Albert Einstein Tag

June 26, 2015 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Heartbeats

Intuition, psychic powers, mediumship and spiritual séances are all the province of astrological Neptune.

Long before Rene Descartes announced, cogito, ergo sum. I think therefore I am, the irrational mind, the realm of intuition and symbolic thought, was an incendiary to the collective projections of those shadowy parts of our humanness that slumber within us all.

Can we hear the whisper of our Higher Self in the babble and bustle of over-scheduled lives? Do we have the time and inclination to spin straw into gold, or venture outside without iPhones or Sat Navs in search of our Swans?

Author Anne Lamott suggests, “You get your intuition back when you make space for it, when you stop the chattering of the rational mind. The rational mind doesn’t nourish you. You assume that it gives you the truth, because the rational mind is the golden calf that this culture worships, but this is not true. Rationality squeezes out much that is rich and juicy and fascinating. Few of us arrive at a place of stillness where we can mine our intuitive knowing through sound bites and status updates.”

Founder of bio cognitive science and author of The Mind Body Code, Mario Martinez says “We suffer from Desartesian Anxiety. The split between mind and body. We have to develop transcendental legs.”
In many shamanic traditions as well as in ancient Greece, madness was thought to be a possession by a deity. What a shaman would call a vision quest or an ecstatic trance might today be termed a psychotic episode.

Mystics and Martyrs, the thousands of intractable virgins who met gruesome deaths today might be labelled “anti-social or borderline, paranoid, or narcissistic” by psychologists who name parts that cannot be named and try to capture souls in butterfly nets made of clinical cases.

For some, intuitive powers are ridiculed, dismissed, or trivialized by those who adorn themselves in the Emperor’s Clothes of personal power.

We don’t have a vocabulary to fully describe the feeling of an intuitive “hit”. Some would say it diffuses the body with a deeper Knowing that feels like a union with the Divine. Our “gut feel” is part of our ancient legacy along with our dexterous prehensile thumb. Our foray into non-ordinary realms of more sophisticated levels of inner guidance is a quest for inner illumination and here we must enter the medial realm. Here we must find a place we can seek solace from the world and restore our trust in our own intuitive power without the comfort blanket of “proof” or a “sign.”

Caroline Myss says, “I firmly believe that intuitive or symbolic sight is not a gift but a skill. It is based on self-esteem.”

Those with supernatural powers who practiced the Old Religions seldom died peacefully in their beds. The old knowledge flowed through the generations in shadowy subterranean rivers across bones, through ashes of thousands of bodies consumed in the flames of suspicion and fear. It makes sense that our confidence is shaky.

Myth and fairy tales depict the hero’s journey that usually involves some kind of impossible trial or death defying test. Later fairy tales, sanitized by the industrious Brothers Grimm are colour-washed with various hues of morality but the message, if somewhat diluted and Disney-fied is still clear: Pride and vanity, greed and ill manners won’t impress Prince Charming. Only a pure and generous heart can receive the wisdom and guidance that brings true love and lasting happiness.

There is a gossamer veil between the much sought-after “peak experience” lauded by some exponents of transpersonal psychology and the descent into madness or the oblivion of addiction. When is a visionary a lunatic or a guru or a saint? When is mediumship or the ability to traverse the medial realm simply an hysterical personality disorder? When is an intuitive simply a cunning conman? The danger of course is that Never-Never-Land is a place of perennial pleasure and moral ambiguity.

All our experiences are subjective, deeply personal. Our human experience is eloquently reflected in our birth charts. Astrology has a planetary symbol to describe our human experience. There is a precise and perfect moment of divination. And As above so below. The great astrologer Isabel Hickey once told her students that so many of us ring up our Higher Selves then put down the phone before we can receive an answer.

When we appeal to our intuition ( Higher Self or Wise Man or Woman ) for guidance the answer may come in a dream or appear while we are walking to work.
Along with our ability to discern different colours of fruit and berries in the jungle our brains have evolved over the eons to discern, to compartmentalize, to judge and label – good or bad.

Many tarot cards readers and astrologers dread the black and white and the client that sits back in the chair saying, “so will this be good a good year for me?” as if some Celestial Thunderbolt will emerge from a bruised bank of clouds at the stroke of midnight and jump start a stalled relationship, reverse the course of cancer, remove all intractable obstacles towards riding to the ball in a glistening coach drawn by eight white horses.

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift,” is the much-quoted comment by Piscean Albert Einstein.

We so generously hand over our power to others, so quickly forget that within the wisdom of our heart and the wise brain of our body, lie a repository of wisdom that had been encoded for centuries.

Deepak Chopra says that “intuition should come in the pure clarity of silence and should guide you into spontaneously making evolutionary choices.” It requires courage and vigilance to sift our own emotional and mental flotsam – diligently and as it comes up to and weave a veil of integrity, whole heartedness and true compassion. This requires us to discern the difference between our own narratives and those voices that have authority over us. The real spiritual journey is ongoing. It requires what Caroline Myss calls becoming more attuned, even though we sometimes have to start all over again but we become more astute and stronger at it.

And so, if we stay true to our personal code of honour and practice loving kindness to all sentient beings, our intuition will be a beacon to guide us through even the darkest hours of our lives. It is inner sight that we develop as we undertake our heroes’ journey and when our eyes grow dim with age our guiding light will shine brightly as we prepare to say our last goodbyes.

“Here is my secret. It is very simple: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye,” said The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

Jose Gonzalez – Heartbeats

January 13, 2014 In Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

The Chain

January is a month of fervent resolutions and brave new intentions. A month of planting seedling new habits that require careful tending to take root. Shakespeare wrote that “The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.” Yet our morning rituals settle over our lives bringing a sense of comfort and continuity in an often chaotic world. Our habits frame the frayed edges of our days and wrap the weeks together seamlessly.

A habit is defined as “a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.” Most of us spend most of our lives cruising along on autopilot. Self-destructive habits keep us chained to the rock like Prometheus while the hungry Griffin picks and pecks at our liver day after day: negative thoughts cycle round and round like vultures over the carrion of the past, repetitive behaviours that harm our bodies and sabotage our relationships. Albert Einstein is quoted as saying that “insanity is continuing to do the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” So often pain, physical or emotional, is the fuel that burns away our inertia and creates a new sense of momentum in our lives. But it takes willpower and heartfelt intention to break the chains that bind us to the past.

We are not the sole creators of our reality. Would it were that simple. Millions of human beings endure cruelty and abuse, are taken hostage, imprisoned, scapegoated. But when we can see in the often fated challenges, opportunities to awaken to the fierce flame of our Higher Self, we unchain our potential to heal and realign our energies.

It takes kindness and compassion to look around our personal space and acknowledge that we have chosen the clothing we are wearing, the food in our refrigerator. On some level we do choose our partners, and our friends. We choose to love and we choose to feel happy. We do have the will to change and befriend our belief about the world we see. And it is will that ignites the fierce flame of power. It is will that breaks the chain of “have tos and shoulds” that cloud our connection to our own volition.

Psychologists who still work on a mechanical reductionist model of the world see a linear, causal curve for making and breaking of habits. New York Times reporter Charles Duhigg in his book, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business proposes that first there is a cue – a trigger for a certain routine. Then the routine – the behaviour. Then the reward. So when we can diagnose the cues, witness our routines, we may be more conscious of why we keep doing. And change the behaviour. Our willpower and self-control are like muscle strength writes psychologist Jeremy Dean in Making Habits, Breaking Habits: Why We Do Things, Why We Don’t, and How to Make Any Change Stick. Willpower varies from person to person. According to our emotional state and even our energy levels during the day our willpower muscle will tire of pushing and straining. And when it does, we will be more susceptible to gorging on chocolate or having that midweek glass of red wine, or saying something harsh to our partner, despite our best intentions.

What if changing our habits is more about self-love than muttering mnemonics to prompt us into new ways of cruising on autopilot? What if habits hide our Light, though we wear them like the garments that conceal the bodies of nuns or priests in certain religious orders.

Perhaps habits belong to the realm of the heart. Perhaps they wander like itinerants through the crowded landscape of the mind? Perhaps changing habits is more about stillness and a dignified refusal to be part of the momentum. At least until we can access what gnaws in the darkness of our gut or makes us reach for a cigarette or turn on the telly. We might ask ourselves what our habits serve. What they cover in the folds of familiarity: the feeling of loneliness, invisibility, the pain of our submissive silence?

Many of us see power as outside ourselves – the Universe, or the gods or the angels will tell us what to do. We seek guidance from others which may cloud the voice of our own true self and exempt us from the terror of our own responsibility.

Perhaps the human heart is far more complex than lab-rat behaviour in its many-splendoured manifestation. Perhaps habits are about congruency and a deeper sense of purpose. Perhaps habits will flower from the tap roots of discipline. If we are willing disciples we can fix our fluctuating feelings and will ‘o the wisp whims to a desired outcome, a larger purpose. Perhaps habits are about a commitment to our heart’s desires not our pained egos that fear the radiance of living too gloriously, too fearlessly. More about staying in authentic communication with our True Selves.

Perhaps it’s our heart that will perceive the true path for our journey this New Year. And the task of our Will to honour that path and stay in communication with our True Self.

Private Moon by artist Leonid Tishkov

Fleetwood Mac – The Chain

August 5, 2013 In Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

If I could turn back time

For most of us today the songbirds will sing as the clouds scud across the cobalt dome of the sky. Tonight, the sun will melt across the horizon like toffee, and the feathery new moon will wax and wane once more. Although we may try to live every day as if it were our last, set intentions to live in the now, it may be a melody, fragrance, or the feeling of walking over grass that’s wet with dew that takes us back, makes us wish we could turn back time. Say we’re sorry. Re-live that time, kinder, more forgiving, more patient, more loving, than we were then. Though the ghosts of time may haunt us, we cannot turn back Time. And if we only live in the past, our lives will be preserved in amber, sadly one dimensional. “I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then,” said Alice in Wonderland.

Time is an emotional experience. Each new day like opening a cardboard window of an advent calendar, discovering a chocolate or a tiny tableau we either like, or don’t. Is Time is a collage of events or states of mind?

We know time will pass without us when we will die. When we are willing to step out of our sometimes limited construct of time, we observe the changing scenery, as if from the window of a train.

For eons, our ancestors have marked the passage of time, noted the cycles of the Venus and the Moon. A small piece of a baboon’s fibula dates to about 35,000 BC. It was discovered in the Lebombo Mountains near Swaziland. There are twenty-nine notches carved into the bone. A marker of a menstrual lunar cycle, perhaps? We will never know for certain. Paradoxically, in a modern time-obsessed world, the Amondawa tribe of the Amazon who were “discovered” by anthropologists in 1986 have a different time map. They have no word for time. No “I’ll see you next week.” No “It happened last year.” Events occur in time but time is not a separate concept.

Albert Einstein would agree. “Time is an illusion,” he said. “The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.” Science suggests that time is a cognitive construct. Some psychologists suggest time is a matter of perception. We can choose to feel irritated when we’re stuck in traffic. We can choose to feel at peace as we take a moment to observe the clouds and the sunlight as it ignites the office windows. Grateful for the hiatus in the busyness of our day. Time appears to be elastic, when perceived through the hall of mirrors that is our mind.

Author and broadcaster Claudia Hammond suggests in her new book, Time Warped: Unlocking the Mysteries of Time Perception, that we actively create and shape time in our minds. Neuroscience and psychology dub this “mind time”.

Psychological studies propose that time does move slowly for those who feel depressed, lonely or suicidal. When we are actively engaged in our work or our social interactions, we may feel as though time slips past like quicksilver. Those who have experienced the terror of a car crash or a hi-jacking will report that everything seemed to move in slow motion. For many, memories of a trauma remain frozen in the musculature and nervous system of the body.

Psychologist Daniel Kahneman, in Thinking, Fast and Slow, suggests “People tend to assess the relative importance of issues by the ease with which they are retrieved from memory—and this is largely determined by the extent of coverage in the media. Frequently mentioned topics populate the mind even as others slip away from awareness.” Claudia Hammond writes, “You are most likely to remember the timing of an event if it was distinctive, vivid, personally involving and is a tale you have recounted many times since.”

It’s astounding, time is fleeting
Madness takes its toll…

Surely, time and memory recall are far more subtle than this. Wilhelm Reich talked about the basic expansion and contraction of life which ripples from the amoeba to the human being. And therapist and author Peter A. Levine, who has specialised PTSD for the last twenty years writes, “It is essential that the unresolved activation (from trauma) locked in the nervous system be discharged. This transformation has nothing to do with memory. It has to do with the process of completing our survival instincts.” So our memories are locked, or frozen in the musculature of our bodies, encoded in our nervous system. Stored in the collective mind. For some, time transfigures our memories, allowing us to slip into soft pockets of recollection where we can rest amidst the turbulence of the waves of the world. For others, time imprisons us in the terror of the past.

Most of us cannot truly live in the now. For if we did, we would not plan a party, book a holiday, buy treats for a beach picnic. That would be the future not the present. All we can do, really, is live with as much mindfulness as we can and know that time is cyclical like the cycles of nature, the cycles of life and death. And as Irish poet and mystic John O’Donohue said, “When time is reduced to linear progress, it is emptied of presence.”

Cher performs If I Could Turn Back Time.

Quotations: The Rocky Horror Show. Time Warp by Richard O’Brien/Patricia Quinn/Nell Campbell/Charles Gray. Lewis Carroll Alice in Wonderland.

Photographs by Hideyuki Katagiri and Michael Melford.