Part one: working with residual wounds from our culture and family.

As the Corona Virus lock-down lifts, the burning question coming from individuals and the media is: “When will we return to normal?” I propose that the real question is: “How do we live now?” Not that the virus will last indefinitely, but it has sounded an alarm loud and clear that the system is out of balance. We have a choice of heeding the alarm and altering the way we live on the planet, and how we live with each other, or pretending that we can get back to “normal”.

The virus has heightened awareness of injustice in society, but it is only the tip of the iceberg. Economic inequality is growing. protests in the past such as Occupy Wall Street have had little permanent impact. The capitalistic system is hardwired to accumulate wealth and power to those who already posses both. The systems has no mechanism for self correction. Any change in direction must come from an outside force, from the people who are not getting a fair deal.

But perhaps it is too late for that. The fires in the West, the hurricanes and flooding in other areas of the county tell a story that the outside force that brings down the system will not be human but the workings of nature herself. Prophesies in every major religion point to some form of collapse. Most people hear all the news, but do not put all the pieces together and see the severity of the crisis we are facing.

So my question is; how do we live now? How do we live when we have no precedent? How do we live when the external structures we have depended on are no longer reliable?

Looking to Our Origins

Darcia Narvaez author of “Neurobiology and the Evolution of Human Morality; Evolution, Culture and Wisdom”, begins with a statement that the natural cultural unit that we have evolved with is a band of 20 to 30 people, living and working and caring for their children as a cohesive unit. Most aboriginal cultures have evolved in similar groups. Childcare is a group effort so no infant or child ever feels abandoned or unwelcome. That is the foundation for adults with the resilience to navigate difficult times without lashing out in anger or giving up in resignation. The recent work on neurobiology confirms the practices of the aboriginals. During the first 6 months of life it is essential for the infant to be held, to feel safe, to be fed when it is hungry and live free from trauma in order for the nervous system to develop a healthy relationship with the world. To experience the environment most American babies live in, a working mother forced to bottle feed the child and possibly leave it in a daycare center leads to an adult who does not feel safe in the world and regards the world as a threat. His natural reaction is either belligerence or withdrawal.

Only when we can assess the situation without reacting from a core level of fear can we make accurate decisions. Ilarion Merculieff primary instructions are to live from your heart. He goes on to say that to do that each of us must resolve the traumas and heal the wounds that block our access to the inherent wisdom of the heart. Most of us were raised to follow the instructions of the adults around us. After years of ignoring our own instincts to follow the rules of the adults, we are expected to suddenly become autonomous humans capable of making our own intelligent decisions. Unfortunately our connection with our inner wisdom has usually atrophied and we end up placing our trust in in some external authority of worse some demagogue.

To live in these rapidly changing times requires taking back our own autonomy. Once we feel safe, we can cooperate with others and feel comfortable modifying our desires or opinions to work toward he common good. The different therapeutic modalities and self help methods available today are too numerous to count. What is important? First there must be a willingness to look within, to face our fears, our sense of inadequacy, and to question the beliefs we have held about the world and ourselves. then we need a friend, a group or even a therapist to help us gain insight into our patterns of thought and behavior that are invisible to our own eyes.

The belief that the world is fundamentally spirit descended into matter is foundational in all aboriginal cultures. It gives each person a wider field of view, a perspective that allows them to view their own personal predicament with a sense of safety by seeing it as part of a larger play. With the exception of twelve step programs, most western therapy misses this essential piece. The therapist becomes the “Higher Power” which ends up being both confusing and disappointing. The question remains as to how does each individual come to have an unshakable knowledge of the existence of something greater. There is a commonly held view that in the twelve step program the addict has to “hit bottom”, or in other words reach a point of seeing that his personal will to change is inadequate and is willing to ask for help from something greater. It is a unique situation, one that most of us would not voluntarily choose. Based on my my own experience, that trust cannot be instilled by merely attending church on Sunday. It must be direct revelatory experience. Aboriginal cultures relied on rituals such as the vision quest and rites of passage. It seems essential to reestablish rituals like that in our culture. The challenge in our risk averse comfort seeking culture is to create rituals that are not so sanitized that they loose their potency.

If each individual is aware and accepting of his place as one unit in an incredibly complex web, then creating a society that supports the individual, and honors the limitations of the ecosystem follows naturally. Likewise once the culture exists it is relatively easy for the individual to find his place within that sustainable system. Our challenge is that we do not have the culture to guide us so we must create it. That will be the next topic.