Oct. 27/03 - Essay #2 for Dr. Paul Anthrobus in Psychology of Religion
The ground of my being and my world of understanding is Storm. Anchored in Spirit, the Storm's cyclical processes sweep through my life continuously. My purpose in life is to experience the Spiritual Storm, ground it into an expression that can help bridge understanding and awareness into the experiences of other people's lives. I cannot do that unless I first am aware and understand my own experiences.
Life actualizes through cyclical processes that cause change, both within my Self and without, creating effects that set the reality of my experience. Spirit has been my only anchor since I was very young, if not earlier than this life cycle itself. Spirit directs Storm's energy, which is made up of the relationships between the elements of earth, air, fire, and water. I am made of these Spiritual elemental energies - earth my body, water my blood, air my breath, and fire my spirit – thus I am the Storm connected to the reality of Spirit's Storm in this plane of existence of life on Earth. Understanding the symbolic meanings for myself helps me understand the world and my place in it. Using symbols that have been given to me in mystical experiences, I communicate and relate these symbols into the comprehensive processes of my life.
These mystical experiences arrive with various degrees of intensity. Some of the most pronounced and paradigmatic experiences have created a continuous process of active meaning in my everyday life, thus transforming my whole world of being. My definition of a religious or mystical experience is one of heightened cognitive and emotive-kinesthetic reality, where timelessness and spacelessness is pervaded with pronounced clarity that allows the sensation of at-one-ness with all aspects of diversity within the experience of being whole within the process of its unfolding, without dualistic distinctions of separation. There is a selflessness, a no-otherness, with no active effort added to the unfolding. It is a heightened "it is as it is", a perfection without the distinction of perfectionism. No words could communicate the communion of synergistic dynamics within the experience. It has to be experienced.
Within my definition, both cognitive and emotive-kinesthetic are used to describe the reality of the mystical experience. Gordon Allport emphasized the cognitive in an experience and William James emphasized the feeling (Wulff, 585). Both need to be included since the whole being experiences a transpersonal moment of intense awareness. Awareness is on all levels of being, not only on a cognitive or on an emotional level. Experiences like these affect the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual levels of a being, bringing a higher intuitiveness, a higher clarity of reality to everyday existence.
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When I was a child I remember only the confusion of neglect from the people within my family. Each lived within their own private universes, wound up tight within their own realities to really communicate with each other, let alone a young child. I could not understand the chaos and the abandonment I felt, especially when I could step outside and feel the unity within nature, with myself fitting perfectly as a part of that world. Growing up in Ontario, I lived between the suburbs of Toronto and the countryside of the Kawarthas.
There was a sharp distinction when I was a child between nature and the world of people. I preferred to spend my time in nature. In nature I felt the proper order of the universe through various degrees of mystical experiences that occurred. I could lie on a boulder and feel as big as the boulder, as high as the grasses blowing in the wind, yet smaller than the tall pines and the immense sky above them. The pine trees whispered lullabies to me as the wind would caress my concerns away. There was one time when I merged with the wind sweeping through the long grasses. Like a spider's silk that can connect and catch everything in its web, my life in nature was connected with the Web of Life. This unity and sense of belonging kept me sane for the first decade of my life and gave me a heritage that I could recall and pick up again when I was older.
My childhood contained love in a very abstract and distant form. Without blame, I can now look back and see how neglect has become a generational heritage passed down from one generation to another in my family. With no parental skills, with very little interpersonal or social skills, my family did the best that they could, usually with the help of cigarettes and discardable or controllable relationships. Like those before me, I learned skills that helped me relate to the other human beings around, first with my family and then the larger population.
Through example I learned how to hide and how to be seen. Solitude has never been a problem for me growing up. The adults in my family always bragged about how well behaved I was as played well by myself; I always had a storybook or paper and pen with me. At the age of four I was writing simple stories and reading children's classics, providing me with a rich inner world of experience and wonderment that I did not have in life. These stories also opened me to the devic kingdom of nature. In nature I could lose myself in how the process of life grew out of the death and decay on the forest floor, co-existing and feeding off each other. Relationships and patterns were clearly meaningful and I have always seemed to have an inner teacher that gave me direction and guidance that I would later understand as my inner intuitive Allies. Unfortunately this rich, subjective experience of nature highlighted the deficiencies in my family relationships. I could hide in nature, yet I also needed to learn how to be seen.
I learned wonderfully. I learned to speak 500 words, really fast, so that 50 could be heard. I learned to create tangible objects with my hands to give the adults something to focus on, to direct the little attention they could afford in a comfortable way towards me. Most importantly, I became super-sensitive in the translation of the unconscious language of family and group dynamics and I became a master controller of individual and group energies. As my younger brother and cousins started to arrive, I became the protector and manipulator of their young worlds. I unconsciously took on physical and personality traits that would allow me to fit in to my family's world; reading and making crafts and handiworks like my Nana at a very young age; laughing and duplicating my mother's sense of humour; a need that was a constant desperation to search for something outside of myself, that would better myself and my situation like my aunt; the silence that can be broken by the lash of angry words at any moment, as well as the way of keeping people, especially those of the opposite sex, at a safe distance, both of which was utilized by everyone in the family.
I grew up with an extended family, yet everyone was alone. Loneliness, insecurity and confusion were the mainstays of my emotional existence. I lived most of my younger life between two places in Ontario, yet I never knew where I would be living the next day, or who with - my Nana, my Mom, my Aunt or mixtures of them together. My dad had left before I was three and I had blamed my mother because of the only memory I had of him and what she had done within that memory. My mom actually became my masculine role model, along with my aunt, and my Nana was my feminine one. Male was strong and independent, while female was weak and incomplete. Papa, Uncle Billy, and Uncle Glenny were always floating on the peripheral at the whims of these strong women. Even with the women's weaknesses, their active control of my surroundings in an unemotional and detached way showed the strength I would have to gain to survive. I was always told I was too emotional and weak, but very intelligent and creative. These became part of my character, along with the projections of each member. I always heard that I never finished what I started, that I was naïve and that I should not be like my mother. I became wrapped up thinking that I was no different than my mother, except that I could never harden my heart. All this shows that the control of my inner world came out of the control of my outer world; the women controlled where we lived, whom we lived with and when we moved where. I would start school every year at the same school in Scarborough; my Grade 1 teacher called me "an Old Penny that is always turning up." As I grew older, the moving around became worse when my mother decided to travel west to find work. Instead of moving within two places, sometimes she would take my brother and me with her all over the country. Within two weeks to a month, after starting school, she would send us back to my Aunt or Nana.
In grade 5 I went to six different schools in three different provinces. I gained excellent communication and oratory skills, but only for introductive and immediate purposes. I never stayed long enough anywhere to learn how to handle intimacy, discipline, or conflict. To deal with all of this, I had my inner world of imagining the future, but I disconnected from nature and the belief in the spiritual beings I played with as a child. I started smoking cigarettes at nine years old, with them becoming the only intimate and long-lasting relationship from my childhood.
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Cognitively, I did not even know that Spirit existed or was active in my life, let alone that I was in fact connected. My Nana had gone to a convent school in Saskatchewan. Growing up, her religious upbringing was neglected to the family bible locked in a dresser drawer in our country schoolhouse in Bobcaygeon. Religion was not part of my upbringing, yet I longed to understand the inner dimensions of myself that drove me to be so different from everyone else I knew. One day I was caught with the family bible and had seen my name in there, connected with the others in my family. Papa was fuming and told Nana. I remember yelling the question that received no reply: "Aren't I part of the family?" I was grounded to my room after a spanking with the unanswered question floating around in my mind. I came to my own answer; I did not fit in. It was not only the fact that I was not a part of the family, but also that we as a group must not be a family. No one in my family talked, or touched, or shared anything like I read in books or seen on TV about families. The next day I was given a little red New Testament bible and allowed to go "searching" with my aunt, as spirituality was dirty and seen as a weakness.
Searching is what my mom and Nana always said about my aunt. She would go from one denomination to another searching to find a way to meet her many needs. My aunt took me to my first Sunday school service. The topic was "God Is Love" (1 John 4:16). I loved it, until we were taken back upstairs and listened to a sermon about hell and damnation. All through my Christian experiences over the next few decades I still could not understand how they could believe in the rewards and punishment of heaven and hell. Thank goodness I had stuck to the first teaching of God is Love.
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The experiences of my childhood formed the foundation for my life lessons and spiritual unfoldment and evolution. Spirit and Spirit's Storm always moved through my life even when I denied my Allies and inner guides, as well as other spiritual messengers. I closed myself down and looked towards both self-improvement systems and religious institutions, thus denying the natural way I had within myself, in order to try to fit in to mainstream society.
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The mystical experiences themselves tend to transcend the limitations of words. To use words, no matter how descriptive or metaphorical, I have to make decisions about what was within the experience and what was not. Because of the static tendency of our grammatical structure, the wholeness, the cyclical process of the timeless NOW and the spacelessness within the experience becomes no longer fluid. The only way for me to describe these experiences would be to reduce them to analogies of Storm to represent the unity of process and duality and the Web to represent the interrelatedness and inclusiveness within the experience. The space between the experiential parts and me is nullified in these experiences and creates a problem in trying to find words without using the object references that our whole language depends on. The only way for me to truly relate these experiences is to give a form of experience to others; anything besides experience is belittling representations made through my perceptions and the analysis from outside the experience. This would then hinder any complete understanding that I would want to communicate to others.
Because of this, instead of going into detail that will not communicate my personal mystical and religious experiences, I will relate them to the pertinent questions that affect my life.
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What gives me a sense of identity?
I identify with the guidance of my internal spiritual allies and with the clarity of spiritual experiences that guide my way. Usually if I feel fear, I know that a growth spurt has arrived. I remember the fear I felt my first philosophy class. I hated going to that class, with every emotion being activated and producing stress throughout my whole life that term. Yet, that class has made me focus more on concrete thinking, planning, and execution, not only in my writing but also in everyday life. That class showed me that a part of me was out of harmony when I thought I was balanced.
My sense of identity is found in the stillness of my meditations or in my smoking, unfortunately. I have made several attempts to quit and have lost even more power, integrity and volition to that outside influence every time. I can fast without food, water, sex… yet I cannot go past 16 hours without a cigarette. My reaction to being smokeless has much of my identity wrapped into having that crutch I picked up at nine years old. Smoking is the one thing I have not been able to let go of, even with Spirit's direction and urgings to do so.
Other features I choose to identify with by finding meaning in them are:
- I identify with being a woman influenced by the moon and her cycles
- I identify with being a woman whose sexuality, sensuality, nurturance and balance mirrors that of Gaia, our Mother
- I identify with my creations, even as I let them go
- I identify with my skills as a writer
- I identify with my desire of being open to knowledge, especially of experiences – the true teachings
- I identify with my ever changing relationships
- I identify myself as Tina living in Regina and going to university, for now.
- I identify myself as Aya, having red hair, an elemental mage of the Irish Mulligan tradition, and following these tribal ways
- I identify myself as Asiniy Atayohkan Iskwew and Wapimostos Iskwew, following the Cree traditions of my children
These last identities are constantly evolving and changing within the web of my existence and within the understandings of Storm. These are the boundaries of my games through life.
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Am I on purpose for my life?
Yes. I came here to actively clear and clarify Spirit as a part of this realm, not separate from it. The secular and the sacred are one. People have had to separate them in order to understand them, like every other separation of duality found in our ideologies. Yet instead of seeing them as separates competing, I must first actively clear myself and clarify Spirit's influence in the dualities of my own existence. By first bridging the complementary natures of duality within myself, I then can move outwards and begin to help others who are ready to do the same. I cannot judge who is ready, but must wait for the direction to come in each moment. The chaos of Storm supports the center of stillness and the center supports the outside cycles. Bridging the light and dark aspects in myself is my main purpose right now as I continue through university to learn the tools I need to more easily accommodate those understandings in others and to learn how to accept the diversity of Spirit myself. Through mystical experiences I have been shown the four A's: Awareness, Acceptance, Accountability and Action. Through the use of these four principles in self-assessing myself daily, I can find balance within myself and with the world around me.
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How do I know I am on purpose?
The religious experiences are the mystical guideposts that show me that I am on my path. When these stop, I know that I have wandered from my path and my purpose. Shortly after a realization and an assessment of where I have disconnected with Spirit's guidance, the experiences continue.
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How do I make daily decisions and are they separate from religious ones?
When I was younger I allowed whichever system of belief I was in to dictate to me what was right and wrong, good and bad. I would make judgments against myself, against my family and friends and against strangers. I would start saying "Never" and Spirit's Storm would sweep through so that I would have the other side of the experience that I had judged. This eliminated most of my earlier judgments and helped me stabilize the direction of my life processes. If I adjusted my judgments to a newer form, Spirit's Storm would spiral through with a new situation within the old context or framework. Building on the past, deeper lessons and individual gains helped me return to the wholeness of myself. As William Blanchard is quoted to explain "peak experience is in reality an 'all-directional' moment of free creativity that is genuinely dangerous to a person's identity… the familiar world and even the self are thrown into question, so that the individual has nothing to hold on to"(Wulff, 629). Dangerous within Storm's boundaries, the center is the safest place to be and the mystical experiences are the keys to understanding how to maintain that center within the process of change.
These heightened mystical experiences taint the secular, everyday world with heightened connectedness and clarity of Spirit's process within it. Self becomes less important to the process and the anchor of Spirit's Storm in movement. The challenge is to stay in the center of the Storm and help others experientially bridge their way through the Storms within their lives, to connect to their own center. This is a hard challenge because I have to remain calm and centered within my own personal Storms as Spirit has me move them through their Storms, whether I am to be a passive support or another challenge to help them move to their center. Either way, Spirit asks me to use both my Light and my Shadow to help bridge the distance between the other person's sense of reality and their purpose.
My purpose can only remain pure if I am constantly re-assessing myself daily with intensive Spiritual clarity. The spiritual direction within tells me how to live my purpose in each moment. If I have an emotional involvement, I have to step back from the situation and clear my intentions by taking a personal inventory on the following:
- What am I emotionally reacting to?
- What judgments have arisen that I must become aware of and must change to "I" statements to clarify my response-ability
- How can I take ownership of these through forgiveness and/or understanding?
- What actions must I take to heal this reaction so that I can respond to the situation better?
My emotions evaluate if I am 'doing' my purpose (doing is off-balance) or if I am 'living' my purpose. If I find myself 'doing' my purpose, I must move inwards to explore my beingness before moving outwards once more.
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Awareness is the first key to the transcendence of the mundane world of existence. By seeking a spiritual awareness that involves clarity and courage, the past is translated by using the totality of life experiences to re-invent a healthy centeredness within the Storm of life on Earth. "Attending alertly"(Antrobus, 25) leads me into accepting the dualities found within my ideologies. I can integrate the complementary natures into the wholeness of my being. Taking action from the center of Storm allows me to be accountable for myself and for the world I create. This leads to a reciprocal responsibility with all energies found in existence and leads me back to the Source of Spirit's Storm.
Bibliography
Antrobus, Paul M. Ph.D., Listen to Your Life: Awareness Workshop Seminar Manual.
Regina; U of R. 1989.
Fadiman, James, and Frager, Robert. Personality and Personal Growth, 5th Ed. New
Jersey; Prentice Hall. 2002.
Wulff, David M., Psychology of Religion; Classic and Contemporary, 2nd Ed. New York;
Wiley. 1997.
*** Personal journals and every book I have ever read, every person I have ever talked to, and
every inspiration I have ever received from Source and its many Allies.
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