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# 2018-05-10 - Callings by Gregg Levoy | |
Many-Hued Howls | |
This book was a loan from a friend. I would not describe the writing | |
as concise, but i found a few gems. Mainly, the idea is that | |
callings are liminal, requiring much patience and persistence to hunt | |
and drag out into the open. Below are quoted sections that caught my | |
eye. | |
# Intro | |
This book is about religion in the original sense of the | |
word--re-ligare, to re-connect--to remember what has been | |
dismembered: our own selves, the deep life within us that is a strong | |
"religious" impulse despite whatever outward waywardness our lives | |
may exhibit. It is the sense of 'religion' that psychologist William | |
James meant when he described religion as "the attempt to be in | |
harmony with an unseen order of things," to remember what we already | |
know. | |
Saying yes to the calls tends to place you on a path that half of | |
yourself thinks doesn't make a bit of sense, but the other half knows | |
your life won't make sense without. This latter part, continually | |
pushing out from within us with a centrifugal force, keeps driving us | |
toward authenticity, against the tyranny of fear and inertia and | |
occasionally reason, against terrible odds, and against the knocking | |
in our hearts that signals the hour. | |
The channels through which callings come--whether dreams and symptoms | |
or intuitions and accidents--are like oracles of any kind. They | |
aren't meant to be treated as psychic vending machines, merely | |
dispensing information. They are to be approached for dialog, | |
entered into spiritual correspondence - what the poet William Butler | |
Yeats called "radical innocence." Their answers are typically | |
metaphoric, paradoxical, poetic, and dreamlike, and they require | |
reflection and conversation. | |
It is precisely the quality of fragility, he [Ilya Prigogine] says, | |
the capacity for being "shaken up," that is paradoxically the key to | |
growth. Any structure--whether at the molecular, chemical, | |
physicalc, social, or psychological level--that is insulated from | |
disturbance is also protected from change. It is stagnant. Any | |
vision--or anything--that is true to life, to the imperatives of | |
creation and evolution, will not be unshakable. | |
Calls keep surfacing until we deal with them. | |
The difference that any of us will ultimately make in the world is | |
equivalent to our throwing a stone in the sea. Science tells us that | |
because the stone is lying on the bottom, the level of the water | |
_must_ have risen, but there is no way to measure it. We must take | |
it entirely on faith. | |
# Chapter 1 | |
By turning on our devoted attention, by becoming students of our | |
lives, archivists of life's details, we may distinguish the calls | |
that are raining on us constantly, though they are obscured by our | |
inattention. | |
This is typical of the rational mind. It is the nature of the beast | |
whose habitat is an era and a culture that mistrust and denigrate the | |
impulses of the deeper brain--intuition, feeling, sensing, instinct, | |
dream. These functions of our guidance system are rejected by the | |
rational within us in part because they're primitive, in part because | |
we can't measure and control them, and in part because they smack of | |
the feminine. We disassociate with them because they scare us. | |
Unfortunately, for us, much power is embedded in the deep brain, | |
including survival skills and many of the underground flumes through | |
which callings well to the surface. | |
Self-awareness also requires that we have _curiosity_ about | |
ourselves, Tart says. We need to resurrect the sort of basic | |
inquisitiveness we had as children, that we usually directed | |
_outward_ ... | |
Through some trial and error, I have discovered that often the best | |
bait to use in luring a call is a little space. We need time when | |
we're not engaged in what the Taoists refer to as "the ten thousand | |
things." When we give off nothing but busy signals, calls simply | |
don't get through. There's no room for them. | |
[media fasting] not tuning into radio, TV, [Internet,] magazines, and | |
newspapers for a period of time. Start with an hour then build up. | |
[It helps you be better able to discern your own voices from those of | |
your culture.] | |
"You have to be willing to step into a mysterious unknown situation | |
and listen to the creative response within you, whether it be music, | |
a voice of wisdom, an inspirational idea, or a calling to just be | |
spontaneous." | |
"When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates | |
his mind wonderfully." Death is a strip search. It points the | |
barrel of mortality at your head and demands to see what you have | |
hidden under your garments. It also asks the question "What do you | |
love?" | |
# Chapter 2 | |
The answer is in the outcome, she insists. "What is the _feedback_ | |
your life gives you? Is your energy growing or shriveling? Moving | |
or getting jammed up? Is your life deepening? And don't jump to | |
conclusions about results. Maybe you have to wait for more evidence | |
before deciding what a thing means." | |
The unconscious is always one step ahead of the conscious mind--the | |
one that _knows_ things--so it's impossible to know for sure. But if | |
you're willing to sit with ambiguity, to accept uncertainties and | |
contradictory meanings, then your unconscious will always be a step | |
ahead of your conscious mind in the right direction. You'll | |
therefore do the right thing, although you won't know it at the time. | |
One thing I learned in the speaking classes was that when people | |
speak from their hearts, _everyone_ is interesting. I needed to | |
learn how to be really authentic in front of people, which by itself, | |
i think, is of tremendous value to people. | |
A poetic basis of mind is, in a manner of speaking, the opposable | |
thumb of discernment, because with it we are able to grasp things we | |
simple couldn't before. | |
Still, a calling is ultimately mysterious, and the process of | |
discernment is always a bit of a guessing game. | |
# Chapter 3 | |
Sometimes these contrary exertions inside us feel like gladiators | |
tied together for a fight to the finish, and sometimes like swimming | |
bodies of yin and yang swirling around in the same fishbowl. Either | |
way, the opposing forces occupy a space that is like an ecotone, a | |
transition zone between two ecological communities like forest and | |
grassland or river and desert. They compete, yes; the word ecotone | |
means a house divided, a system in tension. But they also exchange, | |
swapping juices, information, and resources. Ecotones have | |
tremendous biological diversity and resilience. | |
[research Fellowship of Reconciliation] | |
# Chapter 4 | |
Whatever passions you can specify, know that there are also passions | |
within those passions that constitute their emotional cores, which is | |
what you're _really_ after, the _needs_ your passions satisfy, what | |
you want them to bring to you. | |
# Chapter 5 | |
[This chapter is about dream interpretation.] | |
# Chapter 6 | |
Like dreams, body symptoms present information of which we're | |
unconscious... They mean something. They have wisdom, metaphoric | |
power, method in their madness. | |
We are not so much responsible _for_ our illness, says author and | |
Buddhist teacher Steve Levine, as we are responsible _to_ our | |
illness. The question is not so much what to do _about_ our | |
suffering, but what to do _with_ it. | |
Change may or may not ameliorate the symptom, depending on how long | |
we've waited before making the change, but it can have a powerful | |
impact on the course of not only an illness but also a life. For | |
instance, among those who have experienced spontaneous | |
remissions--over 90%, Berrie Siegel says, first experienced major, | |
and favorable, change in their lives prior to the healing.... These | |
people, however, didn't make their changes in hopes of effecting such | |
an outcome, but "to do things more appropriate to living than dying," | |
as one man put it. Healing was a _by-product_ of the change. | |
# Chapter 7 | |
The things that happen to us are a kind of feedback, and interpreting | |
that feedback is critical to knowing how to proceed. | |
Any family reunion. However exalted we imagine ourselves to be in | |
spiritual and emotional matters, we have only to spend a few days | |
around our families to see how far we still have to go and what in | |
particular we need to work on. | |
We derive meaning from "just coincidence" when an external event | |
matches up with an event on the inside. A synchronicity is a | |
coincidence that has an analogue in the psyche. Depending on how we | |
understand meaningful coincidence, it can inform us primarily through | |
intuition, how near or far we are from what Carlos Castaneda calls | |
"the path with heart." | |
Synchronicities remind us that the world is shot through with mystery | |
and extravagant gesture, and we ought to be amazed that _any_ of it | |
happens. | |
In _The Global Brain_, Peter Russel asserts that meditation and | |
synchronicity are connected. The more you meditate, the more | |
synchronicities you will find. | |
Michael Talbot, author of _The Holographic Universe_ feels that | |
synchronicities not only point to transitions and emerge from them | |
but also tend to peak when the shift is just about to happen. | |
# Chapter 8 | |
Art is something we express instinctively. We can use art to bring | |
us in line with our callings. Through art we can also reactivate the | |
mind of the child within us, which knows what it knows with great | |
simplicity and accuracy. | |
Soul is closer to movement than it is to fixity, said Socrates, and | |
loss of soul is the condition of being stuck--fixated on something, | |
as the psychologists would say--and overcome by the downward-pushing | |
forces that govern all moving bodies: gravity and inertia. The arts, | |
being about creativity and therefore about change, are ideal for | |
leading us toward movement... | |
If you made discerning your callings your priority, then the | |
"quality" of your creative efforts is determined by how _honest_ they | |
are, how true the expressions are to your inner experience. | |
The technique called _free association_ abets this process of self | |
discovery. | |
But given half a chance, the unconscious will definitely associate | |
with us, and it is a genius. | |
# Chapter 9 | |
Questioning is at the heart of spirit. Journeying, or leaving home | |
for time to go on retreat, pilgrimage, or vision quest, of removing | |
ourselves from the duties and dramas, the relationships and roles | |
that bombard us with messages that may be distracting or irrelevant | |
or even destructive to our emerging sense of self, and that interfere | |
with our asking for responses to our burning questions. | |
"I went to strip away what I had been taught," Georgia O'Keef said, | |
describing her retreat to New Mexico from New York City in the | |
1920's, "to accept as true my own thinking. This was one of the best | |
times of my life. There was no one around to look at what I was | |
doing, no one interested, no one to say anything about it one way or | |
another. I was alone and singularly free. | |
Simply taking up a bedroll and hitting the road won't generally | |
suffice to alert the forces of enlightenment, however... maintaining | |
a spirit of observance and self reflection is key. We must be intent | |
on spending time searching for soul, moving toward something that | |
represents to us an ideal... Without this intention, our pilgrimages | |
are only vacations, our vision quests are struck blind, our retreats | |
are not also advances. ... Perhaps we're even escapees, people in | |
flight rather than in quest. | |
Being _alone_ [in the wilderness] is the challenge of undertaking a | |
vision quest... A mouse scrabbling around in the underbrush becomes a | |
monster. | |
In any case, we need to know what we're looking for, and by having a | |
clear question, we are halfway to getting an intelligible answer. | |
Questioning is a prerequisite to change and innovation, and without | |
it there is no discovery. | |
A therapist of my acquaintance, Winifred Kessler, once conducted a | |
communication seminar for couples, during which, contrary to custom, | |
the women spent one whole day making declarative statements while the | |
men spent the day asking questions. The result: The women were | |
energized, the men were exhausted. One reason for this, Kessler | |
said, is that those in authority (usually men) make statements, and | |
those not in authority (usually women) ask questions, and it's more | |
energizing to be in authority, to be _an_ authority. | |
The best way to communicate your experience to others, says Foster, | |
is not to talk about it but to live it. "Vision, if it is anything, | |
is your life story in action." | |
# Chapter 10 | |
Our past is intricately woven into our calls, and we can learn much | |
about those calls by casting the occasional glance backward. | |
[patterns, shadow side, etc.] | |
# Chapter 11 | |
Remember though, that resistance is also a _good_ omen. It means | |
you're close to something important, something vital for your soul's | |
work here, something worthy of you. | |
I had the realization that i and my entire generation, my whole | |
civilization, in fact, are going to be one thin layer of sediment in | |
the side of a cliff some day. Yet precisely _because_ it makes a | |
flyspeck of a difference whether I write my essays or not, somehow | |
this frees me up to write, to follow the calling, to do whatever I | |
want, because there is no failure or rather, failure is already | |
assumed. I'm going to die and be a million years dead, and anyone | |
who might pass judgment on me for my pursuits and mistakes will be a | |
fossil right next to mine in that cliffside. | |
Under those circumstances [impoverished conditions] the notion of | |
following a call seems out of place, almost impudent, a thing of | |
privilege. | |
When it comes to the reasons for saying no to a calling, most of them | |
seem to pale when compared to the issue of basic self-esteem, that | |
core regard for ourselves, that part of us that knows exactly why we | |
should be here tomorrow... Elevating self-esteem though is among the | |
most difficult work there is. | |
# Chapter 12 | |
[Wake-up calls] Crisis is Latin for "to decide," and when in a | |
crisis, you have to _decide_ to wake up. | |
If you desire consciously to succeed at a calling, there are also | |
unconscious parts of you, Wilbur says, that don't want to succeed. | |
If you succeed, for instance, that very success will probably demand | |
more and more of your time, time not spent with your family or | |
friends, and part of you knows you're going to hear about it. By not | |
following the call, you keep such a conflict at bay... What all this | |
tells us, Wilbur says, is that some part of us _wants_ every fear, | |
symptom, and neurosis we possess. | |
Some part of us has perfectly sound reasons to play a leading role in | |
creating and perpetuating them. Rather than fighting them--and | |
ourselves--Wilbur recommends that we use active imagination and | |
compassionate listening to reflect on those parts of us and seek to | |
understand them. | |
# Chapter 14 | |
Faith contains a certain ferocity, an unspoken demand that to | |
maintain it we part ways with comfort and give up something we have | |
for something we want. | |
Sacrifice... is the price we _all_ pay for growth. | |
Calls are not immutable... Compromise, after all, means promising | |
_together_. | |
Whatever our choices, we have to be willing to renunciate "the | |
infiniteness of our aspirations," says Edward Whitmont in The | |
Symbolic Quest, for the sake of bringing those aspirations into being | |
at all. ... Any endeavor contains more desires and possibilities than | |
you can carry to fulfillment. Something's got to give. | |
# Chapter 15 | |
Although our calls are our own, nowhere is it written that we must | |
pursue them alone. | |
Instead of just searching for advice on what to do to respond to you | |
callings, tell others what they can do for you. Guide the guides by | |
telling them _exactly_ what kind of help you need. | |
# Chapter 16 | |
Having resolved some of the splits within ourselves, we also become | |
more adept at resolving splits between ourselves and others, and in | |
the world. With the ability to be in relationship to what moves | |
beneath the surface in our own lives... we ourselves may become | |
navigators for others, if only by example. | |
author: Levoy, Gregg, 1955- | |
detail: http://www.gregglevoy.com/callings/index.html | |
LOC: BF637.S4 L487 | |
tags: book,non-fiction,self-help | |
title: Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life | |
# Tags | |
book | |
non-fiction | |
self-help |