On this Mother's Day 2013 I thought up a little post about mother's, will, and the invisible realm. In the womb of the mother life is nourished. In the womb of mother, womb of life, the realm invisible to the eye, life starts, is nourished, and one day departs into the visible world. Psychic potential depends on will. Will takes us to the door of potential, states William James, father of American depth psychology, but forces from the invisible realm are what usher us in. No amount of strain, pushing, forcing, or ego coercing brings results without forces from the invisible realm of the deep unconscious mind, the spiritual world, coming to create what once did not exist.

Mothers, good mothers, those who aren't and don't need to be perfect, can be all right with being good enough, in the words of depth psychologist David Winnicott. Good enough mothers are light bearers of all that is right in the world. They are there not only when they have to be but when they don't, just because they want to and care to. Such a wondrous being told me, "When I look at my children I know they are their own little selves. They are life filled, and my work is to nourish the unique life in each of them and try not to get in the way." That statement made such an impression on me since it came from a deeply spiritual and practical woman. She went on to say that her everyday spirituality very much was about caring for her children, her marriage, and herself---to the best of her ability, not perfectly, simply good enough. That's a magic maker mother!

Now, to get back to William James and the invisible realm, it seems to me that mother's are indeed magic makers. They step forward, by an act of will, whether conscious or not, to the door of motherhood. They are there not only when they have to be but when they don't, just because they want to and care to. I believe that the mother's spiritual energies then come to move forward with that which has been requested. One mother, a dream sensitive soul, said, "I dream about my children. My dreams help me with what's needed when. And, they also help me to know my limits." She knew that being a good mother doesn't require perfection, just the will to be good enough. Invisible forces, spiritual energies, come to aid via instincts, dreams, deep feeling and love in being about the business of good enough motherhood--true makers of magic in the world because they are there not only when they have to be but when they don't, just because they want to and care to. 

Good enough mothers are magic makers of everyday life!

When psychological symptoms hit hard, like a Mac truck running straight into the center of your gut, then we can be sure that the self is in trouble. The New York Times article,  The Problem With How We Treat Bipolar Disorder (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/magazine/the-problem-with-how-we-treat-bipolar-disorder),  dramatizes a woman's struggle with bipolar disorder and how she came to see that more than medication intervention, she needed help for her diseased sense of self. A diseased sense of self slams us with symptoms aplenty---depression, anxiety, substance abuse, sexual disorders, unending relational conflict!

After years of hospitalization, drugs, this woman finally confronted the psychological reality of the self. By turning within, acknowledging personal demons and what they have to convey through the antics they spring into our lives, we begin the process of true healing. Hospitals and drugs, not ends in themselves, only help to the degree that they facilitate the process of inner healing.

Patient soul searching in the company of a depth psychotherapist sheds light into dark realms of mind. A sincere woman expressed it wisely, "During hypomanic states I thought I was seeing so clearly and doing so much. Then, I'd crash and my mind would break into a million pieces. Once I stopped the running, and found someone to take the journey with me, I discovered things about myself and my life I didn't like and had to change. I'd been running for years. I'd run and crash and run and crash---that's bipolar disorder. Now, I watch myself. I start gearing up and I know it's time to go slow and turn inside, listen to what I need to hear and learn about myself."

Dark states of mind are loaded with healing potential. Depression, substance abuse, sexual disorders, relational conflicts really are gifts. They come to say, "You're unhappy for a reason. Take some time, look inside, discover what you need to so as to make the changes you need to." C.G. Jung, Sigmund Freud, William James, the great fathers of depth psychology, would bid us onward into deep realms of psyche and there come to terms with the fact that running from self ends in "breaking into a million pieces"; whereas, coming face to face with self offers the chance to unwrap the gift life has presented us.

Fall 2013 Book Launching for The Unholy....Albuquerque and Santa Fe...a one hour Healing Event with inspirational talk exploring images and symbols of transformation within the story, guided meditation, and book reading/signing. Healing Events (one hour) via Skype or in person for your community or reading group can now be scheduled. Please message me on FB or email pdeblassie@gmail.com

Painful relationships scream for attention. They challenge us to figure out the meaning. Do we work things through? Is that possible? Do we let them go even though there's been weeks, months, years of familiarity? Peering into darkness, into what isn't known and what isn't guaranteed, carries a certain dread of being wrong. But, we need to consider that doing nothing, purposelessly lingering in misery, definitely counts as one of the worst and most assured ways of going down a psychic dead end and waking up with a blistering emotional headache.

Old mystics purported that we only love God to the degree that we love the person we love least. Translated out of old religious speak, we might consider that truth to self urges us to take stock of what makes sense and what does not regarding the people in our life. A capacity to reach understanding hallmarks keeper relationships. If we can't, over time, reach a meeting of mind and hearts, then maybe it's time to move on.

Moving on from relationships that don't work open up potentials for new avenues of relational growth. "I was scared to death to admit that I'd been stuck for a long time. My dreams showed me as a teenager in high school, going from one emotional drama with this man to another. I knew this was happening because the relationship couldn't be unstuck. Psychologically, it was a high school crush relationship. My psyche screamed with pain." This highly conscious woman had been blindsided by emotional need, but eventually said good-bye to a go-nowhere relationship and drew a deep emotional breath, opened her mind, and trusted that just as her psyche screamed in pain it would also guide her into relational meaning.

Painful relationships indeed scream for attention; however, the good news also rings through loud and clear that where there has been darkness there is also potential transformation in the offing! In the words of William James, the father of American depth psychology, "There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision." So, the message of the day has to do with listening to life's whispers so that it needn't scream.

Life is about itself and we are part of that eternal flow! That is enough reason to live today with gusto and yielding to what the moment brings. People so often say that they don't know why they are alive or what life is all about. Life is about itself and we are part of that eternal flow!

"Art borrows nothing and has no other source than the soul in the midst of the world surrounding it. Its essence is unknown and its goal is art itself." These words of French twentieth century artist, Odilon Redon, in his manuscript, To Myself: Notes on Life, Art, and Artists, inspire us to consider that life and soul are one reality. The goal of now, this moment in which we abide, is none other than knowing the pure art of soulful living in the now, the eternal flow of whatever comes our way in the moment. It is part of what is and that is life, the eternal flow of soul.

When we flop ourselves onto dry land, get out the eternal flow of soul, we lose contact with our source. Energy loss, unhappiness, a sense of moving through the day grudgingly, happen when we've flopped ourselves out of that eternal flow that is soul. Up to half of our population suffers from regular depression. Making our way back into the waters of soul bodes well for healing from depression. We know we're getting close or are there when the symptoms begin to clear and we experience ourselves back in our own depths, once again content and well.

There is no merit in suffering for sufferings sake. Misery in this life won't get us to bliss in the sweet bye and bye, as is promised in some religions. However, unhappiness, if heeded as a message of longing for return to one's source, to soul, can motivate us to look within, discover how it is that we need to set our lives right. Thus, the purpose of life is not some religiously bent suffering for sufferings sake, but is about living soulfully, participating in the eternal flow of soul, moving into the pure art of soulful living. Again, in the words of Redon, to include the art of life, "Art borrows nothing and has no other source than the soul in the midst of the world surrounding it."

Healthily, the way it's supposed to go is that belief is to supposed to set us free. When it doesn't then it makes sense that reconsidering things is in order. Guilt, fear, force, shame can't be the way to make lives better and people more loving, creative, and conscious.

Religion, psychology, art, all manner of spiritual practice, and sexuality are charged with numinous energy that can compel people to either find themselves, or else (horror of horrors!), lose themselves. Loss of self takes place when we no longer think for ourselves. We can end up thinking like everyone else, whether they are artistic geniuses, Jungian or Freudian therapists, yogic gurus, or passionate lovers unless we rather fastidiously take into account the guarding of our own mind.

New York Times article,  Going Clear (12.20.13) , explores the power of belief within an organized religion and how it literally corrupts human nature. Rather than engaging in spiritual encounter that heals and transforms, individuals find themselves succumbing to group think, a terrible loss of self and mind. A professional colleague on hearing of my upcoming novel, The Unholy (release date Spring 2013), said ".....the dark side of religion?.....Paul.....it's all dark." I went on to say, "Even saying that is too much. People need to have their own experience of what works for them and what does not. That leaves us free, or else we run the risk of dictating that all manner of one thing or another is bad." We want to encourage exploration, experience, psychic freedom.

Prisons of belief are built when all manner of this thing or that are judged all good or all bad. Excluding obviously destructive ideologies and actions, ideas and practices are in large part neither good or bad. It depends on what we do with what we have and what life has dealt us to deal with. Healthily, it is the nurturance of inner truth, what sets you and me as individuals on the path of a free mind lived without knuckling under to threat from external forces that demand compliance, that ultimately unbinds the human psyche and lets loose consciousness!

In moving into the new year of 2013, we come face to face with possibilities, perhaps hopes and dreams. This gives us an opportunity to take stock of what spiritual faith means. In a New York Times article entitled, The Freedom of Faith (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/the-freedom-of-faith-a-christmas-sermon) matters of  human need and human conscience are addressed. Miracles, mystery, authority pull for religious subservience! The human psyche comes face to face with choice, to yield to that which is outside and demanding or to listen to that which comes from within and nourishes freedom.

The article refers to the famous passage in Fyodor Dostoevsky's, The Brother's Karamozov, where Jesus has been imprisoned by the Church and is being questioned by the Grand Inquisitor:  “We have corrected Thy work and founded it on miracle, mystery and authority. . . .Why has Thou come to hinder us?” In this, one of the greatest novels of all time, we witness the confrontation of religious imperialism, exposed as having coming into leagues with dark forces that manipulate human need and force the human soul into subjugation.

Diabolical happiness provides the contentment of ready made answers to complex questions. Black is black, white is white, goes this mentality. In reality, as humans we struggle. Yes, we have faith, but a faith that is always tempered by a healthy dose of doubt and ongoing openness.  2013, a new year, of exploration along the path of the soul, the avenue of fervent faith in all that is human, open, and free!

The end of the world has been happening for quite some time. Dreams from patients, family, friends, myself have signaled the passing of the old and coming of the new. Energy does not end, it transforms itself!

Transformation typically happens with turbulence and oftentimes a wish that, if possible, things could just stay the same. We're used to how things have been, familiar with the tried and true; but, sometimes what's been for a long time needs to pass on, and we need to let it.

Ending the Mayan calendar symbolizes a profound psychic transformation in which old religious perspectives need to and are passing on. Religious institutions that once ruled the land no longer carry the emotional or spiritual sway they once did. Old religions pass away because a new psychic attitude is being birthed.

Entering fully into the Age of Aquarius calls us to take personal stock of where we are, have been, and seem to be moving spiritually. Each of us, in our own unique way, hears the voice of life, the archetypal energy and way of all things. This voiceless voice, tender inspiration, and intuitive nudging during waking life and deep sleep ushers us into change.

Psychic change is what the end this cycle of time is all about. Increasingly, dreams speak to humankind evolving into a more advanced spiritual state. The end of the world, of this era in time, is perhaps best summed up by Hermes, trickster and god of transitions. He appeared to an ardent seeker in a dream. Placing his right index finger to his lips, he waved the dreamer forward. Only those with ears to hear and an open heart could follow. The dreamer stepped ahead, into a world, a new realm that was both outer and inner, colors and textures rich and dark, brilliant, radiant, challenging, and hopeful. Hermes whispered, "This is an ending...and a beginning!"

Down in the dumps happens when life calls us to turn inside and listen. Usually we're so caught up by emotional commotion and outside dilemmas that we haven't listened to what's going on inside us.  So....we get depressed....the psyche's way of saying slow down, listen, and let's see what's what!

Depression actually is trying to rescue us from ourselves. It tugs us inside soul so we can take a deep look into self. Of course, we're usually scared to go deep into the heart of things. That's why we're caught up in the outer drama and commotion to begin with. It seems so much easier to skate on the surface of things, thinking that things just happen. Well, things do happen and there's always something to them.

When we take time to see what's what, it's not unusual to find out that we've been out of balance. Maybe, we've been trying to run from emotions, or relationship problems, or perhaps we're going down a wrong direction in life.  To keep taking a wrong direction ends us up in needless and often total misery.

Depression is a helper. It helps us to get something out of going into the dumps.  A parent told me that after months of being depressed they gave into the fact that they were working too much and spending too little time with their children. They listened to the message that the depression brought and were saved from themselves! Their depression eased as they learned to live a more balanced life.

Going down and into the dumps gives us an opportunity to learn, make adjustments, and emerge shaken but perhaps a little more enlightened.

What's eating at me is something we can ask whenever we can't get over or through the bad feelings that keep swirling through us. We try and shake them off, talk ourselves out of them, try all sorts of therapy gimmicks, take mind altering drugs, do too much yoga or meditation, or try a geographical cure...just move somewhere else and everything will be better. The fact is that something is eating away at us on the inside because we are running from psychic shadows, things we need to know and face about ourselves.

Running, running, running from the shadow is about as helpful as seeing our actual shadow under the noonday sun and attempting to flee from it. Sure enough....it pops up right up again. Wherever we go the shadow follows. It's made up of pains and possibilities. Stop and ask yourself, "What is it I really don't want to face about myself right now?" Chances are your unconscious will send something to the front and center of your mind. It might be, "Let go of that relationship...you know it's never been good. Move on." Or, the quiet inner voice might say, "Take time, slow down, spend time with her (him). It's what'll see things through for you." Other insights could include, "Take care of your body...Slow down, you move too fast..." So, running from the shadow, what's eating at us, is best dealt with by quieting ourselves, listening to what the psyche has to say.

What's eating at us shows up in dreams as shadow figures, dark beings, who hold healing potential. William James, father of American depth psychology, wrote that authentic mystic revelation is "philosophically reasonable." The shadow frightens us, we want to run; but if we take time and face what's eating at us we can discover reasonable alternatives to less than healthy or whole attitudes in our life. Bad feelings eating away us give us a chance to face ourselves and find out scary stuff that in the end might just prove reasonable and helpful!

Hermes, archetypal energy of all that is helpful, shows up in dreams or  life events when we most need a jolt, a surprise, a mind blowing change of attitude. Who among us doesn't need from time to time, or regularly, to be turned inside out, upside down,  and then mentally righted so that we can see that we weren't  following our path. Hermes whispers or speaks loudly or shouts to us in synchronous life events, through sudden intuitive flashes, or in breath taking dreams or nightmares. When Hermes is present in our life and dreams we know it because we're startled, taken by surprise, shocked into a new way of seeing things that makes a practical difference!

He comes as a trickster in dreams, unthought of ideas that clear out cobwebs of mind, or shows up in life events that appear totally whacky, out of the ordinary, and end up providing immense help. Hermes is a practical god, an archetypal energy that can be accessed by the human psyche, so as to get the help we need when we need it. It happens as an energetic pulse or flow or, what William James (father of American Psychology) referred to as a "raw emotional voltage".

In depth psychology Hermes is considered the most helpful of gods. Once we know he's there then it's as if we start witnessing his workings everywhere! Help of the practical variety comes to us here and there and everywhere, through unexpected encounters, chance meetings, things taking place that we would have never imagined happening. Hermes, his magical antics and mind bending and altering jolts, ushers us back onto or further along the way that is meant for us to walk in life.

Now we know he's there, beware....the god of all things mischievous and helpful looks our way and inevitably, indubitably, most assuredly, will materialize the surprise that pulls us back three paces after having taken two but is all right because we were off in the wrong direction to begin with!

Trauma invades a child's mind through neglect, abuse, parental divorce, poverty, bad nutrition, chronic parental fighting, and anything else that goes on and on and damages a vulnerable human life. David Brooks in his September 27, 2012 new York Times article, The Psych Approach, reports that the effects of childhood trauma, left untreated into adulthood,  can be staggering: seven times the likelihood of alcoholism, six times more likely to have had sex before age 15, twice as likely to be diagnosed with cancer, four times as likely to be diagnosed with emphysema, increased chance of behavioral problems in school, impaired learning ability, decreased resilience, equanimity, and self control.

Helping a  traumatized child's psyche to heal via therapy, implementing psychological programs in the schools, and increasing parental and community education sets in motion the possibility that traumatized children can make their way successfully in life despite significant early emotional injuries and setbacks. The human psyche is resilient but needs help to heal when there has been trauma. Parents and others in authority can start the healing process by sensitizing themselves to the reality of childhood trauma rather than thinking, like I so often hear, "the kid'll just have to get over it."

Kids don't just get over trauma. They need the assistance of adults who are willing to move past denial and call trauma TRAUMA. This also applies to adults and their own inner child who still remembers and bears the scars of childhood. Consciousness calls us into greater sensitivity to our own inner child, to our own need to obtain the healing we need. Kids don't just get over trauma, but they can be helped to heal by our caring and sensitivity to the reality of trauma and the reality that the first step toward healing is facing truth and knowing that ultimately truth has the potential to set us free!

Suffering goddesses is a image that I have meditated on for over thirty years of treating women who have suffered bodily, often related to childhood neglect and abuse. When the mind is in pain, the body cries out goes the old adage in depth psychology. A woman's body takes in pain differently that a man's and the pain often lingers through adulthood when childhood trauma has been severe and chronic.

Hurry sickness spins an awful spell. It whispers in our ear that doing just a little more will make everything better. Pretty soon we’re going fast to cram more into less time. When we listen to the titillating promise of more we inevitably end with a twisted gut and a fried brain.

Mind madness symptoms include irritability, quick temper, an empty pit in the center of the stomach. Worse, there’s a feeling of soul loss. Suffering soul loss can happen during the course of one day or less. This isn’t like the old religious notion of hell fire and damnation; it’s more like feeling so out of sorts that you don’t know who you are anymore and nothing satisfies you. Soul loss translates to mind madness translates to a sort of rats scratching at the wall of your mind stress and unhappiness.

Nothing helps to get us back on track like what my fellow New Mexicans speak of as switching to a mode of going low and slow. The conscious ego of a sincere person can take things down a notch, or a legion of notches, so that soul can be found and settled back into. Mind madness then goes the way of the Gerasene demoniac, a definite exorcism of hurry sickness and the psychic devils that whip up such an anxious maelstrom.

Low and slow settles us into soul and from there living is just a little more satisfying. 

Nervous egos, a power-packed term in depth psychology, abound in contemporary society. Flitting from this to that, always spinning one emotional drama after another, might just be a way of concocting a false self that temporarily jettisons us into an artificial sense of being alive. Nervousness inevitably lets us down harder than a drop on our head to a concrete pavement.

Depth psychology inspires us into soulful living. Rather than engaging with hypomanic energy, being overtaken and perhaps possessed by the muse who lures us with seductions of doing more and more, faster and faster, thoughtfulness and a deliberate creative attitude guide the way into fulfillment, satisfying one's nature. "But, I'm afraid of losing the adrenaline high" so many people have told me as they struggle to heal from anxiety addicted living. Soon, they experience the natural high birthed from living, not from the outside in, but from the inside out, grounded, centered.

Research in mind/body medicine indicates that excess cortisol produced by chronic stress impairs brain functioning and negatively impacts overall health, potentially leading into debilitating disease states. Yielding to the insecurity that fuels the fire of the nervous ego ends us up smack dab down and out, depressed, since whatever goes up so high inevitably comes down so low. Adrenaline laced highs take their toll on body and soul.

Ancient wisdom inspires us to live in the Tao, the kingdom within, the wonder of the everlasting now. Nervous ego living is best counteracted with a changed attitude in which we cultivate soulfulness, a palpable sensation of being in touch with our depths and proceeding from there and only there. When we live from within ourselves, and don't get pulled outside of self, then nervousness can be transformed into depth. "I'm getting used to contentment....beats the heck out of emotional ups and downs," one sincere seeker reported...hard won wisdom.

Troubled sleep...restless gods conjures an image of restless, sleepless nights, twisting and turning late into the night and into the early hours of the morning. No relief in sight for those wrestling with demons within and unresolved conflicts without. Troubled sleep signals a need for willingness to make the descent into dark realms and listen to the voices of the gods!

When we resist hearing what we need to hear, typically not wanting to make critical life changes, then we may suffer from troubled sleep. The mind can't rest and drift into the healing waters of sleep. A recent article in the New York Times tried to make a case for sleeping in chunks of time rather than long stretches. I wonder why we so badly would want to avoid the intimacy with soul that comes as we sleep for long stretches, popular research and media attempting to convince us to be skittish with soul, dart in and out, a sort of wham bang mentality with psyche.

Restful sleep draws into the arms of Morpheus, god of soothing and settling and dreams. As we let ourselves fall under the power of sleep, then Morpheus comes with symbols and images that waken us to new levels of consciousness. Wrestling with the gods is human; but, it's also best to realize that the gods are the gods and we are but humans, needful of letting go and letting sleep come and dreams come and the gods speak!

Dreams are the eyes of God states a central maxim of depth psychology. I've come to understand that when we see through the eyes of the Dreamer then we cut to the chase regarding situations, relationships, ourselves. Dreams don't lie. A man, some years ago, told me that he dreamt of climbing a staircase that ascended to the heavens. There he discovered that "going up happened as I went within. I listened to my dreams and they showed me the way forward in my life. It brought changes that were frightening but necessary." He couldn't see his way through via the ego consciousness of daily life; instead he came to understand that dreaming permitted him to see through the eyes of God.

"In every kind of dream I am a black wolf...." So goes the provocative poem by Tina Chang entitled The Future is an Animal. It was shared with me by my daughter, Katherine, also a poet. The effect of it has lingered as images of transition and transformation emanate from each verse, reminding me that destiny is ever unfolding and that "the path goes on and on." God as intimate soul, as dark goddess, black wolf, deep calling unto deep, we awaken each day to the mysteries that the day will bring and in those mysteries discover that the psyche, "the mind is a miraculous ember."  http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23114

Dreams of a dark goddess seem to be prolific in the sleep of sincere seekers. One after another I hear of folks wondering why a nightmare of the goddess awakens them. We so easily fall into an ego rut of wanting things to remain the same, to keep the status quo, especially regarding our spiritual outlook. Dreams of the dark goddess beckon us into an interiority and depth of consideration regarding old ways that may have worked for us in the past and no longer do so. Darkness within dreams signals potential for illumination and entrance into mystery. In the new era of the Aquarian Age we witness movement into deeper dimensions of soul, a spirituality no longer characterized by patriarchy but profoundly inspired by the dark goddess who wakens us to unfathomable regions of wonder and transformation!