Are You Psychic?
Hannah Green
Happy Full Moon
ARE YOU PSYCHIC?
Little rant: The idea of being psychic, like so many esoteric concepts has been ruined by mainstream culture. Aptitudes associated with the receptive (or feminine)...have been subject to a smear campaign which seeks to either trivialize and mock or demonize and fear. This has been going on for a few thousand years. For a clear historical exploration on what I am talking about see, Starhawk's book The Spiral Dance.
If we liberate ourselves from the idea that "being psychic" is what we were told it was - some kind of sensational phenomenon at best woo-woo or at worst demonic...
We might see that Yes, We are all as psychic as we want to be.
Psyche: the Greek word for soul or spirit and butterfly.
The very goal of therapy and inner work as I see it is to connect one's own inner guidance. Most important is developing the skill of being receptive to the unconscious. We want to yolk the conscious mind with the unconscious mind. This is Yoga.
Yoga: Word in Eastern spirituality meaning to yolk or join.
This joining makes us our own inner guide and keeps us developing the ability to be receptive to our own soul. Making this link is my definition of psychic.
When we have this kind of receptivity we become sensitive to how the inner world and the outer world are connected. Jung called the synchronicity.
Synchronicity: the meaningful coincidence of two events, one inner or psychic and one outer or physical.
Talk therapy is often the very important beginning to this process of marrying the inner and the outer worlds. We begin to bring our inner world out by sharing it deeply with another person. In depth therapy sometimes we have to spend a few years just talking. Imagine no one has ever really listened to us. We might need to spend a long time practicing sharing our inner world and trusting that another person will hear us and be receptive.
When we've learned to dialogue with another person we can better learn to dialogue with ourselves. As with all developmental abilities we experience them in relationship and then we internalize them and make them our own.
From there we can move on to other techniques. Art therapy, sand tray, the tarot and active imagination might at this point become potent tools for the process.
When we do a sand tray we are connecting the conscious mind with the unconscious mind...
We place the items in the tray and then through dialoging with what we see, deep truths we were holding inside but were as yet unconscious emerge into consciousness. Clients are so often blown away by how poignant and symbolic the items they choose are when they start to talk through what they have placed in the tray. The unconscious and the conscious mind are talking. We are doing yoga. We are connecting the polarities of inner and outer, conscious and unconscious, ego and soul.
This kind of exchange and sensitivity is "psychic" by my definition. It has to do with psyche and it is all about joining two halves like the wings of the butterfly. Also like the butterfly this process of joining the polarities transforms us just like the caterpillar transforms in the chrysalis.
The items in the sand tray reflect elements of the collective unconscious that we all relate to. I believe that tapping into the collective unconscious or inherited ancestral memory is also being "psychic." We call these images or items archetypes. An archetype is a form that is recognizable across time and culture. For instance a dragon, a pot of gold, a bridge, a well...We all have associations with these items that speak to us symbolically.
Collective Unconscious: Jung's word for ancestral memory or the deep part of the Unconscious mind that is inherited and contains information shared by all humankind across time and culture.
One of Jung's famous quotes reads, "we must make the unconscious conscious or it will rule our lives and we will call it fate." The dialogue between the conscious and the unconscious mind creates wisdom and helps us see clearly, another nice definition of psychic in my book.
I am interested in having an inner guide that points me towards finding meaning, connection, aliveness, wisdom and gratitude. I think when I am at my best as a therapist I am holding space for others to connect to this inner guide and am acting as ferrywoman to the inner depths. Making this connection myself and also supporting others in making this connection is my passion.
PS.
Heart felt and tender blessings to all our trees, animals and people affected by the fires and smoke.
By all accounts the astrological weather is stormy as we navigate these big conjunctions involving Mars and Saturn. I wish us all the resource and willingness to pause, connect within and relax before reacting or making rash moves.
I felt extra cooped up this last week and have been reminded again that caring for my body, mind and spirit is enough to focus on right now. Over and over again I get to let go of the idea that somehow there's a way to beat the game and be sitting on a distant island right now - the urge to escape is natural and it helps me to realize almost everyone is experiencing this to some degree.
Everywhere I go I will be invited to do the inner work and that's just the deal. We are in this together.
This Smith's album is also helping...