Dark Nights and a Bus

Dark Night of the Soul: a term first associated with the sixteenth century Christian mystic St. John of the Cross. Nowadays, it is almost a commonplace within certain psychological and spiritual circles. It denotes a period of questioning and uncertainty on the spiritual path, and is typically accompanied by feelings of apprehension, fear, confusion, helplessness, depression, and even despair. It amounts to a great challenge, a black room which it is required to walk through to eventually find the door on the other side. To accomplish the feat requires courage, persistence, patience, faith, and real intelligence.

In 'The Spiritual Awakening Guide', Mary Shutan includes a section on 'Dark Nights' while discussing what she calls the Layer of Societal and Collective Conditioning, one of the layers it behoves one to see into and through on the journey to proper awakening. Its nub is that uncomfortable, maybe even devastating, realisation that society, the collective, is not what you have been told it is, and what you have believed it to be. Things are not as they appear. Not at all. To follow Terence McKenna: society is not your friend. Culture (mainstream) is not your friend. To look in their direction for help, support, understanding - to believe that they exist to benefit all on their way through life -, is a big mistake.

A few quotes from Mary Shutan will serve better than anything I can cobble together to make a few salient points:
'Many of us stay in the societal awakening stage for lengthy periods of time. We become angry and disillusioned, realizing that the government, societal norms and rules, and the whole construct of society is patently false.'
'When we experience a Dark Night ….. the sense of depression and feelings of being in a fog or black hole can be overwhelming …….. everyone but ourselves appears to be asleep ….. There is a conviction that the rest of the world is going to hell and nobody else understands what is going on but us that is pervasive in this stage.'

And so it goes on. Needless to say, this is a stage to work through, to see through, and not get stuck in, difficult though this may seem at the time. It's one part of a bigger process. As a layer of conditioning it is to be seen as such, to be shed like an unwanted skin.

The degree to which one permits oneself to be affected by, identified with, even, this layer of conditioning profoundly influences ones mood, overall feeling, about life. This is what I have discovered in myself, at least. To the extent that I am influenced by those societal and collective notions and sentiments, to that extent I have the tendency towards feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, pessimism. To the extent that I can eschew this way of perceiving the world, and focus instead on individuals and my own individuality, to that extent I feel the magic, wonder, and miraculous quality of the universe I inhabit.

Societal and collective conditioning - disseminated mainly through mainstream media and 'education' - instils a certain outlook on life. The world is an awful place, full of awful things and awful people. I am helpless in the midst of this awfulness, and I should furthermore hand my power over to 'experts' and 'authorities' who will handle the situation for me. This is the prime purpose of this layer of conditioning in the modern world, to help perpetuate a mass of passive, helpless-feeling folk, who are readily manipulated, regulated, and controlled. The task befalling the individual is to see through all this, see it as a construct, and be free, internally at least, of the whole goddamn shithouse.

The individual human being, conversely, is infinitely fascinating. OK, sometimes a bit silly, but frequently friendly and well-wishing. I end with a little story from my wee corner of the woods, which is kind-of relevant. It concerns our local bus.

Once upon a time, the neighbourhood where I live boasted a pretty good local bus service. Moving to the Scottish Highlands from south London, I was particularly impressed by two features: firstly, the bus service ran more-or-less according to the timetable, rather than at random times; and secondly, the children said 'Thank you' to the driver when getting off the bus.

A few years after my move north, things improved further when many of the old buses were replaced by new electric ones. These were quiet, nimble, and clean. Happy days indeed.

One day, however, the electric buses were removed from our route. In their stead came an army of dirty old vehicles, including a number of grimy double-deckers, which looked as if they had been bought at a second-hand auction in Streatham. They lurched clumsily from stop to stop, eminently unsuitable for the windy roads that characterise parts of our locality.

The once-reliable timetable was no more. Buses were frequently late, or failed to turn up at all. The drivers were either dead grumpy, bad-tempered, anxious, or depressed. The peak hour buses, in particular, would regularly not arrive, and office workers, worried about losing their jobs because of repeated lateness, abandoned the service in their tiny Highland droves.

It was then that the bus company announced it would be discontinuing the service. 'Not enough passengers' they said. 'Only 22% take-up of capacity.' Hardly surprising, given the quality of service. Plus all those unnecessary double deckers with understandably empty seats.

There was a local stink, as there invariably is about such matters. The bus company was adamant. At the last minute, though, a smaller, more local, company stepped into the breach. 'We will run it. No subsidies? No problem. We can make it work.'

And making it work they appear to be. To begin with, the disgruntled locals' lack of faith was reflected in nearly empty buses. Slowly, though, they began to cotton on. Neat little vehicles, running punctually - well, most of the time. Maybe most important of all, though, was the drivers. Gone were the misery-guts of the big national company. Now there were drivers who were actually friendly, welcoming you on board with a smile and a cheery 'hello'. Two, in particular, really stood out with their amiable manner. Most miraculously, people waiting at the bus stops now did so with a smile on their faces, too.

A trip into town on the bus had actually become a pleasure, rather than a necessary evil. I suspect that there are folk who go into town just for the hell of it, just to be on the bus. A bit of positivity breeds positivity. That's a sentence straight out of one of those self-help books that I despise, I know. But, in this case at least, it is true. A touch of authentic human spirit works wonders.
             

Smashing Rackets for the Collective

It's New York. Tennis. The big day. Mega superstar, American Idol, defender of rights of blacks, women, and the downtrodden everywhere. She's got the record in her sights: America expects. A big day indeed.

Her opponent. A young whippersnapper. Slight-looking, quiet, reserved. From Japan, we think. No probs. Who is she anyway?

Soon in, though, things begin to get complicated. It's not going to plan. Not at all. Precise, powerful, tenacious, the opponent is tearing to pieces the megastar. Soon, the unthinkable is looming: our Idol is heading towards defeat.

Things unravel further. Shouting, screaming. Smashing the racket. Crying, complaining, accusing the umpire of severe wrongdoing. Throwing the mother of all tantrums: nothing is too low for our great idol in her bid to get her own way. Sexist, racist, unfair, injustice, equality, what about me?: she is skilled in the buzzwords, the triggers, the buttons to push, in order to gain attention, garner sympathy, get her own way. She has a new one now: mother.

The feminine, all fallen down. The feminine, gone horribly wrong.

And there's the man. Law and order is his game. He runs the balance sheet, knows the rule book by heart. That's his job, and he does it impeccably. Blow by blow, he counts her out. Her rage inflates by the minute. He is man-cool on the outside; inside, he's probably shitting himself.

And there's the crowd. The pawns, the robots, the unthinking mass, the world. She knows how to work them, the machine idiots, and does it magnificently. They are baying for blood.

It's kind-of awful. At the same time, it has its own reality. It's drama to knock the socks off any television soap, theatre to have the ancient Greeks on their feet. Unconscious archetypes let loose, running riot, creating havoc, on the big stage.

What's truly awful, in my view, is the collective. The herd mentality. The pathetic followers with their group think. The fawning commentators, the 'experts', the analysts, all poisoned by the ideological flavour of the day. Wetting their pants at the mere mention of the Great American Idol. There are a few, a paltry few, with the courage and personal integrity to just say it: Big Girl Behaving Badly. Maybe most of them are just too blinkered by their ideologies to actually see it, I don't know. More concerned with appearing right-on than to entertain the notion that maybe it does not befit an international superstar to behave like that, with the whole world watching. Instead, all we get is the collective nightmare. Sexist: yeah! Racist: yeah! Unfair: yeah! Poor little rich girl can't get her own way: yeah, yeah, yeah!

I'm beginning to actually see it, experience it. There are two things. There's real life, direct, naked: sometimes beautiful, sometimes ugly, sometimes great, sometimes crazy, sometimes just throwing a tantrum. Then there is the overlay. That's how I experience it: as an overlay, or a kind of mesh which places upon the bare bones of direct reality. Neil Kramer used to talk of the Construct, which is another fair description. Or it's like a dream, which envelopes what is real in a blanket of fog, or candy floss. It's what Mary Shutan refers to as the layer of societal and collective conditioning.

It is this overlay which, from the viewpoint of spirit, of soul, of authentic living, of the mystical and magical, does the real harm. It sets up a separation from who we are as unique individuals drinking in the miracle of moment-by-moment existence. Instead, it substitutes collective conditioning, especially in the form of beliefs and ideologies, knee-jerk reactions that feign to tell us what is right and what is wrong; what is acceptable, what is unacceptable. Their aim is, primarily, to delude and deceive; to prevent our self-discovery, if you will.

'Politicising', imposing political agendas on tantrums, is one of their prime strategies. It's the stock-in-trade of the media, whose main aim appears to be the imposition of the overlay on real life. This is why it is so poisonous, so detrimental to making something decent of your own life, and why it is to be shunned as much as possible. It is the poisoned chalice containing the toxic liquid of the collective nightmare. The BBC should come with a 'danger to health' warning, the Telegraph and Guardian with skull and cross bones on the front page. Agents of the collective nightmare, avoid whenever you can.

Meanwhile, in chapter five of Maria Sharapova's autobiography, we find the following: "I do not bitch. I do not throw my racket. I do not threaten the line judge....." Just so, Maria, just so.

Image: Men can do it as well.                

The Layers of Conditioned Reality: Nature

Part One

Animism. Pantheism. Deep Ecology. All three have much in common, in terms of outlook upon life. All is alive, all has worth. They move the focus from 'me' to the world; they see 'me' as one tiny piece of a living marvellous place. Let's follow them for a minute or two. Let's throw Descartes into a soul-filled ocean, and see where it leads us.....

No longer is the world dead, but it scintillates with vitality. It is a place of infinite magic. Wherever you look; you just can't escape it. Two distinct truths paradoxically co-exist, indeed interdepend. Firstly, there is interconnection - of everything with everything else. It is the great kaleidoscope. And secondly, there is the individual unit. Interconnected, yet discrete, recognizeable as a separate entity.

Take this co-existence to the nth level, and you find true gnosis. In Hindu terms, there is the simultaneous manifestation of samadhi and kaivalya, of union and individuation. Swing into Buddhism, and it is the non-difference, the cosmic dance, of Maya and Tathagatagarbha. The final embrace of Samsara and Nirvana, maybe. Non-differentiation of Self and Other. Heady stuff indeed.

Part Two

It's a while since windfarms appeared on Pale Green Vortex. They haven't gone away, though. In England, I believe their construction onshore has stopped. Here in Scotland, however, with its more enlightened regime, their building continues. The pace has slowed down, due to less giveaway subsidies nowadays, but still they turn up. Sometimes projects that have been in the pipeline for years, going through wrangles, objections, overturning of objections by the enlightened lackeys of Holyrood. And so on.

The latest one hereabouts to be finally built, after refusals by Highland Council, only to be steamrollered by central government (great upholders of local democracy), is Tom na Clach, on Dava Moor. It is located between Inverness and Aviemore, roughly, on windswept upland hills. In the middle of nowhere, you will be told. 'In the middle of nowhere' is an anthropocentric, rather than animistic, concept. It means that there are no pubs, supermarkets, or housing estates to be found there.

Go to the Isle of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides, a far-flung place ('far-flung': another anthropocentric expression. Flung far from where? Oh, the nearest motorway). There, on that island jewel, you will find poets, painters, photographers. All of them delight in the play of sunlight upon a little pool of water nestled among the heather; the dance of the long grass in the wind; the drunken movements of an insect as it bumbles across the peat. These are our priests and priestesses of the natural world, embracing the sacred in even the smallest thing. It is they who lay their talents down in the service of the gods, the goddesses, the Source, speak as you will.

On Dava Moor, the contrary is encountered. Wanton destruction, as blankets of peat are trashed, birds flee or face an inelegant end at the hands of the turbine choppers, the wind butchers' blades.

All of this is totally unnecessary, even from the viewpoint of human survival and well-being. From our animistic perspective, we could regard it as a crime. It is wanton, heartless, needless. We know about 'war criminals', those deemed to have acted outside the bounds of 'acceptable behaviour'(!) during the course of armed conflict. To the animistic mind, there are, alongside war criminals, 'moor criminals', those who have brutalised the Earth beyond the limits of 'necessity'.

Today, in my present mood, I write this quite literally. I would like to see these perpetrators of crime against nature, the moor criminals, tried and punished accordingly. I am thinking primarily of those in central government who have shaped policy whereby such creations as Tom na Clach windfarm are encouraged; and those appointees of central government who grant consent, flying in the face of local government even, and thereby also demonstrating utter contempt for local feeling.

There are those who live close to 'God'; and there are those who have fallen far......

Part Three

When windfarms, especially 'upland' windfarms, turn up on the agenda, a variety of emotional responses are triggered in me. Sadness often appears, particularly in the light of a newly-constructed windfarm. Feelings associated with how things once were, a hill or moorland as it used to be. When 'work is in progress', as in Tom na Clach, or when trouble is brewing, I invariably experience anger, wrath, rage.

This rage is a different feeling to that which appears when the computer malfunctions in the middle of a 'very important project'; or the feeling which breaks through on the bus failing to turn up when I'm at the bus stop laden with shopping. Or when the peanut butter drips off my knife onto the tablecloth before reaching my breakfast slice of bread. No. The windfarm nature rage seems less personal. OK, there is the 'poor little Ian losing his nice quiet landscape' element; but it is predominantly of a different order. The screaming wrath is not really 'mine', at least not in the way that we usually experience 'me'. It is more like something being funnelled through me. As experienced, it comes from outside of me. It is connected with nature. I fancy it to be feminine.

This kind of rage, alongside its counterpart lust, I cherish as most valuable. It comes as a warning sign, or a sign that something's up, or that I'm bolting the door on something which I need to be courageous to let in or let through. I do not seek to eliminate all anger and lust. In this way, I'm a crap Buddhist. Similarly, I do not align myself with those New Agey lightworkers who disown their primal lusts and rages. And the same goes for those smiley-smiley self-professed enlightened beings, normally non-dualists, who can be found in abundance on the internet. Some of them claim to have eradicated lust and anger completely, in true Theravada Buddhist fashion. Others may experience anger, but  do not identify with it: it is not 'mine', not 'me'. I do not consider this attitude very satisfactory. Rather, the rage and its object will be embraced, examined in its fullness and uniqueness, investigated, to find its deeper nature, and appropriate action taken as required.

My rage is like a precious jewel; or it can be. It is a gateway to the infinite. In this way, should I choose to align myself with anything from the Buddhist traditions, it will be more with traditions of Tantra. Not all rage and lust emanate from the neuroses of a deluded sense of separate ego-ness. I feel increasingly for the figures of the Dharmapalas, rageful characters who protect truth, reality. They know the sacred nature of energy; they do not seek to eradicate. They see the Buddha nature tucked away in all manner of feeling. In them is to be found the heroic.    

   
Images: -Hummingbird - Oscar Magallanes
              -Tom na Clach (photo: Press and Journal)
              -Wrathful Tara (thefemalebuddha.wordpress)
              -The Dharmapala Rahula