How can we learn to live in the light, more often, with better outcomes?
Let’s start with the physical reality of being lit from within, with a loving glow, and then work our way towards putting that into practice in everyday life. First of all, if you have had an experience like this, there is no reason to doubt its value or ‘truth’, because we are literally lit from within, just as all matter is aglow with life. Part of any modern concept of ‘enlightenment’ must include this physical reality: that all life radiates out from a cosmic conflagration in space, which is still happening everywhere, all the time. Light is associated with so many positive connotations because of this fundamental life-giving force. This is why an experience of inner light and its gnosis is so highly valued, whether it arrives spontaneously or is inspired by a particularly radiant sunrise or sunset, the romance of moonlight, the simple glint of a dewdrop on a leaf, sparkling in the breeze, or any other phenomenon.
However, despite learning from physics that everything is made from starlight, including our minds and bodies, the origin of consciousness still remains a sacred mystery. Being self-aware allows us to live a life filled with meaning and spiritual growth. Understanding how and why light has been used as the preeminent metaphor for consciousness – for our ability to think, to read these words, to consider them, weigh them up and decide where we stand in relation to them – can deepen our capacity to become more awake to the miracle of our lives as conscious beings.
I have also learnt, mainly from my experience of meditation practices, but also from neuroscience, that this realisation can improve with practice, just like everything else. As self-aware primates, we truly are the universe becoming aware of itself. Both our bodies and our minds are lit from within, in a way that overcomes the seeming separation of mind and matter. In fact, we are better off thinking of ourselves as a ‘bodymind’ that glows with life and consciousness, something the shamanic arts have always known. Experiencing this realisation can dissolve doubt and confusion, leaving spiritual generosity, forgiveness, understanding and gratitude in its wake.
Now, we need to rekindle the light within more than ever. In a ‘post-truth’ world riven with fake news and political corruption, media propaganda and data mining, we need trustworthy guidance. This will become increasingly important as climate chaos, resource wars and other forms of societal breakdown threaten us with correspondingly fierce internal storms of anxiety, depression and grief.
Such guidance is available to us, both as we grow in faith in our own personal abilities to discern right from wrong and in great stories filled with the power and authority of collective wisdom. These kinds of stories are traditionally called myths. Mythic lore is not merely the fanciful narratives we have been taught to mistrust, as if they were the childlike explanations of a universe that hadn’t yet been explained away by science. Myths are multidimensional universes of information, designed to enable us to manoeuvre through chaos and evolve beyond dangerous new circumstances. The mythic symbol of light is especially capable at conveying such information, when it is interpreted with respect, appreciation and familiarity.
‘That Inner Glow’ Retreat is now SOLD OUT. However, the book is forthcoming, so keep your eyes open for that later in the year!
Animists like me believe the world is alive. It goes beyond an intellectual idea, but it’s more than just a feeling, too; many traditions from around the world recognise the possibility that consciousness flows through the universe, that intelligence is a property of the physical world. It shows in the way animals are born to move, knowing what to look for in their environment and where to go from birth, even across the planet sometimes, then back to breeding grounds regardless of the ebbs and flows of their life and without maps or signs. At its most primal, the intelligence of life is expressed in the way that plant life lifts out of soil and trust its face towards the sun, even that way tides shift in accord with lunar movements.
Taken to its logical conclusion – even though some people, trapped in ‘the iron cage of reason,’ as German sociologist Max Weber, called it, think that logic has nothing to do with it – this means that the planet is alive. This is what most traditional societies understood, native Australian populations included. More scientists now claim that “The Earth is Just As Alive As You Are”, following the controversial Gaia Hypothesis made famous by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis. The sticking point was always sentience; does the Earth want to give birth to and sustain life, or does it just happen by coincidence? As Climate Scientist Professor Will Steffen explained to me during the filming of Nature Calling pilot episode, it’s not necessary to be so concerned about this that we either embrace or dismiss Gaia: we live on one earth system, where everything is connected and everything matters.
This is a neat piece of writing by Ferris Jabr, of the New York Times.
Here’s a song that accepts this perspective and dances its truth, out in the open, with intuition and the poetry of the earth built in. As Will has long said, we need the humanities and the social sciences, including psychologists and media analysts, to change human behaviour in accord with the requirements made of us by runaway, anthropogenic climate change. Songs of the Earth are part of this response; inspiring tunes that make us think in new ways or align with our wishes for a safe and flourishing planetary home. Planetary Rumpus, by my band Severins, brings animism alive in a modern sense; it is informed by scientific thinking sparked with Nietzsche’s idea of Dionysian frenzy, asking us to drop into that realm with all of our senses intact – and the recognition that we need a new compass for these wild and changing times.
Planetary Rumpus expresses the instinctual drive within, our genetic coding, which we feel surging through our bodies and veins like a double helix rising out of the primordial soup towards the heavens. It asks us to feel the sun on our skins at dawn as if we are being awoken to a brand new day, as if sunrise were a ritual of rebirth and another chance at realising the great fortune of our lives, as consciously self-aware primates on a living planet … this is the archetypal music of the cosmic serpent in our double helix DNA body/minds, right now. Turn it up and let rip.
When we think about the lack of action on climate change, as well as the ongoing rush to strip the planet of ‘resources’ and thus continue the devastation of the environment regardless of our obvious need to take care of the earth, we can easily slip into despair. Seeing as world politics including Australian ‘leadership’ seems to be going in the wrong direction, blind hope is not going to help us. So what do we do?
Aside from turning to the good things that are happening in our communities – and there are plenty of them! – we can return to the breath. Leave the societal realm behind and breathe into the body. This gets us back to the experience of awareness, of the one state we can definitely change for the better – our own body and mind. Deep breath awareness not only relaxes the mind and thereby reduces stress, it can also lower our heart rate and create space so that we are not merely reacting to the world at the moment, but exploring a space of freedom and creativity as well. We can also give some air to feelings that have compounded around the issue that has wound us up; we may feel sadness and grief, frustration and anger … this is a good opportunity to can allow ourselves to be human, to have the feeling and then to let it go (don’t rush!).
In the body, when we have breathed through our tension or anxiety, we can find comfort; we can recognise whatever needs to be changed, what it takes to be in our power, to be ready for action, to stand for what’s right, to be poised as an animate being capable of self-awareness … and when we have reignited these potentials, we can go further, breathe into the depths of the mind/body beyond the personal self, to the core truth of being human, which is that we are also more than this; we are interdependent beings, open to the elements through breath and ingestion, made up of DNA shared by plants and other animals and mitochondria and clay and water and salts …
Through breath we can find psychological freedom and return to the intertwined mystery of human being: we are consciousness embodied in self-aware primate form, both completely dependent on nature for our lives and also capable of experiencing ourselves beyond the limits of time and space. This is the paradox of being human; we are only here and now and also always more than this. Just like light and consciousness, metaphors for each other … but that’s another story, for another time.
For right now, return to breath, rebalance the self and remember the more-than-self, and return to the world ready to fight the good fight for another day. Beyond all else …
