A New Spirituality!

I'm quoting from an email from Michael Eigen Ph.D., author of The Psychoanalytic Mystic. As I was having morning coffee and doing first of the day reading, it so struck me that I wanted to post it word for word. It's a source of inspiration from old masters in depth psychology and spirituality! 

This is the email:

Here is a quote from Emmanuel Levinas. Some of you might find it worthwhile.  I quote it in the chapter Guilt in Emotional Storm, which brings together work of Bion, Levinas and Wittgenstein.

It goes with passages of Bion on insoluble emotional problems. Perhaps akin to Buddha's attention to the problem of suffering. 

"...a new attitude…  the search for a proximity beyond the ideas exchanged, a 

proximity that lasts even after dialogue has become impossible. Beyond 

dialogue, a new maturity and earnestness, a new gravity and a new patience, and, if 

I may express it so, maturity and patience for insoluble problems...

    "Neither violence, nor guile, nor simple diplomacy, nor simple tact, nor 

pure tolerance, nor even simple sympathy, nor even simple friendship -  that 

attitude before insoluble problems, what can it be, and what can it contribute?

    "What can it be? The presence of persons before a problem. Attention and 

vigilance: not to sleep until the end of time, perhaps. The presence of 

persons who, for once, do not fade away into words, get lost in technical questions, 

freeze up into institutions or structures. The presence of persons in the 

full force of their irreplaceable identity, in the full force of their inevitable 

responsibility.  To recognize and name those insoluble substances and keep 

them from exploding in violence, guile, or politics, to keep watch where 

conflicts tend to break out, a new religiosity and solidarity – is loving one’s 

neighbor anything other than this? Not the facile, spontaneous elan,  but the 

difficult working on oneself: to go toward the Other where he is truly other, in 

the radical contradiction of their alterity, that place from which, for an 

insufficiently mature soul, hatred flows naturally or is deduced with infallible 

logic.  One must abstain from the convenience of ‘historical rights,’ ‘rights 

of enrootedness,’ ‘undeniable principles,’ and ‘the inalienable human 

condition.’ One must refuse to be caught up in the tangle of abstractions, whose 

principles are often evident, but whose dialectic, be it ever so rigorous, is 

murderous and criminal.  The presence of persons, proximity between persons: what 

will come of this new spirituality, that proximity without definite projects, 

that sort of vigilance without dialogue that, devoid of all definition, all 

thought, may resemble sleep?  To tell the truth, I don’t know. But before 

smiling at maturity for insoluble problems, a pathetic formula, actually, let us 

think, like one of my young students, of St. Exupery’s little prince, who asks 

the pilot stranded in the desert, who only knows how to draw a boa constricter 

digesting an elephant, to draw a sheep.  And I think what the little prince 

wants is that proverbial lamb who is as gentle as a lamb. But nothing could be 

more difficult. None of the sheep he draws pleases the little prince. They are 

either violent rams with big horns or too old. The little prince disdains the 

gentleness that only comes with extreme age.  So the pilot draws a 

parallelogram, the box in which the sheep is sleeping,  to the little prince’s great 

satisfaction.

"I do not know how to draw the solution to insoluble problems  It is still 

sleeping in the bottom of the box; but a box over which persons who have drawn 

close to each other keep watch. I have no idea other than the idea of the idea 

that one should have. The abstract drawing of the parallelogram – cradle of 

our hopes. I have the idea of a possibility in which the impossible may be 

sleeping."  

From Levinas, Alterity and Transcendence

Dreams, Gentle Whispers, and Peace of Mind!

It's one thing to talk about dreams, it's quite another to actually take them to heart and follow their inspiration. With a new book out, I've been listening to them; but, really taking them to heart has been a challenge. Outside voices from the book industry have said do this or do that. Dreams come and offer guidance in gentle whispers.

Gentle whispers from dreams mean that there is genuine inspiration coming our way. We don't have to have nightmares to get the message if we listen to the whispers. A couple of times I've gone back on what my dreams have whispered regarding my book. My soul has patiently waited as I then learned from what could have been avoided had I listened. It took energy from me to go through this, but I learned what I needed to learn. I also learned to listen and follow the gentle whispers of my dreams despite outward urging from others to do this or that, all contrary to the gentle whispers of dreams.

Peace of mind returns when we listen to the gentle whispers of dreams. We become realigned with Self. When the alignment with Self is interrupted then the mind is fractious, anxious. Alignment with Self, as happens when we listen to the gentle whispers of dreams, brings in peace of mind.

Well, I feel back on track with my writing and a new book making its way through the world. It's a good thing to move with and live with the peace of mind that comes from listening to the gentle whispers of dreams. Last night, as I dreamt, it was clear that innocence was being restored and my soul righted. Back on track, with a new and replenished sense of self making its way through the world, is a good thing and it comes with peace of mind.

Trauma--Shattered Mind, Soul Possessed!

Trauma shatters mind. You turn against yourself. The world feels hostile, frightening. "The Core of 'Mind and Cosmos' ", a recent New York Times article by Thomas Nagel (2013.08.18) makes the case for mind, what depth psychologists call soul, as intimate to nature. William James wrote of God as intimate soul. Intimate soul, intimate God, intimate Nature symbolize the reality of that which is immense and yet nearest and dearest. Nagel states that mind transcends empirical science, cannot be bound by objective facts. Soul is a subjective reality intimately affected by all aspects of life including trauma.

Trauma victims have told me, "I've lost it", "My mind's blown", "My soul is gone".  They go on to say, "I'm in shock", "My life is over", "I can't go on". Trauma reaches into intimate realms of soul. It shatters reality. Demon Dis of ancient myth flies in through psychic cracks generated by trauma. Dis sets disturbance into mind. Not dealt with, emotional pain can become demonic, the personality taken over by something described as "bigger than life." The soul becomes possessed.

People become their depression. They become their pain. They become their trauma. People become traumatic to be around. They are souls possessed.

Possession by a psychological complex, felt as an intense mood state that grabs hold and won't let go, can be personified and projected. An acquaintance shared, "I had a ghost or a spirit follow me when I was with my ex-husband. He was harmless but a prankster. He liked to turn the television on and off. Turn the lights in the house on and off. Play with the animals. Actually, I think he was with my ex-husband, because when my husband left so did the ghost."

A traumatic relationship that leads to divorce may have been the place of a haunting. A soul possessed, one troubled by demon Dis, can project that foul energy, sensitive souls picking up on it and personifying it as a ghost...a seeing into relational and intrapsychic realities in a spiritual manner. Whatever the cause, trauma can shatter minds and relationships, leaving behind energies that need to be dealt with, eventually expelled or exorcised via human caring and understanding that leads to growthful change. Souls possessed can come from traumas buried...best to unearth what needs attention, face the ghosts or face the haunting!

Trauma, Demon Dis, and the Soul!

Hot off the press, Trauma and the Soul, by my friend and colleague, Donald Kalsched, Ph.D., delves into trauma, the soul, and the demon Dis. I think I'm going to contemplate this area for a while on this blog. In particular, today, I am drawn to the body as container of repressed pain and trauma. Kalsched explores the myth of the god Dis, the penultimate demon of negation, the one who divides body from soul during trauma.

People who have been scathed by emotional, spiritual, physical, sexual trauma encounter Dis, sometimes in the form of bodily symptoms that mainstream medicine can't diagnosis or effectively treat. I've found that at times, there are reasons in a person's background, perhaps dating to childhood, for chronic body pain and various ailments. The dark archetypal energy of Dis separates us from psychic pain so that we  can survive. Dis distances us from what is unbearable, too much to admit to consciousness.

Dis can also refuse us access to the emotions of anger and fear so necessary in the working through of trauma. Dis is the inner persecutor who blames us for our sufferings. So often I've heard patients say, "But, it was my fault. If only I hadn't been that way then it wouldn't have happened." This attitude of self blame represses true emotion of outrage to an inner hell place that then threatens us with ongoing misery since it is never worked through.

Dante, in the Inferno, describes Dis as the vilest monster at the center of Hell. Psychologically, he is one who generates dissociation, disintegration.  He shoots us full of the chronic sense that everything, including our very sense of self , is coming apart at the seams. Dis disintegrates, dissociates, disempowers, disconnects, propagates disharmony and disease.

However, Dis can also inspire a displacing of Dis. Plainly put, it's miserable to keep trauma locked up and hidden. Doing so makes life a living hell. Consciousness, motivated by a healthy desire for mental and physical relief, and a willing moving into true feeling that has been denied or repressed, potentiates healing. The ongoing narrative that emerges in the living of misery and chronic body pain, the psychic story of Dis within the context of experienced trauma and the soul, echoes the adage that when the mind is in pain the body cries out.

Soul Care and a Happy Mind!

Soul care yields a happy mind. After over thirty years of professional practice in depth psychology and over forty years of personal dream tending, I've come to the conclusion that caring for the soul takes us into a strange realm of contentment and well being. Happiness of this sort is not common. Soul care requires patient and tender devotion to the psyche. As we cultivate such devotion through sensitivity to self and others and by consistent dream tending, there comes a gentle but definite knowing that all is well.

I've heard colleagues and acquaintances argue about happiness, some saying it's superficial or irrelevant. Their fierce manner and twisted expression betrayed an underlying frustration. Often, in hushed tones, they'd complain about disturbed sleep, chronic conflicts, and a host of physical ailments.One psychoanalyst recently commented, "Well, after all, Freud did consign us to everyday misery being about the best we can hope for." I knew he had missed out on a vital facet of life experience, evidently unknown to Freud....happiness.  Happiness, when denied and thus never integrated, turns south and morphs into legions of suffering.

Patients who heal and learn to tend soul gradually, sometimes incrementally, experience consistent happiness. The archetype of happiness reveals herself in dreams as a flush of oneness with self and the world. My own Native American influenced cosmogony (my grandmother Pueblo Indian and medicine woman) looks at unnecessary pain and disease, to include unhappiness, as resulting from a disruption in harmonious cosmic patterns involving gods and spirits, people and animals, the archetype of nature herself.

Tending the soul by asking what caused imbalance, what disrupted natural life harmony, may yield corrective insight so that we return to a harmonious cooperation with nature and life that brings soulful well being and happiness.

Drug Cocktails, Brain, and Soul!

New York Times Sunday Dialogue article (May 26, 2013)  about medication and psychotherapy struck a few soul chords. Medication works for as long as its taken. There is no doubt that it can prove necessary and helpful when treating severe and chronic mental pain. However, drug cocktails don't fix soul misery and the need for meaning and wholeness. Seasoned therapists know when to use drugs, when to refrain, and about the need to guide the sufferer along deeper and darker paths of soul to find authentic and long lasting healing.

To go for mere brain change confuses fixing the outside and then thinking this changes the inside. A deep soul  shared her experience: "I needed the medication so I could stabilize, but then my dream said the pills had done what they could do. I had a new hairdo that was sprayed hard with hairspray. Tiny flies and mosquitoes flew around and in and through the pretty looking hairdo. It looked good but was loaded with tiny bugs. I felt good because I wasn't feeling the craziness that was inside me.  Drugs helped me to stabilize. Then, I needed to wean off the drugs and get down to soul work."

Some folks, of course, need to stay on medication due to the severity of their problems. Soul work can be done while on medication as long as the drugs don't deaden human feeling. This happens when a person is over medicated. All in all, we can say that drug cocktails alter the brain, depth therapy alters the brain, but only soul work heals the human psyche.

Good Enough Mothers, Magic Makers, and the Invisible Realm!

On this Mother's Day 2013 I thought up a little post about mother's, will, and the invisible realm. In the womb of the mother life is nourished. In the womb of mother, womb of life, the realm invisible to the eye, life starts, is nourished, and one day departs into the visible world. Psychic potential depends on will. Will takes us to the door of potential, states William James, father of American depth psychology, but forces from the invisible realm are what usher us in. No amount of strain, pushing, forcing, or ego coercing brings results without forces from the invisible realm of the deep unconscious mind, the spiritual world, coming to create what once did not exist.

Mothers, good mothers, those who aren't and don't need to be perfect, can be all right with being good enough, in the words of depth psychologist David Winnicott. Good enough mothers are light bearers of all that is right in the world. They are there not only when they have to be but when they don't, just because they want to and care to. Such a wondrous being told me, "When I look at my children I know they are their own little selves. They are life filled, and my work is to nourish the unique life in each of them and try not to get in the way." That statement made such an impression on me since it came from a deeply spiritual and practical woman. She went on to say that her everyday spirituality very much was about caring for her children, her marriage, and herself---to the best of her ability, not perfectly, simply good enough. That's a magic maker mother!

Now, to get back to William James and the invisible realm, it seems to me that mother's are indeed magic makers. They step forward, by an act of will, whether conscious or not, to the door of motherhood. They are there not only when they have to be but when they don't, just because they want to and care to. I believe that the mother's spiritual energies then come to move forward with that which has been requested. One mother, a dream sensitive soul, said, "I dream about my children. My dreams help me with what's needed when. And, they also help me to know my limits." She knew that being a good mother doesn't require perfection, just the will to be good enough. Invisible forces, spiritual energies, come to aid via instincts, dreams, deep feeling and love in being about the business of good enough motherhood--true makers of magic in the world because they are there not only when they have to be but when they don't, just because they want to and care to.

Good enough mothers are magic makers of everyday life!