Here and now

5.0.06

on the cult of present moment in spiritualist circles

Aside of experiencing the peace of mind in speaking without interruption, the core idea of heart circle is to present oneself in one’s own truth as good as one is able to grasp it at the moment. This conditions the unique feature of radical faeries as a community among many others – circumventing pointless and exhausting battles by allowing people to speak and be heard, withholding a mechanism to argument and argue. I tell my personal experience into the middle, you cry your personal experience into the middle, he screams his personal experience into the middle. Each one may refer to the same situation or even conflict. But we do not engage in proving to the others why our own truth is the correct one. We just hear the multiple perspectives on the same truth – it allows us to See it in its complexity and wholeness. A bit less "straight" approach (who is right and who is wrong, who wins and who loses, who’s opinion prevails and who will submit), a "queer window" instead - seeing the diverse, multi-fold nature of the reality. The multitude of eyes that not only see the object from many sides, but co-define so what it actually is – the essence of Seeing with capital S.

The elder’s guidelines advise us to focus on the feelings and not the thoughts. How do we distinguish them, if both of them pass through the mind (linguistics) in order to be grasped and expressed? One of the methods prompts us to discard sentences that start with "I think" and dive into the "I feel" statements. It may encourage the inner research, but as any rule it may as well invite a lousy trick: Prepending any type of sentence with mechanical "I feel that ...". The judgment (contested further by the idea(l) of non-judgmental space) is with the audience. And the speaker as well – it’s up to them (and their own healing benefit) as to what quality they allow in their sharing.

Another advice brings attention to non-verbal symptoms accompanying our speech. Do we look at our audience, someone’s particular eyes (audience, performance), up to the ceiling or sky (implying thoughts) or down to the floor, earth or depth of one’s emotional space? This perspective may aid us if it is taken for what it is – a metaphor – not a mechanical evaluation method. One needs to be in touch with their core, know their personal habits, be aware and ready to observe themselves in this particular scrutiny.

I have encountered the facilitators who discouraged participants to dig into the past and focus on the idolized "here and now". The worship of the Present Moment - as the singular point of genuine truth – is a most common copied cliché of various misinterpretations of exotic teachings. Imagine the faeries reconvening with their family of heart after months or years of nobody really seeing and hearing them in their truth, nobody interested in their complex story, nobody to share the recent or resurfacing past traumas with ... and having to face this limitation of saying what is imminent. Isn’t it alike to the outer-world experience of nobody really listening, nobody interested in real us, all of us, as we are, as we want to be seen, with our past, present and dreams of future?

What happens right now, anyways? "I am arriving." "I am happy to be here." "I am so grateful." A spider weaves his web in the corner. Candle burns through slowly. People digesting dinner. The invitation to a present moment may help transport the individuals form their remote affairs into the group event, into the intention of heart-circle, as an opening ritual perhaps … but would serve a very contradictory purpose throughout: It enforces superficiality. Contrary to the depth aimed for.

The contrast of thoughts and feelings, arguing and sharing, surface and depth, quantity and quality – evokes the epic difference between spirit and the soul (eventually mind, reason, ego, body, self and other constituent entities of a wholesome being) as described by the depth/archetypal school of psychology. Quite easy-to-grasp metaphor distinguishes them as a crown and the roots of a tree. A crown aims high (eyes up) towards the sunlight, bright future, the visions. That’s the spirit who dreams, who wants to achieve, who wishes that the forces of light beat the darkness – the typical one-sided stereotype of spirituality and religion or any other ideology bringing better tomorrows. The roots dig deep (eyes down) into the darkness, suck nutrients from the decomposing previous life – as much as the soul feeds on memories, nostalgia, perspective, grasping our life in a wholeness of its storyline. Soul works with the obscure matters – pain, sadness, depression, illness, death, finality, carnality, sensuality and of course the sexuality in the diversity of its forms resisting all the good manners of the spiritual or rational society.

This image sketches pretty well the distinction of what’s above surface and what is that ephemeral depth that we adore so much. If radical in "radical faeries" refers to Latin radix ("root"), we get quite a clear clue what that clumsy dichotomy of heart versus mind means. I tend to associate the heart with the realm of the soul, so different and paradoxical in its feelings from the thinking mind, the analyzing reason and the future-envisioning spirit. If the elder’s suggestion was to connect with one’s essence, deep down, it is pretty clear that soul perceives every here-and-now on the background of what was. Our past gives the meaning and context to the random moments of bliss or sadness, it actually evokes feelings around them, precisely because our history shaped us to experience them in this particular and personalized way.

The tree is the wholesome being – the roots, the stem, the crown are always cooperating. So I would warn against idealizing feelings above thoughts – in a mechanical reaction to the outside-world’s ways. The thoughts resonate in feelings, the feelings shape the thoughts. What does my heart want to say? Perhaps the vision, the thought, or daresay opinion (!) is what stirs my bowels at this particular moment, it’s what I need, what I dream, what makes me particularly happy or depressed. The focus on roots in depth cannot deny their direct connection towards the highest of the leafs. The buds, the blooming, the fading - the responses of the "above" to the seasonal changes – is part of life of the tree, whatever inert the "timeless" roots remain.

Even more refined and subtle distinction happens between the emotions and expressions. What is happening inside one’s soul – and what appears on the surface thanks to involuntary bodily symptoms, or intentional use of means of self-expression? Several times in my life I have been contrasted with someone else’s self-image as an emotional person. Of course, this did hurt a bit. The fact that someone’s face or facade display all his inner stirrings immediately does not negate the fact that there are storms passing through me. I may find it awkward or uncomfortable to "perform" aligned with my depths, I may find that interconnection inaccessible or impossible. As even I can confirm, the surface may be easily used to fool the other as much as oneself. The drama can be as artificial, as the matter-of-fact statement of tormenting feelings may be authentic.

At the end, this is a game of trust in genuine nature of what others decide to present to us. The non-judgmental imperative (if I may dare to present it that way) compels us to accept the others as they are - with their talents and disabilities, natural performers or not. The form uncovers their unique history and peculiarities of their native environment – but the content reveals their nature.