Dec 2002 /Jan 2003

Don't Let The Lights Go Out
Rabbi Michael Lerner

Madison's Ghost on the Intoxicated Presidency … and its Corporate Support Group
Thom Hartman

The Global Justice Movement
Starhawk

Frozen Past and Dancing Present: Our Personal Response to Change
David la Chapelle

The Consequences of Denial
John Darling

Cashing in On Cool: How Corporations Exploit Kids and How We Can Stop It
Roar Ramesh Bjonnes

The Blue Gold Rush
Kayla M. Starr

Feng Shui: Smoke and Mirrors
Sugeet

Jin Shin Jyutsu: An Artless Art, Applied With Effortless Effort
Robert Nelson

Foods that Help Diabetics
Rebecca Wood

A Healing Principle for Helpers
Peter Moore, MFCC, CGP

Ayurveda Winter Support
Myrica Morningstar

Circumcision is a Human Rights Issue
Pamela Jorrick

The Movie Mystic
Stephen Simon

The Yearly Round
Richard Moeschl

Cosmic Calendar
Salina Rain

BACK TO TOP

Frozen Past and Dancing Present
Our Personal Response to Change

By David la Chapelle

For most of my adult life, I have had to travel a great deal. The closer I get to the time of leaving, the more fragmented my attention becomes, the harder it is to organize what I need to take, and the more tired I become. I often end up exhausted before I ever get on the plane. When I began to explore this phenomenon with more conscious attention, I found myself returning again and again to a story my mother told me about my birth.

My mother’s labor had begun and she had gone to the hospital. Once there her contractions stopped, and she was given pitocin (a drug to induce labor). Shortly after the injection contractions began again in earnest and I was born very quickly. I was placed in the newborn nursery and promptly fell into a sleep. In fact, I was so unresponsive that the nurses became concerned about me and spent hours trying to waken me.

The pattern of my adult response to leaving home mirrors circumstances of my birth. As I ready myself to leave, I anticipate the process and am fairly focused. Then, almost invariably, my forward motion for packing stops and I grow listless and tired. That is followed by a period when I get frantic and disorganized. Finally, after a burst of energy and effort, I experience a profound tiredness. I have little doubt that I have been re-creating my birth experience as I respond to changes in my environment. I have grown better at managing the feelings and anticipating my responses, but many of the cues still exist within me.

Our life story profoundly conditions how we adapt to change. As we saw with the preceding example, birth can leave a dramatic imprint, determining how we respond to change even as adults. But birth is not the only transition that leaves an imprint. We keep indelible records of our previous adaptations and patterns of response encoded in our tissue, layered in our bodies, and stored as deep memory in our minds.

As a child I spent time every summer in the high mountains at my father’s research station. I remember one summer making the discovery that the ice in the glacier was hundreds of years old. I remember thinking that I was looking at time slowly moving across the mountain. Talk to any good massage therapist and they will tell you that the past can be, and often is, frozen in our bodies. Bodywork on the knees may bring out memories of terror from childhood. Work on the stomach may trigger rage at being abused at some point in the past. Work on the face may rouse memories of old shame. Unless we review our self-limiting patterns, we remain frozen in the past and are unable to live and respond fully in the present moment.

In some ways our physical bodies—and our awareness—are glacial in their processes. Fields of frozen sensation, function and awareness exist and move slowly through the landscape of our lives. Every once in a while, some of the glacier melts and we are filled with waterfalls of possibilities. I believe we are called to free ourselves from the glaciers within and regain the energy, vitality and creative capacity that is our birthright. We have an immense potential to experience and express the dance of the universe within our own bodies and minds (there are more possible connections between neurons in the brain than there are stars), but how do we go about liberating it?

Attention is the golden fire that can free our frozen energy and we can cultivate it in a variety of ways. Attention comes from a Latin word, meaning “to turn one’s mind.” By the simple act of turning our minds toward the depth of our own experience, we can begin a process of release that is life-changing. Spiritual practices and disciplines, for instance, begin with work at the level of simple attention; while the focuses of concentration prescribed may vary, attention itself is fundamental. And the actual execution of the practice is far more difficult than it sounds at first blush. The mind is unruly. Quite soon everything but the task at hand will fill the consciousness. Tiredness, lethargy, dullness, random thoughts, old memories, fears, angers, resentments, and a host of other sensations may appear. The steady practice of witnessing our body/mind sensations, however, begins the process of freeing trapped energy, helping us to penetrate cosmic structures and unravel the mysteries of life in a direct and measured manner.

Just as attention moves energy and matter in the outer environment, so it moves energy in our inner environment—with sometimes even more powerful consequences. When we pay attention to the inner world our focus can slowly dissolve the contractions in our bodies and mind that limit our responsiveness to change. Focus comes from the Latin word for “a place of fire.” When we let our attention rest upon our body/mind, the warmth of its fire helps us to relax some of the frozen or numbed parts of our bodies. Mindfulness—the capacity to witness the totality of one’s body and mind with equanimity—not only frees frozen energy but leads us to compassion and steadiness of purpose in our relationship to the rest of the world. Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk who witnessed firsthand the near-genocide of his people and the ravaging of his homeland during years of war, has led numerous retreats for Vietnam veterans in America to help them come to terms with their wartime experiences. (More Vietnam vets have committed suicide than were killed in the war—a measure of the level of suffering being addressed.) Thich Nhat Hanh’s compassion toward the very men who were the killers and destroyers is a testimony to the depth of his spiritual practice of mindfulness.

Spiritual practice is not the only way we can cultivate attention. It is important that we have witnesses to our lives. We can consult trained counselors and therapists, whose capacity to listen without judging can teach us how to pay attention to our stories.

Those stories need to be told if we are to free ourselves from the ice of our silences or our fears. We can also seek out soul friends—people we know who can really listen with both heart and mind. Witnessing is a high and generous gift: we give each other—a declaration of solidarity and support.

Caring for our bodies is another way that we can cultivate attention. Movement, breath, proper nutrition, sound, and the proper use of concentration can release stress and rebalance our body responses. Exercise (or movement of the body) aids a host of processes from digestion to kidney function. And it balances nervous system functioning. Sensory input that is not counterbalanced by physical activity overloads the system, making us jumpy, irritable, and self-absorbed. Exercise keeps our bodies physically healthy releases the endorphins that elevate our moods and reinforce our sense of general well-being.

Breath is crucial for life. Physical respiration goes on as a largely unconscious process as the body exchanges oxygen and carbon dioxide to power the activities of every cell in our bodies. Deliberate deep breathing will ensure that we take in enough oxygen and can calm feelings of breathlessness or panic. But we can cultivate respiration in other ways, too. Conscious breathing used during labor and childbirth, as part of a spiritual practice, or as a simple calming technique, focuses the mind’s attention and helps relieve stress on our bodies.

Proper nutrition builds and sustains health. Unfortunately, in the West our physical need for food and our eating habits have become unhealthily entwined with psychological, sexual, and cultural imperatives, and eating disorders abound. It can be difficult to change our food choices and eating patterns. As we explore our eating habits, however, we can learn to prepare food that truly nourishes us. And we can learn to make eating a service, an act that can help us re-establish a healthy relationship with food.

Sound purifies the body, aligns the molecular activity of the internal organs, and releases stress that cannot be released in any other way. It elevates the emotions and helps give depth to our daily experiences. I am not talking here about noise pollution but rather those sounds that are deeply organized and that give pleasure—music, chanting, toning, and the sounds of nature, for instance. (This kind of sound can heal. Benedictine monks in France who gave up their daily chanting soon fell ill with colds and flu. Their health was restored when they reinstated chanting as part of their daily routines.) From the Aborigines in Australia who say the Creator sang the world into being, to the ancient Egyptians who believed that the singing sun woke the Earth each day with its cry of light, to the mystics in India who believe that Nada Bhrama (the sound of the Creator) forms the substrate of all existence, sound is linked the world over to sacredness. By joining with sound we join in the song of the cosmos.

Proper use of concentration builds a subtle bridge between the structures of our tissues and the movement of our wills. As body-centered disciplines such as martial arts and yoga have demonstrated, there is a profound link between a concentrated mind and the flow of energy in the body: physical stamina, strength, and elegance of movement are its hallmarks. Proper use of concentration rebalances pathways of communication within the body that are easily interrupted by stress or neglect. As the easy flow of energy from the mind to the body and from the body to the mind is restored, stress is reduced and we gain new confidence in our bodies.

When we pay attention—whether we use spiritual, psychological, or physical means (or a combination of them)—we change our relationship with the world. As we give credence to ourselves and allow all information about our experience to surface, our focus broadens, and we slowly dissolve the contractions of body and mind which limit our responsiveness to life and its ever-changing patterns. Ultimately, when we pay attention our vision clears and we stabilize ourselves in the present. But that is not the end of the story.

Our personal history is not the only history we embody; we need to understand our biological history, as well, if we are to learn respond to the times in useful ways. As we develop in the womb we recapitulate the dance of evolution, marking our membership in the pageant of life that has unfolded through time. The structure of our brains is one of the many legacies of that evolutionary dance. Brain research in the last few decades has advanced credible and conclusive evidence that when we are faced with change our responses are conditioned by four distinct brain structures—each with its own needs, responses, and adaptive styles.

The reptilian brain is the oldest part of the brain and is found at its core. This part of the brain is concerned with issues of survival, power, and display; rituals and ceremonies of any kind appeal to it since they help give structure to powerful urges and desires that course through it.

Curved around the reptilian brain is a structure called the limbic system. This structure is considered an outgrowth and adaptation of the mammalian brain, and its concerns are primarily emotional and social. Our need to belong, our desire to be part of a small group, and our sense of social identity have their ground in the limbic center.

Situated over the limbic center is a structure known as the neocortex. This part of the brain is concerned with language and abstractions, and will function with little attention to or concern about feelings and bodily sensations. Symbols, mathematics, and structure of language appeal to this part of the brain.

Finally, at the front of the brain we find the frontal lobes—a specialized adaptation of the neocortex. This area of the brain is concerned with pattern recognition. Therefore, our ability to recognize that deep structures organize the field of world events is a function of this area of the brain. Interestingly, the frontal lobes have also been linked to self-talk, that continuous internal conversation we have with ourselves that maintains our sense of self and identity. The frontal lobes also house our capacity for altruism and self-sacrifice.

How we adapt to sudden change is deeply influenced by the part of the brain from which we respond. If we are used to responding from our reptilian brain—the one that codes events as a survival issue—then change could trigger a “me-first” or even a violent response. People who hoard or steal food when they think there may be a shortage are making a response from their reptilian brain.

If we are accustomed to respond from the limbic center, then outer change will intensify our desire to belong, to be a part of something greater. The rapid growth of Hitler youth groups in post World War I Germany is a good example of people whose limbic-centered responses were based on emotion that took the form of fierce loyalty and patriotism.

If we primarily access the world through the functions of the neocortex, then ideas, symbols, and abstractions become the filters by which we navigate change. Einstein’s formulation of his theory of relativity in the midst of the chaotic changes brought about by World War I is a good example of this kind of response.

Finally, if we tend to respond to change from our frontal lobes, then we will look for the larger patterns at work in any local circumstances and will most probably have the capacity to respond altruistically. Gandhi is a great example of someone with a highly developed frontal lobe capacity. He was able to discern patterns of behavior in political processes that gave him an uncanny ability to pick the right timing and action for the most effective outcome—and his actions benefited millions.

There seems to be a relationship between frontal lobe capacity and selflessness. It has been my observation that when people begin to consider the larger patterns of events, when they begin to ask big-picture questions, when they begin to think globally, their self-talk can sometimes diminish. The patterns of the whole, the subtlety of the greater dance of life, and the recognition of the inherent elegance of that dance quiets their constant need to reference a localized “I”. Self-talk supports the continuous stream of thoughts and ideas that flow through our minds and constantly refer back to an “I”. Almost always critical in Westerners, the stream of self-reference leaps out of its accustomed channels when people recognize larger patterns. They begin to see themselves as part of something much larger than themselves.

Many mystics have been able to stabilize their pattern recognition capacity in such a way as to be able to see the underlying structure of the universe. Their recognition of the meta-pattern is rewarded by that flow of grace and energy described in mystical literature as rapture. When we shift to this mode, euphoria flows through the body in waves and subtle currents. (If you have ever had a sudden insight into the pattern of one of your problems, you have probably experienced a taste of this process.)

As we consider weather change, financial markets, technologies, and other interconnected structures and conditions, we are being pushed to consider global patterns and the effects they have on the lives of all living things and on the life and health of the planet itself. In effect we are being pushed to access our frontal lobe capacity—an adaptive and evolutionary challenge that requires us to literally retrain how we think and perceive. If we understand that we are being pushed to realize potentials already deep within our bodies and minds, then we will understand that our task is a spiritual practice as well as a response to external challenges. A prayer ascribed to St. Francis speaks to the transformation:

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.

From the perspective of brain function, St. Francis’s prayer expresses an awakening of the higher faculties of the frontal lobes, and we need not ascribe to his version of faith to appreciate it. His prayer is not metaphoric nor a quaint appeal to a distant medieval God but an unlocking of the evolutionary potential that birthright of every human being. A sense of peace and joy, a profound capacity to forgive, concern for others, recognition of the patterns of global phenomena, and selfless action are the gifts of that unlocking.

Global change is midwifing a new way of seeing that recognizes the deepest currents of human experience and the stars of invariant truths burning in the fabric of our lives; it is birthing a way of seeing that intuitively informs us of right response. It is not easy to bring into the world a new way of seeing, of acting, and of living. An internal struggle takes place every day between old patterns of response and new patterns of soulful living.

We each risk rejection as we begin to respond to the dictates of our deeper selves. Most of us have learned to shield our light to make our way in the world: taunts from peers, put-downs from teachers or other adults, and control battles with parents often begin to intensify just as flashes of our depth and uniqueness emerge. However, I believe we are called upon as never before to unlock our evolutionary potential and reveal the light that lives within each of us.

To dance in the present we need to stay awake and to continually expand our own ability to recognize the large-scale patterns at work around us. The level of our response can transform fear into insight, depression into action, and doubts into faith. If we are willing to open our eyes, we will be given the grace to change our ways of comprehending the world. The challenge is before us. The response is ours to make.

Excerpted with permission from Navigating the Tides of Change: Stories from Science, the Sacred, and a Wise Planet, copyright 2001, ISBN 0-86571-424-X, New Society Publishers.

David la Chapelle lives in Juneau, Alaska. He has been a healer for 25 years, is a writer and a contributor to the Institute of Noetic Sciences Magazine, taught at the Naropa Institute, and has led countless training, retreat, and wilderness quest groups. Visit David’s website www.tidesofchange.org for more of his writings, resources for navigating personal and global change, and information on his classes and retreats.

Message frim Bali
“Now We Move Forward”

This message from Parum Samigita, the “Think Tank” for the Banjars (Village Councils) of the Kuta, Legian and Seminyak areas of Bali, comes from the heart of the Balinese people in Kuta where a bomb blast outside a night club last October killed and injured hundreds of people. It expresses what the people of Kuta want to say to the world.

We Balinese have an essential concept of balance. It is the Tri Hita Karana; a concept of harmonious balance. The balance between God and Humanity; Humanity with itself and Humanity with the environment. This places us all in a universe of common understanding.

It is not only nuclear bombs which have fallout. It is our job to minimize this fallout for our people and our guests from around the world. Who did this? It is not such an important question for us to discuss. Why this happened maybe this is more worthy of thought. What can we do to create beauty from this tragedy and come to an understanding where nobody feels the need to make such a statement again? This is important. This is the basis from which we can embrace everyone as a brother; everyone as a sister.

It is a period of uncertainty. It is a period of change. It is also an opportunity for us to move together into a better future. A future where we embrace all of humanity in the knowledge that we all look and smell the same when we are burnt. Victims of this tragedy are from all over the world.

The past is not significant. It is the future which is important. This is the time to bring our values, our empathy, to society and the world at large. To care. To Love.

The modern world brings to many of us the ability to rise above the core need for survival. Most people in the developed world no longer need to struggle to simply stay alive. It is our duty to strive to improve our quality of life. We want to return to our lives.

Please help us realize this wish.

Why seek retribution from people who are acting as they see fit? These people are misguided from our point of view. Obviously, from theirs, they feel justified and angry enough to make such a brutal statement. We would like to send a message to the world: Embrace this misunderstanding between our brothers and lets seek a peaceful answer to the problems which bring us to such tragedy.

We embrace all the beliefs, hopes and dreams of all the people in the world with Love.

Do not bring malice to our world. What has happened has happened. Stop talking about the theories of who did this and why. It does not serve the spirit of our people. Words of hate will not rebuild our shops and houses. They will not heal damaged skin. They will not bring back our dead.

Help us to create beauty out of this tragedy. Our community is bruised and hurting. Our spirit can never be broken. Everybody in the world is of one principle brotherhood. Tat Wam Asi—You are me and I am you. We have a concept in Bali, Ruwa Bhineda, a balance between good and bad. Without bad there can be no good. The Bad is the sibling of the Good. Embrace this concept and we can move forward into a better world.

You love your husband and wife but sometimes you fight. Fear arises and shows its opposition to love. This is normal. This is a natural, essential part of life. There is Sekala/Nisikala—the underworld forever in darkness merging with our world in the light. These are the concepts by which we, as Balinese, live our lives.

Please, we beg you, talk only of the good which can come of this. Talk of how we can reconcile our apparent differences. Talk of how we can bring empathy and love into everybody’s lives. The overwhelming scenes of love and compassion at Sanglah Hospital show us the way forward into the future.

If we hate our brothers and sisters we are lost in Kali Yuga. If we can Love all of our brothers and sisters, we have already begun to move into Kertha Yuga.

We have already won The War Against Terrorism.

Thank you for all your compassion and love.
- Oct. 25, 2002