Seeing Clearly Through Cracked Lenses

SEEING CLEARLY THROUGH CRACKED LENSES

Being whole or centered is often viewed as healthy and beneficial; one is at the heart of things as opposed to residing on the outskirts, being in the minority or appearing marginalized. Yet when looking at a worldview, when one's paradigm is centered on a fixed identity, a clear resonance of right and wrong, a concrete understanding of reality, a "consensus reality," one is often unaware of all of the things one does not know and, moreover, that there are so many things that one does not see. When one experiences many challenges to one's worldview, it often cracks this fixed reality, allowing one to open up one's awareness to larger perspectives. When our lenses of seeing are cracked, we have the opportunity to expand. A broken worldview fosters a more awakened and resilient reality. Experiences with racism, social inequity, ecological oppression and other forms of personal and collective trauma provide the keys for cracking our lenses, our worldviews. They are our modern day rites of passage and can birth an opening to individual and collective insight and healing. Within this chapter, the author identifies key concepts of worldview transformation in the light of social and ecological issues as well as other forms of trauma and traces her own journey as a woman of color engaging the ecological crisis.

Presently, the planet is in a state of crisis. To a large extent, we have finally accepted that global warming is a reality and issues of climate justice are paramount. Suffering across the globe extends to both our human and more than human communities, with the direct and indirect effects of corporate globalization, whether through species loss, pollution and toxicity, wide-scale poverty, resource and religious wars, violence against women and children, racism and other forms of social injustice, mental illness, addictions and spiritual loss. We are still submerged in an era that heralded mechanistic science and the objectification of nature, including people, religious dogmatism, patriarchy, colonization, genocide, enslavement and the large-scale consumption and accumulation of surplus. On a personal and collective level, there is a psychic numbing and apathy to what is occurring around us because it is too painful to behold, as well as a continual coaxing to believe that everything is perfectly okay. In essence we are a broken society.

Ecopsychology purports that the suffering of the planet and that of people are interconnected and both are calling for healing. Moreover, it claims people living under a globalized reality, where a corporate economic system rules, are for the most part ill, and this illness resides within the framework and practice of western culture, one that has separated its identity from the rest of the natural world and, as result, views the earth as a resource for human consumption. Author and psychologist Chellis Glendinning parallels two states of humanity that mark the boundaries of our transition from a hunter-gatherer society to one that is disconnected from nature. The latter is the original trauma-the moment human societies broke with their earth-based traditions in order to pursue large-scale agriculture, which led to our loss of wildness and a resulting domestication. Shariff Abdullah describes the ensuing culture as Breakers, those who are cut off from their earth-based origins and participate in the destruction of ecosystems and peoples alike. In contrast are the Keepers, those communities that are still living in harmony with the natural world and practicing their original traditions. Glendinning's first state, the primal matrix, aligns with the Keepers. The primal matrix describes the state of humans before they broke away from earth-based worldviews and practices and is made up of three dimensions: "a sense of belonging and security in the world, trust, faith;"

"a sense of personal integrity, centeredness, capability; the consciousness of I" and "the capacity to draw vision and meaning from non-ordinary states of consciousness." These can be summarized as the abilities to feel at home within the natural world, having a unique purpose in life and experiencing the numinous. The resultant movement from the primal matrix to the original trauma is that we, and particularly those of us enculturated within western society, are broken.

In accepting our brokenness, there is yearning for wholeness. The word healing is related to wholeness and the myriad of forms of present age healing work seem to center on returning to a sense of wholeness that leaves us well integrated, intact, seamless-held within a community of beings that stresses our basic oneness. Yet in the light of so many stories, histories, diverse cultures, worldviews and realities, it is unreasonable to assume we will reenter a collective state of healing that is based on a common, seamless view. Instead, wholeness and healing manifests when we honor our collective wounding and allow our brokenness and resulting stories and diversities to be seen and held. Abdullah introduces a third paradigm after the Keepers and Breakers, the Menders-a breakthrough of people who "choose to live as conscious integral parts of a vital, sacred planet" and "compassionately assist in the birth of a new way of acting in the world." In embracing our brokenness, I like to visualize the Menders as creating a worldview that is a bricolage of our shattered selves, unified through our interconnectedness with all of life and our commitment to respect this, yet with recognition that we join together through related, yet disparate journeys of brokenness.

Brokenness: The Dark Night of the Soul, Sacred Wounds and Disorienting Dilemmas

I am always caught by a well quoted line from Leonard Cohen's song Anthem that utters "There is a crack in everything: that's how the light gets in." The full stanza counsels:

Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering 'There is a crack, a crack in everything That's how the light gets ing

The writer seems to advise that a state of perfection will never, nor should it, be reached. It is the cracks in our lives-our mistakes, misfortunes, breakdowns and other events that mar our sense of wholeness- that are actually gifts. Plotkin relates Cohen's stanza to a practice by Navajo weavers:

They say that perfection keeps Spirit from entering a thing. In their masterful weavings, they incorporate a deliberate irregularity, an errant line or color that looks like an unintended flaw but is actually a purposeful deviation called a "spirit line," the place where Mystery might enter.

It is our cracks, our brokenness, that reorder our vision of the world, so that we may see more clearly, from a perspective that is much larger than our small sense of self. The songwriter's words invoke further meaning to me-we shall never reach states of perfection, nor shall we find the perfect model or system of explanation. Human consciousness is smaller than (what Plotkin refers to as) Spirit or Mystery and it is erroneous to try and find the full map. Instead we should choose to follow the path of encounter with challenge, learning to enter into the sacred and expand our consciousness, and act from this fuller view. This idea of being cracked, broken apart, dismembered is an ancient theme in humanity and goes by many names with current theorists such as the dark night of the soul, our core vulnerability or sacred wound and initiation rites. From a transformative learning view, these events are disorienting dilemmas which unjar our worldviews and, if successfully navigated, transform them to access greater degrees of connectivity with all of life and the fullness of our life paths. The essence of transformative learning is when an adult permanently alters her or his worldview. Elias adds that transformative learning "is grounded in a critique of the contemporary social world, a critique of the dilemma that industrialized nations have created for the planet."

A several century old concept rooted in the Catholic tradition, the dark night of the soul refers to one's journey back to, for a religious person, God, and for a spiritual person what might be the sacred or numinous, the force that connects all things, both visible and unseen. It is labeled dark, here meaning a painful, mysterious, solitary voyage, where one gets a temporary glimpse of the sacred which may result in "a profound abandonment depression" when perceiving this separation. Bache describes the dark night of the soul as an:

... advanced stage of psychospiritual growth reached by only the most committed spiritual aspirants ... It comes after a series of lesser trials and just before final awakening into unitive consciousness. It is the final stage of a long spiritual process of increased purification in which one's identity as a discrete self is challenged at its core and eventually surrendered.

He parallels this more traditional meaning and individual path with the collective suffering currently experienced by humanity as a result of our ecological and social crisis. This presents an opportunity for our common evolutionary development met through our response, seeing our separation from all of life, letting our separative paradigms die and rejoining in collective experience with one another and the sacred: "The more in-depth healing occurs when we learn to embrace our fragmenedness from our own wholeness."

Plotkin uses the terms core vulnerability and sacred wound to describe our personal marks of suffering, our sense of brokenness which leads us toward our life calling. The core vulnerability is a specifically human phenomenon that is purposeful. This wounding occurs in childhood usually through a "pattern of hurtful events or a disturbing dynamic in one or more important relationships" and often sets the patterns of behavior for the individual. As, and if, one matures, this wounding is addressed and develops into a unique gift, something sacred, "a key to your destiny." There is a clear parallel with the dark night of the soul, but with a specific emphasis on wounding that occurs in our early years.

Similar to both the dark night of the soul and the sacred wound, Morrison sees both rites of passages and life crises as traumas which unjar consciousness. Initiation rites or rites of passage customarily transform one's ordinary life temporarily into that of "abject loss" in order to "set the stage for profound spiritual transformations." Traditionally these have been facilitated ceremonially; however, trauma serves the same purpose as it manifests as a deep sense of loss and disordering of one's life meaning. Successfully navigating these initiations, whether through ceremony or life trauma, results in a maturing of one's small sense of ego identity to connect with wider frames of self, or what is called a larger Self-an identity that connects with the sacred.

West African Dagaran elder and writer Malidoma Somé also emphasizes that our life traumas are often our modern day equivalents of initiation rites, pointing out that while western peoples are often seeking rites of passages that mirror those of traditional indigenous societies, western rituals often actually lie in modern life challenges-the loss of relationships, jobs and loved ones, illnesses and other forms of crisis.

The serious troubles we face in life are nothing other than initiatory experiences ... They are a necessary ingredient in the removal of whatever stands between us and our essential self. If tribal people reach this stage through formal rites of passage, other people may do the same differently. It is as if there is a natural pull toward challenges and ordeal in the interest of gaining inner strength and living a responsible life. Hardship and ordeal therefore initiate a change from within. One emerges from them with a profound sense of having undergone a radical education.

Keeping with this idea of modern day initiation rites, there is a concept within the field of transformative learning called disorienting dilemmas that serves a similar purpose. Transformative learning focuses on the expansion of paradigms within adults and "is grounded in a critique of the contemporary social world, a critique of the dilemma that industrialized nations have created for the planet." A disorienting dilemma occurs when one has an experience that does not easily assimilate into one's current worldview. It is a perplexing occurrence that is often prompted by some sort of trauma or loss, yet also through other events that prompt a questioning of how one makes meaning-one's worldview. A worldview or frame of reference is made up of two dimensions: a habit of mind and a resulting point of view. The habit of mind is how one makes meaning assumed from her or his culture and the resulting point of view is how one plays this meaning out in one's daily life. One might simplify these with the habit of mind correlating with patterns of thinking and the resulting point of view as actions. When a person has a disorienting dilemma, she can choose to ignore the confliction it brings to her current worldview or to alter her worldview. If she chooses the latter, this occurs through four possible routes: "elaborating existing frames of reference," "learning new frames of reference," "transforming points of view" or "transforming habits of mind."

With all of these, the transformation occurs through critically reflecting on one's initial assumptions -- this is the key ingredient of worldview change. Through "elaborating existing frames of references" one might contemplate why and in what ways the disorienting dilemma confronted one's worldview, and by doing so begin to expand this to be able to integrate new information. The second possibility is to adopt a new worldview. This possibility is challenging as it is not simple to drop one's initial worldview and learn a new one-our identities come from deep rooted experiences inherited from our dominant culture and more locally situated subsets of culture. The latter two possibilities consist of changing one of the two dimensions that comprise our worldviews -- through reflecting on our held assumptions and changing either our conditioned thoughts or actions.

It is important to note the danger of simply adopting a new worldview. Most people are not aware of their worldviews. Feinstein and Krippner claim each person is operating under a personal mythology, which is largely unconscious, and that "People often live their lives with very little awareness of the lens through which they are looking." The notable transpersonal psychology and consciousness researcher Charles Tart claims, "The pattern of a state of consciousness deliberately maintains its integrity in a changing world," affirming that worldviews are often contained within fixed patterns. We like to think that reality is solid and fixed. Tart also introduces the terms "consensus reality" and "consensus consciousness," where our worldviews come from our larger cultural conditioning which:

works to convince us that the acquired characteristics of enculturation are actually natural, so it can be very difficult to see these things when we are in a state of consensus consciousness. Sometimes being in some altered state ... gives us an alternative view that is like an outside perspective on yourself. Then you may see the conditioned, restrictive quality of consensus consciousness.

This altered state may come through many forms. The experiences of the dark night of the soul, examining a core wound and having a disorienting dilemma are all experiences that hold the potential to break and transform our worldviews.

While the classical definition of transformative learning holds critical reflection as a fairly rational process, grounded in one's everyday consciousness, Elias expands this definition to include unconscious dimensions:

transformative learning can happen through direct apprehension of an alternative framework of highly symbolic meaning, through the direct apprehension and appropriation of frameworks of meaning that emerge freshly from the unconscious. This process is described as discernment, an appreciative and receptive process that stands in sharp contrast with Mezirow's emphasis on critical reflection.

Yet whether an individual has a disorienting dilemma that surfaces from everyday consciousness or a more transpersonal experience, in order for a transformation to occur the person must critically reflect on the experience.

Elias continues and outlines three conditions that are the results of the transformative learning process for the individual: one, a "conscious I" capable of exercising critical reflection; two, an enlarged capacity for thinking that embodies holding dualities, is systematic and perceives archetypes as partners for inner dialogue; and three, being a conscious creative force in the world through an openness to perpetual learning and change. The transformative learner is continually reflecting on one's and society's assumptions without situating into a new, fixed worldview. Perhaps most importantly, the transformative learner is bringing the new levels of awareness to invoke creative change in the world.

By having multiple disorienting dilemmas, one becomes more comfortable with change through recognizing that there are larger realities within the world than those originally held. This process is known as the self-transforming self or fourth order consciousness, where one continually reforms the way one makes meaning to the extent where one moves beyond a self-centered perspective. Through this type of transformation, one develops the ability to understand the perspectives of others and to even hold multiple perspectives at once.

McWhinney and Markos relate the process of the "self-transforming self" to that of ancient ritual. They contend this process occurs in Learning Three, where one "challenges the interpretation of experience, relations, and truth systems, leading to broad questions such as human life, world ecology, and relations to higher powers." A person who unravels the assumptions of the dominant paradigm and embarks on finding more resilient assumptions and actions, transforming to a new paradigm, often finds oneself a "wanderer" traveling a solitary path. There is often danger that this person will seek refuge in a community or group with a different paradigm, yet this new paradigm quickly becomes close minded, steeped in a new type of dogmatism. A true "self-transforming self" never becomes stagnant. McWhinney and Markos claim that "commitments to openness create a continual Learning Three giving birth to sages, quiet wisdom, and perhaps a sense of the Tao" or to:

A transcendent Learning Three mode, where the individual continues to question and lead others to explore beyond their habituated lives. This is an ultimate goal of transformative education: to live in perpetual self-renewal, reviewing the assumptions by which self and society are guided and given support, reflecting on and challenging their belief systems.