From CONSCIOUS EVOLUTION: THE DANCE OF INTUITION AND INTELLECT
BY Sheldon Stoff and Barbara Smith Stoff
UNITY: DRAWING TOGETHER FROM THE WITHIN
When we speak of the “within”—what are we meaning? Sri Aurobindo often said that, even in our very cells, we are lit by God Light at the core. We are lit by god light…what does that mean?
Richard Grossinger, contemplates this phenomenon we call light in his book The Night Sky. In his chapter on occult astronomy he discusses with a characteristic look at the writings of others [especially Pierre Teilhard de Chardin--who wrote so much about the "within"] and then makes his own intuitive mystical synthesis:
"So we can look at the sky as a screen of hydrogen fires, or we can look at the same light as the divine component of creation transmitted eternally. The sun is the local embodiment of this material, and the Earth is constructed of solar material. When we imagine the primordial seas with their millennial rains and steam, the upheaval of the molten core, the emergence of bare rock, and the clinging life mantle, we can intuit an inside to this process so that the astral is transmitted through the elemental.
" … We are encouraged to look anew into the night sky, and it is a hive of cells and souls traversed by divine light and the archetypal data of creation. In Gurdjieff’s system, light carries information from higher worlds into lower ones, information which can be transformed by physical nourishment and breath back into astral thought." (Richard Grossinger in The Night Sky, pp.49-50) (77:49-50)
“...When we imagine the primordial seas…” Can we then be like the ancient small creatures (as so eloquent described by Loren Eiseley in The Immense Journey) learning to survive in the residual tide pools as the oceans receded and withdrew from the land. These small creatures internalized the seawater—that which had been their supporting environment—and developed the circulatory system. Through individuation, having internalized the supporting environment, the codes and mores of our evolving social institutions, we can draw together by using the force of radial energy from the heart. We might think of this radial energy as ‘entropised’ energy which has built up our ‘within’—rather than having been dissipated throughout the aeons—radial energy now makes a rich conserve within the heart of humanity. Radial energy allows for the drawing together from within rather than being pushed together from without—thus allowing the optimum development of the individual as well as, and simultaneously with the whole, the collective, the community, the society,
It is basic to an evolving consciousness to understand that, to a more or less degree depending on circumstances, all persons are bound together in ties of consciousness. We are unified from our initial creation as a spiritual being. Our energy source is shared, thus enabling us to communicate without verbal speech. Reality extends beyond time and space.
Spiritually, we know that we must transcend the i of singularity and appreciate the ties to all life. By transcending the small i we begin to fully appreciate the spiritual bonds uniting us. This is a turning point in our lives, in our very consciousness. We finally know ourselves in togetherness. The isolation of the i has led to greed, aggression and war. Togetherness corrects those ills and accounts for so much more. Relating as companions for the journey, we can move the world forward to an entirely new dimension of being. Of this we are sure, a simple awareness exists within nature, evolving into higher forms as the spiral ascends. We have moved from that simple awareness to a human consciousness that, at this time on earth, must evolve into a higher consciousness of oneness with all that there is, if we are to fulfill our destiny and evolve humanity from the darkness of our age. Aggression, greed, self-centeredness, and war can now be seen in the light of horrible negativity and immaturity. Our evolving consciousness ushers in a new era of maturity and life.
We believe that the unity we seek can begin to be found if we first establish a dialogical connection with the expanded consciousness of what we call “the inner dimensions.” This direct knowledge of unity can be experienced and lived. It is our inner and our outer which together form our authentic essence. Understanding and experiencing this requires an openness filled with courage to change and transcend, to evolve and mature. To be locked into previous immature beliefs is to live within a cage of past shadows.
Again, we come back to the discussion of meditative practice for access to the “within.” The source of this experience is not physical. It is far greater than that. This knowledge, awaiting to be found, now gained by experience, is attained by a leap beyond our physical body, utilizing deep contemplation and/or meditation in order to pierce false blinders and limitations.
By having the courage to go beyond the traditional, the very core of our awareness is expanded. We can learn to live, even for brief moments, in a higher more integrated state of consciousness. Veils are pierced as a greater degree of knowing is lived. The gateway to reality is found as we encounter and go beyond the human made web of appearances and hurdles.
We all have come into the physical dimension for individual, positive goals. We don’t know of any and we can’t seek a supposed God’s plan by e-mail. No such plan has ever been known. It would be the height of folly to suppose that we can find one. We are not slaves, even to God, and can only conceive of individual plans, developed deep within ourselves and with help from our guides, hinted at in mystical experiences. These plans are always developed for our greater good and the good of humankind.
Our goal and that which leads us to a human unity is an internal, intuitional knowing, through individual experience at a higher level, that we are all part of the family of living beings. We can and must make our unique contributions to that in our own unique way. The grand goal is the fulfillment of our individual missions in that grand togetherness—the blending of our temporary world of appearances with that of the everlasting Reality. When we, on this planet, commit to the fulfillment we can begin, step by step, project by project, relationship by relationship, to finally move forward on a beauty path that is a winning one for each inhabitant, and for our individual and collective existence on this Earth. When that inner knowing, accelerated by contemplation and meditation is experienced, the march forward will be one with the hurdles overcome. As we move along the path we slowly gain deeper appreciation and understanding, leaving behind the commitment to a narrow world view.
Emersion and total commitment to a specific institution or world view, although helpful and even necessary in providing early scaffolding, structure and support, if allowed to monitor or censure our thoughts, can also be a barrier. Such entanglements must be cast aside if we are to go forward with complete freedom of unrestricted thinking.
The above recommendation may be viewed as suspicious by those who are afraid of thinking itself. Ralph Waldo Emerson provided a profound response to that thought years ago. He suggested that if we are all meditating on the same source we will achieve answers appropriate for each individual and always moving us toward the common unity where it all began. Meditation can overcome differences in intellectual reasoning since it can take us beyond a school or book or belief driven interpretation of encounter.
If a new self is to be found there must be courage and love in the attempt to ascend the ladder. We have often said that we must go “naked” toward the spiritual domain in meditation. We clearly meant that we go with an open mind, free from all intellectual persuasions or biases. All who have succeeded in meditation would support that recommendation. It is foolish to draw strict parameters if one is seeking a truth beyond the human. That experience is one of an intimacy with our birthright, that final awakening of our expanded consciousness, the experience of inner, loving relationships with all levels of creation, including the Divine. It is the majestic experience of loving knowledge that binds together the unity of humankind and the spiritual where false subjectivity has no home. There, only love and harmony are to be found. Now, here, that time has come.--From CONSCIOUS EVOLUTION: THE DANCE OF INTUITION AND INTELLECT by Sheldon Stoff and Barbara Smith Stoff
Monday, December 13, 2010
Sunday, December 12, 2010
THE BALANCE TURNS ON YES
THE BALANCE TURNS ON YES
My soul is balancing out there
and the balance turns on yes...
a light burning through black and white,
press printing new patterns
(this is only flat paper news)
I look down from the horrors
of the Sunday paper
to this cat
(who has become my teacher of late)
here on my lap
(warm ease and somehow here being)
with balance here
with balance here seeming
on a thin thin wire
silver spun from some center...
is pure? will hold?
the center holds
(even to that mountain in the distance there)
Yes.
Trusting the morning hand
for some graceful knot,
I look up to bind...
up and out and level
(even to that distant mountain there)
and back to this flat paper news
whose power leaps quivering from points of pain
dangerously shaking the gossamer line.
Almost I hear the fearsome snap:
a heartpulse...and the line holds.
My soul comes comes home again
from rare space
and I stroke the cat
and we enjoy fragrant tea
with some serenity.
--Barbara Smith Stoff
My soul is balancing out there
and the balance turns on yes...
a light burning through black and white,
press printing new patterns
(this is only flat paper news)
I look down from the horrors
of the Sunday paper
to this cat
(who has become my teacher of late)
here on my lap
(warm ease and somehow here being)
with balance here
with balance here seeming
on a thin thin wire
silver spun from some center...
is pure? will hold?
the center holds
(even to that mountain in the distance there)
Yes.
Trusting the morning hand
for some graceful knot,
I look up to bind...
up and out and level
(even to that distant mountain there)
and back to this flat paper news
whose power leaps quivering from points of pain
dangerously shaking the gossamer line.
Almost I hear the fearsome snap:
a heartpulse...and the line holds.
My soul comes comes home again
from rare space
and I stroke the cat
and we enjoy fragrant tea
with some serenity.
--Barbara Smith Stoff
Thursday, May 6, 2010
A ROSE IS A ROSE
As I read about the standoff in Arizona and, in general, the wild discussions regarding immigration, I have been thinking a lot about this memory:
A CHRISTMAS ROSE (from my journal, December 1980)
Tonight after dinner we walked, and what I saw seems etched into my bones. The “Zona Rosa” is the fashionable place for night revels. With the holiday season and all, the streets are crowded with tourists, obviously, but also many young Mexicans, looking handsome and well-heeled, out for a night on the town. There is a definite air of high celebration. It’s a “nice place.” The people seem happy, kind, polite, and beautiful. There are the old women begging too—a tug at the heart—but at least, I remind myself, they are wrapped up warmly.
Mexico City...It was there amid the sidewalk cafes, the shops, the fashionable restaurants and discoteques that we saw something which I shall never forget. I think I saw the exposed heart of a city of over 14 million people, and it was a touching reminder that there is spontaneous love and caring in the human heart.
A young man, well-dressed and perhaps either going to or coming from a party, apparently drunk, suddenly fell backwards on the red brick sidewalk and gave himself what looked like a severe head laceration. I felt frightened and anxious as I took in the unexpected sight of the blood along with the pots of flowers and bright yellow café chairs. I had a feeling of helplessness in the face of tragedy. And then I became absorbed in observing a behavior which the jaundiced eyes of American city dwellers might do well to remark upon.
A small crowd gathered around him and I listened to the concern, expressed in Spanish, among people who seemed neither to know one another nor the man on the sidewalk. It was suggested and concluded among them that he was most likely “borracho.” One young man kept trying to convince the others that someone should bring some sugar and rub it on the man’s wrists and throat—that it would bring him around if he were in fact just drunk. Some of the people stayed with him, kneeling beside him, bending over him with expressions of concern until the police ambulance came, promptly and without sirens. He was lifted quietly and gently, still unconscious into the vehicle which drove away again in silence—no sirens to deepen the trauma—leaving what seemed to me to be a sobered, saddened crowd on the corner.
As I stood there, I realized that I felt a feeling of warmth, almost of joy, welling up and displacing the shock and horror, because I knew that I had also seen something beautiful, a showing forth of human caring. A Christmas Rose? Years and years hence, my vision will come back to this tableau, when I am in need of it.
--Barbara Smith Stoff
A CHRISTMAS ROSE (from my journal, December 1980)
Tonight after dinner we walked, and what I saw seems etched into my bones. The “Zona Rosa” is the fashionable place for night revels. With the holiday season and all, the streets are crowded with tourists, obviously, but also many young Mexicans, looking handsome and well-heeled, out for a night on the town. There is a definite air of high celebration. It’s a “nice place.” The people seem happy, kind, polite, and beautiful. There are the old women begging too—a tug at the heart—but at least, I remind myself, they are wrapped up warmly.
Mexico City...It was there amid the sidewalk cafes, the shops, the fashionable restaurants and discoteques that we saw something which I shall never forget. I think I saw the exposed heart of a city of over 14 million people, and it was a touching reminder that there is spontaneous love and caring in the human heart.
A young man, well-dressed and perhaps either going to or coming from a party, apparently drunk, suddenly fell backwards on the red brick sidewalk and gave himself what looked like a severe head laceration. I felt frightened and anxious as I took in the unexpected sight of the blood along with the pots of flowers and bright yellow café chairs. I had a feeling of helplessness in the face of tragedy. And then I became absorbed in observing a behavior which the jaundiced eyes of American city dwellers might do well to remark upon.
A small crowd gathered around him and I listened to the concern, expressed in Spanish, among people who seemed neither to know one another nor the man on the sidewalk. It was suggested and concluded among them that he was most likely “borracho.” One young man kept trying to convince the others that someone should bring some sugar and rub it on the man’s wrists and throat—that it would bring him around if he were in fact just drunk. Some of the people stayed with him, kneeling beside him, bending over him with expressions of concern until the police ambulance came, promptly and without sirens. He was lifted quietly and gently, still unconscious into the vehicle which drove away again in silence—no sirens to deepen the trauma—leaving what seemed to me to be a sobered, saddened crowd on the corner.
As I stood there, I realized that I felt a feeling of warmth, almost of joy, welling up and displacing the shock and horror, because I knew that I had also seen something beautiful, a showing forth of human caring. A Christmas Rose? Years and years hence, my vision will come back to this tableau, when I am in need of it.
--Barbara Smith Stoff
Monday, March 22, 2010
ISRAEL WOULD DO WELL TO TAKE A LESSON FROM THE REDWOODS
By Barbara Smith Stoff and Sheldon Stoff
Here in the deep shade of the California Redwoods, I think about them. These Redwoods last for centuries and they grow incredibly tall and strong. Interestingly, I am told that they do not put down a taproot, but rather they develop a root system which connects and interlaces each tree with its neighbor. The Jews are like that, and because of their ever ongoing transnational history, they are, or should be, more capable than most of seeing the whole forest.
We humans are all trees in the One forest. Like it or not…our roots are forever entangled. As in the film “Avatar” those who learn to cooperate are the ones who survive.
i
Israeli religious right cites historical biblical bequests from God in order to establish a claim to Jerusalem as temporal and exclusive capital. Is that not a facet of ever-threatening modern fundamentalism? Religious fundamentalism, whatever the brand, offers up distortion, racism and bigotry. So! Jerusalem is no longer the mystical soul of Israel…but merely real estate?
Ariel Sharon was once quoted by William Safire in the New York Times as saying, “Through 4000 years of continuity in our ancestral homeland, Israel’s people have undergone hardship, persecution, Holocaust, terrible adversity. But the nation is stronger than others have estimated. We have overcome all our challenges. The Jewish people are indestructible.”
Historically, one can easily see such a pattern in the interconnectedness of the Jewish people. Even when they are widely dispersed throughout time and geography, they hang together. They support each other. They play the game of life with real passion. And when the game of life itself is threatened, they begin to play the game to preserve the game.
It’s easy to see that they carry social codes which can move the whole human race forward toward harmonious evolution. Possessing superb transnational skills, the Jews have seeded human society with tools of survival and growth. They have made outstanding and benevolent contributions to humanitarian advancement—across the entire disciplinary spread. At the same time, they have done proportionately less harm to humankind.
So what is it with the Israeli government? It seems obvious to me that, even in 1948, the newly formed state of Israel did not reach out with their root system to help the Palestinian people prosper. That fact also seems understandable to me if I look at their circumstances of immediate escape from annihilation, and given the circumstances of the Palestinian protest and war against their rebirth as a state presence.
The new Israel did rise to a noble response though, in the face of Palestinian opposition, in affording them legal rights, universities, and re-integration from refugee camps. No such integration was offered by surrounding states. Even now, Jordan is beginning to deny them refuge. Even now, a Marshall Plan, led by Israel and other interested states, would do a great deal to bring a spirit of peace into the region.
But recent history shows us that the Palestinians were proud, and they allowed their wounds to grow and fester in poverty, and without adequate leadership. While Israel moved forward in social accomplishment and wealth, the Palestinians began to feel more and more like second-class citizens, until their level of suffering simmered to just the right temperature for use as the petri dish for regrowing cast off spores of old hatreds within the ancient cultures of the Middle East. Some say that we create ourselves according to the ideas we hold about ourselves. Consider those old spores…Isaac was the chosen one…Ishmael was sent out. And on and on it goes.
And now the whole world is threatened. If Israel’s democracy is extinguished, that light goes out from the rest of the world too. Civilization cannot afford that loss. It’s time for Jewish Israel to recognize and honor its responsibility to the rest of the world…to recognize the importance of its democracy in the overall configuration of that area of the world. And it’s time for the other nations to reach out their roots to join with the roots of the Jews. The world is in an extremely complicated situation right now—politically, economically, morally. We know. We know. But, it’s time we all learn to sing a new tune.
And, it’s time for the Jews to sing a new tune, to let go of their internalized feeling of victimhood and own their true genius, their strength, their vision. It’s time for the Jews of the world to recognize the Palestinians. It’s time for the non-Jews in the world to let go of Anti-Semitic fears and hatreds and join them in that recognition. It’s time to recognize that we are all trees in the one forest. It’s a good time to begin. It’s a good time to create a new song, to tell a new story.
Note: Barbara Smith Stoff, poet and artist, is an Emmy Award Winner in Educational Television. Sheldon Stoff, now Professor Emeritus at Adelphi University, received his doctorate at Cornell University, is author of Universal Kabbalah: Dawn of a New Consciousness, and the recently released The Western Book of Crossing Over: Conversations with the Other Side. They are co-authors of the forthcoming Partnership Society: The Marriage of Intuition and Intellect. They live in California, specialize in Transpersonal Studies, and are currently writing a comprehensive study of the concept of the Akashic Field.
Here in the deep shade of the California Redwoods, I think about them. These Redwoods last for centuries and they grow incredibly tall and strong. Interestingly, I am told that they do not put down a taproot, but rather they develop a root system which connects and interlaces each tree with its neighbor. The Jews are like that, and because of their ever ongoing transnational history, they are, or should be, more capable than most of seeing the whole forest.
We humans are all trees in the One forest. Like it or not…our roots are forever entangled. As in the film “Avatar” those who learn to cooperate are the ones who survive.
i
Israeli religious right cites historical biblical bequests from God in order to establish a claim to Jerusalem as temporal and exclusive capital. Is that not a facet of ever-threatening modern fundamentalism? Religious fundamentalism, whatever the brand, offers up distortion, racism and bigotry. So! Jerusalem is no longer the mystical soul of Israel…but merely real estate?
Ariel Sharon was once quoted by William Safire in the New York Times as saying, “Through 4000 years of continuity in our ancestral homeland, Israel’s people have undergone hardship, persecution, Holocaust, terrible adversity. But the nation is stronger than others have estimated. We have overcome all our challenges. The Jewish people are indestructible.”
Historically, one can easily see such a pattern in the interconnectedness of the Jewish people. Even when they are widely dispersed throughout time and geography, they hang together. They support each other. They play the game of life with real passion. And when the game of life itself is threatened, they begin to play the game to preserve the game.
It’s easy to see that they carry social codes which can move the whole human race forward toward harmonious evolution. Possessing superb transnational skills, the Jews have seeded human society with tools of survival and growth. They have made outstanding and benevolent contributions to humanitarian advancement—across the entire disciplinary spread. At the same time, they have done proportionately less harm to humankind.
So what is it with the Israeli government? It seems obvious to me that, even in 1948, the newly formed state of Israel did not reach out with their root system to help the Palestinian people prosper. That fact also seems understandable to me if I look at their circumstances of immediate escape from annihilation, and given the circumstances of the Palestinian protest and war against their rebirth as a state presence.
The new Israel did rise to a noble response though, in the face of Palestinian opposition, in affording them legal rights, universities, and re-integration from refugee camps. No such integration was offered by surrounding states. Even now, Jordan is beginning to deny them refuge. Even now, a Marshall Plan, led by Israel and other interested states, would do a great deal to bring a spirit of peace into the region.
But recent history shows us that the Palestinians were proud, and they allowed their wounds to grow and fester in poverty, and without adequate leadership. While Israel moved forward in social accomplishment and wealth, the Palestinians began to feel more and more like second-class citizens, until their level of suffering simmered to just the right temperature for use as the petri dish for regrowing cast off spores of old hatreds within the ancient cultures of the Middle East. Some say that we create ourselves according to the ideas we hold about ourselves. Consider those old spores…Isaac was the chosen one…Ishmael was sent out. And on and on it goes.
And now the whole world is threatened. If Israel’s democracy is extinguished, that light goes out from the rest of the world too. Civilization cannot afford that loss. It’s time for Jewish Israel to recognize and honor its responsibility to the rest of the world…to recognize the importance of its democracy in the overall configuration of that area of the world. And it’s time for the other nations to reach out their roots to join with the roots of the Jews. The world is in an extremely complicated situation right now—politically, economically, morally. We know. We know. But, it’s time we all learn to sing a new tune.
And, it’s time for the Jews to sing a new tune, to let go of their internalized feeling of victimhood and own their true genius, their strength, their vision. It’s time for the Jews of the world to recognize the Palestinians. It’s time for the non-Jews in the world to let go of Anti-Semitic fears and hatreds and join them in that recognition. It’s time to recognize that we are all trees in the one forest. It’s a good time to begin. It’s a good time to create a new song, to tell a new story.
Note: Barbara Smith Stoff, poet and artist, is an Emmy Award Winner in Educational Television. Sheldon Stoff, now Professor Emeritus at Adelphi University, received his doctorate at Cornell University, is author of Universal Kabbalah: Dawn of a New Consciousness, and the recently released The Western Book of Crossing Over: Conversations with the Other Side. They are co-authors of the forthcoming Partnership Society: The Marriage of Intuition and Intellect. They live in California, specialize in Transpersonal Studies, and are currently writing a comprehensive study of the concept of the Akashic Field.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Ervin Laszlo FROM MUSIC AND SCIENCE TO WORLDSHIFT 2012: A Visionary Diary of Our Times
I first began to read Dr. Laszlo during my first experience with cyber-conferencing in 1998-1999. Having retired to a somewhat remote ridge in the Sierra foothills, I was about to embark on a new kind of world exploration, to be sure. He has been a guiding light for me in that process ever since. Now, having just discovered this site…I feel I’ve come home to a warm fire and a wonderful and oh-so-important conversation about what we can do if we so choose. http://www.ervinlaszlo.com
PERSEPHONE
After the Great Fall,
it is that the warrior has danced upon the bones
of our dismembered illusions.
Isis, come now.
Re-member us with new forms, new ideas.
Life must survive.
After the Grail seeking and the Persephone tasks,
tell us what can we envision together.
–Barbara Smith Stoff
http://www.open.salon.com/blog/barbarasmithstoff/2010/02/19/persephone
PERSEPHONE
After the Great Fall,
it is that the warrior has danced upon the bones
of our dismembered illusions.
Isis, come now.
Re-member us with new forms, new ideas.
Life must survive.
After the Grail seeking and the Persephone tasks,
tell us what can we envision together.
–Barbara Smith Stoff
http://www.open.salon.com/blog/barbarasmithstoff/2010/02/19/persephone
Thursday, January 21, 2010
DECISION WINDOW: MAYBE WE SHOULD CHANGE OUR QUESTION
DECISION WINDOW: MAYBE WE SHOULD CHANGE OUR QUESTION
Is 2010 our decision window? What if we change our question? Today it seems that the whole world must come to terms with a multi-national hydra-headed existential face-off. Thus it becomes, at this point in history, imperative that we work hard to educate ourselves, in order to gain some insight and understanding of our idea of ourselves as human beings in a very large universe, and how that idea is interpreted and played out on the increasingly communal world stage. Thinking about this I have decided to post here some excerpts from the foreword I wrote for my husband’s new book. (Sheldon Stoff, The Western Book of Crossing Over: Conversations with the Other Side. North Atlantic Books, 2009)
In our efforts to widen and deepen our concepts and understanding of life and meaning, it may be helpful if we place our inquiries within the larger questions posed by general systems theory. It may indeed be helpful to direct an inquiring look at general systems theory and the nature of systems and how and why they organize themselves, and how they may change toward a more benevolent evolution.
Ervin Laszlo, often known as the father of systems science, says that as we now face a choice between "collapsing into chaos and evolving into a sustainable, ethical global community" the voices of the few, even the individual, can have a powerful effect for change. He says, in The Chaos Point: The World at the Crossroads:
Reading history upon tragic history, and trying to comprehend truly and fairly, we think that now is the time to offer thoughts about strategies for a deeper healing at the heart of humankind. With Martin Buber and Vaclav Havel, we plead for benevolent evolution in our consciousness, in our understanding of who we are, and where we are going. Are we evolving toward understanding and partnership? Asking a new kind of question can precipitate a profound change in our world view, and in our understanding of the entire cosmos. When we change our question, we begin to move forward in comprehension and toward greater spiritual evolution.
**** Note: Now Professor Emeritus at Adelphi University, Sheldon Stoff taught a course on the philosophy of Martin Buber while he was studying for his doctorate at Cornell University. During his long career as an educator and spokesperson for Humanistic Education, with inspiration from Dr. Buber, he established the International Center for Studies in Dialogue. He also received the Outstanding Educator of America Award in 1974. He is author of The Two Way Street, The Human Encounter, The Pumpkin Quest, Universal Kabbalah: Dawn of a New Consciousness, and the recently released The Western Book of Crossing Over: Conversations with the Other Side. As well, he is co-author, with Barbara Smith Stoff, of the forthcoming Partnership Society: The Marriage of Intuition and Intellect.
--Barbara Smith Stoff
Is 2010 our decision window? What if we change our question? Today it seems that the whole world must come to terms with a multi-national hydra-headed existential face-off. Thus it becomes, at this point in history, imperative that we work hard to educate ourselves, in order to gain some insight and understanding of our idea of ourselves as human beings in a very large universe, and how that idea is interpreted and played out on the increasingly communal world stage. Thinking about this I have decided to post here some excerpts from the foreword I wrote for my husband’s new book. (Sheldon Stoff, The Western Book of Crossing Over: Conversations with the Other Side. North Atlantic Books, 2009)
In our efforts to widen and deepen our concepts and understanding of life and meaning, it may be helpful if we place our inquiries within the larger questions posed by general systems theory. It may indeed be helpful to direct an inquiring look at general systems theory and the nature of systems and how and why they organize themselves, and how they may change toward a more benevolent evolution.
Ervin Laszlo, often known as the father of systems science, says that as we now face a choice between "collapsing into chaos and evolving into a sustainable, ethical global community" the voices of the few, even the individual, can have a powerful effect for change. He says, in The Chaos Point: The World at the Crossroads:
Scientists would say we are living in a 'decision window'—a transitory period in the evolution of a system during which any input or influence, however small, can 'blow up' to transform existing trends and bring new patterns and processes into existence. This is similar to the often-discussed 'butterfly effect' discovered by U.S. meteorologist Edward Lorenz in the 1960s….In periods of relative stability, the consciousness of individuals does not play a decisive role in the behavior of society. But when a society reaches the limits of its stability and turns chaotic, it becomes super-sensitive—responsive to even small fluctuations such as changes in some people's values, beliefs, world views and aspirations. Many signs point to the fact that we are entering a new period of ecological and social instability, a time rife with chaos but also a window of exceptional freedom to decide our destiny.
Reading history upon tragic history, and trying to comprehend truly and fairly, we think that now is the time to offer thoughts about strategies for a deeper healing at the heart of humankind. With Martin Buber and Vaclav Havel, we plead for benevolent evolution in our consciousness, in our understanding of who we are, and where we are going. Are we evolving toward understanding and partnership? Asking a new kind of question can precipitate a profound change in our world view, and in our understanding of the entire cosmos. When we change our question, we begin to move forward in comprehension and toward greater spiritual evolution.
**** Note: Now Professor Emeritus at Adelphi University, Sheldon Stoff taught a course on the philosophy of Martin Buber while he was studying for his doctorate at Cornell University. During his long career as an educator and spokesperson for Humanistic Education, with inspiration from Dr. Buber, he established the International Center for Studies in Dialogue. He also received the Outstanding Educator of America Award in 1974. He is author of The Two Way Street, The Human Encounter, The Pumpkin Quest, Universal Kabbalah: Dawn of a New Consciousness, and the recently released The Western Book of Crossing Over: Conversations with the Other Side. As well, he is co-author, with Barbara Smith Stoff, of the forthcoming Partnership Society: The Marriage of Intuition and Intellect.
--Barbara Smith Stoff
Monday, January 18, 2010
REMEMBERING LITTLE RUBY BRIDGES ON MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY, 2010
Today is Martin Luther King Day, 2010. Today I like to reflect once again upon the story I heard in San Diego, California, sometime in the early 1980s, from Dr. Robert Coles, of Harvard University, about his conversation with little Ruby Bridges after she had endured the ordeal of being escorted by federal marshals into a previously all-white school in New Orleans, in 1960. As she faced the hostile crowds, the jeering, and even the death threats, Dr. Coles noticed that she walked calmly and her lips kept moving as if she were talking to herself. He later asked her what she was saying. Her response was, “I was saying forgive them. They do not know what they are doing.”
Down through the years, Professor Coles has studied children closely and has written with understanding and vision about his findings. If we are wise, we will ponder his conclusions: "Children, if we can listen to them, will tell us of a life richer in moral values than most grown-ups can comprehend.... If faced by the prospect of total annihilation, young people will try in some way to make sense of the mystery and madness of their lives." If we can just listen to the young ones…
--Barbara Smith Stoff
Down through the years, Professor Coles has studied children closely and has written with understanding and vision about his findings. If we are wise, we will ponder his conclusions: "Children, if we can listen to them, will tell us of a life richer in moral values than most grown-ups can comprehend.... If faced by the prospect of total annihilation, young people will try in some way to make sense of the mystery and madness of their lives." If we can just listen to the young ones…
--Barbara Smith Stoff
Sunday, January 17, 2010
FROM MY JOURNAL - SEPTEMBER 20, 1984
From my journal – September 20, 1984
In the occult tradition, the eye that ‘sees’ must be washed in the blood of the heart. --Dane Rudhyar
It’s 3:30 a.m. Through the window in the east study I see the moon, a silver crescent held there like a cup. Oh Moon, night goddess who comes to balance and make round the glinting spears of light from rational day; we, poor creatures, crawling on the earth here, are we abandoned here until we all find the heartpoint…flashpoint!! flashpoint!!? Where the horizontal plane of rationality intersects the vertical plane of emotionality, the heart is born. The heart is born on the cross. And moment by moment I must reconcile myself to that crosspoint-flashpoint-heartpoint, the luminous center.
Has Christ really done it for us? Have we only to bring ourselves up to the ‘risen’ vibration that he has brought in for us? Stretched as he was there, he chose to monitor, moment by moment, his attitude and response toward his pain: He chose love. Father, forgive them. I will not give my soul, even in a moment of despair and pain, over to the power of darkness. Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. I will not give my soul…the existential ordeal of choice. Flashpoint! A new threshold of luminescence glows in the web of existence called earth, vibrating outward from that birthpoint, shaking the web, even dangerously shaking the web.
I am with you all days…and wherever we are in this web, we are henceforth affected by this new vibration. I can choose this vibration out of all others and my attunement begins. Lo, I am with you all days, even unto the end of the world.
Suddenly I am remembering an exercise from our movement group. Working with a partner, one partner says ‘cookie’’ and the other is silent. ‘Cookie, cookie, cookie’…the silent partner listens carefully to the sound in order to learn to distinguish it from all the other intonations in the room. Then everyone goes into motion and the room becomes an arena of movement and varying tones of ‘cookie cookie’ as the task of each of the silent partners is to locate the tone of the original partner and find the way back to the dyad, all this with the eyes closed, attuning to the special sound, a sound which has become special, as a guide. The task is to focus only on that one sound in order to succeed in the exercise. Atonement, attunement.
The existential Jesus whispered “This is possible for me. I can choose forgiveness. This is possible for a human being. This is possible for the human race.” Flashpoint! Flashpoint! The fabric of existence is forever altered. The historical Jesus whispered ‘cookie, cookie’ and that sound vibrates forever through the web of time.
Out of the phantasmagoria of sounds, refractions, reverberations, and echoes, will come those, inevitably, who shape the sounds into words. Saint John says simply, “God is love.” T.S. Eliot says, “Love is God.”
Carlos Castaneda has written six long tales of power and has not mentioned the sound of love. His “cookie:power” permeates our living web of morphic resonance now in 1984 as did the dark tones of William Golding in the 1960s with Lord of the Flies, that darkest of echoes from the great war where power became so completely divorced from the heart…the heartfires of the world had gone out …and then erupted in a great conflagration in the bake ovens of Dachau and Buchenwald. Yet the pervasiveness of clouds seeded by this darkness drifted through the minds of masses of students as they read Lord of the Flies, which was assigned to them by their teachers of literature, to be read and studied and commented upon while their ears were yet full of the drums of war…ears unable at that point to distinguish the gentler sound, “cookie”love.” Into that rumble and din, we now have Castaneda generating sounds, words, echoes into the morphic web and the drums of power drown out the sound of love. The minds of students sift for seeds of wisdom in these dark clouds of words while their ears are muffled by the modern cacophony of television and dystrophic music. Only in the gentleness of the heart can the gentler sounds be heard. Only in the heart. Body, mind, soul, spirit…where is the heart?
“Oh! Beat the world with heart of song!” Where can the sounds of the heart be heard if not through the voice of the poet, the artist, who prays, “O! Mythical father of Icarus, stand me now in good stead as I go forth to forge within the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race!” Can the modern ear be attuned to the voice of the artist?
Hoc est enum corpus meum. The artist makes the bread of life and holds it out to us in holy communion. I will pass by the dark bread and choose that which has more light. I hold out my hand for the white hyacinth. Oh, where are we going with these light bodies?
There are those today who shape sounds into gentler words: William Irwin Thompson says “Time Falling Bodies Take to Light.” Oh, where are we going in this body of light? We breathe in light; we breathe out love. I breath in light, I breathe out love, I breathe in light I breath out love breathe in light breathe out love breathe in love breathe out light breathe in light breathe out love breathe in love breathe out love breathe breathe breathe…and so the heart of the earth breathes and the heart of fire is kindled within.
--Barbara Smith Stoff
In the occult tradition, the eye that ‘sees’ must be washed in the blood of the heart. --Dane Rudhyar
It’s 3:30 a.m. Through the window in the east study I see the moon, a silver crescent held there like a cup. Oh Moon, night goddess who comes to balance and make round the glinting spears of light from rational day; we, poor creatures, crawling on the earth here, are we abandoned here until we all find the heartpoint…flashpoint!! flashpoint!!? Where the horizontal plane of rationality intersects the vertical plane of emotionality, the heart is born. The heart is born on the cross. And moment by moment I must reconcile myself to that crosspoint-flashpoint-heartpoint, the luminous center.
Has Christ really done it for us? Have we only to bring ourselves up to the ‘risen’ vibration that he has brought in for us? Stretched as he was there, he chose to monitor, moment by moment, his attitude and response toward his pain: He chose love. Father, forgive them. I will not give my soul, even in a moment of despair and pain, over to the power of darkness. Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. I will not give my soul…the existential ordeal of choice. Flashpoint! A new threshold of luminescence glows in the web of existence called earth, vibrating outward from that birthpoint, shaking the web, even dangerously shaking the web.
I am with you all days…and wherever we are in this web, we are henceforth affected by this new vibration. I can choose this vibration out of all others and my attunement begins. Lo, I am with you all days, even unto the end of the world.
Suddenly I am remembering an exercise from our movement group. Working with a partner, one partner says ‘cookie’’ and the other is silent. ‘Cookie, cookie, cookie’…the silent partner listens carefully to the sound in order to learn to distinguish it from all the other intonations in the room. Then everyone goes into motion and the room becomes an arena of movement and varying tones of ‘cookie cookie’ as the task of each of the silent partners is to locate the tone of the original partner and find the way back to the dyad, all this with the eyes closed, attuning to the special sound, a sound which has become special, as a guide. The task is to focus only on that one sound in order to succeed in the exercise. Atonement, attunement.
The existential Jesus whispered “This is possible for me. I can choose forgiveness. This is possible for a human being. This is possible for the human race.” Flashpoint! Flashpoint! The fabric of existence is forever altered. The historical Jesus whispered ‘cookie, cookie’ and that sound vibrates forever through the web of time.
Out of the phantasmagoria of sounds, refractions, reverberations, and echoes, will come those, inevitably, who shape the sounds into words. Saint John says simply, “God is love.” T.S. Eliot says, “Love is God.”
Carlos Castaneda has written six long tales of power and has not mentioned the sound of love. His “cookie:power” permeates our living web of morphic resonance now in 1984 as did the dark tones of William Golding in the 1960s with Lord of the Flies, that darkest of echoes from the great war where power became so completely divorced from the heart…the heartfires of the world had gone out …and then erupted in a great conflagration in the bake ovens of Dachau and Buchenwald. Yet the pervasiveness of clouds seeded by this darkness drifted through the minds of masses of students as they read Lord of the Flies, which was assigned to them by their teachers of literature, to be read and studied and commented upon while their ears were yet full of the drums of war…ears unable at that point to distinguish the gentler sound, “cookie”love.” Into that rumble and din, we now have Castaneda generating sounds, words, echoes into the morphic web and the drums of power drown out the sound of love. The minds of students sift for seeds of wisdom in these dark clouds of words while their ears are muffled by the modern cacophony of television and dystrophic music. Only in the gentleness of the heart can the gentler sounds be heard. Only in the heart. Body, mind, soul, spirit…where is the heart?
“Oh! Beat the world with heart of song!” Where can the sounds of the heart be heard if not through the voice of the poet, the artist, who prays, “O! Mythical father of Icarus, stand me now in good stead as I go forth to forge within the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race!” Can the modern ear be attuned to the voice of the artist?
Hoc est enum corpus meum. The artist makes the bread of life and holds it out to us in holy communion. I will pass by the dark bread and choose that which has more light. I hold out my hand for the white hyacinth. Oh, where are we going with these light bodies?
There are those today who shape sounds into gentler words: William Irwin Thompson says “Time Falling Bodies Take to Light.” Oh, where are we going in this body of light? We breathe in light; we breathe out love. I breath in light, I breathe out love, I breathe in light I breath out love breathe in light breathe out love breathe in love breathe out light breathe in light breathe out love breathe in love breathe out love breathe breathe breathe…and so the heart of the earth breathes and the heart of fire is kindled within.
--Barbara Smith Stoff
Thursday, January 14, 2010
BEWARE OF SARAH PALIN'S "PIT BULL DIPLOMACY"
Many years ago, I was listening to Christine Downing (Mirrors of the Self: Archetypal Images Shape Your Life) as she spoke of a force of great magnitude which is being liberated from the substructures of our consciousness, and the need to reckon with its potential destructiveness. In my own lecture, the following week, I found that I was much preoccupied with what we might do about this. I believe that this force is released through what we might call, in the Jungian sense, the Aphrodite consciousness—Aphrodite consciousness—creative energy which can go awry. The question is—how do we work with this powerful force so that we preserve life on this planet? We are talking here about working with polarized primal energy, and polarized spiritual energy. It seems to me that there is a possibility, if we are mindful, that we have evolved to the point of learning how to handle the polarities for creativity, and the optimum development of the individual concurrently with the optimum development of the collective.
My suggestion is that we need to look at, and understand, the emerging, or evolving, archetypes as they make their way up through the waters of the collective consciousness and stand before us on political platforms. We might just notice, and even study, those that are wanting to take center stage, and then make our choice as to which ones we want to encourage. I believe the future of our world depends upon us and our choices. I was thinking these thoughts a long time ago…
Now…skip down through the years, and I am watching, and listening to, Sarah Palin as she addresses the Republican Convention. For me, her speech bought back schoolyard memories . I think, “I’ve been here before.” Here’s the scene....I am a teacher, and I’ve got lunchtime patrol. This one kid has grabbed the attention and is holding forth—making fun of another student, and the crowd looks up to this student with smiles and clapping approval. I am watching a bully deftly drawing out the would-be-bully in the listeners…bullies-in-training. With 24-7 media, we have all seen more than we need of the ultimate results of that kind of rhetoric, that kind of dynamic—uzzis in the streets and in our classrooms.
So here she is at the Republican Convention for nomination of a political candidate and she says, “You know what the difference is between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick.” As she deftly points her finger at her own rouged lips, I feel a kind of chill…a tremor of warning.
That reference to pit bulls brought back personal memories…memories of counseling a young mother whose small child had been killed by a neighbor’s pit bull—on the sidewalk in front of her home, as she was unloading groceries from her car. Up until that experience, I had never even heard of pit bulls, but you can be sure that I have not had a very high opinion of them since. I simply don’t trust the gut impulses of a pit bull.
And so I am even more astounded when she proudly introduces herself again to the world through a book title: Going Rogue… Looking up ‘rogue’ in The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, I find: “a dishonest, knavish person; scoundrel; villain; trickster; swindler; cheat.” Hmmmm….I think we need to pay attention, and we need to decide what we want to encourage.
--Barbara Smith Stoff
My suggestion is that we need to look at, and understand, the emerging, or evolving, archetypes as they make their way up through the waters of the collective consciousness and stand before us on political platforms. We might just notice, and even study, those that are wanting to take center stage, and then make our choice as to which ones we want to encourage. I believe the future of our world depends upon us and our choices. I was thinking these thoughts a long time ago…
Now…skip down through the years, and I am watching, and listening to, Sarah Palin as she addresses the Republican Convention. For me, her speech bought back schoolyard memories . I think, “I’ve been here before.” Here’s the scene....I am a teacher, and I’ve got lunchtime patrol. This one kid has grabbed the attention and is holding forth—making fun of another student, and the crowd looks up to this student with smiles and clapping approval. I am watching a bully deftly drawing out the would-be-bully in the listeners…bullies-in-training. With 24-7 media, we have all seen more than we need of the ultimate results of that kind of rhetoric, that kind of dynamic—uzzis in the streets and in our classrooms.
So here she is at the Republican Convention for nomination of a political candidate and she says, “You know what the difference is between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick.” As she deftly points her finger at her own rouged lips, I feel a kind of chill…a tremor of warning.
That reference to pit bulls brought back personal memories…memories of counseling a young mother whose small child had been killed by a neighbor’s pit bull—on the sidewalk in front of her home, as she was unloading groceries from her car. Up until that experience, I had never even heard of pit bulls, but you can be sure that I have not had a very high opinion of them since. I simply don’t trust the gut impulses of a pit bull.
And so I am even more astounded when she proudly introduces herself again to the world through a book title: Going Rogue… Looking up ‘rogue’ in The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, I find: “a dishonest, knavish person; scoundrel; villain; trickster; swindler; cheat.” Hmmmm….I think we need to pay attention, and we need to decide what we want to encourage.
--Barbara Smith Stoff
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