[Dialogue] 2/06/20, Progressing Spirit: Skylar Wilson: Holding Space for Spiritual Transformation; Spong revisited
Ellie Stock
elliestock at aol.com
Thu Feb 6 06:18:42 PST 2020
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Holding Space for Spiritual Transformation
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| Essay by Skylar Wilson
February 6, 2020
“New personality types are created during social and spiritual crises of religious, political, or economic origin.” ~Otto Rank One hundred years ago, as the world was shaking under the pressures of the First World War, a spiritual crisis like no other in our human history, the field of Depth Psychology was born. Along with it, a more nuanced understanding of the human psyche and how it connects to the cosmos. As Otto Rank (one of Freud’s long-time colleagues) described above, new ways of being human were born within these fires of crisis when the ground of our world was shaking. We are again in such a time of ecological, political, economic, and cultural crisis and transformation. It’s time to get humble, to listen and to show up in an unprecedented effort to reinvent ourselves from the ground up. It’s time for a new archetype to be acknowledged, uplifted, and integrated into the fabric of our public discourse. This archetype is called the spaceholder. The idea of holding space has made it into much of mainstream psychology and spiritual practice. It is the simple art of listening and receiving a person or a group in a loving, non-judgemental, empathetic way. But what does it mean to hold space as an archetype with a cosmological perspective? Spaceholding refers to the act of being present, together as a community, and individually, to a vision: that we are profoundly connected relationally within the web of life. Spaceholding means being present to our togetherness. Present to our differences. Present to the more-than-human world. Present to the space that’s created within us when we come together, in a circle, around a fire or a table or an altar to listen and to invite the Great Mystery into our lives even more deeply.This practice is incredibly simple and yet full of wisdom and complexity. Spaceholding is perhaps the single most important spiritual act because it addresses the multidimensional challenges of our times without trying to muscle about changes from the same structures of thinking that created the problems in the first place. As our culture continues to unravel and change, it is essential to have a form of phenomenological practice in which to center, recenter, and be together now, in community, without dogma, from the essence of our humanness. The spaceholder is an archetype that is now needed more than the archetype of the “hero” or the “messiah,” or the “champion.” No individual is going to come save us. The spaceholder recognizes this and thus takes responsibility for her response to the suffering of the world, making full use of the opportunities to create more space for love and freedom to emerge. The spaceholder doesn’t need to pull himself up by the bootstraps because he knows he is already supported by life completely. Spaceholders are healers who hold space, rather than use their own energy, for the potential that is innate within every being to become activated and engaged. They do this by paying attention, mirroring what they see and feel, by applying pressure where it’s needed, and supporting the places that need to soften. Spaceholders are the hospice workers and cultural midwives who open their hearts to what’s now dying and to what’s being born.The spaceholder requires an integration of masculine strength, the ability to hold steady, with what are often thought of as the feminine abilities to receive, collaborate, communicate, and shapeshift. The spaceholder does only what’s needed, and nothing more. The spaceholder trusts life to do the work, releasing control in order to move to a much vaster cadence: the Cosmic Christ (a term I borrow from teacher and friend Matthew Fox), Buddha Nature, that spark of conscious creativity that created everything and is within all things. The spaceholder is the exact opposite, and a play on, a Placeholder. A Placeholder is a person or thing standing in the place of another person or thing - just the way our personalities and egos have the habit of standing in the way of our divine nature and limitless potential. Matthew Fox describes in his book The Coming of the Cosmic Christ how “Christ” is a verb rather than a noun. It is a way of being in-touch. It awakens mindfulness, “...which instructs persons in their need and right to experience the presence of divinity around and through them.” When we hold space for the “pattern that connects” within the intelligent shape of a circle, sphere, or membrane we are utilizing the shape in which the Earth herself embodies divinity while creating cells and the rest of complex life. We can also learn to concentrate and build the attention and energy needed for our own transformation and the transformation of our communities. Similar to the way a membrane holds each of the parts of a cell as they engage in their autonomous functions, spaceholding is a way of allowing each part of oneself to be held within a container of radical acceptance and trust. This trust comes from the knowledge that our true nature is profoundly good. We are designed according to life’s intelligence and have the power to heal ourselves through accessing the river of biological and cultural evolution that’s moving through us as it expands. When we give voice to these unloved parts of ourselves, they can each be heard, honored and welcomed into a larger conversation at the table of wisdom and wholeness. I am referring to the practice from the field of Depth Psychology of depathologizing the less-than-desirable aspects of ourselves and one another. Noticing and accepting rather than judging. For example, allowing our inner child to play or to cry especially when it seems pointless or stupid. We aren’t going to get out of our own way and we aren’t going to make the deep changes needed culturally unless we have practices for holding space for more vulnerable ways of being to emerge from every dark corner of ourselves, and one another.
Perhaps the word Space itself gives us insight into how we might practice being spaceholders, for Space, at least in the English language, is an utterly paradoxical concept. It refers to both a specific spot in place or time, as in the space between two trees, or between two breaths. While at the same time it refers to the endless expanse of the mysterious cosmos, and nothingness itself. Space is not a thing in itself, but the unnameable, unknowable, invisible force that gives shape and meaning to everything it surrounds. A lot like God. A lot like the potential for human beings on our spiritual evolutionary course. To be a spaceholder means to accept the paradox of being an unlimited divine being in a limited human body. It means accepting that this paradox exists in every other being, and holding space for the traumas, the hurts, as well as the messy mistakes and imperfections that come along with this paradox too. These dire times are calling on us to find new ways of being human. The spaceholder is a personality that is not only being created as a cause of the social, political, religious and environmental crises of our times, it is the personality, if embodied in more of us than not, that will create the solutions that are now beyond our imaginations.
When we learn to embody the receptivity of the spaceholder - all things become possible. When we evolve beyond the archetypes of the conquistadors, the colonizers, the heroes, all of that busy doing, controlling, producing and amassing, and take on the more present role of holding the space that is setting the stage for our transformation, then we see that the new story we are trying to birth is already growing within us and is ready to be born. ~ Skylar Wilson
Read online here
About the Author
Skylar Wilson, MA is the founder of Wild Awakenings, a conscious community of changemakers dedicated to the thriving of Earth, life, and humanity. He has led wilderness rites of passage journeys as well as ecological restoration teams for 18 years, specializing in creating sacred wilderness immersion experiences and interfaith ceremonies. Skylar is the cofounder and co-director of the Order of the Sacred Earth, a network of mystic warriors and activists dedicated to being the best lovers and defenders of the Earth that we can be. Skylar is the coauthor of the book by the same title as well as the co-host, with Jennifer Berit, of the podcast: "Our Sacred Earth" on Unity online radio. Skylar works closely with schools and organizations including the Stepping Stones Project in Berkeley, CA over the last 8 years while guiding organization-wide retreats, mentoring youth, group leaders, parents and elders. He also produces transformational events for thousands of people around the country including the Cosmic Mass, an intercultural healing ritual that builds community through dancing and the arts. He lives in Sebastopol, CA with his wife, son, two affectionate cats and a white wolf named Luna. |
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Question & Answer
Q: By A Reader
If I am a spiritual being having an earthly experience, how do I stay connected to my spirituality during these chaotic and changing times?
A: By Matthew Fox
Dear Reader,One stays close to one’s spirituality during chaotic times first by staying connected to one’s body. And therefore the earth and the cosmos. It is very important to put things into context and the context for our existence is not the chaos and even evil that is swirling about us. The context is that we are here. Where? Here in the universe of 13.8 billion years that is expanding and is two trillion galaxies large each with hundreds of billions of stars.
That is the context, that is our home, that is the womb in which we swim, move, have our being. Draw on that, as the psalmist says “look up to the mountains” and to the stars and to the vast universe that has invited us here, prepared the table so to speak. This puts everything else—including human folly—into context. The bottom line is that we are here—“existence is a miracle” says the poet Rilke. Drink in that miracle.
It is not so hard a thing to do. Every bite of food we eat and drink is a cosmic event, it all has a 13.8 billion year history. It is sacred, this eating and this breathing and this existing. It is all a Eucharist of the Cosmic Christ or Buddha Nature or Image of God. A Thank You therefore.
It is by drinking in gratitude for existence and the awe of it all that we are grounded—grounded in gratitude which is why Meister Eckhart teaches: “If the only prayer you say in your whole life is ‘Thank You’ that would suffice.”
Grounding yourself in the Via Positiva is the starting point for the journey. This includes appreciating your existence and your body (which actually carries the history of the universe within it). So exercise. Walk or run or swim or do yoga or…use your body while you can. Reflect on the miracle of it all (“miracle” meaning "marvel" or “wonder”). Ground yourself therefore in the Earth. Let Earth speak to you and all her creatures, trees and grass and garden and plants and of course animals. They have plenty to say at this time.
Enter into your moral outrage at indifference or lies or violence or folly. But steer it, use it as a fuel, not for venting but for feeding your imagination and strength to help transform self and others and our institutions which are dying from being married to a modern era when we are living in a post-modern era.
Call on the wisdom of the ancestors, especially pre-modern wisdom, where the human does not come first, but the cosmos and the earth come first. Of course this means praying to the premodern mystics such as Hildegard of Bingen and Meister Eckhart, Francis of Assisi and Thomas Aquinas as well as Jesus and the entire Wisdom tradition of Israel. Learn from other spiritual traditions too, all of which are pre-modern in their origins and consciousness. The Tao te Ching, the Vedas and Upanishads, Buddhist teachings, indigenous wisdom and practices are all rich with wisdom.
Prefer wisdom over knowledge. Dance and paint and laugh and cook and make friendship a value and marry love making to mysticism.
And enter the fray justice demands of our time whether about racism or sexism or economic imbalance, and of course the issue of Climate Change and the Extinction of species calling us. Listen to that call. What can you contribute? Who are your allies with whom you can link up to be agents of transformation in your community, in your place of work or profession, in your citizenship? Find them. What talents and creative visions do you bring to the battle? (And it is a battle and you need to develop your spiritual warrior for times like ours.)
Be generous.
Be courageous.
Laugh a lot.
Pursue truth. Eschew lies and falsehoods.
In short, practice the four paths of creation spirituality—the via positiva (awe and joy and gratitude); the via negativa (silence and also grieving); the via creative (creativity); and the via transformative (justice and compassion and celebration). Ground yourself there and you will have deep roots and you will bend and bow in the winds of the wildness of our days but you will also grow and give back and will not break. I have tried to speak to these issues of surviving in our troubled times in my free dailymeditationswithmatthewfox.org. This week for example I am dealing with the issue of evil.~ Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox
Read and share online here
About the Author
Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox holds a doctorate in spirituality from the Institut Catholique de Paris and has authored 35 books on spirituality and contemporary culture that have been translated into 74 languages. Fox has devoted 45 years to developing and teaching the tradition of Creation Spirituality and in doing so has reinvented forms of education and worship (called The Cosmic Mass). His work is inclusive of today’s science and world spiritual traditions and has awakened millions to the much neglected earth-based mystical tradition of the West. He has helped to rediscover Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Thomas Aquinas. Among his books are The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society; A Way To God: Thomas Merton's Creation Spirituality Journey; Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior For Our Times; Hildegard of Bingen: A Saint for Our Times; Confessions: The Making of a Postdenominational Priest; Stations of the Cosmic Christ; Order of the Sacred Earth; and Naming the Unnameable: 89 Wonderful and Useful Name for God...Including the Unnameable God. |
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Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited
The Origins of the Bible, Part XVII: Hosea
The Prophet Who Changed God's Name to Love
Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong
December 4, 2008Hosea is probably my favorite of all the prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures. His story is so real and so compelling and his expansion of the meaning of God was so closely tied to his personal domestic situation as to make his witness unforgettable. The story line is not always clear in the text, but the facts, as we piece them together from this book, are that Hosea and his wife Gomer had three sons to whom they gave strange names: Jezreel, Not Pitied, and Not My People. There is some suggestion that Hosea had actually married a prostitute, but I think the data is much more substantial that his wife later became a prostitute and ultimately a slave. We know that Hosea purchased her at a slave market for fifteen pieces of silver and restored her to the place of honor in their home as his wife. It was out of this experience that Hosea came to a new understanding of the unbounded love of God. With these few details, which are all that we can glean from the text, I have let my imagination run to come up with the following story through which I can communicate the powerful message of this book.
“Tongues must have wagged in Jewish social circles when the staid and respected holy man Hosea married Gomer, the party-loving youngest daughter of the old merchant Diblaim. Gomer was known for her dark and flashing eyes and her dancing feet. The tongue wagging was also driven by the fact that Hosea was an older and settled man while Gomer was much younger, one who loved the pace of the social scene and was thought of as overtly flirtatious. People wondered if such a union would last. Hosea, however, was obviously proud of his beautiful young bride and he vowed to do all he could to make her happy.
“At first, things went well. Hosea seemed to find a whole new lease on life as he accompanied his wife to countless events where he basked in her popularity. The social pace, however, did not slacken after a year or so and Hosea began to yearn for the somewhat quieter life he had known before his marriage. Almost inevitably these realities brought tension into the relationship. From time to time Hosea wanted to leave a party sooner than Gomer, so a compromise was arranged by which he departed earlier and she was escorted home later by their friends. That tactic, though dangerous in that society, seemed to work well. When Hosea finally got to the place where he did not want to go out as often, a much more dangerous compromise was instituted. Gomer occasionally went to a party either with her friends or finally alone. Over the years these occasions increased until they became the rule not the exception. An unescorted woman was almost unknown in Jewish society for it left her vulnerable and unprotected. This was especially so when that woman was by nature a sensuous and fun-loving person like Gomer.
“Almost inevitably, the fears and suspicions were fulfilled and the night finally came when Gomer did not return home at all. Alarmed, Hosea immediately began to search for her, but to no avail. She vanished without a trace or clue.
“While Hosea continued to search for her, Gomer, now unburdened by her more sedate husband, became the favorite plaything of the Jewish jet set. She rode this track until it stretched into years. Hosea, his love for her undiminished, continued to search while Gomer continued to play. Life in the fast lane, however, fades for everyone sooner or later and as the years passed, Gomer was no exception. Yesterday’s favorite plaything can always be replaced with tomorrow’s younger models. Youthful beauty also does not last forever. Even Gomer had begun to notice that “crows’ feet” were appearing around her eyes that cosmetics could not disguise. Next she recognized that she was sagging in places she had never sagged before. Inevitably, she had begun that fateful descent of the femme fatale. Once the favorite plaything of the social pacesetters, she soon had to adjust to being the plaything of anyone who wanted a plaything. When even that activity had run its course, she became a common prostitute, selling what remained of her charms for enough money to survive. Even prostitution, however, is a
competitive profession and the day came when those seeking her services were no longer attracted at all. Gomer then descended to the final rung on the social ladder, becoming a slave and offering her labor to the family that owned her in exchange for sustenance.
“Through all these downward spiraling years, Hosea kept up his search for the woman he had married and still loved. As the years passed, the search became less frantic, but it was always on his agenda. Hosea knew the ways of his world, so, after some years had passed, he limited his search to the slave markets, which were only places that seemed to be her likely destination. His was a lonely life. He knew not whether his wife was dead or alive.
“Then one day it happened. He found a slave market, where the usual riff-raff of society offered loud commentary on the human cargo placed on the block. Hosea moved into the crowd just about the time a woman was placed on the block for public inspection. Her hair was matted, her eyes were bloodshot and her face was lined, revealing the toll that the years had taken. The crowd was delirious in its derision, suggesting by their shouts that no one would be so foolish as to pay anything for this old bag. The slave master tried to ignore them while he sought in vain to secure a purchaser. Their guffaws, however, were not silenced until Hosea, recognizing this woman as his wife Gomer, stepped forward and with a clear and audible voice bid fifteen pieces of silver for her. A momentary stunned silence greeted this bid while the crowd turned to see who had made this incredibly stupid offer. Fifteen pieces of silver was the top price that young, strong male servants would bring. Only someone significantly naïve or totally uninformed could have offered so absurd a price for this battered piece of cargo. The crowd’s abusive shouts now shifted quickly from this pathetic woman, who was little more than a throw-in on another sale, to the strange man who had made such an incredible offer. This bidder had been duped, so they hurled their insults at him, profoundly unaware of the drama being acted out before their eyes.
“Taking no notice of their catcalls, Hosea walked forward, paid the offered price, took the woman by the hand and led her past the mocking bystanders until their words faded in the distance. When he reached his home with her, Hosea informed his household that Gomer was not a slave, but his wife and he installed her into the place of honor she had once occupied as the mistress of his household and the center of his affection.
“It was following this experience that Hosea began to reflect on his life and on what it meant to be God’s prophet. His relationship with Gomer led him to examine what he perceived to be God’s relationship to the Jewish people. His thoughts about God began to intertwine with his thoughts about Gomer. Just as he loved Gomer regardless of her actions, so he began to understand that this is the nature of God’s love for God’s people. God’s love is not conditional, nor is it tempered by Israel’s actions. This definition of God began to grow in Hosea. The love of God was not an entity to be earned, it was a reality to be entered, something to be lived. His meditation, born in his own pain, paved the way for him to arrive at a new understanding of what divine love really meant. God’s love cannot be earned and God’s love cannot be destroyed no matter what people did. This was the message of Hosea.
“Later in Jewish history, this message of Hosea was seen in Jesus of Nazareth. When the gospels were written that understanding of love permeated every verse. Jesus was portrayed as praying for his tormentors and giving his life and love away even as people thought they were taking it from him. The message of Jesus that the gospels sought to convey was very clear: There is nothing you or I can ever do; nothing you or I can ever be that will separate us from the love of God. As I read this small book, Hosea reaches out to love and even to rescue his wife from the consequences of her own decisions, though by the standards of that day, she would have been judged as not worthy of such a response. That was the message of Jesus 800 years later.”
Now, let me quickly say that even in this reconstruction of Hosea, we do not know the whole story. A marital relationship is never one sided. In the biblical text, we do not have access to Gomer’s side of the relationship. Hosea may have been an impossibly righteous man. We do know, however, that selfless love is always a doorway into transforming forgiveness, expanded life and perhaps even a larger consciousness. We also know that the idea of God being defined as selfless love brought a whole new dimension to the meaning of worship.
After Hosea lived through this experience and found reconciliation, he still had to write his story and someone somewhere had to make the later decision to incorporate that writing into the sacred scriptures of the Jewish people. That is what enabled Hosea’s message to reverberate through the ages. Later generations of people listening to the words of Hosea would begin to hear in them the “word of God.”
I treasure Hosea for many reasons. His message is real and it counters the anti-Semitic Christian rhetoric of the ages that suggests that the Old Testament portrays a God of judgment while the New Testament portrays a God of love. Judgment is nowhere as severe in the Bible as it is in the New Testament Book of Revelation, which portrays eternal fire and flaming pits as the eternal fate that God has designed for sinners; and love is nowhere portrayed more profoundly than in the Old Testament Book of Hosea, who turned his personal pain into a new understanding of the limitless love of God.
God does not change over the course of time, but the human perception of God is ever changing and in the Book of Hosea a new breakthrough into the meaning of God was achieved.~ John Shelby Spong |
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