I don't know who's poem this is or where it came from, but I found it on the floor of the Gompa, a ceremonial meeting space here at Tara Mandala, and I liked it, so I've decided to post it. Maybe it will prove timely for you?

Rhymes and Reasons

So you speak to me of sadness and the coming of the winter,
The fear that is within you now seems to never end,
and the dreams that have escaped you and the hope that you've forgotten,
and you tell me that you need me now and you want to be my friend,
and you wonder where we're going, where's the rhyme and where's the reason?
And it's you cannot accept: it is here we must begin to seek the wisdom of the children
and the graceful way of flowers in the wind.
For the children and the flowers are my sisters and brothers,
their laughter and their loveliness would clear a cloudy day.
Like the music of the mountains and the colors of the rainbow,
they're a promise of the future and a blessing for today.

Though the cities start to crumble and the towers fall around us,
the sun is slowly fading and it's colder than the sea.
It is written: From the desert to the mountains they shall lead us,
by the hand and by the heart, they will comfort you and me.
In their innocence and trusting they will teach us to be fre.
For the childrena and the flowers are my sisters and my brothers,
their laughter and their loveliness would clear a cloudy day.
And the song that I am singing is a prayer to non-believers,
come and stand beside us, we can find a better way.

-unknown

"Going in ..."

First, become aware of where you are and what you are doing.

Are you sitting, walking, laying down, asleep, dreaming, awake, dreaming-awake?
What is the state of mind: thoughts, feelings, concerns, goals, things you are remembering, pursuing?
What is the state of your body? Active, at rest? relaxed? at ease? or some other state?

Please take a moment to say yes to all of it. Then cease whatever you are doing.

Then focus your attention on an object, to a single point.
Relax everything, body, speech, mind.

Close your eyes and transport yourself to a vast, empty expanse, an ocean, maybe of water, of grass, sand, rock, or whatever you like. Stand in the midst of the vastness, everywhere you look it is there. Even where you stand, it is there, empty of existing.

Within this vastness, there is also perfection. You experience no lack of anything, no desire of anything. You have finished everything and all activities are complete. There is nothing left to do or be. Breath into that created reality. It is yours, now, and whenever.

This perfection is abundant. The vastness of the space is not empty of any experience; there flows a quality of total abundance, of bliss. Beyond euphoria, there is bliss. This abundance informs you of there being no need to act, to acquire, hold, retain or gain anything.

"Bridging..."

Now, remember that you exist, and who you are. You are someone. You have a name, and various ways of identification as an existent being. What are they? Do you have a job? a title, status, position, or occupation? Do you have a family, or various sorts of relationships and responsibilities? Briefly remember these, while staying aware of the vast space you inhabit.

Now, select a particular experience that challenges you. Maybe you have a deadline you're anxious about, or a relationship that is in a tough spot. Maybe you made a mistake and hurt someone, or someone made a mistake and hurt you. Or maybe there's something you're aware of is out of balance, but you don't want to think about it, or deal with it. Hold whatever that is in your attention, keeping your awareness pervaded by the vast space you inhabit, and that inhabits you.

Notice the apparent separation of the new object of your attention from the environment you're inhabiting in this visualization.  Feel the fullness of whatever you decided to focus on, while abiding in the awareness of the emptiness.  Do this until you feel like you "see" whatever you've contemplated for all that it is.

Now, holding the object in its fullness in your awarenes, intentionally shift your attention back to the emptiness. Breath into, and let it fill your experiential reality, your consciousness, while still holding the thought, feeling or situation you thought of in your awareness. Allow the vastness to pervade everything- the entire space, your body, and finally, to fully pervade your thought, or feeling also.  For a moment, experience not being yourself, and instead being the total vast emptiness.

Experience the totality of the vast, empty space, simultaneous with your awareness of it, simultaneous with the presence of the thing you decided to focus on a moment ago.  Being aware now that this emptiness is everything, and within you, and your thought, recognize that you, the vast ocean, and your thought exist also within this, as a sort of shimmering reflection of the totality.  Ssee that those thins are also filled by the space, that is everything.

"Realizing..."

Shift your observant attention to your vast space. Did you choose a desert? an ocean? a grassland? Briefly recognize and acknowledge the space you inhabit in this reality. Take a deep breath and thank it for its gift to you, for holding everything you bring to it with unconditional loving abundance. Take a moment for that.

Then peering out into your vastness, see the land and sky as separate. Then remember that the vast emptiness pervades each the Heavens and the Earth and that they are one in that vast emptiness. Observe them dissolve into a unity of space.

Now, within being aware of the vastness pervading all things, notice that your mind observing this situation is also included in that. Turning your awareness on to including also the observer of this reality, notice that it is also empty in character, or nature.

Realizing this, abide in the total emptiness. It is perfect. It is complete. It is alive and pulsing with all possibility, because all the energy of all beings, and all situations, circumstances, and events, all phenomena are here within and a part of the emptiness.  The vast space seems to exist independent of all these and pervades everything. Yet even the space itself is also empty in nature.  Abide in this fullness, which is totally empty and vast in quality, as well as luminous, and abundantly blissful. This could be called, the Truth.

"Returning..."

From this state of abiding in pure awareness, empty, luminous, super-abundant, recognize this as the base for all else, the singularity on which all else arises. This means you restore the observer consciousness, who makes the above observation. 

Still resting in this state, recall the being with the name you have called your own. Remember who that is, and re-identify as that person. Recall the vast space you were in, the land or water and the sky. Remember the situation you were in before you went into this vast inner psychescape. 

Generate a wish that everyone can remember what you have been able to reach today. Let that wish go out to everyone you know, and imagine it going out to everyone. Feel that wish as a wish for the happiness and peace. 

Take a deep breath, and smile wide, unihibitedly, bringing the joy of the freedom you know into heart and through your smile. Open your eyes. Take another deep breath. Look around you. Notice your physical situation. Notice your mental and emotional states. Observe and take account of any changes that may have occurred.

Take a moment to appreciate what you have been able to do. If you can, verbalize your appreciation.

Take a moment to remember your wish for the happiness of others. Verbalize that if you can. You might use the Metta practice formula, another formula, or one of your own making, so long as it carries the authentic expression of the wish for others to benefit from this practice.

Now you can take a moment to thank whomever has shared this practice with you and all the beings who have ensured that this practice could come to you.

Finally, you can express a desire to always and only act in accordance with what will cause happiness and peace for all beings.

Congratulations. You're finished. Get up and go back to whatever you are going to do next!

Right, so transformation occurs when I accept that whatever it is that I wish to change is here, and acknowledge its presence without aversion (with "one taste" so to speak...).  When I feel dissociation coming on, I shall endeavor to be mindfully present with it, and neither succumb to it fully (ie. mindlessly, or unconsciously), or to reject it, fight it, try to change it immediatly, or otherwise, be averse to it.

Then, something can shift. I see two levels of practice around noticing and being mindful of dissocation: one is metta and self-acceptance, and the other is the shadow work, shadow dance level. Really, the first is an integral part of the second.

This morning, during Prajnaparamita practice, I was able to hold looking at things, without either tripping out into a single-pointedness-incurred trance state, or totally identifying with thoughts, sensations, and so on, even as I fell asleep a few times and woke up and kept going. It was a radically different experience of mixing space and awareness in meditation. I believe I have a lot to learn from that practice, as I get better and better prepared to do it without distractions.

Something that came out of that practice was the awarness that I was doing an old, familiar thing with dissocation. I was treating it like any other obstacle in my life: something to be conquered, subdued, or destroyed.  Unfortunately, this hyper-masculine approach does not always work as well as one might hope, and I have found myself pounding my head into the problem, and expecting it to move, and then being surprised when its doesn't.  As I saw myself doing this, I realized how foolish that was, and that I was going to have to do something different.

So, when that doesn't work, and it very much does not work, I have to surrender to the fact of the phenomena, accept its presence, look at it, and dialogue with it, rather than just try to negate, blow over, or neutralize it as "unwanted other."  What kind of dialogue do I hold with dissociation?

Essentially, it is the next layer of Loyal Soldier work. Dissocation is the target affect of a variety of strategies my LS developed and employed to protect me from emotional harm, and destruction, including my own suicide. Ultimately, the LS launched intense dissociation through mental efforts (meditative, denial, repression and intellectualization) to accomplish dissociation powerful enough to save me from drowning in repeated and overwhelming grief.  So, when I dialogue with dissociation, I might ask, what are you protecting me from? Why are you here? or what purpose do you serve? or what are you offering, or teaching me here?

My ability to mindfully notice, hold without falling into or rejecting dissociative mind-states, and then hold loving, accepting, open, listening dialogues with them (really with the LS), will determine my ability to transform, put to rest, open up, and otherwise liberate dissociative psychic, mental and emotional phenomena, and the experiences they were deployed to protect me from feeling.  This is another layer of shadow practice to add to my existing practice, and deepen it into the next level.

The ideal opportunities for me to engage this level of practice are in my personal problem-solving thinking, my sexuality, my intimate life, my meditation practices, and physical exercise. These contexts are the ones where I most frequently encounter places of being dead, shut-down and dissociated. Whenever I encounter one of them, I can engage in this practice.

At first, it will be a little awkward, and I will be challenged to practice the form correctly. Then, I will hone the method, and get in the habit of the practice. After a while, the practice will become automatic, and second-nature. When this happens, the practice will be integrated fully into my way of being, and simply occur as a matter of course; I will have to do it.  Finally, the content to be processed through this method will exhaust itself and the process can be laid to rest.

That is what I foresee for embracing and transforming dissociation!

I have come to see that in the difference between what is it like to live at Lama as opposed to in the outside world, I have imported my habits and coping mechanisms from out there here, and have renewed my practice of them to recharge. However, some of these habits are maladaptive and counterproductive really, either just frustrating at worst or quasi-satisfying time wastes at best. It occurs to me that the way I would actually like to live is quite different than the ways I have gotten by.

So, I am out here at Lama, in some sense, on the edge of our society, and I am still a bit confused about what to do with Lama and myself here. I have an urge to be off in the wilderness, and coming to Lama Mountain is in a sense an expression of that. However, I have gotten really lax, and have fallen back into some old habits. That is ok. I go there briefly, and then I get to remember why I don't want to do that anymore, and get to remember what I would really rather be doing.

My time "on the mountain" literally and metaphorically, also called "in the cave" is very important to my sanity, happiness and fulfillment. I like acting in the world in so many ways, and eventually, I have to come home, and rest, naturally.  Being on the mountain is a sort of extension of that impulse, to rest, regroup, and recharge at home, or in the cave, so to speak.  What I tend to do is to spend a lot of time alone, thinking, reflecting, writing, reading, playing, enjoying pleasurable things with family, or even more pointedly, alone, and often in nature. The essence of being on the mountain is to take solitary time to be studying, pondering, meditating, walking, exploring, venturing deep, wondering, enjoying, watching, observing, communing. 

Another important supportive piece and also end in itself is being at home, with my family and close beloveds.  This time is so precious and important. We nourish each other, create together, celebrate, laugh, play and enjoy the simple things of life together. This is so important to my happiness, and I love being the host who can welcome and share with others this rich space between familiars, in the enclosed, private space of the home, away from the rest of the world. It is our haven together.

Lama is much closer to home than most places I have known, and it does not fully offer what I need and want from home, because of the nature of shared, public space, and having to work to host retreats and keep community projects moving forward. Those things properly belong to the community of village and neighborhood, and not to the home and family per se. 

So, I have found myself striving to create a home and family space within the larger community space, and it has been naturally fairly easy, however, not complete, because the container does not seem to support the fullness of privacy and independence that I want for being at home, or being on the mountain either.  At least, the summer stewardship container seems challenging for me to find both. However, for the persistent, focused, dedicated and nonattached, it does seem possible. So Lama does challenge me to be the most I can of those qualities in order to find what I need here.

I have come into a time where I feel like I have gotten the most and the best I can from the community here at Lama as a steward this summer, both in the way of it being my home, and in the way of my being a summer steward who gies seva. I could go, or stay and settle in yet further into an even more individually attuned way of being here. I think I will probably go.  However, whether I stay or go, I want to be clear about how I am going to create things, for I want things to go in a generally shifted direction regardless.

I need to be more on the mountain, whether it is here or at Tara Mandala. That means time and behavior disciplined meditation practice and study time, balanced with seva obligations taken seriously.  It must all be taken seriously, but with a light touch, so it is still enjoyable.  I don't want to just sit around and surf the net for unecessary information, consume unecessary and benign info at best or harmful and toxic at worst, or take excessive time escaping into a game.  Instead, I'm going to be more intentional about how I spend my time, and doing what I more truly want to do.

Much of the reason I came to Lama and would go to TMRC is to be with a practice sangha, where my practice and studies can be amplified, inspired, and reinforced through conversation about practice and ideas, and through doing these activities together in a focused and intentional way. I will of course have to work to see that I do that effectively enough for myself within the expectations that I be working for the community, whether that be in the gardens, the kitchen or elsewhere.  I expect the clearer expectations and more limited scope of work types, more serious practice sessions, and practicing the BuddhaDharma exclusively will all aid in my getting focused and productive in my Dharma studies and practice.

The other thing for me is that I need to be clear about what I am out here for: is it just to be at home? or is it to be on the mountain? The answer is clear now. I want to be out here to be on the mountain. I have a lot of reading I have been putting off, both to enjoy, and that is core to deepening and supporting my practice and knowledge of the Dharma. For these longer periods of several weeks (I have been at Lama seven weeks, and would be at TMRC for 6 weeks), I have to find some way to bring in the ease and relaxation of being at home to the focus and intent of being on the mountain. So, I will need to integrate having fun and destressing into my regimen.

Another thing that comes up is that I have two very distinct ways to be on the mountain. One is solitary, wandering, exploring, in the wilderness, far out of the world and on my own, without direction, and often without other people. This way is the unstructured, one with the flow of Tao way that is a very advanced way to practice, requiring much preparation and training. I step into it every once in a while to stay in touch with that core reality of being human on Earth.

The other way of being on the mountain for me is really like being in school, or in retreat, where I am working, studying, socializing a little, practicing and following a schedule in a focused study setting such as a university, or monastery.  Really, this way is sometimes like being on the mountain, and sometimes not, depending on how far removed the context is from ordinary social life. 

When I move to a city and work there, I will be back in the world, and when I attend graduate school again , I will still be very much in the world. Being at Lama or TMRC is very different. It is not quite fully out there in the wilderness, nor is it fully in the world either. It is on the edge. These places ride the boundary of wilderness and society, nature and culture, and so are ideally suited to absorb the best of each, and balance the two.  Part of my vision for the city and region of the future, is that a lot of people be aware and welcoming of that particular balance point, and that we bring it to life in cities, the places most in need of being tempered by nature in its wild state.

So, what sorts of activities belong and do not belong in such a setting as the edge of culture in nature?  Whereas when I am fully on the mountain, I take few or no books, little or no music, little or no food, few things, and seek to clear my mind, heart and body of all impurities, so I can fully experience the magic and power of nature unfettered, I have to prepare consciously before I do such things. Ceremony is an important preparation. Wrapping up my worldly affairs is critical. Having primed my knowledge, viewpoints, understanding and depth of practice, and self-discipline are all essential preparations for the full on wilderness wandering time.  Clarifying intent and having well-honed spiritual and soulcraft tools to work with out ther is also essential.

The preparations for the being one with heaven and earth are the things that belong in the between-space, on the edge of the world. To intentionally peal back the layers, and release them is the process. The attitude is of surrender, renunciation, and it should happen gradually, with ease and in slow time.  As it unfolds, I can show up more and more for what I came here to do. While I would not bring a library of books or music into the mountains, I would bring them to the place where I would be able to spend the time with them I need to, and that place is Lama, or TMRC, or another similar place. The taking in of the inspirations and teachings, practices and sangha of seekers is what retreat centers, and intentional spiritual communities are for to me.

So I must let go of what is not necessary and embrace what is naturally appropriate.  Reading, studying, sleeping enough, working some and simply, forgetting gain, and working for free, out of karm yog, that is the point. However, for me, there is a tension to balance the dynamic of going in and out of the world, so as to better inhabit the in-between-space.  I am both a man of the world and of nature, as truly we are all offered to be.  The challenge arises in when and how to be in the world, and when and how to return to the source of life and culture to commune with the soul and Spirit, and re-vision this life and culture. I dance with how to play both well in one life, and know that I am forever in motion back toward the world when I am outside it, and forever in motion back out in the wilderness when I am in the world.

Too often we give away our personal power to others. We give others the power to make us happy, to satisfy us, to make things feel safe, or nurture us, or validate us. I feel like this is a terrible thing because it leads to so much dissatisfaction, dissappointment, blame, resentment, feelings of loss, betrayal, anger, hate, mistrust and so many other terrible things. How can another person be responsible for our own happiness? That is too important a thing to give away to someone else.

When there is something that is very important to you in your life, why give away the hope of getting to someone else, when you can take it up for yourself, and see to it that it is done as you need it done. It is really the only way you get what you want in the ways that you want. This does not mean one should be taking from others' their power, or taking from others what one wants, without their having given it. It means more that we should be saying yes to our needs and desires, after having examined whether they are appropriate, and nonharming, and having come to relate to them in a nonattached way, where even their very fulfillment is not a precondition of our happiness. To the extent that we can do that in preparation, we are empowered to find for ourselves the sources of our happiness.

Now, of course, this is all within in a dukkhic context. To invest particular objects, people and experiences with the expectation that having them will bring us happiness is a certain risk, based in delusion and ignorance of our true nature. A certain paradox arises as to how to continue to live in the world and pursue fulfilling our desires while practicing the Dharma of ultimate liberation at the same time. They appear as contradictory goals. It appears that to the extent that one can let go of having to pursue happiness through intransitory phenomena and can instead embrace emptiness as the source of liberation and happiness, one is able to more effectively liberate oneself from samsara.

However, I wish to acknowledge that I am not a perfect bodhisattva, yet, at least, and may I be someday in some future life, and so, there are only so many things that I can put aside for so long before I have to say yes, this is important too, and see that my own needs are met. My basic sanity as a human being is ultimately in service of the goal. The Buddha recognized the Middle Way meant you should eat food, and that even lay practitioners could lead householder lives, be married, raise families, have sex and hold public professions while simultaneously working toward self-liberation for the sake of all beings.

This is definitely my path, and I must embrace it. Too long have I denied, pushed aside, or made to wait certain needs that once again, press intently out from within to be satisfied. I will not say they are wrong. I am saying yes to them and their satisfaction. May I soon find those who feel the same.

So, what is a more balanced way of exercising personal power? It might be to...

Be aware of what one needs
Examine its merit
Discern its purpose and its ethical aspects
Decide to ask for it, and ask for what one wants
Visualize it, and believe in being in the receiving of it
Act in a way that receiving of it comes naturally
Watch for the arrival of the circumstances of reception
Accept and work with things as they arrive, welcoming them
Enjoy having what one asked for arrive
Reflect on the process
Regather energy
Repeat

The only other thing I could think of writing about is how to deal with obstacles. Obstacles arise, and confusion is one. Loss of faith is another. Failure to follow through with each step is another. Failure to get clear about what one wants in another. Pitfalls are everywhere, and one must very proactively encounter and overcome each one. That is all I want to say about that now. This is all probably obvious to those who have thought about it. I draw from the teachings regarding the Law of Attraction. Please correct me, or add on as you see fit.

All people want to love and be loved, and this is a goal I share with many other Zaadzsters I know as well. However much we want this, many of us (and include myself) have not known what to do to find it. Many of us have the wisdom and strength to practice various methods for being in the love that is each of ours to always dwell in, or to connect with loving energy in some other way.

Being single, and committed to loving and being loved, I believe even when there is only ourselves to practice on, we have an opportunity to love and be loved. I want to offer the community this description of metta (loving-kindess) practice that I learned as a way to generate a positively charged intention for all beings to be happy.

For those unfamiliar with the possibility of healthy self-love, is it more like the extension of self-respect, into self-appreciation, and further into seeing lovable beauty and humanity in oneself.  This requires holding oneself in unconditional positive regard. A way to generate that energy is through metta practice.

The metta practice I know goes like this:

Starting with the mind stable, relaxed, grounded, focused, visualize yourself as a baby, or a small child.

Then, you can say the following (or whatever version that is in the spirit of this):

May I be happy
(say while smiling and feeling affection for yourself)

May I always be happy!
(smile wider and deepen self-directed affection with the visualization)

May I be liberated from suffering and the causes of suffering
(or substitute with your own spiritual traditions basic goals)

May I never be separated from the happiness which is free from sorrow

May I rest in equanimity free from attachment and aversion

May I always be happy!
(feeling the affection warm the heart and merge the self with the visualized self)

This can be repeated three or more times for increased effect, for practice to learn the sequence or to integrate the words, visualization and feeling more completely.

The following are stages to replace the image of oneself as the circle of identity widens outward (all optional, so choose which serve you best)

my pets, family, my friends, my coworkers, housemates, students, clients, neighbors, boss, my neighborhood, city, region, the non humans, the forests, ocean, desert or mountains, eventually, encompassing all beings.

Next stage metta: Generating loving-kindness toward perceived enemies

Take GW, if you happen to have a problem with him still (many I have known have, or once did), or anyone you dislike, who dislikes you, or anyone you feel anything negative toward. Use that person (or objects') image as your metta focus object, and generate metta around that person. This will probably require several times to go over it, since you're going to be working on closing the gap between how you feel about that person at the start of your practice, and the target feeling of holding them in complete, unconditional, positive regard, or metta.

Another way to more quickly generate metta for your perceived enemy (just the term I'm using loosely), is to generate karuna (compassion) for that person. You could try imagining the person in some sort of helpless, distressing situation, and see their face in anguish, and allow yourself to feel natural empathy toward them.

This can jump-start the metta generation and allow you to more quickly generate a field of loving kindness that includes all beings.  Then you can imagine yourself stepping into the situation to provide critical help for which your visualized person is grateful.  This kind of mental role-playing can dissolve negativities very quickly.

I find that this metta practice makes an excellent compliment to a calm-abiding practice (samatha), as a concluding piece, spoken aloud when possible (if practicing alone, or together with others), and can be as brief as a minute or two, or as long as you want. Between five and ten minutes seems very effective in generating metta.  Experienced practitioners, texts, and metta groups practice in various locales worldwide, see dharmanet.org.

Animas Valley Institute

http://www.natureandthehumansoul.com/newbook/animasPrograms.htm

Animas Valley Institute helps people become more fully human through programs that motivates one to uncover the mysteries of their soul, deepen and broaden their intimacy with the wild earth and live everyday grounded in both soul and nature.

http://www.avinewsletter.blogspot.com/

This is Part IV in a series of IV today. Parts I-III can be found below.
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Finally, I want to write a couple of words about how personal responsiblity for cultural change shifts as a result of this change of view point:

It is not a race. It is a journey!

It is not ever going to be finished, or perfect, but it can be made excellent!

There is no hurry or rush, but rather, we have plenty of time to do everything we need to.

We do not change things when we do not embody the change we would see happen, rather, through embodying our desired change, we are living that change into the world.

We are not obligated to do anything. We can leave things alone, as they are.

When we want something to change, we are empowered to change it, as we wish.

My personal well being, security, and loveability are not at stake in cultural change, that it to say that receiving what I need and ask for is not based in pre-existing "performance" conditions.

The work to do is not figuring out the magic bullet, or series of magic bullets, because this work belongs to us all, not just me. I can play my part, but it is counterproductive to try to play others parts for them.  It is best to function differentiatedly but not over- or under-function.

The work to do IS engaging one's own personal circumstances (and this inherently includes the social, cultural and political dimensions as well as the filial, psychological or intimate ones) authentically, in ever deepening circles of authentic expression and appreciation.

The work to do IS practicing to transform things inside and around us, with conscious, loving intention.  Therefore, view all phenomena as impermanent, dynamically changing, evolving according to what we wish to manifest through them. 

For me, that means regenerating a strong meditation practice, Triple Gem Refuge, and Integral Life Practice, exploring Authentic Movement, improvisational dance, Dharma, Integral, Shamanic and Deep Ecology studies, hatha yog' and Tai'Chi, and various other affective healing practices. It also means intentionally being in community authentically with others who seek the same, and to cocreate a soulcentric community based in intimacy with nature and our own creative expressions of culture. 

When I write about it that way, I dream about what I could cocreate with dance, music, voice, story, myth, soul, spirit and theatre, as both a gift to the community, and an ecstatic expression of wildness and depth of meaning. 

The greater story of cultural transformation is a vast and complex, ever-evolving one that we are cocreating every day with every intention-action with each other. I join Wilber and many others in aiming for second-tier consciousness, or Plotkin, in aiming for a majority of people to healthily engage their stage's particular tasks, and for a new majority to reach stage 4 and beyond, for the sake of our culture living up to its best potential. 

It looks to me as though the people who are leading workshops where participants learn and practice skills essential to personal transformation are on the leading edge, so here obviously I would include everyone educating with meditation, mindfulness, compassionate and nonviolent communication, depth psychology, ecological sustainability, intentional community and council process, NLP, and a vast array of other modalities.

Molly Young Brown and Joanna Macy remind us that the work must result in three things happening:

1) Holding actions to halt, impede or ameliorate ecological destruction

(and by definition this also includes the pathological assaults on our psyches, bodies, minds, and social interactions by a patho-adolescent culture)

2) The generation, and expansion of ecologically-wise social institutions, alternative to mainstream, skilless ones

(I focus a lot on how to do that in my inquiries;  who, what, and what ways are we as a culture cocreating viable, life-enhancing alternatives to our current, failing institutions; more interestingly, what projects do you or I want to be involved in toward cocreating alternative institutions...)

And finally, the third, is the heart of the work, and the task that Joanna has approached through her Deep Ecology and Despair and Empowerment workshops (so I have read)-

3)  The shifting in perspective for groups and individuals that leads to inspired action

(This is where the magic of being a transformative educator hits the road of working with adult, decision-maker populations to catalyze, facilitate and integrate profound shifts in perspective.  The shifts described often result in authentically-reconnected individuals and groups with the process tools and guidance they need to return to their work in various social/institutional settings empowered to become change agenst themselves. That is the point that most excites inspires me!)

This is Part III of IV. Parts I-II can be found below, and Part IV above.
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The cultural dimension...

As I find the effectiveness of reframing goal-orientation toward generating and maintaining an open-minded and open-hearted intention to experience and accept everything experienced fully, rather than to achieve discrete, "symbolic" goal-markers, I begin to see how that very shift in perspective might work on a cultural scale.

First of all, let me admit to having felt that I personally needed to affect cultural change for a long time because I subconscioulsy believed this would secure my own welfare and happiness.  This is obviously a projection of the Loyal Soldier subpersonality onto the huge, and only semi-personal process of the Great Turning cultural evolution. 

The work here is not to externalize the sense of insecurity rooted in an only partially healed fear of abandonement, but rather to withdraw the projection, open the affective experience of that wound, and heal it through sacred witnessing, at least to start.

Instead, in the cultural dimension, it seems like the same principles apply as do in the personal context, which dramatically shifts my own sense of what to do to be changing our culture. Previously, I would think as if I had some great thing to do to shift things, and discovering this and doing it would result in some incredible cultural change.

I then thought I could locate my niche and purpose through inductive reasoning, guessing that if I could pinpoint what sort of cultural change that is necessary and that I could affect, that would be my niche. This is putting the cart before the horse.

Rather, the process of discovering and embodying one's souls'  purpose is so personal, that it is not based in a mere intellectual inductive reasoning process, no matter how complex, comprehensive or time consuming. Instead, the knowledge of what to do would seem to live in my own body. 

The images that come with feeling and physically expressing the emotions that arise as a matter of course in a compassionately and mindfully engaged healing process provide the essential guiding information.

This makes sense since intellectual filters are conditioned by previous modes of operating, and thus are much more regressive and vulnerable to corruption by previous habitual patterns, making them inherently suspect. It would seem intellect functions best on short and medium problem-solving tasks with a limited scope, and while critical in assisting long-term solution-creating, they are effective only when limited severely to what is already known. 

Intellect appears to possess refining, organizing and prioritizing functions more than revelatory, discovery or healing functions, which seem to belong more to the physical, emotional and imaginal bodies. 

So, what this would mean culturally is that the reproduction of healthy, life-enhancing patterns and the intentional atrition of life-negating patterns is the rule.  Practicing that means being willing to step forward in situations where one may be the only one willing to stand for positive patterns, and to gently, persistently, and integrally insist on those patterns becoming the norm. 

This can be challenging, especially in highly disfunctional situations, where approaching people and social contexts "from the side" seems to work well. Instead of trying to change the way things are up front, as an ego-fed, "agenda" item, slip the intention into situations through subtle suggestion, role-modeling, and selective reframing. 

(continued into Part IV above)

This is Part II in a series of IV today. Part I can be found below and Parts III-IV above in the blog.
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The personal dimension...

As a result of an important reconnecting conversation with a close friend of mine, a significant and positive shift in perspective has occurred for me. It has dawned on me that healing, like anything else natural, occurs cyclically, and evolves downwardly in a spiral motion. The restoring to health is a natural process whereby any natural pattern seeks to re-assert its character in an authentic manner.

Things tend toward a state of wholeness, and obstacles such as negative habits and conditioning require vast quantities of energy to keep the natural wholing process blocked. However, by releasing attachment to these habitual tendencies, we can allow them to atrophy and disappear, permitting wholing to continue.

So instead of thinking about soulcentric developmental stages as discrete time periods to be progressed through in a linear and incremental manner, it might be better to think of them as existing along a spiral continuum whereby each stage includes (as in any growth hierarchy) and transcends the previous stage on which it is based and will resemble. 

So, instead of trying to heal, and get done with it (a typical linear-logic based on a misperception of the phenomena as being separate from the self and of a discrete character pattern), I do better to view healing as something that is always happening, or that could always be happening.

Rather than expect to accomplish it and move on to something else, I should expect to immerse myself in it and move through it, letting healing happen to me and within me, changing me as it occurs, rather than my remaining the same, separate or independent being my ego perceives me to be. This whole view point shift has a profound effect on every other view based in this notion.

For example, my belief that I had to separate myself from romantic relationships in order to first heal myself and "work on myself" so to speak, is a fallacious notion because it is based in the view that healing is a discrete event to accomplish, rather than the closer to the truth view that it is a process to be experienced. 

The question, "when am I healed?", when is it over, arises as pertinent.  The answer, explicitly is that not only is there no I to be healed, but the perception of an I to be healed, and a wound separate from the I to be healed will dissolve as healing occurs, and the I and the wound fuse into a whole, authentic self.

This suggests that authenticity is not only a way to be, to express, and view oneself, but is also an progressively evolving spiral process experience (an interesting word combo there!).  So, the method for approaching this process differs radically in pattern and intent than one would approach a discrete action.

This whole discussion actually points blatantly at the flawed view that anything is separate or discrete, but rather that all phenomena exist in a continuum of interbeing, including the self. 

The lesson I derive from this insight is that I do best to pro-actively engage the process with positive energy and practices which intentionally release various "internal" mental and emotional energies (especially those for me) to being consciously observed, felt, expressed, and thus allowing them to be felt, understood, known, and ultimately, released. 

Just as one might communicate lovingly in an interpersonal relationship, so it seems that one can also similarly communicate lovingly in intrapersonal relationships with wounds and subpersonalities. 

(continued into Part III above)