Coming to Our Senses

Mindfulness Stress Reduction And Healing

Mindfulness with Jon Kabat-Zinn

Jon Kabat-Zinn: Coming to Our Senses

Evolution of Consciousness?

A look at a developmental map of consciousness, Spiral Dynamics. Evolution is vertical, are we looking horizontal?

Note: Each level, or meme, of the wave is holistic. This means that it includes and transcends former levels. It can go up and down, mix various levels at the same time. It has been compared to a storm or tornado spiral of alternativing waves, but what is also true is that a culture gravitates toward a certain perspective at a particular time. So, yes, each meme here is just a general overview, and you will see it before it became the dominant wave in a society. That’s normal and natural.

Eight Circuit Brain

 This info is pilloried from http://deoxy.org/8brains.htm
for the complete downlow on all the mind expanding info available on this and innumerable other essential topics, I highly recommend visiting the original source.

CIRCUIT	Adapted from Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson
I PHYSICAL	50% of the human race has not evolved fully into the third circuit yet. That is, although they can exchange primitive signals and handle primitive artifacts, they are still mostly operating on the mammalian emotional circuit and the pre-mammalian bio-survival circuit.
II EMOTIONAL
III CONCEPTUAL	20% are “responsible, intelligent adults” with fully developed third and fourth circuits. They spend most of their time worrying, because the predominantly primate parameters of human society seem absurd, immoral and increasingly dangerous to them.
IV SOCIAL
CHAPEL PERILOUS	The place “souls” go after leaving their robot bodies…while these bodies are still alive and walking the planet’s surface. Also known as “The Dark Night of the Soul.” Can also be seen as a negative activation of the “neurosomatic circuit,” which is endured for as long as it takes the neophyte to effect a positive activation, or permanent body rapture. Ref.
V BODY	20% are neurosomatic adepts. Fourth-circuit Moralists denounce them as “mystics,” “space cases,” “nuts,” “the Me generation,” “irresponsible hedonists,” etc.
VI MIND	5% have mastered the metaprogramming circuit. They make up what Gurdjieff called “the Conscious Circle of humanity.” They are Free Masons, in the original meaning of that debased term: co-creators of future realities.
VII LIFE	3% have neurogenetic consciousness. They function as Evolutionary Agents—servants of the Life Force, in Shaw’s terminology. Their “God” is Pan (life), and their goal is immortality.
VIII ENERGY	2% are neuro-quantum adepts. Beyond space-time categories entirely.
All these estimates are approximations. Image by Anonymous #149 on 05/04/06 05:46 AM

Indian Club Swinging Presentation

Indian Club Swinging Power point Via Google docs.

I am posting this as an experiment in the continued effort to utalize Cyberian resources for learning, sharing and collaborating on projects. Stay tuned!

<If you don’t see the Google Mini Presentation Module with the document displayed, read why in the comments.>

Blasting toxic corporate rule: Most Poison “Foods” of ‘07

10 Worst Foods of 2007

Blasting toxic corporate rule on Spark People http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/nutrition_articles.asp?id=994 — By John McGran, Food Writer and SparkPeople Contributer

10. Denny’s Extreme Grand Slam

9. Wendy’s Baconator

8. Pizza Hut P’Zone

7. Starbucks Double Chocolate Chip Frappuccino Blended Crème

6. KFC Chicken & Biscuit Bowl

5. Hardee’s Country Breakfast Burrito

4. Denny’s Meat Lover’s Scramble

3. El Monterey XX Large Chimichanga

2. Pizza Hut Double Deep Pizza

1. Carl’s Jr. Western Bacon Six Dollar Burger

Find out why in the Full Article . . .

Exercises in Ambidexterity

These pen and ink sketches are drawn using both hands simultaneously. I have always been into ambidextrous exercises and ways of developing and using my whole brain. This kind of exercise can serve many purposes, the most obvious one is getting both sides of the brain fired up and connected. Another obvious use I noticed while drawing these is as a divinatory or/and automatic drawing method. Beginning with no plan or idea as to what I would draw, I focus on a specific topic, I begin to notice the drawing suggesting a very relevant message that pertains to what I am focusing on. If I am not focusing on anything, the drawing soon leads me to a focus that is significant for the moment. As I continue to draw this way I notice the drawings getting less scary and disturbing, perhaps some things are getting worked out through this process.

Aside from the therapeutic, free association quality this process has, I have used this ambidextrous method to come up with some great designs to elaborate on and change in more conventional medium and styles. I wonder what other ideas you might think of where this process could be of help.

Ambi series 20

Ambi series 18

Ambi series 19

Ambi series 17

Ambi series 16

Ambi series 15

Ambi series 14

Ambi series 13

Ambi series 12

Ambi series 11

Ambi series 10

Ambi series 09

Ambi series 08

Ambi series 07

Ambi series 06

Ambi series 05

Ambi series 04

Ambi series 03 blue boarder

Ambi series 02 blue boarder

Ambi series 01 blue boarder

Ambi series 00 blue boarder

. : .

http://tortugo23.deviantart.com/gallery/

. : .

t23’s stuff is licensed under a

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Freedom! Lakota Sioux Indians Declare Sovereign Nation Status

Happy New Year a little early!

Look at what I found today! Can it be true? I strongly recommend checking out the original site! http://www.lakotafreedom.com/index.html

Here is a summary from http://www.realitysandwich.com/breakaway

Breakaway

Morgan Maher

In an apparently legal move, the Lakota Nation is unilaterally withdrawing from treaties signed with the United States of America and creating their own country.

Native American rights activist Russel Means said “the new country would issue its own passports and driving licences, and living there would be tax-free — provided residents renounce their US citizenship.”

The journey towards independance has been in the works for 33 years, a response to rampant oppression, lower life spans, high infant mortality rates and high suicide rates experienced as a result of US violation of treaties.

Anyone living in the five-state area that encompasses Lakota territory is free to join.

Lakota Freedom website

Story Suggested by Robb Ebright and Thom Lloyd-Evans

Painting of Lakota storyteller (Public Domain)

As we approach the darkest day of the year

an article via . . . http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Dec06/Bliss11.htm in honor of the darkest day of the year.

In Praise of Sweet Darkness 
by Shepherd Bliss

In recent years I have written articles with titles like “Dark Clouds Over America” and “Torture Memories.” Our nation’s war-making and other threatening behavior have disturbed me.  My study of Peak Oil and Climate Change has convinced me that we are in for a dark time as we run low on fossil fuels and over-heat this special planet.  At first, I found this depressing.  I have come to see that the loss of cheap energy can also be a great opportunity, depending on how we respond.

In addition to our external responses of doing things such as conserving energy and being more efficient, making a transition to renewable energy sources, and relocalizing, there is much that we can do mentally to prepare for post-carbon societies.

One opportunity is to re-consider the role of darkness and down times as part of a natural cycle. Everything that lives perishes — individuals, relationships, nations, empires, species, even planets.  Other living things combine from what remains of the departed to replace them.  It’s a natural cycle.  I see it everyday on my organic Kokopelli Farm in Sonoma County. My lively compost piles are full of spent plants, chicken manure, kitchen scraps, and a wide variety of once-alive but now-decaying organic matter. That compost nourishes my berries, apples, and other fruit and plants, giving them life.

Endarkenment is an essential, often-maligned aspect of that cycle, which frightens some.  What goes into my compost pile has many colors, including green, yellow, red, and even purple.  What comes out is darker — brown or black. I regularly bring in manure as fertilizer to feed my soil. “Shoveling shit,” as farmers call it, has been a pleasure.  This “brown gold” will bring forth tasty fruit. Darkness can be fruitful, in various forms, which some people shy away from.

I write in praise of certain kinds of darkness, which the Welsh-American David Whyte describes in his poem “Sweet Darkness.” Darkness can be many things, including a passageway from one thing to another. Whyte’s poem enabled me to see more deeply into the possibilities of sweetness in a time of darkness — literal, seasonal, political, and figurative. I do not mean to deny that evil forms of darkness also exist.

“The night will give you a horizon/ further than you can see,” Whyte’s poem assured me, providing me something to look forward to. A full moon was scheduled for that night, so I went to check it out.  Indeed, there was much to see with the benefit of that diffuse, less-focused light. I felt a larger context within which we humans dwell. In addition to the guidance of our daylight logic, we could benefit from the insight of night-time’s more diffuse lunar light within its ample darkness.

This essay began as I prepared to make my way back to visit Northern New Mexico during the darkest month of the year.  I used to hang out there with a Chicana curandera (folk healer) who glowed in the dark.  I have unfinished business in New Mexico, as well as in old Mexico and Chile — darknesses that I left behind, rather than integrated.  I’m on a soul retrieval. Integrating one’s own darknesses and those that have come toward one is essential para vida (for true life).

Industrial societies tend to light up the night with headlights, streetlights, houselights and many other lights, rather than relish the dark’s unique gifts. In contrast to contemporary Western attempts to ignore and deny the dark with its abundant refreshing qualities, indigenous people and some religious traditions tend to embrace it.

In Semitic languages and early Christianity “black” and “wise” were associated. St. John of the Cross wrote about the “Dark Night of the Soul,” a journey which was difficult but ultimately restorative. When one is called to el mundo subterraneo (the underworld) or is dragged there by a dark force, he or she may return with rich stories to tell.

But in the United States today, darkness has taken on a negative, even racist tone.  “Dark” is even used to label that which is allegedly inferior. Malevolent forms of darkness do indeed exist.  But my concern in this essay is with benevolent, or sweet, darkness.

Whyte’s poem stimulated me to seek more poems about darkness. “Night cancels the business of day,” the Persian poet Rumi declared back in the thirteenth century.  “Be refreshed in the darkness,” he added. “Midway along the journey of life, I woke to find myself in a dark wood.” Dante begins “The Divine Comedy,” which many consider the greatest European poem ever written.

“You darkness, that I come from and love so much,” Rilke wrote, once again describing that wider context within which we live.  Scientists describe it as dark matter and dark energy, which is still mysterious to them, such as how gravity works and holds us on the orbiting Earth. “If I reached my hands down, near the earth,/ I could take handfuls of darkness!/ A darkness was always there, which we never noticed,” Minnesota poet Robert Bly writes.

Kentucky farmer/poet Wendell Berry encourages us to “know that the dark, too,/ blooms and sings,/and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.” Theodore Roethke adds, “In a dark time, the eye begins to see,/ I meet my shadow in the deepening shade.”  He reminds us that we carry our personal darkness, our shadow, with us all the time, casting it behind as we walk, usually unaware.

Boston poet May Sarton celebrates the dark Indian goddess Kali and reminds us that “without darkness/ Nothing comes to birth.”

Maybe this darkness is not as bad as I originally thought that cold, wet morning when Whyte’s poem arrived and lead me into myself and to other poems.

“Nothing makes the light, the wonder, the treasure stand out as well as darkness,” writes Jungian analyst Clarissa Pinkola Estes in her book Women Who Run With the Wolves. She describes “night-consciousness,” noting, “Things are different at night… Night is when we are closer to ourselves, closer to essential ideas and feelings that do not register so much during the day.”

In darkness we can dream, revealing parts of ourselves that are otherwise hidden. “We need to dream the dark as process, and dream the dark as change, to create the dark in a new image. Because the dark creates us,” social activist Starhawk writes in her book Dreaming the Dark. Starhawk later adds, “How do we find the dark within and transform it, own it as our own power? How do we dream it into a new image, dream it into actions that will change the world into a place where no more horror stories happen, where there are no more victims?”

Sometimes I conceive of the Dark as a dance partner; it feels more feminine than masculine.  I do not try to lead, but rather to follow.

Weaving the multiple benefits of darkness into my life (and avoiding its pitfalls) seems to be my main Winter task here at the end of 2006, as 2007 approaches.  In the darkness one can rest and be renewed. Spring may come again, with a different set of abundant gifts.

Shepherd Bliss is a retired college teacher who now farms in Sonoma County, CA. He has contributed to 19 books, most recently to Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace,” edited by Maxine Hong Kingston (www.vowvop.org ). He can be reached at: sb3@pon.net.

Expressing the Unspeakable

Expressing the Unspeakable

by DJM

Art therapy is “especially helpful to those with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)” (Spinner, 2007). The main focus of this paper is on combat veterans, because war is one of the most extreme traumas that can be experienced. If art therapy effectively treats wartime trauma, it will surely be effective in treating most other traumatic experiences. What is art therapy? Why and how does it affect PTSD? What do those who are receiving art therapy have to say about it and how has it helped them? Art therapy has been around for quite some time, but only now is beginning to catch on, being used more and in more diverse settings. “Art therapy can be an essential way to help individuals heal from trauma experiences.” (Holtman, 2006)

People have been expressing themselves trough art since prehistoric times. The meaning of our artistic expressions and the objects that are produced from them have evolved in over time. From cave paintings depicting a successful hunt to nervous doodles on a notebook, our artistic expressions vary widely in meaning, style and purpose. The use of art in therapeutic settings started in the early twentieth century and became more popular from the late sixties onward (Ahmed, 2006). “Art Therapy uses imagery to: Safely and effectively access traumatic memories, Reduce anxiety, depression, numbing, as well as other symptoms related to PTSD, and to Promote verbal processing” (Ayala)

Drawing, painting, sculpting, writing and other creative forms of expression can be used to “provide a vehicle for exploring concerns and conflicts, to gain access to traumatic images and memories, to help build a trusting therapeutic relationship between client and therapist, and to access and promote healing” (Bowers, 1992; Johnson, 1987; Oster & Gould, 1987; Salmon, 1993 in Glaister, 2000).

Perhaps as a quirk, malfunction or an evolutionary leftover, our bodies make recovery from trauma difficult. “During the fight or flight response, parts of the brain that are not required for survival are inhibited. Memory is affected in such a way during this response, that it is difficult to impossible to recall memories of the event and put them into words” (Holtman, 2006).

“Research has found that conventional methods of treatment may not be the best for treating trauma. One example of this is desensitization, which encourages the individual to explain or reenact their trauma experience repeatedly so as to “desensitize” them. In some cases this may actually trigger anxiety or a “flashback” and in effect, worsen the condition rather than heal it. (Holtman, 2006)

“Art therapy’s engaging and tactile process is ideal in treating trauma. The visceral process is able to activate and access the sensory parts of the brain in non-verbal ways, which supports the natural progression of the ‘stuck’ trauma memory. Expression of memories and feelings connected to a trauma in nonverbal ways can act as a bridge, connecting the activated abstract (non-verbal) and concrete sensory memories with the organizing areas of the brain, allowing for progress in the cognitive process” (Holtman, 2006).

The combination of the non-verbal with the verbal gives art therapy a valuable place in the treatment of PTSD as well a other trauma induced problems. Aside from allowing the traumatic experience to be more fully remembered and better understood, and helping in the development of coping skills, “the act of making art endows the individual with control of both materials and image formation, supporting an intra-psychic sense of regained power” (Holtman, 2006)

Veterans find art therapy to be an important part of their healing process, stating that art therapy is “relaxing, gives them focus, develops and encourages creativity, it is grounding, and helps in the comprehension of their experiences of war.” (Spinner, 2007) Judy A. Glaister (2000) in a case study of a woman named Clara, who suffers from posttraumatic response, finds that her:

Drawings helped [her] access and explore her self-concept, feelings, and behaviors . . . [she] believed that the drawings helped her gain insight and make changes . . . Drawings were useful . . . in these sessions mainly as a technique to help her explore hidden and new areas of herself . . . Through the exploration of her drawings, aspects of the self became more apparent, leading to new insights, new responses, and renewed growth (Betensky, 1995; Oster & Gould, 1987; Salmon, 1993). The drawings helped Clara recognize patterns, connections, and changes.
Despite the positive effect art therapy has on many veterans, “Veteran and military hospitals employ few art therapists and provide limited art therapy classes” (Spinner, 2007).

This may be due to misconceptions about art therapy and the need for more research in the area. “Kate Collie and colleagues as a part of a larger effort within the American Art Therapy Association and the art therapy community to develop evidenced-based treatments for Veterans, particularly those with PTSD have:”
analyzed data on “best practices” in art therapy with combat-related PTSD, concluding that art therapy may be a treatment of choice with returning Veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. In her summary, Collie notes,

“although art therapy has been understudied with Veterans, it shows promise in the treatment of hard-to-treat symptoms combat-related PTSD, such as avoidance behaviors and emotional numbing, while also addressing the psychological situations that give rise to these symptoms (American Art Therapy Association, Inc., 2007)

“In summary, art therapy can be an essential way to help individuals heal from trauma experiences”(Holtman, 2006). The visceral process of art therapy can help to bridge the non-verbal with the verbal parts of the brain and memory. Art therapy has been used and found effective by veterans and more research is being done so that it can be taken more seriously and be funded more widely.

References

Ahmed, S. H., & Siddiqi, M. N. (Dec 23, 2006). Healing through art therapy in disaster settings. The Lancet, 368, 9554. p.S28(2). Retrieved December 02, 2007, from General OneFile via Gale:
http://find.galegroup.com/ips/start.do?prodId=IPS

Ayala, K Art Therapy for Treating PTSD. (n.d.) Retrieved December 2,
2007, from The Center for Creativity Web site: http:/
/www.center4creativity.com/treating%20PTSD.htm

Barker, E. (Nov 2006). The artist within: creating art can help you manage anger, grief, and other difficult emotions. (No talent required!). Natural Health, 36, 10. p.98(2). Retrieved November 30, 2007, from General OneFile via Gale:
http://find.galegroup.com/ips/start.do?prodId=IPS

Glaister, J A (Jan 2000). Four Years Later: Clara Revisited. Perspectives in Psychiatric Care, 36, 1. p.5. Retrieved November 30, 2007, from General OneFile via Gale: http://find.galegroup.com/ips/start.do?prodId=IPS

Holtman, Jayne (2006). Art Therapy and New Perspectives in Treating Trauma. Retrieved November 30, 2007, from Main Line Health Web site: http://www.mainlinehealth.org/mlh/centprog/bhealth/article_10686.asp

Spinner, Jackie (2007, April 15). War’s Pain, Softened With a Brush Stroke. Washington Post, p. C01.

American Art Therapy Association, Inc. (Winter 2007). Art Therapy Shows Promise with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. American Art Therapy Association, Inc.
Newsletter, XI, Retrieved Nov. 30, 2007, from www.arttherapy.org/membersonly/pdf/AATAnewsletter2007winter.pdf

Tibetan Buddhism and research psychology: a match made in Nirvana?

Collaborations between monks and psychologists yield new directions in psychological research.

BY SADIE F. DINGFELDER
Monitor staff
http://www.apa.org/monitor/dec03/tibetan.html

With an eye toward understanding the inner workings of the mind and using that knowledge to reduce human suffering, psychologists and Buddhist monks may have more in common than they realize, and possibly even compatible methodology. These commonalities are driving collaborations between some psychologists and Buddhist monks.

Richard Davidson, PhD, a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, for one, believes that the shared goals and empiricism of these two traditions could lead to useful advances for each. Tibetan Buddhism, says Davidson, is not a dogmatic religion; knowledge in the tradition is gained by examining one’s own experience. Monks train for years to become expert observers of the inner workings of their own minds, he says. Research psychology, on the other hand, attempts to understand mental processes by focusing on third-person observation and de-emphasizing subjective observations of mental phenomena, he explains.

Davidson, who explores brain states and their relationship to human experiences such as consciousness and emotion, recently headed a conference titled “Investigating the mind: exchanges between Buddhism and the biobehavioral sciences on how the mind works.” At the symposium, which was held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in September, researchers in psychology, neuroscience and other fields discussed theories of cognitive control and attention, mental imagery and emotion with Tibetan Buddhist scholars, including the Dalai Lama. The conference is the second in a series sponsored by MIT and the Mind and Life Institute. The meetings are part of an ongoing series intended to illuminate potential areas for fruitful collaboration between Western science and Tibetan Buddhism.

Read more . . .