Hello Chris, Becca and Charles,
Listening to your broadcast on a 'new story' was a profound experience for me. Since I fell down the rabbit hole in 2010 the only way to gain a foothold was to travel through inevitable process of denial and then to meet each human discriminatory faculty head on and engage and sharpen its range of effectiveness.
After the denial stages was the intellectual heavy lifting of history and a continual education into the world of finance and its gluttonous effects on humankind. This lead to the art of psychology and for me the teachings of Carl Jung. I was then able to dissect the dynamics of 'projection' or what Chris describes as 'running into a belief system'. It was plainly obvious to me that good, intelligent, well meaning people were missing the enormous elephant in the room on a consistent basis!
Alas the deeper prodding of Jungian Analytical Psychology helped to navigate the origins individual intellectual paralysis but there was still the intuitive eye of the needle that had to be pierced. Where does one go from here after the denial, the intellectual and the psychological faculties have applied their unique balm to the situation?
It has been my experience that one finally arrives at the letting go stage where myth and metaphor springboard one into the higher realms of individual meaning and purpose. Understand that this timeless overlay of the human condition can only be effective once the contours of denial, intellect and psychology have been traversed. Otherwise I believe one is searching for an answer and NOT experiencing the question.
A rather steep landscape for humanity, but it is my sense that this is where the direction that has never been available before these questions were formed will be discovered and lived.
Let me give you an example from my life.
In your brilliant and refreshingly honest discussion you expressed the nature of a personal decision making process for all of you. Charles had mentioned that passion was an indicator of direction. I have to agree. But what happens when you have a strong passion in two areas? Here is what happened to me.
In between tree planting contracts, I was visiting my sister who was studying Art at Emily Carr College of Art and Design in Vancouver B.C. Canada. A perfect opportunity for me, as I would be able to sit in on classes, hang out, observe and take part in a life long fascination of the inquiry 'what is art?'
At the very same time I got a phone call from some climbing buddies of mine who were coming though town the very next day and heading to Red Rocks, a climbing spot in the U.S. Would I go?
They needed to know in the next 24 hours. And so I vibrated w anxiety for the next 20 something hours until the 11th hour when they needed to know or continue south. I had a half hour to decide.
At that point I remembered something that I read of Caroline Myss, a medical intuitive whose books and lectures I had found helpful. The method was to go inward. Find a quiet place. Get calm.
In that state one is to visualize the outcome of each possibility with as much detail as possible. In experiencing the visualization you then observe the Body's reaction to the projected outcome. The choice then became to go with what ever decision makes one feel grounded, secure and quite simply - good.
I noticed that the climbing trip visualization made me feel like I was chasing something and so I chose to stay and do some painting. I decided all this within 10 to 15 minutes while sitting in a public washroom because there was no other private location at the time.
Here is the mythical part!
Coming to a resolution brought forth emotions. I went outside to breathe some fresh air and possibly cry some tears due to the stress relief. I stepped into a narrow gap between two buildings and there in front of me were three prepared abandoned canvasses.
I have come to know that this type of deep inquiry, soliciting the body's reactions to projected outcomes, has aligned me to a strand of information beyond the intellectual. I have propelled my self past the snares of the intellect and into the web of relationships that the earth and its ever evolving and repeated cycles stitches all classes and forms of beings together at its prime vibration of Meaning.
This practice of throwing oneself open to the possible coincidence is living the question.
Another way to gain direction, clarity and meaning is to engage the Metaphor. If, as the Buddhists say, we are living a dream then it would be helpful in our search for meaning to apply dream study techniques to our baffling western world.
Here is what I have come up with.
Gold is the ultimate metaphor of value. It adorns all religious sacred objects no matter the denomination. In the study of dreams Carl Jung discovered that the psyche chose gold to symbolize the soul. And for close to 6000 years human kind has used the yellow metal for trade/money.
After WW2 the US was awash in Gold/Value and the world was awash in US dollars. The Bretton Woods agreement set the United States as the center organizing body for world/political trade, that being done the US was metaphorically the Ego of the world psyche.
Now along comes some wars for the US and a few social programs. The US closes the gold window. The ultimate value of gold is removed from the world monetary system. With that act the inflation of the US currency began its exponential rise into the stratosphere. This egoic center of the political world (US) begins its demise into an inflated ego. Jung comments:
An inflated consciousness is always egocentric and consciousness of nothing but its own existence. It is incapable of learning from the past, incapable of understanding contemporary events, and incapable of drawing the right conclusions about the future. It is hypnotized by itself and therefore cannot be argued with. It inevitably dooms itself to calamities that must strike it dead.
Hmmmm sounds familiar when one pontificates the actions of any Government organization or the lack of action on the legal front.
In closing thank you so much for your excellent commentary on the world as we see it now. I have been so impressed as your site continues the active question. When the world's egoic center is facing a psychological breakdown we are experiencing a massive shift in which we all need to discover and live the question.
That question is different for each person, but asking others to answer it for us is NOT the answer. The situation requires consciousness. As the physical world asks us to elevate our own consciousness we must step into NOT knowing. From that place we shall all witness each other contribute what is needed to get us through this crisis in consciousness.
I have attempted to answer many of the these questions and others in my offering, The Metaphor of Meltdown... check it out if you like.
Thank you again for all the great work and information.
Cheers
Doug Hamel