Uncultured Philosophy

With conscious revolution karma becomes negotiable, fate can be ended and blame, guilt, shame and remorse extinguished.

We used to practice initiation rituals, we used to ceremonially challenge our youth to foster physical and psychological resilience and come into adulthood, strong, tuned in and turned on, but the shadow journey to personal empowerment, was recently patricized into a hero’s journey of slaying the monster lurking 'out there' and His story’s ‘war on everything’. The hero’s journey is arguably our most gravitated to myth, the archetypal story of personal growth takes us to the core of our fears and doubts and urges us to muster the courage to face them head-on, to dig deep into the ground of our being and grow beyond our conditioned limitations. Who wouldn’t be drawn to that? In real life, pretty much only people who need the money, most of us choose to perform idiot rituals instead like watch action movies, have dress up parties and wear the costume of our hero, and watch sports. Still, the profound depth to which we resonate with this ‘holy grail’ story of stories (the golden chalice that Indiana Jones was desperate to possess by the way, is a patricized metaphor for Womb, the origin mythos of empowerment is in fact the story Venus) teaches us to place our trust in an outcome that is beyond our control, and to work with, rather than against, the irresistible nature of consciousness evolving through us. Ultimately the journey reveals to us that the most terrifying confrontation we can have, is the one with ourselves, between who we are and who we are becoming, between our adapted selves and who we truly are. When reduced to its elements, disempowerment is an unconscious fear of our own potential, of embodying the power we know we have. Epic tales of overcoming adversity are all symbolic of the personal psycho-spiritual quest for evolution through significant healing, a process that requires us to master our inner resources and find out what we are made of, and why. If we become aware of how this myth is active in our own lives, we can be inspired rather than enamoured or entranced by external saviours and cease projecting our power onto them, and we can consciously accept and seek out the challenges in our lives that offer to reunite us permanently with latent super-soul-parts itching to be summoned from within us. The reason phoenix rises from its own ashes, is because we alone are the source of our own empowerment. The Astrological Fixed Grand Cross - Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius - Life’s Backbone By the way, all of our stories; from pre-history, religious and all the way to Disney, are borne of our natural astrological archetypes and the timeless, pan-cultural mythos of the hero's journey represents the maturation process of a life cycle, a full trip around the natural zodiac. The climactic theme of the story is self-reliance, personal growth and transformation; the Yoga of the Taurus (fixed Earth) and Scorpio (fixed Water) axis. To complete the backbone of life that is the astrological Fixed Grand Cross, the Leo (fixed Fire) and Aquarius (fixed Air) axis, is also significantly imbedded into this ancient story. So, whilst the Taurus/Scorpio axis represents the cultivation and use of material and psycho-emotional resources, the Leo/Aquarius axis correlates to our creativity and mental stability, strategy and stamina, the parts of us that understand that if we trust our hearts and stay with the process, we will arrive exactly where and when we are meant to. Finally, the journey culminates with our return ‘home’, the image of the matured and wiser hero, the Aquarian water-bearer who pours out revitalising waters of elevated consciousness, symbolising sharing our new perspectives and experiential wisdom for the good of All. The level of commitment, courage and fortitude it takes to bear our 'cross' is significant and touching, we respect and celebrate our heroes for this and take solace in being reminded by them of the strength of spirit that humanity shares. The founder of Evolutionary Astrology, Jeffrey Wolf Green said: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate; our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” Because owning and standing in our true power, takes a lot of courage and responsibility. The psychology at the core of the deliberate confusion of who we truly are, or gaslighting, robs us of the awareness of ourselves as powerful and unique creations of immutable origin, and thus creates and recreates our subconscious, pathological powerlessness, one traumatised generation after another. We are born, often surgically removed, and assigned roles and privileges based on our place of birth, heredity, race and gender and for the sake of survival and belonging, we assume the identities assigned to us, quickly abandoning any of our parts that threatens our primary care attachment and social inclusion. ’When I do this, I get rewarded, but when I do that, I get rejected, and if I get rejected, I won’t survive.’ Keep in mind that of all of the mammals on Earth, humans are born the least developed and therefore the most co-dependent. And so it is, that the unconscious seed of deathly fear of who we truly are is planted and evoked through the mythos of our hero. Whether we abandon the soul-parts we were programmed to believe were a threat to our survival, or we suppress our emotional overwhelm due to insufficient empathy or fear of rejection, punishment or isolation, patricultural conditioning is the origin of our trauma. Nothing makes this clearer than what we have learned from the few prehistoric tribes still left on Earth, to whom the concept of trauma does not exist. “Men have gained control over the forces of nature to such an extent that with their help they would have no difficulty exterminating one another to the last man. They know this, and hence comes a large part of their current unrest, their unhappiness and their mood of anxiety.” - Sigmund Freud The biggest mistake ever made by humanity was to believe that if we suppress consciousness, in any form, it simply goes away. Man vs Nature is a competition that was never going to end well for man. So, what happens to blocked energy? It naturally builds, becomes distorted, exaggerated or deficient and toxic. That recurring illness or that person that makes us uncomfortable is a mirror to the parts of us that are lost, rejected or hiding in our shadow, and war, genocide, poverty, pollution and the election of ruthless dictators are simply reflections of said individual shadow-parts en masse. Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Author of Women Who Run with Wolves, and Spirit Mother to humanity, says: “It’s not by accident that the pristine wilderness of our planet disappears as the understanding of our own inner wild nature fades.” So, is the state of the world our individual responsibility? To the degree that we are unconscious of our shadow, yes. Ignorance and victimhood are temporary residences, and as soon as we realise that; ‘no-one deserves that, I was an innocent victim’ or ‘I really didn’t mean to do that, but I did’, it’s our responsibility to start taking steps towards healing and improving our situation and in this way become the change we want to see in the world. If a culture exists to condition and suppress what is natural and normalise and enforce what is not, then that culture has become distorted and harmful to life. Breaking free from mainstream cultural possession, often results in being personally, professionally and socially ridiculed, cancelled or even scapegoated, one such individuated soul, Albert Einstein, explained why: “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.” For a time, the ancient mainstream cultural ritual of purging the psycho-emotional affect of accumulated unresolved trauma onto scapegoats before exiling or executing them, offers temporary catharsis and the illusion of social cohesion, however our continued bypassing of the origin of our chronic biopsychosocial and now biospheric dysfunction, has lead to ever worsening repetitions of our darkest times of the past. When cultural distortion becomes extreme, brutality in the form of fascism, dictators and the gruesome phenomena of war and genocide emerge, and whilst individual, family and community bonds are torn apart, in a total flip of reality, humanity's most free-thinking, truth-speaking and innovative individuals are declared mad or a danger to society. Scapegoated heroes endure the worst suffering imaginable for a human; betrayal, persecution, abandonment, exile and death, all by their own kin and collective, this is a focal archetype of our times, so as we watch western democratic culture crumble, it’s interesting to note that in the West’s own man-made religious mythology (the Holy Bible) the hero (Jesus Christ) was a scapegoat. Talk about an unresolved karmic complex! Archetypally, wrath is employed to transform illusion, in patriarchal tales, we would all be familiar with a hero embodying a kind of ruthless savagery, to clash with unreasonably gigantic opposition. Anger, aggression and rage are primal instinctual responses that quickly enable us to assert protective boundaries, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually; who would question the use of violence in self-defence? Hanna Arendt, arguably the most important political philosopher of the twentieth century reminded us in her book, The Origins of Totalitarianism, that rage is the natural response to injustice, defining it not as irrational, but as an appropriate response to hypocrisy, stating that: “When words don't match action, it is impossible to respond in a reasoned way.” Anyone that has awakened to the realisation that they were betrayed, deceived or gaslit, knows rage. Anger is a raw, life affirming creative force, it mobilises our defence, protection and discipline and ignites our passion for expression, adventure and joy, so why then is it arguably the most gaslit part of our nature? The unapologetic, individual, autonomous parts of self that assert; ‘I am’ are powerful and so feared by controlling cultural systems, that it is wounded early. In fact, there was a recent addition to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) called Oppositional Defiance Disorder (ODD), so according to our modern culture, basically anyone that challenges authority or opposes mainstream narratives, has a clinically mental illness. So, what happens to collective repressed rage? As mentioned earlier, consciousness, especially powerfully charged emotion, cannot simply disappear, therefore it does what it can; accumulate, distort and continually seeks to be activated and cathartically released. Repressed rage either turns in on itself causing inflammation, disease, depression, addiction, suicide, self-harm or gets projected outward and discharged onto vulnerable others; women, children, pets, employees, stigmatised minorities, just look around. Fire pulls the spirit up from demoralisation, despair and depression, it melts the protective ice fortresses we build around our broken hearts, it lights the way and brings us together, it is the hearth at the centre of our homes and of our bellies, but Fire can also seriously injure or permanently destroy whatever it touches. When we accept our anger and take responsibility for its transformative capacity, it can be socialised, practiced and mastered, and humanity's most destructive and creative force can finally start to be used wisely. Rising up, speaking out and being willing to stand alone in the flame of our truth is terrifying, but it’s the work of everyone that wakes up from the nightmare of cultural oppression in order to help liberate others and cultivate change. It is our duty to become the hero of our story. I once had a highly traumatised Buddhist client question whether aggressive self-protection was loving, to which I reminded him; compassion has teeth. Leaving home and learning to fend for ourselves is the first major test of our inner hero, the stakes are high and we begin applying risk, making sacrifices and accepting consequences. Integrating our hero-parts is an especially daunting undertaking for those that have both suffered severe ego violations early in life or had an overly sheltered upbringing, because when we lack a solid self-identity, we lack the will or confidence to take real risks, and therefore it’s natural that so many of us engage with our heroes on big screens, battle fields and in sporting arenas, because in this way we are able to pacify our soul’s desire for self-empowerment. Of course, most people resist the insecurity of heading off into the wilderness to find out for themselves if empowerment really does arise from the ashes of their former selves, I get it, but at some point our fears and doubts must be confronted, it is natural law and is why the Tibetan Buddhists taught us to practice dying, metaphorically, every day. Our real-life spiritual quests often begin with a major trauma like the death of a loved one, a major disillusionment or betrayal, divorce, bankruptcy, serious accident or illness, simply because sometimes only an existential cataclysm can force us to rescue ourselves.