Oprah & Sophia

Below is the prologue to my new book, still in progress.

                                               Oprah & Sophia?

                                                 January 1, 2011 

Something that could be best described as an energy shift is beginning to arise from the depths of the heart of humanity. Examples of this shift abound everywhere. Witness the following. Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code weaves a mystery based on that earthy   redhead Mary Magdalene having created a bloodline with Jesus. The film The Black Swan portrays a ballerina’s struggle to embrace the repressed qualities expressed in the image of the black swan. Spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle teaches us of the importance of shifting our focus from doing to being. The best-selling book The Shack depicts God as an earth-mother in the form of a large, wise and deeply loving black woman. The empress of the talk show genre, Oprah Winfrey, has just this very day launched her own television network. What is the deeper energy shift of which the above are but mere waves and ripples?

Over five decades ago, the famous Swiss psychiatrist, C. G. Jung, predicted that there would be a reemergence of the ancient images of the archetypal feminine in the new millennium. Jung saw this as an expression of what he called “the self-regulating nature of the psyche” which applies to both the individual or collective psyche. In my master’s thesis Mandala Symbolism in 19th Century American Romantic Literature, I described how archetypal images arise in the art and literature of an age. As in the dreams of individuals, these images emerge from the collective unconscious in an effort to make up for what is lacking in the collective consciousness or world view of that age. 

This shift to the feminine is taking place after 2000 years of Western Culture being dominated by patriarchal, masculine values. These values are epitomized by an emphasis on doing and having rather than on simply being. The advances in technology reflect what the heroic effort to do and to acquire can do to improve the quality of life. So much has been done to develop new and better things. However, with the archetypal feminine, come the values of emotional intelligence, intuition, the wisdom of the body, and the heart. These values arise to bring balance after centuries of a one-sided emphasis on the head, the intellect, and reason.  

Sophia, the Creek goddess of wisdom, leads the pantheon of divine feminine figures. You might say that my love affair with Sophia began in college when I felt a tingling up my spine the very moment the professor told us that philosophy meant love of Sophia (wisdom). Thus began a pursuit of wisdom that has remained a lifelong endeavor. I also felt that same tingling when I learned of the centrality of Sophia from a recorded presentation on the long-repressed dark, positive feminine by Jungian analyst, Dr. Karlyn Ward. The presentation was aptly named Anchored in the Heart. The  dark feminine refers both to divine feminine figures who have been kept in the dark over the centuries and to the feminine values and qualities they embody and symbolize. 

Sophia has remained hidden in plain sight. For example, almost no reference is made to the diminutive female figure  in Michelangelo’s Creation series on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The figure is Sophia, and she is held to God’s side as a bride by one of God’s massive arms. With His other arm, God reaches out to touch Adam’s finger. 

Sophia is associated with the color black, and with the ancient images of the Black Madonna. Wisdom was associated with black because wisdom is often hidden in the dark depths within each one of us. 

One afternoon, I was reflecting on Sophia and then a question arose. Who is the most powerful feminine presence of our time? Oprah. Clearly, she embodies all that is associated with the archetypal dark feminine. She is a dark-skinned woman who has been dispensing daily doses of wisdom for decades. The steady stream of experts she has hosted on her show have provided information to help us heal our lives and relationships. Now, with her own television network, Oprah has achieved a kind of omnipresence—an appropriate quality for a modern-day representative of Sophia.

In conducting interviews, Oprah embodies the compassionate, empathic presence of an archetypal earth-mother. Oprah appeared at a time in human history when our lives and relationships were, and still are, in desperate need of the feminine values of compassion, wisdom, and emotional intelligence.

What is being described applies equally to males and females. Just because a woman is in a female body does not mean she is in touch with her heart and the other positive qualities found in the archetypal  feminine. She may be driven by the values of our male-dominated society thereby denying all that her deeper feminine nature offers. She may, in effect, behave as if she were a very driven, type a task-oriented man. 

In his book The Essential Mystics, Andrew Harvey directs our attention to what we all, men or women, need for the next conscious step in human evolution.

"For the human race to have a chance to survive…there has to be a fusion between our masculine and feminine energies…between our innermost mystical awareness and our political, technological and economic choices. Only such a fusion and sacred marriage can produce in us the necessary clarity, knowledge and force of active love necessary to preserve the world."

What follows is the story of how my quest for healing my eyes led me, a typical action-oriented American male, a product of Western Civilization, into unfamiliar territory. What I encountered was totally unexpected but, in retrospect, made perfect sense. It is the story of my descent into the dark depths of my  heart where I found the eternal feminine hidden behind a wall of fiercely masculine attitudes. 

The journey in this book begins where the journey initiated in The Space Between Stars leaves off. From there, you will accompany me on both my inward and outward travels. You will go with me and see what I saw on my visits to the healer-medium Joao  de Deus (John of God) at the Casa de Dom Inacio de Loyola (the house of St. Ignatius of Loyola) the healing center located in the village of Abadiania, Brazil. Shortly after my arrival at the Casa (the abbreviated way that most staff and visitors affectionately refer to the healing center), I was confronted by visions dating back to the Crusades. All the eye-opening experiences I had on my quest for restored vision will be revealed to you and, hopefully, help you attain true vision which is something other than simply seeing 20/20. . . . 

Once again, as I mentioned in the preface, it is to see as the still small voice whispered to me when I was with the Maya: “When you can see with total love and no fear, your vision will become clear.”  For more than a decade, it has been my quest to see as God sees with total love and no fear. This seemingly lofty goal  has been the guiding torch I bear, lighting my way through the thorny thickets of the dark-forest night of my damaged vision to the dawn of a new day of seeing everything clearly.

Hushpuppy Wisdom: Go Quvenzhané

I'm excited to hear  the Oscar buzz about the now 9-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis (the youngest actress to be nominated for Best Actress) and the film in which she stars, Beasts of the Southern Wild. It is a film that expresses the shift in consciousness  predicted by the Maya the wave of which we are now riding if we choose to flow with it rather than rsist it.  Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis), the little 6-year-old heroine is an inspiration for us all especially as we face loss. See some of her lines below.

Hushpuppy: I see that I'm a tiny piece of  a big, big universe and that makes it right. 

Hushpuppy: Everybody loses the thing that made them. The brave men stay and watch it happen. They don't run.

Hushpuppy: When it all goes quiet behind my eyes, I see [the sparks of] everything that made me flying around in invisible pieces.

Hushpuppy: The whole universe depends on everything fitting together just right. If one piece busts, even the smallest piece... the whole universe will get busted.

At 6:11 A.M. EST,A New 26,000 year Cycle Began!!!

This morning, at 6:11 A.M. EST, the Mayans remind us that a 26,000 year period ended and a new cycle has begun. Below are some thoughts with which each one of us may embark on this new stage in human history and the evolution of human consciousness. Remember, above all else, each one of us is a creator, creating with the vibrational frequency of our consciousness as we send our thoughts and feelings out into the quantum field of the collective consciousness of all that is. 

"The principle which gives thought the dynamic power to correlate with its object and therefore to master every adverse human experience is the law of attraction, which is another name for love. This is an eternal and fundamental principle inherent in all things . . . there is no getting away from the law of love. It is feeling that imparts vitality to thought. Feeling is desire and desire is love. Thought impregnated with love becomes invincible."

                                                                           —Charles Haanel

"Life is not what it seems, not even close to what most of our parents believed to be true. We live in a dream that our mind has crystallized into what we call reality. The Maya believe that you will soon know a part of yourself that is so ancient, it goes beyond the stars and planets as fixed worlds. For they too are a dream and like a dream upon wakening, you will realize they are pure light. Or, better still, pure consciousness."

    —Drunvalo Melchlizidek from a presentation in which he tells of his talks with don Alejandro Serillo, the head Mayan shaman of all the Americas.

"Every moment your consciousness creates the world you inhabit."

                                                                        —Eckhart Tolle

• On this momentous day, consider how we can all begin to replace a fear focus, which may also include anger, depression, etc., with a love focus in the broadest sense of focusing on what we would love to have happen in our lives. Should fear arise, we can simply use it to shift us back to what we would love to have happen. This can be done by simply reminding ourselves, "My fear of (blank) is telling me that I'd hate (blank) to happen. And that's because, I'd live it if (blank) happened instead." We then look at the gap between what is and what we would love to have happen and take whatever steps we need to close the gap. Whatever gap is left, we can turn over to our higher power (God, Source, your Higher Self, the Universe, etc.). Then, we just pay attention to any signs, meaningful coincidences help close the stress gap or accept what cannot be changed. 

May you Bless Yourself & Others with the Gift of Who You Truly Are: An Individualized Expression  of   Love, which Saint John reminds us is nothing less than God, the Ultimate Power operating in the Universe

Happy Winter Solstice, Merry Christmas &  Have a Blessed New Year

My Little Auntie: A Model for Us All (1918-2012)

My little auntie died in my arms just after dinner Monday night and we will be burying her today  . . .  This October, she would have been  94 years old. . . 

Every Morning this week, I have awakened with my eyes filled with tears of Grat

I had the privelege of taking care of my little auntie after retiring from my private practice as a clinical psychologist. I am her oldest nephew and the son of her sister, Gertrude. I was confirmed at what was then St. Andrews in 1960 and was very close to my aunt when I was growing up. Below are my recollections which will be used for her service. I have asked to have the presiding priest use it, and he has agreed to do so. I can't say it without becoming overcome with tears of gratitude and loss.

Barbara was upbeat, inspired and inspiring and led an active life. She never complained, ever, no matter how bent over and how much it was a struggle for her to shuffle along with her walker.  She was always delighted by the sky, saying, "look at that awesome sky," whether gray or blue, stormy or clear, it was always awesome to her. She loved animals. Every dog was "my favorite friend" and a "handsome four-legged wonder."

Despite her impaired short-term memory due to dementia, she somehow played bridge with her lifelong friends most of whom are no longer with us. On her daily walks, she greeted everyone, not by name, of course, but with her infectious smile.  Up until 3 years ago when she turned 90, she walked all through her neighborhood which included the area of Wilmington known as 4o Acres as well as Rockford Park and the Brandywine from the wooden bridge near her home to the Market Street Bridge. She would tell people how she had been all over the world, and she had. Her trips involved birding, and hiking or biking between hotels, hostels, or camp sites. She was hiking in Cuba just days before Castro took over. She would say how the guide would get news daily about Castro's progress so that the group she was with flew out in time. She was in Tennamin Square in China when the commotion started and the guide told the group to stand still close to a nearby wall as shots fired.  Just moments earlier, she was so pleased when a 10-year-old Chinese boy approached her, asking, "May I walk with you? I want to practice my English." Then, it broke her heart when a guard suddenly grabbed the boy by he arm and whisked him away. She was also fond of relating how she had the smallest camel to ride when on safari in the Sahara Desert. She would delightedly recount how, at the end of each day, her camel was eager to be fed and would dart in ahead of all the larger camels.

She hiked the entire Appalachian Trail from Maine to Georgia, doing sections during her vacations and weekends off from the DuPont Experimental Station. Of course, she hiked the trail only when she wasn't sailing on her sailboat out of Northeast River Yacht club or traveling abroad. She was an outstanding athlete with trophies in tennis, golf, bowling. She won the Irene DuPont classic golf tournament 3 years in a row, and the third year came from behind.

Above all, even when weakened and  only able to walk with someone pulling her walker, and hunched over from the severe osteoporosis, she demonstrated what only  so few among achieve: unconditional-no-matter-what-happens happiness. Rain or shine, barely able to move or at the peak of her athletic ability, she was always happy. A rainy day was a "good day. It was a good day for reading, or good day for a jigsaw puzzle" or just "a good day to be lazy."

What was said by the angel Clarence in the Frank Capra film classic, It's a Wonderful Life applies to Barbara's life, leaving out the masculine pronoun, "Each person's life touches so many other lives. When she isn't around. she leaves an awful hole . . .". She was loved and will be missed by all those who knew her well or only on her daily walks  and she will be welcomed by those who knew har who have preceded her and have been waiting for her to come Home. , including her beloved younger sister, Gertrude, my mother, and her younger brother, Hank.

Often, as she admired the clouds, Barbara used to say, "When I was a little girl, I pictured myself jumping from cloud to cloud, As Wordsworth wrote, "Trailing clouds of glory do we come from God who is our home" and now, dear Barbara,  traililig clouds of glory do you return to God who is your home . . .

Drop the Story & Flap Your Wings

I just returned from a weekend in the Adirondacks with my friend Ron who has a house there. The Mayan elders taught me how God talks to us all the time through nature. Of course, God is not restricted to communicating through nature. God talks to us through everything, even through our technological world: our computers, cars, TV shows, movies, radio shows, etc. Over the three days, deer, blue heron, red squirrel, hawk, and hummingbird crossed my path and my friend's. Each had some 

quality I could apply to my life situation and they each had something relevant to say about the circumstances in my friend's life. We could each draw upon the gentleness o deer, the self-reliance and sturdy patience of  of blue heron, the non-aggressiveness yet resourceful protectiveness of red squirrel, the infinite joy of hummingbird, and the recognition that they all come to us courtesy of hawk—the messenger of Great Spirit, God. 

In a New Earth, Ekhart Tolle uses the example of what two ducks do after they have a fight. "They separate, go off, and flap their wings, releasing the stored up energy, and then float on peacefully as if nothing had happened.

"If the duck had a human mind, it would keep the fight alive by thinking, by story making. This would probably be the duck's story. "I don't believe what he just did. He came to within five inches of me. He thinks he owns this pond. He has no consideration for my private space. I'll never trust him again. Next time, he'll try something else just to annoy me. I'm sure he's plotting something already. But I'm not going to stand for this. I'll teach him a lesson he won't forget. And on and on the mind spins its tales, still talking about it days, months, or years later. 

"As far as the body is concerned, the fight is still  continuing. . . . this is how most humans live all the time. No situation or event is ever really finished. The mind and the mind-made me and my story keep it going. We are a species that has lost its way. Everything natural, every flower or tree and every animal have important lessons to teach us if we would only stop, look, and listen. Our duck's lesson is this: flap your wings, which translates as let go of the story and return to the only place of power, the present moment?"

• Consider how much we keep our upsets alive by the stories we tell ourselves about the events in our lives. Rather than keep reviewing and thereby continuing to stress ourselves, we can try flapping our wings with the mantra of compassion. Picture the person who upsets you, and silently say to him or her, "I know in my heart, you would have done differently if you really could have done differently, but you couldn't (not yet anyway) so you didn't."

Choosing Transparency

 On this day of Good Friday, I think back to what came to me in the predawn hours of Easter Morning last year. I awoke with the thought that was revealed to me 11 years earlier regarding my impaired vision. "When I can see through the eyes of God with total love and no fear, my vision will become clear."  Over the years, I have fashioned it into an affirmation of gratitude, acting as if it has happened. "Thank You, Divine Beloved, that I AM now seeing everything clearly both the spiritual and the material, through your eyes with total love, no anger and no fear, and my vision is completely clear." Opening my eyes, I gazed expectantly into the darkness surrounding my bed. I then thought of the example of Christ on the cross. My prayer-affirmation became: "Thank You, Divine Beloved, that I AM now seeing everything clearly both the spiritual and the material, through your eyes with total love, no anger and no fear as Christ did His persecutors from the cross, and my vision is completely clear because my Christ vision is here." How can we do this? By remembering who we really are, which means, we affirm our spirit- or love-based identity. 

As we choose the transparency of a spirit-based identity, we replace the solidity of a body-based identity. We let stressful external events pass through us.

Consider the following from Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now. My thoughts are in brackets.

Interviewer: "how do we stop negativity from arising and how do we get rid of it once it is there?"

ET. . . . "Whenever you notice that some form of negativity has arisen within you, look on it not as a failure but as a helpful signal that is telling you, 'Wake up! Get out of your mind! Be present!' . . .

. . . "As an alternative to dropping a negative reaction, you can make it disappear by imagining yourself becoming transparent to the external cause of the reaction. I recommend that you practice it with little, even trivial things at first. Let's say that you are sitting quietly at home. Suddenly, there's the penetrating sound of a car alarm from across the street. Irritation arises. What is the purpose of the irritation? {Is it really necessary for me to be upset about this irritation?] None whatsoever. Why did you create it? You didn't. The mind did. It was totally automatic. Totally unconscious. Why did the mind create it? Because it [the mind] holds the unconscious belief that its resistance, which you experience as negativity or unhappiness in some form, will somehow dissolve the undesirable condition. This, of course, is delusion. The resistance that it creates, the irritation or anger in this  case,  is far more disturbing than the original cause that i is trying to dissolve. All this can be transformed into spiritual practice. Feel yourself becoming transparent as it were, without the solidity of a material body. Now allow the noise, or whatever causes the negative reaction, to pass right through you. It is no longer hitting a solid wall inside you. As I said, practice with little things first: the car alarm, the dog barking, the children screaming, the traffic jam. Instead of having a wall of resistance inside you that gets constantly and painfully hit by things that SHOULD not be happening, let everything pass through you. Somebody says something to you that is rude or designed to hurt. Instead of going into unconscious reaction and negativity, such as attack, defense or withdrawal, you let it pass right through you, offering no resistance. It is as if there is nobody there to get hurt anymore. That is forgiveness. In this way, you become invulnerable. You can still tell that person that his or her behavior is unacceptable if that is what you choose to do. But that person no longer has the power to control your inner state. You are then in your power, not in someone else's. Nor are you run by your [reactive, automatic stimulus-response-based or conditioned] mind. Whether it is a car alarm, a rude person, a flood, an earthquake, or the loss of all your possessions, your resistance mechanism is the same."

Stress Relief For A New Era: Transparent Trophy Revised

 I was just honored for achievement in high school and college basketball by being inducted into The Interscholastic Basketball Coaches Association's Delaware Basketball Hall of Fame on St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 2012. So much is coming together. Signs abound. There is the transparency of my award and its shape as a kind of clear glass tower pointing to heaven. All this suggest to me a kind of concretization of a higher consciousness emerging in and around me and all of us paying attention.  The photo of me having my picture taken by a woman was the one the newspaper chose to publish. It was a photo within a photo, like a dream within a dream. It struck me as very unusual and seemed somehow significant. There is  the implicit higher consciousness of the unseen photographer. The photographer is  witnessing a scene of the opposites of male and female facing each other respectfully. There is a amicable air of equality and mutual respect. . Many spiritual writers are suggesting that a new balance between the male and female principles is being sought after 2000 years of male-dominated attitudes.  It could be said that I am being seen through a feminine lens. It is time for all of us to see the world through nurturing, maternal eyes. We might say the paternal perspective in terms of the masculine emphasis on domination has polluted our planet.  I excitedly have a sense of my vision quest leading to a kind of deeper and more elevated or enlightened perspective. It is both a preparation for the upcoming trip to Abadiania, Brazil to see the healer John of God and my ongoing quest for true vision. 

The following is from the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle with my thoughts interspersed and set off in brackets. 

"In the sea most life forms don't survive for more than a  few minutes.  The human form turns to dust pretty quickly too. And when it is gone it is as if it never was. Is that tragic or cruel? Death of a form is tragic only if we forget consciousness is God essence expressing Itself in form. But you don't really know that until you realize your God essence as pure consciousness. If a fish  is born in your aquarium and you call it John, write out a birth certificate, tell him about his family history and 2 minutes later he gets eaten by another fish, that's tragic. But it's only tragic because you projected a separate self where there was none. You got hold of a fraction of a dynamic process, a molecular dance, and made a separate identity out of it.

"Consciousness takes on the disguise of form . . .until it . . . loses itself in those forms. In present day humans, consciousness is completely identified with its disguise [physical and mental forms]. This is how it is today, Consciousness only knows itself as form and therefore lives in fear of annihilation of its physical and psychological form. This is the egoic mind . .. where dysfunction sets in . . .this is part of Lila [Hindu concept], the divine game. [The Kabbalah's creation story tells us that the Creator, the Endless Light creates a Vessel to receive Its Light. The Vessel pushes back the Light, and wham! The Big Bang occurs as the Vessel shatters into all the souls that will ever exist, and the Light goes into hiding. A cosmic hide and seek game begins].

"Finally the pressure of suffering . . .created by this apparent dysfunction forces consciousness to disidentify with form and awakens it from form and its dream of form. It regains self-consciousness but at a much deeper level than when it lost [or appeared to lose] self-consciousness.

Prodigal Son

"This process is explained by Jesus in the parable of the lost son [Prodigal Son] who leaves his Father's home, squanders his wealth, becomes destitute, and is then forced by his suffering to return home.

When he does, his father loves him more than before.  The son's state is the same as it was before yet not the same. It has an added dimension of depth. The parable describes the journey from unconscious perfection [wholeness] through apparent imperfection  and apparent evil to conscious perfection [wholeness].

"Can you now see the deeper and wider significance of becoming present as the watcher of your mind?

[So, what is the benefit  of learning to disidentify from endlessly-thinking mind by watching it? A respite. Inner peace. At the very least, we gain relief from the internal pressure created by our thoughts as we step out of the ongoing stream and observe it] Watching the mind withdraws consciousness from mind forms [thoughts and images that endlessly arise and pass away]. Consciousness then becomes the witness or watcher or pure enlightened consciousness beyond form. This consciousness beyond form becomes stronger and the mental forms from which consciousness has been withdrawn becomes  weaker. 

The Larger Significance of Watching the Mind

"When we talk about watching the mind, we are personalizing an event that is truly of cosmic proportions. Through you [us] consciousness is awakening out of its dream of identification with  form  and withdrawing from form. This foreshasows but is alredy part of an event that is still in the distant future as far as chronological time is concerned. The event is called the end of the world.

When consciousness frees itself from physical and mental forms it becomes what we may call pure or enlightened consciousness or presence. . . . This has already happened in a few individuals.  it seems destined to happen soon on a much larger scale. There is no guarantee it will happen. Most humans are still in the grip of the egoic mode of consciousness, identified with their mind and run by theri mind [physical and psychological forms]. If they do not free themselves in time [free themselves from identifying with the time-bound mind and sense of self, i.e., mental form] they will be destroyed by it. They will experience increasing violence, confusion, illness despair, and madness. Egoic mind has become like a sinking ship. If you don't get off you will go down with it. 

The collective egoic mind is the most dangerous entity to ever inhabit this planet.

"What do you think will happen on this planet if human consciousness remains unchanged? Already, for most humans, the only respite is to occasionally reveert to a level [of consciousness] below thought, Everyone does this every night during sleep. But this also happens to some extent  during sex, alcohol and other drugs that suppress excessive mind activity.

"If it weren't for alcohol, tranquilizers, anti-depressants as well as illegal drugs, all of which are consumed in vast quantities, the insanity of the human mind would become more glaringly obvious than it is already. Deprived of their drugs, a large part of humanity would become a danger to self and others. These drugs, of course, simply keep you stuck in dysfunction. Their widespread use only delays the breakdown of old mind structures and the emergence of higher consciousness. [These mind structures or mental constructs are epitomized by the angry vengeful male deity depicted in the Old Testament (a projection of the ego and its mechanisms of defense, i.e., the mind and its workings)  which has extended into  2000 years of patriarchy, of male-dominated society, with its emphasis on the judgmental, constantly evaluating mind and linear logic seeking to control, dominate, manipulate and use nature. And, this mode of consciousness is cut off from the feminine characterized by compassion, softness, non-judgment and a recognition of our interdependence with all of life on this planet]. While some may gain relief from the daily torture inflicted on them by their minds, they are prevented from generating enough conscous presence to rise above thought and so find true liberation. 

Only Option is Going on to the  Next Stage 

"Falling back to a level of consciousness below mind,  the pre-thinking level of our ancestors and plants  is not an option for us. There's no way back. If the human race is to go on, it must go on to the next stage.[In this stage we realize that a fear-based consciousness helped create the world we see and a consciousness that realizes we are all one and that we are spiritual beings in bodies can help us all at this time in human history. This is what I learned from the Mayan Shamans regarding the shift of consciousness taking place in the space of time they call the End of Time. we could say, in line with Tolle, we stop seeing ourselves as time-bound minds with bodies, and, instead, realize we are eternal beings, consciousness, in physical forms that fade, decay, bloom and pass away while, we recognize in the timeless lyrics of  George Gershwin, "our love is here to stay" and love is who we are. Love is the stuff, the energy of which the spirit is made. Only our bodies are like the Rockies which may tumble and Gibraltar which may crumble, "they're only made of clay." ]