Confessions of an Explorer, Part Two - As Above, So Below

 

Prelude to a Prelude

You may be wondering at the title of my last posting - Vocatus atque non vocatus, deus aderit.  It's an inscription in Latin on the tomb of the psychologist Carl Jung, and means "Called or not called, the gods rise".  I hadn't thought of that inscription for years until just recently I noticed it while scrolling through some of my very old postings.  It seems quite appropriate now in relation to my Kundalini experiences, appropriate in ways I hadn't considered many years ago when I first ran across this phrase.

But before I continue with my conceptual exploration of Kundalini I want to keep you up to date and share with you some of the more recent observations I have made in the development (there's that word!) of the Kundalini process I've been engaged in for these many years.  About two years ago I began noticing a new direction the energies seemed to be taking within my body.  Previous to that the sensations tended to start at the base of the spine, or sometimes the heart region,  and move up into my cranial region.  Then out of nowhere I began to sense a movement downward along the inside of my legs culminating in, of all places, my big toes.  The sensations were not strong, but definitely pleasurable.  It was like little mini-orgasms in my big toes - you might imagine my amusement!  This was not something I directed or willed, it just started happening.  Interestingly, I've seen no reference to this phenomenon in any Kundalini discussion, traditional or contemporary.  Slowly over time this has branched out into all of my toes and increased in intensity.  I can now, while engaging in what I call a Kundalini session, begin the most exquisite flow of sensations upward through the base of the spine, then the heart, then into the head, by simply wiggling my toes!

You probably think this is weird; I can't blame you, I think it's weird myself.  But there is more.

There has been a new and subtle change in my visual field of perception, a change that began perhaps about the time of the toe tingles.  One of my studio rituals while  in 'little jeffy' mode is to take a break during the day, turn down the lights and do a series of Pilates and yoga exercises on a low assembly worktable covered with a packing blanket.  It's an age thing - as I get older little aches and pains seem to persist and grow, and these exercises are a great way to minimize them.  As I'm doing these exercises I'm facing an old peeling painted brick wall displaying a soothing and quite beautiful texture in the dim light.  At some point, I can't pinpoint when, I began noting very subtle movement in the texture of the brick, as if little lights were dancing and flickering over the surfaces.  At first I assumed it was just a trick of the eye and thought little of it, but over time it has increased in intensity, and now at times when I'm looking at that wall it's not even a bit static visually, but a whirling kaleidoscope of light particles, sometimes so intense I can barely recognize the old wall textures.  Curiously, this light show disappears under normal illumination. 

Weird, I know.  Darker than any mystery...

Prelude

As above, so below.  Or put another way, as in the macrocosm, so the microcosm.  Almost a cliche, yet there is a kernel of truth there, a seed we might germinate to grow a new seedling of perspective.  The particular little seedling I have in mind is none other than the euphemistic term I used in the last posting when discussing early life on our planet - "whoopee".  So let's make a little whoopee here (figuratively speaking) and tease this thing out.

We'll start with the microcosm - little you, little me, little doggie, little birdy.  One thing everyone and every living thing in their holonic microcosm has been through (and probably remembers nothing of) is birth .  We generally take it for granted, but it's actually quite an astonishing thing on all levels.  For instance (speaking of seedlings), with the arrival of spring I've begun my annual attempt at growing potted tomato plants at my studio building.  I take these little tiny dried up tomato seeds and stick them into some wet dirt, then watch for days as the wet dirt just sits there, being wet dirt.  Then one day I check it out and there is this little stalk poking its head up out of the dirt.  Miraculous!  Yet, kind of ordinary, usually just taken for granted.  And that stalk grows and grows and grows, till one day it flowers, and out of the flowers tiny green spherical objects emerge, and they grow and grow and grow, then turn red, at which point I cut them up and  eat them....and experience an explosion of flavor in my mouth that makes me cry out WHOOPEE!!!

How all of this happens is simple.  Whoopee.  OK, the tomato form of whoopee is a little different than the average human  form, but whoopee nonetheless.  And it's that whoopee that paves the way to the astonishing miracle of birth.  From little mice to massive elephants, ants to anteaters, fungus to redwood trees; it's whoopee all the way up, all the way down.  You might say, the Biosphere is saturated with whoopee!

But what about the physiosphere, the sphere of rocks and moons and suns and galaxies?  Dead planets drifting through a vacuum; asteroids being pulled around willy nilly by the nearest gravity field; stones falling mindlessly down a mountain side during an avalanche, only to sit right where they stop for the next ten thousand years.  Where's the whoopee in that?

Well.......let's go back to the beginning, to that moment when time and space began and the cosmos was simply a massive burst of undifferentiated, incomprehensible energy.  Eventually, out of that ocean of fire emerged relatively little fireballs we now know as suns, and out of groupings of suns emerged galaxies, and within galaxies from individual suns emerged solar systems with planets.  Or to use another term rather than emerged, let's call it birthed.  How did all that happen?  Was it planned, orchestrated, guided?  I don't think so.  I THINK IT WAS WHOOPEE!!!  I mean, look at this image from the Hubble space telescope -

 

Dumb, purposeless accident?  No way.  That's pure, unadulterated whoopee at work.  You might say, the Physiosphere is also saturated with whoopee!

Which leaves us - if we're to consider not just the Cosmos but the entire Kosmos - with the Noosphere. the sphere of mind and culture.  Of course, lots of whoopee going on in most people's imaginations, but not much of consequence is usually birthed of that.  But if we think of mind, then think of the meeting of minds, we find ourselves in the sphere of culture.  Does culture somehow become the grounds for whoopee?

To be continued...