We prisoners of metaphysical beliefs. When we get destroyed by a sudden loss , which happens many times in a life, we begins to see that these hidden beliefs are not ours, but foreign elements — alien too our own nature. These aliens presences in the body, beliefs that one has cultivated or inherited to survive or to fit in, are coping mechanisms. We have adopted lies and half truths because we so desperately want to hold on to our cozy corner of happiness, our 4 acres and a mule. Crisis brings those voices to the surface and gives a much more direct contact with our pain, which is the mother of our metaphysical belief — our absurd idealism and dreaming of an ideal afterlife, better than this one.

In crisis the subtle root of the problem, the birth of false identities, is shown. Since being children we have been building a wall of these beliefs, identities, explanations, description of the world, which in effect keep us from the vividness of a direct encounter with the real. When things fall apart we see that we have lived in dream and platitude, not quite touching the earth. In our terror we perceive a greater reality, beyond the prison walls of metaphysical dreaming.

When we are crushed, we begin to see our existential situation as it is — we are trapped, but there is also the possibility of liberation. This is the birth of the spiritual: usually a rude crashing to the earth, rather than an insight into higher planes.. It is therefore the greatest gift to have a big shock in life; when this happens there is a chance of ridding oneself of false identification, of the albatross. In crisis things become extra vivid and real: new kind of courage develops, even in depression. Finally we can step outside of tribal identity, of unconscious identifications, of the great mother and father figures in the sky, and face the rains and winds head on.

We have tried to expand the personality indefinitely into space — to build ourselves up into some solid entity, build a fence around and protect our dreams. The result is not a utopia world but an earth congested with the debris of our broken satellites, of one-way communicators. But down here, when the water is rising, what can we do? The more you expand, the more you go out into space, the violent the inner contraction and the fall down to earth.

I believe we need to rediscover what is most basic. To able to put ones foot on the ground. To be able to see the night sky as we did as an infant. To touch somebody.

If are honest we don’t quite walk on the earth — we don’t quite feel its curve or horizon. We see the sky behind a filter, with the cataracts called metaphysics, mythology even science. And it is difficult to really touch somebody, because we have been injured to the core. Nobody escapes this injury…

We need to learn to to walk, to look and too touch. Education should return to that basic level. And yet almost nowhere are we taught to open our senses, in any education system. There is no body work there — only sports, which train us to be mechanical and competitive. There is no meditation — rather we fill our minds with theory and abstractions. Children and adults need to learn walk in nature — especially to cultivate Biophilia — love of other species. But we hardly do any of that — we spend more time dissecting corpses, leaning management principals.

We have to admit our society is insane. Insane and incurable. The more we see that heartbreak the more we will gravitate towards alternate forms of relationally, which are life giving, and rather than exhausting and deadly.