THINGS NEVER BEFORE SEEN
"Tinkle-Down" Economics
"This land is your land," they sing. Taking them at their word,
my wife and I spent a year, not too long ago, criss-crossing our
land in a twenty-three-foot Prowler travel trailer, pulled by an old but
ambitious Oldsmobile with way too little horsepower. Our idea was
to attend conventions and trainings in our field before we had to be in
Northern California, by September 1992, where I had accepted admission
into a graduate program.
So West and East, North and South we went-- there was much to see
. . . all too much to be alarmed about. This was, after all, in 1991-1992,
the final year of the Reagan-Bush era when Reagan's voodoo economics had
played its course in distributing the wealth upward to the wealthy where
it could be squandered on luxury items like yachts and overpriced objects
of art and the trickle-down theory had shown itself to be a piss on the
poor or, let us say, "tinkle-down" reality. Correspondingly, the
1980s "party" over, leaving little money for government to do its job properly
-- the national debt, after all, having been nearly quadrupled in this
give-away to the rich -- budget cutbacks at all levels of government were
in effect . . . and these cutbacks were grossly evident in what we saw.
"Neutron-Bomb Turf"
Similarly, the suckers (or cocaine-heads, or both) who had bought into
the false prosperity promised by the Robin-Hood-in-reverse fiscal policies
of the Eighties were now waking up from their mania with the hangover of
ill-conceived schemes in ruins surrounding them. This was apparent
in the places we traveled as well. All over Florida and Georgia,
for example, we saw shopping centers looking half like ghost towns -- evidence
of recent bankruptcies or, Mary Lynn wondered, is it possible those spaces
were never leased?
The only thing comparable in my experience I could think of was Springfield,
Oregon, during the recession of the early Eighties. I remember well,
while doing door-to-door political canvassing, how up to half the houses
in a given neighborhood would be empty and unoccupied. (The continual
frustration of nobody answering doorbells leaves an imprint, I suppose.)
We used to call it "neutron bomb turf"; and it almost -- but not quite
-- served as an excuse for not making "quota."
In Springfield, where the lumber industry was taking a beating because
of the lack of new housing starts caused by the recession, people had moved
out of town to look for work where it still existed. But in the South
in the early Nineties it was somehow different. My wife and I wondered
if this plethora of vacancies had something to do with the S&L scandal;
all those boondoggles . . . all those poorly conceived investment projects
gone belly up, leaving only haunted shells as evidence of that mania.
Budget Cutbacks
Rest Areas
Throughout the South, evidence of the cutbacks in services was everywhere.
Too often we found rest areas along the highways so overcrowded we had
to drive on for lack of parking. We saw tractor-trailers forced to
park along exit routes, or side roads -- anywhere there was space.
Some rest areas had "two hour limit" signs -- something else I had never
come across -- and others were closed down completely . . . "for cleaning,"
allegedly.
I half expected to see truck wrecks littering the roadsides as I
envisioned the plight of truckers pushing on in bleary-eyed exhaustion
for lack of some place to pull over; or raising themselves up from a dead
sleep, in a fog, with an alarm clock set to abide by the two-hour limit.
I myself was rather dangerously dazed several times when, in the wee hours,
we were forced to continue past eagerly anticipated rest areas that turned
out to be barricaded or otherwise unavailable.
These imaginings of sleep-driving truckers barreling, obliviously,
across medians and into oncoming traffic it turns out were premonitions,
as most recently they have proven to be horrifyingly correct. Years
later, in 1998 to be exact, this problem became big enough to finally become
a story in the mainstream media. Highway deaths, caused by a lack
of places for sleepy truckers to park, were piling up in numbers too large
to ignore any longer. Of course, the media provided an alternative
to fully acknowledging this truth -- as they are wont to do -- by laying
alongside the facts a theory that some trucking companies were at fault,
for pressuring truckers to meet unreasonable deadlines for delivery.
Regardless, scores of cars and other trucks have been involved in some
of these accidents, including head-on collisions, with people dead and
many injured.
But in '91-'92, these realities had not been statistically blatant
enough to make the evening news and went unnoticed. However our U.S.
Congress was not completely oblivious to such effects of its cutbacks.
"America can no longer afford to maintain its infrastructure," they said
in 1993 when they had the chance to appropriate money for ordinary maintenance.
To get themselves off the hook, they dared to call these highway and infrastructure
funds "pork barrel." And instead they wrote laws to crack down on
the truck drivers and their employers for overtime driving . . . now that’s
gonna find ‘em a place to pull over!
Roads
In our travels, also we found that roads were often bumpy and wavy --
"these are supposed to be freeways," I mused," not side roads." The
"deteriorating infrastructure of America," they called it.
Signs
Related to this, we found many roadways were not clearly marked and
signs were out of date. In trustingly following them, we got lost
a number of times. It seemed nobody cared out there; nobody was paying
attention. I lost count of the number of side journeys and turnarounds
we were forced to make. I don't remember ever -- in my fifteen or
so transcontinental adventures over twenty-three years -- having so much
trouble with signs.
Often we were forced to return to the point of departure from the
true course, and I'd examine the sign that led us astray. "Yes, dammit,
the sign does indicate to turn here for that route." I wondered if
perhaps that was once the correct way but had since been changed without
the sign being corrected.
Some Joke
And then I imagined all the other cars, of all those others who didn't
just so happen to live in the area and be aware of this anomaly, traveling
up that side road and turning back around again . . . almost as if that
were part of the route -- to make that kind of loop before proceeding.
I pictured a local watching these cars, one by one, turning around
in the course of a day. "Check it out, Mabel," he’d chuckle.
"We got another one." Or, "Strangers in town! Strangers in
town!" It is something to behold . . . smacks of human futility and
ridiculousness.
Some Loss
I thought of the gallons of gas wasted in this way; of the jobs in maintaining
these services -- to keep things in working order and correct -- that no
doubt were lost. I thought also of the huge sums of money now gone
that could have been spent this way -- money which was wasted instead for
weapons to fend off a Red Menace that turned out to be a straw man.
I recalled with anger how the warhawks tried to take credit for the downfall
of Communism by claiming it a victory for their weapons-production policies,
how I never heard it pointed out that the fact that Communism collapsed
from within indicates a tremendous waste of money and poor policy to think
that we needed to prepare to fight it from without.
But the Pentagon was not the only "bottomless well" in the Eighties.
I thought of all the money funnelled into the coffers of the wealthy in
the orgy of extravagance that we taxpayers got the bill for as the S&L
scandal. I thought how that money could have been used not only for
signs, for roads, for rest areas . . . but also for all the pressing needs
of our people, so neglected in the Reagan-Bush years.
So much for being the "wealthiest nation in the world."
State Parks
And then there was the situation in the state parks. More than
once we were prevented from camping for a night; we arrived too late at
a park and were unable to enter -- an iron gate barring the driveway.
We found other evidence of cutbacks: a cutback in employees; areas
roped off and blockaded, not to be used. My mind liked to break into
a "This Land Is Your Land" melody when encountering such barriers and fences;
the overall effect would be altogether depressing.
Overpopulation
All this of course in addition to the other signs of deterioration:
pollution of the countryside, over-industrialization, wilderness areas
turned stinking and worn by commercial interests.
On one occasion while hiking in a Florida park, once more due to
a lack of signs we lost our way. During the inadvertent nine-mile
hike back to our campsite, we saw signs (at least there was money for these)
indicating how the dunes should not be walked on because the sea oats would
be worn down and killed -- resulting in sand drifting, blowing around,
killing trees, and destroying campgrounds.
And indeed everywhere we walked it appeared as if thousands of people
had stamped beneath the trees, so that even the space between them looked
like trails. I began to speculate on just how many people there are
on the planet. Clearly the basic problem was there were too damn
many of us here!
NATURE BALANCES HERSELF
How Far Astray
I began to consider how far we've gone astray from any meaningful or
sustainable path for our species on this planet. I reflected on how
the effects of the changes we've made -- for example, the reduction of
oxygen in the atmosphere that goes with the increase of carbon dioxide,
known commonly as the greenhouse effect -- how it's been discovered
that these effects keep people close to their unconscious pain, closer
to their unconscious in general.
It is as if we as part of Nature are also regulated by Nature, that
the very effects of our overpopulation and our straying from a cooperative
ecological niche for our species result in consequences that are inevitably
going to bring us back into line . . . one way or the other!
Going Inward
Knowing as I do that environmental pollution and lowered oxygen levels
promote diseases, general illnesses, hay fevers, epidemics of allergies,
and a general weakening of our immune system -- all of which we are currently
seeing in abundance -- I realized that people are more and more being forced
to go inward because they are less and less able to go outward in a healthy
manner.
Chastened By the Environment We've Created
Another factor in this is that the deteriorating quality of air and
the increasing levels of toxins that we ingest are also attacks on ego
defenses, which has important yet previously unexplored implications.
As I have said, both Stanislav Grof and Arthur Janov -- and others as well,
I am told -- at one time used carbon dioxide to take people into a nonordinary
state of consciousness where people would be more open to their repressed
traumas, to their unconscious mind (they did this to help these people
heal these traumas). They found that slight increases in carbon dioxide
inhalation invariably brought up primal pain and birth-trauma feelings
-- i.e., repressed painful feelings from our experiences of birth and infancy
that our ego defenses normally keep "safely" tucked away in our subconscious.
Consider for a moment what that means for those trapped in the pollution-ridden
cities! . . though keep in mind that increased carbon dioxide is an atmospheric
problem that affects everyone on this globe. I recall a TV report
when I lived in the air-chunk-city of Denver, Colorado, in 1978.
At the time, Denver's air was rated as being the second worst in the country,
behind Los Angeles, partly because the high altitude made for thinner air
and thus higher percentages of toxins relative to normal air. Anyway,
the TV report proclaimed how the number of hospital admissions for spouse
abuse, child abuse, alcoholism, and related violence would soar on days
when the air pollution index was high.
Air Pollution As a Psychedelic
Apparently, the reduction of oxygen in these situations acts similarly
to a reduction of blood sugar or glucose to the brain, which results in
an inhibition of the ego's defensive ability to keep out unwanted information.
Coincidentally, research has shown that this same kind of reduction of
glucose to the brain is instrumental in producing the effects of certain
psychedelics, including mescaline and marijuana.
But this reduction in defenses is not experienced or understandable
only by those who have experimented with psychedelics; in fact, in at least
minor ways we have all experienced it. The workings here are similar
to those in the common experience of being more cranky; irritable; irrationally
emotional; more prone to depression, anger, and tears; more excitable;
and in general, closer to one's "shit," when one is tired, overworked,
or just gotten up from a sound sleep. In these situation as well
the brain is inhibited -- here because of fatigue -- from being able to
effectively fend off unwanted information, impulses, and emotions.
The evidence concerning heavy metal toxicity indicates that it, also, can
have a similar effect at times on one's mental and emotional state.
Global Cabin Fever
Also, there is the experience of "cabin fever," which many people are
familiar with. We like to think that simply the fact of being cooped
up for a long period of time psychologically leads to wanting to break
out and be free, to be irrational and highly prone to emotional outbreaks,
and in the extreme to result in delusions and hallucinations. But
obviously this is not the case or else these symptoms would be rampant
in other situations where one is contained for a long period of time, and
they are not. It turns out that there are biochemical reasons --
not simply the fact of being cooped up -- which account for cabin fever
symptoms.
Consider that cabin fever describes a situation, most often, in which
one lives in an environment that is insulated against cold winter weather
-- thus keeping out fresh air; and in which very often oxygen is further
depleted by the burning of oxygen-consuming wood fires in fireplaces or
woodstoves, or oxygen-consuming coal fires . . . whatever. With this
in mind one can easily understand that that environment is going to be
increasingly deficient in its oxygen level as time goes on. Add what
we now know about lowered oxygen levels leading to lowered defenses and
eruption of unconscious content, and we can see how such environments can
lead to the symptoms that, combined, we call cabin fever.
When you consider that on a smaller scale, with the greenhouse effect,
we are globally setting up the same conditions as that of cabin fever,
we can see why there would be an emerging perinatal unconscious occurring.
With the entire world suffering a low-level cabin fever, it becomes even
more understandable why there is the current fascination with escaping
the Earth and setting up colonies on other planets and in other solar systems.
This idea we see in science fiction scenarios of all kinds -- consider
the popularity of the Star Trek programs and movies; but I've also
recently heard it coming out of the mouths of NASA spokespersons.
They're talking about building colonies on Mars! A multibillion dollar
project -- talk about high-cost housing! But this fascination and
irrationality is understandable when you think of it as a symptom of a
global cabin fever. Apparently, we not only wish to be break out
and be free in traffic jams; we've magnified it to wanting to break free
of our planet itself -- as if Gaia, Mother Earth, were some confining,
stifling Mother-womb that we needed to bust out of or die!
Of course, the other symptoms of cabin fever -- being highly emotional,
irrational, delusional, and prone to hallucinations -- we have already
discussed as being part of the furniture of our current global reality,
so we need not go into them here.
Back to the Drawing Board for Our Species
But the consequences of all these factors taken together are inescapable:
As we edge our way, in a myriad of ways, toward global destruction, we
increasingly "sicken" ourselves both physically and emotionally/mentally
in the process. And this "sickening" is one of an eruption of unconscious
material that causes us to psychologically "return to the drawing board"
and seek solutions -- both inner and outer -- to our misery.
Down Can Be Up
Specifically, I am saying that inhibited brain functioning -- whether
through oxygen depletion, heavy metal toxicity, or other environmental
anomalies -- has the effect of heightened "mind" functioning (in the sense,
at least, of lowered ego and defensive functioning). Thus, in the
same way that psychedelic substances can open us to repressed perspectives
by inhibiting "brain" activity, these environmental changes can be helpful
in the sense of opening us up to suppressed individual (and global/universal)
truth.
Therefore this "sickening," this seeming decline or going down, can
really be an "up" -- in other words, it can be viewed as part of a necessary
"negative" retreat for the purpose of bringing in new information and re-evaluation.
And we may then create anew our more harmonious ecological role based upon
this more accurate information.
Now, I am not espousing environmental poisoning as a technique of
higher consciousness. But I am saying that apparently Nature (and
we are part of Her) has ways of balancing HerSelf.
Death As An Ally
In this respect I might note that our co-habitation with the bomb and
with environmental destruction is a spur to our growth of consciousness
in a way akin to the traditional spiritual paths that speak of the catalyzing
power of "having death as an ally." That is, that the realization
of the imminent possibility of death, which is in truth our existential
condition, has been known to act as a spur to taking life seriously, and
spiritually, and to "waking up" in general.
The power of this spiritual attitude can be imagined by considering
how one would live one's life if one constantly asked oneself: "If
I knew I was going to die tomorrow (or in an hour, or next minute, etc.)
how would I live this day (hour, minute) before me?" Indeed, a lot
of the transformative power of near-death experiences is known to come
from their ability to jog one into awakening to the fact of one's mortality
-- the precariousness of one's biological existence. In this light,
we might view environmental damage on a global scale, then, as analogous
to the bonk on the head from the stick of a Zen meditation teacher, telling
us to "pay attention!"
The upshot of all this is that with this degradation of the external
environment we are forced to go inward, to go back to the drawing board,
so to speak, whether we want to or not. Illness in general and lowered
oxygen levels in particular lead to a rising up of people's repressed emotional
pain, and they force us to confront the roots of our motivations and patterns
of cultural engagement as well as our social and relational styles.
Moratorium
This "turning inward" is the essential meaning of the "peace" symbol,
when you think of it. The upside-down cross pointing downward in
a circle has rightly been used to symbolize "moratorium" -- in other words,
a period of halting of action in the world because nothing worthwhile can
result from the ways we are currently doing things, and a turning away
from the external world and looking inside to reevaluate.
It is as if Nature, completely unbeknownst to us, balances us, pushes
us down to our deepest programming and back to our earliest "grids," individual
by individual, and that this forces us to reassess our lives and causes
us to create more meaningful lifestyles, more synergistic patterns.
So in a sense Nature's reaction to our misconduct is to cause us -- by
means of the psychological effects induced by the biochemical alterations
that are the result of environmental changes -- to create new social and
cultural forms. We cannot help but do this. And collectively,
cumulatively, it cannot help but result in massive cultural changes of
one form or another.
Our Need to Control
Now, many have proclaimed, in these strange days, that it is our Western
estrangement from Mother Nature; our particular need to control,
that is at the core of the threats to the end of life on this planet.
In such a case, one needs to regain harmony with Nature and acquire a consciousness
of cooperation, not control.
As Grof has claimed — and my personal experience attests — such a
cooperative human nature is indeed our most fundamental human nature.
In contrast to the "me versus them," aggressive, and competitive imprint
that is derived from our traumatic and premature human births, this more
fundamental human nature is the result of a more fundamental imprint of
symbiosis with the Other, as was the case in the womb surround during the
relatively blissful prenatal period. The relation of the fetus to
the mother at that time is one of cooperation, all needs met, flow in <---->
flow out, and synergy of intents. And when, as an adult, we
reconnect with this more fundamental human nature, this more fundamental
imprint, it manifests in us as a tendency toward that same kind of reciprocal
relationship -- cooperative, synergistic, and mutually beneficial.
Only, as an adult, the Other with which this reciprocal relationship
is had is Society and Nature, for these bear the same characteristics and
relation to the adult as the womb did to the fetus.
Furthermore, as Grof and I and many others have discovered, such
a more positive human nature occurs naturally in a person when they have
faced, reexperienced, and integrated their perinatal unconscious . . .
as opposed to what is usually done, i.e., completely denying it, projecting
it on a scapegoat or enemy and engaging in wars and social violence.
So it is the recovery of this sort of more fundamental human nature --
one in which we are in cooperative and mutually beneficial relationship
with Nature, all life on this planet, and other humans -- that would remove
us from the brink of extinction.
Looking Through Gaia's Eyes
When you think of it, when you consider that all of Nature -- the whole
planet, Gaia -- is threatened by the actions of our species, and that that
Nature would want to avoid this by balancing the elements that are currently
skewed, it may be just the kind of global situation we see now around us
that Nature would need to create in order to save "HerSelf."
It's simple: We either change or die. Hey, why the long
face!? If Gaia doesn't look out for HerSelf, who will?
Acting Out
Granted, some people are not dealing in a healthy or positive way with
the material that is arising. Instead of re-doing their basic programming,
these people "act out." Thus we have increased crime, aggression,
hostility, one person against another.
And this fact is glaringly apparent in our big cities, where many
who are not integrating this emerging information from outside their ego
boundaries (from the unconscious) sadly are instead venting the energy
of their pain (which our degenerating environment is opening up to them
or giving them access to) in violent, destructive, wasteful, self-destructive,
and pathetic ways.
One can also look to the grasping at racism, nationalism, and fundamentalism,
which are not primarily urban phenomena by any means. These conduits
of hatefulness are also a response that people are using to the feelings
of pain, uncertainty, insecurity, and doubt that rise up, especially initially,
in conjunction with these emerging truths.
Similarly, a great majority of people in general in our society are
using drugs of one form or other to gloss over and obscure this emerging
material rather than facing and integrating it. All in all these
kinds of responses add up to a tragedy. And it is something that,
if these reactions end up prevailing, could actually do everyone of us
in.
Helping Out
But about these others, what can we do -- those of us who are changing
our programming and creating new cultural patterns? It may be practical
and advisable much of the time to just get out of their way if they choose
to kill each other off.
But we are often not able to "get out of the way" of those who are
trapped in negativity. In addition, since we are all interconnected,
we are bound to at least be indirectly affected by their actions.
And most importantly, since we are One and these others are actually
ourselves in different garb, to the extent we are able to show compassion
and be of assistance, we should not always want to step aside. In
Part Three, I will discuss more fully how exactly we can be helpful to
these others, in both small and large ways.
"EVE OF DESTRUCTION" OR SCENERY OF HEALING?
To put this chapter's theme another way, if we were to concoct a world
situation in which we would be forced to take a quantum step in consciousness
evolution by healing the nefarious elements of our perinatal unconscious,
would not that world situation look something like what we see around us
today? Would it not be a world rife with obvious perinatal elements
(and influences) with some people resolving and thus being healed of them;
while others would act them out and self-destruct because of them (not
to mention contributing to our collective global self-destruction, as mentioned
earlier). In other words, the situation today, as it looks, could
as easily be seen as a prologue to an apocalypse and just as easily be
seen as a healing crisis preceding a massive consciousness transformation.
Put another way, this same situation can be seen by one person as the "eve
of destruction" and another as the "scenery of healing on the pathway to
peace." So which will it be?
In the next and final part of this book we will take a look at what
are the most likely possibilities for ourselves and our planet, considering
all that has been said so far. We will bring together all that we
now know to conjecture: Apocalypse? Or New Age?
Copyright © 1999 by Michael Derzak Adzema
Comments? E-mail me by clicking on: mickel@primalspirit.com
Mickel Adzema