I do not think the measure of a civilization is how tall its buildings of concrete are,
But rather how well its people have learned to relate to their environment and fellow man.
~ Sun Bear of the Chippewa Tribe ~

The emergent intuition of growing numbers of people that Gaia [Earth] is alive and intelligent in her own right, that is ‘autopoetic,’ making her own order, may now prompt a deeper intuition: the autopoetic presence embodied in the earth pre-existed it. Sophia means ‘wisdom,’ so we may suppose that the adepts of the Mysteries perceived in the planetary body the wisdom of a divine, superearthly presence, comparable to the wisdom that animates the human body, but infinitely more complex, vast, and powerful. This is the primary ecological insight, of course. It may also be the primary religious insight.
~ John Lamb Lash from Not In His Image

            There is something extraordinary happening on our planet.  It’s as if Earth is being infused in some kind of superconscious force of awakening.  We see it in our humanity in the rising levels of consciousness and community awakening (perhaps in tandem with the rising sea levels).  We see it in the dizzying array of global issues, from warfare to economic meltdown, and new hope galvanized through such challenges (please visit the insightful blog of David Wilcock at Divine Cosmos for more here). It’s as if everyone is beginning to wake up in the same dreaming and same sense that our humanity and all life is something much, much more extraordinary than we’ve been led to believe.  There’s a surreal sense to reality as science and spirituality continues its convergence, bringing peace to one of the most enduring conflicts.  And perhaps most relevant of all, I sense that humanity is beginning to intuit little by little that there is some magnificent collective destiny or mission that we’re all a part of—a planetary adventure to which all of us are called; an adventure ennobling, galvanizing of our virtuousness and promising fruits of self-actualization of the true glory of our and all nature.

“…everything on the earth has a purpose, every disease an herb to cure it, and every person a mission. This is the Indian theory of existence.”
(Mourning Dove Salish 1888-1936)

            This force of unitive consciousness has been documented in many Mayan and other indigenous prophecies of what the ancients foreteld was to occur during our present times: a unified vision of humanity and all life on Earth.  The last few decades alone have seen an intense quickening of this force of union as humanity has been liberating itself from many conditions that have limited our expression and repressed our exploration of the multi-dimensions of consciousness and existence.  Furthermore, it feels at present as if we’re beginning to reach a certain pinnacle; a paramount that is not only providing a grand, all-encompassing understanding of existence itself but also restoring the sense of awe which cultivates the most authentic of individuals and appropriate civilizations. Wonder is becoming our prayer.

            All blissful perspectives aside, I sense that with this awesome vision there is also a tremendous sense of responsibility and desire for consecrated action that is occurring simultaneously, as if the extraordinariness of this expansive perspective of reality is also coaxing a tremendous belief in ourselves; in what the self actually is and the seemingly infinite potentials we can actualize. Perspectives are becoming profoundly healing.

                As I’ve discussed in length in previous articles (see Revealing Nature & Wonder is a Prayer: Becoming Ecstatic) we are realizing how incredible our and all nature is, something the ancients knew and held as high knowledge in their eco-spiritual worldviews. Moreover, this is catalyzing a profound realization: now when we look upon our world, broken by corruption, degraded by degenerative belief systems and our detrimental relation to our natural environs, we are no longer besieged by fear or cynicism that dooms and glooms us into passivity. In actuality, people are looking unto the world and instead raising a wise and sturdy smile as we consider ourselves: ‘Aha, yes! This is what I was born to do: to transform the world and our species’ relation to it into something wondrously beautiful, lovingly powerful and suffuse with magnanimity. We are creators and our creativity, infinite in ingenuity and relentlessly inspired by the awesomeness of isness, shall salve us and the world in ways we can barely imagine. And yet, we can imagine it…and in that is the essence of the golden age we can make of all of this despair.’ In short, instead of skirting from adversity, we’re embracing it because we believe in our ability to face it. And by adversity, I mean the biggest challenges we face in the world. This confidence in human nature is becoming indomitable, relentless and the more it is set upon the world, the miraculous will become commonplace.

            Much of the hope for the evolution of human culture toward sagacious upliftment lies in the growing passion for the environmental movement and the essence of what the movement radiates: namely, a renewed relationship to nature and what nature is.  I believe this endeavour is the common ground that all human beings are beginning to discover and is galvanizing a species-wide identity that serves us greatly in coming to a unified ground of understanding and purpose to face planetary challenges.

“One belief you have in common is your belief in a new version of reality in which people express their freedom with respect, harmony, and cooperation, and in which Earth and each form of life—animal, plant, mineral, and human—is valued.” ~ The Pleiadians (channeled via Barbara Marciniak in Earth)

            At times, the environmental issues facing us often becomes obfuscated by grand political discussions of immense issues such as pollution, descecration of land, harming of wildlife etc. which can make us feel helpless in the face of towering dilemmas. What I propose is that we take smaller steps surrounding the notion that essentially the cause for the environment is about a spiritual shift in consciousness toward engaging the Earth in not dry political sentiments but intimate rapport based on the sheer willingness to be open to the Earth as a conscious living entity and force of wisdom. This is the inherent nexus of the indigenous way of life of peoples who base their culture and beliefs on being connected to the land and nature itself.

            Making the intention in all of our daily lives to find reconnection with the Earth need not be an intimidating prospect.  In urban centres, this may seem daunting and yet our cities are replete with green spaces, especially here in Canada.  Moreover, it doesn’t take long once we’re out of the city to encounter wilderness where nature is much more emphatic in its field.  But even in cities, we can begin to do much in this rectification. What I propose is for people to begin taking time each day to open up communication with the Earth. This could be as simple as taking a walk in a park or, even better, finding a serene place in the park to sit on the land, beside a tree perhaps, and to simply allow oneself to be; to be in a state of reception; to allow one’s energy to begin to entrain to that of the Earth and to be open to whatever happens. These simple practices were shared to me often when I worked with First Nations teachers on the land. Often, after a sweat lodge and a weekend of fasting, our teachers would counsel us to simply find a spot on the land for upwards to hours and to simply allow ourselves to fall into reflection; to even speak to the Earth as if it was some great mothering power and to be open to insights offered from Her. The experiences were the highest of profundity.

            As I’ve related to many, in my one-on-one healing and life coaching practice, when I engage people who are stressed (which is almost everyone) one of the first suggestions I make is to find a place in a park and to unfold all of their burdens of lack of self-purpose, lack of confidence in their self and whatever dilemmas are plaguing them and to simply await guidance. Time and time again, people return with a collection of wisdom revealed to them by this simple practice. Most are blown away at how easy it was. The key then is to see this as a precious thing and to make it a practice. The more we begin to build this relationship to the inherent wisdom in nature (including that stimulated in ourselves by such postures) we begin to become completely assured that no matter what befalls us there is a guiding realm in the dimensions of reality which we can apprehend and find answers to our most pressing problems. We don’t even need to go to a park as nature is everywhere, though somewhat distorted in urban environs and its muck of intrusions, yet, there is something undeniably, uber-powerful about sitting in more emphatic stations of nature, such as the singular expression of a park or other green spaces.

            It’s no small wonder that when the first settlers came to this ‘New World’ of North America and encountered an indigenous culture that had for aeons cultivated themselves and their civilization from an assiduous relationship to the supernatural powers of the Earth that for those sensitive and open enough they discovered an entire race of the most uplifted and spiritual humanity they had ever encountered. I have not found a better account of such revelations than in the work of my great uncle, Ernest Thompson Seaton, the revered naturalist philosopher, co-founder of the Boy Scouts and champion of indigenous ways, who illustrated this with luminous clarity in The Gospel of the Red Man. Here is two such illuminating accounts:

Tom Newcomb, my mountain guide in 1912 and 1914, was an old scout of the Miles campaign, who lived with the Sioux under Crazy Horse for some years in the early '70's. He said to me once (and not only said, but dictated for record):
"I tell you I never saw more kindness or real Christianity anywhere. The poor, the sick, the aged, the widows and the orphans were always looked after first. Whenever we moved camp, someone took care that the widows' lodges were moved first and set up first. After every hunt, a good-sized chunk of meat was dropped at each door where it was most needed. I was treated like a brother; and I tell you I have never seen any community of church people that was as really truly Christians as that band of Indians."
&
In 1834 Captain Bonneville visited the Nez Percés and Flatheads before they had been in contact with Whites, either traders or missionaries, and sums up these wholly primitive Indians:
"Simply to call these people religious would convey but a faint idea of the deep hue of piety and devotion which pervades their whole conduct. Their honesty is immaculate, and their purity of purpose and their observance of the rites of their religion are most uniform and remarkable. They are certainly more like a nation of saints than a horde of savages." (www.religionen.at/irgospelredman.htm)

            Western culture is a culture of cold intellectualism. It’s a culture that has for long believed it can figure all of its problems out through the singular use of the intellectual mind, arrogantly cutting itself off from the multi-dimensions of the mind, especially its more non-rational rapport with nature, exuded clearly in indigenous way of life. The cure for this obsession with intellectualism is exploring this more shamanic sense of mind. Instead of trying to analyze and systemize ethics and morality through tiring philosophical discourse, perhaps we’d be better served in following the path of the indigenous which assert that morality and basic goodness are actually inherent to nature itself. Rather than trying to figure out and formalize morality through intellectual abstractions, maybe we can reveal the wisdom of such subjects by simply going within and allowing them to naturally unfold from what we originally are. As John Lamb Lash, champion of Pagan indigenous culture assesses: “Rooted in nature, humanity does not need preset behavioural rules to follow…The basis of morality is our sense for life, our devotion to the life force.”

            There’s a poignant irony at work here that is actually prophecy to indigenous elders such as the ones I have learned from. One of my elders actually stated that some First Nations peoples were aware that European settlers would come and treat them brutally from the outset. Yet, they believed that the real reason these settlers were coming was to ultimately learn from their own wisdom. It’s amazing to me to encounter such a humble, courageous and sacrificial spirit in indigenous culture that has endured the debacles of dealing with the insanity of a European culture made utterly crazed through lack of natural connection only to now welcome them in their communal circles to teach them of the wise ways of life without any grief over past horrors. This is not the case with all indeed but there are some luminous wisdom keepers that indeed are offerings their teachings to all cultures with unparalleled generosity.

            Toward this endeavour of reharmonzing our relationship to the Earth, we face a specific hurdle in North American culture in the indigenous challenge. Our collective cultural psyche is deeply ill and that much of the source of this illness is the lack of recognition that we wrested control of this land from an entire culture of indigenous who have for long tended to this land, knowing its ways for long before we showed up. The horrific ways in which we treated them and continue to do so doesn’t need to be displayed here as most of us are somewhat are (though perhaps not aware enough). What needs to be done is not so much a bolder integration and care of indigenous culture in our own but an integration of our culture in theirs. Until we have achieved the appropriate balance with the First Nations people through respect, reverence and honouring that they so deserve, we will ever be stable. This is a massive blindspot and yet a wondrous opportunity for peace-making and fostering community through intense shadow work (perhaps the most intense). Ultimately, we need to understand deeply and passionately that it is the First Nations people who hold the wisdom we desperately need to right the ship of our civilization before it does any more damage to the Earth and to ourselves.

            What if the saviour of the world is the world itself? Toward such a question I’d like to end by sharing some more wisdom courtesy of John Lamb Lash whose efforts to illuminate the indigenous roots of European culture hold one of the essential keys toward healing our cultural sickness. As a First Nations elder once told me, everyone on the planet needs to find its ancestral roots and connect deeply with them to assure that the flower of life springing forth is stable and grounded in the reality of Earth. Moreover, it was explained to me that although all the races on the planet have moved wayward from their roots, it is the White race whose roots have been most hidden from them, perhaps intentionally. Our history does not illustrate what happened to the Pagan indigenous culture of Europe and the untold genocides that occurred therein. However, alternative narratives are being rediscovered and in them I see one of the greatest revelations coming forth: we are all indigenous; we are all of Earth. Now let us become for Earth…

“If the human species’ bond to nature is intact, human nature will spontaneously tend to do good, without having to be commanded. This is the first condition of Gaian ethics.”

“Gaian ethics is not a call to faith in God, but faith in the human species. Faith can be evil when it is invested in beliefs that blind humanity to nature, and impede the genius innate to our species. If it denies the divinity of the earth, faith can be lethal to human survival. It can be the long suffering servant of violence. Humanity has a sacred birthright rooted in Gaia Sophia [Earth], a birthright that carries a responsibility to protect life, including nonhuman life, and to make the world safe for what life knows. The guardians of the Mysteries taught that cardia gnosis, the intelligence of the heart, is our divine endowment. It is the flowering pollen of the Godhead, the Pleroma, seeded in the beauteous womb of Sophia.”

"When the Earth is sick, the animals will begin to disappear, when that happens, The Warriors of the Rainbow will come to save them."
Chief Seattle

_
Revealing Nature

You are what your deep, driving desire is. As your desire is, so is
your will. As your will is, so is your deed.  As your deed is, so is your destiny.
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.5
Translated by Eknath Easwaran

There’s no trampoline
Like the bottom of the soul.
David L. Priest

            I am blessed to be alive in a time where the desire to be free, in loving community and taking part, exuberantly, in the upliftment of the world is becoming more and more commonplace. I see it in the constant sprouting of smiles on the streets as if people aren’t afraid anymore to look each other in the eyes (the windows of the soul) and acknowledge kinship despite if we’ve ever met.  Such a gesture is incredibly precious, deeply reassuring in a world long desecrated by competitive norms. It also fosters trust that perhaps behind the smile is growing gently and innocently a care for each other that has long been vanquished by a society too often propagating creeds of self-interest and self-absorption that have left our communities hijacked by commercial environs where the love of money has threatened the very pulse of life.  And yet, there’s no hiding from the fact that such a world is changing, drastically so.  But rather than seeing outright fear as we come to terms with corruption, economic anguish and the other transformative currents speeding through culture, I see people being denuded of the personality artifices that come from a culture obsessed with self-image and beginning to search for something more essential and sturdy to build a life upon.  And what’s even more beautiful is that the searching is actually a pathway to a revealing of our incredible nature, long forsaken by a myriad of divisive belief systems that have wrenched us out of Earth, sanctioning our destruction of the environment and have made our connection with our deepest aspects an agonizing, ambiguous thing that has left us wounded on profoundly multi-dimensional levels. 
            In this revealing, there’s a massive revision taking place, as people let go of old notions of everything it seems but especially what we are and what the world is.  These are nothing short of spiritual inquiries, like a fervent forest fire, sweeping through the masses in direct reaction to the cold end of a singular materialistic culture which leaves us with a broken world as our surroundings to stand as testament to the fact. 
                In such revisions, wounds themselves are being revealed as something else.  Not something to obsess over, fall victim to and spend a lifetime reeling and healing from.  Rather, wounds are being discovered as the birth-pangs of wisdom.  When we see them in this fashion, we do not allow fear to urge us to flee from them but instead we seek to understand them as divided part of ourselves that we wish to coax back into the circle of our wholeness, through playful lovingness, sometimes even a loving tap that says ‘I believe that you can move from this stagnancy. I know without a doubt that your nature is far more wondrous than stasis and I shall not move until you are reminded of that and soaked in its faith.’ This is a massive work of healing and it is irresistible.  All over the world I navigate personally I see people coming to believe that there is a part of themselves replete with a power and beauty so unimaginably vast and dynamic that it can only leave one to awe.  And awe is the incandescent bath that cleans us to the shimmering skin of our soul. 
                Having recently completed a 200hr Yoga Teacher Training to deepen my practice, I marvelled at the rousing popularity of this ancient practice of healing and transformation and saw yet another confirmation that humanity is becoming passionate about knowing what we are and the inevitable portal to what is life which comes from self-realization.  It’s as if we’re all waking up and realizing we’ve actually been deceived and/or not done something incredibly important with our lives, which is to consider them in the deepest and profoundest fashion.  As yoga sage, Donna Farhi attests to what is happening: ‘We are quite literally in the process of realigning ourselves with the rhythm of the universe.’ 
                This is actually what the initiation ceremony was typically regarded as in indigenous cultures the world over: a way to introduce young people entering into the churning of puberty that begins their fashioning as adults to the deepest understandings of what they are, what the world is and what purpose we can derive from it all.  This was a vision that was gained through fasting and being on the land with the Earth’s consciousness to build the sturdiest foundation of selfhood, rooted in steadfast direction.  It was a going within deeper than ever before to find what was inside, something that some of us never get an opportunity to do our whole lives.  I know no greater tragedy…
                There’s so many activities taking place to supplement these endeavours: meditation groups, yoga, the rise of traditional and alternative medicine, the self-help revolution, free dance gatherings, spirituality workshops and so much, much more.  A new culture has not only awoken but I daresay is making its first clumsy steps after a long slumber and the ravaged world is a perfect foil to affirm its sagacity.  And sagacity is really for me what this culture is about: wisdom.  For when we go deep into what we are and the world is we encounter marvels upon marvels of intelligence, complexity and harmony.  It’s actually so mind-blowing to consider any realm of exploration of all things great and small, whether that be quantum physics or ecological principles, to observe that there’s so much ingenuity in what life and the universe at large is that it makes one stop to think why have we not attended to this stuff more before?  Thankfully, we also understand that many of these discoveries are the work of a courageous strand of human spirit that has for aeons been interested in the best of life and has, sometimes even at the peril of genocide, passed the light of knowledge from generation to generation in the most selfless act of sacrifice.  And in our age, we are the recipients of all this courageous acts of continuum, as the many torches of wisdom converge, lighting up the world like never before.  I personally would like to take a moment to pause and pay homage in particular to our First Nations brethren here is the great land of ours who have so bravely been such light-bearers.  We owe so much to them…(www.theturtlelodge.org)
                It is no time to be static; to sit idly by and watch the world.  Nay, the opportunities for self-realization, community activation and beautiful-world reclamation are boundless.  Yet, even as writing this caution, I intuitively feel it’s not even necessary to as I believe more and more people will simply become swayed, uncontrollably attracted to the prospect of attaining a happiness in life built by the strongest of containers; an Earthen vessel (as the Heart’s nature is purported to be by the Ancient Chinese) that can hold all the light in the world. 
                It is the most wondrous thing to come to know that human nature, and all nature, is innately good, and yet you’ll be besieged by detractors, inevitably, upon expressing this truth.  Know when those detractions come (and they will) that we’ve just surfaced from almost drowning to death in disempowered beliefs that have methodically and relentlessly discredited the inherent beauty and virtue of life.  Be patient with them and do not simply tell them the truth you know (refraining from theorizing may be more appropriate in fact) but simply continue to build a relationship to this deepest part of our nature so that it is expressed in all of our acts, however, simple or however varied.  Without fail, we will win over the cynicism that has pervaded like a deathly fog by living our life to our highest and deepest potentials.  This is when it gets really, really good because we’re no longer doing it for ourselves.  In fact, to do so would diminish the whole unfolding of our nature and I’m sure anyone who has veered between selfish and selfless patterns in their life knows this only too well.  We start to understand that the light we’re building is shining on others and the world, in ways we’re just beginning to understand.  We begin to get excited to see this light-work around and within us, to the point where all the obsessive neurosis that formerly was stationed in our psyche has been liberated and unleashed now in an utter surrender to being virtuous and doing good by others. 

"Here I will stand with my hands empty
mind empty under the moon
And if something
takes my life, if a sudden wind
sweeps through me, changing everything
I will not resist
I am ready for whatever comes"
- Clearing, Morgan Farley           

                So confident in our nature, we realize that it truly doesn’t matter what happens to us.  We have more than enough means at our disposal to encounter all adversity and to transform it into something beneficial for all.  No more fear.  No more noxious anxiety and wavering worry.  Only bliss—a rousing joy; a dominating goodness that at sight of anything viceful, woeful or wayfallen, pounces upon it with an ecstatic warmth, ceaseless encouragement and unfaltering belief that there’s another way to live.  Another wondrous way…

Love seeketh not itself to please, nor for itself hath any care,
but for another gives its ease, and builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.
William Blake

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Wonder Is a Prayer: Becoming Ecstatic

“We can make a discipline of awe and become transentient.
Doing so, we might realize an altered sense of humanity.”
John Lamb Lash, Not In His Image

“Revelation (Akasavani) never ceases.”
(from a Tantric scripture sighted by Woodruffe in Shakti and Shakta)

It’s undeniable that the ecstatic is increasingly nudging its way into our daily lives.  Before we go much further in unpacking what I mean by this assertion, let’s make sure we have our language down:

Ecstasy
late 14c., "in a frenzy or stupor, fearful, excited," from O.Fr. estaise "ecstasy, rapture," from L.L. extasis, from Gk. ekstasis "entrancement, astonishment; any displacement," in NT "a trance," from existanai "displace, put out of place," also "drive out of one's mind" (existanai phrenon), from ek "out" (see ex-) + histanai "to place, cause to stand," from PIE base *sta- "to stand" (see stet). Used by 17c. mystical writers for "a state of rapture that stupefied the body while the soul contemplated divine things," which probably helped the meaning shift to "exalted state of good feeling" (1610s).

I want to make this clear because ecstasy is too often described as unparalleled joy (which surely is included in its aura) yet it boasts much more depth and complexity.  I especially want to emphasize ecstasy’s meaning as ‘entrancement’, ‘astonishment’ and as a feeling which ‘drives out the mind’ while ‘contemplating divine things’.  In my personal experience, I find here distinct resonance—the ecstatic becomes me often when my wonder has become, as it were, a prayer; when my perspective has enlarged somehow to make for a greater sense of the world about me, about the self which is me and all beings and, often, those two realms in tandem.  In such a peak experience, I am suffuse with a sense of awe that demands me to revere while at the same time this reverence is not merely sent out to the luster of a starscape overhead, or the unbridled beauty of mountains trampling my horizon, but sent in to the being that is perceiving this; is able to not only perceive but in doing so apprehend some kind of overwhelming magnificence that shimmers my body into something utterly light-like.

There is definitely a rambunctious kind of joy here, in the sense that I’m overflowing with a happiness too immense for me to contain and, thus, trumps any attempts to limit it via calming techniques or simple mental reproaches.  If anything, attempts to impede or slow this effulgence of joy causes pain.  Surely it is as, drawing from the logic of Chinese Medicine, when feelings are arrested by the mind we are literally stagnating the force of life or qi.  Of course, the mind is given whim to do other, more agile and beneficial things with feeling, such as following them to conclusions, notions, actions, etc. but here I am emphasizing the mind’s tendency, as habituated by benumbed Western Culture, to abate any feelings that seem incontrollable and of the frenzied, ecstatic variety; feelings that ultimately ‘drive out the mind’.  Such feelings are a direct attack on the supremacy held by the intellectual mind so prized in Western Culture and point to why they are often encouraged to be suppressed.

“When the people lack a proper sense
of awe, some terrible fate decided by
the universe at large will befall them.”
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

It is with great joy that I am beginning to witness in this very Western Culture to which I am conditioned (and hopefully deconditioning from more and more) that the ecstatic is appearing in evermore frequency, approached by people of many different races, cultural imperatives, classes and the like as a binding force of pure feeling which transcends any limitations that might divide us, drawing us into one soup of succulent humanity.  In a world broken by conflict and inter-species division (which his-story falsifies as the incontrovertible way of life), this human brethren-broth of ecstasy offers one of the most wondrous salve to the fractured sense of humanity at large.  In activities which activate jubilance, either in movement, singing, dancing, even breathing, yoga or impassioned unitive discussion, it seems all of the conditions of society, culture, religion etc. are shook off revealing the essence of human nature.  Moreover, normative to human nature’s coming alive in such spaces and instances is a sense of capacious happiness, as if all we had to do was connect somehow and someway, powerfully, committedly and even (or perhaps essentially) playfully.

The ecstatic can do this and has for aeons been an integral part of indigenous practices (and by indigenous I include here Europeans who have for much of our known history been perpetrators of indigenous destruction but are now becoming more connected to their own native roots in classical Europa culture—see Not In His Image by John Lamb Lash for more on this. This is one of the greatest books written in the modern era with not a tinge of exaggeration).  Whether it be in the shaking ceremonies of the Kalahari, the impassioned Zikr of the Sufis, the many varied and fiery drum-dances that pervade Africa, to the even the modern rave, surrendering to furies of movement, singing and other free-flowing expressions is one of the oldest spiritual practices to connect us with greater dimensions of beingness.  Moreover, this is done fully embodied, not out of the body or even with plant substances such as entheogens.  These are naturally induced states simply utilizing the mind-body-soul in highly vibrant ways that we ‘normally’ would not in our domesticated society.  Paradoxically, it is by losing control of ourselves in such fits of ecstasy that we actually apprehend higher realms of control and guidance that are more based on feelings, vibrations and energetic phenomena rather than intellectual constructions.  It is here that we are coaxed to “see with our feelings.”

It is this engagement with our primal and primordial wildness that is an integral aspect of our culture which modern social norms have rooted out to vicious degrees.  In fact, it is quite tragic to apprehend how rigidly sanctioned expressions of the ecstatic are in modern culture: we’re allowed to go ‘nuts’ at sporting events, or under the influence of alcohol at bars and dance clubs but to enter into ecstatic states anywhere else is often met with the shut-down glances of subtle ostracisms by passerbyes and even the eventual reprimand by police or security forces.  When we apprehend how deep this goes we realize that perhaps in destroying native culture the world over, Western Culture has also destroyed its own connection to one of its most precious expressions and sources of life.

More and more of us are realizing this.  There is a collective interest in expanding the sense of the Self with varied explorations of healing, dance, art, spirituality, even entheogens.  People are understanding that perspectives heal and that ours has been detrimentally narrow.  Even in the Occupy movement I see not the vitriol of anger spewing frustration on monolithic authoritarian systems but a boundless and playful enthusiasm of liberating creativity held long captive in the human essence and now surging forth not out of mere desperation but the joy and confidence in knowing the world can change and we can change it—all of it-- for the better. 

It is here that the ecstatic truly takes shape as something that is vital to the human spirit and the evolution of our species.  We face incredible challenges to transform the world and yet nevermore has there been the awareness of what is really wrong.  But to do so is going to require radical change, courage and community, sourced in a relentless belief in human ingenuity, potential and creativity with a devotion to maintaining positivity—holding light, aloft—in the midst of darkened days.  It is here that the ecstatic dances of our African brethren, the spirit-songs of our First Nations family and the deep, pulsing and shaking core of every human heart set alight by laughter and empowered feelings serves as vital energy to nourish the galvanization of human culture as a force of global change and rectification in the age of mass awakening and collective action.

“In the Mysteries one learns more about nature than about the gods”
Cicero

Let us recall that almost every indigenous culture has its roots in a profound connection to the Earth, seen as the very fount by which our life is not only fed but given purpose.  In this way, we engage a multidimensional reality that sees this planet as something teeming with life, alive itself, and we a blessed part of this wildly complex eco-spiritual journey.  It’s time we made our prayers torches of sun-bursting devotion to the greatness within and without us.  It’s time we embraced all, no matter colour or creed, with the love of meeting another aspect of the Self.  It’s time we danced together, sang together, healed together and created ecstasy together by the sheer force of connecting the light from one heart to another in great conflagrations of knowing and feeling.  We are changing the world, each moment, each thought, each action.  Life has regained a sense of adventure and all are being called to join in the entrancing drama of recreating this world as something of powerful, truthful beauty.  What better case for ecstasy.  I’m shaking as I write this!

I’d like to close with a final passage from John Lamb Lash, here referencing Earth as the Greek Goddess figure, Gaia, and speaking of some the classical Mysteries which we were initiations into spiritual awakening and purpose and often included activities that catalyzed the ecstatic...

“Perceiving Gaia as the Eleusinian initiates did was also an act of love; because the realization that our minds are not our own inspires immense affection for the Other.  Humanity cannot survive without observing the interspecies bond. To love all that is not human, animals and plants, insects, the atmosphere, empowers us to be human. Loving Gaia is the highest calling of humanity. It is also the path of enlightenment that can lead us to coevolution in the most direct way, the safest and sanest way, because the spirituality of the Mystery experience grows directly from our biological endowment.” John Lamb Lash