Print ArticleWe are like the first uneasy settlers from the East suddenly facing the expanse of the Great Plains after the security of the Eastern forests and cities. We are the first culture to break through the forest of history and the web of past connections. We are at the edge of a New Frontier, a New Dream and we are scared. We finally see (just as religious texts have always told us) that the New Frontier lies, not in the far reaches of deep space, but deep within the human heart and mind. This is scary stuff. We refuse to accept this "new knowledge" because it is much easier and more satisfying to manipulate the exterior world. The interior world has been discredited as the zone of religious zealots, drug abusers, New Agers and old hippies.
In school there should be early training in basic Man Woman. This would, of course, include training in basic metaphor manipulation in everyday life. Possibly in Woman I, there might be a course in "acting out", the shared knowledge about female sexual power; its risks, excitements and responsibility. In Man I, there could be acknowledgement of "the will to power" and what it's underlying message really signifies.
Archetypal roles can be very exciting. They can also be very dangerous as well as threatening. It is no accident that in an alienated, dysfunctional society the young choose the archetypal images of sex and death and violence. These are the basic roles.
The Creative Act:
At first it is just there, very subtle. You turn towards it (the low pressure area) like a flower turning towards the sun. You can give it a name, call it an idea or merely think of it as a feeling. You move around it, tantalized but fearing real involvement. You walk around it like a dog circling in the grass before he lies down. The "walk about" may be short (a walk around the desk, your living room or stage) or long (a circumnavigation of the entire earthly sphere.) Once you've circled the "idea" then it's pull begins to really be felt. The cyclone begins to form, and though you are still on the outer most periphery you are at this point "captured".
As you circle again you are drawn deeper inside the mystery; deeper and deeper until like a giddy tourist on holiday at the amusement park in the spinning room the floor drops away and you are pinned against the wall while the cyclonic spin of the "idea" sucks you further inward towards its central mystery. In doing this I am trying to understand why certain writers "hate to write": why I hate to write!
So there you are, fascinated by the awesome stature of the idea, but more than willing to move on to other, shall we say less serious and perhaps more banal distractions. But by then you've circled it once, twice, three times and it has a strong pull on you. At this point you sincerely acknowledge the idea and say to yourself; "someday when the time is right, when I'm free, then we'll see". But once you're truly within the grasp, the centripetal force will pull you to its center and at the last stages you will be kicking and screaming and bemoaning the day you ever first imagined yourself a writer. You will be eating and drinking enough for two, or you will be eating and drinking nothing and fearful of a nervous breakdown--and then it will happen!
There will come the moment when all excuses have been said and all distractions have been lived through. At this point comes the critical moment of surrender and then you are inside the idea; within the center, the eye of the cyclone where all great and truly creative work takes place. Suddenly all weight is lifted and you will feel very light and utterly free of earthly gravity. You will feel like a healthy teenager with the mind of a two thousand year old man. As long as you remain centered within the eye of the cyclone, you are protected and you are truly a happy man.
But stay alert because there may (probably will) come a day when one of two things will happen. First: the work will be done and you will have to leave the Golden Room where creation takes place and venture back into the village of men. If you have learned the lesson and are able to remain centered then all will be well. Or secondly: you will loose your center and get spun out of the golden room and back through some ass kicking turbulence; back outside to where the milling herd stumbles about looking for money and security and reasons to live. You will suddenly become very dumb and lazy. You will walk around as if you were asleep and the strangest and most disheartening aspect of this condition is that you will not know that you are a sleep walker!
Months or years may pass with your mind and spirit in a fog and then one day some seemingly minor event will snap you awake! The golden haze of wisdom will hang in the air again in front of you like a miraculous fog and your energies will be boundless. If you show anger or resentment at this point over having been 'asleep' you will surely fall asleep again immediately. Be grateful and remain centered at this point and a great lesson will have been learned. Surrender to this moment and the next and the next...
Are we merely one thing; one entity? Or are we possibly two very distinct things; one spirit, non-corporal and one animal and very physical and programmed with real animal genes. Maybe like an animal in a zoo with his keeper. Possibly over thousands and thousands of years we have made an error in assuming that man's spirit and animal are one and the same. Possibly we are like Siamese twins connected at some vital organ; or mirror images of a similar idea each over identifying with the surface reflection of the other. One living upon the surface of the third planet from the Sun and the other living somewhere else entirely.
It's as if we are all suffering from night blindness. Dazzled by the flash bulb of insight and desire popping off intermittently. When the flash of light explodes over the event horizon we are treated to a view. That momentary view; that micro second of illumination etches a line of desire; an attitude deep within our mind much the same way a burst of light etches an image upon a piece of film within a camera. When we are then plunged back into darkness we retain that image or insight etched upon the retina of our being. We pursue this last known fix. The next time the flash bulb goes off in our mind, we are aware of how far we are from the path of our initial desire.
When the deviation is shown to us we become full of anguish, angst and pain; we are not closing with our desires and our aims. We see only the ghostly trail from our phantom desires. And with each succeeding flash we get further and further from our center point. This futile path of sadness and frustration becomes a pattern. We persist on our imagined path of stutter like steps beneath the stroboscope of intermittent illumination.
The solution is to remain centered beneath the aerial bursts of illumination and not to become distracted and run off across the countryside chasing phantoms with our pitiful flash light of ego. If we can succeed in remaining seated and centered, the intermittent stroboscopic perception of insightful consciousness will slowly brighten until a glow on the horizon will be detected. Vision will begin to be perceived without a break. The periodic bursts will lessen in intensity as the horizon brightens. Night will pass and in our centered position we will witness...The Dawn: the beginning of persistent illumination.
It will be as if we are stones dropped into a still pond the rings of realization will begin to move out across the water in all directions with us as a seeming center. No ego involved; like windows we will allow the light of perception to shine through. Like gongs we will be struck by the idea, and together we will resonate.
Mall mentality, secret agendas, everything from sex to money, security, power, accomplishment, they are all attempts to get inside the envelope; inside the spiritual balloon: to approach the immediacy of The Moment. We all want to surrender to the magic of the moment. Some, though, place a hierarchy of value on a multitude of moments. According to the world's great religions there is only one moment, one constant promise and reward and that is THIS MOMENT, where ever it finds you, what ever you are doing--THIS MOMENT. Everything you have ever done or thought or experienced has led you to This Moment! Feel it! Smell it! Look around you right now and treasure everything you see, no matter how seemingly small and insignificant. Everything you see right now and every errant thought cruising through your mind is special. Invest it with weight, and significance, meaning and value. Surrender to the inevitability of just THIS MOMENT! Don't concern yourself with the next moment.
The so called 'disciplined act' is nothing more than an act of surrender to the inevitability of this moment (without any backward glance by the intellect). This is the strange fascination with Zen monastic training as well as military training. In both schools one's intellect is bypassed and one is taught instead the subtitles of surrender. In the case of military indoctrination one is taught to surrender one's life. In a Soto Zen monastery one is encouraged to surrender one's very soul....
The fascination with war, high risk sports, gambling, sex, and writing as well as spiritual practices such as Zen and Kendo is that these devices bypass base personality and allow the Being to live for a time in The Moment. The compression and then release, into the center, the clear zone, is so stunning that it tends to trivialize everything that comes after.
The memory, which is all we retain once we are spun back off our center, seems very weighty and the event (whether it was writing a book, sky diving or good sex) seems to be the "Thing" of importance. Actually the "thing" is of very little consequence. The important event was that for a period of time an all too brief period of time we were centered. We and the Eternal Moment were one.
Drugs are the lazy man's way to capture this elusive moment. Even the heroin addict in his quest for oblivion is not trying to get "out" of it so much as he is trying very seriously to get "into" it. Into that timeless eternal instant: the eye of the hurricane, the center of the cyclone. That perfect place where no winds blow...into The Now!
Images and insights flit bat like through my mind and condense on the walls of my brain and gradually drip down in the form of words, metaphors, and analogies to form stalagmites and stalactites upon the floor/ceiling of the cavern. These experiential mineral deposits build up over many years and give me an idea of who I was, who I am and who I might become...
Watching television, movies, reading books and newspapers and magazines as well as observing people in the street I can almost see a spiritual power sculpting the human entity; turning it first this way and then that way, pushing in at one point, pulling, stretching and stressing points and aspects here and there. Meanwhile humans continue to strut their dance and see things as individual threats or rewards or phenomenon, isolated and interesting but utterly disconnected one from the other. We fail to recognize even the simplest patterns. We are all just little chips off The Diamond, facets to refract the light. We seem utterly unconcerned as well as unconscious of the fact that we are being turned upon a heavenly lathe.
In school there should be early training in basic Man Woman. This would, of course, include training in basic metaphor manipulation in everyday life. Possibly in Woman I, there might be a course in "acting out", the shared knowledge about female sexual power; its risks, excitements and responsibility. In Man I, there could be acknowledgement of "the will to power" and what it's underlying message really signifies.
Archetypal roles can be very exciting. They can also be very dangerous as well as threatening. It is no accident that in an alienated, dysfunctional society the young choose the archetypal images of sex and death and violence. These are the basic roles.
The Creative Act:
At first it is just there, very subtle. You turn towards it (the low pressure area) like a flower turning towards the sun. You can give it a name, call it an idea or merely think of it as a feeling. You move around it, tantalized but fearing real involvement. You walk around it like a dog circling in the grass before he lies down. The "walk about" may be short (a walk around the desk, your living room or stage) or long (a circumnavigation of the entire earthly sphere.) Once you've circled the "idea" then it's pull begins to really be felt. The cyclone begins to form, and though you are still on the outer most periphery you are at this point "captured".
As you circle again you are drawn deeper inside the mystery; deeper and deeper until like a giddy tourist on holiday at the amusement park in the spinning room the floor drops away and you are pinned against the wall while the cyclonic spin of the "idea" sucks you further inward towards its central mystery. In doing this I am trying to understand why certain writers "hate to write": why I hate to write!
So there you are, fascinated by the awesome stature of the idea, but more than willing to move on to other, shall we say less serious and perhaps more banal distractions. But by then you've circled it once, twice, three times and it has a strong pull on you. At this point you sincerely acknowledge the idea and say to yourself; "someday when the time is right, when I'm free, then we'll see". But once you're truly within the grasp, the centripetal force will pull you to its center and at the last stages you will be kicking and screaming and bemoaning the day you ever first imagined yourself a writer. You will be eating and drinking enough for two, or you will be eating and drinking nothing and fearful of a nervous breakdown--and then it will happen!
There will come the moment when all excuses have been said and all distractions have been lived through. At this point comes the critical moment of surrender and then you are inside the idea; within the center, the eye of the cyclone where all great and truly creative work takes place. Suddenly all weight is lifted and you will feel very light and utterly free of earthly gravity. You will feel like a healthy teenager with the mind of a two thousand year old man. As long as you remain centered within the eye of the cyclone, you are protected and you are truly a happy man.
But stay alert because there may (probably will) come a day when one of two things will happen. First: the work will be done and you will have to leave the Golden Room where creation takes place and venture back into the village of men. If you have learned the lesson and are able to remain centered then all will be well. Or secondly: you will loose your center and get spun out of the golden room and back through some ass kicking turbulence; back outside to where the milling herd stumbles about looking for money and security and reasons to live. You will suddenly become very dumb and lazy. You will walk around as if you were asleep and the strangest and most disheartening aspect of this condition is that you will not know that you are a sleep walker!
Months or years may pass with your mind and spirit in a fog and then one day some seemingly minor event will snap you awake! The golden haze of wisdom will hang in the air again in front of you like a miraculous fog and your energies will be boundless. If you show anger or resentment at this point over having been 'asleep' you will surely fall asleep again immediately. Be grateful and remain centered at this point and a great lesson will have been learned. Surrender to this moment and the next and the next...
Are we merely one thing; one entity? Or are we possibly two very distinct things; one spirit, non-corporal and one animal and very physical and programmed with real animal genes. Maybe like an animal in a zoo with his keeper. Possibly over thousands and thousands of years we have made an error in assuming that man's spirit and animal are one and the same. Possibly we are like Siamese twins connected at some vital organ; or mirror images of a similar idea each over identifying with the surface reflection of the other. One living upon the surface of the third planet from the Sun and the other living somewhere else entirely.
It's as if we are all suffering from night blindness. Dazzled by the flash bulb of insight and desire popping off intermittently. When the flash of light explodes over the event horizon we are treated to a view. That momentary view; that micro second of illumination etches a line of desire; an attitude deep within our mind much the same way a burst of light etches an image upon a piece of film within a camera. When we are then plunged back into darkness we retain that image or insight etched upon the retina of our being. We pursue this last known fix. The next time the flash bulb goes off in our mind, we are aware of how far we are from the path of our initial desire.
When the deviation is shown to us we become full of anguish, angst and pain; we are not closing with our desires and our aims. We see only the ghostly trail from our phantom desires. And with each succeeding flash we get further and further from our center point. This futile path of sadness and frustration becomes a pattern. We persist on our imagined path of stutter like steps beneath the stroboscope of intermittent illumination.
The solution is to remain centered beneath the aerial bursts of illumination and not to become distracted and run off across the countryside chasing phantoms with our pitiful flash light of ego. If we can succeed in remaining seated and centered, the intermittent stroboscopic perception of insightful consciousness will slowly brighten until a glow on the horizon will be detected. Vision will begin to be perceived without a break. The periodic bursts will lessen in intensity as the horizon brightens. Night will pass and in our centered position we will witness...The Dawn: the beginning of persistent illumination.
It will be as if we are stones dropped into a still pond the rings of realization will begin to move out across the water in all directions with us as a seeming center. No ego involved; like windows we will allow the light of perception to shine through. Like gongs we will be struck by the idea, and together we will resonate.
Mall mentality, secret agendas, everything from sex to money, security, power, accomplishment, they are all attempts to get inside the envelope; inside the spiritual balloon: to approach the immediacy of The Moment. We all want to surrender to the magic of the moment. Some, though, place a hierarchy of value on a multitude of moments. According to the world's great religions there is only one moment, one constant promise and reward and that is THIS MOMENT, where ever it finds you, what ever you are doing--THIS MOMENT. Everything you have ever done or thought or experienced has led you to This Moment! Feel it! Smell it! Look around you right now and treasure everything you see, no matter how seemingly small and insignificant. Everything you see right now and every errant thought cruising through your mind is special. Invest it with weight, and significance, meaning and value. Surrender to the inevitability of just THIS MOMENT! Don't concern yourself with the next moment.
The so called 'disciplined act' is nothing more than an act of surrender to the inevitability of this moment (without any backward glance by the intellect). This is the strange fascination with Zen monastic training as well as military training. In both schools one's intellect is bypassed and one is taught instead the subtitles of surrender. In the case of military indoctrination one is taught to surrender one's life. In a Soto Zen monastery one is encouraged to surrender one's very soul....
The fascination with war, high risk sports, gambling, sex, and writing as well as spiritual practices such as Zen and Kendo is that these devices bypass base personality and allow the Being to live for a time in The Moment. The compression and then release, into the center, the clear zone, is so stunning that it tends to trivialize everything that comes after.
The memory, which is all we retain once we are spun back off our center, seems very weighty and the event (whether it was writing a book, sky diving or good sex) seems to be the "Thing" of importance. Actually the "thing" is of very little consequence. The important event was that for a period of time an all too brief period of time we were centered. We and the Eternal Moment were one.
Drugs are the lazy man's way to capture this elusive moment. Even the heroin addict in his quest for oblivion is not trying to get "out" of it so much as he is trying very seriously to get "into" it. Into that timeless eternal instant: the eye of the hurricane, the center of the cyclone. That perfect place where no winds blow...into The Now!
Images and insights flit bat like through my mind and condense on the walls of my brain and gradually drip down in the form of words, metaphors, and analogies to form stalagmites and stalactites upon the floor/ceiling of the cavern. These experiential mineral deposits build up over many years and give me an idea of who I was, who I am and who I might become...
Watching television, movies, reading books and newspapers and magazines as well as observing people in the street I can almost see a spiritual power sculpting the human entity; turning it first this way and then that way, pushing in at one point, pulling, stretching and stressing points and aspects here and there. Meanwhile humans continue to strut their dance and see things as individual threats or rewards or phenomenon, isolated and interesting but utterly disconnected one from the other. We fail to recognize even the simplest patterns. We are all just little chips off The Diamond, facets to refract the light. We seem utterly unconcerned as well as unconscious of the fact that we are being turned upon a heavenly lathe.
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