This blog has taken 10yrs to develop and is framed as an iteration of work both old and new. Some of it draws from new work developed by Bojan Radej and Mojca Golobic in Complex Society :In the Middle of a Middle World (2021) and other more ancient understandings from The Dhammayut Order of Theravadan Buddhism but also the feminine notion of the Sophia of Christ as a psychic release from symbolised Jungian Archetypes of an Anima and Animus Possession.

It is about our senses of freedom and for good measure the approach here also includes a knot handling appreciation; of the Impulse to Freedom, as talked about by Roy Bhaskar and the Fear of Freedom as discussed by Fromm. Both of which phenomenon are captured but not released in The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel A.van der Kolk.

It also draws on insights from Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) and many others including Sufism too.

The premise is simple enough.

The real isn’t well formed it is messy and contradictory. A reliance on theory driven explanations is flawed especially when we know that the real is the beyond, behind, beneath and above the appearances we take for granted, it is in the gaps and experienced only as pure nonsense, turmoil, catastrophe and chaos that science alone can only approximate. Heart Learning is a mesoscopic bridge leading in all directions and none – offering breathtaking breathing space to trauma suffers. Such is the urgency to engage in this task that some, like Wallerstein (1989) suggests that it will take until 2040 for individuals and societies to make sense of this. It’s unlikely that I will exist in 2040 so an effort to do so now is ever so more important. It is my contention that mesoscopic agency is crucial to a peaceful future – the exploration of trauma suffering and recovery an essential part of this goal attainment.

So even though the mind is intangible, and has influence over the body and all things in the world. It is capable of bringing everything in the world under its control. Still, one has to ask is it so vicious or savage as to lack all sense of good or evil. When a good person of good intentions is prevented from their path of Heart Learning what is being lost? Is our collective ability to be tractable and quick to learn, developing wisdom to bring the body, which may be behaving without any principles, back into line. Heart Learning can cleanse the self to be bright and clean, free of defilements, able to realise by itself truths that are subtle and profound, bringing dazzling light into this world so dark with blindness.

This is because the true substance of the mind has been, from the very beginning, something bright and clear. But because of the preoccupations that have seeped down into it and clouded it, the brightness of the mind has been temporarily darkened, there probably wouldn’t be anyone able to cleanse it to the point where it could give rise to the light of discernment at all.

So whether the world is dark or bright, whether it is to experience well-being or suffering, depends on the heart of each individual to listen to and learn the wisdom of Heart Learning. It is about sailing the voids so that you go to the place where nothing is known and everything is possible. It’s about dialling back in, so to speak. Dialling back to a primordial connection to an innate and naturally occurring intuitive, magnetic and creative self. (Kaia Ra, The Sophia Code 2021)

I write from the perspective of having been a somebody – indeed I could boast about having letters after my name – to becoming a nobody and renouncing and giving away everthing – only to learn that I suffer with CPTSD and a radically different path was available, if only I had opened my heart to myself.

In my next blog I would have liked to say how an unremarkable and ordinary day 10yrs ago I started to unravel, spiraling increasely out of control.

Unfortunately, Court requirements restrict, what and when I can talk about this.

Sucking it up again. No problem. Such is the beauty of English law. Best in the world, no?

references

Mind, Meaning and Mental Disorder : The Nature of Causal Explanation in Psychology and Psychiatry by Derek Bolton and Jonathan Hill (1999)

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel A.van der Kolk (2021)

Fear of Freedom by Erich Fromm (1942)

Dialect: The Impulse of Freedom. Classical Texts in Critical Realism by Roy Bhaskar (2008)

The Sophia Code, Kaia Ra (2021)

Complex Society. In the Middle of a Middle World by Bojan Radej and Mojca Golobic (2021)

A Chanting Guide: The Dhammayut Order of the United States (1994)

Listening Dangerously:The Inner Dimensions of Dialogue Training by Judith Simmer Brown (2020)

The Transformation of Sophia by Barbara Newman (2015)

Ubuntu: I in You and You in Me by Battle. M, Spiritus 11.1 (2011:136-38)

The Mirror and the Rose: Virile Women – Possessed by Spirit. The invention of affective meditation and compassion in Medieval Europe by Sarah McNamer (2015)