September 11th's Inner World Influence

Here are excerpts of my edited article about the ongoing influence of the most influential tragedy of our age: 9/11. The full edit can be found on Margot Anand's Blog and the longer version was published in Europe's NewsVoice.

To me, the shamanic elements are clear in that 9/11shows how persons and societies may generate stories that justify behaviors, that can keep us bound to the past. Throughout life we are challenged to let go of stories that inhibit our personal growth, but the stories that rule the collective subconscious are the most difficult to release and can be the most damaging:

TEN YEARS ON: THE SUBCONSCIOUS POWER OF 9/11
We each recall the stark images of planes flying into sky scrapers; the heroism, the villainy, the suffering, the imagination slipping into what it could have been like for the senses to experience the fire, smoke, and collapsing rubble. Every society has versions of its own 9/11 and Ground Zero.


Are We Stuck in a Story?
On the personal side, I believe that if such tragic forces are not converted into platforms for conscious awakening and compassion, they will soon become a heavyweight distraction.

In their book, “Spontaneous Evolution,” American scientist, Bruce Lipton, and political scientist, Steve Bareman, discuss the limitations and sabotaging influences of the collective subconscious experience, “We are storymaking creatures…in order to make meaning of the world, we create stories”—

The urge for victims of violence is to instead develop a story that creates a self-serving struggle between good and evil, right and wrong, hero and villain. Yet Lipton and Bareman and others like Eckhart Tolle remind us that we are meant to move beyond our stories. Why?

If a person is to transform and awaken to their gifts, then it becomes nearly impossible to do so when still clinging to a recurring cycle of past hurts and injustices.

when it gets in the way of identifying with a positive meaning in a big-picture context, then it can be hypnotizing to allow cultural belief to dominate our lives.

Bare explains in more detail, “We often find people who have a wound, or an affliction, or problem. And their entire lives become about this problem and then to let go of that problem they would lose all of the meaning in their lives. This gets played out in cultures…Each time one side does something bad to the other side, that enhances the story and it builds the story one more storey high.”
Dropping the Story to Celebrate Life
After 9/11, “national security” arguably became the dominant political and cultural story in the US and many parts of the world, and the values of strength and valor against terror (as well as their ugly shadows) took center stage.
If you still think that it’s worthwhile to cling to the shared experience of those violent images from 9/11, consider Lipton and Bareman’s rationale that it empowers our conscious capacity to participate in the world when beliefs that are limiting are reprogrammed.

This way the heavy coat of armor that preserves the ego from fear of violence can be replaced with a radiant mirror reflection of a responsible vibrant and more complete being; free to avoid storybook dramas that come and go in life.

Spirals, Hearts, and Steel

I recently took some time to see the Tim Burton special exhibit at the NY City Museum of Modern Art. It was a worthwhile and wonderfully rich experience to follow Burton's evolution as a storyteller and be given a chance to examine his creative process from sketch to screen.

To me, his greatest creative contribution is his ability to recast the scary into the misunderstood. In other words, what normally would be prejudged as dark, malign, and dangerous is instead cast by him as lighthearted, warm, even tender. His greatest achievement is shifting the public's perception of "darkness" on a mainstream level: and telling me that I ignore the light within the darkness at my peril. He does this humourously and without being preachy about it.

Darkness to me is the quiet core of the subconscious. It is the very place where I need to listen most intently. It needs such delicate attention from me because it holds such special wisdom and because when ignored the many voices hidden away in the depths of that darkness have the potential to do a great deal of damage.

When I explore darkness, I walk a fine line between the moonlight's still illumination and the shadowy realm of extreme heaviness from out-of-control negative emotions. This often explains why lightchasers tend to give less consideration to the darkness--for fear of giving its negative side too much energy and thus allowing it to spread. But to me, light has just as much of a negative side too--artificial light can often be the most extreme and insidious form of darkness. As the Taoist symbol shows, true darkness is a companion to true light; it completes rather than competes with the light; it is its precursor and sequel--the dark tells me where my inner light is most needed--where the natural cycle of day and night needs to appear next.

Like with all energy, a relationship has to be established and built up with the dark over time for any breakthroughs to be made. Burton discovered a way to identify, honor, and give form to the voices of the night that occupy the low lit rooms of his psyche--many of which are illustrated and tracked by the exhibit from conception to completion. I wonder what more I could discover if I did the same thing?

It's not the greatest resource but here is the official exhibit interactive webpage.