Part of the growth challenge with spiritually transformative
experiences [EHEs] is our recognizing our [individual and] collective
treasury of these Experiences! It’s
so easy to dismiss them or forget or repress them in our hesitancy and
fear to share them with each other and not knowing exactly how to better
actualize them in our lives. For
example, I had several such experiences over the years that I just
didn’t imagine telling anyone. And
with the passage of time they would slip out of mind and lose their
power like dreams-past. It
really saddened me. After
one experience in particular, I promised myself I would not just let it
fade away. I began writing
down my experiences and would take time to remember or read them
occasionally. They were
especially helpful when I was feeling depressed – better than Prozac
and without the side effects, for adding a bit of brightness and balance
into my life again.
I have long wondered -- for so many of us who probably have had a
similar pattern of, in White's words, not "fully potentiating"
these events -- how to get from these the kind of ‘fire power’ that
sustains the bulk of people who have had mystical, kundalini, or
near-death experiences. Why don't these not nearly so dramatic EEs
[exceptional experiences] strike a similarly self-defining spark?
What can we do to increase their power for us?
I kept coming back to the
Pinocchio question: How do I
finally become Human??
.. On the order of, How
does that ultimate Shift in consciousness come alive and stay that way
-- that living more fully, fearlessly, powerfully out of the
MORE that it means to be Human?
Now that I have spent some time with Rudolf
Steiner’s and
David
Spangler’s
views about the ultimate importance of what Steiner calls ‘the social
way’ and Spangler calls ‘relationship’ [think
"relational" in the broadest sense of communal
interrelationship] -- in both cases described as extremely crucial to our continued
development at this time -- I’m convinced that the best answer for ‘Pinocchio’
is to seek out others and build relationships, social networks on the basis of
what holds meaning and purpose and power and is most important to you, what most “starts your tractor” as my
dad used to say. In finding
what we hold most sacred in common with others and discussing them,
listening in a very special way so that we really take in not only the
words and feelings but something about the whole person into our hearts,
we free each other in speaking and listening to tap into that Something
MORE within, that which is most holy and most truly the “Self we all
are.” From this Self we
hear into speech and speak into manifestation something of our core
beings. We touch the
FIRE, we experience the heartening BLAZE, in the presence of each other when we
can be together in this special way. This
is not so much 'merely a discussion' as it is bearing witness,
privileging each other and ourselves with the spaciousness to be heard
into speech that which most moves us from within the sacred vessel of
our mutual trust and regard.
Nearly everyone has memories of moments when they have felt
really heard. The Thrill of
that, the joy, the YESSS!! is like nothing else.
We recognize in ourselves and in others that which is most truly
“I” in the eternal sense, the authenticity of one's
true being. We
kindle in each other this self-actualizing, fructifying state. We each require
'an other' to
bring about this selfing, as David Spangler calls it, although he does
not express it in quite this context. It's as if each brings out
this Self in the other.
Whatever we speak about comes alive, more fully incarnate, when heard in
this deeply experienced way by another/others. We together become
that vessel for holding and nurturing that of which we speak. My
feeling is, when we share our Experiences like this, through the mutual
Selfing, we compound their strength and staying capacity to Shift the
consciousness to express and live out of the MORE. An added note: I further
suspect when self esteem is increased through sharing in this special
way, so is the worth we give to our personal experiences, and vice versa.
A poem [or part of one, don't
know the name of it] by William Blake expresses something remarkably
like this. He writes,
|
Who
would decline a sacrifice
if
once hir*
soul had been accosted,
hir
virtue recognized
and
heshe was assured that
the
Watcher, the Holy One, followed hir
ever
with long, affectionate
glances
of inexhaustible love? |
In
the beautiful way mentioned above, we become for each other "the
Watcher, the Holy One." Whether listening or speaking, we
each spark this in the other who sparks it within us.
Between/among us we become present to the MORE that it means to be
human, the Self we all are.
And just so, we together discover the eternal FIRE that, if not already,
will come to live more and more actively within us, just as in those who have been
transformed into living out of that MORE that it means to be human as a
direct result of their EHEs. No
more puppet strings. Also
where our essential, unavoidable, most desirable individuation causes
strife, the balancing antidote is bearing witness to the sacred through
Relationship, Selfing, Presencing [another Spangler term], other ways of
articulating the essence of Steiner's "social way."
Through these two websites [this and another – see "Dear
Friends, Partners, Angels"] one of the exciting things that will be developed is
EHE Study
Groups. I believe it
will largely be out of this and similar environments / gathering places
that we will find our individual and group [think Global Movement!]
passion, meaning, purpose, FIRE that will heal us and heal our Earth.
We will learn to live more fully in the SELF that is all of us,
in the YESSS!!! together.
*I'm
going to make this one of very few exceptions to my rule that I will freely
use this gender-neutral language in my writing but will not when I quote
others.
