LIVING HERO

Freedom or Power, What’s Your Will?

In our movement toward wholeness and maturity, perhaps the most fundamental challenge—and our goal—is the acceptance and embrace of our freedom. To live as sovereign individuals, so that our highest authority is our own sense of what is right, and knowing that we hold the wisdom to assess for ourselves the particulars of a situation, means that we fully trust ourselves and are willing to stand alone, if and when necessary.

Since creative people are so often ahead of their time, we must really know, as an experience deep in our bodies, that our assessments of relationships are right; and this deep, inner knowledge gives us the courage to be harbingers of what may one day also be discovered by the masses. Galileo knew he was right; Blake knew; Einstein knew; Walt Whitman . . . the great ones knew.

This type of innate knowledge comes through the experiences of intuition, inspiration, epiphany, and insight. These are spiritual experiences: understanding moves through you energetically, so that you see something and feel the rightness of it at the same time. This spirituality is fresh and personal; it exists apart from any particular theology or ideology.

Sadly, living without a personal spiritual connection to life and the freedom it supports is the grim lot of most people. Lives lacking a genuine, experiential spiritual foundation tend to oscillate between controlling others and being controlled. Without the spiritual ground of experience which is the very will of freedom, the prospect of freedom is just too much for people, and power is the woeful tether by which they aim to feel secure.

Erich Fromm’s Escape from Freedom explores the widespread aversion to freedom and persuades us that sadomasochistic tendencies underpin it. “It is always the inability to stand the aloneness of one’s individual self that leads to the drive to enter into a symbiotic relationship with someone else. It is evident from this why masochistic and sadistic trends are always blended with each other. Although on the surface they seem contradictions, they are essentially rooted in the same basic need. People are not sadistic or masochistic, but there is a constant oscillation between the active and the passive side of the symbiotic complex, so that it is often difficult to determine which side of it is operating at a given moment. In both cases individuality and freedom are lost.”

Later in his book, Fromm relates that these destructive tendencies to escape from freedom result from the thwarting of the individual’s sensuous, emotional, and intellectual expansiveness in childhood. These perversions are the torque our spirits take from the suppression of our exuberance, curiosity, and creative will in childhood and, which can continue all our lives. By continuing to suppress our natural tendencies to explore, move and stretch our bodies, imagine, try things out and invent, we perpetuate our pain and give rise to yet another generation of frustrated human beings stuck on a see-saw of power relations.

Here’s the remedy: reactivation of our creative and expressive pleasures goes straight to the root of perversions of spirit that we witness in our lives and our societies. Encouraging our children and each other to spend more time puttering and tinkering with things out of curiosity, creativity, and imaginative play, fostering our spiritual connection to life through observation, meditation, and the many means that help us to do this, and providing ourselves with the conditions for the experience of intuition, inspiration, epiphany and insight will all feed the hope of a new humanity that has the courage for real freedom.

jari psychology, insight, future, maturity, human potential, human development, culture, wisdom, philosophy, holistic, creativity, feeling, values, vision, freedom, power 5 Comments » | (1 ratings)  | Email it

                                    

Solitude and Solidarity: To Be Whole and Healthy, We Need ‘Em Both

To live your life as a creative artist, everything you do and experience is invested into vision, meaning and insight; and in this, there cannot be a separation between self, work and life.

Successful creation is a distillation of many hours of time alone just sponging things in and then processing them with the light of solitude on. Solitude, a word that comes from the Latin “solus,” is akin to the Greek word “holos,” signifying whole, entire. An artist comes to wholeness in and through solitude.

You’d be hard pressed to find an artist who isn’t poignantly aware of her existential aloneness, and yet, like anyone else, she lives in relationship. However, often, instead of social relationships, she relies upon deep, abiding relationships with the ineffable intimations of her gift. There’s a sense of partnership with the unseen–the muse, the unconscious, the universe–to get her work done.

And so the artist working in solitude is not really “alone.” She is having intense affairs with aspects of the self and with the numinous. Henry James once told the journalist Morton Fullerton that the “essential loneliness” of his life constituted his “deepest” aspect.

The quality of relationship with one’s own inner dynamics, which are nurtured in solitude, provide the conditions for creation. The feeling arises, when you are creating, that you are doing what you are meant to do and it is sustained by the experience of being touched by something larger– a communion experience that one simply cannot explain, but instead must honor and serve.

But there is a big difference between solitude and isolation. To balance long stretches of unbroken solitude, an artist, especially a developing one, needs like-minded others, people who understand the passion and process of a creative person and who support him in his efforts, who welcome him when he finally does come out from behind the closed door. It helps to have a peer group or, at the very least, one trusted fellow artist with whom to share both the work and one’s life.

Solidarity means unity among people, a shared sense of purpose and understanding of what matters–values, feelings, sensitivities about things, qualities of life. Solidarity is every bit as crucial to the health, balance and survival of the artist as is solitude.

Some artists must or perhaps choose to find their solidarity without real-time contact with peer artists, but instead, through the works of more distant artists. In the words of painter and art teacher Robert Henri, “If the artist is alive in you, you may meet Greco nearer than many people, also Plato, Shakespeare, the Greeks. In certain books–some way in the first few paragraphs you know that you have met a brother.”

T.S. Eliot states something similar about our solidarity: “A common inheritance and a common cause unite artists consciously or unconsciously: it must be admitted that the union is mostly unconscious. Between the true artists of any time there is, I believe, an unconscious community.”

I wonder, are these qualities, which are so obviously critical to the life of the artist, not important to the health, balance, development and well-being of everyone? What do you think?

I have been traveling alone since the end of March, and also living among artists with long days of solitude in my studio and cherished connections at shared meals and walks through the Illinois prairie. I have now relocated temporarily to Austin, TX and I have been exposed to a great deal of art and culture along the way!

Since that last week of March I have seen: The Homer and Hopper exhibitions at The Art Institute of Chicago; Laurie Anderson speak at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The collections and current shows at The Milwaukee Art Museum; The current shows at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin; The Kohler factory tour; Columbia College Book & Paper Arts facilities and the M.F.A. show there; A lecture by G. Edward Griffin at the University of Texas; The On the Road show at the Harry Ranson Humanities Research Center in Austin; I was also invited to spend an overnight as an all-expenses-paid guest at one of the exclusive private Kohler clubs.

Ask me about any of these–I have many notes and an abundance of memories! And I am look forward to hearing from you!

jari psychology, creative arts, integrate, culture, holistic, creativity, values, art, solitude, solidarity, vision 1 Comment » | (1 ratings)  | Email it

                                    

Hear No, See No, Speak No—What?

The question, where is your money invested? is experienced by many as a violation, a pointed finger jabbing at them. Well, this gets our backs up precisely because this is where we have compromised our hearts, where we really don’t want to look and listen, where the worm of hypocrisy squirms. It’s what we really don’t want to feel, talk about, and possibly be moved to address. Why?

Because it is still, generally speaking, more financially profitable (higher returns, less risk) in the short term to put money into the coffers of established companies and profiteers, engaged as they may be in disregard of land, people, health and wisdom, and every creature of the Earth.

And so we think we have our money working for us?! We give over our money, which, along with our work, is our most powerful instrument, voice and vote, to this portfolio of doom and Armageddon. And, the game is set up so that the players rationalize and justify detrimental business practices on the basis of having to satisfy their stockholders with high returns. This is a game where profit is the highest value in consideration. So, there you have it.

I was at the Whitney Biennial contemporary art show on preview day and it was a spiritual wasteland, very disappointing. The show mirrors a society that is imbalanced, disgusting, disordered, epically ugly, mad, stupid, broken, mean-spirited and sick. On the audio tour, Ellen Harvey, one of the artists whose work stood out to me, said: “You can’t win, so let’s just start off by failing as extravagantly as possible,” in speaking of her art process. A fitting line for our times. There was hardly a hint of transcendence or visionary attitude in that entire show; instead, despair and hurt and self-indulgence. Is this the best we can do? One wonders about the selection of this uninspired psychic display and what the mindset is there, the agenda.

The proverb “money is the root of all evil” in these materialistically driven times might just as well be “money is the root of all good”. Our money is what we get for the life energy we have expended and both our energy and our money can be put to good, evil or neutral work in the world.

Our money actually does invest us in that which we have invested, even though we are not always willing to look at it that way or to do the real math from a holistic perspective. So then, are we living behind our own backs? Are we content to be strangers to ourselves and each other? Are we actually saying: yes, here, do more of this with our world, kill it, destroy and decimate it, kill it all, just give me another cushion, don’t take away my addictions, and throw in the health insurance.

We have the power, if we have the will, to reform our civilization very quickly, and we can do it with our energy and our money, much more effectively than with our political votes.

If you haven’t seen the movie Zeitgeist yet, you can get to it through these links. It’s screening at non-mainstream theaters across the country this Saturday. The second link displays those theaters. Part three of this movie gives a historical view of the financial world that you might want to have a look at. I invite your comments on this.

Streaming Zeitgeist movie

Big Screenings on March 15th

Article by Javier Sierra, Sierra Club, “How to Tell Greenwashing from Real Corporate Responsibility”

jari culture, wisdom, financial reward, holistic, conscience, economy, mental health, values 1 Comment » | (1 ratings)  | Email it

                                    

Holic or Holistic? How’s the Love?

For the sake of this exploration, let’s just agree to use the word holic for an addicted, compulsive, obsessed individual. In spite of knowledge (a holic knows what is healthy, reasonable and good) she “loves” stuff that is ultimately self-destructive and cannot forsake indulgences for health or well-being, cannot manage, even through force of love or will to stop repeating damaging behaviors.

Now, let’s consider, in contrast, a holistic person. This person’s actions, whether they be in the realms of buying, eating, traveling, pleasure or work, are an integral part of a conscious life, borne out from the person they wish to be, the contribution they wish to make, and the world in which they wish to live. Such a person is capable of self-soothing and self-regard and lives with a genuine love of life. Such a person feels responsible.

People generally either soothe their existential angst and cope with life through a healthy selfhood (holistic) or through a set of defenses and fixes (holic).

Since I’m posting this on Valentine’s Day eve, I have some love questions for us:

Is it love to buy someone chocolate, if sugar decays internal organs like it does teeth? Is it love to send dozens of cut roses here and there, if tons of hydrocarbons are thus released into our shared strained atmosphere? How about diamonds and that whole business? How about greeting cards, the paper industry pollution involved, the shipping and trucking of all that? Fine dining on fois gras—does this force-feeding of geese to fatten their livers deliver a culinary treat for our true love?

A holistic person thinks of these things. A holistic person sees the inseparable connections among all things in reality.

The phrase Just Do It made famous by Nike, a corporation notorious for sweatshop labor practices and all manner of exploitation, has perhaps provided us with an apt mantra for our times: Just Don’t Do It!

If we have told ourselves to change our habits and yet haven’t—guess what?—we’re holic and the waters are rising, the world is heating up—and how are we going to stop ourselves from doing the self-destructive things we’re in the habit of doing?

Join me as I take this on and share what I’m doing on these posts from time to time. I am upping the ante on myself to be ever more holistic.

Please click through to this article and then write to me and let me know what you think—could this environmental nightmare really be true or is it some mistake, a gross exaggeration?

jari psychology, holistic health, maturity, human potential, human development, culture, wisdom, philosophy, holistic, meaning, conscience, love, mind-body, addiction, compulsive, self-destructive, environment 2 Comments » | (3 ratings)  | Email it

                                    

Integrative HealthCare and Your Conscience

The detrimental effects of cell phone radiation on sleep were reported today in the British paper The Independent. Here’s the ARTICLE

The Integrative HealthCare Symposium took place this past week (1/17-1/19) in Manhattan, which I attended on Friday. Bernie Siegel, MD (Love, Medicine and Miracles) shared the stage with Julie Silver, MD (After Cancer Treatment: Heal Faster, Better, Stronger) to deliver a Keynote entitled Physical and Emotional Healing: How They Intersect in Cancer Recovery.

Dr. Silver, a breast cancer survivor herself, delivered a message of hope for healing through a holistic mind-body approach. She also cautioned us all to be aware that there is long list of herbal remedies and foods that can interfere with the intended dosages and actions of many prescription medications. Her page at Revolution Health

Then, the highly entertaining and humorous Dr. Siegel demonstrated his warm, humanistic and holistic approach to treatment while showing us slides of his patients’ drawings and discussing how the story of their illness was depicted there, often signaling the prognosis, as well.

My notes from Dr. Siegel’s talk: If a hillbilly woman divorces her husband, is he still her brother? We must re-parent each other. Parents, teachers, clergy and doctors are the biggest problems in the world! You don’t treat a diagnosis, you treat an experience. Heal your life and it effects your physiology. Find your rhythm and live it. Keep your minds open—consciousness is not local. The question he asks himself in a quandary: WWLD—What would Lassie do? Self-induced healing: a clear conscience. Parenting is the #1 problem everywhere. Patients do not need information; they need inspiration. We know the future. Find your way of making people happy; give a tissue, not a stethoscope. Life is a series of beginnings. Keep the child in your patients alive. You can’t be afraid when you’re laughing. Nourish yourself and your life. Ask: how may I help you? If you’re cared for by your family, you’ll do much better.

I invite your comments on what I’m about to say: I am so often dismayed and left wondering why we rely on celebrated experts and costly scientific studies to tell us things that we ought to be prepared to readily discern via our own conscience, moral compass and compassion. Where is the common sense of our hearts?

We can all be lay physicians, healing ourselves and others. But this calls for a shift in priorities and values towards lives of greater meaning and deeper caring. This can be our future. Coping effectively with our own fear, anxiety, and stress is the rational first step.

jari holistic health, future, holistic, sleep, stress, meaning, parenting, conscience, love Comments (0) » | (2 ratings)  | Email it

                                    

Since its an Election Year . . . Let’s Look at “The Truth Bomb”

Let’s be bold and talk with each other about our culture holistically. I’ve started this blog and the Living Hero podcast to enter into an integrative conversation that brings the formerly cloistered and private work of Jariscope into public discourse in a new way.

This is a place where we don’t have to think outside of the box because there is no box—whatever box there was, was in somebody’s mind and here the boxes were smashed to smithereens a long time ago and we’re with Reality. That’s where we have to look at it, consider it, and handle it all at once, the way life really is, where you can’t really cubbyhole and compartmentalize and fragment and label, but you’re up against the task of either keeping your eyes, mind, senses and heart open to the way things are or not. And if you are, you have to navigate by virtue of virtue itself.

So, since it’s an election year, let’s go into the politics of the inner life, where this Reality I’m talking about meets the road. I’d like to introduce you to a book by Alexander Lowen entitled Narcissism: Denial of the True Self. If you are not familiar with Lowen’s many books, I’d like to suggest that you join me in reading them all. I call Lowen “The Truth Bomb”.

I am always on the lookout for wisdom, sanity, and truth. Lowen is the real deal. He is a direct protégé of the late Wilhelm Reich and Lowen has taken the best of what Reich set in motion and brought a great deal more balance and wisdom to it. You may know Lowen through the term Bioenergetics, which is his name for the form of body-centered psychotherapy he pioneered.

I would like to have an ongoing discussion here about this book with you. I am seeking the best representative of Lowen’s work to join us on Living Hero a little later in the year. Dr. Lowen is still alive, but I’m told he is not well. I’m hoping to have this podcast while he is still alive, so he can listen in.

Chapter titles from Narcissism: Denial of the True Self; A Spectrum of Narcissism; The Role of the Image; The Denial of Feeling; Power and Control; Seduction and Manipulation; Horror: The Face of Unreality; The Fear of Insanity; Too Much, Too Soon; The Insanity of Our Time

Buy the book here, start reading, and let’s start talking about it!

jari Uncategorized, psychology, holistic health, integrate, human potential, synthesis, wisdom, politics, books, narcissism, holistic Comments (0) » | (1 ratings)  | Email it