sacralize – to make sacred, imbue with sacred character. To move the scared into the sacred you change where you are looking, you just move the ‘c’!
sacred – ‘In the Shona language the word sacred, inoera, is an adjective describing a thing or place. Sacredness has the connotation of being life sustaining, such as providing food, fruit, or water. The concept is closely linked with rain, and the fertility of the land. A sacred place (nzvimbo inoera) is a place where spirits are present; it has certain rules of access, as well as behaviors that are not allowed there (taboos)’ – (Byers, Cunliffe, and Hudak 2001:187) 2 – those things that (ultimately) bring us to peace
sacred enthusiasm – . . . descriptive of the ‘high’ or divinely inebriated state. – Antonio Escohotado
sacred stories – ‘the narrative form orients the life of people thru time, their life-time, their individual and corporate experience. likewise consciousness is molded by the sacred story to which it awakens’ – stephen crites
sacrifice – to be made sacred
sacrilege – the violation or profanation of anything sacred or held sacred.
sadhana – Sadhana means the methods, which bring perfection in our self-development. It has two parts: 1) physical action, kriya yoga, and 2) mental action, vichara or reflection. Some who are mentally strong, they achieve non-attachment, desirelessness, by self-inquiry or self-reflection. Others practice the rules of restraints and observances, regular practice of meditation, etc. – Babaji 2) It is possible to make the mistake that only certain things in the world are aids in the realisation of one’s aim of life, and that others are obstacles. But this is not true, because everything in the world is interconnected, and it is not possible to divide the necessary from the unnecessary, the good from the bad, etc., except in a purely relative sense. The so-called unnecessary items or the useless ones are those whose subtle connection with our central purpose in life is not clear to our minds. This happens when our minds are carried away by sudden emotions or spurts of enthusiasm. – Swami Krishnananda
saint ~ “If everybody acted in a simple and human way, we’d all be saints.” — Don Sergio Castro, “El Andalón”
Salaam aleikum – . . . means ‘peace be upon you’. The reply is “wa aleikum salaam”, meaning ‘peace be upon you too’.
salvation – to come into a wide-open space – Laurence Cole
samsara – 1) the world, mundane existence, and the cycles of birth and rebirth. illusory existence. the world of red dust. 2) We move out of the natural impermanence of reality when we try to solidify our reality. The process of how we make everything so solid is how we create samasara. 3) the spell of the identification with appearances
samyojana – (Sanskrit). ‘The traumas from our upbringing, in our genetic memories and from karma lodge themselves as energy (fetters or knots of suffering deep in our unconscious) in our bodies and minds, and create an internal formation/knots of suffering described as samyojana. Addictive emotions such as fear, anger, sadness, jealousy, and attachment keep the knots of suffering in place, and this produces the disjunctions in mind/body/soul unity that cause illness.’ Buddhist solution is mindfulness to change the perception and cognition that forge these knots of suffering. ‘These energies have to be transformed and sublimated, not just intellectually, but by being discharged physically from the body in an atmosphere that is both safe and sacred, and preferably in a state of altered consciousness. Prattis, I. 2) ‘sticky astral gunk the emotional body has clinging to it from LIFETIMES, that keep repeating in karmic attachments loops’ – mb
sanatana dharma – the eternal principle of ultimate nondualism, an all encompassing philosophy of life, also known as Hinduism
sand – pebbles of the ancestors
sandscript – sanskrit on the beach – mb
sangha ~ You feel supported by the strength of the sangha. When I say sangha, I am talking about a group of people who are vibrating in the same frequency. That’s why I consider that in this moment here it is very important to create ways and means of joining forces and knowledge, strengthening ourselves together to handle this journey.” ~ Prem Baba
sanskrit – ‘When I first started leading chanting in 1993, I felt as though I was riding a wave that has been in motion from very ancient times. Chanting the various names of “God” in Sanskrit is a practice that goes back long before the Buddha. Sanskrit, the oldest systematic language in the world, is known as a “spiritual language” because it has so many words that describe profound spiritual concepts and feelings that we can’t find expressed in any other language. It is a root-vibrational language, where the sound of the words when uttered actually reflects the original energy of what the word describes. In other words, it is a language of invocation: when we say the word “Shanti” this has the vibration of peace in it. When we say deity names, like Shiva, Krishna or Radha, it gets even more personal and specific and actually manifests the energy of that divine being. This is why chanting in Sanskrit is so powerful and transformative, especially when the person chanting is sincere and devoted in his/her heart. The great positive effect it has on the body, mind and soul and the surrounding environment becomes obvious the more you do it. But the most important ingredient is love. If we sing and chant with love, it ignites the spiritual fire within and helps us transcend mundane perspectives, so that we begin to see God in everything and everyone – Jaya Lakshmi 2) One beautiful aspect of the language is how many of her sounds are what is called soft. Hard and soft refer to how much a sound vibrates. When a sound is hard the vocal cords come together and release producing a less resonant sound. In a soft sound, the vocal cords rub together creating a friction and heat that results in a more resonant sound. Alphabetically, the language is made up of 49 letters. Out of the 49 sounds, 35 of them are soft (more resonant). This means that there are considerably more resonant sounds on the building block level of the language. ~ https://sanskritstudies.org/the-vibrational-world-of-sanskrit
sanskritization – ‘Very high rates of avoidance seems to point to a process termed sanskritization, which is meant the decision of a caste or sub-caste to adhere more closely to the Brahaminical scripture model in ritual observances, marriage rules and food habits, with the object of rising in status. This attempt is evident among the weavers who were once near the limits of untouchability and were branded with the opprobrium of beef eating. They have given up this habit and continue their efforts to win a better place in society.’
Sat Nam Wahe Guru – In ancient scriptures it is said to have the power to open the heart, develop intuition and spirit. Sat Nam Wahe Guru stands out as a joyous celebration of the self. It has three stages. Initial repetition of ‘Sat Nam’ is the cycle of life where in the midst of great activity you remember the true nature of who you are. Then the ‘Wahe Guru’ is repeated which penetrates the heart center and open intuition. The last stage is the slowly repeated ‘Sat Nam Wahe Guru’ that consolidates the sense of dwelling within your spirit. – Ek Ong Kar Khaur
santosha – ‘Keeping the mind focused in a single direction, always being happy, and never feeling regret for any reason, this is the contentment known as santosha.’ – Pattahbi Jois
Sat Nam ~ One of the most fundamental Kundalini Yoga mantras is Sat Nam – the Bij Mantra, or “Seed Mantra.” Sat Nam is created from the Five Sacred Sounds that cut the ego, called the Panj Shabd. Those sounds are: Sa-Ta-Na-Ma. It looks like four sounds at first, but the “a” – you can exaggerate to feel it “Sa-a, Ta-a, Na-a, Ma-a” – relates to the fifth sound. –
Satan – Hebrew for ‘adversary’
satsanga – means living in and living with truth or God. Swadhayaya means self reading i.e. being aware of all actions, desires, fancies, cravings etc first do Swadhayaya by reading yourself, understanding your desires, movements etc followed by Satsanga means live in truth. http://www.y2kjocl.com
saturated self – ‘Emerging technologies saturate us with the voices of humankind – both harmonious and alien. As we absorb their varied rhymes and reasons, they become part of us and we of them. Social saturation furnishes us with a multiplicity of incoherent and unrelated languages of the self. For everything we ‘know to be true’ about ourselves, other voices within respond with doubt and even derision. This fragmentation of self-conceptions corresponds to a multiplicity of incoherent and disconnected relationships. These relationships pull us in myriad directions, inviting us to play such a variety of roles that the very concept of an ‘authentic self with knowable characteristics recedes from view. The fully saturated self becomes no self at all’. – Ken Gergen (pp. 6-7) [p. 831]
saturnalia – In more advanced civilizations the ‘great cultural play periods’ of ‘savage societies’ leave their traces in ‘saturnalia and carnival customs’ characterized by disruptive and disorderly behavior. – M. Carlson
scapegoat – Scapegoating is a hostile social – psychological discrediting routine by which people move blame and responsibility away from themselves and towards a target person or group. It is also a practice by which angry feelings and feelings of hostility may be projected, via inappropriate accusation, towards others. Distortion is always a feature. In scapegoating, feelings of guilt, aggression, blame and suffering are transferred away from a person or group so as to fulfill an unconscious drive to resolve or avoid such bad feelings. This is done by the displacement of responsibility and blame to another who serves as a target for blame both for the scapegoater and his supporters. The perpetrator’s drive to displace and transfer responsibility away from himself may not be experienced with full consciousness – self-deception is often a feature. The scapegoater’s target experiences exclusion, ostracism or even expulsion. In so far as the process is unconscious it is more likely to be denied by the perpetrator. In such cases, any bad feelings – such as the perpetrator’s own shame and guilt – are also likely to be denied. Scapegoating frees the perpetrator from some self-dissatisfaction and provides some narcissistic gratification to him. It enables the self-righteous discharge of aggression. Scapegoating also can be seen as the perpetrator’s defense mechanism against unacceptable emotions such as hostility and guilt. scapegoating is an example of projective identification, with the primitive intent of splitting: separating the good from the bad. On another view, scapegoaters are insecure people driven to raise their own status by lowering the status of their target. – http://www.scapegoat.demon.co.uk 2) It seems that when a society is under pressure of any kind, the instinctive solution is to control the situation by agreeing to kill somebody who can absorb the blame for the crisis. – Andrew Marr
School of Unlearning ~ ‘Lian Neutral is the creator of the School of Unlearning, or “The school of the upside-down World”. The slogan of the school is “The upside down World where nothing is as it seems and what seems is not”. The School of Unlearning was originally a forum to reach the human race and create the process of “unlearning”, essential for the achievement of the necessary vibration frequency to reach Ascension.To increase the vibration frequency required to evolve to the fourth dimension, lightness is mandatory. Human beings have to be free from excess information, accumulated throughout different lifetimes by the Soul, because it makes them dense, heavy and stalled in their spiritual evolution. Examples are: beliefs, behaviors of anger and fear, false religious concepts and learning through reasoning or theory only. Therefore, instead of collecting information, humans should define what is really important and put it to good use, transforming the information into life experiences that in turn are transformed into wisdom. In the School of Unlearning you learn to stop living as programmed: to let go of erroneous beliefs and concepts that are founded in fear and ignorance and that make spiritual progress impossible. New ways to create life and grow are constantly developed to improve the quality of life and reach a higher evolutionary level.’ ~ http://emacpr.com
Schumann Frequency – 7.83 Hz: Earth resonance frequency. Supposedly beneficial to humans; deprivation of it supposedly quite harmful.
science – 1) fringe intuition. 2) In the most generalized sense, it is any unified effort of inquiry, and as the systematic knowledge arising from such efforts. The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking. – A. Einstein 3) Science is currently the most believable mythology, because it is determined by consensus to match empirical reality – michael andrews 4) Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life. —Immanuel Kant 5) ‘What the Bleep’ (also known as ‘What the #$*!’) uses humor, romance, drama, animation and respected establishment fuzzy-haired scientists to prove that what mystics have been telling us for thousands of years is true – that power, influence, and information exists in an invisible domain, an alternate reality, which is available to us at any time. To practice yoga is to understand this to be true. But others saw it as fuzzy thinking. Now science is bringing ‘fuzzy’ thinking into focus and telling us it is fact. – Bob Belinof 6) Science arose from poetry–when times change the two can meet again on a higher level as friends. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
science of similarities – 1) alllegory as real and cogent, e.g. the doctrine of signatures. 2) “Up to the end of the sixteenth century, resemblance played a constructive role in the knowledge of Western culture. It was resemblance that largely guided exegesis and the interpretation of texts; it was resemblance that organized the play of symbols, made possible knowledge of things visible and invisible, and controlled the art of representing them.” – The Order of Things , p. 17, Michel Foucault
scientism – a hardening of the mental arteries.
scientize – to apply conventional (reductionist, materialist . . ) principles to understanding anything, often uncritically, and indiscrimiantely, leading to errors in worldview. E.g. ~ when you scientize the concept of community, you get: communism.
seed culture – ‘Reality boundaries dissolved, and I moved into a world of light and energy, the neonized shamanic homeland. As I got into a sense of the humanness of it, the community of it, I rerealized, as I always do on ayahuasca, that this is the human ancient future. This is the root and eventual flowering of the emerging culture. And as I moved with it, the reality became more solid, and soon I was in the future, but the future was now. Vertical time. This was real. And don’t theayahuasqueros say that the Yage world is prior to and more real than this one? I, as I seem to always do, observed the culture implications of this new humanity, felt-out the frequency, not unlike rubbing a vibrational cloth between my fingertips to get a sense of its qualities. This is the seed culture. There is so much work to do to articulate this culture, fertilize its growth into 3-D reality with my trance understandings of it – work with it. mb
seed of the world – Dogon mythology also describes the creation of the universe in terms of contrasting motions. In his initial act of creation, Amma threw out theseed of the world, which radiated out in four directions forming the surface of the earth
seed mantras – In Sanskrit, sounds which have no direct translation but which contain great power which can be ‘grown’ from it are called ‘seed mantras.’ Seed in Sanskrit is called ‘Bijam’ in the singular and ‘Bija’ in the plural form. Let’s take an example. The mantra ‘Shrim’ or Shreem is the seed sound for the principle of abundance (Lakshmi, in the Hindu Pantheon.) If one says ‘shrim’ a hundred times, a certain increase in the potentiality of the sayer to accumulate abundance is achieved. If one says ‘shrim’ a thousand times or a million, the result is correspondingly greater. But abundance can take many forms. There is prosperity, to be sure, but there is also peace as abundance, health as wealth, friends as wealth, enough food to eat as wealth, and a host of other kinds and types of abundance which may vary from individual to individual and culture to culture. It is at this point that the intention of the sayer begins to influence the degree of the kind of capacity for accumulating wealth which may accrue. – http://navigation.helper.realnames.com
seer – In the Book of Samuel we read that ‘in Israel in days gone by, when someone wished to consult God, he would say, ‘Let us go to the seer.’ For what is nowadays called a prophet (nabi) used to be called a seer’ (1 Samuel 9:9). The institution of the seer of the nomadic period of the Jews was modified after the conquest of Palestine under the influence of the nabiim, the ecstatic prophets of the Canaanite religion, such as the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18:19 ff; 2 Kings 10:19). The seers were not attached to sanctuaries, whereas the prophets were. For example, when Samuel anoints Saul king of Israel, he gives him instructions for the journey he is to take, including the following: ‘Then when you reach the hill of God, where the Philistine governor resides, you will meet a company of prophets coming down from the shrine, led by lute, drum, fife and Iyre, and filled with prophetic rapture. The spirit of the Lord will suddenly take possession of you, and you too will be rapt like a prophet and become another man. (1 Samuel 10:5-6). In the early church, the charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit, including the gifts of healing, speaking in tongues, and prophecy, were expressed in states resembling shamanic possession. These gifts have been cultivated in the various Pentecostal sects, and through the recent charismatic revival are now widely invoked within mainstream Christianity, including the Methodist, Anglican, and Roman Catholic churches. R. Sheldrake – Rebirth of Nature 185-186
sekhem – Egyptian life force – the power of consciousness as its expresses itself through physicality.
Self – defined as a ‘container’ in which aspects of universal consciousness ‘float around’ as it were. Expressing themselves now thru you, now thru me, and then thru someone else. These free-floating particles of consciousness need to be embodied (incorporated into the manifesting personality) and thereby transformed. Only then does the purification, harmonization, and enrichment of the manifesting consciousness take place which create the evolutionary process of unifying the separated particles of consciousness. – Susan Thesenga 2) The self is not simply the accidental personification of the body’s biological mechanism. Each person born desires to be born. – Seth
self-delectation –
self-renewal – ‘The Chilean scientists, Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela have distinguished between two kinds of systems, autopoietic and allopoietic. A system is autopoietic when its function is primarily geared to self-renewal. An autopoietic system refers in the first place to itself and is therefore deemed self-referential. In contrast, an allopoietic system, such as a machine, refers to a function given from out side, such as the production of a specific output. – Vendana Shiva (Diversity and Democracy).
self-responsibility – the key to freedom – Pathwork 193
self-transformation – . . . . the actual movement to this larger, more inclusive self, is ultimately not achieved through personal effort. There is, to be sure, a significant effort that must be made, but the effort is not so much in trying to change ourselves or transform ourselves but in actually learning to become aware or alert to the very nature of how our consciousness operates within the framework of the separate self. True transformation is really the activity of a deeper intelligence that is already forever available to all of us. It becomes a matter then of not so much trying to change, but understanding how we run away from the depths of ourselves, how we try to avoid the deep core level of feeling that links us to what I call fundamental relationship, the relationship of self, other and the Divine. Thus self transformation actually flows from what we already are as we gradually understand the mechanisms and strategies by which we continue to avoid relationship to our deeper self. As we cease to energize these various strategies, not so much out of a desire to be change but out of a surrendering to the almost hopeless contradiction between effort and result (that is, the greater our efforts the more they create the separate self that is itself the obstacle to fundamental transformation), what then ensues emerges of itself out of the very intelligence of life. Just as there is no conscious effort to go from conception to infancy, and no real conscious effort to go from infancy to childhood, the actual movement from a limited ego into an individual of larger consciousness is also given by life when we stop obstructing it. It is the peculiar beauty of true transformation that what we are being carried toward is not some exalted ego, not some ‘supremely other’ individual with paranormal powers, or a technological utopia secured by our intellects, but toward what we really are. The goal and end point of transformation is to become a human being, and there is no end to the realization of our humanness. As long as we regard the transformational journey as a process of transcendence, of stepping above and beyond the limits of human life, then we’ve only understood half the true journey. The other half of the journey is the deepening embodiment of this more complete level of consciousness within ourselves, our families, our communities, our cultures. –Richard Moss 2) less about starting to do this, and more about stopping doing that; when you stop getting in the way of yourSelf, the powers of transformation into more expanded awareness happen naturally and instinctively – mb
self-unfurlment – ‘. . . These are seductive acts to me: pumping power, pulsing orgasmic rushes of vitality. Tai chi is a technology designed for this kind of work. I’m ‘trained’ in it, and the application of its principles in these situations has long fascinated me. I worked thru a particularly strong onrush of energy and afterwards felt a certain calm around me. Was this it? I sat there feeling good, feeling I had ‘survived’. My view on the early part of these tryps is that as the energy builds it provides a sort of warm-up that allows you to incrementally adapt to the increasing intensity. There is a sensitivity skill in knowing how and when to ‘stretch’ to accommodate subtleties of energy change, and how to avoid working against the grain of the experience. As you might imagine these are useful skills to take away from the tryp, because they are much about the mechanisms of ‘unfurling’ yourself. Another art form yet to be brought to the public! This involves: an awareness of the design by which the body/mind is ‘extruded’ into this dimension, and then working the ‘folds’, or joints of that design to sculpt the downflow – heightened during trypping – of info-energy. This works on the principle that physical form is indeed ‘frozen light’, but frozen via a geometry that becomes more responsive to thaw, or conduction, as you follow it into the hyperdimensional source waters that animate material existence. The skill begins with following this circuitry far ‘upriver’ and articulating it at these more subtle levels. You can do this because, a) the trypping state inherently allows more ‘juice’ through the vehicle, thus bulging the ‘pulse’ and making it more detectable, and b) the processes and structures by and through which it moves become more transparent; you then, to the extent you are good at attuning to energy, have a much easier time ‘dowsing’ these currents and consciously moving with them. The higher up the flow you position yourself, the more access you have to the great power of the primary, or ‘Amazonian’, meridians. These you can amplify through a deep pumping or internal massage; again, the ‘nudge’ of energy pushing on whatever part of you is ‘containing’ it is the feedback for working this. To amplify what are already intensified currents can bring on some mighty high surf.’ – mb
Sem – (in Tibetan) discursive thoughts, the stream of thought reinforcing an image of ourselves, the small mind. Like wild dogs, wild elephants, etc.
sensuous perception – The natural world would be perceived and responded to in an open, more passive, and more receptive way . . . Such a new science might also reveal previously undisclosed aspects of nature that could inspire and guide human conduct.
sentient – responsive to or conscious of sense impressions; aware; finely sensitive in perception or feeling. – Merriam-Webster.
separativeness – . . . is only a way of seeing, like an optical illusion. – Dan Moonhawk Alford
serial dogmatism – The change from serial dogmatism to promiscuous liberalism in ideas occurs during the start of the 20th century. In regards to religion, this reflects changes from church to sect to denomination to sovereign consuming individual (the cult). The degree of social and cultural pluralism becomes increasingly common. – Steve Bruce
Serial metamorphosis – Polyps were among first animals. An individual is shaped like a tube, with a flower-like circle of tentacles at one end around its mouth. The other end of the tube is stuck to a rock or the polyp colony. Budding it becomes a jellyfish. This then produces a baby again different from its parent – called a planula – to then find a place to root and become a polyp once again.
Serial obsessions – At first I thought the exhaustive, non-stop coverage of the O.J. trial was just an unfortunate excess that marked an unwelcome departure from the normal good sense and judgment of our television news media. But now we know that it was merely an early example of a new pattern of serial obsessions that periodically take over the airwaves for weeks at a time. – Al Gore – http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1006-28.htm
serotonin – in primate behavior, serotonin is linked with the inhbition of agressive behavior, facilitating better social behavior. Primates with high level of social behavior have more serotonin receptors in their frontal cortex, amygdala, and temproal coretex. Non co-operative primates do not.have this pattern. – Damasio, pg. 102-104
serpent canoe – The first people came from the sky in a serpent canoe (Tukano people of the Vaupes region of Columbia).
set and setting – psychic ecology
setting tone – ‘We usually react to people instead of setting tone.’ – James Green
Seva ~ selfless service; ‘When we practice seva, or selfless service, we make ourselves a link in the chain of happiness. We do all we possibly can to help make others shine. When we rise to this practice we become a channel for the fulfillment of a higher mission. . . the sankalpa, the spiritual promise of a lineage. – Prem Baba
shadow – 1) Jung, more consistent with Adler’s view who saw it as “the unadmitted”, refers to the shadow as a place where “everything that I don’t want to be” is relegated. Inside Jung’s shadow, or, personal unconscious, ( as distinct from the Archetypal Unconscious), then, is a lot of fine human qualities that simply don’t jibe with the individual’s self image. And for the individual to realize their total potential, they would have to walk into and through their personal shadow because the repressed material in there is as much a part of the Self as what ego sees in its own consciousness. We must become open to our whole potential. Jung said that the purpose of life” is not to be good, but to be whole”. His was not a moralistic approach, but an ontological one in which the cosmos was a beckoning entity that made Itself fully available for anyone who had the courage to look, first, into their shadow and then choose increased, integrated consciousness over safety. As he said, “I had to wrench myself free of god, so to speak, in order to find that unity in myself which god seeks through man”. It was an inevitably natural way to live. – D. mihaloew 2) The shadow is the name given in Jungian psychology to a kind of psychic complex of unacceptable feelings and impulses that functions as an inner opponent, blocking growth and full expression of our true self. In this workshop we learn to use the alchemical divination methods – processes of structured intuitive inquiry – to recognize and integrate this elusive inner adversary. We will work with guided alchemical divinations, in which rhythmic rattling and drumming supports the process of concentration and tracking. Practices of light-fire yoga help to purify and clarify perceptions and dissolve energy-blockages. – Ralph Metzner 3) “These negative, destructive impulses are loose particles that are floating around in the universe. Because of certain natural laws you incarnated on this plane, bringing with you some of these particles with the cosmic objective of integrating them. We are one in the light, but we are also one in the shadow. Due to the idea of individuality you clearly believe that your lust, fear and selfishness are really yours, but we are talking about just one shadow too, so as you integrate what you are able to in this incarnation, you bring light to all.” – Sri Prem Baba 4) Some will treat pleasure as an enemy. They view pleasure as danger and sabotage their path to prevent it from manifesting. That’s because there’s identification with a deeper point of shadow. You fear disappearing, because pleasure is light, and light dissolves the darkness. If you are identified with darkness, you believe to be the darkness, and pleasure is light, then it means you will disappear. So you fear losing your identity. – Prem Baba 5) “The focus should be on enhancing your perception, thus remembering who you are. During this process you start noticing the inner selves that express themselves in the form of thoughts. These are autonomous beings that act through our thinking. Gradually you learn how to deal with them and you stop judging them, because the more you condemn your own limitations, the more they grow inside of you. Thus, the path is to embrace the shadow, and not to feel bothered by it. You understand it to be a cloud that is just passing by. Continue just witnessing, until the shadow loses its power.” – Prem Baba
Shalom – … peace … from the Hebrew word shalem, which means ‘complete’.
shaman – 1) reality surgeon 2) s/he who learns to perceive in others what s/he has discovered within himself 3) spiritual adventurer 4) religious specialists in the breaking (and then resetting) of boundaries 5) marshals of the borderlands, specialists of the frontier, jockeys between worlds 6) engaged in the disruption of order (conceptual, psychic, social), but creator and sustainer of order as well; 7) professional transformer. 8) Priest of the liminal worlds 9) A spider on the web of existence, who can feel and interpret every tremor that passes down the web of life force- mb 10) S/he who is engaged in the delicate and constantly renewed negotiation, visions of equilibrium and cycles of reciprocity. These are all ecosystemic dynamics. The shamanic role in mediating between worlds, in working with an ecology of souls, requires techniques and describes purposes which are resonant with the ecocentric herbalist. ecological broker 11) a human socially integrated into the spiritual communities of Nature and called upon to assist with affairs of evolution and ecology ~ mb 12) The role of the shaman is to mediate the transmission of medicinal knowledge from the plant teacher to the human world for use in curing. – http://www.biopark.org/ayahuasca.html 13) He/she who faces fears, then metabolizes and digest them, freeing the life force to use to then empower the good. 14) Doctor of bodies, souls, and situations. – Andrew Weil 14) To become a Shaman is to become a Priest in the Science of Pachamama; the science of the elementals and the elements but this isn’t where things end. . . – Daveed Cusak15) In their creative and destructive capacities, (Amazonian) shamans are identified with predatory spirits. Jaguars and anacondas are natural manifestations of predatory spirits, and shamans are their human counterparts. They are all cosmic hunters in different guises, readily changing shape and moving freely between the various layers and domains of the cosmos. In this cosmic society, where all mortal beings are ontological ‘equals’, humans and animals are bound by pacts of reciprocity – K. Arhem
shamanism – 1) . . . . the practice of methods of intentionally attuning and identifying with all kinds of forms and beings, via the unifying field of consciousness which links us all. Depended on animism— which sees all material and biological forms as animated by life and consciousness. – Metzner, R.; ‘98. 2) ‘Reunification . . . ‘. ‘The shamanic journey is about mediating between different levels of consciousness and integrating them. – Prattis 3) ‘Shamanism is grounded in self and subjectivity, while science has a method that seeks to rise above the researcher’s subjective self. In many ways shamanism is autology, or the study of the self, while science is a heterology, the study of others.’ – Narby and Huxley 4) psychic community service. – Arnold Mindell
shamanic discourse – ‘In shamanic discourse the universe of living beings is construed as a cosmic web of ‘eaters’ and ‘food’, predators or prey.’ – Arhem 1996
shamanic garden – ‘Plants constitute forms of information storage related to ecological and social relations. The shamanic gardens incorporate, on the one hand, the knowledge and understanding of ecological processes involved in generating and maintaining unique varieties of plants. On the other hand, the garden itself is a reconstruction of the relations and interactions between the environment, communities, and human beings; like a biological planetarium, where the constellations of ecological relations are demonstrated. Through the plants that they cultivate, shamans can solve problems related to social and environmental relations. Basically, the process of the construction of the gardens is that of the production of knowledge. In this process, knowledge emerges from a cosmological and ecological conception’
shamanic return – ‘feeling like a leaf floating up from the bottom of a lake . . . ‘ – mb
shamanic knowledge – – a set of techniques for inducing certain types of experiences – Townsley
shamanioc knowledge – that which comes from traveling to the worlds wherein dwells the spirit of cassava.
shamanic worlds – momentary coherencies of point events in time and space, intentional worlds that flare intensely and slowly fade. –
G. Maskinarec.
shapeshifting – radical intimacy
shen nung – The first record provings (of medicinal plants) on the healthy were performed in the legendary period of China around 5000 years ago by great emperor Shen Nung. He is reputed to have eaten 365 of medicinal plants over the course of his life until he turned green and died from toxic overdoses. This knowledge was preserved by his court and expanded upon by 100’s of generation of Chinese doctors. This is one of the reasons the knowledge of remedial powers is so advanced in traditional China. Emperor Shen is picture with a green complexion, long hair, long beard and a rather strong face with large eyes and hairy eyebrows. He is dressed completely in leaves and vines although he sits on the majestic throne of emperor of China. This tradition of testing remedies is also alive in rare AryurVedic traditions held by the Sadhus of India. It is part of the initiation in these sects of healers to eat the plants to experience their actions on the human organism. This was considered essential knowledge in the ancient period. So one can see that the oldest healing traditions used do provings but the method seems to be lost outside a chosen few in modern times. – http://www.simillimum.com/Thelittlelibrary/References/shennung.html
shimmer – at a certain point my body begins to feel like it is ‘flowing’, like a current of water flowing or maybe ….. a liquid honey-like feeling, flowing deliberately, in a controlled manner. then i see that with this flowing feeling there is a sense of …. like i know what he’s going to do next. then we are moving very synchronously and suddenly he begins to shimmer, kind of like on star trek with the transporter. he’s not going anywhere, but he has this shimmer, like stars are all over him and through him. i look down at my own arms and see that the shimmer is in me, too…… Karuna’s dream
Shiva moon – is the full moon in August. Contents of the moon are poured out as Amrita which allows the initiate to imbibe the nectar.
Shockaholism – the devastation of a society can be defined by how little of a feeling of xstatic communion with nature is in the lives of individuals. Denial, numbing, addicting, and shockaholism, are all symptomatic of the pain. Spiritual wasteland. Healer has to confront pain in order to know it. Healing require an addiction to the truth. – Eliot Cowan
shoes – artifical hoofs – David Abram
shunyata – the vibrationsof superstrings, unidemnsional vibrations of nothingness, what the Buddhists call shunyata, the multidemensional vibrations of the void, mandalas thus being visual expressions of vibrational patterns that structure the material world – Deepak Chopra
sidereal body – besides the material body constructed of the elements of the earth, according to Paracelsus man also has a sidereal body which is constructed by the stars. The first gives him the ability to eat, drink, and sleep, while the second gives him a pattern or character which shines thru this material vessel. ‘The firmamental light’ is also the source of wisdom, art, and reason, since these derive from the ability to detect the pattern and character in creation. . . From this perspective, the natural world is not just a collection of material bodies but has an interior, spiritual side as well. The subjective as well as objective faculties must be exercised upon it in order to fully perceive natural phenomena. Paracelsus insisted upon development of both elements of perception. – Matthew Wood. The Magical Staff – pg. 10-11.
Siddhis – Siddhis are of 2 kinds: Ordinary Siddhis and Supreme Siddhis. Ordinary Siddhis are plain worldly accomplishments and attainments
of wealth, success, fame, health etc. Supreme Siddhis can liberate you and free you eternally from the bondages of your negative Karmas that you have accumulated in your past lives – http://www.divinepowers.org/vajragurumantra.html
signature – outpicturing that which holds or feeds into the 3rd dimension – hathors
silence – Silence and stillness are not states and can not therefore be produced or created. Silence is the non-state in which all states arise and subside. Silence, stillness, and awareensss are not states, and can never be perceived in their totality as objects. Silence is itself the eternal witness without form or attributes. As you rest more profoundly as the witness, all objects take on their natural functionality; awareness becomes free of the minds’ compulsive contractions and returns to its natural non-state of Presence. – Adyashanti 2) You need occasional silence. The mind requires rest for clarity and integration, and when silence is maintained for regular interludes, the benefits help to sharpen your mind and balance your life . . you must seek out and plan for peaceful moments. ~ The Peiadians
silent coup – (During the Bush Admin.) Many people believe that America has undergone a silent coup and has been taken over by a cabal of political fantasists and war-mongers. But this is only partially true. The US has a long history of covert activity, black-ops, and other clear violations to international law. – Mike Whitney
Silphium – (also known as silphion or laser) was a plant that was used in classical antiquity as a rich seasoning and as a medicine. It was the essential item of trade from the ancient North African city of Cyrene, and was so critical to the Cyrenian economy that most of their coins bore a picture of the plant (illustration, right). The valuable product was the plant’s resin (laser, laserpicium, or lasarpicium). Silphium was an important species in prehistory, as evidenced by the Egyptians and Knossos Minoans developing a specific glyph to represent the silphium plant. It was used widely by most ancient Mediterranean cultures; the Romans considered it “worth its weight in denarii” (silver coins). Legend said that it was a gift from the god Apollo. The exact identity of silphium is unclear. It is commonly believed to be a now-extinct plant of the genus Ferula, perhaps a variety of “giant fennel”. The still-extant plant Ferula tingitana has been suggested as another possibility. Another plant, asafoetida, was used as a cheaper substitute for silphium, and had similar enough qualities that Romans, including the geographer Strabo, used the same word to describe both. – Wikipedia
sin – ignorance – PGL 16 2) As St. Augustine puts it, sin is “being curved in upon oneself” , rather than being open to God.
singing murmurs – incoming songs from the spirit world
siron –
situational value system – ‘Watch out for people who have a situational value system, who can turn the charm on and off depending on the status of the person they are interacting with,’ Swanson writes. ‘Be especially wary of those who are rude to people perceived to be in subordinate roles.’ – Bill Swanson – (Raytheon CEO)
skalds – ‘In an essay on minstrels, troubadour, skalds, and bards, he mentioned that the Greeks had also been savages before their civilization blossomed, and that even after it did, they remained much more closely attuned to nature than contemporary 18th cent. European intellectuals would allow.’ Dict.: One of the ancient Scandinavian poets and historiographers; a reciter and singer of heroic poems, eulogies, etc., among the Norsemen; more rarely, a bard of any of the ancient Teutonic tribes. ‘A war song such as was of yore chanted on the field of battle by the scalds of the yet heathen Saxons.’ –Sir W. Scott. Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary
skepticism – ‘Doubt and skepticism call for thorough examination. To question and to doubt are quite natural as a seeker of liberation and awakening. But it is problematic if we solidify our skepticism to the point that we cannot let in the “fresh breezes” or “surprises” of peace, joy, and transformation. – Theresa Fitzgerald
smoke and seduction – the downtempo vibe
smear – Christy’s word for smudge.
smoke – not physical not spiritual but in between the worlds.
smokey lips –
Snailmen – The idea of the Milky Way is associated in Celtic mythology with the silvery trail made by a snail. Silver represents knowledge and, in the dark ages, those who left knowledge behind them in books were known as the Snail Men. – Jeff Merrifield
Social atomization – one of the negative aspects of America’s global influence.
social effervescence – a Durkheimian phrase, referring to social mechanisms of creativity and novelty.
social narcosis -‘ The theatre helps train us in non-responsiveness so that the formal institutions that depend for their existence on our social narcosis can survive’ –R. Schechner 1974
society – a cohesion of meaning understood through shared symbols mb
socio-biologists – now called evolutionary psychologists; the self or population group considered as a vehicle of genetic reproduction in the evolutionary war for continued life.
sociocohesive functions –
sociophysical – a term which describes human relations with the physical environment understood as a ‘society of nature.’ – mb
sociosymbolic fields –
sogo – (Among the Dogon) ‘There are in addition small altars called sogo that are erected at points thought to be inhabited by nature spirits, usually near ponds or fields. A sogo consists of a stone monolith erected in a vertical position and surrounded by a circle of round stones.’ – B. Demoss
soma – the evolutionary wisdom we all carry that urges us towards the flowering of our consciousness. 2) ‘A variation of soma (drink of immortality) theme is an Aboriginal myth, which tells that in the Dreamtime, people did not die, because each month the Moon gave them a magic drink that restored them to life. And soma is the blood of Moon’ – http://www.acropolis.org.au/ 3 According to David Frawley, based upon more than thirty years of study of the Vedas in the original Sanskrit, as well as related Ayurvedic literature – is that the Soma plant was not simply one plant, though there may have been one primary Soma plant in
certain times and places, but several plants, sometimes a plant mixture and more generally refers to the sacred usage of plants. However, we must remember that the real Soma is a secretion in the brain from spiritual practices of Yoga, pranayama, mantra and meditation. Soma at a yogic level refers to the crown chakra, which is opened by Indra (yogic insight) and releases a flood of bliss throughout the body.
song – 1) according to Lakota. ‘is an extension of oneself much as are speech, sweat, blood, and tears.’ Music is thus part of the natural world, part of all the other things that emanate from the body. – William Powers. 2) Songs are paths, according to the ayahuasquero – G. Townsend
sophisticated – verb – cause (a person or their thoughts, attitudes, and expectations) to become less simple or straightforward through education or experience : readers who have been sophisticated by modern literary practice.2) develop (something such as a piece of equipment or a technique) into a more complex form : functions that other software applications have sophisticated. noun – a person with much worldly experience and knowledge of fashion and culture : he is still the butt of jokes made by New York sophisticates. ORIGIN late Middle English (as an adjective in the sense [adulterated,] and as a verb in the sense [mix with a foreign substance] ): from medieval Latin sophisticatus ‘tampered with,’ past participle of the verb sophisticare, from sophisticus ‘sophistic.’ The shift of sense probably occurred first in the adjective unsophisticated, from [uncorrupted] via [innocent] to [inexperienced, uncultured.] The noun dates from the early 20th cent. – Dict
Soro – of India. ‘ Their ancestors each reside in a particular plot of agricultural productive land, infusing their own soul force into the grain crop which grow there. So with every meal that living people eat, they are ingesting something of their own parents and grandparent as a form of nourishment. Soros take part in a cycle that unites their landscape, their close relatives, and their sense of their own soul or consciousness. This way of relating to their land becomes more and more inappropriate the more that its ancestral soul-force, at the most nourishing peak of its cycle, is sold off in the market place. So concepts of crop and land is changing to accommodate these market forces, and a vital link between people and their environment is severed, and it becomes less meaningful or appropriate for the environment to serve as a walkabout map of social relations, kinship groups, theological concepts, states of mind, and personal emotions. So they became Christian.’ –Vitebsky, Piers
soul – ‘That refection of God within the boundaries of individual consciousness, but connected to infinite is what we call the soul. The soul is immortal, unchanging, indefinite in its scope, yet it can breath life into the finitely. It is the refection of God within us. When we live in conscious contact with the soul, we realize cosmic consciousness, an all inclusive state of consciousness where the Awareness of our soul, of our inner self, is never lost – it becomes the witness to waking, dreaming, and sleep states of consciousness.’ – Rick Phillips 2) What is a soul? It’s like electricity – we don’t really know what it is, but it’s a force that can light a room.
Ray Charles
soul care – The sacred elements of the Earth become teachers, illuminators of aspects of Spirit, instructors about the parts of the human self that are undergoing purification. They provide a kind of soul care—much as mystical mentors do—and aid the young soul in its work of transcendence, in its journey to the divine – Buhner 1997
soul gain ~
soul glyphs – the designs of our original incarnational purposes
soul hackers – invasive beings
soul-hungry ~ . the surging mass of undisciplined energy that collective humanity continues to exude indicates to us that the majority remain entranced with a variety of self-indulgent, mindless occupations common to soul hungry people. . Humanity’s ongoing fascination with sad, emotionally unfulfilled and violent songs, stories, and movies, is a reflection of its neglect to incorporate applied spirituality as the main thrust of is social political and religious institutions. ~ Arcturians
soul loss ~ when an individual closes part of their natural self off to life. ~ ross bishop
soul pool – The Zinacanteco return to a soul pool, a soul depository kept by the ancestral gods.
soul power – 1) ‘ . . . the alive self can be defined only by contrast to either a state of being less than alive, as in illness, or a state of being more than alive, through the acquisition of (a soul called . . . ) arutam.’ – C. Taylor 2) Here one might note that the power resulting from shamanic trypping comes to an extent from ‘stacking your deck’ in regards to the soul power you have at ‘your’ disposal. That is, you are being ridden/or you are riding, additional souls with additional powers of intention. You are thereby turbocharged into a state of soul enhancement; more ‘soul power’ under the hood, so to speak. – mb
Soul sludge – ‘Eclipses are karmic in their significance, marking the points at which greater clarity of perception can bring a clearing of soul sludge, and the creating of new outcomes that had not been possible before.’ – Dan Furst
soul speech – There is a fabric of Spirit that unites all souls and the material world into which they emerge. The 3-D world can thereby be ‘read’ to discover the frozen harmonic, the soul speech, that underlies its creation. Though different modes of communication mark borders between beings – the shape and color of a plant, the activity of animals, the changes in the night sky – this soul speech is the mother tongue of the tribes of creation. It is often known as the ‘old’ language of many indigenous peoples. Specific to plants, it is known in herbalism as the ‘doctrine of signatures’. We can learn this language by training the body-mind as an instrument of perception. By practicing our existence in the subtleties of thoughts, emotions, sights, sounds, temperatures, smells, tastes and so on, we become familiar with the finer bodies that interpenetrate the physical. We can then shift awareness to them, and learn of the deeper stratas of this world. Prayer gives strong intentionality to this tuning, and ceremonies give it form, direction, and continuity. As we move into more sensitive feeling states, the dialogue experience becomes dreamlike and visionary, intuitive and synchronous. To open to the higher, more unifying frequencies of spiritual existence, is to engage the imaginal, mythic worlds native to them. Here, in this realm of the soul, all beings speak the same language, all intelligences operate as charismas, magnetized fractals of attraction engaged in intricate dances of be-coming that trace anatomies of individuation across the mind’s sky. It is a communication of merging and differentiating, transforming and shapeshifting, of knowing something by becoming it. To converse in the language of soul speech allows us great intimacy with the tribes of creation. It feeds our hunger for deeper expression of feeling, for union with another. It makes it easier for us to ‘walk in the sacred’, and gain the strength and wisdom of this path. By doing so we bridge the dimensions, and facilitate traffic between the worlds. When we know that the natural world can feel and respond to our attentions, we can attune and give expression to the feeling tone of trees and birds, or a particular waterfall or star. From the swell of the ocean of nonverbal awareness we can raise waves of dance and song, art and technologies. By conducting the world alive, we embody the stories of our ancestors, and give them futher expression in our lives and culture. – mb
Souls journey – In our soul’s journey, we go through many stages of development, from not even knowing we exist as an individual aspect of a previously undifferentiated whole, to identifying solely as that individual unaware of any whole, to knowing ourselves intimately, simultaneously and paradoxically as one with all that is and also as an individuated entity. – anamika
source domain – ‘For Johnson, meaning and therefore order is created through various types of projections or transformations from these basic image schemata which are grounded in experience. One of the main mechanisms of projection is through analogy or metaphor, in which ‘we map features of the source domain onto the target domain via a metaphorical projection’ (Johnson 1987:109).- M.L. Lyon 1990 (Order and Healing . . .) pg. 260
space – The matrix of space is a multidimensional landscape of energy fields
speech – shaped breath
speed of love – faster than speed of light
spells – 1) Describes the situation as it is, as you want it to be, and how you are going to change it. Magical spells are reflections of a magical universe. Advertising is a form of spells. Spells are language that makes something happen, a vital, multidimensional language, in contrast to the more ‘flattened’ language that just/only describes something. – mb 2) The science of intention. 3) word doctoring
Spheroself – Widening the senses. Exercises of contact with the spheroself – http://www.damanhur.org/odu/html/diary_of_courses.htm
Spin cycle –’ As long as you go back to your 9-to-5 job the next day, watch your daily dose of brainwash headline news propaganda, keep ingesting the status quo foods and medications that keep you in the spin cycle, we will tell you all you want that ‘one person can make a difference’. Be empowered by your disempowerment!’ – james frazier 2) ‘spin’ is the verb used to describe the stste of Samsara in Tibertan Buddhism
Spinages –
spinning will –
Spirit – Manifests as objective nature, awakens in subjective mind, and recovers in nondual awareness
spirit(s) – 1) ‘parahuman beings’ – Becker 1995; 2) animate essences – Townsley 1993; 3) ‘a fictitious but culturally-sanctioned supernatural pseudo-community’ – Wallace 1956; 4) sentient life force – mb 5) personifications of various qualities of awareness – K. Carey 6) psychotherapists for the poor – E. Luna 7) What linguists refer to as ‘meaning,’ physicists call ‘quantum’, and Native Americans call ‘spirit’ (and biologists call ‘life,’ and medicine calls ‘health’, etc.). – dan alford 8) ‘When the concept of the human spirit is understood as the mode of consciousness in which the individual feels a sense of belonging, of connectedness, to the cosmos as a whole, it becomes clear that ecological awareness is spiritual in its deepest essence. Capra
spirit-driven – ‘Pls. join our list for info on spirit-driven, Greater Bay Area underground ‘- DJ Dragonfly
spirit food – intentionality, the strength of prayer/intention in the spirit world creates a sort of resonance, a connection, which is food for spirit. Spirit food.
spirit of the depths – ‘The central premise of the book, Shamdasani told me, was that Jung had become disillusioned with scientific rationalism — what he called “the spirit of the times” — and over the course of many quixotic encounters with his own soul and with other inner figures, he comes to know and appreciate “the spirit of the depths,” a field that makes room for magic, coincidence and the mythological metaphors delivered by dreams. –http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/magazine/20jung-t.html?pagewanted=6&_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss
spirit world – ‘the vast unseen realms underlying your experienced reality. That is, anything present on the physical plane first exists as a nonphysical template, an etheric conceptual grid, which can be tapped into by the human mind and brought to form with creativity and tools. . . Humans are driven to replicate, as closely as possible, the templates and processes governing the unseen realms of consciousness: to create heaven on earth. As the earth’s vibration accelerates, allowing humanity to reach higher into its banks of potential, technological innovation comes ever closer to physically manifesting the nonphysical universe beneath your experienced reality.’ – Alexander 2) neonized shamanic homeland — mb 3) the invisible dimension from which we are all nourished 4) the unifying field of consciousness; that which with one can attune and identify with all manner of forms and beings. – r. metzner 5) ‘. . . the physicists are used to calling it ‘the subatomic realm’ whereas the American Indians for millennia have been calling it ‘the spirit realm’. – dan moonhawk alford 6) According to both Schelling and Hegel, Spirit goes through three major phases. It first emanates or manifests as objective evolving nature. It then awakens to itself in subjective mind, and finally recovers its original identity in nondual awareness in which subject and object, mind and nature are unified. – R. Walsh 7) the ancestral home of the clan (in Tukanoan society) is called the ‘waking up house’ of the ancestors; upon death (or upon trypping), the souls of deceased clan members travel to this invisible house where they are said to ‘re-awaken’ as spirit people.- Arhem, Kaj – (in) ‘Society and Nature’, pg. 187.
spiritual – 1) ‘The spiritual appears in the psyche as an instinct, indeed as a real passion . . . It is not derived from any other instinct, but is a principle sui generis,that is a specific and necessary form of power.’ 2) To me personally, the term ‘spiritual’ has evolved over the years into the word ‘wonderment.’ I am continuously surprised and amazed in the discovery of what is clearly present there in the human mind but simply not available. My exploration of psychedelic drugs, not just the known ones such as DMT and mescaline, but newly created ones as well, is motivated by the excitement of discovery. New drugs may serve as models for new tools for research, or for new medicines to treat our illnesses. But to me the reward is the finding of them, not the use of them. In that sense, perhaps the profound joy I feel in this search is indeed a form of spirituality. – Sasha Shulgin 3) That which exists in the invisible. 4) We consider a practice to be “spiritual” if it is oriented toward wholeness and healing and motivated by universal values such as love, compassion, and universal justice. It is not necessary that the approach be explicitly spiritual. For example, we would consider a practice that inspires awe and reverence for the Earth to be spiritual, even if the word spiritual is not mentioned. ~http://www.gaiafield.net/library/what-is-subtle-activism
spiritual action – Spiritual action is what I call taking any responsible action towards one’s own spiritual development or increased awareness and experience. I think that’s important, because a lot of people are kind of into the ‘Tinkerbell mentality’ where they think that they don’t have to do anything; that spiritual experience is just going to kind of land on their head like pixie dust. And sometimes those experiences do happen. We call it grace or revelation or whatever. But those experiences generally aren’t consistent or daily, so in the meantime, if we want to have some kind of spiritual awareness and depth of experience, we need to take various actions so that can happen. And the actions — there are an infinite number of possibilities. They could be meditation, they could be going out on a vision quest, they could be creative actions that make us more aware of our creative connection and spiritual connection to the larger Creator or creative forces in the universe. It could be taking a Tai Chi class or getting into holistic healing — or awareness of it, and body-mind-spirit connections. It could be almost anything, but the important thing is to dosomething. – Josie Ravenwing
spiritual awakening – This process by which we continue to expand our consciousness beyond that which we were previously identified with as self is called spiritual awakening. It requires great faith, great courage and great trust. For what is let go of is the only sense of self that one knows at that time in order to open into a more expansive reality which contains an even greater sense of self. This higher dimension of being is where true fulfillment resides. This is the realm of the Masters. This is the realm of divine freedom, compassion and love. – anamika
spiritual bypassing – Spiritual bypassing is the tendency to use spiritual ideals, teachings or practices to avoid or prematurely transcend relative human needs, feelings, personal issues and developmental tasks. Spiritual bypassing often uses absolute truth to disparage relative truth, emptiness to devalue form, and oneness to belittle individuality. One current popular version is a one-sided transcendentalism that uses nondual terms and ideas to bypass the challenging work of confronting and working with conditioned emotional and relational patterns. Spiritual bypassing is a strong temptation in times like ours when achieving what were once ordinary developmental landmarks – earning a livelihood through dignified, meaningful work; raising a family; sustaining a long-term intimate relationship; belonging to a larger social community – has become increasingly difficult and elusive. Yet when people use spirituality to shore up a shaky sense of self, their spiritual practice becomes inauthentic, as well as unintegrated with the rest of their life. – http://spiritrock.org/calendar/display.asp?id=SP5S09 2) leapingfrogging over the personal, and into the transpersonal. Common to younger people doing a lot of elder medicines – mb 3) spiritual bypassing means you are just not feeling anything ~ W.K, Pleiadians
spiritual cannibalism – “The total person must be consumed to support life in its depth—to allow for creative interchange between one human being and another, and eventually between a human being and God. We cannot limit our intake to the qualities that are ‘easy to take.’….Life must be consumed whole—with all its tensions, pain and joy.” Swami Rudrananda (Rudi)
spiritual clarification ~ If your resolve is to move into the future karmically unencumbered, you will best achieve spiritual clarification thru a loving attitude and a sincere attempt to live a good life ~ Arcturians
spiritual evolution – (Anandamayi Ma) . . explained that there were four stages in her spiritual evolution. In the first, the mind was “dried” of desire and passion so it could catch the fire of spiritual knowledge easily. Next the body became still and the mind was drawn inward, as religious emotion flowed in the heart like a stream. Thirdly, her personal identity was absorbed by an individual deity, but some distinction between form and formlessness still remained. Lastly, there was a melting away of all duality. Here the mind was completely free from the movement of thought. There was also full consciousness even in what is normally characterized as the dream state. – www.om-guru.com/html/ saints/anandamayi.html
spiritual healing – 1) consists of the self’s immersion in elevated states of consciousness, that allows one to perceive the root of the imbalances that lead to illness –A. Polari 2) involves a belief in a nonlocal primary consciousness; and this consciousness expresses itself or unfolds through a channel created when a healer shifts his or her attention from self-consciousness to helping another, and from separateness to joining together. Spiritual healers are primarily concerned with a way of being. It involves active compassion in the presence of surrender egos. It operates from the aspect of service, what some Biblical translations call ‘charity’. It is an experience of one universal mind unifying with itself, which is the main aspect of love. It is a ‘letting’ rather than an exertion. Involves info access and sharing – Jane Katra 3) A technique employed to lift consciousness to such an elevation that a contact with God is established, which permits spiritual power to flow into human activity. – Joel Goldsmith
spiritual hearing – “Spiritual hearing is the understanding of hidden things by listening to our hearts, by discerning realities which are the object of our quest and which comprise the signs of the divine present in all creatures.” – Master Qushari, from the Sufi tradition
spiritual life – To live out the drama of your personal and social existence in the context of continual cosmic and spiritual meaning. 2) Charity, compassion, loving one another, trying to live harmoniously – these are the cornerstones . . . keys to the process are sincerity and persistence of the effort. This means you will stay the search until God’s leading becomes clear to you; and the clearer his lead, the easier and more joyous is the search. God reaches you thru your inner potentialities – W. Van Dusen 3) to live our life in relationship to ultimates (contexts and implications). 4) Our spiritual growth challenge then is to recognize and identify the world (of the Buddhist ‘six realms) that we are inhabiting by raising consciousness; and thus we learn to gradually free ourselves from the thrall of the three poisons (greed, hatred, ignorance). – Ralph Metzner 4) Spiritual practices are for weakening the egocentric desires. If a person is truthful, for example, that person’s inner world will narrow down because unreal (illusory) world within it is vast. – Babaji
spiritual mastery ~ signs of spiritual mastery is the ability to navigate cultural illusions successfully while clearly understanding their nature. ~Hathors
spiritual reality (aka as ‘actuality’) – We look at the world and at ourselves through tinted lenses. We need to remove these colored glasses to perceive spiritual reality. Spiritual reality is what truly exists, without distortion, without any interpretation of our minds, which are loaded down with acquired knowledge. – Prem Baba
spiritual teachings ~ “Many people think that it is the function of a spiritual teaching to provide answers to life’s biggest questions, but actually the opposite is true. The primary task of any good spiritual teaching is not to answer your questions, but to question your answers. For it is your conscious and unconscious assumptions and beliefs that distort your perception and cause you to see separation and division where there is actually only unity and completeness.” ~ Adyashanti
spirituality – 1) communication with the wider-than-soley-human-world; feeling interconnectiveness to infinity – mb 2) Themes of purification, expansion, and identity are inherent in all spiritual ways; the experience itself is anything but analytical. Its primary, overwhelming component is the deep effect it has on the spirit of the person; lightening from heaven – S. Buhner, 1997 3) spirituality is a continual movement away from compartmentalization and separation and toward embracing all of life.’ – Jack Kornfield 4) To become more spiritual, you should first give up the idea about becoming more spiritual. Just try to pray sincerely to God and meditate on him. Cry and pray to God. Sing his glories. ~ Amma (AC V) 5) Spirituality is the experience of that domain of awareness where we experience our universality. This domain of awareness is a core consciousness that is beyond our mind, intellect, and ego. In religious traditions this core consciousness is referred to as the soul which is part of a collective soul or collective consciousness, which in turn is part of a more universal domain of consciousness referred to in religions as God. When we have even a partial glimpse of this level of awareness we experience joy, insight, intuition, creativity, and freedom of choice. In addition, there is the awakening of love, kindness, compassion, happiness at the success of others, and equanimity. As the turbulence of our mind settles down, our body also begins to heal itself because it also quiets down. The body’s self-repair mechanisms are activated when the mind is at peace because the mind and body are at the deepest level inseparably one. – Deepak Chopra 6) investigation of: what do you know about the present moment; exploration of the right here and right now – Adyashanti 7) “Spirituality is returning to our original source of existence.” — Amma 8) Spirituality is the process of continually expanding our perspective of ourselves until we recognize that we are the source of love. . . Spirituality is independent of religion. It is the elixir of the new age.“. . ~ Prem Baba 9)
spontaneous communities – V. Turner explains the experience of rituals – the celebrated feelings of spontaneous communities – as the simultaneous excitation of the two hemispheres of the cerebral cortex. No doubt an earlier version of the concept of ‘TAZ’ (Temporary Autonomous Zones).
Spontaneity~ ‘ . . we need to access the deeper intuitive wisdom of the life force. this is Spontaneity. . Spontaneity is a rational process in the constitution of love. . its accuracy is unsurpassed. This nonresistant superconductivity of inner biological computing organizes data at the speed of light ~ and with a clarity that complements the purposes of the Children of the Light. . ~Ken Carey
staft –
staged authenticity – ‘. . .in which a local cultural tradition, once celebrated for its own sake and out of a belief in its intrinsic value, turns into a tourist spectacle and thus, insidiously, into a performance.’ – David Nicholson-Lord
stalking a vision –– shamans emphasize that none of the things referred to in the song should be referred to by their proper names. These circumlocutions are not culturally fixed equivalents used unconsciously. The basic sense of the usages was carried by finely observed perceptual resemblance’s between the song word and its referent. Jaguars become ‘baskets’ because the weaving looks like a jaguars marking, and so on. They call these ‘twisted language’. Why use this language?: ‘With my songs I want to see – singing, I carefully examine things – twisted language brings me close but not too close – with normal words I would crash into things – with twisted words I circle around them (another analog to hunting, to stalking a vision) .- I can see them clearly. – Townsley 1993 – p. 460
starchildren – The Indigo and Crystal children that come to the planet are known as “starchildren”. Often this is because their souls are more at home in the stars, and they have not incarnated on Earth before. They come at this time as a “special assignment” team to assist Earth and her inhabitants with their transition and rebirth as a higher dimensional “New Earth”. But while these beings appear like ordinary human beings, they do in fact have access to a greater range of human potential. They are more open to who they are, closer to a recognition of their divine origins and essence – Celia Fenn
starflys – the Achuar word for fireflys.
Stargazer – sit right beside Amma and gaze at Her . . .
stars – ‘cells of cosmic energy’ – Paul Pearsall
starway~ . . . the resonant pathway of the stars, the great intergalactic starway that circulates universal information and awareness.~ Ken Carey
starweed –
state – the real greatness of a state is the extent of obedience to the unenforceable – to the extent citizens can be trusted to obey self-imposed law. Measured by the extent a nation trusts its citizens, and the way they respond to that trust. Ethics is therefore a measure of national strength. what really dooms a state is lack of trust.
statistics – Robert Park calls it ‘parlor magic’ because it seems to prohibit the analysis of subjectivity, the idiosyncratic, and the peculiar.
steeped – ‘Normal waking consciousness is steeped in individualism, while the higher states reveal an ultimate unity.’ (A. Judith).
stiff air – windows
stillness – ‘I stayed in the hall to meditate and really dove into that question “What is stillness?” “What is it?” And that was the inquiry that brought me into direct experience of stillness, which flowered into a knowledge that that is Self. That is the nature of Self. Although stillness moves as form, it is the one constant. It is the One. Stillness is the perspective of permanence, of that which does not come and go, even as it comes and goes as form. . . I truly didn’t know what Stillness was. I had completely set aside any ideas that I had about it. And with all of my senses I followed the sense of stillness in my body, and really traced all movements within my body as I was sitting, until my body became more still than I’d ever known. And then my attention went to the outer world, and I sensed what Stillness was in the outer world.’ – Mukti
strance –
Stress ~ What acute stress does,” Sokol-Hessner told me, “is it shifts you away from more complex ways of evaluating your options into habitual shortcuts.” Stress affects people’s capacity to “take into account new information.” It leads them to revert to familiar behaviors even as evidence mounts that those familiar behaviors are not serving them well. ~ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/trump-gets-trumpier-under-stress/613543/
stretching – Share Guide: So you’re saying that if you pay attention in yoga class, you can stretch yourself, but do it carefully.
Rodney Yee: I hate the word “stretch.”
Share Guide: What would you say: reach, expand, go further, go deeper? I feel that I am opening up in my yoga practice more. I am not as afraid, and I am extending myself further and I am feeling it more in my posture and in my joints.
Rodney Yee: But maybe you are not opening. Maybe what’s taking place is that you are letting go of resistance.
Share Guide: Yes, I am not really so much pushing myself into shape, as I am relaxing into the postures more deeply, while paying more attention to my breath.
Rodney Yee: That is what I am saying–language is so important! If you tell people you are “stretching,” already you have demeaned the whole practice of yoga.
Share Guide: I am trying to find the right way to talk about it. So stretching to hurt yourself isn’t what you want but rather relaxing deeper in the pose and using the breath.
Rodney Yee: Sometimes the way to open something up is to create more strain. So it’s not just “letting go” but sometimes it’s the sense of being more energetic. It is a balance between strength, flexibility, endurance, and relaxation. They should put that up in the gym. It is more than three things–it’s also mindfulness, the way the breath is flowing, and so forth. – http://www.shareguide.com/Yee.html
stock market – a giant global casino – David Korten
Stockholm Syndrome – 1) In 1973, four Swedes held in a bank vault for six days during a robbery became attached to their captors, a phenomenon dubbed the Stockholm Syndrome. According to psychologists, the abused bond to their abusers as a means to endure violence. The captives begin to identify with their captors. While the ‘Sveriges Kreditbank’ robbery itself may not have been of world shattering importance, later interviews with the four hostages yielded surprising results — results that have been confirmed in numerous other ‘hostage situations’ in the years that followed. Even though the captives themselves were not able to explain it, they displayed a strange association with their captors, identifying with them while fearing those who sought to end their captivityhttp://www.yahoodi.com/peace/stockholm.html 2) ‘The stunningly simple truth is that the paradigm that controls our current system will seek to marginalize, disempower, and kill off anyone who has done or is doing this work for it sees them as a threat, not realizing that by hanging on to what it considers to be it’s life and by silencing the voices calling for conscious evolution, it signs it’s own warrant of death, and millions of human beings are complicitous due to a hostage mentality. The Stockholm Syndrome is controlling us as we give up our basic human rights, our freedom, and our hope for a brighter future due to the fact that we snarl and fight over crumbs from our captor’s table, giving away in every moment the very things that would set us free: compassionate, collaborative community, creativity, imagination, and love.’ – Martha White
stories – stories are a terrritory of the imagination that strike each person differently. One you find that meaning to you, its a doorway to keep going back into that story and get further meaning. – Michael Meade
story of the land – . . . and the complexities of its rhythms. To affirm that the land is alive and full of spirits and nonhuman creatures that have formed the land and continue to pervade it. To live on the land successfully, it is necessary to know and relate properly to these beings. – Kinsey, D.
strangers – friends you haven’t met yet
street drugs – pharmaceutically colonized vision plants
stress – to be in conflict with what is, to then want to be in the future or past to avoid it. – E. Tolle
structural destiny – ‘We are structurally disposed to evolve, to transcend the limitations of the body/mind.’ – Da Free John
struggle – life, when it is not connected to the deeper meanings of things.
struturalism – the intellectual approach that examines societies and their products as systems, structured by signs in relation to each other. The search is for the underlying code that governs the symbolic system of a society. Following some fundamental principles of linguistics, the structuralists expected these systems to be constructed out of binary oppositions. Later the structuralist program came under attack and ‘poststructuralists’ and ‘deconstructionists’ argued that the codes were not merely binary, or that no such code could be found, or that signs themselves were historical products which are endlessly subject to reinterpretation – Collins and Makowsky
subcorporeal sun – the light of the heart
sublimate – To refine and exalt; to heighten; to elevate; Passing or having passed from the solid to the gaseous state (or vice versa) without becoming liquid. . . . . radio is a sublimated printing press, internet a sublimated radio . . .
subterranean sun – alchemist’s gold
subtle activism ~ ‘Subtle activism is at heart an act of shaping – not shaping someone or something else, but shaping ourselves to “be the change we want to see,” to become a point of contact and resonance that enhances the wholeness within a situation. As a subtle activist we witness and appreciate the unique conditions within the target of the inner work. . . to first shape ourselves by drawing on our memories of our own experience of joy or courage or love and then offering our resonance with those qualities as a gift to the targeted situation. We add the “weight” of our presence to the existing seed of wholeness in the situation.’ ~ David Spangler
suburbs – Permaculture founder, Bill Mollison, has stated that the suburbs are the next agricultural frontier in the US because people, fuel, land, water and inputs are already concentrated there. US suburbs have similar population density to high-intensive subsistence farming areas in other parts of the world.
subtracing – the art of sensitizing oneself to subtle shifts in mood via heightened awareness of changes in energy gradients within and around the body.
subvocals – rhythmic patterns of communication that operate between verbalizing and telepathy. – mb
suffering – 1) . . can push us to the brink of our sensory and analytical awareness, and force us to open ourselves to the possibility of help from a greater nonlocal spiritual realm. That is the gift of suffering. – Jane Katra 2) ‘limited awareness of reality’ – Pathwork 3) “Suffering begins when you mentally label a situation as bad. That causes an emotional contraction. When you let it be, without naming it, enormous power is available to you. The contraction cuts you off from that power, the power of life itself.” – E. Tolle 4) birthing pains of consciousness expansion – mb 5) The origin of suffering is attachment to transient things and the ignorance thereof. Transient things do not only include the physical objects that surround us, but also ideas, and -in a greater sense- all objects of our perception. Ignorance is the lack of understanding of how our mind is attached to impermanent things. The reasons for suffering are desire, passion, ardour, pursuit of wealth and prestige, striving for fame and popularity, or in short: craving and clinging. Because the objects of our attachment are transient, their loss is inevitable, thus suffering will necessarily follow. Objects of attachment also include the idea of a “self” which is a delusion, because there is no abiding self. What we call “self” is just an imagined entity, and we are merely a part of the ceaseless becoming of the universe.” – Buddha 6) “wandering on the wheel of becoming” – Buddha 7) Suffering arises because two opposing forces, a yes-current and a no-current, act within the system. When a “yes” acts together with a “no” pain arises. This “yes” and “no” are the sources of desire, both for what’s positive and for what’s negative. Although the desire for the negative is mostly unconscious, we work towards bringing these feelings and desires to conscious awareness. – Prem Baba
suicide – the self is to some extent acting out of context with the body, which still has its own will to live. – Seth
sun ~ the sun is a metronome for your solar system. . It is keeping pace and telling you where you all need to be. ~ ‘P’leiadians
sunergy ~ the ultimate source of synergy
supermind ~ ‘ . . siddhi powers are an aspect of the latent, yet omni-present foundation of the “supermind” or “supermental intellect” which Aurobindo describes as the trajectory of human consciousness towards a teleological end of ultimate psychic unification (6). Perhaps the ability of telepathy would be a consequential result of the “descent of the Overmind” that Aurobindo described. If Aurobindo’s premise is true, and our individual minds are immersed in some kind of larger, more integrated, more informed, “supermind” of which we are individualized manifestations, and this “supermind” is actively creating and influencing us towards an end of psychic unity, we might conclude that eventually the siddhi powers could become a natural and everyday part of human life. The most important of these, within the context of Aurobindo’s argument for psychic unity and self-governance, are the siddhis associated with telepathy and the sharing or extension of mental functions between minds: prakamya and vyapti. ~ Tristan Gulliford
superstition – unexamined assumptions
suppression – Suppression (of illness) occurs when the organism is forced to act in a certain way, according to artificial, external agents, which hide the disease process and symptoms. – Matthew Wood
supra – prefix. means above, over , on top of; also greater than, transcending. relates to the Greek word ‘huber’ – ‘over’ – from which derives hyper. E.g.: Post structuralism in the sixties. Anthropologists began to realize that their presence changed things, that they were colonizing agents of a sort, and their methodology is flawed since participant observation is a contradiction in terms, an oxymoron. Thus anthropologist ‘dances on the edge of paradox’, playing schizophrenic role of player/commentator’ – though this has some expansion of conscious ‘stretching’ function if one can train oneself to accommodate and synthesize these perspectives.Also that the ‘unbiased and supra-cultural language of the observer’ was actually a colonial discourse and form of domination. The solution for anthropology consisted in accepting it was not a science but a form of interpretation.
surfacing and clearing – I. Prattis’s model of healing: health is unity between body/mind/soul. Illnesses come of (he says ‘internal’) blockages and disjunctions between these. Healing requires attention to and dialogue with the disjunction so that which blocks inner unity from taking shape is identified, understood, transformed and then transcended. Remedies thus involve a series of surfacing and clearing. – (1997. ‘Anthro at the Edge’).
surrender – a demonstration of faith 2) Surrender removes all fear and tension. Surrender leads one to peace and bliss. Where there is surrender there is no fear, and vice versa. Where there is surrender, there is love and compassion, whereas fear results in hatred and enmity. But to surrender one needs a lot of courage, the courage to give up oneself. It demands a daring attitude to sacrifice one;s ego. Surrender means welcoming and accepting everything without the least feeling of sorrow or disappointment. ~ Amma (AC V) 3) surrender is the trnasition between resistance and non resistance. – E. Tolle 4) Something happens after you align with the Divine for a while. You begin to feel on a cellular level that things are unfolding exactly in the way that they should. At the rate and timing they need. You start to trust the process. You relax from the endless pushing that most of us learned at birth. On some fundamental, mysterious level, you just let go. Not with that bitterness people feel when they fear the (ego’s) dreams won’t occur. Not with passivity as right actions do get shown. Rather you relax into this calm curiosity about where the flow might go. You’re detached yet somehow riveted by how the story will unfold. You feel spaciously receptive and open to what wishes to come. You give it all room to blossom. You trust the highest, one way or another, eventually will unfold. You know that with God as your Source you needn’t cling to any one plan.
And you’re not clutching a list of desires, pushing the ego’s agenda even more. When you’re in cycles of quiet and waiting, you catch your breath knowing the wheel again will turn. You rest because as the right actions get revealed a lot will arise to be done. You wait for the signs and the timing rather than rip open the cocoon.
You trust that delays might be welcome. You trust that delays can be good. You trust that delays are all perfect. And you stay present just to witness your own birth.
~ Tosha Silver
swar sadhana – a musical path of spiritual-development, wherein the tones themselves are the practice.
sweet release –
swinging walls – doors
sylvanize – ‘Thru out the American subarctic, Indigenes believe that animals and humans are bonded very closely; they are part of one community, and therefore involved with each other in relations of empowerment, emotional interactions, and even sex. They are in some sense people. For many groups they are actual human beings who can take off their skins and appear as thoroughly humanoid. Culture and nature are distinct but interpenetrate constantly, each depends on the other and must maintain harmony. Much cross-species marriage and reincarnation. Supernatural/shamanic power regularly crosses the gap. Food, material goods, and spiritual power can be obtained from natural world. Animals are culture bearing creatures, living in anthropomorphic settings in spirit world. Nature/culture dichotomy is contrast between beings-in-their-community (people in villages; salmon under the sea), and beings-in-the-outer-world (people on vision quests, salmon in rivers). Natural world provides not only powers but symbols – higher order symbols link across nature-culture boundary. People who negotiate their selves with animals and plants, would humanize the animals and plants’ (and the plants and animals that negotiate their selves with humans would sylvanize the humans). – Anderson: ‘Ecologies of the Heart’.
sylvatica –
symbiosis –– habitual cohabitation of organisms of different species. The term usually applies to a dependent relationship that is beneficial to both members (also called mutualism). Symbiosis may occur between a plant and a fungus (e.g., lichen-forming alga and fungus), two kinds of animals (e.g., herbivores and cellulose-digesting gut microorganisms), or a plant and an animal (e.g., fig and fig wasp). We are symbiotic beings on a symbiotic planet.
symbionts – ‘The symbionts (ants and cecropia sp.) live among new assemblages of species not found in the mature forest’.
symbiotic steward – During this workshop, we will explore deep-ecological philosophies & techniques which transcend conventional mindsets of forest management, to place the herbalist as a symbiotic steward of medicinal plants and their ecosystems. Gregory Tilford
symbolism – 1) the art of thinking in images (an art now lost to civilized man) – K. Coomaraswamy. 2) ‘The hymns also help in the interpretation of the experiences people have during the seances. They help to create connections between the lived experiences and the magical or mythical symbols with which they become invested, which is of great importance in avoiding the break up of the group. The Catalan anthropologist Josep Maria Fericgla, working on the Indian use of ayahuasca, like Victor Turner considers this to be a psychic or spiritual function of symbols that was lost by Western societies when they abandoned their traditional ways of organizing unconscious drives and using these ‘sources of renovation’ for individual and collective benefit. (Fericgla 1989:13). – E. MacRae
symmetrical fantasy – ‘Vayda perceives Harris’s errors as that of the ‘faith in general formulas, laws, or prescription in human affairs which according to some is a way of escaping ‘from the uncertainty and unpredictable variety of life to the false security of our own symmetrical fantasies‘.
symptom – 1) Allopathy: symptoms are the disease, signs of the body’s breakdown. Homeopathy: defenses of the body that attempt to protect and heal itself. 2) ‘Symptoms, often mistaken for disease, are manifestations which the body uses to alert us to the fact that something is wrong; certain cells or organs are either not getting what they need to function properly or are being subjected to something that is bad for them.’ – Adele Dawson 3) Symptoms are what you can follow back to that from which they arise in order to understand the problem. mb
syncretism – Reconciliation or fusion of differing systems of belief, as in philosophy or religion, especially when success is partial or the result is heterogeneous. Syncretism is opposed to eclecticism in philosophy. — Krauth 2) the blending of elements of two traditions – Byron Taylor
synchronocity –the universe is informed and pervaded by a fundamental holistic patterning which extends through every level, so that a constant synchronicity or meaningful correlation exists between astronomical events and human events. This is represented in the basic esoteric axiom, “as above, so below,” which reflects a universe all of whose parts are integrated into an intelligible whole. . . . synchronicity is the expression of the anima mundi, your own unconscious, that is ultimately the universe’s unconsciousness, artistically unfolding its patterns in life all around you all the time – R. Tarnas 2) When we start noticing synchronicity pointing the way forward towards fulfilling our destiny through various “mysterious coincidences,” we may rescue our long-lost faith. You are in awe as you behold a higher intelligence that guides you and guides everything in the world. – Prem Baba 3) Balance is strength. Compassion is strength. A balanced Human Being will seldom catch disease. A balanced Human Being will have that which you will call synchronicity. Others call it luck. Synchronicity is to be in the right place at the right time and have perfect things happen, because they’re the result of compassionate action. Compassion actually is an energy that pushes the idea aside of luck or chance. You control your reality. . . ~ Kryon
synergy – 1) Very broadly, the term refers to the combined, or cooperative effects produced by the relationships among various forces, particles, elements, parts or individuals in a given context — effects that are not otherwise possible. The term is derived from the Greek word synergos, meaning to •work together• or, literally, to •co-operate.• Synergy is often associated with the cliche, •the whole is greater than the sum of its parts• (which dates back to Aristotle, in The Metaphysics), but this is actually a rather narrow and even misleading characterization. In fact, synergy comes in many different forms; sometimes wholes are not greater than the sum of their parts, just different. – Peter Corning 2) Hierarchically ordered structures and emergents (properties or capacities that emerge de novo at certain levels of hierarchy) cannot be interpreted simply in terms of, nor considered as parts of, lower order phenomena. For example, when atoms of hydrogen and oxygen combine, the result is a molecule of water with novel emergent properties, such as wetness. These emergent properties are totally unpredictable from the properties of its constituent atoms and cannot be described in terms of atoms–and, of course, the water molecule is not contained within its atoms. So too life, or the biosphere, is not simply contained in, reducible to, or explicable simply in terms of, the physiosphere: the realm of pure matter. Life has emergent properties not found in the properties of its chemical constituents. Life, in other words, has properties and capacities that seem to defy description in terms of the movements of the mere molecules. Likewise, the noosphere (the realm of sentient life) emerges from and is not simply in the biosphere. That is, the noosphere is not a component of the larger whole called biosphere but is an emergent that in some sense transcends it. Ontologically, the noosphere thus cannot be reduced to, or considered merely as, a strand of the biosphere. And humans are compound individuals comprised of all three ‘spheres’ or levels; we cannot be regarded simply as strands of the biosphere which comprises only the physical and biological levels. This is a difficult but important argument which can only be sketched briefly here. It appears to resolve a number of puzzles that have plagued ecological thinking such as how one can accord greater value to some forms of life, including humans, than others while simultaneously honoring all life. Wilber argues at length that this perspective is not antiecological, as it might appear at first glance. Rather, he insists that it naturally results in an enhanced concern for life and the environment which are now recognized as parts of one’s own compound individuality. – R.Walsh 4) ‘As Peter Russell explains, in his book ‘The Awakening Earth’, (p.96): Synergy in social groups represent the extent to which the activities of the individual support the group as a a whole. Groups high in synergy tend to be low in conflict and aggression: the social structures are such that the activity of the individual is naturally in tune with the needs of others and to the needs of the group.’ He goes on to say that ‘The amount of synergy in society is a reflection of the way in which we perceive ourselves in relation to the world around.’ 5) If you take parts away from a machine, it doesn’t work. If you take parts away from a plant, it can regain its form. Thus they have a wholeness that is more than the sum of the parts and their interactions
synesthesia – 1) ‘a characteristic of human thinking involving the lawful translation from one sensory modality to another along dimensions made parallel in perceiving. The more numerous the sensory modalities that are translated, the more powerful the ‘interiorization of thought’ (Ricoeur’s notion of feeling). Often the translation of one sensory modality into another is accomplished by the syntagmatic chains of ritual or myth. Synesthesia is one of the cognitive processes by which iconicity is achieved. E.g. puma among Inca is the generalized icon for rain/fertility. Metaphor and synesthesia both translate experience from one domain into another by operating on a commonality that can be generalized.’ – BJ Isabell 2) Synaesthesia is a cognitive phenomenon of cross-modal perception – colours are heard and tunes are seen as lights and shapes; smells are touched and surfaces are tasted; perfumes are visualised in figures and colours; and light is felt as texture. Synaesthesia is a type of sensorial experience that forms part of the neuro-psychological development of the brain and central nervous system. Generally, such fusion of the senses is spontaneously encountered in children, but it is rarely found spontaneously amongst adults (Shanon 2002:11). As individuals grow older, they seem to lose the ability to perceive in a synaesthetic manner. Amazonian peoples have found culturally specific ways of inducing such a rich perception in adults.
Amongst many Amazonian groups, synaesthesia is brought about through a combination of chanting and the use of psychoactive plants. In some cases, however, the bringing about of synaesthesia and the complex sensorial experience of shamanic rituals, do not depend upon the taking of plants. Amongst the Yaminahua, for example, very experienced shamans (Townsley 2001:267) use chanting alone to induce visions as a form of pure trance, not as a result of a chemically active natural substance. Amongst the Warao (Olsen 1975), chanting and the production of visions never involves psychoactive of any kind, not even tobacco. Music alone is the tool used to alter a shaman’s consciousness. – Francois Demange
syntony – State of being adjusted to a certain wave length; tuning – as in tuning a radio
systematic causation – (as opposed to ‘direct causation’) – Although we can’t say that “Sandy was directly caused by climate change” we can definitely say that “Sandy was systemically caused by climate change”. Climate change, in turn, is systemically caused largely by our use of fossil fuels, which in turn is systemically caused largely by our economic system and its feedback interactions with our political and governance systems (from money in politics to popular demand for “jobs” rather than a healthy commons and gifting, sharing, and community resilience systems that serve us all). All those phenomena are systemically caused by cultural narratives which assume our separation from and dominion over nature, and the fact that our collective ability to create and use powerful technologies far exceeds our collective ability to perceive and respond to the multiple consequences of those technologies. – Tom Atlee
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