WE ARE GRIEVING – AND WE ARE CALLED TO ACTION

September 20, 2020 / JimLockard / 5 Comments

“His grief he will not forget; but it will not darken his heart, it will teach him wisdom.”
~ J.R.R. Tolkein
“Lord, we have lost so much this year. John Lewis was a blow. Chadwick Boseman was a gut punch. Nearly 200,000 souls have gone into the ether. Losing Ruth Bader Ginsburg just fills the whole atmosphere with despair. Let’s fight it though and honor these great souls by our actions.”
~ Joy Reid, MSNBC Host

We are grieving, so many of us. The families and friends of over 200,000 who have died from COVID19 or its complications grieve, often without benefit of last visits or funerals. Those who value civil rights grieve the loss of John Lewis and Chadwick Boseman among others, while Black Lives Matter and modern civil rights efforts and protesters are vilified by so many Americans. Those who value liberal democracy (LINK) are grieving the ruthless power grabs of the current US administration and the rise of authoritarian leadership in several western democracies.

And we each have our own losses to grieve. Personal losses in our own families, losses of jobs and livelihoods, losses of the ability to move about and connect freely, losses of in-person spiritual community, and more. I have written about grieving before (LINK) (LINK), but that was about personal grieving – the United States is in grieving now as a nation. Not everyone, of course. Some are in denial of what is unfolding, some support it blindly, and others have tuned out. But if you are paying attention, and your have even a small degree of empathy, you are grieving – whether you know it or not.

“Failures to grieve loss and disappointment, openly, honestly, will rise again, as unbidden ghosts from their untimely burial, through depression, or as projection onto objects of compelling, delusive desire, or through captivation by the mindless distractions of our time.”
~ James Hollis

We grieve what is lost, or what we are in the process of losing. We grieve the dead, and the seriously ill. We grieve the loss of innocence, as we are made aware of the degree of oppression of so many in our “free country.” We grieve the fact that movements like Black Lives Matter, LGBTQIA+, and #MeToo are necessary in our society. We grieve for the children in cages near our border and for their displaced families; we grieve the loss of a sense of living in a compassionate nation.

If we are aware of all of these things and do not grieve, then we are caught in a spiral of denial and our development is arrested, if not reversed. Our national obsessions with blind consumerism and the cult of celebrity are examples of the kinds of mindless distractions of our time, to which James Hollis refers in the quote above.

“Every one of us must undertake an apprenticeship with sorrow. We must learn the art and craft of grief, discover the profound ways it ripens and deepens us. While grief is an intense emotion, it is also a skill we develop through a prolonged walk with loss.”
~ Francis Weller

When we allow ourselves to grieve, we give ourselves the opportunity to emerge from that process with a healing. We may still be broken in some way, but the mended place can ultimately be stronger than before. When we allow ourselves to grieve, and each of us grieves differently, we process loss, betrayal, and sadness into something new – an alchemy of healing (LINK) emerges and we are lifted up into a new stage of growth.

“True maturation on the spiritual path requires that we discover the depth of our wounds; our grief… unfulfilled longing, sorrow that we have stored up during the course of our lives. Until we are able to bring awareness to our old wounds, we find ourselves repeating their patterns of unfulfilled desire, anger, and confusion over and over again. We heal through a systematic spiritual practice.”
~ Jack Kornfield

Now is the time to grieve, for loss is upon us. In addition to the normal losses of any life, the year 2020 seems to be calling us out for all that we have failed to do as a people in the past. We are driven by events which can no longer be avoided but must be managed and ultimately transmuted into new ways of being. Our relationships with our planet and our fellow humans must change. We are losing much in this process – some of it real, some imagined or fantasized – but loss it is.

We are called to come to the realization that we are not mere actors in this drama of life, we are the authors of our individual and collective experiences. And while we cannot control others, we can work to help influence others to realize the value of coexistence in peace and with equal measures of liberty and accountability. We have the tools of great teachings to use – let us use them wisely, compassionately, and with great passion and power. We are called to courage, but not a courage which denies our need to grieve.

“Do we have the courage to hold the grief that comes with the end of a story? You can only hold the beginning if you are prepared to also hold the grief for what is over, otherwise a certain maturity is lacking. At this time we are called upon to recognize the bigger story—which is not the story of supermarkets, not the story of politicians, not even the story of religious fanatics—but the story of the earth at this time.”
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

HEALING IS NOT LINEAR – IT IS ALCHEMICAL

September 3, 2020 / JimLockard / 6 Comments

New Thought teachings are about healing. If that is so, I often wonder at how much is unhealed in us, how we struggle with basic things, resist change, hold grudges, too often loathe ourselves, and more. Why do our spiritual communities struggle to survive, rarely thriving with attendance and financial support? Why are we not magnets for the many who seek healing in their own lives, families, communities, and nations?

Perhaps, we have not learned what healing is, much less how to teach it. We have nibbled around the edges, celebrating getting parking spaces or buying a new car (with only 5-7 years of payments!), or manifesting relationships which ultimately do not work. We attempt to affirm things we do not wish to experience away, refusing to look at the negative side of ourselves and manifesting denial. Can we truly say that we are any more “successful” in these areas than others who do not know about our teachings?

“I marvel at the overwhelming power of the unconscious and, at the same time, the intensity of its drive toward healing.”
~ Marion Woodman
“Christ healed the blind, the halt, the palsied, and the leprous. But the fool He could not cure.”
~ Khalil Gibran

And is the issue one of an insufficient understanding of Principle, or of insufficient or incompetent practice? Or both? Or perhaps it is one of refusing to see suffering as an inevitable part of life, refusing to confront what we fear; or coming to believe that if there is something wrong in my life there is something wrong with me?

“We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get ‘solved.’ They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief and for relief, room for misery and for joy.”
~ Pema Chödrön

Pema writes here of a spaciousness in consciousness – a willingness to expand our perspective, allowing ourselves to embrace a wider variety of experience, sensation, and emotion. When we shut ourselves off to pain, we effectively decide that we are not up to being fully human. We limit our ability to presence fully – to be present to the ups and downs of life while recognizing that our essential center will hold. This is a necessary quality to possess if one is to live among other humans, for have no doubts, other humans WILL let you down from time to time; just as you will let yourself down from time to time. The essential center – the sense of empowerment linked to a realization of one’s own divine nature – is what must be realized. It does not need to be developed, nor strengthened, for it is always fully present. It does, however, need to be realized, which we can do with spiritual practice and deep self-examination.

The realization of this essential center and the ability to live from a knowing that it is always present, can be seen in higher levels of emotional and spiritual intelligence. Higher levels of these intelligences lift you into the realm of alchemy – the realm of the Magician archetype. Here, healing is the natural order of the day, for when one fully trusts the essential center, one can face any degree of pain, knowing that healing is the alchemical transformation of consciousness via thought and emotion.

“Emotional intelligence is about so much more than recognizing, naming, honoring, feeling and expressing your authentic emotions. It also consists of alchemizing and transmuting them, releasing the heart wall, healing the emotional body and developing emotional regulation skills.”
~ Mary Amhasnaa

Emotional and Spiritual Intelligence (EQ & SQ) give us the capacity to expand and grow out of the need for certainty and predictability in ourselves and in the world around us. If we are to master ourselves and live fully in the world in which we find ourselves, we must deal with what has, up until now, been too difficult to look at – our past, our shadows, our denied and fragmented selves. There is also a call to do this collectively – to see how our larger society has systemically harmed so many of its members. This collective call can only be truly answered by those who have done their own work of self-mastery. Otherwise, there is insufficient strength – not enough connection to the essential center – to do the heavy lifting of transforming society.

This matters now because we are collectively in a time of great turmoil. The collective consciousness of humanity seems to be ready for a shift and what has been must be replaced by what is newly emerging. Any resistance to this will be painful, and those without a sound realization of their essential center are in for a very rough time. Any “unfinished business” within will inhibit one’s availability to transformation.

“True maturation on the spiritual path requires that we discover the depth of our wounds; our grief… unfulfilled longing, sorrow that we have stored up during the course of our lives. Until we are able to bring awareness to our old wounds, we find ourselves repeating their patterns of unfulfilled desire, anger, and confusion over and over again. We heal through a systematic spiritual practice.”
~ Jack Kornfield

We heal through a systemic spiritual practice, but we must also become radically self-honest. We must do the work of discovering what we have repressed about ourselves and our relationships and accepting and reintegrating these aspects into a healthy version of ourselves. This work cannot be done only by affirming what we desire. We must also look into our own darkness, because if we do not, we can only skim the surface of what is possible – parking spaces instead of true mastery.

“To experience some healing within ourselves, and to contribute healing to the world, we are summoned to wade through the muck from time to time. Where we do not go willingly, sooner or later we will be dragged.”
~ James Hollis, Ph.D., Jungian analyst
“Carl Jung said that if you find the psychic wound in an individual or a people, there you also find their path to consciousness. For it is in the healing of our psychic wounds that we come to know ourselves.”
~ Robert A. Johnson

Throughout this process, our souls yearn to have healing expressed throughout our being. While we have often been conditioned to ignore these yearnings, they have always been there. When we stop resisting, the healing energy is more available to us and we can establish a connection with that essential center. It is in being willing to explore our pain centers that we open doors to deep healing, doors which we may have closed earlier in life.

Nothing short of radical self-honestly will do today. We are collectively challenged to co-create a more equitable, compassionate, and sustainable society and the resistance to this happening is significant. Our woundedness and repressed selves keeps us afraid of deep change. Only by healing at depth can you participate in this unfolding and evolving process from a place of personal integrity and mastery. The path of healing is uneven, difficult, exhilarating, and never ending.

“You can be healing and still: — triggered — afraid — emotionally closed-off — unclear of which path to take next — tender Healing is not perfection, it’s small steps and progress toward becoming you again. Journey with grace through the process.”
~ Lalah Delia

I focus on the yearnings of my soul for healing. I work to bring myself into alignment with my soul’s agenda – to be a fully authentic version of myself, feel comfortable in my own skin, expand to allow the full range of life’s experiences and emotions, and resonate with the fullness of my essential center. I am a match for this world.

“SELF-HEALING MUST COME FIRST OF ALL”
~ Ernest Holmes, The Science of Mind

My Metaphysical Psychology Program Course, which begins on Sept 12th, is designed to bring you into resonance with your essential center.

If you are interested, email me at JimLockardTravels@yahoo.com

Also – this wonderful conference is happening ONLINE in October! Register now!

ROOT CAUSE: HEALING THE MASCULINE CONSCIOUSNESS, PART 4

September 18, 2019September 18, 2019 / JimLockard / 4 Comments

“Culture that celebrates the cunning and cleverness of people who win at being predators shouldn’t be surprised they occupy pinnacle positions. Justifying exploitation as normal or necessary was a dead-end game. The future is in the integrity of recognizing interdependence.”

~ Nora Bateson (Twitter)

“The experience of the feminine is the psychological key to both the sickness of our time and its healing.”

~ Marion Woodman, Jungian analyst

In Parts 1 (LINK), 2 (LINK), and 3 (LINK) of this series, we have explored a number of aspects of the wounded masculine consciousness. In this post, we will sum up and offer some prescriptive ideas which may lead to healing at the individual and societal level. The dance of masculine and feminine underlies everything in human existence – it is essential to the creative process and to being fulfilled as a human being. This has been known for a long time – and in modernity, we have forgotten many of the basic truths of our nature.

“The I Ching, the Chinese Book of Changes, recognizes the continual shifts that go on within the individual. The Yang power, the creative masculine, moves ahead with steadfast perseverance toward a goal until it becomes too strong, begins to break – and then the Yin, the receptive feminine, enters from below and gradually moves toward the top. Life is a continual attempt to balance these two forces. With growing maturity, the individual is able to avoid the extreme of either polarity, so that the pendulum does not gain too much momentum by swinging too far to the right only to come crashing back to the left in a relentless cycle of action and reaction, inflation and depression. Rather one recognizes that these poles are the domain of the gods, the extremes of black and white. To identify with one or the other can only lead to plunging into its opposite. The ratio is cruelly exact. The further I move into the white radiance on one side, the blacker the energy that is unconsciously constellating behind my back: the more I force myself to perfect my ideal image of myself, the more overflowing toilet bowls I’m going to have in my dreams.”

~ Marion Woodman, Addiction to Perfection, pp. 14-15

As noted previously, we tend to raise our children according to firm gender roles and expectations, many of which are so culturally ingrained into us that we are blind to them. As a result, we are conditioned to repress the masculine or feminine energy according to our outer gender appearance by our parents and by society at large. This leads to those “overflowing toilet bowls,” not only in our dreams, but in the society we have created and in the individual lives we lead.

Nothing in this series should be interpreted as a denigration of either “toughness” or warriorship in men or in women. The defense of what is valuable is healthy, and that is what warriors do. What is destructive is aggression and a sense of macho bravado that has nothing to do with defending what is valuable but is about defending one’s insecurity and inauthenticity. Such energy has done damage to countless human lives and to cultures over the years. That is what needs to be healed. The mature spiritual warrior comes to realize that the important battles are all within.

“We have a fear of facing ourselves. That is the obstacle. Experiencing the innermost core of our existence is very embarrassing to a lot of people. A lot of people turn to something that they hope will liberate them without their having to face themselves. That is impossible. We can’t do that. We have to be honest with ourselves. We have to see our gut, our excrement, our most undesirable parts. We have to see them. That is the foundation of warriorship, basically speaking. Whatever is there, we have to face it, we have to look at it, study it, work with it and practice meditation with it.”

~ Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

There is no single answer as to how to heal the woundedness of the masculine consciousness, nor the wounding to the feminine consciousness which has been a result of the masculine wounding. A beginning step is an awareness of the existence of the wounding – something that some are aware of (some men and probably most women), but not enough to forge meaningful cultural changes to how we parent and teach our children about the masculine and feminine energies.

“Men have been taught to sacrifice their hearts and their lives for the forward movement of civilization. And we have collectively been taught to assume men will not be affected by what the male role requires of them. . .. The definition of a man is to put duty ahead of emotional fulfillment.”

~ Linda Marks, Narcissism And The Male Heart Wound (LINK)

The way these creative energies have been viewed during the development of patriarchal culture over several thousand years has resulted in deeply ingrained biases in almost everyone about gender roles and expectations. “Coming out” is the act of stating that who I am is not within the rigid boundaries of what is culturally accepted as male and female gender roles, or as masculine and feminine consciousness within an individual. The fact that one has to “come out” at all is proof that these rigid beliefs exist, as do the structures and practices which arise from them; and that they reinforce one another. The cultural norms which have resulted in and from patriarchy are seen as a clear path to power, just as much today as two thousand years ago.

“We need to note that patriarchy and masculinity are not synonymous. Female patriarchs can be just as domineering as males. Like their male counterparts, they live in a patriarchal ethos that operates through control over others, over themselves, over nature.”

~ Marion Woodman

“The consequence of the patriarchal male’s haughtiness toward women leads to the inability to make any genuine contact with the Feminine (Anima), i.e., not only in a real woman but also with the Feminine in himself, the unconscious.”

~ Erich Neumann

“Women are taught that they aren’t allowed to be angry, that it’s aggressive, ugly, always unwarranted; so we cry when we’re mad, and we are mocked, diminished, dismissed. There is never a safe way for women to feel rage, yet even in silence we are blamed for saying nothing.”

~ @emrazz on Twitter

Coming to terms with one’s position in the Patriarchy.

The Women’s Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, and the LGBTQA Movements have unfolded within a patriarchal context, often seeking goals similar to those who operate within the accepted frameworks of the patriarchy. The desire for equal employment, equal pay, and for marriage equality, speak to the desire to be allowed to enjoy rights of the while male class which has been atop the patriarchy for centuries. The initial phases of movements by oppressed peoples have, of course, be to gain rights relating to civic and economic life. These are essential rights within a society, but they do not necessarily address the deeper healing which needs to occur.

For a true healing of masculine consciousness to occur, we must go deeper. While laws may govern behaviors, they do not govern beliefs. The continuing efforts to repeal laws of every kind which have been passed in the last 50 years to protect those who have been oppressed show that beliefs have not changed as much as we might wish. The negative reaction among white people to conversations about reparations for slavery is another example. It is not unlike speaking to an active addict about their addiction; the ego-self will lash out, so strong is the denial. We are dealing with largely unconscious accepted biases and beliefs.

Healing begins with an awareness of the issue to be healed, then one must see the value in pursuing any healing process, then one must follow that process. The dynamics for individuals and cultures are somewhat different, because cultures will have a mixture of people at different stages of and openness to the healing process. Until there is sufficient conscious awareness of the problem and its nature, perhaps from a deep loss or trauma, healing will not be undertaken. Shadow integration is a difficult and painful type of healing, requiring a willingness to reveal very uncomfortable truths. The ego structure will resist any approach which threatens to reveal the deeper issues which it is working to deny. Remember, denial is an unconscious process, shadow is unconscious, and the ego seeks to keep them that way.

“Any serious spiritual work brings up the shadow, the rejected parts of your own psyche, which have to be faced and accepted. It’s the process of inner purification. Other spiritual paths may focus on purification through diet or yoga or good living or correcting bad habits. Our particular Sufi path has a very strong psychological element, and the purification is analogous to Jung’s ‘shadow work’ in which the rejected parts of one’s psyche come to the surface to be confronted, loved and accepted. This begins the process of transformation. As Jung said, ‘One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.’ Then he humorously added, ‘The latter process, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.’”

~ Llewellyn Vaughan Lee

Healing can be facilitated in a number of ways. One is by participation in men’s groups (LINK) focused on healing, in the recovery movement (AA, NA, GA, etc.), in therapy, and in spiritual communities where there is a psychological element (as noted in Lee’s quote above). It can also be done alone, but this is the most difficult path, as the ego will resist the kind of deep examination and revelation necessary for true shadow work. It is important to work with someone who has done their own shadow work successfully (which does not mean they have no shadow; it means they have resolved most of the major areas of repression). Things will come into conscious awareness which are difficult to deal with and must be managed in a healthy way.

Starting points might be the books of Robert A. Johnson (LINK), a Jungian therapist with a deep understanding of symbolism and mythology. Also, the work of James Hollis (LINK), another Jungian who writes clearly about these issues. The poetry of Robert Bly (LINK), Coleman Barks (LINK), and David Whyte (LINK) can be a way to reach into one’s symbolic, mythological, and archetypal self. Debbie Ford’s classic book “Dark Side of the Light Chasers” (LINK) is a great primer to the shadow and shadow work.

In our New Thought spiritual communities, we need to take an approach that we are all works in progress, the products of patriarchal culture with conscious and unconscious biases which limit our ability to be authentically masculine or feminine. The healing practices of affirmative prayer and meditation are wonderful and to be encouraged, however, we must recognize that they can also be used as spiritual bypass when deep and uncomfortable issues are not explored.

There is no more important spiritual work than shadow work. Revealing one’s true self is paramount in moving toward a deep realization of spirit within. The path to the realization of spirit is within yourself; shadow block the path of realization. There are trials involved in this deep work; it is a true hero’s journey (LINK). And it requires a willingness to be uncomfortable, which can be difficult in spiritual communities where everyone appearing to be happy and satisfied is valued (and enforced).

It is time to stop dancing around the edges of spiritual awakening. It is time to dive into the painful waters of radical self-exploration and radical truth-telling in a community where compassion forms the essence of co-existence. It is time.

“We’re all just walking each other home.”

~ Ram Dass

In Part 5 of this blog, I will describe to the best of my ability what a healthy masculine expression might look like. I recognize the possible varieties of expression are endless, however, the essential elements would be consistent.

I am deeply appreciative of the responses to this blog series thus far. As always, your comments are appreciated in the comments section below. Please share this blog with others who may be interested.

ROOT CAUSE: HEALING THE WOUNDED MASCULINE CONSCIOUSNESS, PART 1

September 1, 2019September 1, 2019 / JimLockard / 12 Comments

“Maleness is an outer physical attribute of half of humanity; masculinity is an attribute of every human being. It follows from this that one must be exceedingly careful how one applies masculinity or femininity to one’s personality.”

~ Robert A. Johnson

I believe that healing is revealing, so let’s begin this series with some revelations about the issue of masculine wounding. It is becoming increasingly clear to me that this issue underlies most, if not all of society’s dysfunction in today’s world; it is a Root Cause. Toxic masculinity is a manifestation of masculine wounding, as are the acts of violence, from dozens of mass shootings to hundreds of thousands of cases of domestic violence.

The #MeToo Movement (LINK) (LINK) has brought the issue of bad behavior by men to the forefront, potentially revealing what needs to be healed. Our culture has been a largely dysfunctional patriarchy since at least Biblical times. This is easy for some men to see when pointed out, but, like a fish may be unaware of the water in which it swims, we men are all too often oblivious to the experiences of those who are not like us.

The patriarchy has been a white male patriarchy, where power has been consolidated to the detriment of people of color and white women. The 20^th Century was the bloodiest in the history of humanity, with at least 108 million people killed in wars during that time, not to mention those killed by criminals or domestic violence or who died in industrial accidents due to negligence or lax or non-existent safety regulations. The white male patriarchy has evolved from monarchical kings to kings of finance, using greed as a reason to not only fight wars, but to make everyone’s lives be seen and valued in economic terms. This behavior is so widespread that we are surprised when we find people who seem relatively unaffected by it – when we witness true compassion for example. The biases and behaviors arising from this wounding permeate every corner of our society to one degree or another. It is, however, important to remember that the behaviors come from woundedness – wounded people wound other people.

It can be difficult to see that those doing the most harm are themselves wounded. Those with the most power are often driven to seek that power out of a sense of inner emptiness and wounding. in western culture, once a boy has reached the age of 7 or so, he is no longer allowed to feel – to cry or to express joy (except in victory) or to care or show compassion – the male heart wound. He is taught this by just about everyone in his culture, even his mother. So many boys and young men have no stable male figures in their lives, fewer have truly healthy male role models (LINK). While fathers may be wounded themselves, they are most likely to show tenderness to their own children. Unfortunately, there are fathers who are incapable of showing tenderness or love. The book and film “The Great Santini” (LINK) provide a vivid example of the wounded father harming his family – as he himself was harmed by his father.

“The Great Santini”

IF YOU DON’T FEEL, YOU DON’T HAVE TO DEAL:

There are many secondary gains of the male heart wound. Power and wealth are two great anesthetics for the wounded male heart. Power and wealth get men the social trappings, including pretty women and all the toys, that allow men to avoid the emptiness in their own hearts. “When I am feeling powerful, I have no pain,” commented a man I interviewed. Men have built externally functional selves with worldly rewards. However, these rewards are not rooted in a core sense of self or soul which is inaccessible and undesirable, having been lost, broken, underdeveloped or never defined. This lack of sense of self, fragile self, undeveloped self results in an elaborately built psychic/emotional defense system that draws power and attention towards the person and keeps pain at bay.’

~ Linda Marks, Narcissism And The Male Heart Wound (LINK)

This wounding has arisen and continued because of a lack of balance between the energies of masculine and feminine, both in cultural and individual terms. The suppression of the feminine energies has placed us in great peril. We live in a so-called advanced culture in technological terms, but which is primitive, predatory, and violent in emotional terms. We, especially men, are at risk when we show vulnerability and compassion. And when trauma has occurred in childhood, the severity of the wounding is multiplied – narcissism and psychopathy increase. There are few solid role models for a balanced and healthy male in western society today, and too many unhealthy role models being held up as examples to follow.

Fisher king myth-in-the-waste-land-8-638

The myths of wounded kings [The Fisher King (LINK) for example] show how the kingdom of the wounded male becomes a wasteland until he is healed by recovering his inner balance. When the wounded male has ruling power, the culture and everyone in it suffers. We are seeing this played out in real-time today.

“The images of adult manhood given by the popular culture are worn-out; a man can no longer depend on them. By the time a man is thirty-five he knows that the images of the right man, the tough man . . . which he received in high school do not work in life.”

~ Robert Bly

“The more a man swaggers, the more insecure he is in his own masculine nature.”

~ James Hollis, Jungian Analyst

This imbalance resulting from the denial of the feminine has led to the wounding of many men. They are left without true access to the totality of their nature. It has also led to a similar condition among women, who have been subjugated and led to believe that feminine energy was dangerous, or at least inferior to masculine energy; many have rejected their own masculine aspects (Animus in Jungian terms).

Not surprisingly, as women awaken and reclaim their power, wounded men feel increasingly threatened. The horrid comments and death threats and worse, which women who speak out about any cause or who challenge any man in power receive are evidence of this. The backlash toward the feminist movements by wounded males and by women who have accepted their secondary nature are on display for all to see. The wounded will lash out at or withdraw from initial attempts at healing, at least at first. The early reactions to the #MeToo Movement were largely men being silent and only apologizing when they felt trapped by accusations. The current Vice President of the United States will not have a meal with a woman alone (LINK) feeding the myth that men cannot be trusted in the presence of women.

“In ‘Castration and Male Rage: The Phallic Wound (LINK),’ a sequel to Phallos, (Jungian analyst Eugene) Monick argues that men suffer castration because the world wounds their sense of personal identity.’ The signs of this are over-compensation and an inflated power complex (think of Donald Trump naming his casinos after His Sameness, Wall Street scandals, & the meteoric rise and subsequent fall of business empires), and rage, often directed outward. Men also reveal their disempowerment through timidity and shame. One analysand I met who had been abused by his father could barely hold his head erect and look at me, lest I shame him the same way. Monick too, as I have here, asserts that a primary enemy of men is fear, fear of the feminine and fear of being wounded by other men. ‘Patriarchy, which substitutes power for love and measures worth in material terms, worshiping not the divine but its own erections, is a compensation for this fear.’”

~James Hollis, Ph.D., Jungian Analyst, Under Saturn’s Shadow, p. 94

It seems odd to think that people in power need healing, but the evidence is everywhere in our culture of woundedness. The macho consciousness is a false projection to cover up shadow wounds and fear. One who knows his wholeness can be kind and seek connection; one who is wounded and disconnected from his feminine nature lives in fear and becomes a loner, interacting with those he can dominate, or being dominated himself.

“. . . obviously male children feel and feel deeply, but eventually socialization takes care of all that…. the feeling boy is gradually molded into the unemotional man.” Quoting a 45-year-old graphic artist, “’This culture… destroys the sensitivity in men. It annihilates the male emotionally, sexually, spiritually and creatively.’”

~ Daphne Rose Kingma,

“The Men We Never Knew (LINK)

We teach our boys to emulate comic book heroes who may be good but who are single-dimensional and are not in touch with their emotions or with their feminine side (Anima in Jungian terms). In my generation, it was movie star John Wayne – the epitome of the stoic, rugged individual, the warrior who could not connect – who rode off into the sunset at the end of the story. Sexism, homophobia, racism, and bigotry are all a part of the wounded male worldview. I do no profess to know what percentage of men and women are affected by this wounding, but I am sure that it is a majority.

Before healing can occur in any large sense, compassion must be present, which can be very difficult in dealing with those who have done harm. Our spiritual nature must come forward in this endeavor. None of us is free of the need to heal, and none of us is free of the effects of the unhealed.

In Part 2 I will explore my own journey, in Part 3 explore how shadow plays a major role in keeping woundedness hidden, and hopefully shed some light on what we can do together to heal our culture (maybe in a Part 4).

As always, your comments are encouraged. Please feel free to share this post with those who may be interested.

There is still time to register for my upcoming course in Metaphysical Psychology which begins on September 13th. For more information, email me at JimLockardTravels@yahoo.com

THE SHOOTINGS WILL CONTINUE UNTIL THE CONSCIOUSNESS CHANGES OR UNTIL THE GUNS ARE CONTROLLED; THEN THE HEALING CAN BEGIN

August 4, 2019August 5, 2019 / JimLockard / 8 Comments

“No matter how cynical I get, it’s impossible to keep up.”

~ Lily Tomlin

As I began to write this post in response to the horrific shooting in El Paso, Texas, I saw that another horrific shooting has occurred in Dayton, Ohio. This post may ramble a bit, but I thought it more important to be timely. And no, cynicism is NOT the answer.

Just a few days ago, I wrote this on Facebook: Once again, we are called to prayer as the result of a shooting – this time in Gilroy, California. The dead include a 6-year-old boy.
May peace prevail in the hearts of humanity and may peace prevail on earth.
And may America gain the political will to enact reasonable gun control legislation. May politicians be more willing to confront gun lobbyists and less willing to allow our children to be in the line of fire.

I have written before on the epidemic of gun violence in America (LINK) (LINK). The darkness in the collective psyche of the United States makes it a very dangerous place to be – not just in terms of gun violence, but in terms of all kinds of violence, plus racism, sexism, shaming and blaming. It is an emotionally violent nation with regular outbursts of physical violence as well. Metaphorically, this means that what is diseased is seeking to be revealed and healed, but the egoistic mind is in denial and represses this tendency toward healing. Politicians and most citizens refuse to acknowledge and address the deeper issues, so they fester and expand.

We see some of this in the actions of too many young white males committing mass shootings – motivated by ignorance and fear flamed by online sites dedicated to hate any by the apparent encouragement of top political leaders. These young men, who have yet to develop their critical thinking skills (LINK) are like soldiers going blindly off to war, worked into a hateful countenance and willing to sacrifice themselves to destroy the “enemies.” This is only one symptom of the illness that is within the United States, one of the deadliest.

“Healing depends on listening with the inner ear – stopping the incessant blather and listening. Fear keeps us chattering – fear that wells up from the past, fear of blurting out what we really fear, fear of future repercussions. It is our very fear of the future that distorts the now that could lead to a different future if we dared to be whole in the present.”

~ Marion Woodman

Marianne Williamson, in a seemingly quixotic bid for the US Presidency, is both serving as a wayshower to those unfamiliar with New Thought (and related) spirituality, and as a mirror to those of us in New Thought who are seeing our teaching held up to the cynical lens of mass media and social media. She is planting seeds, some of which will doubtless bear fruit as the most Googled candidate – people may gravitate to our way of thinking about spirituality and the world we live in. The wayshowers of Wayne Dyer’s generation are largely gone. I am in the teaching because I read one of Dyer’s books – how many more would say that? Who is showing the way to New Thought today?

How do we reach a larger segment of the world with spiritual principles which empower one and greatly reduce the likelihood of violence? How do we, ourselves, further embody those principles so that we face the challenges of this world from a more spiritually realized way of being? If an individual were exhibiting the symptoms of the United States (and many are), the first thing one would do is remove or at least limit access to tools of violence. You might, for example, put the kitchen knives out of reach of a disturbed child, adolescent, or adult in the home. You would not expect that to heal the illness within, but it would be a reasonable action to take.

“Until we go to the root of our image of separateness, there can be no healing.”

~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

A national policy on gun violence including an assault weapon ban, universal registration and background checks, universal data bases available to law enforcement, and additional research on gun violence as a public health issue would be a start toward creating a safer environment from which to deal with deeper issues. But only a start.

All healing, all change, begins on the inside and works its way out. The US has deep inner wounding and shadow seeking to be revealed and healed. Reasonable and effective gun control measures are a necessary outward step to create a safer space to so the inner healing. The current national leadership are clearly not up to the task of recognizing the need for healing nor the task of facilitating that healing. The influence of money in our politics has led to corruption, both legal and moral. But that is a symptom and should be treated as such – healing will require deeper work, and we must ask if the United States or any nation is up to that task.

“The manifestation of emotional and psychosomatic symptoms is the beginning of a healing process through which the organism is trying to free itself from traumatic imprints and simplify its functioning. . .. when properly understood and supported, this process can be conducive to healing, spiritual opening, personality transformation, and evolution of consciousness.”

~ Stanislav Grof, Shift Magazine, June-August 2004

The good news here is that the raging symptoms being revealed come from a living system seeking healing. May we find the wisdom to promote a healing process.

Meanwhile, in France this week, we are seeing the end of peach season, the cherries are fewer in number at the marché, but the figs are coming in. Lovers stroll by the river and tourists fill the town squares. The Yellow Vests (Gillet Jaunes) are down to a small trickle, crime is low, and school supplies are on sale.

As you find the spiritual strength to engage the problems in your world, look around at the people, places and things which make that effort worthwhile. Let our spiritual awakening and positive actions be based in a consciousness of gratitude.

May Peace Prevail on Earth.

“Carl Jung said that if you find the psychic wound in an individual or a people, there you also find their path to consciousness. For it is in the healing of our psychic wounds that we come to know ourselves.”

~ Robert A. Johnson

As always, your comments are welcomed. Please share this post with those who may be interested.

SPIRITUAL HEALING & TRAUMA – MAKING A SOUL CONNECTION

November 21, 2018 / JimLockard / 10 Comments

“Briefly formulated, the universal doctrine teaches that all the visible structures of the world – all things and all beings – are the effects of a ubiquitous power out of which they rise, which supports and fills them during the period of their manifestation, and back into which they must ultimately dissolve. This is the power known to science as energy, to the Melanesians as mana, to the Sioux Indians as wakonda, to the Hindus as shakti, and the Christians as the power of God. Its manifestation in the psyche is termed, by the psychoanalysts, libido. And its manifestation in the cosmos is the structure and flux of the universe itself.”

~ Joseph Campbell

Healing, which is the essence of New Thought spiritual principles, deals with a triune of realms: the physical and metaphysical realms, plus the realm of pure Spirit. It is a process of revealing the perfection of the soul through a consciousness which has become unaware of its own radiance. It is never solely in one realm or another, it is always holistically present through the whole being – from soul/essence to outer physical being.

“We are ever renewed by the passage of the Divine light through our consciousness.”

~ Ernest Holmes

Joseph Campbell

Dr. Ernest Holmes

When we view spiritual healing as a linear process (Unhealed Condition → Prayer Treatment → Change of Consciousness → Healed Condition) we miss a greater Truth. Most of what we are is beyond language and calculations about matter – most of what we are is ephemeral energy directed by an intelligence which “thinks” in symbols and archetypes. Our physical being of cells, organs, and systems is also beyond the merely physical; it is a community of beingness with many intelligences converging to become what we call “me.”

The limitations of medical treatments, now or at any time in history, are that they offer linear treatment regimens to a non-linear being. Sometimes, this is enough, but more often there is no healing unless the deeper systems of being – soul and consciousness – come into harmony with the medical treatment. In New Thought, we recognize these deeper systems as the most important, recognizing that, when properly aligned, they can heal without medical intervention.

Collage of human head, molecules and various abstract elements on the subject of modern science, chemistry, physics, human and artificial minds

However, we do not eschew medical practices, recognizing that they can be beneficial, especially when our consciousness is not able to accept our own healing potentialities.

“In this Science, we believe that man’s life is a drama which takes place on three planes: the physical, the mental, and the spiritual. We should have no objections to any form of healing, for anything that helps to overcome suffering is good, whether it be a pill or a prayer. We believe in any method which produces results, for each has its place in the Whole.”

~ Ernest Holmes, “The Science of Mind,” Page 191

When healing is required, it is necessary that the processes of healing be available. This means that one must know how to facilitate the healing process by utilizing or invoking the three realms. Sometimes, this is not possible. A person may be incapable of aligning thoughts and emotions in a way which allows healing to occur. In such cases, it can be helpful to have assistance from others, who may treat for the person. Another way forward is through ritual, compassion, and other actions which may help the person to move to a salutary state of mind more receptive to healing.

As we learn more about psychology, we are seeing that not everyone may be able at any given moment to create a healing consciousness. This can be due to a number of things, from brain injury, to trauma, to improper chemicals in the body. The condition may be temporary or permanent. Trauma can result in an inability to create mental patterns which facilitate healing.

PTSD Word Cloud

Trauma, resulting in what is currently termed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, is a condition which is undoubtedly on the rise in our society. Once thought of as applying only to soldiers in combat, it is now realized that any kind of physical or emotional trauma can result in some degree of PTSD or similar disorder. Those affected are often unable to form the mental patterns necessary for their own physical and emotional well-being. They may also fail to understand that their condition is unusual and not seek help.

In a prescient column in the New York Times (LINK), David Brooks (@nytdavidbrooks) speaks to the need to treat the effects of trauma holistically, including soul issues (what we in New Thought would consider metaphysical issues).

“Our society has tried to medicalize trauma. We call it PTSD and regard it as an individual illness that can be treated with medications. But it’s increasingly clear that trauma is a moral and spiritual issue as much as a psychological or chemical one. Wherever there is trauma, there has been betrayal, an abuse of authority, a moral injury.”

~ David Brooks

The sea change necessary to bring our understanding of what it means to be human is underway, but a long way from complete. We have only seen a mind-body connection for about half a century. Incorporating the soul will take a while longer. But we in New Thought are already there – at least we have a teaching which is already there. And we, too, must broaden our vision of how potential is actualized into experience. We must see that there are times when individuals and groups CANNOT know the truth. And, just maybe, we need to expand our spiritual toolkits to include things that might help people bridge the gap. These might include clearly thought-out rituals, initiation rites, and the like, which do more than celebrate something. To be effective at the levels needed they must include no small amount of challenge and a willingness to create discomfort along a path to recovery or to a new level of being.

“(Edward) Tick (LINK) points out that most ancient cultures put returning soldiers through purification rituals. The men came back from battle and the terrible things they had done there, and they were given a chance to cleanse, purify and rejoin the community. The community would take possession of the guilt the soldiers may have felt for the things they had to do on its behalf.”

~ David Brooks

Purification Ritual – Japan

Such rituals are also needed for survivors of abuse, for first responders, for spiritual communities where trauma has occurred. We need to facilitate the reconnection with the soul where that connection has been distorted. This will require a new skillset for most or all of us. You might begin by studying Joseph Campbell (LINK). It is a way of working toward #AWorldThatWorksForEveryone.

“I wish our culture had many more rites of passage, communal moments when we celebrated a moral transition. There could be a communitywide rite of passage for people coming out of prison, for forgiveness of a personal wrong, for people who felt they had come out the other side of trauma and abuse. There’d be a marriage ceremony of sorts to mark the moment when a young person found the vocation he or she would dedicate life to.

“It’ll take a lot to make our culture a thick moral culture. But one way or another, nations and people have to grow a soul big enough to enclose the traumas that haunt them.”

~ David Brooks

As always, your comments are appreciated.

Beautiful Bird - Spectacled Spiderhunter

HOW CAN YOUR MIND HEAL WHEN THE PROBLEM IS YOUR MIND?

June 25, 2018June 29, 2018 / JimLockard / 27 Comments

“It is our own mental attitude which makes the world what it is for us. Our thoughts make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds. Learn to see things in the proper light.”

~ Swami Vivekananda

During my 36 years as a psychotherapist, I’ve seen many clients who have been victims of people like those Hannah and my friend describe. I call them New Age Bullies — those who, sometimes with the best intentions, repeat spiritual movement shibboleths, with little understanding of how hurtful their advice can be. Some of their favorite clichés are:

It happened for a reason.

Nobody can hurt you without your consent.

I wonder why you created this illness (or experience).

It’s just your karma.

There are no accidents.

There are no victims.

There are no mistakes.

A variant of this behavior is found in the self-bullying people who blame themselves for being victims of a crime, accident, or illness and interpret such misfortunes as evidence of their personal defects or spiritual deficiencies.”

~ Julia Ingram, MA (LINK)

The two quotes above may seem to be contradictory, but they are not.

They represent two prevalent viewpoints in New Thought, one more traditional, the other something new which is emerging (I know that we are not New Age, per se, however, Ms. Ingram’s quote does apply). They lead me to this question (and lots of others, as you shall see):

If thought is the pathway to healing, what happens when your capacity to think, or to think clearly, is itself impaired in some way?

Today, we know much more about the functioning of the human brain and body than was known at the time of New Thought’s founders. We know that depression is very often not the result of “depressing thoughts,” but due to neurological/chemical imbalances. When under the effects of these imbalances, a person may not be able to form the kinds of thoughts necessary for healing the condition. She/he may also be incapable of seeking help. While this is different from the person who has developed a pattern of negative thinking and who can change with intention and practice, this difference may well not be obvious to external observers.

While New Thought teachings say that every condition can be healed, there is evidence that this is not so, and to insist that it is so can be cruel and can deny the process which a person is experiencing. More and more, New Thought spiritual leaders are being confronted with people who are finding many of the absolutist positions and statements of the past to be inaccurate and sometimes harmful.

This statement by Joel Goldsmith speaks to the realization that to truly facilitate healing, one must think in the absolute, not the relative domain – a sentiment echoed by Thomas Troward, Emma Curtis Hopkins, and many others.

“Let us never accept a human being into our consciousness who needs healing, employing, or enriching because if we do, we are his enemy instead of his friend. If there is any man, woman, or child we believe to be sick, sinning or dying, let us do no praying until we have made peace with that brother. The peace we must make with that brother is to ask forgiveness for making the mistake of sitting in judgment on any individual because everyone is God in expression. All is God manifested. God alone constitutes this universe; God constitutes the life, the mind, and the Soul of every individual.”

~ Joel Goldsmith

Is there a balance available to us – somewhere between the extremes of “absolute knowing” and belief that our power lies outside of us and we are helpless?
A balance which still allows healing for those able to think at the necessary level of clarity, but does not diminish those who may not be willing or able to do so at present, or ever?
Is there a more compassionate way to approach mental healing which allows for both beginners and adepts, and for those who experience inner processes which rob them of their ability to use thought to heal?
What is the growing edge of New Thought in relation to healing?

The basis of mental healing is to create a consciousness, or a system of beliefs, which is strong enough to change conditions. In the case of physical healing, that means changing conditions in our bodies via a mind-body connection. This often defies our previous conditioning. I came into the Science of Mind™ teaching with a consciousness that I was subject to external forces – like germs – which, when contracted, required an outside expert – a doctor – to facilitate healing on my behalf. Over time, I came to see that I had the capacity to both heal many conditions myself, and to create a consciousness which avoided many negative conditions altogether. I no longer experienced regular seasonal colds, for example.

While this capacity to heal is authentic, there is also the issue of how we see our evolving capacities – what should I be able to heal and when? Should I feel shame if I contract the flu or if a lover leaves me, or if I lose my job? How should I approach others who are experiencing such conditions if I am not their spiritual teacher, but a friend? How should I approach them if I am their spiritual teacher, with the accountability inherent in such a relationship? Will I simply project my own insecurities onto them and use (or even simply think) some platitude like “What’s in your consciousness?” as a means of deflecting my own fears?

“Healing depends on listening with the inner ear – stopping the incessant blather and listening. Fear keeps us chattering – fear that wells up from the past, fear of blurting out what we really fear, fear of future repercussions. It is our very fear of the future that distorts the now that could lead to a different future if we dared to be whole in the present.”

~ Marion Woodman

It is our fear that leads us to “sugar coat” things. Like death, for example. We speak of “transitioning” and “passing on,” avoiding the term “death.” When my daughter died at age 18, many people were quick to tell me about her afterlife experience and how she chose that moment to depart this plane. Our belief system may include a continuing journey of the soul; however, we really don’t know what that is beyond speculation. Ernest Holmes had this to say about reincarnation:

“This idea of reincarnation is held by more people than those who don’t believe in it. Personally, I don’t believe in it, but I don’t know. So I would be ignorant to be dogmatic about it.”

~ From a 1933 Lecture by Ernest Holmes based upon

The Science of Mind, 1926 Edition

Dr. Ernest Holmes

But we don’t like not knowing, so we speculate. While I appreciated the attempt at kindness from many after my daughter’s death, it was often painful to be told how she chose this to happen and, as one told me, “she misses you but wants you to know that she is in a better place.” There were others, but you get the picture.

When we sugar coat the issues of life, we often, if unintentionally, diminish the experience of those we are trying to comfort or help. It is a fine and difficult line to walk – how to give solace or inspiration to someone without loading it with my own fearful projections? How to deal with repeated failures by someone to heal an illness or to get their life in order without making it more about me than about them? How to balance the need for personal accountability with someone’s current inability to accept that concept for themselves?

As in all things, I believe that we must begin by doing our own inner work. We must grow in emotional and spiritual intelligence, we must recognize our own fears, addictions, and biases and work to release them. They will surely affect our ability to be a compassionate and wise presence for others. As spiritual teachers, we must set and enforce healthy boundaries regarding issues such as who moves into professional-level classes, and how inappropriate behavior is dealt with in all classes. Many of us need to work on our ability to say NO. A proper NO can be the most affirming thing you can say many times.

In conclusion – we want to teach New Thought principles and practices as widely as possible, however, there are some who are not ready. We must realize that when we reduce our insistence on developing a strength of consciousness necessary for healing because some find it too difficult or take offense, that we may be harming all of our students. And we must try to work with those who are offended or depressed by the rigors of the teaching so that they can come to see a greater truth and not feel diminished – while knowing this may not be possible in their lives at the present moment.

Beautiful Tree in Lake

The high calling of spiritual teacher means that one says YES to the requirement for ongoing personal development, for setting and enforcing healthy boundaries, and for working for the good of all students who come to learn. Nothing less will do. And that means having people in our ministries with issues which do not get healed. While frustrating, it does not relieve the teacher of the accountability to be the best living example of the spiritual teachings that she can be. We continue to do prayer-treatment for them, to express compassion toward them, but we may never see a healing occur for them.

“If we think we can guide our brother aright, while our own feet still walk in darkness, we are mistaken. We must first clarify our own vision, then we shall become as lights, lighting the way for others. But can we teach a lesson we have not learned? Can we give that which we do not possess? To suppose so is hypocrisy, a thing to be shunned. Jesus tears the mantle of unreality from the shoulders of hypocrisy, winnowing from the soul of sham and shallowness its last shred of illusion. We cannot see Reality until our eyes are open; until the light of eternal Truth has struck deeply into our own souls.”

~ Ernest Holmes, THE HIDDEN POWER OF THE BIBLE

As always, your comments are appreciated!

#Charlottesville – Thoughts and Prayers?

August 13, 2017 / JimLockard / 6 Comments

“We have been so persistently taught that prayer consists in asking God for some human need that we have lost sight of our spiritual identity and have become a race of praying beggars.”

~ Charles Fillmore

“Prayer doesn’t change things for us, it changes us for things.”

~ Norman Vincent Peale

What showed up in Charlottesville, Virginia this weekend was a consciousness of ignorance and fear, one that many of us thought long dead (but many others know better). It is a consciousness which has been encouraged by many aspects of our society, not just the right-wing media, but they bear a great share of the responsibility for fanning the flames of ignorance and fear. Like an iceberg, what we see above the surface is only a small percentage of this consciousness – it exists in various degrees in many people as a dominant way of thinking, and many more as secondary elements of their worldviews. To deny this is to make a grave mistake.

This consciousness is so pervasive that it exists in barely cloaked forms at the highest levels of our government – to deny this is to make another grave mistake.

Like any consciousness that leads to a worldview, it is self-justifying in that it alters perception to make the world look as if this consciousness is both reasonable and necessary. In that regard, it is no different from any other type of consciousness.

In fact, this element that surfaces as white supremacy is only one aspect of a much larger consciousness of ignorance and fear. It shows up as every human failing, every criminal and unethical act, every failure to act from a compassionate heart and the wisdom that emerges from a heart fully opened to compassion. You might say that it shows up in every opportunity for human learning and spiritual growth – it is not alien to us, it is part of our nature, a part that is to be gradually transcended as we deepen and grow.

So, what we see in Charlottesville is like one lesion on a body with many lesions, all arising from the same disease – a sense of separation from Good, from Love, and from Wisdom. Every lesion is a symptom of something deeper, there are no exceptions. Thinking that removing the most currently painful lesion will heal the body is magical thinking. We must get to cause – we know that, right?

If I were speaking to a spiritual community today, Sunday, I would make mention of this consciousness of ignorance and fear urging everyone present to look for evidence of its many tendrils within themselves. For when the consciousness of ignorance and fear is present beneath our awareness, we are helpless to do anything but be carried along by it, acting as though it were a justifiable way to see the world. Those of us who were not part of the mob in Charlottesville may well be part of the same root system which produced it. We believe in separation, we blame, we hate – but we are reasonable whereas they are not.

Have I ever blamed? Have I ever made another wrong in such a way as to accuse them of committing wrongful acts from a level of awareness that they had not attained? Have I ever projected my own unhealed issues onto others because I had not done my deep personal spiritual work? Of course I have – I still do, don’t you?

But ours is not to get stuck in self-criticism either – that is not productive. Ours is to find the Compassionate Heart which lies beneath the crazy, sad, false ideas that we have all accepted to one degree or another. Ours is to do our spiritual work to heal those aspects of ourselves that still give energy to the consciousness of ignorance and fear.

If you are a student of New Thought, as I am, you already know how to do this. You can tell you are doing it well when your first reaction to the actions of ignorance and fear is compassion, the sadness of a broken heart, rather than anger. That is when we will co-create The Beloved Community and your “thoughts and prayers” will be powerful enough to influence the world around you in a larger more positive way. That is what we are called to develop in ourselves.

“May this suffering serve to awaken compassion.”

~ A traditional prayer to Kwan Yin, Bodhisattva of Compassion

“Our prayers are answered not when we are given what we ask, but when we are challenged to be what we can be.”

~ Morris Adlier

The Prayer of the Heart

To deliver oneself up,
to hand oneself over,
entrust oneself completely to the silence
of a wide landscape of woods and hills,
or sea and desert; to sit still while
the sun comes up over the land
and fills its silences with light.

…few are willing to belong completely
to such silence, to let it soak into their bones,
to breathe nothing but silence, to feed
on silence, and to turn the very substance of their life
into a living and vigilant silence.

~ Thomas Merton, from Thoughts in Solitude

Don’t surrender your grief so quickly,
let it pierce the soul
Let it wail and crack open wide the disbelief
allowing its searing tears to stain your face
Something is missing in my heart tonight,
it has made my gentle eyes soft with sorrow
while my angry voice turns into a whispered prayer
and my tender need of absolution so clear.

~ Joseph Francis Argazzi

“We can be certain that there is an Intelligence in the Universe to which we may come, that will guide and inspire us, a love which overshadows. God is real to the one who believes in the Supreme Spirit, real to the soul that senses its unity with the Whole.
Every day and every hour we are meeting the eternal realities of life, and in such degree as we cooperate with these eternal realities in love, in peace, in wisdom, and in joy—believing and receiving—we are automatically blessed. Our prayer is answered before it is uttered.
Wake up! Your word is all powerful. Your consciousness is one with Omnipotence. Your thought is infinite. Your destiny is eternal and your home is everlasting heaven.”

~ Ernest Holmes

#Charlottesville

#AWorldThatWorksForEveryone

#TheBelovedCommunity

ON WOMEN AND MEN ON THE INTERNATIONAL DAY OF WOMEN

March 8, 2017 / JimLockard / 12 Comments

“The experience of the feminine is the psychological key to both the sickness of our time and its healing.”

~ Marion Woodman

I’ll be relatively brief here, sticking a toe into a vast ocean of possible discussion. It is the International Day of Women. The mere fact that such a day exists speaks to the way that women have been viewed in nearly every culture since humans evolved from earlier primates. Their place in the gender rankings has been a distant second. The best that can be said of western culture today is that there is some recognition of that and an additional recognition of the wrongness of it. That recognition, of course, is not complete, and it is not even universally shared by women. I won’t go into a litany of wrongs committed against women; suffice to say that they are legion and no woman is untouched by them. Nor is any man. Men tend to be less aware of that fact, but a fact it is.

And I can only see this dynamic as a cis-gendered white male; therefore, I need to leave the presentation of different perspectives to others.

Divine Feminine -Sophia

We are all wounded in one way or another and we often project that woundedness onto others. Women and men, lovers of all genders, have been doing that since the beginning of time. That, too is part of our healing journey, and must be addressed as we move forward.

Erica Jong and Sylvia Plath have described the issue well:

“Growing up female in America. What a liability! You grew up with your ears full of cosmetic ads, love songs, advice columns, whoreoscopes, Hollywood gossip, and moral dilemmas on the level of TV soap operas. What litanies the advertisers of the good life chanted at you! What curious catechisms!”

~ Erica Jong

“Being born a woman is an awful tragedy… Yes, my consuming desire to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, bar room regulars – to be a part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording – all is spoiled by the fact that I am a girl, a female always in danger of assault and battery. My consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstrued as a desire to seduce them, or as an invitation to intimacy. Yet, God, I want to talk to everybody I can as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night.”

~ Sylvia Plath

It has been said (and I happen to agree) that racism can be eradicated, but that sexism is here to stay. I think that there is truth in that because sexism is a by-product of sexual attraction. People are attracted to one another, they may fall in love or just in lust, but such experiences tend to cloud the mind and create chaos in many situations. But that does not mean that we cannot greatly improve the nature of our relationships with one another.

“A girl in a bikini is like having a loaded gun on your coffee table. There’s nothing wrong with them, but it’s hard to stop thinking about it.”

~ Garrison Keillor

“Sometimes you walk past a pretty girl on the street and there’s something beyond beauty in her face, something warm and smart and sensual and inviting, and in the three seconds you have to look at her, you actually fall in love, and in those moments, you can actually know the taste of her kiss, the feel of her skin against yours, the sound of her laugh, how she’ll look at you and make you whole. And then she’s gone, and in the five seconds afterward, you mourn her loss with more sadness than you’ll ever admit to.”

~ Jonathan Tropper

These two quotes speak both to the conditioning of men in our society and to the biological reality of attraction – regardless of the gender(s) involved. But I would suggest that it is masculine energy that is more romantic, the feminine is more practical. How many times has a woman found a way to keep the household running while the man pursues his dreams? How many women have made a relationship begin or end while the man hesitates to share his feelings or to act?

“I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me nave or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.”

~ Anaïs Nin

“The more a man swaggers, the more insecure he is in his own masculine nature.”

~ James Hollis

Some Women in New Thought – Past and Present

We in New Thought are not immune from sexism, although I would suggest the inner examination that naturally comes with our studies, we are often more aware of the issues and interested in equality than others may be. However, although a number of women figured prominently in the founding of New Thought denominations, we have had very few women in positions of top leadership in our more recent history. None of us knows our unconscious and we are all surprised by the things that arise from within us from time to time. Our early conditioning is strong and must be confronted and changed where it results in limited thinking of any kind. When we recognize and integrate our inner masculine and feminine natures within ourselves, we will be better able to integrate them with others to form a more compassionate and wise society.

“The I Ching, the Chinese Book of Changes, recognizes the continual shifts that go on within the individual. The Yang power, the creative masculine, moves ahead with steadfast perseverance toward a goal until it becomes too strong, begins to break – and then the Yin, the receptive feminine, enters from below and gradually moves toward the top. Life is a continual attempt to balance these two forces.”

~ Marion Woodman

Marion Woodman

Today, I celebrate women, the divine feminine in all of us, and the possibility for greater equality in our world. The feminine mind and heart has transformational power, and the world is crying out for transformation.

So, teach your children well. And do your spiritual work to realize a world in which everyone is seen as capable of giving their genius to all. The Beloved Community
can only be realized when we join together as one.

A closing quote from Marion Woodman on the crone, which speaks to one possibility of the feminine.

“The crone is the woman who has faced crossroads in her life and has chosen to live with acceptance and love, rather than closing down with resentment. She has expanded into life, losing the ego drive and opening to the full energy of the unconscious. She is a surrendered instrument, living out of her soul. She is an instrument through which the god and goddess energy moves. She comes from love, rather than from ego power. The dark side of the crone is power, because she has intuitive powers that can give her control of other people if she wants to use them that way. The other side of the crone is the love flowing through her that is an immense healing presence. She has a very finely developed masculinity. A highly developed discrimination, discernment, capacity to act. She is like a tuning fork in an environment. Because of who she is, her environment is different because she is there.”

~ From Marion Woodman

Your Comments are welcomed.

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WHEN THINGS DON’T GET BETTER

January 14, 2017January 16, 2017 / JimLockard / 7 Comments

OR, AM I THE ONLY ONE HAVING TROUBLE SEEING THE GOOD IN THE ELECTION RESULTS?

“Nobody will save you but you. You alone have to engage your own contemplative development. . . . If you do not engage this development, and on your death-bed you confess and scream out for help to God, nothing is going to happen. Spiritual development is not a matter of mere belief. It is a matter of actual, prolonged, difficult growth, and merely professing belief is meaningless and without impact. It’s like smoking for twenty years, then saying, ‘Sorry, I quit.’ That will not impress cancer. Reality is not interested in your beliefs; it’s interested in your actions, what you actually do, your actual karma.”

~ Ken Wilber

New Thought’s penchant for positive thinking tends to attract optimistic thinkers. For those who are not natural optimists when they arrive at New Thought community, they often learn to direct their thinking in a more positive direction. Some do so better than others; some feel the need to project optimism in public (New Thought public, anyway), while harboring negative thought patterns inside.

Since the election in November, I have heard and read a lot of responses from those in New Thought. Some call for action/resistance, some call for prayer and meditation, some call for reaching out to those with different political beliefs, some expect a change of heart in the newly elected president and his appointees, but just about every one calls for optimism. Even if, they may not see much reason to be optimistic.

Even our beloved Edwene Gaines, the longtime champion of the prosperity message in New Thought has spoken out in a distinctly non-optimistic manner on Facebook:

What do we call a person who lies, calls people names, insults others, demeans and belittles anyone who questions him or her, brags about assaulting women, doesn’t pay his debts, defames people of other religions, mimics the disabled, hides his finances, uses his position to increase his personal wealth and believes the American people will put up with this?

Oh yes, we call him THE LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD.
If this makes you angry or annoyed, PLEASE point out where I am not being truthful, and I will apologize. (I’m just saying…)

Indeed, it is a time of confusion and pain for many, because we want to see the larger world around us reflect the values that we have within ourselves. What I saw in the 2016 election was not optimism, and that is of great concern. It means, among other things, that I have some work to do.

“I have read somewhere of an old Chinese curse: ‘May you be born in an interesting time!’ This is a VERY interesting time: there are no models for ANYTHING that is going on. It is a period of free fall into the future, and each has to make his or her own way. The old models are not working; the new have not yet appeared. In fact, it is we who are even now shaping the new in the shaping of our interesting lives. And that is the whole sense (in mythological terms) of the present challenge: we are the ‘ancestors’ of an age to come, the unwitting generators of its supporting myths, the mythic models that will inspire its lives.”

~ Joseph Campbell, Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine

There are times in life when things do not go well. This is true in the life of every individual – we all experience pain, loss, betrayal, illness – and in the larger life of societies. New Thought principles encourage the development of spiritual awareness, love, and compassion. None of those things, as far as I can tell, are on the agenda of what will be the new United States government.

In the realm of effect, some will clearly lose some protections that they had at the time of the election, be that some degree of security in one’s immigration status or the ability to get health care with a pre-existing condition. And while we in New Thought can encourage such people to up their consciousness to manifest something better, many people do not know how to do that, including, if we want to be honest, many in our New Thought spiritual communities.

“Feeling unsafe . . . is the first obstacle to love.” ~ Barbara Fredrickson

Perhaps, as some of my colleagues say, this series of events will inevitably lead to a better society for us all, either through proving many wrong about the intentions of the incoming administration, or by means of something better arising through whatever chaos and wreckage is wrought. There is always an opportunity for growth – but forgive me if I am feeling sad that so many apparently must to traverse a more painful pathway to have that opportunity.

How do I know that? I don’t. I dearly hope that I am wrong, or that the resulting resurrected society is so wonderful that it is worth the suffering that it takes to realize it. But I know that breakdown does not automatically mean breakthrough. Sometimes, it just means collapse. We must seize the opportunities and be relentlessly devout in our spiritual practices so that we are prepared for the inevitable opportunities for growth.

We are called in times such as these to a higher way of being. Our inner compass can tell us if we are prepared sufficiently for the challenges we face. If our fear is greater than our realization of love, then we have more work to do.

“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.”

~ John Lennon

Now is not the time for those who have developed spiritual awareness to retreat from life. Now is the time to do what each of us is called to do – to pray and meditate, to take part in positive demonstrations, to speak from our hearts, to listen deeply to others, and to be patient with our culture as it changes form. Do what is yours to do after examining your heart. What is being called forth from you by these conditions?

“Be curious, not judgmental.” ~ Walt Whitman

Most of all, we must endeavor to live the lives that are possible for us, which are not dependent on any outside agency. We must live from a compassionate heart, from a consciousness that realizes our power, and which is impermeable to fear.

“Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never — in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.”

~ Winston Churchill

It is time to heal, to love, and to create a new world together.

“Spirit can only do for us what It can do through us.” ~ Ernest Holmes

NOTE: My new book CREATING THE BELOVED COMMUNITY: A Handbook for Spiritual Leadership, is now available at this (LINK). Give one to your spiritual leader(s)!

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My Metaphysical Psychology Program Course, which begins on Sept 12th, is designed to bring you into resonance with your essential center.

If you are interested, email me at JimLockardTravels@yahoo.com

Also – this wonderful conference is happening ONLINE in October! Register now!

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“Culture that celebrates the cunning and cleverness of people who win at being predators shouldn’t be surprised they occupy pinnacle positions. Justifying exploitation as normal or necessary was a dead-end game. The future is in the integrity of recognizing interdependence.”

~ Nora Bateson (Twitter)

“The experience of the feminine is the psychological key to both the sickness of our time and its healing.”

~ Marion Woodman, Jungian analyst

~ Marion Woodman, Addiction to Perfection, pp. 14-15

~ Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

“Men have been taught to sacrifice their hearts and their lives for the forward movement of civilization. And we have collectively been taught to assume men will not be affected by what the male role requires of them. . .. The definition of a man is to put duty ahead of emotional fulfillment.”

~ Linda Marks, Narcissism And The Male Heart Wound (LINK)

“We need to note that patriarchy and masculinity are not synonymous. Female patriarchs can be just as domineering as males. Like their male counterparts, they live in a patriarchal ethos that operates through control over others, over themselves, over nature.”

~ Marion Woodman

“The consequence of the patriarchal male’s haughtiness toward women leads to the inability to make any genuine contact with the Feminine (Anima), i.e., not only in a real woman but also with the Feminine in himself, the unconscious.”

~ Erich Neumann

“Women are taught that they aren’t allowed to be angry, that it’s aggressive, ugly, always unwarranted; so we cry when we’re mad, and we are mocked, diminished, dismissed. There is never a safe way for women to feel rage, yet even in silence we are blamed for saying nothing.”

~ @emrazz on Twitter

~ Llewellyn Vaughan Lee

“We’re all just walking each other home.”

~ Ram Dass

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“Maleness is an outer physical attribute of half of humanity; masculinity is an attribute of every human being. It follows from this that one must be exceedingly careful how one applies masculinity or femininity to one’s personality.”

~ Robert A. Johnson

IF YOU DON’T FEEL, YOU DON’T HAVE TO DEAL:

~ Linda Marks, Narcissism And The Male Heart Wound (LINK)

“The images of adult manhood given by the popular culture are worn-out; a man can no longer depend on them. By the time a man is thirty-five he knows that the images of the right man, the tough man . . . which he received in high school do not work in life.”

~ Robert Bly

“The more a man swaggers, the more insecure he is in his own masculine nature.”

~ James Hollis, Jungian Analyst

~James Hollis, Ph.D., Jungian Analyst, Under Saturn’s Shadow, p. 94

~ Daphne Rose Kingma,

“The Men We Never Knew (LINK)

There is still time to register for my upcoming course in Metaphysical Psychology which begins on September 13th. For more information, email me at JimLockardTravels@yahoo.com

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“No matter how cynical I get, it’s impossible to keep up.”

~ Lily Tomlin

~ Marion Woodman

“Until we go to the root of our image of separateness, there can be no healing.”

~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

~ Stanislav Grof, Shift Magazine, June-August 2004

“Carl Jung said that if you find the psychic wound in an individual or a people, there you also find their path to consciousness. For it is in the healing of our psychic wounds that we come to know ourselves.”

~ Robert A. Johnson

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~ Joseph Campbell

“We are ever renewed by the passage of the Divine light through our consciousness.”

~ Ernest Holmes

~ Ernest Holmes, “The Science of Mind,” Page 191

~ David Brooks

~ David Brooks

“It’ll take a lot to make our culture a thick moral culture. But one way or another, nations and people have to grow a soul big enough to enclose the traumas that haunt them.”

~ David Brooks

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“It is our own mental attitude which makes the world what it is for us. Our thoughts make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds. Learn to see things in the proper light.”

~ Swami Vivekananda

It happened for a reason.

Nobody can hurt you without your consent.

I wonder why you created this illness (or experience).

It’s just your karma.

There are no accidents.

There are no victims.

There are no mistakes.

A variant of this behavior is found in the self-bullying people who blame themselves for being victims of a crime, accident, or illness and interpret such misfortunes as evidence of their personal defects or spiritual deficiencies.”

~ Julia Ingram, MA (LINK)

~ Joel Goldsmith

~ Marion Woodman

“This idea of reincarnation is held by more people than those who don’t believe in it. Personally, I don’t believe in it, but I don’t know. So I would be ignorant to be dogmatic about it.”

~ From a 1933 Lecture by Ernest Holmes based upon

The Science of Mind, 1926 Edition

~ Ernest Holmes, THE HIDDEN POWER OF THE BIBLE

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“We have been so persistently taught that prayer consists in asking God for some human need that we have lost sight of our spiritual identity and have become a race of praying beggars.”

~ Charles Fillmore

“Prayer doesn’t change things for us, it changes us for things.”

~ Norman Vincent Peale

“May this suffering serve to awaken compassion.”

~ A traditional prayer to Kwan Yin, Bodhisattva of Compassion

“Our prayers are answered not when we are given what we ask, but when we are challenged to be what we can be.”

~ Morris Adlier

To deliver oneself up,
to hand oneself over,
entrust oneself completely to the silence
of a wide landscape of woods and hills,
or sea and desert; to sit still while
the sun comes up over the land
and fills its silences with light.

…few are willing to belong completely
to such silence, to let it soak into their bones,
to breathe nothing but silence, to feed
on silence, and to turn the very substance of their life
into a living and vigilant silence.