities as subpersonalities. The rationale is that at some point, certain parts of us get split off from our conscious awareness because we find them, for whatever reason, to be undesirable. When this occurs, we disidentify from that aspect and it becomes depersonalized, and when it becomes depersonalized, it can take on deeply malignant manifestations. A will to personal power, for example, something that can be highly fortuitous, punished by a tyrannical father or overbearing mother (or vice-versa), can become a paralyzing and insidious critic of anything that the individual might wish to engage in, whether it be creative projects, healthy relationships, or wealth and freedom. It drives them to symbolic suicide in many endeavors of life, and the individual may ultimately act this out through killing themselves.

Bridging the Gap

There is no rote solution to integrating these split-off parts. There are excellent maps available such as Carl Jung’s method of analytical psychology, Assagioli’s psychosynthesis, or IFS, but these are just maps. The territory is particular to the individual, and it is up to them to engage in the artistic act of reconciliation . This is where a guide can be of immense value.

What is certain is that these entities are not totally invisible. They make themselves known through the action of our lives, through those areas of self-sabotage, those little moments where our awareness flitters off and we engage in the repetitive pattern, as well as in dreams and body symptoms such as muscle tightness, spasms, aches, ulcers, even cancers.

This takes some getting used to, as the Western empirical worldview has given little credence to these ideas that we have known intuitively for millennia. If you were to dance your way out of a neurosis, no matter how effective it might be, many clinicians in this day and age would write it down as pathological and may even recommend further psychiatric evaluation! But dancing is actually the perfect analogy because we must come into a relationship with these autonomous beings in such a way that we both benefit. Learning how it manifests in our bodies, feelings, and dreams is an important beginning. Once we identify it, we can then start to shift it through other channels such as drawing or closed-eye imagery, vocalizations, movement or dance, or music. As we start to develop our relationships with them, we can come to the point where we can actually converse with them, a process Carl Jung referred to as active imagination.

A Practical Example

The core takeaway from this article is that in order to achieve any sort of inner harmony we must form a relationship to these parts of ourselves rather than write them off as irrational and labeling ourselves as inadequate for being unable to take command of our actions. As this process unfolds, the will grows, and we are increasingly capable of exercising our volition and creating positive change.

I will briefly discuss the chief resident of my unconscious, the autonomous entity with the greatest amount of power. He recently revealed to me his name: Markos (pronounced “Mark-ūs”), which appears to be related to Mars, and indeed, this is an element I feel I have been at war with for much of my life. He manifests in my vision as a mask with a sadistic grin, soulless eyes (depersonalized), and a spiked steel mace (war/weapon/conflict) growing out of the top of his head like a flower.

Markos has been with me for as long as I can remember, and has inflicted a great deal of punishment on me over the course of my life. I have gravitated towards identities of failure, inadequacy, and unworthiness and, despite my best efforts, find myself in the throes of depression on a consistent basis, my will totally sapped, paralyzed.

"One of the great criticisms I have of cognitive-behavioral therapies and will over oneself in general is that, when inner harmony is established, the energies of the individual flow naturally because they are not in conflict."

When a close friend of mine brought it to my attention that I had been striving to meet some of my needs through shadowy means, we sat down to have a process, neither of us knowing the outcome, but going in with the intention to grow deeper in our friendship and allow all the parts to have their say. This got messy, and we were both angry and upset with one another. Markos was very present here, telling me how incredibly selfish I had been and how I deserved to be alone and miserable. As our talk proceeded, Markos manifested in a body constriction. My abdominal muscles tightened painfully around my solar plexus (3rd Chakra), and instead of arching my back to try and release them as I have done many times before, I screamed (shifting experiential channels). The tension released. I began to immediately and instinctively hyperventilate. I had managed to fully objectify, rather than remain subject to, Markos. As my friend and I wrestled with him, he began to laugh. With great muscular effort and sustained breathing, I was able to force out a burp that felt like it had been in my body longer than a decade – it was stale and foul.

There was an immediate resolution to the complex, and I felt immensely liberated. However, in less than 24 hours I was back at the same place – feeling utterly miserable and without hope. It was at this point that I let it be known to Markos how I felt about him, how sick I was at how he made me feel (active imagination). The past few days have served as a testament to what can happen when we rise above our complexes and take control of them.

Part of coming into relationship with these parts of ourselves is still a mystery to me. It's unclear whether they need to be held in loving awareness or, like a severely addicted family member or partner, cast out with loving detachment and given to the loving awareness that is God or the Universe.

Conclusion

I had thought that openness and compassion would bring this to a resolution, and perhaps ultimately that was what this verbal assault and eventual expulsion was. The entire experience has challenged my notions about good and evil, the very composition of life, the Universe, and everything.

That night I had a dream about Jocko Willink whipping my psyche into shape, and the morning after I felt physically refreshed in a way I have not in some time. I was filled with life force and deep cleaned a dirty and unorganized kitchen, then wrote the article that you are now reading.

Some potent energies in my psyche had been liberated.

One of the great criticisms I have of cognitive-behavioral therapies and will over oneself in general is that, when inner harmony is established, the energies of the individual flow naturally because they are not in conflict. When the individual is in conflict, there is a great deal of energy thrown into a pit that they cannot locate. Because will is so central to the endeavor of healing, and the will is split amongst these autonomous psychic energies, we find ourselves in a bind. In this case of disowned aggression, I had to be vicious to this entity before we could come to any sort of amelioration.

If you’re struggling with internal conflict and find yourself at odds with your actions and who you would like to be, please contact me . You don’t have to go through this alone, and I have not just extensive study of the maps but knowledge of my own territory. I would love to help you become the intrepid explorer of your own.

The Magic of the Mundane

mjebbinghaus2@gmail.com (Michael Ebbinghaus) — Mon, 11 Jul 2022 21:28:17 GMT

It's Really Amazing, and It Also Just Kinda... Is

There is only so much awareness that is available to us. Within our own bodies are myriad events, machinations, and grumblings that could consume the entirety of our attention. If we had no capacity to tune out aspects of our existence, we would be overwhelmed by the sheer infinitude of what goes on.

The caveat here is that we can tune things out for so long that we forget about them entirely, exclude them from our lexicon of what is. It is not always natural to feel the wind on our face or taste fully the ensemble of flavors that grace our palates. There is beauty and transcendence in mundanity so long as we can remember to feel it fully.

The mundane has always been a source of profound interest to me. The goings-ons in laundromats and corner markets has often brought greater fascination than the glamorous glow and ornamented fabric of restaurants and bars, those establishments that carefully curate the image of the “good life.” Pictures of curbsides, people on the train, cabins settled in by weary and curious travelers, such stills hold a different beauty than serene landscapes and choreographed portraits.

"It is not always natural to feel the wind on our face or taste fully the ensemble of flavors that grace our palates. There is beauty and transcendence in mundanity so long as we can remember to feel it fully."

The Japanese are masters of capturing the splendor of everyday life. Miyazaki is a famous and stellar example, but the magic of the mundane permeates much of their culture. The short line of a ramen shop open late on a weeknight, tiny bars accommodating small troupes of overworked men in suits, that special sanctity afforded the bare student apartment containing only the necessities to fuel study.

Our culture places an emphasis on exuberant ecstasy and peak experience. We are fatted on extravagance. Even our healing communities place a premium on full and wild expression. It’s been a problem since the actualization therapies of the 1970s. The meek and mild-mannered are considered only in terms of their societal programming, let the fury of your wild beast be unleashed! Yet it is not always so, and with every peak comes a valley, every high a low. Is it any wonder we are given to diseases of excess?

"Our culture places an emphasis on exuberant ecstasy and peak experience. We are fatted on extravagance."

Striving for experience is the root of all false mysticism. Experiences are important. Psychedelics, intimate connection with groups of strangers, cataclysmic events that rend our hearts open: these can help to disrupt old modes of being and open our eyes to what is possible. But altered states do not become altered traits without solidifying through practice in our habitual state. The goal of growing in awareness is to be fully present to experience no matter how we might hierarchically organize them. If we ask our experiences to be pleasant enough, intense enough to draw our attention, then we forfeit a degree of our divine power. Sex no doubt more readily draws our awareness, but the better we are able to maintain presence folding the laundry, the greater the degree we can be with our partner in these exquisite moments.

It is natural for us to view ourselves as separate from the reality in which we live, a logical conclusion/ By separating we make way for an integration that encompasses the parts and creates a greater whole. When the illusion of our separateness evaporates with the ingestion of sacred medicine, nature immersion, or an encounter with death, we must recognize that these hint at the Truth of our condition! When we inevitably sink back into our separateness, we can attribute the union to pharmacological action, relaxing of attention, etc. “I can remember if I read this book, watch this video, eat this mushroom.” Divine union is, however, the state of things. There is nothing we have to do – we are already doing it.

"Altered states do not become altered traits without solidifying through practice in our habitual state."

Inner guidance is not a rationality-defying, magical-mystical phenomenon. It exists at all of these levels, and the parts of us that see the world in magic and in myth, the foundations upon which we are built, can easily delight in it. This is something to be cherished! Rationality grapples with inner guidance and divinity because it is transrational, i.e. non-rational. It transcends and includes rationality. It is the ultimate Nature reaching down to unite us with It, to bring us into ever closer alignment or resonance. It is a means to bridge the default state into the grand flow. People will push this adaptogen latté or that microdosing regimen or this plant medicine retreat; it is not that these things can’t be helpful, but if we approach them with the idea that it is the experiences or the products, anything external to US that is doing the work, then we are caught in the wheel. How many times do we need to drink the brew, exactly, before we pick up the message? (I’ll caveat this by saying I will more-than-likely work with plant medicines for the entire span of my life – but I will recognize what they put me in touch with and that they are manifestations of the same thing that I AM).

"Finding beauty and coherence where you are now is one of the best things you can do to get to where you would like to be. "

There are those for whom 1200 micrograms of LSD (~7x the standard dose) has little effect. If one already perceives reality as it is, there is little that these agents can do! It is our divine right to acknowledge and experience this union, but it is not divorced from the reality of lived experience. All things into the present and beyond into the future, which is also the present, occur in Spirit, occur in God. There is nothing that is, nothing that happens, that is not Spirit, that is not God. God is in the shower after work, in putting the children to bed, wiping our ass, wallowing in our miseries, powerful mountaintop mushroom-assisted epiphanies, and death-defying sex. The beauty of peak experiences is to show us what is always possible and available, to feel the river course through our heart and the volcano rise in our belly, and to know that we can live a life free from compulsion, blame, and hatred. Their danger is that we can become dependent upon them. The answers we find in peak experiences are so simple they often make us laugh, particularly if you take yourself too seriously like I tend to.

In the US in particular, there is a propensity to confuse medicine with health. There are many who are chronically medicated but remain in deleterious health, whether it be beta-blockers, caffeine, or ayahuasca. Medicine is meant to restore our alignment, not be it. Our lives will call for medicines of many different varieties; to fall back into those prisons of our own construction is something all too human. But perhaps the most powerful medicine is the acceptance of the magic of the mundane.

There is a delicate balance to be struck through acceptance and striving. However, finding beauty and coherence where you are now is one of the best things you can do to get to where you would like to be.

All of this is counter-intuitive until you remember what intuition is.

If you find difficulty with finding peace in the present moment, get in touch with me and we'll learn to work with life in way that it becomes a never-ending dance and adventure.

Towards a Peaceful Resolution: Response to Overturning of Roe v. Wade

mjebbinghaus2@gmail.com (Michael Ebbinghaus) — Fri, 24 Jun 2022 17:54:56 GMT

We Need All of Us to Heal

The overturning of a Supreme Court decision that has provided federal protection for women and couples seeking informed choices about family life and the beings they wish to bring into this world is one that hits all of us heavily.

I had heard previously that there were some shortcomings with the methodology and arguments of Roe v. Wade, so I can only hope that this makes way for sturdier protection.

The decision to terminate a pregnancy is complex and varies from individual-to-individual, couple-to-couple. It is not a decision I would wish on myself or anyone, but the reality remains. There is much evidence to support that society benefits when a supportive container is in place to receive the incoming human life, and that it is incredibly detrimental when that container is toxic or nonexistent. When the individuals from the latter situation grow up, the same people that so fiercely advocated for them as fetuses will place their misfortune, traumatized experience, and maladaptive patterns entirely on their heads, denying any involvement because, after all, according to the Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm, we are all separate and totally sovereign unto ourselves (despite enormous evidence to the contrary).

I predict there will be protests and demonstrations that will amount to little. The well-meaning and the furious will take pause from their normal lives to advocate, but sooner or later we will be forced back into the crushing inertia of a “holier-than-thou” system. And this is the crux of the issue, an ongoing legacy of traumatization, tyranny, and rapaciousness venerated by an authority that only wants us to be “saved.” So said the colonizers, so said the Inquisitors as they stripped the flesh from the sinners. We’re doing this for your own good. Don’t you see how very dangerous all this heresy is for your immortal soul?

I feel a wrench in my heart, as many people close to me identify as Christian, and I know there are many Christians that abhor this decision as well as all of the atrocities committed in the name of the Church.

But my fury cannot go unknown.

For centuries, people have operated under a “holy doctrine” to evict people from their lands, to enter without invitation or permission and take far more than what is offered. They have walked into nations where people are physically healthy, perfect, and happy, and attempted to “save” them. Native American boarding schools are primary examples of the kinds of civilized savagery Christians have used to instill the love of Christ, who weeps at their actions.

What’s more, while I look to history to list the monumental heap of atrocities committed in the name of Spirit, I need only look to my own heart to see the pristine lands set to Hellfire. It is all right here, right now. I can never forget the pounding of my heart and the intense fear of pleasure, my first nocturnal emissions interrupted by frantic attempts to stop that blissful surge of divine love, real present divine love, that I had been indoctrinated to believe was sinful. What should have been a joyful eruption ended in terror, shame, and a clamped fist over the head of my penis.

Could there be a more telling symbol for the tyrannical hand of Christianity? What it does to the yoni I cannot conclude. Christ is crucified every time you do the devil’s work in his name.

To my druid ancestors, driven underground and slain by the man we drink ourselves to death for every March 17th, to the countless indigenous wisdoms lost to time but erupting again and again in the perennial philosophy, all you forgotten children raped and thrown into the mass grave, and all those that have been defiled, tortured, killed, and castrated so that you might be deemed worthy, I give my tears, my sweat, heart, my word, my Sword of Truth.

And you, Christians, I imagine many of you will interpret this as a persecution, a danger to your safety. You who force your ideology down the throats of others and cry “DANGER!” when one of them chokes, you will invite Hell upon the Earth and claim it was all the stench of the Non-Believers, maintaining your self-righteousness while the world rots into flame.

Can we avoid creating this future together? This is my anger, but it is also an invitation to resolution. Let us come together, heal one another, see the shadow in all of us.

You cannot escape it, trust me. The shadow will find you, even if it must wait until your dying breath…

Let us break the silence, my brothers and sisters…

Or the silence will be broken with a fist.

How I Became the Austin Soul Coach

mjebbinghaus2@gmail.com (Michael Ebbinghaus) — Thu, 26 May 2022 18:59:54 GMT

From Deep Pain to Deep Calling

Curiosity is the most vital part of ourselves that we can be in touch with. It is a deep longing and knowing within that calls us to places, ideas, and people beyond our comprehension. When curiosity is encouraged and tended as a flourishing garden, it can be a rich source of animation and inner power throughout the lifetime. When it is stifled and discouraged, it festers as a lingering wound that increasingly demands our attention and disrupts the false desires we’ve moved towards.

My curiosity has always been incredibly potent. There were unseen realms that called to me that I could not articulate. I wanted to know everything about the world and its creatures, as well as myself. How was it that I was having the experience of being human? What did it mean that everyone else was having their own particular experience of what it was like to be them? I’ve carried these questions with me for most of my life. The more I traverse, the more I realize that life is the answer.

Curiosity in my case was mistaken for intelligence, though the two are often interrelated. What intelligence meant for me, however, was that I was naturally gifted, that I could know things more easily and work at the solutions with lighter effort than most. There was a way in which I was treated as special that did little to serve me and my community. Thankfully things that are not true come apart, and though it was a difficult and long process, eventually I outgrew such a crude definition of intelligence and was able to allow my curiosity and creativity to bloom more freely.

"When curiosity is encouraged and tended as a flourishing garden, it can be a rich source of animation and inner power throughout the lifetime."

That did not come without great sacrifice and suffering. My identity had been built on a foundation of quicksand, and when the circumstances no longer reflected my reality, my neat little ego concept imploded. I knew that there must be something wrong or deficient with me, that I was unworthy of love and even of life, and flirted with and nearly danced with suicide at the age of 20. However, the thwarted attempt to end my life revealed that the world was not so separate as I had been taught to believe. I witnessed a miracle that night that made the infinitely interconnected and compassionate nature of the Universe perceptible to me. It was the first miracle I noticed, and it would not be the last.

It is difficult in the modern era to justify a spiritual path. Our technological powers have grown so monstrous, our ability to manipulate physical reality so effective that the ego usurped the throne of the Almighty, something that Frederick Nietzsche proclaimed with the death of God. Beckoning to a greater power became a taboo, a way to ruin one’s career or land oneself in an asylum. Non-ordinary states of consciousness and many psychological processes were simply marked off as aberrations and illness. My own struggles with depression have been cast in the light of funky brain chemistry that can be remedied, after some trial, error, and deterioration, with the help of medication.

"I witnessed a miracle that night that made the infinitely interconnected and compassionate nature of the Universe perceptible to me."

When one awakens to the interconnected, sentient, and benevolent nature of the Universe, one knows that nothing occurs in aberration. The process which we might label “depression” is something within me that requires my attention and consciousness. Through the process of coming to know this other within and by confronting the figures and energies I encounter in my dreams, fantasies, relationships, and visions, I have come to know another side of the mirror. There is that which I think I am, the one writing these words, maintaining this website, eating, drinking, and eliminating, and then there is the ineffable totality of what I actually am, something that could never be named because it is the one doing the naming.

We are tied to a greater consciousness than our own, and that consciousness can become our consciousness if we humble ourselves to receive it while simultaneously accessing the power of the Unconscious to move deeper and upwards. This process is a holy marriage of conscious with unconscious, solar and lunar consciousnesses, masculine and feminine, ego and shadow. By surrendering to the Unknown we come into more intimate contact with what we truly are, we solidify and gain confidence and clarity in our being, which permits further surrender and contact, and you get the story.

"By surrendering to the Unknown we come into more intimate contact with what we truly are, we solidify and gain confidence and clarity in our being, which permits further surrender and contact, and you get the story."

This process is not linear or pretty. It does not always magnetize compliments and admiration from our peers, partners, and families nor bring us financial wealth or outrageous fortune. The first leg on the spiritual journey is often referred to as a descent, and we will have to venture into greater depths than we ever imagined possible. Contrary to popular belief, the Dark Night of the Soul is almost never the initiation, though it feels that way. The Dark Night of the Soul is not until a much later stage after we have already progressed deeply into our descent. The paradoxical nature of life, consciousness, and experience reveals that the deeper we step the greater heights there are to be seen. By the time we reach our Dark Night, we will have tasted spiritual ecstasy, beheld visions of our life purpose or mythopoetic identity, and be resourced enough to be brought to this great confrontation with immense suffering and the wrenching pain of our separation. It is only through accepting this crucial fact of our reality that we can come into union with the Most High.

As someone that walks this path, breathes his process, and studies the way, I know that each individual’s journey looks different. I know that what is going on within that process may look strange, aberrant, and diseased from a contemporary standpoint. My role as guide and facilitator is to give credence to this process, to listen to it and teach those under my care how to listen to it themselves. Through this crucial mirroring the soul’s call might be heard, and a process set in motion that may undermine the desires of the ego but fill the Spirit. I am of the opinion that the more people are in relationship to this crucial and unconditioned part of themselves, the greater peace and prosperity might be shared amongst all beings of the Earth.

This is the value of what I offer. When the voices of well-meaning friends, partners, and community attempt to keep you embedded in what you were, I see the potential of what you could be and place the responsibility of this potential in your hands. I see your traumas and sufferings not as things to be consoled away but wounds to be pressed so that the light may enter. I do all of this with the tact and compassion of someone who has been there and acts not from a place of ego but of sovereign intuition. Only you can discover who you are, and through the many tools, practices, and ways of being I have encountered (and will continue to learn) throughout my life, you too will find the task of fully incarnating as Spirit the only one, ultimately, of moving towards.

Contact me today to begin or deepen your spiritual journey and rediscover what you were born to do.

What Are Psychedelics?

mjebbinghaus2@gmail.com (Michael Ebbinghaus) — Tue, 17 May 2022 20:22:03 GMT

The Experience, Neurochemistry, and Spirituality

Psychedelics have come to the fore over the last decade. It seems that everyone and their grandmother has sat with the Grandmother. There is a lot of discussion and controversy over what psychedelics are, and getting down to what they do and the kinds of experiences they catalyze can be a difficult endeavor. In this article, I break down what psychedelics do experientially, neurochemically, and spiritually.

Before we get there, however, let’s look at the term “psychedelic” itself along with "entheogen," another common descriptor. Both terms are relatively similar, the former meaning literally “soul manifesting” and the latter “becoming the divine within.” Both of these terms point to something core to our being, something we don’t generally experience in our ordinary waking state of consciousness, that manifests through the ingestion of different substances whether they be lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) or ayahuasca, the traditional Amazonian brew with N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) as its active component. What this implies is that what we think we are, i.e. the ego, the self-concept we experience ourselves as in our day-to-day, is but a small component of who we really are. Psychedelics are great at this, and while “who we really are” is enigmatic right now, through the course of this article it will become plain what that means.

There are many classes of chemicals and traditional plant medicines that mediate altered states of consciousness and expanded states of being. Here I will be focusing more so on the classic psychedelics and traditional plant medicines with similar chemical makeup such as LSD, psilocybin (active component in magic mushrooms), DMT, ayahuasca, and mescaline. While all of these medicines have different phenomenologies and subtleties in neuroreceptor mechanics, not to mention their association with certain plant spirits (such as ayahuasca), they have many similarities that transcend their differences, and the ultimate reality they reveal is, at the end of the day, ultimate.

The Experience of Psychedelics

The range of psychedelic experiences is as varied as the substances, the individuals that take them, and the settings they take them in. All of these factors are vital, which is why there is so much emphasis on the set (the mindset the individual inhabits when going into a psychedelic experience) and setting (in what context they are taken). Someone with an atheistic worldview taking them at a music festival and melting into and becoming the music is going to have a very different experience than someone who takes them in a religious ceremony.

"What this implies is that what we think we are, i.e. the ego, the self-concept we experience ourselves as in our day-to-day, is but a small component of who we really are."

One of the reliable effects of the various psychedelics, however, is the relaxing or fading away of the ego, or the conceptual self. At lower doses one generally feels a looseness and a freedom not generally encountered, and at moderate-to-high doses one may experience varying degrees of ego death, the recognition that we are not what we generally perceive ourselves to be, that we create and repetitively engrain ourselves into habitual ways of being, that we are free to change whenever we wish, and that the totality of what we are could never be defined as an object of consciousness because we are consciousness itself (more on this in the “What Psychedelics do Spiritually” section).

How ego dissolution is experienced is, again, going to depend upon the disposition of the individual and their intention going in. Being primed with that knowledge is incredibly helpful, and it is why so often an intention of surrender can help one to pass through the phase of leaving the known with less difficulty. When entering the space past the ego, our reactions to and perception of the experience will be mirrored back to us. This is why Dr. Stanislov Grof, a Czechoslovakian physician who conducted tens of thousands of LSD-assisted psychotherapy sessions in the 1960s and 70s, describes psychedelics as being “ non-specific amplifiers of consciousness .” What that means is that if we are intensely afraid of what is happening to us, the experience will appear and grow more and more terrifying. If we meet it with equanimity, presence, and bliss, it will fill us with radiance and the divine dance of cosmic love.

"...the totality of what we are could never be defined as an object of consciousness because we are consciousness itself."

One of the things that psychedelics shows us is the power of our mind to manifest reality, in fact it cannot be done without it! This is what modern Buddhist philosophy refers to as “ reification ,” or “ making it real .” We all do this to varying degree. Almost all of us do it in our dreams where we encounter fantastic scenarios with no basis in physical reality and accept them as real and happening without resistance. We do this also in our waking life with who we think we are, our reactions to others, and our immediate reactions to situations and things. How often do we end a love relationship and feel that we are going to die or that we’ll never be happy again, only to reencounter the same scenario months and years later?

A helpful trick with this is to take command and sovereignty of one’s experience. Because what we are experiencing in the psychedelic experience is us , we can actually ask it to alter its form. So, if you find yourself in the midst of a rather unpleasant and challenging experience, perhaps confronting a demonic monster that is tearing apart your insides, we can ask It or the experience or God to change the way in which it is manifesting.

I’ve revealed my bias towards the spiritual side of the psychedelic experience, but I believe it to be Ultimate Truth, and like all ultimate truth, it exists within every level of reality. So while this is all happening within someone’s subjective experience, there is also something occurring in the external world, i.e. the alteration of neurochemistry, receptor dynamics, and electrophysiology, that mirrors what is happening. This is not to say that the subjective experience can be reduced to receptor chemistry – that is material reductionism. With that said, let us examine what’s going on in the brain during a psychedelic experience.

The Neurobiology of Psychedelics

Psychedelic science has been the greatest movement in the modern era to bridge the empirical subjective practices of the East (e.g. Tibetan Buddhism) with the empirical objectivism of the West (material science). The ego dissolution that the individual experiences can be mirrored in the way their brain begins to connect to itself in novel and liberating ways. The image at the top of this post reveals the diversity of connections that occur when someone is in a psychedelic state.

"We not only discover but experience in every cell of our being the continuous vibration and divination of a sacred whisper."

The classic psychedelics act chiefly on the 5- HT 2A (serotonin subtype 2A) receptor. These receptors are densely situated in an area of the brain commonly known as the Default Mode Network (DMN), so-called because it experiences greater activity when someone is at rest. So this is the part of you that, when you’re just sitting there on the bus with nothing to do or are in bed but not quite falling asleep, runs and runs and runs. It is a self-referential network. During these times of inactivity, unoccupied by our relationships, jobs, hobbies, and tasks, we are often tuned to what comes next. I have to do this tomorrow. Wow I really muddled up that conversation yesterday. Where is my life going? Et cetera. It is the neural correlate of the ego, that conceptual self we discussed earlier.

Can you guess what happens to it when someone psychedelics are ingested?

It doesn’t exactly disappear, but rather than neural activity remaining confined to this little area at the center of our head, the brain starts lighting up all over the place. Neurons that don’t often talk to one another are suddenly in a riveting and enthusiastic conversation. In this state, you are actually more connected to yourself than in the majority of waking life.

What’s more, the brain state that has been scientifically documented again and again is nearly identical to the state that advanced meditators drop into when they practice samatha. This points to a shift and broadening of awareness that is less focused on the little-s self and more on the big bad Carl Jungian Self. This brings us to…

The Spirituality of Psychedelics

Psychedelics reveal a deeper level of the reality that we are intimately connected to and inseparable from. The ego is our little self existing here in this plane, and for good reason. We need a place to stand so that we can feed, water, and perpetuate our organism, and what fun we get to have in doing so! However, because Western culture became so en-grossed (literally in the material world) and lost sight of its infinite interconnection to experience at large, we confused the incarnation with the totality, confused the servant with the master.

We all have a conception of who and what we think we are. We attach ourselves to various identities and roles, passions and hobbies, likes and dislikes. It's not intuitive or obvious, but we cannot be the object of our consciousness because we are the consciousness which perceives it. We are simultaneously the object to be perceived and the perceiver, however, only the latter remains. We were many forms before we took this one. We were particles in the air, trees, soil, and at some point, food in our mothers' mouths that was funneled into our physical form via our umbilical cord. Throughout all of the various cycles and changes the world, ourselves, and everything goes through, there is an awareness that permeates it all.

When we are under the influence of a psychedelic substance, the totality floods in. It opens the aperture between the conscious and unconscious, and we are able to recognize the fullness of what we are and dispel the illusion of our separateness. We not only discover but experience in every cell of our being the continuous vibration and divination of a sacred whisper. Eons long passed find themselves manifest in the moment, the network of our past and the unpaved road of the future spiral into eternity. Our fall from grace has gone full circle into the Christly redemption, and in what was once chaos, suffering, and confusion we find peace, beauty, and unending cosmic bliss.

Darkness Awakens, Light Guides

mjebbinghaus2@gmail.com (Michael Ebbinghaus) — Fri, 22 Apr 2022 21:32:00 GMT

Nothing Draws our Attention Like Intense Suffering

Many of us have tread long on a path of self-improvement. Our explorations have taken us through many modalities: books, YouTube videos, lectures, therapists, energy healers, psychedelic medicines, group work, nature immersion, and travel to distant, spiritual lands. Yet after all the experiences, knowledge accrued, patterns recognized and reworked, sensations felt, trauma somatically expressed and integrated, there remains a gnawing gap between where we are and where we would like to be.

Making Suffering Real

The answer to this issue is simple, but it is among the most difficult things for our mind to grasp. In fact, it really can’t grasp it at all. It requires a leap of faith, a knowing beyond knowing.

Ultimately we suffer because we experience everything, including ourselves, as real.

What do you mean, Michael, you crazy hash-smoking hippie wannabe wizard? I’m sitting here reading this. I’ve had breakthroughs with my therapist, I’ve resolved my relationship with my father, and I’m still suffering. My suffering is real. I’m real!

I know! I’ve been there, and I am there. I’m nowhere close to solidifying an awakened or enlightened state. God knows if I ever will. When I suffer, it feels so real. When my eyes look deeply in love to my partner, she and I and the whole Universe seem so real. However, all of those healing modalities mentioned earlier, the relentless search for my whole self, which has never been anywhere but right here, has given me the strength and resources to undertake the fundamental teaching: namely that I (and everything and everyone) am God incarnate; that we create our reality as we are, but ultimately what we see and feel and perceive is an illusion! The only thing that is real in any real sense is awareness, that which is present in deep, dreamless sleep.

Balancing Our Practice

Though this is simple, it is by no means easy. It is easier to sleep and fall unconscious, which is why we do it day after day, moment-to-moment, and every single night. The untrained mind is much like an untrained dog, darting to and fro, barking at everything as though it’s a threat, even the shadows.

With unfocused attention, the dream takes an even greater hold on our reality. It takes a commitment to practice on and off the cushion and to explore different forms of meditation, where we train our concentration, paint pictures with our mind, in addition to the very popular form of vipassana or mindfulness. We do not train our bodies by engaging in only one exercise. When we engage in a multitude of modalities: weight training, yoga, calisthenics, swimming, running, etc., the different practices reinforce and strengthen each other far more than single-minded dedication to one practice could.

In any practice, the beginning is frustrating and difficult. It upsets the picture we like to hold of ourselves. This was particularly true for my meditation practice. Due to my identification with my intellect, I did not want to admit that my attention was fractured and divergent. I chose to remain ignorant throughout every meditation session, constructing a mirage that suited my fancy. It was only when I was willing to own my predicament and my current level of development does any lasting change come about. As so often happens, it took a great deal of dismay and dissatisfaction to be able to wake up to where I was in my spiritual development and what it would take to progress. It generally takes a peak experience or, in this case, an anti-peak experience to awaken us from our hollow dream.

"If experience of a higher state of consciousness were all that it took, the world would look much different."

I’ll use a more concrete example to solidify this. When I was fifteen, I stood 5’10” and weighed 230 lbs. I had very little athletic ability and recognized this . Had I perceived myself to be either fit or strong, I would have been defeated continuously every time I went to the gym. I may never have set foot there for fear it would undo my illusion, but because I was willing to accept where I was, each repetition brought me closer to where I wanted to be rather than dismissed the illusion I was already there, and it gave me the felt sense that I was moving forward.

The mind is more difficult to observe than our physical conditioning. For every observable artifact there are several dozen elements happening unconsciously. Because I lived in an illusion of attentiveness, I neglected one of the fundamental stories upon which my self-concept (or ego) is based, a condition of unworthiness striving relentlessly and painfully towards redemption along with a masochistic delight in being a pity-sponge, a self-identity as a “tormented soul.” I figured that by the age of 42 I would have had enough evidence to show that I was never going to be good enough, never going to “make it,” at which point I would feel justified in taking my own life. It’s no coincidence that David Foster Wallace, an author I greatly admire, took his life around this age. This is the reality-manifesting power of the mind. If I do not wake up, I will continue to live in such a way as to unconsciously reinforce this narrative, driving away people that believe in and love me, sabotaging every opportunity to make valuable contributions to my community and the world.

The Power of Anti-Peak Experiences

The miasmic black hole that engulfed me several weeks ago was a gift from soul. No amount of sunshine, exercise, positive mantras, or prayer could help me because I unconsciously spend hours every day defiling my worth and moving towards a disastrous future. This inescapable pit of despair sucked me in, I collapsed, and my personality disintegrated. After all the progress I had made, everything I had learned, I felt like I was back behind square zero. My ego had finally been humbled to the point where the most important thing was paying attention. I had no choice but to bear constant witness to my experience lest I unconsciously feed this dark, ravenous maw, a groove of mind entrenched and chasmic. Peak experiences are great, but it's the anti-peaks that show us where our blindspots are.

"After all the progress I had made, everything I had learned, I felt like I was back behind square zero."

We have to be defeated to the image of who we are to be able to move towards a figure of our own creation. Once we acknowledge our divine power to create our reality, we become unstoppable, but the fact of the matter is that we already are . Whatever the narrative is playing in our head, consciously (or more importantly, unconsciously), it is being reinforced by our interactions with the world. This is not to denigrate peak experiences of awakening, whether they be through physical exertion, sex, or psychedelic experience. But if experience of a higher state of consciousness were all that it took, the world would look much different. These experiences offer a glimpse of what is possible, but there are many years of unconscious and insidious creation to undo, and the state accessed through our ecstasy must be solidified through practice. This is the vital task of integration post-peak experience, in this case anti-peak experiences, a restructuring of the daily mode of life to engrain the structures that the state sought to teach us. If we awaken to our roles as creators, we also awaken to the responsibility to use that power to better our own lives and those of others.

This anti-peak experience, pictured below, lit a fire within me. I began searching, researching like a possessed monk. Where do I go? I had come across a book on the Tibetan practice of dream yoga, and felt pulled towards this practice. I immediately downloaded two books on the subject by Andrew Holacek, Dream Yoga and Dreams of Light. I will explain this practice further later on, but suffice it to say that the practice of dream yoga is meant to help us realize that we dream ourselves into reality, and that the more we can awaken in our dreams, the more that we can awaken in life. I’ll speak more about this intensive and transformative practice in the following article.

How Alchemy Can Unite Us with Our Soul Purpose

mjebbinghaus2@gmail.com (Michael Ebbinghaus) — Mon, 07 Mar 2022 21:19:42 GMT

How Alchemy Revealed the Mysteries of the Psyche

Jung’s masterwork on alchemy, the Mysterium Coniunctionus , is a bold and revealing study into the phenomenology and goal of this arcane art. To the mind of the medieval adept, there was little differentiation between man and materia, or psychology and mat(t)er. It therefore contaminated the chemical transformation process with a psychic one, and the subjective experience of the alchemist became as much a part of the work as the physical transformation of substances. Because they conducted their work in secret out of fear of being labeled heretics, many independent cases could be studied and a startling, some might say, impossible, number of similarities occurred in the imagery that arose and the conclusions the adepts came to (though we know these to be matters of synchronicity). The alchemists were interested in the transformation of their souls, the medium to be transformed that is also the agent of the transformation. When their souls were transformed, they could likewise bring the procedure to the collective.

The outcome of the alchemical procedure was the mysterium coniunctionus, the mysterious union of the opposites. Great antagonism reveals a desperate longing for closeness, things seemingly inimical to one other betray an unbreakable tether. There is a connection that runs through the opposites, and once transformed in the vessel of the individual, the vessel that is the transformative substance and the substance to be transformed , one can transmute into the lapis philosophorum or the philosopher’s stone.

In order for potentiality to become reality, the one (potentia) must become the many (actuality, embodiment). The multiplicity endemic to the individual renders and tears the one apart until the pieces can be differentiated, brought into consciousness, and then integrated into a whole larger than the sum of its parts, the emergent properties of holarchy as described by Wilber .

Our problems, neuroses, and political strife are born out of a failure to recognize our inherent wholeness and reconcile the opposites and duplicities within. Many will say of Man that he is egocentric, and that even the work of Jung and the exploration here undertaken are manifestations of a pathological self-fascination. However, consciousness is itself a more or less consistent projection of the Unconscious, one of the seminal theses of the Mysterium, ergo this self-fascination is not merely narcissistic inflection but characteristic of consciousness (or the Unconscious) itself. It is for this reason that Jung and others refer to the totality of the personality as the capital-S Self. Exploration of the Self, far from being an egotistical endeavor, shifts the locus of attention away from the little-s self into a broader, more complete awareness.

"Our problems, neuroses, and political strife are born out of a failure to recognize our inherent wholeness and reconcile the opposites and duplicities within."

How exactly can this knowledge serve us? To unite the duplicity within can be characterized as the union of soul with spirit, embracing one’s individual uniqueness as a perfect manifestation of Spirit. This is the critical first step in the alchemical process, the acknowledgment that one is somehow separate and that how the individual has characterized herself is arbitrary in the worst way, i.e. separated from reality. The tincture that will cure our unnecessary suffering, that will bring us into a divine and ecstatic union, is at first debilitating and brings us to the undeniable aspect of our separation, the stage corresponding to the nigredo (the blackening). The center of consciousness must move away from the ego, that which is most perceptible and corresponds to the light of the sun, to the totality of the Self, the proverbial shifting of the ego from master to servant. This is the exploration of the dark side of the personality or the shadow.

Through working with the shadow, the parts of oneself that were/are not conscious, something like a chemical transformation occurs. It permits us to see that we are separated by the powers of creation we seek to unite with (namely Spirit, the Universe, Source, God, etc.) This separation makes way for our understanding and ability to unite the soul with the body, to unite that which we conceive ourselves to be with the totality of what we actually are. This is where the corpus of our work takes place. All of this is tied in with the transcendent-immanent property of Spirit, i.e. it is at both not fully contained within yet fully expressed at each level of reality. Once this transformation takes place and the soul is united with spirit and the soul united with the body, the unus mundus or one world can be achieved, and one lives out the destiny of individuation through each cycle of breath, to contribute one's specific purpose to the whole Kosmos. This is what the alchemists referred to as the hieros gamos , or holy marriage between one's consciousness and the Unconscious, though Supraconscious or Transconscious also speak to Its nature.

Exploration of the little-s self allows it to give way and all that remains is the Self, all that one truly is. All that one is not, i.e. trauma responses and all unnecessary adaptation to social conditioning are melted out as impurities in the alchemical procedure. Past sins are forgiven and cast out of the prima materia and we are therefore no longer chained to the overly-protective ego which keeps us locked in repetitive cycles of behavior. Once one realizes what one really is, the process can be continued ad libidum, as the work of the lifetime never ceases.

At this stage, one is liberated from a great karmic cycle that the current epoch in Western civilization encourages, namely the fitting into and establishing coherence with cultural standards and norms. This is the basis of Bill Plotkin’s description of our culture as patho-adolescent, as it is right and proper for adolescents to find a place and fit into their cultural framework, however the grander goal should be the attainment of timeless wisdom to improve the collective via apprenticeship and direction from true Adults and Elders, people we are unfortunately scarce in. Once cultural enmeshment has occurred, we can then turn our eyes to ancient and farther wisdom. Thankfully we have not been idle in producing pathways and tools for mastery and improvement of the condition, but the structures that employ such tools often do not promote attainment of fuller consciousness. Since such structures are culturally lacking, it is up to us as individuals to come together and build up these structures together so that the alchemical process can occur on grander and grander scales. One of the greatest gifts of consciousness is to be able to move forward and capitalize on our successes while mitigating our mistakes.

"...the grander goal should be the attainment of timeless wisdom to improve the collective via apprenticeship and direction from true Adults and Elders..."

There is a destiny that called us from beyond this life, and it was the promise of this destiny and the infinite pathways by which we might fulfill it that brought us forth from sleep forever and ever. We have and always will be fated to have our original wholeness fractured by our parents, parent cultures, and the bitterness and tragedy of Nature. Without this fracturing the whole cannot be made conscious. Through all of time, majesty, and calamity, life endures, and we enjoy the full incarnation of the Godhead through our own corporeal existence, though at times this is precluded by the very barriers created around our wounds that will lead us to it. By embracing the entirety of our form we can receive the fullness of Love and Ecstasy that awaits and allow this to be the fuel by which we strive through life. It is at once a fervent desire and something one is pained to neglect. We avoid our destiny at the wrath incurred by the Psyche.

My Letter to Spirit

mjebbinghaus2@gmail.com (Michael Ebbinghaus) — Mon, 21 Feb 2022 18:38:52 GMT

Total Surrender is Simple But Not Easy

I appeal to Spirit:

It's taken me a long time to climb from this chasm, and I did not want to do it because as long as I stayed there I could be convinced of my own power, the safety of my limitation. Does it feel good to be enough? Can you feel that energy coursing through your heart? I deserve it. I need it. I need connection to you, Spirit. Without you, I am so totally lost. I get stuck in webs of my own making and crumble beneath the pain and intractability. I cannot see past the cloud of my delusion. I need your light to carry me through. I beg of you, please help me remove the barriers to my heart. I just want to be with You. You are my everything, my entire reason for being. I live only to serve You. Help me to lift myself so that I may lift others. Help me to lift myself so that I might be free. I don't wish to live in this masochistic prison anymore. I cannot stand it. All the walls are bamboo, anyway. I know that I can just walk out. Help me to walk out. Lock the door behind me and obliterate the key.

And Spirit answered:

Capable, so capable. My son, you are extraordinary. I packed so much love, so much wonder into you. You've done amazingly with all of it. I know you encountered so much pain, and by opening and transcending it, there is no end to the beauty that your hands will work and your voice will carry. My greatest wish is that the heart that reaches out to your lover, friends, to the boundless woods that you call home, will extend to you. Do not forget yourself. You are not some pitiable mistake but a bright beacon of love, a grand master in training. That hunger in your belly is for knowledge and transformation. You've always known the true nature of the world and yearned to know more, to let it take the form in which you see it. I am always here. I will never leave you. Go forth and carry that infinite love with you and to all the beings you encounter.

The Truth About Pornography - 3 Ways to Reclaim Potency

mjebbinghaus2@gmail.com (Michael Ebbinghaus) — Wed, 09 Feb 2022 19:40:57 GMT

How Much Would We Like to Reveal to Big Business and Partners?

Pornography is one of the most-consumed media forms in the entire world. Popular sites such as PornHub receive on average of over 33 billion visits per year, more than quadruple the world’s population, and this is only one site! Roughly 30% of all internet traffic is porn-dedicated, and the industry never ceases to produce more and more high-quality content.

One of the most disturbing aspects of the phenomenon is that all of this high-quality content requires no financial compensation on the part of the viewer. Advertising and premium memberships account for a conservative estimate of $15 billion of annual revenue, nearly all of which is held by privately-owned corporations. What exactly is the aim of such powerful, investment-free content?

It is easy to jump to the conclusion that there is a concerted injunction that weaponizes our sexual instinct, tantalizes it with high-quality sexual “partners” with no overt risk taken or contribution made by the participant. This capitalizes on a weak spot in the human organism to hijack our agency, weaken relationships, and emasculate men. This is true to an extent, however it misses a simpler and more human ambition: profit-motive.

Those that invest in pornography, i.e. the producers and marketers of films, are interested in a longer game. Habitual pornography use (which is so easy to fall into that it should be considered one of the greatest inherent dangers of modern society - private access to computers, free content, short duration needed to achieve the desired effect, etc.) lowers testosterone, makes us more impulsive and less confident, weakens intimacy between partners, and promotes an ideal curated reality rather than reality itself. The claim I wish to make here is that this is not the aim in itself, but that the behaviors and relational dynamics that pornography promotes encourages dissatisfaction with the present and feeds our tendencies towards impulsivity, making us more eager consumers. It is an increasingly individualistic society edging more and more towards total isolation, a world where one need not connect to another but only to the projections and fantasies of one’s perceived sense of self.

"Those that invest in pornography, i.e. the producers and marketers of films, are interested in a longer game."

Beware the salesman peddling free wares. The old adage “there is no free lunch” needs a modern update: there is no free orgasm. Frequent ejaculation is a libido and polarity killer for the male-bodied and relinquishes potent and sacred creative energy, all for the seemingly innocent thrill of effortless hedonism. This is but one piece of the puzzle. That any fantasy can be made manifest, that one can watch a harem orgy or gangbang, etc., with flawless looking performers under immaculate lighting and editing, means that we are promoting a powerful and tantalizing image of sexuality that is divorced from reality. We value the idealized image over the reality of our partner, relish the beautiful skin and trim labia of immaculate young women and the chiseled physiques and enormous phalluses of Adonis-like men over the scars, valleys, scents, and nuances of our partner’s body. If we are undermined in our perceptions at this level, one so fundamental to our functioning as biological entities, then everything built on top of it is prey. We look for everything and anything which might assuage the terrible realness of direct experience. Eddie Bernays would give exuberant ovation to the pornography industry.

I am eschewing the impact of dynamics played out in pornography, ones that are often misogynistic and violent, as much has been written about this and there is a movement within the porn industry for more female-friendly content. It is the age-old question of free will vs. persuasion. The promoters and advocates of porn will say that people are merely exercising their free choice to do what they would like to do, knowing full well that offering free content allows deep access to an individual’s psyche , data far more valuable than the fringe costs of production. It is easy to forget how naked one is when they are consuming adult content. All of that data is being sold and shared so that products and ideas can be more effectively sold. We are not consuming the content, rather, the content is consuming us. The same could be said for most forms of free internet usage such as Facebook and Google, but pornography is playing with one of, if not the most intense, biological drives in the modern world , free as we are from dangers of scarcity.

"Beware the salesman peddling free wares. The old adage “there is no free lunch” needs a modern update: there is no free orgasm."

This is all to promote an air of consciousness around what sort of material we consume, recognizing that it has effects both within and beyond our perception, as well as encourage compassion for those caught within its grip, those 5-8% that find themselves in the realm of porn addiction. Maintaining awareness around this and exercising true freedom in its face will bolster our agency, making us feel less like marionettes and more like the free-flowing energy that communicates with all existence.

With the weapons of knowledge at your disposal, here are 3 practices you can engage in to relax the grip pornography has on you as well as the death grip on your penis.

Porn-Free Masturbation or Pleasure Practice

While there is evidence to advocate that one be careful and conscious in their masturbation habits (i.e. sticking to one ejaculation a week), this article is not advocating for celibacy or abstinence. However, how we choose to masturbate, what our habits are, and what material we choose to engage with is paramount. One of pornography’s greatest dangers is its ability to move our focus away from our body in favor of a powerful stimulus. Gradual change is what I have found to be the most enduring for most individuals. With that in mind, someone that is a daily or near daily consumer of pornography might begin by masturbating once or twice a week without such physical aids. Doing so will put greater attention on the body, finding what feels pleasurable both in and outside the genitals, and promote a process of self-discovery that will bring tremendous pleasure both to the individual and any sexual or intimate relationship they might engage in. Where does the mind go? What sort of situations arise? Let desire be your guide – in the recesses of the mind, it is all permissible. Slowly start cutting pornography from your masturbation diet. Don't be discouraged if arousal is difficult without the material, your imagination will return in time.

Eliminating the Need to Ejaculate

Many male-bodied individuals have an addiction to ejaculation. It is one of the many stories that pornography codes into us. Fixation upon this as the end goal can lead to uninteresting and pressured sex. When we don’t have to get anywhere and can instead be focused on the present, our partner’s skin, scent, sounds, and body language, we enter into a symbiotic state where our bodies can respond to each other (Dr. Cindy Meston at the University of Texas is doing fascinating work on this ). We can take on the sacred masculine role and direct the infinite energy of feminine pleasure through our partner and through ourselves. If ejaculation happens, wonderful! If it does not, also wonderful. Ecstatic love-making can be had without releasing a single drop of semen. The above pleasure practice is a great place to start working with this. Simply feel how good it is to be in your body, to have a hard erection, and to play with a fantastical partner or partners. Feel the energy that moves through your legs, up your spine, and into your head and fingers. Come close to the point of no return and see if you can hold it there, experiencing this heightened state of arousal and feeling. Keep a big picture mindset: orgasms had after long periods of activity tend to be more intense, and there will be more pleasure experienced in the longer duration of sexual activity. Our masculine side loves having these little logical gifts.

Decoupling Orgasm and Ejaculation

While male orgasm and ejaculation often coincide, they are actually separate processes. One can have orgasm without ejaculation, and one can ejaculate without having an orgasm. As men, we often have difficulty feeling our emotions, and this tends to keep our energy trapped within certain parts of the body. As such, our sexual energy can often remain stuck near our genitals where it overwhelms the local neural circuitry and we explode into ejaculation. When we are able to better express our emotions, feel our feminine side, then the channels by which our sexual energy can move throughout the body are opened and expanded. This is not wu-wu nonsense or spiritual hoo-ha, but well-founded neuroscience (see Dr. Metson's research ). Keep in mind these are all happening along neural channels, and just as our brains can become overly solidified and not use the full availability of their connections, our bodies can become rigidly entrained as well. By coming into contact with our emotions we create potential for expanded sexuality. This energy can flow through the body, permitting greater feeling and therefore greater connection with an intimate partner, and therefore a more integrated, communicative, and gratifying sexual experience that unites us soul-to-soul and soul-to-Spirit.

Using Gratitude to Be More Fully Present

mjebbinghaus2@gmail.com (Michael Ebbinghaus) — Fri, 21 Jan 2022 21:23:14 GMT

'Thank You' Welcomes What Is

There are many good reasons to be upset, bitter, and to wish for something better. Rationality is good at finding reasons; it can find good reasons for anything! Richard Feynman said that we are the easiest people to fool and so must not fool ourselves. Everything we experience reflects us. It is the oft quoted and humorous anecdote of the one who consistently runs into assholes; who should consider that he may, in fact, be the asshole.

Establishing a gratitude practice is an effective method for disengaging from our stories and being more fully awakened to the present. Each of us is vulnerable to construing our reality in such a way that we justify our bitterness. We have to work a job we dislike to pay for food and a place to live, put up with selfish and bitter people stuck in the same conundrum, all while being faced with the prospect of doing it every day. This is enough to drive anyone crazy.

One cannot simply decide to incorporate a mindset. The frame we inhabit is the result of the events that have happened to us and the relationship we’ve taken to them. These patterns are perpetuated and reinforced day-after-week-after-month-after-year unless we exercise a conscious effort. We continue to practice this relationship in the present moment to all experience.

That driver cut me off – asshole.

Waking up feels like journeying into living death.

Where I am headed does not excite or invigorate me in any way.

Do you see how all of these are stories? Are they true? Is there something true, good, and/or beautiful that they could point us towards?

One of the best descriptions of the gratitude mindset I have discovered is described by former Navy SEAL and author/speaker Jocko Willink . His response to any supposedly negative situation is “good” (see his explanation of it or a beautifully orchestrated musical interpretation ). This is putting the trickster archetype to good use, it shows us the folly of our assumptions, the arbitrariness of perspective, and how the entire flow of experience can be met with an attitude that fully accepts and integrates what is happening instead of exercising a misguided effort of imagining things had gone another way (though it’s important for doing differently in another present moment).

When Jocko uses the term "good" it is always in reference to a scenario that can immediately be perceived as negative. Something goes wrong, an unexpected impediment arises, we fail to achieve or acquire something we’ve worked tirelessly towards, yet there is always some good that comes from it, and it is up to us to find what that is.

"Defaulting to gratitude is not something the mind wants to do."

At the beginning of 2021, I went through a horrendous breakup: the worst scenario I could dream of occurred. It shattered me, and I stumbled back to my parents’ home to rebuild the tatters of my rent heart. But even as it happened, when it became apparent that the relationship was beyond salvaging, there was a voice that told me “It is good to let this go.” There were many reasons why this was exactly what needed to happen. I had the opportunity to revisit deep childhood wounds. I was no longer attached to being in California and could continue my training in Texas while enjoying much greater freedom and mobility under the pandemic. I was liberated to be with a partner that could appreciate the fullness of my being, and my former partner could be cared for in the ways I could not offer. In everything that happens to us, there are many things we could label as good and bad. It is never all good or all bad, and whatever we choose to focus on reflects the choice we make – illustrates in vivid color how we construct our world.

Acknowledging the good welcomes gratitude. Recognizing that difficulty and heartbreak brings us to fuller awareness of the Truth belies abhorrence and avoidance. This is not to excuse the horror we are capable of. It is a difficult line to walk when one says that there is good that comes from rape, murder, genocide, injustice. I will maintain that there is, but that is a journey for those that are affected by such deep wounds. One must also recognize the pain in the perpetrators, how closed and lonely their hearts must be to commit violence and pain.

Defaulting to gratitude is not something the mind wants to do. It’s not something our culture has encouraged – such an attitude would discourage consumption. Our logic is powerful, and the mind lives in the world of rational relation while ignoring any of its tendencies towards irrationality. When gratitude is practiced, one can witness that it is not an optimistic departure from reality, a floating above the woes and worries of the world, but of meeting them fully. Notice what happens when gratitude is not the default: we make abundant assumptions. That person is bad, this should not have happened, I’ll never recover from this. If you’re worried about optimistic escapism, look to how your pessimism permits you to purposefully deviate from reality.

Because we have our spiritual and cognitive momentum to contend with, conscious exercise in another direction is warranted. Below are three simple steps and practices to begin to shift our mindsets from victim to empowered, from pessimistic escapism to full-bodied acknowledgement.

Journaling

Gratitude is an excellent adjunct to any journaling practice. Somewhere in your entry, write down 5-10 things that you’re grateful for. As you write down each person, experience, place, etc., call them into your mind. What arises in your body? Why are you grateful for them, what joys and truths do they bring?

Metta Meditation

Metta is also known as loving-kindness meditation. Call into awareness someone with whom you have an uncomplicated relationship. Send them your love, thank them for their presence in your life. Wish that they be happy, that they be free from suffering. As this practice develops, move into others with whom the relationship is rockier. You may at some stage also find yourself being able to work with the faces of those that have wronged you or that have perpetuated incredible malice and suffering in the world.

Gratitude Yoga

In all our practices, life is the greatest teacher and forum; it is the place in which we will transmute our and others' suffering. All of life is a yoga. Begin a practice of gratitude towards everything that happens to you in a day. Spilled coffee on your shirt. Thank you . Got in a car accident. Thank you . My mother has cancer. T hank you . Again, this is not a denial but an acceptance, a welcoming in of all that these experiences bring. If we numb the pain we also numb the ecstasy.

In all of this, recognize that it is a practice, and in the space of practice failure is a great success. No one achieves balance without the potential to regress. Life will present us with times of high and low. It is not our intention to emphasize the highs or to blunt the lows, but to maintain a sense of stability through each. Gratitude is one of the most powerful means for fully welcoming all that life gives to us.

Lessons from COVID - Individual and Collective

mjebbinghaus2@gmail.com (Michael Ebbinghaus) — Wed, 12 Jan 2022 17:25:54 GMT

We're All Doing Our Best

An internal process has been at play over the course of the pandemic, one in which I struggle to adopt the proper frame that may allow me to be of service to the massive social conversation we are engaged in. Through this process I hope to be a part of the greatest possible outcome. Through this process, I have watched myself make many of the same assumptions I claim are dangerous and incite derision and disaster. This is namely collapsing broad narratives onto individuals, assuming that I know what their motivations are, and assigning them a label accordingly.

To some degree, we all do this. Our rationality craves certainty, predictability. We are not always aware of the massive collective forces and ideas that have us. The vast majority of us operate from a stance of best intention, and though good intentions are the proverbial pavement on the road to Hell, it is encouraging that this is what most of us ultimately desire. The citizens of Nazi Germany and communist Russia did not participate in their zeitgeists out of malice – they wanted what was best for their families, communities, and themselves.

This is what I often fail to consider.

While there are forces and narratives beyond our conscious comprehension, it is unknown what the best path may be. It is likely that great upheaval and the path we have walked as individuals and societies is all necessary to bring about the best possible outcome or what is. How many of us would erase the mistakes of our youth and the ignorance that by fortune led us to great wisdom? I ease into an assumption of certainty and righteousness because this is something that makes me feel safe as a separate entity in the world, at times oblivious to the oneness of our nature. The Truth of the matter is that I have no idea what the correct course is or if there even is one.

"How many of us would erase the mistakes of our youth and the ignorance that by fortune led us to great wisdom?"

My own experience of contracting COVID reflects this, and by examining the individual experience we can embody a fuller understanding towards what is happening in the social body. Ultimately I carried an assumption that the pandemic and everything that has followed in its wake has been a bad thing, though I often declare that it has been a time of massive reflection, as any illness is. Ridden with fever for three days, I could be nowhere but in my body. It alerted me to its presence with every breath and movement. Even lying still, the aches cried “I’m here.” I lamented the loss of smell though it proved occasionally advantageous, something made aware to me by the intact senses of others.

Having COVID brought me to recesses within my body that had been dormant. How this process unfolded I am unsure. The best hypothesis I can assemble is that the movement of my consciousness into my body allowed these long-held energies to find some expression. After three days of fever, there was a terrible pain that emerged. Attributing it to prolonged high internal temperature, I took ibuprofen. As the fever broke it became clear that the fever was not solely responsible for the pain; I had unconsciously and voraciously contracted my muscles. I was unable to relax the tension through my breath. There was something emerging that the body felt the need to protect me from.

There is a similar process at work here but on national and global levels. COVID is taking us to deep recesses of the collective unconscious, a realm full of tremendous power and hazard. Illness is the way that most of us find rest and time to reappraise our life and habits. The globe is sick. We have operated on paradigms no longer suited to the present condition, and everywhere the conflict between tradition and progression reaches new heights. People’s resistance to returning to work is neither an incentive from an indulgent government or proof of our laziness. There is something greater at work here, a movement away from what has been toward a new reality, and it is anyone’s guess as to what that reality might be.

In my estimation, there is the desire for security that incites control, and there is a conflicting desire for liberation, freedom. It is clear from the data we have available that vaccinations are a means towards the former. While they are an effective means for lessening severity of the illness – preventing hospitalization and death – the authoritarian means by which they are promoted (mandates) and the manner in which all other treatment modalities were systematically eliminated, proffering the vaccines as the only effective method, can only earn our distrust and suspicion. I have heard the voices who, in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, cried out against colonization and the tyranny of the white man, yet have no resistance towards enforcing a Western medicine with no regard for the indigenous capacities of the innate immune system or other effective pharmacological treatments. They are blissfully unaware they are participating in a fully patriarchal system of oppression and control, assuaged by the assurances of their good deeds and beneficent ideologies.

"COVID is taking us to deep recesses of the collective unconscious, a realm full of tremendous power and hazard."

But this is exactly the point, and it’s the fallacy I see myself and so many others making: these individuals that I speak of, sometimes with great anger, are only doing what they think is best. Though the Inquisitors had great compassion for the people they tormented, they did it in interest of their everlasting souls. We must be aware of our tendency to want to know what is good for other people, and permit their agency and intelligence to make sense of the matters themselves and create their own solutions, make their own choices. I have been intensely guilty of this. Passing by people that wear masks outdoors, I label them as stupid, cautious to the point of living death, and fail to notice what is actually happening : a frightened individual adapting so they might still live in the world, that doesn’t want to hurt another, that doesn’t want to see someone they love or anyone placed on a ventilator and slowly suffocate. While I believe such fears are overblown, there are those that this has been an all too present reality.

Do your best, acknowledge that others are doing their best too. When disagreements arise, resort to the harmless combat of conversation, lest we resort to hurling bricks, bombs, and bodies at one another.

Healing From Trauma - 4 Embodied Methods

mjebbinghaus2@gmail.com (Michael Ebbinghaus) — Thu, 16 Dec 2021 18:52:40 GMT

Expressing, Reconnecting, and Reframing Trauma in the Body

The subject of trauma has gained enormous attention over the last several years. Systemic trauma, parental trauma, how to heal from trauma, trauma and psychedelics, etc. But what exactly is trauma? How does it manifest, how does it affect us, and how can we heal from it? Does it require intense psychotherapy, psychedelic medicine, or somatic release? We’ll explore these questions in this article.

As a former training psychologist, I’ve discussed trauma in great detail and seen it manifest in myself, my clients, and those of my colleagues. There is some disagreement on how to treat trauma. One of the reasons I left the psychotherapeutic industry was a perspective on trauma that encouraged victim-perpetuation rather than empowerment. The emphasis on the evils of “the system,” viewing negative experiences as inevitable consequences of a colonized milieu, put the people we were trying to help into a position of belittlement, disavowing them of their ability to navigate the cultural landscape, perpetuating the exact dynamics of systemic racism, sexism, etc. that the people of the Bay Area vociferously claim to despise. It’s not that these topics should not be addressed, but pursued to the exclusion of all else, an already disempowered individual faces a world that they perceive will continually beat them down. Their ailment grows worse or they join the tirade and ignite the fire in their belly in opposition to an idea rather than in synchrony with formed reality, yet another inauthentic expression.

What is Trauma?

Trauma is any experience that goes beyond our ability to cope or make sense of and that encourages the splitting off or disowning of certain aspects of our personality. Though traumas can be horrific, such as serious physical injury or sexual abuse, they can also be mundane, such as a parent snapping at you to be quiet when they were irritated. Because the impact of traumatic events is related to our ability to cope, we form much of our relational ego in our early years while learning to adapt to our environment. These alterations to our self-concept promote our psychic, or in some cases, physical survival.

When traumas occur in isolated events, their impact is not as great. The real trouble is when they occur as part of an engrained dynamic. The individual in situations of repetitive trauma is trained how to be, and they push down and deny any part of them that would act in opposition or self-interest. Sexual abuse victims, for instance, experience intense anger (among other emotions) towards the violation, the perpetrator, and anyone that could have protected them, but expressing this could result in serious bodily harm or other consequences. As a result this anger gets directed most often towards themselves in the form of depression and self-harm (addiction, cutting, head-banging, etc.). These emotions will inevitably embed themselves somewhere within the body, the seat of our unconscious.

How Do We Heal Through Trauma?

From these examples, we can see that there is an emotional response that is denied in the interest of self-preservation. In the heady, egocentric culture in which we live, the value of the emotional body is devalued. The ego, this thinking voice inside our head, is just one piece of us. Another side directly experiences the world, and this is connected through the body, the vehicle through which we navigate. But the body is so much more than that!

"Trauma is any experience that goes beyond our ability to cope or make sense of and that encourages the splitting off or disowning of certain aspects of our personality."

Nature imbues us with a hard-wired set of emotions, and we experience them through sensation and feeling. This is how we relate directly to our lived experience. Emotions are archetypal patterns of energy that we’ve learned over eons to ensure our survival in a complex world. When a deer spots a predator it will freeze. A surge of energy will rise from somewhere in its gut, and promote tension throughout the entire body. This minimizes the chance he will be detected. When the threat passes, one can witness the deer shake out the tension in reverse order, beginning with its head and neck and ending with a flick of its tail. It is here where the problem of trauma and its solution arises.

To have a thinking self, a sort of meta-narrator that observes and articulates what is happening to us, is an extraordinary gift. It lends us another degree of adaptability and is what separates us from our animal kin. We do not have to operate in accordance with Nature. When our freeze response arises, due to the world beyond Nature we have built, i.e. culture, it may actually be in our best interest to move. Soldiers on the battlefield overriding their fear response is a great example. However, that does not stop emotional energy from arising. It must follow the arc of initiation, tension, expression, and release. Our ego can override this, and if we never express the emotion and release the tension, that energy will stay in our body and roost up in a particular spot where it will continue to grow and fester into something that demands our attention. All trauma manifests in the body.

Again, we can do this in isolated contexts and get away with little consequence. But when it happens repeatedly, the energy will continue to concentrate and grow until it can be released. A fascinating example of this is the difference in rates of PTSD in World War II veterans vs. veterans of today. One may think that it was simply lesser known back then or there was a greater emphasis on men “sucking it up”, but this is simply not the case. WWII vets returned to the states via sea-born vessel. This meant that each man was with many others that had been through similar experiences he had – getting shot at, seeing friends bodies torn to pieces, destroying the bodies of enemy soldiers – for several weeks. During this time, men were able to cry, scream, and release the tension that they had stored during wartime to ensure their collective survival. Not only did they have this time to emote, but it was also a period of adjustment before coming back home. Our soldiers today travel mostly by air, which means that they can be home less than 24 hours after being in action. This gives the body no period of adjustment and no dedicated space to release the tension gathered. It’s a wonder our soldiers come home as healthy as they do.

Practices for Accessing and Healing Trauma

Because trauma manifests as stuck energy in the body, this energy needs to be accessed and addressed. Modern psychotherapy is catching up with this idea and understanding that analytic investigation of personhood cannot achieve healing on its own. The number of somatic modalities emerging are enormous and encouraging. A good therapist will help to access these parts of the self, encourage their client to fully feel their emotions when things come up, as well as provide a trusted means of support and means of integration. Many therapists however will get hung up on the structure and investigation of the client’s defenses, the means they use to deny these repressed emotions, instead of supporting their client in endeavors that will bring them to the surface. This is a means of colluding with victimhood.

One of the reasons why psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy has been so effective in treating PTSD, addiction, depression, anxiety – all different defenses – is that these substances actively connect our brains in ways they are not used to being connected. The thinking mind loses much of its power to control our conscious experience, and we feel fully all the trapped (and untrapped) energies within us. This is why it is crucial to curate one’s set and setting for these experiences. If these trapped energies emerge in an unsupportive container, it will be re-traumatizing. In the care of people that understand these states and the enormity of encountering long repressed energy, the trauma can safely be navigated, the narrative rewritten, and a more empowered self integrated.

"Launch yourself into the abyss and you’ll discover it’s a feather bed."

Any healing journey will require supportive others, but psychotherapy is far from the only practice that can help. Below are a few methods that you can do on your own or in a supportive group to begin accessing and expressing trauma.

Breathwork

If traumas are excess energy trapped in the body, we need to find a way to allow that energy to be expressed. Breath is another form of energy, referred to in Vedic philosophy as prana . There are many forms of breathwork, but those that have been most successful in treating trauma are those that overload the body with this energy, namely holotropic and neurodynamic breathwork in which one cyclically hyperventilates for 1-3 hours. If we think of the body as a system of waterways, trauma are bits of debris that dam up the works. If we increase the pressure flowing through, we have the opportunity to shake these dams loose and restore the flow. During these breathwork sessions, it is important to give oneself permission to express whatever needs to be expressed, to have faith that the body knows exactly how to heal, and trust the process. Screams, shouts, tears, laughter, all are welcome.

Catharsis Meditation

This is an incredible tool for relating to and expressing emotion. I utilize it whenever I get activated by interactions I have with people, friends, and partners. Focus on an intense emotion and where it manifests in the body. Think back to a recent intense emotion: when were you last pissed off? Terrified? Horribly sad? Think about that experience and feel into the body. What arises? Is there a sharp pain in the heart? Tension around the temples? Emptiness in the gut? Bring your awareness to these sensations and describe them in this way – don’t assign them a dead name like “anger” or “sadness.” Breathe into the sensations, again giving them more prana so they can be activated. Treat these sensations as if they are living beings within yourself. Does the energy move anywhere? Keep following it. What other sensations and emotions arise? Do any images come up akin to dreams, or a memory perhaps? Maintain non-judgmental awareness and resist the urge to ego-tize them. Do this practice for 20-45 minutes or as long as feels appropriate.

Yoga and Intuitive Movement

Nothing gets energy in the body moving like moving the body. Engaging in yogic practices will help to identify areas of stuckness while strengthening and limbering the body to grow resiliency and increase flow. Ecstatic dance helps to understand where we take ourselves too seriously, where our hang ups are and how afraid we are to be authentically and sillily seen.

Pursuing Higher Purpose

If you determine what your highest good is and move towards it, any area of stuckness will be struck. You do not have to wait to be whole to pursue your dream, pursuing your dream will help you to be whole. All those things that want to remain hidden will be driven mad by your pursuit, and now you have the tools to encounter them in a grounded and adult manner.

With any of these experiences, whether it be through breathwork, psychedelics, yoga, therapy, arising spontaneously through the course of living, it is not enough to merely express the tension or trapped emotion. While this is a necessary first step, our ego is still entrained. The idea is not to eliminate the thinking mind, but to bring it into relationship with our emotional body. This is why there is such an emphasis on integration of these experiences. Writing about it in a journal, creating artwork, dancing, or other forms of intuitive movement, are excellent ways to do this. What’s more, we must actualize our integrations in our habits. When we go back to old coping strategies, we must do something different. This will entail leaning into fear, the most difficult part. Just know that on the other side of this fear is your destiny. Launch yourself into the abyss and you’ll discover it’s a feather bed.

Breathwork for Beginners - 3 Tips for Starting Out

mjebbinghaus2@gmail.com (Michael Ebbinghaus) — Mon, 15 Nov 2021 21:03:11 GMT

What is Breathwork and Why Should You Do It?

One of the consequences of the modern era has been the destruction of our relationship with the breath. This tool for greater physical and mental health overlooked in this wake-coffee-commute culture is always at hand.

Historically breathwork has been developed as the practice of pranayama in India. Breathwork has the capacity not just to make us physically stronger but mentally more resilient. Think of it as the body’s reset button. It requires no product, no pill, no substance, only breath and discipline. With the seat of our consciousness hijacked by the total war for our attention, utilizing the breath as a means of altering that consciousness gives us a powerful means with which to retaliate. By consciously altering our state through the breath we can prevent ourselves from mindlessly falling into patterns of habitual behavior.

Breath is sacred. Pneuma is the spirit. Without it life cannot occur. It brings the outside in and the inside out. Most breaths we take are mediated by the body, by the unconscious, yet it is one of the few unconscious processes that we can assume conscious control over . The breath, then, is a gateway for expanding consciousness. Whether the objective is to dive into the mystery of the self, to mitigate stress, or to increase athletic performance, active engagement with the breath will yield tremendous results.

The Issue

We are not a society that encourages our citizens to move. We hoist up the public health campaigns and dream up the gym ads while inundating our spaces with hyper-palatable, non-nutritive food and teach our children that being good students means sitting still and listening to teacher, habits that will follow them into adulthood. We awake to groom and feed, sitting our way through our occupations. We attempt to combat the steady stillness with vigorous one-hour workouts that are only mildly effective in correcting our forward head posture and stressful lives. C onsistent low-intensity movement throughout the day would be more ideal . What occurs in the prolonged silences of our bodies is the solidification of our form. We cease to be warm and fluid, growing stiff, stagnant, and hunched. If we examine the sitting position, we will find a particular pressure put on the diaphragm as the shoulders and head slump forward and our abdominal cavity collapses. It is the belly, not the chest, that is responsible for the life-giving air, and it is the belly that is crunched into a wedge. We deprive ourselves of breath, and we deprive ourselves of pneuma. Our bodies do not expand, but collapse. The flesh does not remain fluid but turns to stone and pain.

"Deepening the breath brings oxygen, but it also brings confidence."

The collapse of our diaphragmatic space makes us more likely to hunch and maintain poor posture. Over time this can affect the manner in which our skeleton shapes itself. Posture becomes fascia, fascia pulls on bone. It not only makes us look but feel defeated . Slumped shoulders, limp spine, and downward head is nature’s way of communicating that we are not a threat. This is a disastrous position. Engaging with the breath strengthens the diaphragm as well as the accessory breathing muscles like the obliques and intercostal muscles, bolstering our base. As we strengthen these muscles, we pull more air into that space, expanding the tissue and making bends at the waist less natural. Deepening the breath brings oxygen, but it also brings confidence.

The Solution

Working with the breath is excellent if the body has not been worked for a long time. Many begin straight at the level of the physical body and do themselves a disservice with consistent mouth-breathing. Utilizing breathwork requires no specialized equipment or membership fees. It can be done by anyone with a working set of lungs. It yields returns in all aspects of physical training, no matter if one is an advanced athlete or just beginning their journey.

"The breath can become a medium for exploring the Self, of receiving visions and insights, and of connecting to our archetypal energy."

When we are caught in a moment, it is easy to be reflexive – not to respond but to react. Reconnecting to the breath offers us the space to pause - as engagement with certain exercises such as full yogic breathing leads to subtle put perceptible shifts in consciousness. Think of what the body does when it is suddenly exposed to cold water or is startled. Gasp ! The body knows. It prepares itself to deal with this new situation, and this is precisely what we fail so often to do. We don’t treat the situation as new; we treat it as a template. The more unconsciously we live the likelier we are to do this. Nothing stops the flow of our normal state of consciousness quite like altering the normal state of our consciousness. The next time we find ourselves in a negative spiral of depression, are enraged at something over which we have no control, or are just feeling plain shitty, engage with the breath, see what the new condition is like. Respond, don’t react.

These subtle alterations, useful for our day-to-day, can become expansive alterations in consciousness if we continue to engage with and deepen our practice. The breath can become a medium for exploring the Self, of receiving visions and insights, and of connecting to our archetypal energy. Practices found in kundalini yoga and the holotropic breathwork of Drs. Grof and Grof are lauded for their ability to induce mystical experience, heal trauma, and expand our being. This is just a continuation of the theme: the breath has the capacity to remove us from our familiar state of consciousness: assumptions fall away and direct experience becomes the only compass. All our trauma-response patterns and other ritualized forms of behavior receive the scrutiny they deserve, and this comes with increased capacity to let go of senescent parts of the self and contact and heal the wounds within.

Engagement with the breath undoes the trauma that our bodies have suffered in the face of our cultural demands. It is the mediator between conscious and unconscious, a piece of advanced technology we’ve largely become ignorant of. Body and mind are linked, as well as mind, body, and environment. No matter what our condition, a breathwork practice will improve posture as well as physical and mental health and performance. What’s best is it is a tool that lies within reach for the entirety of our lives. So get breathin’.

Resources

Below are a few resources that can help you get started. I particularly appreciate Michael Bijker's channel on YouTub e .

Breathwork/Pranayama Overview

Provides simple descriptions and variations of breathwork exercises and poses.

Full Breathwork Session

This is a 40-minute practice that takes you through 4 different breathing techniques. Condense this practice for a morning ritual.

Advanced Breathwork - Opening the 3rd Eye

Michael provides some excellent education around advanced breathing practices and combines them with yoga postures for a breathwork session geared towards entering alternate states of consciousness or mind-body states.

How Dream Interpretation Can Change Your Life

mjebbinghaus2@gmail.com (Michael Ebbinghaus) — Sun, 14 Nov 2021 01:02:14 GMT

Using Dreams for Personal Insight and Growth

Initiating a dreamwork practice is one of the most powerful ways to engage with the mystical. It teaches us an entirely new language with which to approach our experience. We spend the majority of our conscious lives in this attentional and relational state, aware of ourselves, our environment, what needs must be met throughout the day, and what we must do to survive and flourish within our cultural system. This is what psychologists would refer to as “ego” and what neuroscientists might indicate as the default mode network or other combinations of prefrontal cortex activity. This is only one way of being. Many things fall below the level of our perception and we must rely on intuitive or tacit ways of knowing. These can be difficult skills to cultivate – our culture does not have reliable or effective frameworks for their utilization. Fortunately for us, once roughly every sixteen hours the ego loses its grip on consciousness as we fall asleep, at which point we are granted entry to a psychic cinema, an entire queue full of fantastic scenes with seemingly little connection to the physical laws of reality and, most importantly, free of intrusion from the ego. If we possess the humility and curiosity to listen to the messages of our nightly dreams, we can take the mythic journey of our ancestors into the depths and expanse of the psyche.

"If we possess the humility and curiosity to listen to the messages of our nightly dreams, we can take the mythic journey of our ancestors into the depths and expanse of the psyche."

Dreamwork is among the most enjoyable ways of exploring the Self. In the beginning, we only need enough awareness to recall them. Setting the intention is often good enough, as a dream will come along that will rapture our attention – we will know when the Unconscious has come knocking. What's more, we are likely to have had dreams in the past that we cannot help but remember. These "first dreams" provide practice material and can be revisited again and again as we gain proficiency. While sleep hygiene is important to enhancing our recall and clarity of dreams, I have found that the dreams I’ve most needed to have occur regardless of how well I’ve set myself up for evening rest.

As we begin to speak the symbolic language of dreams and probe nighttime narratives for their treasure, the dreams begin to deepen and convolute in their imagery and narrative structure, sometimes forming inter-dream arcs. This becomes fuel for the fire as our interest deepens.

It is important to acknowledge that people vary greatly with regard to recollection of their dreams. Some can remember multiple dreams most nights while some may go years without one. Sleep hygiene and our conscious attitudes towards dreams will have an impact on memory. Going to bed at a regular time, eschewing substance use: alcohol, barbiturates, and cannabis 2-3 hours before bedtime, getting regular exercise, healthy diet, etc., will all help the dreamer have better sleep and dream recall overall. That said, dreamwork can begin immediately with most individuals. Patience and perseverance, as always, are required.

"As we begin to speak the symbolic language of dreams and probe nighttime narratives for their treasure, the dreams begin to deepen and convolute in their imagery and narrative structure, sometimes forming inter-dream arcs. This becomes fuel for the fire as our interest deepens."

Setting an Intention

Good sleep hygiene is an excellent start, but intention and intuition are equally as powerful. We will not forget the dreams that we need to remember. Having our tools handy can be part of the ritual of initiating dreamwork. The placement of a tape recorder by the bed is an act imbued with that intention. We can invent ritual exercises, prayers, and dances in any number of ways that ask that the dream world send us its wisdom.

Recording dreams is the first step to working with them. Recall as much detail as possible, noting who or what appears, what occurs, where it takes place, and what feelings and conversations arise. Everyone’s dream language is particular to them but will follow archetypal and ancestral patterns. Developing fluency in the dream world is like learning to speak any other language: it is best to immerse oneself and be at peace with the disorientation.

Dream Language and Interpretation

Dreams speak to us through the language of images, events, narratives, all symbolic in their nature. What this means is that no one element in the dream, whether it be a person, animal, or event, has any fixed meaning. There is no handbook that can decode it, no dream dictionary, as it is dependent upon the entire context: how that element exists in relation to the rest of the dream, including its narrative structure, and most importantly, how it relates to the dreamer. While consistent patterns emerge and certain symbols are associated to various archetypal energies, such as the horse, these must be applied to the specifics of the individual having the dream (a great encyclopedia for archeological depictions of symbols can be found here ).

This enigmatic nature hints at the peculiar kind of deduction we need to entertain and hone in order to work with dream material. There are a few guidelines that can be helpful, particularly in the beginning.

Everything in the dream is indicative/reflective of the dreamer; unconscious complexes and their solutions are embedded within the symbolic content.
There is nothing random or accidental regarding dream content – everything is interrelated and representative.
No particular image means one particular thing: every image has multiple meanings or interpretations, and the “correct” interpretation is the one that leads to adaptive change and soul empowerment.

All three emphasize the informative capacity of symbolic content – the meaning one can draw is essentially endless, and we may find ourselves reflecting on dreams long past that have renewed relevance to our present situation or from which we derive new conclusions. However, dreams can only relate our own experience. Whether or not this may actually be the case, it holds pragmatic weight. There’s very little our dreams can do to impact or inform someone else. Because our unconscious is an inverse reflection of our conscious selves, the images received in dreams will be particular to our own experience. When our friends or family emerge, the dream does not speak directly about those people, but to the dreamer’s experience of them, the relationship that exists between them and what archetypal energies they typify within our experience. For instance, my best friend is often my champion, an element of my psyche that stands up against injustice and cherishes me deeply.

There is nothing accidental or random about dream images. Many are often confused by the strange things they will witness a family member, themselves, or a close friend do because it is not something that makes logical sense. This is intentional, and the more peculiar the act, the greater attention is warranted.

There is no one meaning that can be attributed to dream symbols and stories. Their interpretation is fully dependent upon the context, which includes when the dream is recalled. One may find that an image from a dream years before will emerge into waking life or be revisited in new dreams. This can indicate how one’s relation to the complex has shifted or illuminate different aspects.

With these central tenets in place, we can now turn to two methods of working with one’s dreams.

Two Methods of Dreamwork

The first method I am going to describe focuses more on understanding dream images which can feel a lot like mining for information, something soothing to the ego. Engaging in this type of work, however, is what permitted my ego to understand the power of dream content and subsequently bow to its wisdom. It is based off of the technique Robert Johnson describes in his book Inner Work .

The first step in this method is to record the dream. As close to waking as possible, reconstruct the dream: speak, write, or draw the dream as if it were happening now. Replay it in your imagination; experience it as closely to how it arrived nocturnally. Don't think too hard . Next, make note of the figures, images, themes, and narratives. Who or what appeared? What happened? Where did it happen? Was there anything peculiar that occurred? What objects are utilized? With these things delineated, make associations to them. When you reflect on x person or y object, what are the immediate images, words, relationships, etc. that come up? Resist the temptation of contemplation: this process should be expedient but considered, relaxed but holding tension. Blocks will be met with, and it is here that the ego does not want to see.

With the dream held in mind and associations to its contents made, one can begin relating this to one’s own presence. What is the dream saying about our blind spots? What difficulties do we meet with in relationship to close others and the world at large that we see manifest in symbolic language? The earlier steps do little good if they are not related to how we present in waking life! We aim for transformation, with the Unconscious as our guide.

Once the dream has been recorded, the associations made, and how the dream is related to our own inner world and our presentation in the outer one, we concretize what we learned and pay our respects to the dream with a ritual. We take what the dream has offered us and perform a sacred act. Going back to our horse example, if a stallion appears to inform us of our enormous animal power, one could volunteer at a horse rescue or make an offering of carrots and apples to some nearby. One could also buck like a bronco and make whinnying noises in an ecstatic dance, really the possibilities are endless. The Unconscious enjoys the symbolic acts of the conscious – this will help to reciprocate the connection and maintain the flow of the fountain between conscious and unconscious.

Soulcentric Dreamwork

The second method is derived from Bill Plotkin’s method of dreamwork described in Journey to Soul Initiation . This method is more symbolic and relies on the ability of the dreamer to “let the dream do its work”. This method is more esoteric and may be more difficult for those just starting out, particularly if you prefer an analytic mode. However, this method provides incredible insight and direction in what one should do in waking life.

“Letting the dream do its work” deserves some elaboration. Essentially, one should record the dream just as you would in the other method, however, the emphasis here is not on making associations and drawing information. One continues to work with the dream over the period of the day or week, however long feels appropriate. One can engage with the characters in the dream in active imagination, meditate on the images, and ask for guidance in what the dream is trying to say. When do you randomly associate back to the dream during the day? What change is the dream asking you to make in your interactions, relationships, and conduct? Bring dream figures into your awareness. Act as if you are them. Allow their movements to become your movements.

Plotkin’s method can benefit greatly from practicing first with the Johnson method. They can be used in conjunction to offer different perspectives, combine their benefits, and strengthen their limitations.

Continuing On

When done with proper respect for their content, dreamwork is a rewarding, fascinating, and transformative process. As one begins to speak the symbolic language of psyche, this same skill can be applied to films and television, interpersonal interactions, world events, and experience at large to better inform us of the unending mystery within. One will increasingly find autonomy in the dream world, capable of consciously exploring the dark corners of the mind and unite with cut off elements of the total Self, as well as actively step into the dream world through imagination. It's a great process that bears fruit once one glimpses the detail and breadth of the Unconscious layers of experience.

Accessing the Wisdom of the Body

Thu, 11 Nov 2021 14:21:00 GMT

What does God lack?

This is a Kabbalistic koan. Koans generally are questions without answers posed to the student who seeks enlightenment. These often humorous questions are meant to place the attention of the asker back into the state of mind from whence the question arose. This koan is more suited to the Western mind, as it has an answer. Reflect on what it might be.

God lacks limitation. “God” is just one term for what we might call unity, the Universe, the field of experience, or any other linguistic configuration that denotes a unifying structure across difference and separation. This particular riddle is useful to understand the meaning of the word incarnation , why spiritual traditions have insisted on practices of maintaining the body’s purity, and why the body is often referred to as a temple. Our bodies are where we experience the world, and the world as it is is the incarnation of God.

Incarnation

To fully incarnate is to bring one’s talents into the world, to undergo a process of refinement and humility so as to grow in our skills and strengthen our weaknesses and become a whole human being capable of participating in culture, rather than remaining subservient to its massive waves and forces. The nature of our existence is corporeal, and in this three-dimensional world the body is an excellent vessel. It is more than a mere vessel, however, for our everyday waking consciousness or ego. It possesses its own wisdom connected to the infinite nature of existence that the ego remains largely separate from, the focus of the present article. Our egos are, at the most, seventy or eighty years old. The body is a link in a chain that stretches further than we can conceive, and here we have the wisdom! In order to participate in culture we have to be able to focus on a narrower perspective, and this is why the ego is fundamental to the current state. What a gift to be in a container that has evolved over a billion or so years.

Purifying the Body

Whatever one’s religious or spiritual views, it is clear that maintaining a healthy body is of great pragmatic value. The effects of corporeal neglect are all too obvious in the Western world, the United States in particular. Chronic pain, immobility, sexual dysfunction, depression, anxiety, all manner of physical and mental illness manifest in the body. Diet and mobility habits are imperative. The body is made of matter, and we derive all our matter from food. Our bodies are meant to take of the Earth, and the more processed foods we put into it, the greater its pain becomes, and the more it will let us know! The body is not meant to remain still, but move throughout the day. Through examining what goes wrong in the body when it is mistreated, we can infer the bounties that await when it is regarded as a temple, a holy place.

The body is a magnificent and complex system. It is comprised of over a trillion specialized cells working in perfect harmony. The neuromusculoskeletal system provides us with the sensors and motors to flow freely through the physical plane, our digestive organs transform matter from the environment into chemical energy, and our industrious immune system maintains a civility with the microbiome that humans can only dream of. The net product of the symphony of these systems is an informed existence, one where we can estimate and minimize dangers, maximize our outputs, and receive pleasures and delights of many kinds. Obtaining our chemical energy as well as eliminating the waste brings us great joy. Sexual ecstasy permits us to reenter the shores of oblivion and lose ourselves in eruptions of unthinkable crescendo. Proper treatment of the body elevates all of these, particularly our enjoyment of sex.

"Imagine exploring the contours and valleys, scents and tastes of your partner’s body as if they were the canyons of undiscovered worlds."

Bridging Duality

This is to say that the physical and spiritual planes are far more similar and interdependent than our modern reductionistic minds like to permit. Self-actualization, nirvana, heaven, do not lay somewhere “out there” or in the future. They are here now. Jesus of Nazareth said “the kingdom of the father is spread upon the earth, but men do not see it.” It is present within our own bodies. Why do we undertake to improve ourselves, when the thing to be improved is the one trying to do the improving? It must come from without this ego consciousness; here the body is an exuberant ally.

The body knows how to speak in a more sophisticated manner than our gross form of speech. Consider the pains that arise when we do not attend properly to our diet and mobility. We can view these pains as inevitabilities of a body destined to decay and die, or we can witness the wailing of a system that demands respect and attention. Pain is a sign that the body functions just as it should – it alerts us to what could be done better. “Feed me hearty vegetables and humanely raised meats, the wilder the better! Take me for a walk in a wild place every once in a while. Let me show you what we’re really capable of!” Bodies retain the vigor, imagination, curiosity, and enthusiasm of our inner children. What remarkable things can happen when we permit these back into our awareness! Imagine exploring the contours and valleys, scents and tastes of your partner’s body as if they were the canyons of undiscovered worlds. What happens if you poke me here? What does your breath feel like on this part of my body?

Body and Intuition

Bringing ourselves into alignment with the body has tremendous impact on our mood, outlook, ability to enjoy the world, and envision possibility. We can have longer, hotter sex, witness remote and beautiful places, enjoy the intricacies of taste, in general do more. This is only the beginning! Once the action of the body and the ego are aligned, we are more receptive to the calling of our Soul, the unique purpose we were called into existence to fulfill. The body has all the wisdom of Nature, what we might refer to as our intuition or inner guidance.

"It is the process of forging a relationship between the ego and the body, and the body is connected to the greater field of experience in ways that the ego cannot fathom but experientially grasp."

A simple example is discovering one’s full body yes and no. These are vital tools to have when our attention is constantly preyed upon. Think back to a time when you were all in: maybe it was when your partner asked you out for the first time, or there was a meal you craved. Take yourself back to that experience and witness what manifests in your body. Name the sensations and where they occur. This is your full body yes – pay attention to when it arises in the future. Do the same for an experience you had zero enthusiasm for, a painful dental procedure or meeting with a “friend” you don’t really consider a friend. This is your full body no. Abiding by these bodily wisdoms can save you a great deal of time, energy, and personal sacrifice.

This is just the beginning of intuition. As you begin to explore it, you will find occasions for its consult. I utilize my intuition in just about every major life decision, where to go on journeys, and when and what I should eat. This is not necessarily letting the body lead the way, though that may often be the case. It is the process of forging a relationship between the ego and the body , and the body is connected to the greater field of experience in ways that the ego cannot fathom but experientially grasp. This is why the relationship is so important, as there are important factors of a limited time and space of which the body is more or less unaware. This is not to privilege one over the other. In relationship, the twos’ strengths bolster the others’ weaknesses. Working on a relationship with the body, treating it as the holy vessel that it is, will have tremendous benefit on every aspect of lived experience, and affect every other relationship we have.

Embodied Practices

We are often so focused on our thoughts that we neglect to pay attention to our body, save when it sends us its alarm signals. Over time, this leads to degradation of the neural pathways that permit a more embodied presence. These pathways can be retrained and regrown by developing awareness of our body through attention and conscious effort. There are many practices that are helpful with this.

The most powerful technique is working with the breath ( read my article on breathwork here for more details and instructions). Breathwork is highly practical – it’s something that you can begin doing immediately . We tend to take shallow breaths and fill only fractions of our lungs – many of us almost never breathe down into our belly. Bringing our breath to greater depths will grow our awareness of the body, permit us to feel its sensations and energy. Notice when you’re taking shallow breaths. When strong emotions arise, remember to deepen your breath and come to a place of presence. Breathing is one of the few automatic processes that we can assume conscious control over, so it is the perfect gateway to expanding our awareness.

Meditation, or careful training of attention, is also key. Distracted as we are, our attention likewise atrophies in an environment that constantly vies for it. If we can notice when we become slouched, when our breathing shallows and shortens, and choose our responses, then we are in a better position to make better decisions for our body and continue the practice of expanding awareness throughout each moment.

Any movement practice when done with an emphasis on embodied presence, maintaining awareness of our body, is key to developing a strong relationship, and the body cherishes movement. Some examples are any form of yoga (hatha, vinyasa, tantric, yin, etc.), dance, qi gong, tai chi, but any form of movement can be made into a practice of increasing awareness. All workouts can benefit from this through reduced injury and increased capacity brought about by maintaining good breathing and focusing on form. Walks in wild or semi-wild places will benefit from devotion to the here and now.

Developing a relationship to the body is the most worthwhile venture one can make. It requires only attention and can be done no matter what our circumstances might be. Doing so helps us to manipulate the patterns that cause us pain, discomfort, illness, and stress, as well as nurture our capacity for pleasure, play, and connection to the broader field of experience.

Embodied Dreamwork Practices for Personal Growth and Transformation Part II

Tue, 02 Nov 2021 01:22:00 GMT

This is Part II of a two-part series. Click here for part I .

In this iteration, I explore the different techniques of working with dream images: allowing them to lead you through the land, embodying their actions and emotions, asking for their direction in imagined conversation, and ritualizing their messages and insights.

Permitting Dream Figures to Lead the Way

With the image of the meth-addicted young black man strong on my mind, we gathered for the second day, recollecting our dreams in intuitively grouped triads. In the early afternoon, we embarked upon the land with the intention to wander. I brought the mystery pup into my imagination to lead me. He bolted straight for the red rock canyons which had caught my eye as upon my arrival. When we came to forks in the path, I would step back and allow the mystery pup to choose the way. I delighted in having him near my side, reaching down to scratch his neck every so often, laughing as he would suddenly lunge towards unsuspecting lizards. The pretend play of childhood carries deeper wisdom than our adult minds like to grant them, much like the wisdom of dreams.

The pup had a keen sense of where I needed to be. He would grow excited near certain places, his labored breathing turning to heavy grunts endemic to the breed. These spots correspond to power spots, places containing intense spiritual energy and beings endemic to the land (see R.J. Stewarts Power Within the Land ). One of these places was a grouping of boulders atop a red mountain known as Everett. I sat and waited. I contemplated a question I brought with me: how should I proceed with my clinical psychology program? Should I complete it? Should I take the master’s at the end of this year and develop my own practice? Should I abandon it now and go on a different path? An image came to me of my mother in cap, gown, and hood, one she had sent me the week prior. A question arose. Are you happy now? The question was for her and for me – I know that the credential will not grant me authority , it must come from within. I reflected on how my identity had become wrapped around intellectual achievement, why oh why must I have pursued the PsyD and not an LMFT or LPC? Anger welled within me.

When I brought this experience to the group later that day, one of the facilitators asked if a memory or emotion arose in response to the images or the anger that emerged on the land. Indeed, a difficult memory came up, one in which I had been terribly humiliated and frightened and had blamed myself for it. I was six years old. A new feeling arose in response to this memory – one I had never been able to experience. I thought I had dropped into the terror before, but it was a ruse. I felt disgust. Disgust? How could I be disgusted at what had happened? I must have been so bad, so intolerable to have found myself in the situation that I was in, that I had to blame myself for it. I had to blame Mikey, the child I was. It was the safer alternative to something being wrong with mother. “What did you do? What could you have done that made it to where we had to suffer that?” I split him off and disowned him. The facilitators instructed me to leave a gift somewhere on the land, something so that Mikey would know where to find me; where we could make a reconciliation.

As we embodied our dream figures, made their actions our actions, their emotions our emotions, I knew that they young black man that had confronted me on the streets was none other than my own disowned child. He was Mikey come to let me know what he was owed. He had grown up with no nurturing, generative adult there to guide him. I gathered a wildflower bouquet and tied it to a tree by a river so he would know where to find me. Once the bouquet was tied, he found me. I collapsed into a ball, my hands around my knees. He let his anger and hurt be known. “I needed you, and you abandoned me! I had no one to tell me it was okay. I had no one to show me how to grow up!” “I know, buddy. I’m so sorry. We weren’t equipped to deal with that then. But I’m here now, and I know that I can give you the love and attention that you need.” I hugged him and stroked his hair, promised him we would get his favorite meal when the intensive was over.

This reconciliation is vital. The dream image that emerges is not a mere fiction or artifact of REM sleep – it is a visceral and honest component of our own psyche. By limiting the information I tried to pull from the dream and by relating to it directly , I was permitting the dream to do its work on me. What’s more, I embodied Mikey as he appeared in the dream, and I performed a ritualized act (making the bouquet and tying it near the river) to further bring the dream into my waking world.

Daytime Dreaming

Night dreams are uninterrupted by the light of the ego. Like the stars that penetrate the night sky, our dreams elucidate something beyond us, and though the roar of the daytime sun blinds us to them, they are all still there. If we exercise means to dim the light of our ego, dreams can be allowed to permeate our living awareness. This can be done through a variety of means, the most reliable of which are psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin mushrooms, LSD, mescaline, ayahuasca, et cetera. Like the state of sleep, these substances permit unimpeded access to the dreaming side, the shamanic vision. This is just one method, however. Meditation practice is useful for this, as well as breathwork, intuitive movement, prolonged immersion in wild places without the influence of technology (particularly ego-bolstering technologies such as social media and television), vision fasting, and physical exertion/exhaustion. Any combination of these will powerfully mediate our underlying dream consciousness.

The method of choice for this intensive was the combination of a steady drum beat with intuitive movement. This requires that one be able to tap into those parts of themselves. Those not yet ready may question the validity or purpose of such an exercise or have no idea as to what they should do. For about thirty minutes, I writhed and twisted on the ground of an alcove where humans had slept, dreamt, prayed, fed, and danced for tens of thousands of years. My hair was covered in dirt. As my body began to relax and rest, I felt a strong compulsion to cover my face with dirt. Most of it slid off but some accumulated in eye sockets held softly closed. I lost awareness of my body at this point. I forgot that I was sitting in a red rock alcove with dirt in my eyes . I was in the wigwam of a powerful enchantress who had first taken the form of my partner. Before long she appeared in her true guise, dressed in leather clothes and wearing the skull of a many-antlered deer. I asked her to reveal her true face. She lifted the deer skull to reveal her own gigantic human skull, filled with knowledge, the eyes on fire and multi-colored. She lowered her mask once more. She offered me a nebulous crystal rhomboid, a sphere of pure darkness at its center. As it entered my belly I felt a surge of energy through my throat, heart, and testicles. It was an offering of power, power I had disowned to keep me safe in my society and my family. I asked her when I should return to the site of the bouquet I had left for my wounded child. She instructed me to return after dinner that evening.

My flashlight failed as I approached the spot. Darkness overtook me. I was afraid. I sat by the tree where the bouquet was tied and listened to the river. I climbed back up to the wash and set my phone light up so that it projected my shadow onto the trees. Removing all of my clothes, I breathed deep into the cold Colorado night. I squatted into a warrior stance, ready for anything. I bent until my genitals became clearly outlined in the silhouette, and rising up with sacral power I yelled like I have never yelled before, the primal scream of the berserker, war cry of the damned and disparaged. I embodied this warrior in the Heart of the World ceremony the following evening, rallying my fellow human animals to take up their implements of war and dance a new world into being.

Coming Back, Wrapping Up

This intensive encompassed more than the living mysteries of night dreams. It revealed to us the many ways in which Spirit speaks, how to bring Its messages into our bodies, out of our heads, and engage with it in the broader field of experience. Uniting our conscious and unconscious minds, bridging the gap of the opposites, does something to our experience that approaches the ineffable. So often we are caught up in the self -defeating desire to improve ourselves, to “improve” the thing that wishes to be improved, rather than open to a wider wisdom that permeates every fiber of our being. This is what Plotkin means when he instructs us to let the dream do its work on us. I hope that from this article series, the reader intuits the value of opening up to the work the dream wishes us to do, that the more we can do this, the more it will allow its infinite river to flow into our being and be the humans that we were born to be.

If you would like help on this journey, I offer depth psychotherapy utilizing the methods described here as well as others. I can assist in deepening dream states, working with the images that arise there, and acting as a guide on the path to Soul. Inquire within for your free consultation.

Embodied Dreamwork Practices for Personal Growth and Transformation Part I

Thu, 21 Oct 2021 16:56:00 GMT

In a previous article I described different forms of dreamwork and how they can provide personal insight and keys to transformation. Hitherto my primary method of engaging with the dream was to examine their enigmatic symbols and imagery to inform my clients and myself of their internal and relational dynamics, as well as exercising ritual to show respect and gratitude to the Dream Weaver. In that article also, I briefly mention Bill Plotkin’s perspective, a method he refers to as Soulcentric Dreamwork. At the time of that writing, I found the method perplexing and was unable to adequately describe it. However, early this October, I had the opportunity to participate in a Soulcentric Dreamwork intensive at the Animas Valley Institute in Cortez, CO. Guided in this practice by skilled facilitators, it reinforced much of what I know to be true about dreams, namely that they are a form of consciousness distinct and complementary to the ego that pervades our waking life. Engaging with the various practices that comprise the method, primarily relating to the dream as one would an ‘other,’ I found myself forever transformed in my perceptions and in my approach to working with our nighttime film reel. I will utilize my experience of connecting to split off aspects of myself over the course of the five-day, four-night intensive to illustrate the practice of soulcentric dreamwork.

The Basics of Soulcentric Dreamwork

Whereas traditional dream analysis has relied upon the authority, expertise, and knowledge of a therapist to interpret meaning from a dream in the context of a patient’s analysis, soulcentric dreamwork is a practice that can be initiated by anyone at any stage of dreamwork. The method of permitting the dream to do its work on you is one that is enigmatic at first, but once one is introduced to the practices of working with the dream, its import and power cohere. Instead of looking to the dream and prying out information, one is asked to step back experientially into the dream world. Recall the dream as though it were happening in this moment . Pay attention to any feelings, emotions, or memories that come up in the course of telling the tale. Once the dream is complete, remain in the liminal space; look at the entire dream as though it were a mosaic or painting. What themes or qualities are present there? Is it sad? Disoriented? Wrathful? Frightening? Investigate these feelings further and identify which elements of the dream possess this theme more potently.

Figures of the dream can be enormous help when we bring them into our conscious awareness and dialogue with them in various ways . The figures that come through are personifications of other parts of our psyche, autonomous and whole all on their own. One can dialogue with them and be curious around what they have to say as if we were in conversation with an external other. One can walk with them in a wild or semi-wild place as one would an old friend. One can embody the figure in imagination , i.e. become them, adopt their motions, express their feelings, scream how they screamed, cry how they cried, and observe how this manifests in our body. We can also allow them to lead us on wanders in wild places, visit the places they would like us to see. Their awareness is greater and more tapped into the broad cosmic field than our own ego awareness – you may be surprised by the experiences encountered when following the lead of a dream animal. I will elucidate all of these by example further in the article.

One last tenement is that, while dreams are most vivid at night, it is a process that continues throughout the day beneath the surface of our conscious awareness . The stars that shine brightly at night are still present during the day, but they are drowned out by the vigorous light of the sun. Another part of us dreams even as we move about our day. Just as our hearts do not cease to beat nor our diaphragm fail to expand, our unconscious elements perpetually operate. Dreams can be accessed during the daytime by opening to altered states of consciousness: through dance or intuitive movement, psychedelic drugs, physical exhaustion, or prolonged wanders in wild place.

Setting Out

One of the tenants I hold with dreams is that they are sacred mysteries presented by another side of our being. Our nighttime dreams are so vivid due to the fact that our ego is at rest . In working with clients and my own dreams, I have found that paying attention to them and setting intention has a profound effect on how dreams present and are remembered. My own dream life sprouted violently after I began therapy with a Jungian-oriented therapist. Speaking to friends and clients about their dreams tends to have the same effect – they become richer in imagery, longer, and better recalled. It is as though the Dream Weaver recognizes that the ego is attending, and says “Ah, now that you know I have something to say, allow me to SHOW you.” The days leading up to my journey to Colorado had a similar effect. My dreams became longer, more convoluted, and the recall of rich detail and esoteric images was greater than I had ever experienced. The Dream Weaver responded to my intention – She knew I was listening by the commitment of my action .

I set up camp in Flagstaff, AZ, exhausted from a long day of driving. My dreams had intensified over the course of the last week, and as I approached the site of the intensive, it upped the violence of its emergence.

The Dream: I am in a well-tended and well-attended resort in the middle of a national park, many families coming in and out. I walk away from the business of the resort to the more modest accommodations, where I take out my laptop and begin to write. I don’t get very far, and start to dance in the middle of the grass. A grizzly old man, bearded and heavy-set sits smoking a cigar, watching me. He says “most of these people can’t relax unless they do a fuckin’ weekend warrior pose first.” He turns his full attention towards me. “You gotta do it because you enjoy it. Just because you enjoy it.” I inquire further. He laughs from his gut. “Haha oh, that’s just for me.” I become dizzy and can barely keep my feet. I look down at the ground, where a perfect rectangle extends deep into the earth, prismatic and infinitely faceted.

I am now in the lodge with the group I came in with. It is dark – I’m the only one up. I peer quietly into each room, trying to discern which is mine. As I open one four dogs spill out, and I see their owners asleep. Shit ! I can’t see any of the dogs, but I can touch them. I knock something off one of their heads. He thanks me for knocking it off, that he doesn’t care for it but his master makes him wear it, speaking with me telepathically. I can feel by his hair that he is some sort of doodle mix. One of his owners, the master of which he speaks, comes out into the living room. She asks if we should put his bonnet back on. I inform her he doesn’t like it. I see an art piece up on the wall. It is a flat canvas that dips into a bowl, the material eerily similar to the dog’s fur. I grow intensely angry at this recollection. He’s just another decoration to you, isn’t he? I say that she must enjoy that material, and she responds with “That’s what I don’t like about therapists. What has it done for you?” “Well, for one it’s allowed me to talk to animals.” Several women come in, there to partake of this woman’s yoga class. I step out to the deck. On top of the picnic table is a massive 150-pound French bulldog, its golden fur beset with a pattern of interwoven eyes. I will follow this mystery pup on one of my wanders throughout the land.

Notice how when I describe the dream, I speak in the present tense as if it were happening now . I note my conversations with dream figures, as well as my intense reactions to them . All the while, I am having to check my tendency to want to draw an interpretation from the dream images, which will put me back into my ego. The prismatic rectangle descending into the earth is a most difficult one!

Connecting to an Abandoned Inner Child

The first night of the intensive I was confronted by a young black man on the streets of San Francisco. He had sores on both cheeks and his forehead that looked halfway healed. He came up to me and insisted that I “owed [him] money.” You must have me confused, friend. No, he knew exactly who I was and continued to push and shove me: “You owe me.” What did I owe this man? His eyes seemed dull and soulless. The rapidity of his speech and looseness of his words made me think he may be intoxicated on methamphetamine. He pushed me up against a wall, the people nearby and a tiny police officer uncaring of the predicament I was in. He stuck something to my chest. “Please, don’t hurt me. I can see you’re a reasonable guy.” I look down and recognize that he’s sticking me with a comb. He wanted my full focus and attention; he didn’t want to hurt me.

When I awoke the next morning I brought him back into my awareness and asked him what it was that I owed him. “Love and attention!” he shouted. It was clear that he was a shadow figure of some kind. Beyond that I didn’t know.

This concludes Part I of the article. Click here for Part II .

Working Through Depression

Wed, 08 Sep 2021 19:42:00 GMT

Depression is an insidious form of mental illness tantamount to a magic spell where the victim becomes mired in an echo chamber of their own self-deprecation. Constantly an enemy to themselves, they will attribute all negativity and perceived shortcomings to moral or characterological deficiencies. This creates a pernicious cycle in which these self-representations, or schemas , perpetuate and reinforce themselves through behavior. If we think ourselves wretched, we shy away from opportunities for positive engagement. Even when these opportunities present themselves, we may maddeningly self-sabotage and misplace all our competencies and disintegrate in a wreck of self-consciousness. This is the pattern that can increasingly isolate and grind down the depressive individual, who may look to suicidal fantasies not only as an escape from pain but experience it as a moral duty.

These descriptions illustrate a seed site for depression in the form of disowned or shadow narcissism. Those that have experienced depression can speak to the frustration of being hopelessly self-centered, unable to expand beyond the barrier of one’s own unending narrative. A key feature of depression is a tendency towards shadow aggrandizement: we are the most wretched, least capable, deserve our misery, perhaps even unworthy of the gift of life. Linguistic analyses of journal entries by depressed individuals indicate that their first-person pronoun usage is significantly higher than controls. This may seem to be the last thing someone suffering from depression needs to hear, but it is in the reclamation of a healthy narcissism where the tormented may find a route to recovery, healing, and wholeness.

What is Narcissism?

When we are exposed to the word “narcissist” or “narcissism,” generally a picture of a powerful and somewhat sociopathic person arises, most commonly a man that is repulsively self-centered, unable to take others’ needs into account, manipulative in close relationships and protective of their spotless image (much as the depressive is protective of their tarnished one). This is only one side of a concept that is neither good nor bad, so it would benefit us to explore it as such.

The nature of our experience is self-centered. This is unavoidable and necessary. As children we develop this sense of self before we learn to apply it to others, because their physical embodied experience is not immediate to our own. None of us our privy to the experience of another. At this moment you are reading this with your eyes, on your screen, on your commute. This is the basic sense of narcissism, and to be able to be aware of and meet one’s needs, drives, and desires is an ability we would be hopeless without. We need to know when to defecate, to eat, play, and how to integrate into our social systems. Narcissism is needed!

When we interact with someone that is depressed, we might describe them as anything other than narcissistic. Unless they are in a severe episode, it may be difficult to discern they are depressed at all. Beneath the hood, we’ll find thoughts arising out of and contributing to low self-worth, efficacy, and image. This dissonance is frustrating as well, as the sufferer feels a ghoul of themselves maintaining the façade of “everything is fine,” or worrying constantly that others are weary of their needs, growing more isolated with each passing moment. One has retreated into the tower of their internal experience where they can do nothing but concern themselves with themselves, paralyzed in the cacophony of their own head, their position vigorously defended. Depression and narcissism possess that same stubbornness. The narcissist is assured of their greatness, the depressive their worthlessness. Vulnerability to addictions of all sorts intensifies as hope for salvation is rationally considered to be outside this wretched and deficient self, but this is exactly where we will find it.

"This dissonance is frustrating as well, as the sufferer feels a ghoul of themselves maintaining the façade of “everything is fine,” or worrying constantly that others are weary of their needs, growing more isolated with each passing moment."

Part of the path to healing must include a recognition of and reclamation of one’s inherent narcissism or sense of self-worth. Once we have accepted that self-flagellation, self-torture, and suicidal ideation are manifestations of profound self-centeredness, we realize that there is no getting around it, and to further berate ourselves is to boast of anguish. Why do we call them “self-fulfilling” prophecies? Here I can speak amply from personal experience. One of my favorite ways to drag myself down was to tell myself that I was not worthy of life, that this was exactly what I deserved , something I would not think towards the most objectionable of people. There was no one worse than me . What a thing to say. Is saying that we are the absolute best much better than saying we are the absolute worst? This is the atrocious self, as opposed to the grandiose self of the true narcissist. Beneath this depreciation and masochism is the fetid maw of disowned narcissism. This is where the choice is made. The reclamation of a healthy sense of self is the first step in self-compassion and self-love.

Unselfish Narcissism

Patterns of negative internal narratives are one of the main symptoms and etiologies of depression, and the simplest way to begin to shift the sunken trenches of the brain is to reverse the stream through the conscious use of positive self-talk and mantras. This will help no matter where one is in the pit, and can pave the way for more convoluted, fun, and idiosyncratic self-love practices (cooking, dancing, singing, passions, etc.). Such an approach will also benefit from mindfulness practice to better apprehend the emergence of habitual behavior. Be prepared for the shadow narcissist within to intensify their attacks. Just like a true narcissist in the external world, the internal shadow narcissist does not enjoy limitations on its power, so it will attempt to further denigrate and depreciate you! Understand this as a naked admission of its fear. It knows that it maintains its power through our identification with its spells. Speak to it as you would an unruly child, with respect and understanding but with the full knowledge of what you need, which includes the well-being of this angry and disowned piece. Continue the practice as it wales, moans, and tears. “I am worthy. I am self-love.” 2-5 minutes of repeating this mantra will have an effect, and grow more profound as it is cemented into habit.

This is the conversation we must have in ourselves. If we find speaking well of ourselves repulsive, then we know that this is where we must venture if we are to ever have a life that does not purely just happen to us. Selfishness must be given its proper place within our internal hierarchy. We have no choice in whether or not it exists, and if we attempt to deny it will eat us alive. This is the path of humility, harmony, and healing. The art of relationship is not only for others. We must relate to our own experience as a kind and compassionate caretaker would.

This task is simple but not easy. There are many rational and external justifications for questioning our self-worth, and many people on many sides of the political spectrum will attempt to seduce our power away from us so that they might lay claim to it. There will be further stumbles and returns to the pit. That is okay. Each time we exit, we learn the route and venture out faster and further. Eventually we may become so enamored with the world beyond that we’re able to leave our hovel entirely, our narcissist restored to its proper abode, the proper seat given to the source of awareness.

Helpful Resources for Those Struggling With Depression

Video on Self-Sabotage

Reframing Anxi ety and Depression

Healing in Nature - Sojourn to Sedona

Fri, 25 Jun 2021 20:26:00 GMT

Connecting to nature in an intentional manner can have profound impacts upon our personal work, that is, the work of building up and further integrating the personality. Putting oneself in the domain of the Earth Mother while eschewing modern forms of media can produce powerful somatic, affective, and visual manifestations that approach the miraculous. Just as a short hike can restore our senses and distance us from our woes, more extended periods have the capacity to put us into a prolonged altered state, one mediated by nature and not by the demands of the human world. Sincere engagement with Her can yield effects that do not seem plausible but are nonetheless present, and such phenomena hint at the infinitely interconnected nature of the Universe. In order to better articulate this, I will recount a journey I took in March of last year, just as the COVID-19 pandemic descended, into the heart of the American Southwest.

Hearing the Call

It was a Monday afternoon. Rumors had circulated of a novel coronavirus making its way around the world. Commuter trains had already starkly diminished in travelers; the world was sat on the edge of a knife. The balance swayed for me on this day as the administration of my institution made the decision to become remote until further notice. Out of this announcement I received a call to go out into the Southwest, to visit Zion National Park, spend three days there, and ask for Nature’s healing. Preparations were made, and a course was set just a few days later.

Improvisations would have to be made, as conditions would not allow for back-country camping. It would be one day in Zion, two more in Arizona. As I drove through an empty park on a cold March morning, a light snow fell that amplified as my ascent began. There was incredible majesty in those moments, and it was clear that Mother was aware of both my presence and intentions. Eight miles up and down those beautiful black and tan mountains, and my course was set for Flagstaff, AZ, where I would spend the next three days.

A number of books accompanied me on the journey, but the one that I gravitated towards was Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés. It became clear as I started reading that the purpose of this journey would be to contact the wild feminine and ask for Her healing.

Deepening into the Journey – The Long Slog Song

The second day the chosen trail could not be accessed by vehicle. Pausing for a moment, I decided to go through with it, taking the long walk up to the trailhead that would constitute the entire hike (~10 miles there and back). Though the scenery was, at times, beautiful, the snow was dirty and slushy, and my boots were soaked midway through. Intuition continued to guide me as I sang to the wilderness. We do not often remark on it, but there is tremendous power in our voice. The diaphragm, trachea, and rib cage all resonate in union with our word. It is a piece of ancient technology, and it was my means of beckoning the Earth Mother. This hike was not particularly interesting, mostly flat with little scenery. It narrowed the intention to offering my song and sweat to the sacred, symbolic of the step-after-step approach that is required if we are to find the destinations we seek. It ain’t always pretty, and it ain’t always interesting. There was little timidity in my presence; my song led Her right to me.

Culmination of Efforts and Intentions

The final day would take place at the Munds Wagon trail out near the Cow Pies in Sedona, one of the famous vortex sites. I followed the same pattern as days prior – head out early in the morning for a hike, sing, and revel in majesty. I sang “Green Valley” to a roaring river, a song about deferring to the judgment of the river and nature, trusting Her flow. About halfway through the hike I saw a slated red rock waterfall over which the stream solidly flowed, passing over rocks frozen like blown glass. It called me over to sit, rest, and watch. My ex-partner of five years manifested in my awareness: the loss, the pain, suffering, and confusion. It became clear within this moment that in holding onto her I had also been holding onto a piece of myself that had long since perished. Upon having that thought my psyche and heart broke open. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I wailed and cried as if no one were around. As the body continued to express the pain I had not allowed myself to feel, a vision arose from behind closed eyes. I saw her in a white gown, her gold hair splayed out radially behind her. She was inches beneath the surface of a clear blue lake. Her garments were wrapped around my wrists from my death-grip. She looked at me with a deep solemnity and understanding. Tears in my eyes, I released her. Slowly she sank out of sight. The vision altered – I was in the embrace of two of my closest female friends. A soothing feminine voice reached out, saying “I know, child. I know coming to consciousness hurts.” For three days I had put myself in Her domain, sang to Her, read at night stories bearing the sanctity and fortitude of the wild feminine, focused my awareness away from the worlds of social media and television, and on the third day She spoke to me directly and sent her emissaries to hold me while I accepted in totality the loss that had long ago occurred.

Experiences like this defy logical explanation. One could argue that this was the projections and machinations of the brain and my subject, but the therapeutic value of the experience cannot be underestimated. The voice that spoke to me was not my ego, and the two female friends that appeared were spontaneous and in one case, surprising. For me, this is a particular subjective experience that could be replicated with the appropriate mindset and intentions carried out through ritual, ritual being the physical embodiment of psychological processes. To place myself into communion with Nature and have Her satisfy my call speaks to the reality of a totally interconnected Universe, one that our own minds and bodies are not separate or distinct from. Something beyond me spoke and offered instruction: go to the Southwest, go to Zion. I went and paid respect to the Mother, worshipped Her physical being and sang my songs to Her. In the end I was rewarded with healing, a release of pain that continued to poison me. As further evidence of an interconnected Universe, I offer these two synchronicities: first, I hiked a total of 31 miles over 3 days, traveling 13 on the final day. As this was the climax of the journey, I found it interesting that it would be 13 of 31, a whole contained within the part. The second is that one of my favorite music groups, Magic Sword, released a song called “Empress” on this very same day, one that stands in contrasted character to the majority of their work, somber and slow. Empress, divine feminine power, released on the day that the Earth Mother had touched my heart and promoted peace. I must have listened to that song 40 times on my journey back home the following day, allowing all of the pain to continue to wash over and out of me, feeling the response and attention of an empathic Universe.

The Universe is far more aware of us than we would care to admit. The field of experience in which we live has the capacity to interact with us not only on the physical plane, but on an emotional and psychological level as well. Becoming aware of this relationship is a way for us to heal both collectively and individually, to defeat isolation, and to open the gateway into a world that is far more alive and magical.

A Reminder for Self-Compassion

Thu, 17 Jun 2021 13:23:00 GMT

It is difficult to accept our fallibility as humans. No matter how good our intentions, how regular our spiritual practice, how conscious we try to be of our actions, we still hurt others, sabotage ourselves, and make mistakes. This process does not cease. One of the greatest catalysts in our path is to learn to see this as the gift that it is – that we can err and be forgiven. We do not have to be perfect. Perhaps the world, our job, our partners or friends would have us think otherwise, but the impulse towards perfection is an enterprise that has already failed. If we could find this mythical “perfect” state, we would find that change must altogether cease and time would stand still, as any deviation would place us outside of perfection.

One of the advantages of the mystical worldview is that there are no anomalous events. Things do not simply occur in and of themselves, they occur in alignment with the flow of existence. The Stoics proffer that “the obstacle is the way,” much as water treats the landscape over which it travels. If one can accept the acausal nature of such a worldview, the pragmatic face of it will become apparent, particularly when applied to our relationships and presence within the world. All that occurs becomes instructive, every success and mistake a path towards personal or communal improvement and higher consciousness. It is so easy to recuse ourselves for our mistakes, one of the great sludges of spiritual development. However, looking at our errors, particularly our persistent ones, with the mindset of “what does this teach me?” mitigates the sting of our self-flagellation while accepting that what has occurred can be learned from. Our recurrent mistakes, the behaviors we engage in but wish we did not, point us to where our work is. There is the default impulse to paint ourselves as weak or stupid because we are unable to redirect our compulsive behavior. How can that be looked at differently?

Let us take the compulsive eater as an example. They understand that overeating does not help them feel like a more integrated, confident, healthy, or whole individual. The flight with which we take to our vices is fast and formidable. Yet that point of compulsion, the committing of the act occupies space in our mind throughout the day, even if we are only tangentially aware, and in the moment preceding the enactment, the drive, the need to engage in that behavior becomes insurmountable, agency-destroying. The cannabis addict will hold that time when he arrives home as sacred whether he depicts it this way or not, an act that guarantees further existence into tomorrow. It is no different for any of the activities that we “need.” Television and pornography, sex, eating, drugs, we all use these devices in similar means, to stave off the dreadful anxiety of what we cannot bear to look at. We can acknowledge our part in the compulsion, the volitional restocking of our supplies, how we have altered our physical and social environments to assist them, and we can also look with compassion upon the imperfect person set against themselves, acknowledging that there is some psychological need being met with the application of the appropriate stimulus. If we are so inclined, we can use this new perception to alter our environment and our behaviors, cementing new life-affirming rather than life-avoiding habits.

Compulsive behavior is a good example because the mistakes we make again and again are the ones that are closest to our deepest wounds, and so are most deserving of our compassion and acceptance of ourselves as humans operating to the best of our ability in the environment in which we swim. The pain of our self-defamation hints at the pain that must be known, and those compulsions lead us to water again and again, all we must do is not run away in terror. The act of seeking in material is itself a process to obtain something immaterial that feels lost or missing – in some way our compulsive behaviors make us feel whole at the moment of their consumption. Once we begin treating this not as a testament to our own badness or inadequacy but as an aspect of the Self reaching out to show us where our pain is, then already the war has ended. Conflict was never the solution, only a means towards collaboration.

While it may be pragmatic to learn from our mistakes, particularly those we make in habit, there is a simplicity and sanctity in acknowledging our fallibility and honoring it as a gift. We may miss the mark, but this is a part of our nature. We do not operate completely within the realm of instinct like other animals, but contribute something of our own conception. While this opens us to error and deviation, it also opens us to a collaboration with Nature that can bring greater abundance than either of Us can do alone. The healthiest parts of the Amazon rainforest are not its federally protected lands left to their own devices, but those that are inhabited by indigenous peoples that have created, honed, and sustained such a relationship. We err, grow, and learn. What a gift to be able to look at life lightly.

Why You Should Form a Relationship to Nature

Fri, 11 Jun 2021 04:32:00 GMT

There is a wisdom inherent in Nature. When we speak of people that have predilection towards a certain skill, we say that they have an innate talent; they’re a natural. Cuttlefish shells and sunflowers display perfect mathematical symmetry. Every piece of Her plays its essential part, from the trees, flowers, and grasses to the mycelial webs, arthropods, and animals. Our awareness, as peculiar as it is to these other elements, predisposes us to forget that we are derived from the same substance, that the perfection inherent in Her beauty is contained also in our own vessel. We are a part of Nature, and we suffer when we fall out of relationship with Her as we have collectively and individually. Our air is heavy with pollutants, our cities sparse with green, and our economic systems geared towards more more more rather than aimed at symbiosis. Reestablishing a personal connection to Nature is not transformative only for our own health, but that of our families, communities, and global civilization.

My spiritual awakening began when I took up residence near Austin’s Barton Creek Reserve. A particular valley called out to me in the summer of 2017, and I began taking regular visits in its woods where I would honor curiosity, wander through the cedars and oaks, inhale the scents, and come to know the relationships amongst its plants, critters, and fungi. While I was unaware of it at the time, a subtle but profound shift was developing in my psyche, one author Dr. Bill Plotkin would describe as a shift from an egocentric to an ecocentric viewpoint.

"Reestablishing a personal connection to Nature is not transformative only for our own health, but that of our families, communities, and global civilization."

I had the tremendous honor and privilege to be close to a protected piece of land, one that was permitted to remain in a state of harmonious wilderness, as well as the benefit of being less than five miles from the location of my physical birth. Circumstances are rarely so fortunate. As our populations are concentrated in urban areas, such an opportunity is a luxury for most. However, though Nature may be mitigated and sequestered in the cities there are no domains where She does not tread. The practice of being with and aware of Her can take place even within the various concrete labyrinths we may inhabit and pave the way for more intense immersion.

Cultivating a Relationship

Like the beginning of any new relationship, time and care should be applied to deepening our relationship with Mother Earth. This is best done by spending regular time with Her to as much extent as we are able. In addition to maintaining an awareness of Nature wherever we might tread, an area close to home should be selected that balances un-curated wilderness with our practical needs. A pristine forest is ideal, but not if it requires a journey that we cannot commit to week-to-week. For the labyrinth-locked, this may be a city park or a street with a higher-than-average number of trees. In addition to regularity, we strive to maintain our attention and focus on the experience at hand. Relinquishing our attention to our phone, social media, even books can be distracting. This is not to say that you cannot take to the trail with a good book or a friend, but time should be exercised maintaining awareness and observing. Learn the locale. Start to differentiate between different trees and plants, notice where they emerge throughout daily life and in new travels. Trees close to home can be powerful allies, and they will benefit from the bestowment of a name from us to them. They often have their own personalities that can be gleaned from their shapes and feelings evoked while admiring them.

Particularly if natural areas are sparse, we can invite plants into our homes and take responsibility for them. Select plants that are within our knowledge and skillset to nurture; begin with simplicity. Plants that thrive are a balm to the soul; plants that suffer and decay weigh on us. Succulents and various cacti have simple needs and are greatly suited to this purpose. This article provides an excellent overview if we are just beginning a horticultural journey. Welcome a few into the home; watch and feel as the space comes alive.

Recognizing Natural Rhythms

"As time proceeds, we lose ourselves in the seamless transitions of the seasons, of destruction and renewal, of deadness and vitality."

All existence is based on fluctuation, vibration, and cyclical process. As awareness shifts towards the ecological, pay attention to the various cycles and patterns that permeate our existence. The female-bodied readers have an advantage here due to their moon cycle which grounds and connects them to the Earth Mother in sacred manner. However, all humans go through daily, weekly, and yearly cycles. Our circadian rhythms are a great place to start. When does the body feel alert, when does it feel fatigued? What are the patterns we recognize in feeding, sex, grooming, doing? Observe the moon each night and knowledge of its phases will come intuitively. As time proceeds, we lose ourselves in the seamless transitions of the seasons, of destruction and renewal, of deadness and vitality. As time continues to pass and we return to our nearby nature spot to revel, we will watch Her go through these same transitions: the lushness of the Spring, the strength of the Summer, the gentle descent of the Fall, and the cold sleep of Winter. We are integral with this process, separate in no capacity except for the illusions we cast. With a comprehension of the seasons we gain another intuitive sense of our being. When we undergo periods of tragedy and despair, we can take solace in their fininity. Ecstatic highs can be tempered by the knowledge that it is the passing of high noon, that night will surely come again, and that this peak experience is to be relished and relinquished, rather than held with white knuckles.

Reestablishing a Sense of Wonder

We enter existence with a divine gift of wonder that permeates and propels us to discover the Mystery. Recall as a child the insects we watched like riveting films, how radiant were the details of leaves, and the fascination with Nature’s perfection and symmetry, how at home we could be in the lost play of the woods. Listen to the child within. It has never left us, though in our striving and building and judgment we may bury them beneath the image of who we think we are. As the practice deepens, synchronicities and affective experiences will increase in frequency and intensity. We may find other seekers along the path and join our journeys, become friends with particular animal spirits, or more deeply relish the detail and wonder of the rising innate.

Have Patience

Our world is one of have it done yesterday, where if we are not in perpetual hustle then we must be behind on some fabled ideal, trapped in the world of ceaseless doing. Nature does not operate this way. She does not do, She is. Do not be surprised if frustration and haste are encountered on the path. We have been conditioned over the course of many centuries, it will take more than a cycle of seasons to reach where we might want to be, to pull back the layers of façade lain like mud bricks over our eyes. Progress is incremental, and it will unfold beneath the blanket of our conscious awareness. It will defy our deductive powers, planning, and desire. It is nothing that ‘we’ the subject are responsible for, we need only to let it happen through us. Our best participation is getting out of the way. Notice when these feelings of lack of progress or efficacy arise and know that they are expected companions on the journey home.