Discerning the state of longing

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Astrd Berg

I’ve recently returned from a short visit to The Nether­lands (Hol­land), where I was born and lived dur­ing dif­fer­ent peri­ods of my life. I often have heimwee (home­sick­ness) for Hol­land, filled with feel­ings of long­ing and nos­tal­gia, which some­times leads to sadness.

These feel­ings were pro­nounced dur­ing this last visit. I tried not to judge my sad­ness and, instead, focus on remain­ing present with my expe­ri­ence. In that process of being present to cur­rent thoughts, sen­sa­tions and emo­tions, I saw that attached to these were mem­o­ries and pro­jec­tions (or men­tal for­ma­tions) of a Hol­land in dif­fer­ent parts of my past. So which Hol­land was I ‘in”, the present or the past? I vacillated.

Upon return­ing, clear images of my recent visit arose,  which brought on sad­ness and long­ing. By remain­ing with those images, I saw that the sad­ness came out of habit. Under­neath was the joy of the more recent expe­ri­ence, with­out cling­ing and sad­ness. I felt grate­ful. And while images arose, I could enjoy and relive like when look­ing at pho­tos of your vaca­tion, a fam­ily gath­er­ing or celebration.

So now back in Cal­i­for­nia, I am able to wit­ness with com­pas­sion the part that is home­sick and real­ize that I long for some­thing that is not nec­es­sar­ily out­side of myself. The long­ing emerges in images with emo­tions reflect­ing past events in mem­ory. Those mem­o­ries are now part of me. Let me explain. In my long­ing, I project the feeling/memory/image to the par­tic­u­lar cir­cum­stance, per­son, place that was cre­ated through expe­ri­ence and my inter­pre­ta­tion of that expe­ri­ence. But now it is part of who I am as it is my expe­ri­ence. When I can let go of long­ing for the spe­cific and can enjoy that part of me, I have expanded my consciousness.

Another exam­ple is lis­ten­ing to music. When I can sim­ply be present when lis­ten­ing to music, there is only the sen­sa­tion of hear­ing music, which may rever­ber­ate in bod­ily sen­sa­tions of move­ment. Then there are the times I get quite nos­tal­gic while lis­ten­ing to the music of my youth, which wells up that long­ing for those peo­ple, places and exper­inces of that time. The music has become more than itself and is filled with emo­tional con­tent and rep­re­sen­ta­tions. Some­times when able dis­cern these mental/emotional for­ma­tions, I, once again, just hear and enjoy the music in the moment.

While per­haps obvi­ous, I find that these small aware­ness can offer impor­tant shifts.

 

Posted in Compassion, consciousness, discernment, grief, Presence | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

A Letter to Eric Clapton

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Astrd Berg

Dear Eric,

I recently lis­tened to your auto­bi­og­ra­phy on a long dis­tance flight from Europe to the USA. Since you most likely will never receive a let­ter or email from me, I decided instead to post on my blog my reac­tion to your book.

Although I was famil­iar with Cream and Blind Faith, it was the album Layla by Der­ick and the Domi­noes, intro­duced to me by a high school class­mate, that caught me and which I still play when I want to hear bluesy music. Much of the music from that period in my life still holds a place in my heart. I also really enjoy the Eric Clap­ton Unplugged CD and remem­ber exactly when I first heard that acoustic ver­sion of ‘Layla’.  ‘Lonely Stranger’ speaks to me in a way I can­not explain, per­haps due to its four-ish  nature. I’m not sure if you are famil­iar with the ennea­gram. I’m guess­ing you are a four.

The flight was not long enough to hear your entire book, so I got it and fin­ished read­ing in almost one sit­ting, sav­ing the last chap­ter to savor for a Sun­day morn­ing. I was quite moved by your trans­parency and hon­esty. I’m famil­iar with 12-step pro­grams, hav­ing been intro­duced to them in my early adult­hood through some­one close to me. I also worked as a coun­selor with alco­holics and addicts, which, while brief, was very reward­ing because of the grat­i­tude of many of those I met in treat­ment. The artis­tic sen­si­tiv­ity, roman­ti­cism and purism in your music and descrip­tion of your life are akin to my expe­ri­ences with many of these indi­vid­u­als strug­gling to find themselves.

The process of sur­ren­der­ing was what struck me, even in those early years, as key to spir­i­tual growth. For me, sur­ren­der is fol­lowed by humil­ity and grat­i­tude. I’d like to remain in that state of humility/gratitude/grace, but before I know it, I’m back in ego.

I am writ­ing to thank your for telling your story. I was par­tic­u­larly moved with the part when you were ter­ri­fied and in com­plete despair. For the read­ers, I will quote:

At that moment, almost of their own accord, my legs gave way and I fell to my knees. In the pri­vacy of my room I begged for help. I had no notion who I thought I was talk­ing to, I just knew that I had come to the end of my tether.… Then I remem­bered what I heard about sur­ren­der, some­thing I thought I could never do, my pride just wouldn’t allow it, but I knew that on my own I wasn’t going to make it, so I asked for help, and get­ting down on my knees, I sur­ren­dered. (p. 235)

You then go on to say, “From that day until this, I have never failed to pray in the morn­ing, on my knees, ask­ing for help, and at night, to express grat­i­tude….” (p. 35)  I do my own ver­sion of prayer and sur­ren­der, and your words above have inspired me to take up the prac­tice each morn­ing and evening—not just when I’m desperate.

For me, music lives in my soul. No other art form and almost noth­ing else moves me as much. I will end for the read­ers with your words: “Music sur­vives every­thing, and like God, it is always present.” (p.328)

I am glad to read that you have found faith, love and joy in your life. Thank you for your music and your inspiration.

Many Bless­ings,

Astrid

Clap­ton, Eric (2007). Clap­ton: The Auto­bi­og­ra­phy. New York: Broad­way Books.

www.ericclapton.com

 

Posted in ego, Grace, humility, surrender | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Teresa of Avila & Individuation

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Astrd Berg

Teresa of Avila, a 16th cen­turty Carmelite nun, uses the imagery of an inte­rior cas­tle to rep­re­sent the path of find­ing the divine within. On a psy­cho­log­i­cal level, this path can be likened to the process of indi­vid­u­a­tion. Teresa’s first three man­sions of the seven man­sions par­al­lel Jung’s first phase of individuation—outer-oriented— while the last three man­sions are akin to Jung’s sec­ond phase–more recep­tive and inter­nal. The fourth man­sion is the place of tran­si­tion between the first and sec­ond phases. In the first phase, we develop the per­sona, or the image we become as we find bal­ance between the col­lec­tive con­scious­ness or fam­ily and soci­etal needs and ideals with our own needs and ideals. In the sec­ond phase, we shed this outer form and slowly uncover our essence. In the first phase, our expe­ri­ences are dressed up (Bud­dhist con­cept) or con­cep­tu­al­ized to become a real­ity as we think it to be, but not as it is. Real­ity is blinded through our con­cep­tu­al­iza­tion of our expe­ri­ence and through our per­cep­tions of our expe­ri­ences. The inner jour­ney of the sec­ond phase of indi­vid­u­a­tion is a way to undress these con­cep­tu­al­ized experiences.

First, Sec­ond and Third Mansions

In the First Man­sion, we remain quite active in the out­side world while devel­op­ing the per­sona, which is occu­pied with worldly things. In the Sec­ond Man­sion we are fully com­mit­ted to prac­tice. We feel an inner call­ing from an indi­rect source, and because it is oblique, we are doubt­ful. Yet the call­ing is per­sis­tent. As the uncon­scious begins to emerge into con­scious­ness, the ego loses hold and the bat­tle between the ego and the emerg­ing self is activated.

Ten­sion between inner and outer, or ego and emerg­ing self, increases in the Third Man­sion. The effect of spir­i­tual prac­tice strength­ens ego-consciousness, and being one with a spir­i­tual prac­tice becomes part of the per­sona. The cur­rent self-image cre­ates a new van­ity. That, com­piled with our need to make progress, may dis­tract us from the path. At the same time, we begin to rec­og­nize and own our pro­jec­tions as we come to real­ize our shadow sides. See­ing these ‘neg­a­tive’ aspects in our­selves can pro­mote worry and dis­cour­age­ment about our progress because we seek per­fec­tion. Teresa’s sug­gests humil­ity  as a pre­scrip­tion for these con­cerns. For me, this has always been key, as each time I come back to humil­ity by way of sur­ren­der, I become aware of my deeper gifts and how to aid oth­ers by employ­ing these gifts.

Spir­i­tual Pil­grims: Carl Jung and Tersa of Avila by John Welch

Teresa of Avila: Inte­rior Castle

 

 

Posted in authenticity, Buddhist, consciousness, discernment, ego, humility, individuation, Intention, Jung, persona, will | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Grace

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Astrd Berg

Grace sim­ply comes when it does. This is fine when in grace. But those dif­fi­cult times when prac­tice is reg­u­lar and faith­ful and when hav­ing a hard time, I may secretly wish for some grace. It’s only human, no? I under­stand that grace does not come from will and dili­gence, or even from good spir­i­tual prac­tice. But that doesn’t stop me from using my will.

Dur­ing times in need of grace, I some­times read inspi­ra­tional mate­r­ial. One of these books is Falling Into the Arms of God by Megan Don, who inter­prets the work of 16th cen­tury mys­tic Teresa of Avila for every­day prac­tice. Hav­ing read the book sev­eral times, I now pick ran­dom pages to read. Recently I chose “Purifi­ca­tion” and “Will­ing Your Way”. The chap­ter on purifi­ca­tion answered my ques­tion regard­ing the arid­ness of my cur­rent prac­tice. My inner critic focuses on mistakes,failures and on being or doing it wrong. Megan Don, instead, points out that while we may already have gone through stages of ego purification—or what I call becom­ing aware of and inte­grat­ing the shadow—cycles of purifi­ca­tion con­tinue through­out our lives each time reach­ing deeper into our psy­ches. The things we thought we already dealt with emerge again and again. At these times, we often feel that we are sim­ply rehash­ing old stuff and per­haps not being spir­i­tual enough. How­ever, we are actu­ally doing deep impor­tant work. She con­tin­ues, “ We have weath­ered the smaller tri­als of purifi­ca­tion and tasted the joy of sur­ren­der, but we are now being called to endure the cleans­ing of the greater depths of our soul.” (p. 177) Remem­ber­ing our prior expe­ri­ences of joy can be help­ful or a hin­drance. In the remem­ber­ing, the ego longs for the joy­ful or bliss­ful state of con­nec­tion and strives for a con­tin­u­ing of that feeling-state for­get­ting that it comes when we sur­ren­der “with the absence of spir­i­tual solace.” (p. 177)

It’s the will of the ego that cur­tails the process of sur­ren­der­ing. The will, while use­ful, can also be stub­born and one-sided. It wants what it wants and can become rigid. When we expand to some­thing greater, we receive a gift Megan Don says, “ (by) detach(ing) from the old way of doing with our smaller (or ego­tis­tic) will and to mov(ing) into the new­ness of being with our larger (or divine) will.” (p. 101)

I under­stand that love is the path, as when we feel love or lov­ing. I, how­ever, for­get that we are con­nected through love to other, whether of nature, human or divine. I then become occu­pied with plans and effort to recon­nect. The more the effort comes from will and self-absorption, the fur­ther I slip away. The way back is through sur­ren­der, humil­ity and love.

Posted in Grace, humility, Love, Meditation, psyche, will | Tagged | Leave a comment

The Cotswolds ~ Getting Lost

Posted on April 10, 2012 by Astrd Berg

The plan was to have lunch in Broad­way Vil­lage and then head to Chip­pen Cam­den where my B&B  host­ess, Gen’e intends to pick me up at 7 PM. But I have lin­gered too much, got­ten lost a bit too often and may not make it. I enter the Broad­way Vil­lage lined with cot­tages, each with its unique gar­den filled with hol­ly­hocks, laven­der, climb­ing roses, lilacs and prim­roses. I can’t help but stop to admire gar­dens, ornate doors and gin­ger­bread houses. I need to move in order to get to Chip­ping Cam­p­den, yet I stop to take pho­tographs and rel­ish. My doing and being voices are in battle.Hollyhocks

Hun­gry, thirsty and sore, I slowly plod into the vil­lage cen­ter in search of a quaint teashop or restau­rant for a cream tea (tea, scones with clot­ted cream), but end up choos­ing some­thing more whole­some con­sid­er­ing the jour­ney ahead. Want­ing to try the local food, I order kid­ney pie. Silly me. Kid­ney pie is not made from kid­ney beans; it’s made of kid­ney, the organ. I try it and nearly gag. I try again, hop­ing it will grow on me. I eat around the chewy kid­ney pieces, but just can­not avoid the strong fla­vor. My good inten­tions must be thrown out with the kid­ney pie.

I check the map and cal­cu­late that I can just make it into Chip­ping Cam­p­den, if I don’t get lost and refrain from tak­ing pic­tures. On the way out of town, I meet a group of walk­ers and ask how long it will take. They advise me of the steep climb head­ing out of Broad­way. I con­vince myself I will only be a lit­tle bit late if I pick up the pace and do not linger. This becomes the mantra as I climb the steep hill. I then won­der: Is this even steeper than Bea­con Hill, or is it that I am tired and worn out? And con­tinue to worry: Should I make the call now and give her ample warn­ing, or can I still make it? I do so want to make it. Just a bit more and you’ll reach the top. Then you can fig­ure out what is next. One step at a time.

Sign confusionI’m there. I take off my pack. I sit on the wood stump. I down the last of my water. I look at the view back down towards Broad­way. The sky has turned gray. That wasn’t so bad. Ha! Eager to make my way, I take out the map. I’m at a fork with roads head­ing in three direc­tions and a fourth path into the woods. No mat­ter how I look at the map, none of the actual direc­tions match the one towards Chip­ping Cam­p­den. There are no signs match­ing direc­tions of places indi­cated on the map. Where am I? I know I went up the right hill because I asked and the signs did indi­cate so. Why is there no arrow point­ing to the next path? It begins to sprin­kle and I put on my slicker. The line is busy. I choose a direc­tion to walk. I stop to look at the map tak­ing out my read­ing glasses, as it is dark from the cloud cover. This can’t be right. I head back. I look at my watch. It is 60 min­utes until my appointed meet­ing time. What do I do? I can­not even tell them where I am, because I am not sure where that is. I stop to call again. As I turn on the phone, a text mes­sage tells me I have 3 euros left on my mobile. This is an inter­na­tional call, so 3 euros may only be a few of min­utes. In order to be expe­di­ent, I rehearse what I will say. I call and reach Barry, Gen’e’s hus­band. Embar­rassed, I explain my sit­u­a­tion— that I am lost and where I think I am accord­ing to the map. And then we are cut off. Oh no! Now what? I call again. I start explain­ing all over and ask him to call me back because my min­utes are low. Con­fu­sion. I say I will fol­low the path to a pic­nic area to which I believe the foot­path leads. Can Gen’e pick me up there? And then I am cut off. The phone has no more minutes.

Through the treesI take the foot­path through the woods fol­low­ing the signs to the pic­nic area. I often feel calm and nour­ished in the com­pany of trees. At this time I am also pro­tected from the rain. I am dis­ap­pointed that I will not make it to my des­ti­na­tion. I’ve fooled myself about being in the moment, as I am still so very goal and accom­plish­ment ori­ented. I hope Barry was able to for­ward the mes­sage. I hope that Gen’e will not mind dri­ving here to pick me up. I don’t want to incon­ve­nience these hos­pitable peo­ple. How fool­ish they must find this Amer­i­can tourist who wants to walk, but can’t fol­low a map. My thoughts con­tinue like this for a while, even­tu­ally lulled by the walk­ing rhythm and held by the woods. It does not mat­ter. I can go to Chip­ping Cam­p­den tomor­row. And Gen’e is a kind and gra­cious woman. Be still.

The wooded path twists and turns yet does end up head­ing in the direc­tion of the pic­nic area. Phew! I relax and hope for another Green Man encounter. I then hear the sound of cars and the woods open to a clear­ing near a major cross­roads. If Gen’e doesn’t come, I can always fol­low the signs or pos­si­bly hitch hike. Only min­utes after arriv­ing at the pic­nic area, Gen’e pulls up with a big smile on her face. And of course she is con­cerned rather than incon­ve­nienced. Embar­rassed and grate­ful, I tell her my story.

When we arrive at Brymbo, I take a lux­u­ri­ous, hot bub­ble bath, enjoy a light sup­per, and study the maps for tomorrow’s jour­ney to Chip­pen Campden.

On sub­se­quent days, I con­tinue to expe­ri­ence the small demands of the jour­ney merely reflect­ing my own inner chal­lenges. Exer­tion, heat, thirst, hunger and know­ing where I am going are the chal­lenges of the moment that play with my inner demons. At the same time, there is the dis­cov­ery of a tiny wild flower, the field of purple-blue cab­bages, the noisy bird­song in pass­ing a tree, the vel­vet soft­ness of the wheat and bar­ley fields, the con­trast of blue sky and white cloud, the dead quiet in the church yard, the sound of a jet over­head, the friendly flower boxes lin­ing a win­dowsill and the busy move­ment of bees. I walk with lots of chat­ter and anx­i­ety. I stop often to take pic­tures. This is not a power walk to increase my heart rate; it is a saunter.

I am reminded of a pas­sage I read in The Spell of the Sen­su­ous by David Abram about his jeep ride in the out­back of Aus­tralia. An abo­rig­i­nal rid­ing in the jeep is talk­ing very fast. The west­ern trav­eler is puz­zled as to why the man is mum­bling so quickly. As the jeep slows down from 40 mph to the pace of an adult walk­ing, the aboriginal’s gib­ber­ish turns to dis­cernible sto­ries about the moun­tain in the dis­tance, the well behind the large tree and the crea­tures mov­ing across the land. This is walk­ing with pres­ence and reverence.

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Cotswolds ~ Green Man & Broadway Tower

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Astrd Berg

At 10:30 Gen’e, the B& B host­ess, drops me off at the Vil­lage of Snow­shill to begin my jour­ney up hill to Broad­way Tower. We pass the laven­der fields en route. Famous and unknown archi­tects, design­ers and masons have built homes, churches, cas­tles and other build­ings in these lime­stone vil­lages.  In the sun­light, the cot­tages of Snow­shill glow a honey-cream hue. As I dream­ily look about, I catch a glimpse of how it may have been:  I see women with bas­kets enter­ing and exit­ing shops. I hear the clip clop of horse hooves. I smell peat fires and ale as I pass what may have once been a local pub. I pro­ceed to pho­to­graph the cot­tages and stone walls, the antique win­dows and doors, and the Vic­to­rian church and grave­yard of St. Barn­abas. I then head, with map in hand, down the road towards the woods at the bot­tom of Bea­con Hill.

Green Man

I once dreamed about a large man with branches grow­ing out of his head. It wasn’t until a cou­ple of years later, while brows­ing the book­shelf of a friend,  that I saw  an image akin to the fig­ure in my dream. As I flipped through its glossy pages I saw image after image of him.  I under­stand that the Green Man is a male ver­sion of Mother Nature and is found in carv­ings out­side of churches as a sem­blance left of the pagan era, yet he remained a mystery. Other than the dream, my expe­ri­ence with the Green Man is mostly an abstract under­stand­ing of a con­scious­ness that existed in other times.

On route to Broad­way Tower, I enter my first set of woods. I have walked long enough to empty my mind of the imme­di­ate chat­ter and fall into a rhythm of my steps. I breathe and appre­ci­ate the cool green sur­round­ings. I sub­tly enter dream­time and the for­est becomes more alive. In the shad­ows of the ferns, behind the trees and in the branches I see –or do I?—the move­ment of  an invis­i­ble for­est dweller. The del­i­cate light green ferns sway in uni­son coax­ing me on. The stately trees make their pres­ence known. The silence between the bird­song car­ries a tune of its own. Almost as soon as this aware­ness reg­is­ters my ratio­nal mind, this keen per­cep­tion fades, yet not in time to be missed altogether.

Now in my mod­ern, ratio­nal con­scious­ness, I slightly under­stand from expe­ri­ence how inten­tion, aware­ness and envi­ron­ment com­min­gle to cre­ate par­tic­u­lar brands of con­scious­ness. I under­stand that magic, fairies and green men do not exist in my wak­ing life because there is no place for them in my car dri­ving, city dwelling, fast pace lifestyle. For this brief moment Green Man con­scious­ness comes to the fore­front dur­ing my hike up to Broad­way Tower.

Broad­way Tower

At the end of the woods where I have a Green Man close encounter, I make a left turn into a pas­ture with sheep. I cross a few pas­tures seek­ing stiles or foot­path signs and slowly tra­verse up the 1000-foot hill into Broad­way Tower Park. I use the tower, which sits at the sum­mit of Bea­con Hill, as my guide. I pass a tree with a hole in its trunk that most def­i­nitely leads to Alice’s won­der­land. I am now more relaxed in my encoun­ters with the sheep that live here. I arrive at the top of the hill heated and thirsty.

The neo-Gothic castle-like build­ing has two tur­rets and is adorned by gar­goyles, bal­conies and var­i­ous shaped win­dows. The tower was a hide-away for the Earl of Coven­try and his mis­tress. My imag­i­na­tion goes to the fairy tale of Rapun­zel let­ting down her hair from a sim­i­lar tower. Later I read that Broad­way Tower was thought to be one of many bea­con sites in which fires were lit for com­mu­ni­ca­tion in times of danger.

From the hill itself is a spec­tac­u­lar and exten­sive view of the vil­lages and farms below. I was told that on a clear day one could see a quar­ter of the coun­ties in Wales and Eng­land. I sit for a moment on its edge and appre­ci­ate the wide view of this rich, green land. As my feel­ing of accom­plish­ment eases into the expan­sive­ness, I am lost and still. Here, now, time has stopped. I am the maiden in the tower. I am the horse­man look­ing out for his kins­men. I am the hawk fly­ing over­head. I am the farmer plow­ing wheat fields below. I am the sheep nib­bling grasses. I am the wood ever present.

In a moment aware­ness shifts as I seek the vil­lage of Broad­way, my next stop, and in the other direc­tion, Chip­ping Cam­p­den where I intend to have din­ner. Then head­ing for Broad­way, I retrace some of the path back through the sheep pas­tures down the hill. I can­not find a worn trail head­ing north. I open and close gates, not like the stiles I have seen up until now. I may be in areas not intended for hik­ers. I don’t see any “No Tres­pass­ing” signs typ­i­cal of my own coun­try, nor do I see any 3-inch national foot­path signs. I ques­tion as well as con­vince myself that this is the way. I con­tinue to explore alter­nate routes to no avail. While I don’t want to admit it, I know I must head back and begin again. I breathe into my impa­tience as I hike up the hill. Halfway there, I see peo­ple head­ing to the tower from the direc­tion I did not take. I catch them so I can ask from where they came. Oh good, Broad­way. They describe how the path par­al­lels the high­way, then into woods that opens to a meadow. I find their route on the map. Now I see.

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | Leave a comment

Embodiment Method for Working With Dreams

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Astrd Berg

In a pre­vi­ous blog, I referred to an embod­ied method for work­ing with dreams. Embod­i­ment is a type of dream­work in which dream image affects are anchored in the body to be expe­ri­enced simul­ta­ne­ously. Embod­i­ment is not another method for inter­pret­ing dreams. Instead, one works with the dreamer in a dual consciousness—the hypno­gogic state (as when falling asleep) and the wak­ing state. In the Nether­lands, I attended embod­i­ment train­ing with Robert Bosnak and have had sev­eral ses­sions of this type of dream­work with a Dutch prac­ti­tioner, Ivon Voss. In his book, Embod­i­ment: Cre­ative Imag­i­na­tion in Med­i­cine, Art and Travel, Bosnak inte­grates ideas from psy­chol­ogy, alchemy, shaman­ism, mys­ti­cism, physics and brain research as a means to the­o­ret­i­cally expli­cate this method.

Since most of Bosnak’s exam­ples of this work take place in a group, I will describe the method as such. Before the work begins, it is deter­mined which facil­i­ta­tor will take the lead­ing role. As a means to become aware of one’s body and emo­tional state before the dream is told, every­one scans their own moods and body states. The dreamer then nar­rates his or her dream in present tense twice for clar­ity. The facil­i­ta­tors ask con­text ques­tions about how dream con­tent relates to the dreamer’s day-to-day liv­ing. Tak­ing from the most sig­nif­i­cantly strik­ing or appar­ently charged images, the lead facil­i­ta­tor will dis­cuss with other group mem­bers which scenes in the dream will be revis­ited and ampli­fied. The num­ber of these to be anchored in the body depends on length and detail of the dream, but the aver­age is between five and seven. The process nor­mally goes in the order it was told by the dreamer unless the dream has many chal­leng­ing aspects. In those instances, work will begin with the most pos­i­tive or safe dream image as a means to min­i­mize fear.

To begin, the dreamer is asked to enter a place in the dream envi­ron­ment. This process of re-experiencing the dream is slowed down to frame-by-frame. Coached by the facilitator(s), the dreamer enters a hypno­gogic state in which the dreamer’s aware­ness is brought to the details of the image envi­ron­ment, affec­tive states and phys­i­cal sen­sa­tions. The dreamer is in dual consciousness—in wak­ing con­scious­ness nar­rat­ing his or her expe­ri­ence to the group while expe­ri­enc­ing the dream envi­ron­ment. At a point when the dreamer is fully expe­ri­enc­ing the affect, he or she is asked where it is felt in the body. After sev­eral moments of fully embody­ing the affec­tive states and phys­i­cal sen­sa­tions anchored in the body, the dreamer is guided towards another dream image or expe­ri­ence. This process con­tin­ues until the most sig­nif­i­cant dream images are anchored in the body. Adopt­ing the words pre­vi­ously used to describe the image-sensation-affects felt in the body, the dreamer is guided through each anchor point. This is repeated two or more times as the dreamer is intended to feel all anchors at once to be con­stel­lated alto­gether. This method detours from Jung’s monothe­is­tic com­pen­satory nature of the uncon­scious towards Hillman’s poly­the­ism in which dream images are not con­stel­lated by a sin­gle cen­ter around the Self, but by many images.

Why expe­ri­ence so many states at once? Bosnak uses com­plex­ity the­ory to explain the process of anchor­ing dream images in the body. Ecosys­tems, like the human body, have a ten­dency to self orga­nize by keep­ing a bal­ance between chaos and order. “When a sys­tem bal­anced between order and chaos has become too com­plex to remain in its cur­rent state, a tip­ping point occurs, at which instant, like an avalanche, a qual­i­ta­tively dif­fer­ent state merges from the prior overly com­plex net­work states” (p. 33). The hold­ing of body-states simul­ta­ne­ously in aware­ness as many images con­verge in the body leads “to a reor­ga­ni­za­tion of con­flict­ing ele­ments into a more com­plex pat­tern cre­at­ing a more elas­tic medium” (p. 16). Whether or not this sub­tle body shift is felt in the moment, it is to play out in day-to-day life.

Bosnak. Robert. (2007). Embod­i­ment: Cre­ative Imag­i­na­tion in Med­i­cine, Art and Travel. Lon­don and New York, Routledge.

 

 

Posted in consciousness, dream work, states of consciousness, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Discernment and Fear

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Astrd Berg

Last week I ended the blog with the ques­tion: how do we keep the bal­ance between wit­ness­ing and allow­ing neg­a­tive, imagery, feel­ing and sen­sa­tions to emerge with­out hav­ing the lat­ter take over?

In Bud­dhist med­i­ta­tion, one learns to wit­ness pos­i­tive or neg­a­tive thoughts, feel­ings or sen­sa­tions by observ­ing or nam­ing and not iden­ti­fy­ing with those thoughts, feel­ings or sen­sa­tions. These thoughts, feel­ings and sen­sa­tions are sim­ply move­ments of the dis­cur­sive mind. My expe­ri­ence is that this prac­tice is trick­ier than it sounds. Because I know I’m not sup­pose to iden­tify with, for instance, a neg­a­tive thought or feel­ing, I may think I am not iden­ti­fy­ing because I’d like to think I’m a good med­i­ta­tor, when I’m actu­ally react­ing with aver­sion, fear or the like.

Hence, I must dis­cern with a finer toothed comb by expe­ri­enc­ing the fear more deeply. In doing so, I may go in and out of iden­ti­fy­ing with it. This also can be tricky, because I may see the fear just for what it is, or become swal­lowed by it. When I’m in a place of peace and some­thing fear­ful emerges, I can see the fear reac­tion to the con­tent before I am caught in it. How­ever, when, for instance, too lonely or tired, I may believe the ‘neg­a­tive’ con­tent as truth and find that a more ‘pos­i­tive’ atti­tude is sim­ply rose col­ored or unre­al­is­tic. I then believe I’m being real­is­tic by inter­pret­ing my fear as a warning. So in a span of a cou­ple of days I can have had polar end expe­ri­ences on an issue and hav­ing felt both ends as real.

With many psy­cho­log­i­cal, like Jun­gian, inner work meth­ods, you then hold the poles to see what third emerges. Or you can use some­thing like Robert Bosnak’s embod­i­ment dream work method in which you anchor not just two poles, but embody many feelings/sensations/imageries— in this case from the dream—  and hold or anchor them all at once. I’ll repub­lish the review I did of his book in a sub­se­quent blog.

In con­clu­sion, each time I come to the end the process of going deeper into the (in this case) fear, I believe I truly under­stand. And then the process comes around once again. I guess that’s why they call it prac­tice. And with prac­tice, the part that is doing the wit­ness­ing devel­ops into a stronger presence.

Posted in consciousness, discernment, dream work, fear, Meditation | Leave a comment

Awareness Practice in Hypnogogic State

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Astrd Berg

About 15 years ago I unin­ten­tion­ally devel­oped a method to work with my dreams done imme­di­ately upon wak­ing. When com­ing to con­scious­ness after a dream, I’d keep myself from fully wak­ing by slowly reen­ter­ing the dream. This is not a reen­try method of going back to sleep to con­tinue the dream, but review­ing the imagery and feel­ings in a slightly altered state of con­scious­ness close to the dream state. Jun­gian ana­lyst and dream worker Robert Bosnak  uses a sim­i­lar method in which the indi­vid­ual is in dual consciousness—the hypno­gogic state and the wak­ing state—while work­ing on a dream. While we often want to under­stand and find mean­ing to our dreams, I find that engag­ing this type of process on a reg­u­lar basis brings forth a deep inner know­ing. By acknowl­edg­ing the dream states with­out inter­pret­ing from the wak­ing ego’s per­spec­tive, you come to a level of mean­ing and under­stand­ing in the lan­guage of the dream while your con­scious mind sim­ply observes.

I con­tin­ued and expanded this prac­tice to notic­ing the affect and sen­sa­tions upon waking—again, by not fully wak­ing up. Over the years, much of my aware­ness prac­tice emerged from this notic­ing in the wee hours—a time of reflec­tion and insight that is less cog­ni­tive and more a felt-sense. A gen­eral feel­ing of pres­ence and well-being has been one con­se­quence. Another is wak­ing from sleep with absolute clar­ity on an issue or direc­tion, that if not given affir­ma­tive atten­tion by remain­ing with the felt-sense, or by writ­ing it down once I rise, the clar­ity (like with a dream) would get lost in the course of the day.

Other times I awaken with clar­ity but there’s also fear, and so I’m not at ease. More dif­fi­cult to remain in a place of wit­ness­ing, I pop into busy-mind now fully awake. I imag­ine you rec­og­nize this. The ego is more impres­sion­able and, con­se­quently, vul­ner­a­ble in this barely awak­ened state. So, how do we keep the bal­ance between wit­ness­ing and allow­ing (even) neg­a­tive, imagery, feel­ing and sen­sa­tions to emerge with­out hav­ing it take over? And then, how do we dis­cern the truth embed­ded in the process? Through practice.

More to come next week.

 

Posted in consciousness, dream work, Meditation | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Marketing from Your Authentic Self

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Astrd Berg

I recently went to a talk on using Face­book busi­ness pages for mar­ket­ing. What struck me most was that the speaker was so clearly excited and pas­sion­ate about his prod­uct. He was knowl­edge­able about his field and he knew his tar­get mar­ket. He was also very play­ful in his mar­ket­ing style. When using Face­book, he relied on his nat­ural tal­ents. As a cre­ative, aes­thetic, visual and sen­sual per­son, he used few words and mainly images in his Face­book posts. These images clearly expressed his play­ful­ness and orig­i­nal­ity. In addi­tion, he made the process of mar­ket­ing enjoyable.

Along with know­ing the how to’s of mar­ket­ing, learn­ing about SEO and social media, etc., make sure to use tech­niques that work for your par­tic­u­lar busi­ness or ser­vice and those you will actu­ally do. My motto has always been “To mar­ket from your authen­tic self”— in other words, to do what comes nat­u­rally to you. This is not an excuse to avoid those things you don’t like to do or leave mar­ket­ing to chance.

Instead, you assess you inter­ests, per­son­al­ity, skills and val­ues, and chan­nel them into mar­ket­ing strate­gies that best fit. For instance, a nat­u­rally open, friendly per­son who meets peo­ple eas­ily and has good ver­bal skills can more read­ily make cold calls or meet peo­ple in the course of the day to talk up their busi­ness. Some­one with artis­tic or design skills and inter­ests who is aes­thet­i­cally con­scious, may make attrac­tive ads, fly­ers or media for the Inter­net. If you like writ­ing, chan­nel that into pro­duc­ing good copy or infor­ma­tion about your busi­ness or ser­vice. A per­son inter­ested in detail, obser­va­tion and research may focus on descrip­tions and com­par­isons poten­tially using charts and graphs. One who is intro­verted but likes to help oth­ers, may do well meet­ing peo­ple one-to-one and mar­ket by way of offer­ing advice or tutor­ing. Your inter­ests and val­ues will more likely attract oth­ers with sim­i­lar inter­ests and/or val­ues. If you find your nat­ural mar­ket­ing skills too lim­it­ing, get help from those who can round it out.

I have learned, from work­ing with clients and my own expe­ri­ence, that pas­sion for what you do cre­ates the energy needed to get the word out, and when with oth­ers, that pas­sion can be con­ta­gious. Not all of us love what we do or love what we do all of the time. The key is to focus on the aspect you love, even if it’s just to inwardly remind your­self to out­wardly exude that passion.

Unfor­tu­nately, we don’t have this sort of enthu­si­asm all the time. So if the prospect of mar­ket­ing feels dif­fi­cult, don’t force it. Have a plan and guide­lines, but keep flex­i­bil­ity (when pos­si­ble) so you do your mar­ket­ing on the days it flows more naturally.

 

Posted in authenticity, Community, marketing, passion | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment