Love

    Here I've been writing all this time about "How I Am: Being Human" and I haven't directly addressed the topic of Love.  Then again, I've been talking about both the presence and absence of Love all along.  I say this because I define Love as partly emotion that results in safe behavior but mostly I think Love is behavior that results in safe emotions.  
     What does this mean?  It means that when one is Experiencing positive emotions it's easy to behave in a loving manner.  But, more importantly, Love also means that when one is Experiencing negative emotions he or she still has the capacity to behave in ways that don't threaten the emotional safety of others.  And considering the covert and overt violence of so many Experiences, along with the normalized responses of withdrawal, manipulation, rebellion and compliance in so many Relationships (e.g., self-family-community), it seems to me that the meaning of Love in this society (like so many of our heralded beliefs and values) has been desecrated by falsehoods.  
     The heart of the matter - Internity - is that all the energies of emotion (conscious and unconscious) are formed, conformed, deformed, informed, reformed and transformed in a constant behavioral Experience of and psychological Relationship with the powerful nurture and nature of Love!  The Internity of Love's formulations then has the very human task of discovering, expressing, connecting and creating meaning for the spiritual conduit between ego and calling.  This conduit is both informed by the Experiences of ego but also transformed by the Relationships of calling (and all otherness takes part in one's calling).  The ease or dis-ease of this conduit, therefore, determines every individual's Perceptions, internal motivations and purposeful behaviors.  
     Love is conditional!  This is why I think we all need to quit giving mere sing-song lip service to the abstractions of Love and instead take a good hard look at our own emotional behaviors of Love.  To truly Love someone means to have ego's wild emotions with the result being safe behavior toward others nonetheless.  To truly understand Love in the context of calling means that one behaves in ways where the emotions of others remain safe, which then simultaneously inform and transform one's own emotional reality.  The nurtured behavioral Experiences of Love, after all, reveal to oneself and reflect to the world healthy or unhealthy emotional Relationships with the nature of Love's calling.  This Perception, that Love is partly emotion resulting in safe behavior but mostly behavior resulting in safe emotions, makes all the difference in the world when it comes to the conditions of "How I Am: Being Human."       

A Kundalini Christmas

     It wasn't long after the whole Santa Claus thing unraveled that "How I Am: Being Human" began drifting away from the bindings of formal religion.  It seems the power of Santa Claus and the literalism of Catholicism were totally dependent on the conditional and externalized concepts of "you better watch out" and "naughty or nice."  Throughout my formative years it was a bit nerve-wracking to know that God was keeping score of every one of my childhood failings.  And with Santa the stakes were even higher than eternal damnation - toys!  Christmas time was a psychological wrestling match.  ("In this corner, weighing in at fifty-five and a half pounds, the snotty-nosed trouble from the emotional rubble - John!  And in this corner, weighing in at an incalculable amount because the laws of physics don't apply, the white-bearded tag-team of gyrations from the imagination - the transcendent, co-dependent enforcers of repentance - God and Santa Claus!!")  In my childhood mind I figured the baby Jesus was a sort of kindred spirit because he also had to contend with the threatening surveillance of "you better watch out."  I still wonder if Jesus had to deal with the childhood curiosities that result in "naughty or nice."  Nowadays I understand it all as the physiological, psychological, social, mental, emotional and spiritual conditions of "How I Am: Being Human."  But back then, the season of Santa Claus and unrelenting Catholicism both did a fine job of conditioning the inadequacies of my budding ego.
     On the other hand, there was the comforting imagination and beauty of having a Christmas tree in the living-room.  I remember turning off all the lights except for the tree, fitting perfectly into the too big rocking chair and listening to the music of the season.  I still do this ritual today for no other reason than comfort, imagination and beauty.  The personal meaning of that tree, with all its multi-colored lights and storied ornaments, has always been an unconditional conduit (unlike God and Santa) for the memories of my Christmas spirit.
     It's obvious, then, that my annual task is to re-imagine the symbolism and reclaim the meaning of the whole story: the birth of the Christ child; the spirit of the season; the solstice and returning of light; and renewing enthusiasm for Life.  And because words are symbols I always think it's valuable to examine their deeper meanings.  
     "Birth" originally meant to bear, to carry or conduct oneself, to take responsibility for one's life.  The word "Christ" of course means anointed one.  "Child" originally meant to descend, to climb down.  And "infant" comes from Latin and means not able to speak.  Solstice is a combination of words that mean the sun (sol) being still (stice).  Spirit means breath and season originally meant to sow.  Enthusiasm means to be possessed by a god and inspired (inspiritus).
     I am enthusiastically writing these words today because of an unexpected image that came to me about a week ago.  It happened in a Kundalini yoga session where we had been working on the third chakra, fire in the belly, the solar plexus, conviction and action.  Our yoga instructor kept suggesting that we imagine the light and power of the sun growing within our bellies.  I, however, was still mentally struggling with my inadequacies in accomplishing the physical aspect of the exercises.  In other words, I was having "a bad yoga day" and my ego was refusing to be quiet.  In fact, my ego was giving me a psychological whipping equalled only by those given by God and Santa.  Needless to say my whining ego kept me from imagining anything but "getting-on with my certain to be lousy rest of the day."

     As always we finished the session with the stillness of "final relaxation."  Then I sat in meditation.  The others began singing the traditional "Long Time Sun" song to conclude the day's practice.  I wasn't singing but my ego-whining began to quiet.  With eyes closed I merely listened.  "May the long time sun, shine upon you, all love surround you, and the pure light within you, guide your way on."  In my mind's eye I unexpectedly beheld the image of a child standing in front of me.  At first the child melded between looking like my daughter and my son when they were little.  But then I recognized him as the short-haired round-faced kid I used to be.  He reached-out (I reached out?) and took my aged face in his hands.  He gazed at me as if he was studying some ancient truth that he already seemed to know better than anyone.  Without words he seemed to be asking me to remember someone I had forgotten.  I tried to smile at him but instead began to cry.  He held my cheeks in his little hands, unafraid of my sorrow and inadequacies, looking intently but without any judgment at all.  As the singing in the room came to its final phrases the belly in the little boy began to glow.  He smiled and then tipped his head back as if he was experiencing pure joy.  The glow in his belly spread from the red-orange of fire embers to a yellow-white as bright and sparkly as sunlight on rippling water.  Soon all that was left of him were his hands on my face.  Then they also became pure light and I filled my lungs and belly like it was the first breath of my Life.
     For me (for many years now), the annual Christmas symbols contain an idea - the birth of the soul, the daimon, the genius.  And I think we are all looking for a personally meaningful image to carry us beyond the conditionings and inadequacies of ego, especially at this time of year.  After all, the symbols of Christmas, if read correctly, all point to how each one of us has descended into this world to bear the anointed responsibilities and privileges of being alive.  To be enthusiastic in this effort we must all learn to sow the authentic and ageless soul found in the images and symbols of rebirth.  
     A good yoga teacher can help in this effort.  I know I can't express how grateful I am for my yogi.  She has guided me to consciousness of a deeply personal image that I think is powerful enough to wrestle with the likes of anyone, including God, Santa and my ego.  For this gift I am forever grateful.  Merry Christmas. 

Soulful Biology

     There are enough theories and research on the human project to make one's head spin.  And because of "How I Am: Being Human" I intend to continue learning.  Nevertheless, my main conviction holds firm: all behavior is purposeful and internally motivated.  This fact is the main key to understanding how humans embody Potential and interiorize Relationships, Experiences and Perceptions.  The how of this embodiment and interiorization becomes Internity. But let's be clear on this point: Internity can be the complex and separating contrivances of nature versus nurture or the complex and authentic cultivation of "nature via nurture" (David Lykken).  An intentional and genuine Life, after all, is about discovering, expressing, connecting and making meaning out of one's complex internal images, instincts and emotions - whatever they are.  It's this physiological, psychological, social, mental, emotional and spiritual project that becomes the behavioral energies of soulful biology.  
     Soulful biology, therefore, is the originality of mythological calling (the nature of genetics and temperament) taking form in biological birth and then being transformed by the continuous psychological birth of ego (the nurture of family, community, peers, education and environment).  This cyclical processing of Life's energies is "How I Am: Being Human."  Of course, the intentions of one's personal myth and one's purposeful behavior are often as contradictory and varied as human consciousness.  Both ego and calling, after all, are members of a psychological and archetypal commune (Hillman).  The task of ego, therefore, is to become the centering "I Am" point of intentional consciousness.  The eventual and ultimate task of ego, however, is to intentionally resume its Relationship with the characteristics of calling.  This is precisely why healthy ego formation and a living mythology are vital to becoming fully human!  The daily Experience of this Relationship between ego and calling (conscious and unconscious) is what creates the complex variations of "How I Am: Being Human."  And this inexorable Relationship between ego and calling, contrived or cultivated, will not be denied!  Granted, it can be consciously ignored but not without grave consequences.  The transformation and/or habituation of one's Internity then (consciousness, challenges, choices, changes), is always and everywhere a behavioral display of how an individual is discovering, expressing, connecting and finding meaning in the soulful biology of all Life.
     I repeat - the psychology of all the Relationships, Experiences and Perceptions of ego are of a secondary "nurture" and will never be able to completely detach from the original "nature" of calling's Potential!  In other words, human consciousness must be centered by ego but is simultaneously destined to respond, positively or negatively, to the calling's of Potential.  These destined responses reveal and reflect both the personal and collective Internity as either separating contrivances or authentic cultivations of image, instinct and emotion.  These responses also reveal and reflect how all behavior is purposeful and internally motivated.  
     Unfortunately, at this point in the human story, most of the beliefs, values and systems formulated to address the behaviors of ego and calling are ill-advised and separating contrivances.  No matter if it's physical health, psychological health, social health, mental health, emotional health or spiritual health I think our current oppressive beliefs (about manhood, womanhood, childhood, etc.), our values [making use of the contributions of the community for one's own myopic purposes without adding anything in return (Adler)] and our systems (media, economy, health, politics, religion, etc.) are precisely why too many individuals, families and communities have become air conditioned emotional nightmares (thank you Henry Miller).  I think it's painfully obvious that we are failing to acknowledge and integrate the deeper realities found in the Relationship between calling and ego.  In effect, the natural characteristics and callings of Internity get nurtured into emotionally desperate egos that then go about righteously and incessantly denying the natural characteristics and callings of Internity.  This ignorant and impossible act of diminishing the mythic call of one's Life into mere beliefs and values of one's ego has behaviorally and emotionally sabotaged both the personal and planetary atonement of soulful biology.      

Manhood

      I work with men who've been accused of domestic violence.  I say "accused" because I wasn't there and I don't really know what happened.  I do know, however, that these men often describe whatever happened as an "argument."  My usual response to that is, "It must have been more than an argument because someone got scared enough to involve law enforcement" (too often the 911 calls are made by children).  They will then try to explain the happening by starting every sentence with, "She..." or "Kids these days..."  And such a vehement diffusion of responsibility for something that supposedly "didn't happen" always and everywhere creates suspicion.  
     I perceive these diffusions of personal responsibility as emotionally desperate projections that only reveal the fear-based beliefs and unexamined values of too many men.  The resulting violent behavior and emotional vandalism - the verbal and non-verbal attacks intended to humiliate; the tactical threats intended to create and maintain an environment of fear; the indirect yet focused intentions of destroying property or hurting pets; using violence to intentionally cause physical pain; and/or the multi-faceted methods and intentions of sexual violence; etc. - display their images of "manhood" as nothing more than emotionally desperate beliefs and dehumanized functions of learned pathology.
    Manhood as pathology.  Men whose purposeful and internally motivated behaviors always and everywhere come from their own emotional desperation (even when they are putting on the mask of "nice guy" and "good citizen").  Men who reveal and reflect emotional weaknesses with enraged silence, righteous yelling or physical strength (typically such behavior is directed at a partner and the children he perceives as "his").  Men who are so rigidly attached to their impaired ego-needs that empathy for the emotional Experiences of others, especially their partners and children, becomes impossible.  Men who constantly blame their behavior on drunken circumstances, deny everyone else's perspective of their behavior and/or minimize the validity of all Experiences but their own.  Men who, consequently, are ignorant of the profound disconnect between how others perceive them and how they perceive themselves.  Men who fail to understand how any attempt to change everyone and everything but their own “stuff” always creates some form of violence.  Men who are conditioned by fear to think that creating fear in others equals respect and that punishment equals discipline.  Men who justify violent behavior without realizing the immaturity and pathos of their efforts.  Men who have beliefs about love but no actual experiences of it.  Men who, by means of their emotionally desperate egos, compensate for all these fears and weaknesses by defining, believing and maintaining "manhood" as the oppression of others, especially women and children.  Men whose internalized images are formed by chronic oppression, resulting in "pathological" Relationships of desperation, malfunctioning, defect and aberration.
     The men I work with have internalized the images and beliefs of themselves and "manhood" that they discovered as children in oppressive family and community environments.  In fact, I think society's oppressive efforts to "teach" have resulted in children "learning" the diffusion of responsibility (withdrawal, manipulation, rebellion, compliance) for themselves, each other and society as a whole.  And because the Experiences of being alive are submerged in such environments every obscenity becomes normalized, a way of Life.  In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire points out how the struggle to "make" a different Life, one based on safety, love and freedom, begins with men's recognition that they have been destroyed.  Freire also explains how these men, "having internalized the image of the oppressor and adopted his guidelines, are fearful of freedom.  Freedom would require them to eject the image and replace it with autonomy and [personal] responsibility."  In my work I've come to realize that asking men to eject their learned images of "manhood" is like asking them to change how they walk.    
     Yet, "we make the road by walking" (Freire) and change can only come from the courage within.  But even the word "courage" cannot be understood from the perspective of "manhood" because it has less to do with bravery, strength or endurance and instead derives from the French word coeur meaning "heart."  And the men I work with have had their hearts damaged - physically, emotionally and spiritually.  From the very beginning of life too many are dehumanized.  They've been "made" into oppressors through a system of oppression and so their behaviors of courage are twisted around beliefs of conquering.  Nevertheless, they must learn to walk this world differently.  To do this they have to find the responsibility and courage necessary to "make" being and becoming more fully human an act of personal freedom.
      In working with men accused of domestic violence I am learning that "becoming human is a project" (Freire).  I also have to understand how these guys firmly grasp onto belief systems that force them to overcompensate for the lack of courage they've come to believe is "manhood."  And even though I describe their behavioral overcompensations as "pathology" I recognize that the desperations, malfunctioning, defects and aberrations come from the whole society's unexamined belief systems about men, women, children and the Relationships that "make" Life.  So, in a completely oversimplified nutshell, the work I do involves examining how the culturally supported dehumanization of too many men creates the pathology called "manhood" and how this travesty is at the root of oppression and the dehumanizing violence against women and children.  

RESPONSE-ABILITY

     It recently came-up in a conversation how this idea, "nobody makes me anything," (i.e., happy, sad, angry, behave in certain ways, etc.) is "completely impossible bullshit" (quote-unquote).  And, in spite of having righteously claimed it many times, I have to admit that, upon further examination, the idea seems impossible.  After all, how can anyone claim that "nobody makes me anything" when at the same time we are all "made" in Relationship with all otherness.  Yet, to believe that the personal and impersonal otherness totally "makes" us who and how we are steps perilously close to the edge of predetermination.  Such a belief threatens to absolve us of all personal responsibility for who and how we are in Relationship with all otherness.  Then again, to believe that every behavior is purposeful and internally motivated seems to threaten us with too much personal responsibility for who and how we are in Relationship with all otherness.
     Nonetheless, I still firmly believe that all behaviors are purposeful and internally motivated.  When I say this, however, I don't mean that the purpose is always consciously ego-driven.  For example, I love the story where a young man with a pregnant wife at home puts his own life at risk to physically restrain a drunken old homeless man from jumping off a bridge.  When asked, "What on earth were you thinking?" he couldn't explain other than saying he felt his own Life was completely dependent on the Life of that homeless man.  (Soon he would understand a similar feeling through parenthood.)  In a single moment the young man's purposeful, internal motivation transcended ego-consciousness.  I'm certain this happens all the time in military, disaster and other situations where the ego's wants and needs are overruled by deeper connections to all Life.  These connections, I believe, are purposeful beyond one's usual awareness and internally motivated even though completely connected to the external experiences of otherness.
     The critical understanding is that one is always consciously and unconsciously making purposeful and internally motivated responses to Life.  My claim today is that those who understand the RESPONSE-ABILITY of being "made" in Life as well as "making" a Life are having a different experience of being alive than those who don't.             

Consciousness

     Oh boy...  I can already picture my two readers anxiously manipulating their computers to find something of interest on Netflix, YouTube or Facebook.  "Please!  Anything besides a blog titled Consciousness."  I'm guessing I lost the other 11 readers back at the "Internity" post a few months ago.  But those are all forms of consciousness, too.  As far as we know there's no getting away from it because even the state of unconsciousness is another form of consciousness and vice-versa.

     Because this sort of pondering has been going-on for centuries all I'm going to say is that not long after birth, human consciousness begins to reveal and reflect ego coming forth from the limitless unconscious, the anima mundi, the world soul.  In other words, the moment the unconscious energy of animating Potential enters a baby's consciousness as images, instincts, sensations and emotions (mine, yours and the world's) it begins the Relationships, Experiences and Perceptions of a growing ego.  A healthy ego is precisely why children need the safety and good care of healthy adults!  After all, the healthiest aspects of "How I Am: Being Human" mean living an intentional life of intra-dependence between conscious and unconscious contents.  And the health or harm of this intra-dependence gets fostered or foiled in the generational cycles of mythological calling, biological birth, psychological birth, the experience of being alive, biological death and what's left-over as psychological remains.  

     It's the psychological remains, healthy or harmed, that become part of the unconscious animating Potential of the next generation's consciousness.  In this way “How I Am” right now tending to my consciousness, ego and the animating Potential of the limitless unconscious affects the images, instincts, sensations and emotions of the whole world!  So, the two eternal questions seem to be, "Is my ego consciousness healthy enough right now to be actively aware of its intra-dependence on the limitless unconscious, the anima mundi, the world soul?" and "How is my awareness and responsibility to this intra-dependence affecting the generations to come?"

     (Netflix, YouTube and Facebook, here we come...)

The Archetypal World of Internity

    One day a young songwriter "woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across [his] head" and recognized he had music in mind again.  But this time he felt that it was an already established composition, something he must have heard before, maybe from his musical father's generation.  He worked it out on the piano and assumed it must be a "standard."  He asked many others to help him identify the song but nobody could.  The song kept running through his consciousness (calling) and he continued to assume that eventually he'd realize what "standard" it was.  He hummed along with the melody but couldn't quite place the lyric.  So, he started singing gibberish until one day he sang, "Scrambled eggs..." and some other rhymes to go along with eggs.  One time, instead of "Scrambled eggs" the songwriter's gibberish came out as, "Yesterday..."  From that point onward the composition revealed itself in its entirety.  And it was, in fact, a standard waiting to be brought into the world and acknowledged as such.  In effect, the song used Paul McCartney as a conduit to make itself known.  The common emotionality of the song "Yesterday," as music does (and the rest of the arts do), revealed and reflected the shared pathways of human Potential, Relationships, Experiences and Perceptions from both our individual and collective mind.     

     It's these shared pathways of the mind, the psychic stirrings and callings of Internity, that I find so fascinating.  Jung described them by using the term "archetype" which I understand as an original image, ancient patterns, or "pre-existent forms...which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents."  (This is why the arts are vital to the experience of being alive: First, because they give conscious form to the psychic stirrings and callings of Internity.  Secondly, they point out hypocrisy, jingoism, cant, jargon, etc.  Finally, the arts abhor mediocrity.)  I understand archetypes as images, energies and emotions coming forth from the collective unconscious and made conscious through the use of symbol (the art and invention of imagination and image-making).  Another of Jung's claims is that "our souls as well as our bodies are composed of individual elements which were all already present in the ranks of our ancestors."  This claim, as it concerns our bodies, in spite of their own complexities, is not really that astounding for our scientific and evolved brains to comprehend.  But the idea that our souls - the images of the mind as well as our instincts and emotions - are also "composed of individual elements which were all already present in the ranks of our ancestors," makes me wonder even more about the transcendence of human Potential, Relationship, Experience and Perception.  Jung also describes archetypes, these psychic stirrings and callings, as "the mind of our unknown ancestors, their way of thinking and feeling, their way of experiencing life and the world, gods and men."  I think Joseph Campbell's research on the consistent and striking similarities of imagination and image-making throughout all mythologies is proof enough of ancient and shared pathways.

     The image below is how I've learned to think about the archetypes of the collective unconscious, the shared pathways of "How I Am: Being Human."  This is what I mean by the psychic stirrings and callings of Internity.   

The middle of the image is composed of the results - physiological, psychological, social, mental, emotional and spiritual - of all the individualized elements of the "How I Am: Being Human" diagram of previous posts.  This is the centering place of ego-consciousness where discoveries, expressions, connections and meaning of others and otherness take imagistic, instinctual and emotional shape as some level of awareness and Self-respect.  I think this centering place is what determines the level of guidance or hauntings from the psychic stirrings and callings of archetypes.  If the Potentials, Relationships, Experiences and Perceptions of "How I Am: Being Human" are given conscious form in protection, empathy, nurturance and sustenance then the archetypes have a better chance of making themselves known as purposeful behaviors guided by imagination and image-making.  Anything less makes one susceptible to purposeful behaviors based on the fear of archetypal hauntings (i.e., disconnected opposition).  In any case, consciously acknowledging the images of the mind (dreams, fantasies, memories, griefs, intuitions, half-baked ideas, unfinished songs, etc.), and the ancient instincts and powerful emotions of one's psychic stirrings and callings is an intentional step toward authenticity on the shared pathways of "How I Am: Being Human."
     My claim today is that the art of imagination and image-making is an instinctual and emotional relationship with the shared pathways of the collective unconscious.  Granted, there's only one McCartney, or Lennon, or Picasso, or Einstein, or Edison, or Leonardo da Vinci, etc., etc.  Nevertheless, we are all original in our divine capacities to discover, express, connect and make meaning out of the psychic stirrings and callings of "How I Am: Being Human."  My ultimate conviction is that every Potential, Relationship, Experience and Perception is symbolic of one's Self-respecting consciousness, ego, persona and personal unconscious in an ancient dance of atonement with the archetypal world of Internity.

And so I ask again, "How are you?"      johnmadowning@gmail.com