Light and shade...

I've always thought I was 'on to' the whole concept of the shadow, the idea that if you repress it, it becomes darker and more intense and powerful. I always thought that I had a healthy appreciation of my own shadow... I've just realised that I have impossibly high expectations of myself and everyone else, that I expect myself to be pearly white and pure, that for this reason my shadow gets out of control, that for this reason I feel like a bad person...

How do I lower my expectations of myself and the world?

How do I learn to accept?

'Yin Yang Fish Portrait', by Mao Zhi (Yu Gong-Quan), downloaded 20th January, 2010, from:
http://www.orientaloutpost.com/proddetail.php?prod=0yyf.

'The World is not Enough'

I caught myself out the other day, making fun of myself to my partner, PB. I said, 'The world isn't good enough for me. People aren't good enough, and I'm not good enough. I'm going to have words with God.'

I really need to listen to myself here! Pema Chodron, in a talk I've listened to, says something like, 'Lower your standards, and enjoy life...' (I'll look up the exact wording.)

In particular, though I need constant forgiveness, I've been hanging on to resentment and unforgiveness in the deluded hope that it will prevent me from ever being hurt again. Instead, what it's doing is eating me up inside, making it impossible for me to trust anyone, and isolating me from any community I may once have been a part of.

It's time to let go...


'La grande famille,' by Rene Magritte, downloaded 20th January, 2010, from:
http://en.easyart.com/art-print-search/pigeons.html.

Fowler and monotheistic faith

In his book 'Stages of faith: the psychology of human development and the quest for meaning,' Fowler (1995) writes about the concept of monotheism, which for him has nothing to do with how many gods one worships: it is as possible to be a 'monotheist' whether one is Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, or a person of 'secular faith.'* Instead, monotheism refers to a unity of purpose, (to paraphrase) to having one reason for getting out of bed in the morning! The way that Fowler talks about 'polytheists', with their diffuse, diluted sense of purpose, leads me to believe he is describing the difference between living a meaningful life, and leading a life 'light on' for meaning. Polytheists are invested in so many priorities and pastimes that their investment becomes broad rather than deep.

For me the temptation has always been to move beyond monotheism into monomania. Growing up in the charismatic and evangelical movements, I was taught that God is everything, that almost nothing else matters. This is a distortion which can have unhealthy results. (One expression of it was the notion that for any relationship to be successful each partner must put God before the other, always. This exaggerated view has probably meant that I've had trouble recognising the love and provision of God in the person and loving actions of my partner.)

When I'm able to get in touch with faith and with God, I can tend to get obsessive about them, making them everything, shutting out all else. I can find it difficult to 'go gently' as my spiritual director used to say. I can neglect the balance that is essential to wellbeing. This monomania in turn leads to anxiety.

I was talking to Dr I. about this anxiety yesterday. He suggested that perhaps the anxiety is a sign that I'm 'pushing it' too much, that I've had enough of something (reading a book on spirituality etc.) and that it's time to move on to something else. This rings true for me...

* See my previous post discussing this book by Fowler, 'The Fear of the Lord Part I'.
When I think of secular faith, I am reminded of the monotheism some atheists display regarding art or science as an overarching life purpose.

Fowler, J. W. (1995). Stages of faith: the psychology of human development and the quest for meaning. San Francisco: HarperCollins.

[Untitled image of Ganesh], downloaded 20th January, 2010, from:
http://www.telugubhakti.com/TELUGUPAGES/Pdfs/Ganesh/Ganesh.htm.

Mystery

No answer, no teacher, no paradigm...

Three more things I've realised frighten me:

1. Trying to simplify spiritual matters (usually by agreeing with someone else).

2. Believing there is any authority outside of myself, any tradition, that knows what is true or how I should live more than my own intuition knows.

3. Believing there is any kind of 'answer', either to my anxiety problem, or more generally. Every time I think, 'Alchemy's the answer', 'Buddhism's the answer', even 'There is no answer' (when I know deep down I am using that AS an answer), anxiety follows.

I've read a little bit about paradigm shifts: how we view the world through a certain frame, and when we learn, we either need to stretch that frame to allow the new information in, or, if the learning is radical, revolutionary, we need to find a new frame. I've read that one of the primary ways we obtain information or learning from beyond our current paradigm is through meditation. In my mind's eye, I've always pictured these paradigms as white squares, and the realm beyond them, where revolutionary learning comes from, as black, open space. Recently I've been wondering whether in a spiritual sense, an old paradigm was displaced, and I never really replaced it with another. I feel as though I am living in that black, open space.

And would that be such a bad thing? Artists and writers need to be so open. They need to create from a space where they can describe 'whatever arises' rather than prescribe based on their own paradigms. And I believe the best way to express spiritual 'truths' (whatever that means) for me now, when I feel I'm floating in space, is through art (in my case, fiction writing).

So, no answer, no teacher, no paradigm... Only openness, intuition and mystery...

'Space collision 1', downloaded 12th January, 2010, from:
http://science.howstuffworks.com/space-collision.htm.

A big slab of Jung!

...to get you (okay, probably only me) fired up for the week...

These quotes are from 'Psychology and alchemy', and resonate with my experience of 'spiritual anxiety'.

'The self is a union of opposites par excellence, and this is where it differs essentially from the Christ-symbol. The androgyny of Christ is the utmost concession the Church has made to the problem of opposites. The opposition between light and good on the one hand and darkness and evil on the other is left in a state of open conflict, since Christ simply represents good and his counterpart the devil, evil. This opposition is the real world problem, which at present is still unsolved. The self, however, is absolutely paradoxical in that it represents in every respect thesis and antithesis, and at the same time synthesis.' (Jung 1968, p.19).

'Without the experience of the opposites there is no wholeness and hence no inner approach to the sacred figures.' (Jung 1968, p.20).

'Although insight into the problem of opposites is absolutely imperative, there are very few people who can stand it in practice.' (Jung 1968, p.20).

'-for in the self good and evil are indeed closer than identical twins! The reality of evil and its incompatibility with good cleave the opposites asunder and lead inexorably to the crucifixion and suspension of everything that lives. Since 'the soul is by nature Christian' this result is bound to come as infallibly as it did in the life of Jesus: we all have to be 'crucified with Christ', ie., suspended in a moral suffering equivalent to a veritable crucifixion. In practice this is only possible up to a point, and apart from that is so unbearable that the ordinary human being can afford to get into such a state only occasionally, in fact as seldom as possible.' (Jung 1968, p.21).

'The point is that alchemy is rather like an undercurrent to the Christianity that ruled on the surface. It is to this surface as the dream is to consciousness, and just as the dream compensates the conflicts of the conscious mind, so alchemy endeavours to fill in the gaps left open by the Christian tension of opposites.' (Jung 1968, p.23).

Nothing to add...

Jung, C. G. (1968). Psychology and alchemy (2nd ed.). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Yamantaka mandala (Overcoming Death mandala), downloaded 11th January, 2010, from:
http://www.artsmia.org/art-of-asia/buddhism/the-mandala.cfm.

['Electric cross'], downloaded 11th January, 2010, from:
http://thewriterandthewhitecat.blogspot.com/2008/10/modern-weapons-against-ancient-enemy.html.

'Predator Day'*

Recently I've been reading Atwood's 'The Year of the Flood,' the latest of her speculative fiction novels. It features the God's Gardeners, a religious sect devoted to environmentalist principles and preparing for survival in the predicted holocaust referred to as 'The Waterless Flood'. The God's Gardeners remind me of some left-wing church congregations I've belonged to (though they don't really do the Jesus thing). I actually find the theology in the sermons of the sect's leader, Adam One, reasonably sound. In the book, one of the group's feast days is called Predator Day. In his sermon on this day, Adam One says,

'Thus on Predator Day we meditate on the Alpha Predator aspects of God. The suddenness and ferocity with which an apprehension of the Divine may appear to us; our smallness and fearfulness - may I say, our Mouselikeness - in the face of such Power; our feelings of individual annihilation in the brightness of that splendid Light. God walks in the tender dawn Gardens of the mind, but He also prowls in its night Forests. He is not a tame Being, my Friends: he is a wild Being...' (Atwood 2009, p.346)

The link between these ideas and my feelings of fear in God's presence is obvious...

However, a couple of people I know - a psychologist and a friend - have suggested that fear is only about God and spirituality on the surface, that on a deeper level, it may be the result of an event or pattern of events in childhood. This psychologist believed that my fear was brought about by a feeling of distance from both of my parents as a young child, and that this would have felt tantamount to having no parents at all. From an evolutionary standpoint, he argued, this would be like being a very small, defenseless animal, unprotected from any predator that might swoop down and snap me up. According to this psychologist, my fear is at root a fear of death.

My friend wonders why I turned to a fundamentalist form of faith to begin with, and suggests that the reason for this and the cause of my anxiety may be one and the same. It makes sense that I would follow a religious path that heavily emphasises the gaining of eternal life.

So now, the image of God as Alpha Predator resonates with me, and causes far less anxiety than other images. Is this an unhealthy thing, the result of childhood issues that need to be untangled? Maybe, but I believe there is also wisdom in this picture of the Divine.

*(Atwood 2009, pp.345-348)

Atwood, M. (2009). The Year of the Flood. London, Berlin and New York: Bloomsbury.




[Image of Aslan from 'The Chronicles of Narnia'], downloaded 10th January, 2010, from:
http://entertainment.desktopnexus.com/wallpaper/71566/.

Alchemy, individuality and courage

Late in life, Jung decided that the form of spirituality he would not just study but adopt personally was alchemy. He believed that alchemy could serve as the completion and fulfillment of Christianity, as a 'redeeming' agent for Christianity, to paraphrase. My understanding is that he felt that alchemy was compatible with the discoveries he had made in the realms of psychology, archetypes and comparative religion. (I'm trying not to claim more knowledge than I have here).

While many associate alchemy with the transmutation of base metals into gold, this represents just one aspect or stage in the long history of alchemy. (Modern chemistry is descended from this branch of alchemy). If what I have read is correct, it has survived to this day as a set of practices concerned largely with the spiritual transformation of is adherents.

In alchemy there is no community to sign up to, there are no creeds to sign on to, it is a path followed by the individual in privacy. (Perhaps it is because of this that Dr. I claims alchemy is not a 'living religion'; I'm sure there are many who would disagree...) At a time when spiritual traditions are responding to Western individualism with a renewed emphasis on the community, this stance seems both controversial and liberating...

As someone so palpably afraid of contradicting the authoritative voices of religious orthodoxy, I wonder at the courage it takes to so boldly declare one's own ultimate authority on the subject of one's own spirit. I could take a leaf out of the alchemists' book.

For me, the trap is in accepting the validity of alchemy as a spiritual path purely because it was written about by Jung, thus making Jung himself the infallible authority who is to be trusted and obeyed...

[Copyright 1985 LBL], downloaded 8th January, 2010, from:
http://hem.fyristorg.com/lbl/index1.htm

[Untitled alchemy drawing], downloaded 8th January, 2010, from:
http://hubpages.com/hub/What-is-Alchemy.

The Summer Wedding

The sun rose like an early morning balloon
to its place
and polished the sky
and as we dressed,
the day put on scents, minutes, car horns and bursts of laughter,
and flashing windows took pictures
of the preparations
while the insects warmed their voices.
The dry grass and some low-hanging branches
frisked our guests on their way to their seats
and weren't we all there?
Didn't we all see it?
The way you dipped your head and raised your eyes,
waded down the shallow water of the aisle,
until at one sharp point,
an unseen star in the blue-drenched day,
we paused,
to listen to the breeze, the piano, the words 'I love you',
the small birds' wedding bells
and found that in that moment,
and then forever after,
we were fully ourselves.

copyright amber proctor 2010

[Illustration by Michael Leunig], downloaded 8th January, 2010, from:
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2006/05/04/1146335867017.html.

What is psychosis?

'Psychotic' is a term that is frequently misused in the media, and is often used synonymously with the words 'dangerous' and 'violent'; this is incorrect, and can serve to further increase the stigma surrounding psychosis and psychotic illnesses.

Psychosis can best be understood as 'losing touch with reality'1 and often takes the form of either delusions (unusual beliefs that do not respond to reason) or hallucinations (sensory perceptions such as sights, sounds, feelings, even tastes and smells, that are not the product of real things in the surrounding environment - hearing voices and 'seeing things' fall into this category). Experiencing psychosis does not make one a 'psycho', and my understanding is that the only situation in which a person experiencing psychosis is likely to become a danger to others is when their delusions or hallucinations are telling them that they are in grave danger themselves.

When I experience psychosis, it is usually in the form of delusions, though I do hear voices and see things very rarely. My delusions usually revolve around the belief that there are two parallel worlds, between which only a few people besides me can travel. Often I believe that one world is 'good' or 'normal' and the other sinister, and that the people in my life whom I am not getting along with, or who are causing me some sort of angst, have been swapped with their sinister counterparts from that other world. I also sometimes believe that I am already dead. My understanding is that these are fairly common delusions (feel free to correct me).

I always know that my delusions are delusions, which is something I never realised was possible until I experienced it myself. As with religious faith, it is possible to believe something and not believe it at the same time. This knowledge that what one believes or perceives constitutes illness is referred to as 'insight', and is seen as a positive phenomenon able to be worked towards through psychotherapy.

Opinions seem to vary as to whether delusions can or should be interpreted metaphorically.2 I think the two examples of delusions I've mentioned here clearly can be interpreted metaphorically: if I'm estranged or in conflict with someone, they are 'alien' to me, hailing from another, sinister world. Also, this belief in two different worlds tallies with my experience of living overseas as a teenager, and the culture shock I felt. The second delusion can be interpreted in terms of feeling that my life (or one chapter of my life) ended when I became unwell.

Psychosis can be experienced as the symptom of a mental illness (schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder and others), as the result of drug use or a traumatic event such as sexual abuse, and for other reasons. Psychosis is often associated positively with spiritual experiences, and other cultures (eg. 'kundalini awakening' and shamanistic practices). As my exposure has predominately been to a medical understanding of psychosis, I can't comment on these ways of viewing psychosis, except to say (once again) further reading required...

1. Some would argue that psychosis is not in fact losing touch with reality but a special kind of sensitivity to a reality that most people do not have access to. I'm sticking to a medically based understanding of psychosis here, as it's what I'm most familiar with, and I think it's a good place to start in beginning to understand what psychosis is all about.

2. I'm not sure whether the same can be said of hallucinations, as my psychosis mainly takes the form of delusions, and so I've done more talking about it with doctors and others. If you know, feel free to educate me via a comment!

[Cartoon image of the Mad Hatter, downloaded 8th January, 2010, from:
http://www.fliktalk.com/?tag=alice-in-wonderland.

Photo: Illustration Michael Leunig, downloaded 6th January, 2010 from:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/into-the-prickle-bush/2007/08/09/1186530539296.html.

The Fear of the Lord Part II

I think I've been told that 'Be not afraid' is the most repeated phrase in the Bible just as many times as it is repeated... And for each time I'm told this, I'm also reminded that this means that God, speaking through the Bible, is telling me not to be afraid of Her / Him.

Well, maybe. But doesn't the Bible also say that 'the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom'? I draw quite a different lesson from the repetition of the phrase 'Be not afraid': it tells me that feeling fear in the presence of God is a common experience (Jung observed of God that He / She is both 'good' and 'bad', and can require us to do 'bad' things in order to fulfill God's will; he felt that God truly was fearsome...). This in turn puts me in mind of the mystics, who found (and find) being in God's presence an intensely emotional experience.

These 'lessons' don't mean that I necessarily see my own fear of God as a resoundingly positive thing. I've noticed that this fear can be triggered by:

Trying to believe something I know intuitively to be untrue.
Someone in religious authority telling me something I feel to be untrue.
Contradicting someone in religious authority: this includes believing I could combine two forms of faith in a manner that this authority may find heretical: eg. wanting to be a Christian and a Zen Buddhist. It doesn't help me to know that there are 'alternative authorities' who would see wisdom in this kind of interfaith activity.
In prayer or meditation, trying to create or hold on to a special kind of feeling, eg. calm or peace.
When I fear I don't have 'enough' faith (although I know rationally that doubt is part of faith, the 'grit that forms the pearl') and therefore that I'll go to Hell.

So who are these 'authorities' I keep referring to, seeing as people in spiritual leadership can be relied upon to disagree? I suspect they are the leaders whose every word I hung upon in my teenage years and in young adulthood: the spokespersons for the charismatic and evangelical movements. Also, the Bible as 'literally' interpreted serves as one of these oppressive authorities.*

If only knowing what made me fearful were the magical key to a fear-free faith, and an untroubled relationship with God. Maybe I simply have to follow the ideas that relieve the fear and provide comfort. Just as Jung's concept of the shadow relieved a little of the fear around the subject of morality, Jung's complex, amoral conception of God comforts me now. It fits with the notion that we are created in God's image. And my intuition tells me it feels right. However, it means audaciously contradicting those authoritative voices from my past.


*I don't believe there is such thing as a literal interpretation of the Bible. As a young person who came to the Bible long before I'd been exposed to any systematic way of reading it, I certainly didn't naturally arrive at evangelical doctrine... The Bible seemed a heterogeneous, confusing, contradictory tangle of odd stories and cryptic sayings and some passages which were just downright funny!

[untitled photo of Jung], downloaded 6th January, 2010, from:
http://www.jungmich.org/.

Studying Stones

I am out here studying stones
trying to learn to be less alive
using all of my will
to keep very still
still even on the inside.
I've cut all of the pertinent wires
so my eyes can't make that connection
I am holding my breath,
I am feigning my death
when I'm looking in your direction...

There's never been an endeavor so strange
as trying to slow the blood in my veins
to keep my face blank
as a stone that just sank
until not a ripple remains.
I am high above the tree line
sitting cross-legged on the ground
when all the forbidden fruit has fallen and rotted
that's when I'm gonna come down...

- Ani DiFranco.

I know this is not the intended meaning of the song, but for me it really evokes the feeling of psychosis: 'delusional mood.'

[untitled photo of zen stones], downloaded 5th January, 2010, from:
http://www.agimatec.de/blog/2008/07/robust-portlet-testing/

'Grief-angel', downloaded 4th January, 2010, from:
http://mgwriters.wordpress.com/2009/10/

Freudian Slip No. 2

What is it about publishing things for anyone to see that means I start saying things that I know are true, but don't want anyone else to know...???

I meant to write in my post on 'Am I a Buddhist or a Christian...' that Dr. I had said I'd been involved in religious wars (ie wars between human beings of different faiths), but I accidentally wrote 'spiritual wars' (corrected now). Earlier today I'd been talking to a friend about the fact that as a teenager I believed (as did the people I hung out with) that angels and demons were constantly fighting spiritual wars over the fate of the world, and that if one prayed hard enough, in the right way, the angels would win; whereas if one's prayers were inadequate, or there happened to be a nasty bunch of Satanists nearby, the demons would win, effectively meaning that Satan had defeated God and evil defeated good, for good.

No pressure or anything!!! Any wonder I find prayer terrifying??!!!

So much happened at that time. A friend died of an overdose, I began to get sick, and my relationship with my Mum was wounded possibly beyond hope of healing.

How I wish it hadn't happened... How I wish I could undo it all and go back...

Anxiety, grief.

Am I a Buddhist or a Christian, and do I have a choice?

In recent times I've been reading a fair bit about Buddhism, doing some meditation and listening to talks by Buddhist teachers. I think there is so much wisdom in it (I won't try to summarise that wisdom, because it would be an inadequate description), but somehow for me Buddhism doesn't seem to 'take'.

Dr. I says that Christianity is really my spiritual home and that my feeling of being empty and spiritless seems to have begun when I gave up on God. I told him a little bit about the rubbish I went through in the church as a kid (more on this anon...) and he suggested that I had been involved in religious 'wars', metaphorically speaking; that perhaps I had thought to myself, 'Well, if these Christians can't agree, I'll go and find another religion.'

That may be part of it, but I think it's mostly to do with the crippling fear I used to feel when I tried to pray or read books on Christian spirituality or theology. I just couldn't deal with it anymore, and no-one I spoke to seemed to be able to shed any light on it - it was a problem that was too spiritual for psychologists and counsellors, and too psychological for spiritual dudes...

So why is Buddhism not taking, no matter how much I might admire it? My old spiritual director used to say that even when I couldn't hang on to God, God was holding me. She said at times like that I could picture myself curled up in the palm of God's hand. I find that thought so comforting. I wonder whether, once you've committed your life to God, She just will not let go, even when you go away. I don't see that as being forced to do or believe something against my will - it's quite lovely that when you're ready to return, you find that you never really left, or that God has been following you all along the way.

I feel like crying with relief...

[untitled photo of a rabbit in the palm of a hand], downloaded 4th January, 2010, from:
http://vi.sualize.us/view/9ac83424a80273aeb63bcbe6461f0ed3/

[untitled cartoon image of a villain], downloaded 3rd January, 2010, from:
http://www.liquidmatrix.org/blog/category/spy-game/page/3/

Freudian Slip!

Looking back over past blogs, I realised that in my 'Prayer for a person confused about goodness' I wrote 'when the baddies defeat the goodies', instead of 'when the goodies defeat the baddies'.

This is a bit of a giveaway! I often empathise with the villains of film and TV... They're people too! And often their reasons for 'turning' are quite understandable. I was watching the last film in the Lord of the Rings trilogy the other day and thinking that Tolkien really had quite a simple understanding of 'good' and 'bad', although the character of Denethor is quite complex and resonates for me, representing the relationship between despair and being 'darkened' somewhat.

Mind you, I have to admit that people banging on about hope, particularly with respect to literature (eg. 'If there is no hope in a book, I don't want to read it.') annoy me immensely. I always think that to be really hopeful, a book has to come up against real despair and prevail, not just skim the surface. But maybe I'm saying that because in essence I'm a Denethor and just like the despair. It also seems to me that people who talk about hope like this just don't want to confront the less than ideal in people and relationships. Two of my favourite authors are Raymond Carver and Richard Ford (particularly the short stories in 'Rock Springs') because they do just this, unflinchingly, with honesty and, it has to be said, some warmth towards their characters.