INTRODUCTION

The Meaning of Our World in Transformation

Since the beginning of human history and the development of conscious thinking, dating back hundreds of thousands of years, cultures have questioned the meaning of life and formed an understanding of our relationship with the Earth and the Universe. The forms of these cosmologies have changed across time and across cultures. How are we to decipher these ways of understanding life and the meaning of our existence? How do we become more consciously aware of the beliefs and values that shape our world in this time? How do we find a deeper purpose and meaning that can guide us in how to live our lives?

We currently live in an intense time of transition and transformation. Many of us feel the increasing pace of time and the escalating tensions in our world. We are faced with ever-erupting global conflicts and wars related to militant forces of nationalism and fundamentalism. We confront an increasing environmental crisis as we push our own and the Earth’s survival to the brink of disaster. Hunger and famine are more widespread, and the gap between the world’s wealthy and the poor is widening. Conflicts about nationality, ethnicity, gender, and religious beliefs are rampant.

The current world systems and social structures that we have relied on for our sense of stability and security are increasingly dysfunctional or are disintegrating. We feel the collapse of the paradigms of the past, and this in turn evokes widespread anxiety, anger, confusion, and polarization across the globe. This has led to uprisings, revolts, and chaos in many countries, as well as the rise of dictators or totalitarian and authoritarian leaders who seize power and control either through fueling people’s fear or by presenting an illusion of being the one who can bring order out of chaos.

Individually, many of us feel that our lives need to change, yet we do not know how to do that or what that might mean. How do we make sense of this period of change and turmoil? How do we find our way in the increasing chaos and confusion of these times? Is there some larger meaning or purpose that lies beneath these crises? Where do we turn for answers?

In the midst of individual and collective turbulence, the religious institutions that have been a source of solace and of beliefs defining our sense of reality are showing signs of stress, fragmentation, and collapse. The Catholic Church has been fraught with accusations of sexual abuse and corruption in the United States and Europe, and this has led to a significant reduction in membership. In most modern Western countries, there has been a significant decline in religious belief as well as attendance in religious institutions.

We also see religious and political conflicts around the globe—in the Middle East, in Russia and Ukraine, in Sudan, and in Myanmar. These are just a few examples of what is happening around the globe. How do we understand the increasing violence, destruction, and polarization that is occurring in our world? Where do we turn to find solace and spiritual guidance? Why are we experiencing such turbulent times?

Perhaps, if we view our current experience in the larger context of human history, we can gain clues as to what we are experiencing and how to navigate these intense times. In ancient cultures, there was a deep understanding that our lives are guided and mirrored by the movements of the stars and planets as well as by changes here on Earth. Across human history, the Great Year, the precessional cycle of approximately 24,000 years in which the pole stars and constellations of the ecliptic gradually shift in the sky, has given us guidance regarding the evolution and shifts of our consciousness as well as cultural and Earth changes. Since ancient times, spiritual teachers and guides have known that the transitions from one astrological age to the next are times of turmoil. Part of the turbulence of our current time relates to the shifts in consciousness that we are experiencing in this transition from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius. Our ways of knowing, thinking, and formulating reality are being called into transformation and transmutation.

As we move through this shift, we are becoming more aware of the destructiveness of the paradigms of the past five thousand years. During this time, we moved into the patriarchal period, with an increasing suppression of the wisdom of the Sacred Feminine, an increasing disconnection from the Earth, and increasing division in our relationships with each other. These paradigms have valued power-over—conquest and control versus compassion, collaboration, and community. They idealize individuality, competition, and the accumulation of wealth rather than living in balance and harmony with each other and with the natural environment. We have seen the effects of the dominance of scientific materialism, linear thinking, and disconnection from Spirit and from a sense of interconnectedness with the life around us.

This has led to increasing polarization and division between self and other, spirit and nature, and the Sacred Masculine and Sacred Feminine. We see this polarization exemplified in the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle and further refined by the work of René Descartes and the scientific revolution. This destructive dualism and polarization have been codified in religious systems of thought that view the body as separate from spirit, and humans as set apart from nature. Nature is devalued in these patriarchal paradigms and seen as a resource to be exploited and controlled. Women, in their intrinsic connection with nature in their monthly cycles and childbearing, have also been devalued in patriarchal society. But as we will see, this split has not always been evident in human history.

In addition, we see the ongoing devaluation or active destruction of Indigenous cultures and other voices in the world that hold a different perspective and could guide us in coming back into balance with each other and the world around us. Despite the increasing cultural and environmental devastation surrounding us, those who dominate the world see this as a time when humanity is at its pinnacle of advancement.

The dualism in the world and the power-over paradigms, and the way they have impacted our sense of self and relationships with each other, is also evident in the history of our understanding of the human mind and in the development of psychology across the past one hundred years. Much of early psychological theory has been about the development of an individuated self (i.e., consider the theories of Freud and Jung as well as much of psychoanalytic theory). Psychological health was described as the capacity to separate from merger (usually in relationship with the mother) and to develop an autonomous sense of self. To be a fully functioning person also meant the capacity to contain and control one’s feelings and impulses, to separate the mind from the body and emotions. Discrimination, analytical thinking, productivity, and many of the facets of left-brain functioning have been emphasized in modern Western culture. Intuition, imagination, holistic thinking, and empathic attunement (aspects more of right-brain functioning) have been devalued.

In recent years, with new developments in psychology and physics, we have begun to see a shift in this way of thinking. Recent psychological theories (such as the Stone Center’s self-in-relation work and developments in self psychology and ecopsychology) have emphasized the importance of relationship in the formulation and maintenance of healthy human functioning. Dr. Allan Schore, who has written a seminal book, Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self, links the effects of early emotional attunement and relationship to the neurobiology of early development and the subsequent development of the child’s emotional and social functioning. Dan Pink, in his book A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age, states that effective functioning in our current time of change requires the skills, creativity, and flexibility of right-brain thinking that incorporate a more holistic way of being and knowing.