Jewels in Space
A story of space, filled with autobiographical events, where chunks of time are non-sequential and fluid. It's really about the transformation of consciousness.
This is an article that I wrote in 2021 as a submission to a writer’s competition on the Medium platform. There were several themes to choose from. I chose SPACE and called the article “Jewels in Space”
DREAM SPACE
Once again we find ourselves ensnared in an all to familiar, inescapable reality. No clear bright light anywhere. Everything is vague. Beauty unavailable. Walls, doors and streets not connected to anything, like props coming and going of their own accord. Desperately craving more light as if we are being smothered by the semi darkness, as we move from scene to scene through spaceless exhausting distances. All the space is taken by angst.
Palpable dread constantly fuelled by some murky never resolved fight with gangster type characters who chase and appear to want to hurt, intimidate, threaten or impale us. So we fight back trying to overcome our terrifying malaise, miserably inadequate. Or we run, run for our lives from this place with no space. It’s not death we are fleeing. We are missing something but the dawn hasn’t arrived yet.
Previously, in the 70’s, as a young man squeezed with five twenty-something young humans in the tiny but cozy space of a moving VW beetle in Melbourne, audible words are propelled from my mouth that garners a response from another inhabitant of this fun-sized petite space.
“You’d like Carl Jung” was the response and instantly a seed is born and planted in memory consciousness that grows through time and consumes nuggets of life-space.
Swiss doctor and psychoanalyst, Carl Gustav Jung and his student, Robert A Johnson, who passed away in 2018 at the rich and spacious age of 97, bought forth a simple technique of engaging in dialogue with our dream characters, simply articulating and communicating with our fellow travellers of the underworld. The method relied upon our awake active imagination to kickstart and continue the discourse. The primary purpose being to bring a little light into the space of the dream underworld with the possibility of subsequent understanding seeping into our very own waking groundhog day.
Sure enough, after some concerted effort and journaling, decades of recurring space starved nighttime events came to an end, after an encounter with a king.
Another car, I’m alone and suddenly a large lion jumps into the front seat on the right next to me. His face is inches from mine. We are looking at each other. Feelings of all sorts gush through me yet I don’t move.
The lion was subsequently named John, after a friendly astute staff member at work. Human-Lion conversations led to the serendipitous discovery that courage was a missing ingredient. Like gathered objects in a video game that give you strength and help in future dangerous unknown encounters and quests, I picked up the jewel of courage. A little more space as light trickled in.
MY SPACE
Bumbling and stumbling along. What was served up each day was assimilated as part of the process to acculturate cells, mind and soul to this world. No wholesome feelings of connections to future directions as chosen by myself. Not until around 13 years old when gradually a space, my space, begins to emerge. There was nowhere to run or hide, no adequate resources to protest and no alternatives in sight. The world was going to imbibe me. Fortunately via luck, a teacher fanning the flame or simply paying attention, a gift emerged, another jewel. Interest. And interest gave birth to my space in this world.
Interest at first speaks in a soft sometimes hardly audible voice. Often it’s just a whisper, a seed. Easily discarded. As interest garners attention and time, however, my space begins to feel like home as I realise I’m good at something. Basketball. Science. Cooking. It doesn’t matter. The aroma of confidence wafts through the air of my space. Choice finally becomes a choice in this space and we go forth to claim more real estate in the world so my space can expand further. I feel secure in my space.
My space includes a room. My room, even though I share it from the bottom of my double-bunk bed with my brother. It’s small but easily accommodates three of my nerdy friends. Laws of physics often dissolve when my nerdy friends visit. We speak to each other with little judgement and maximum curiosity and the room space expands. More excitement, more adventure, more space to think. It’s in this space that the first inklings of an inner space tickle the underside of the collective consciousness in the room at that time. The inkling is fuelled and made more vital as utterly open dialogue in the room starts to pull at the world around us, ungrateful perhaps yet absolutely necessary.
Soon my space starts to gets busy. This is good. We are active, engaged in the world, claiming more space for ourselves. It’s all good, even if we have to sacrifice a little of my space as my space begins slowly and at first imperceptibly to fill with noise. My thoughts. World thoughts. My thoughts. Soon we can’t distinguish between them. No need to bother. No training in how to keep my space free from clutter even though my mother tried.
A trip to the ocean is good. A huge space. A feast for the eyes and some nourishment filters down. Oddly, one day while standing at this liminal space with joyous expectancy that the spaciousness of vast blue grey waters stretching to the horizon will touch us like a blessing from above, we instead notice a vague pressure, coming from within, distracting us. It’s visceral but not a disease or hypertension. It’s in the head but it’s not mental illness. It’s systemic, intrusive and it’s not going away. We notice that my space has become noisier, filled with stuff, dead peoples’ ideas and this pressure and we wonder — am I on the right track.
No problem. Let’s create more space for ourselves. Explore. Let’s go where we have never gone before. No one we know is there. A train trip. A new start. Two guitars, a bag, abundance of confidence and very little knowledge. While this may sound sarcastic, there is an element here that invites divine intervention into the space. We had picked up the jewel of fully intentional choice earlier in my space. And we are wholeheartedly using it. So be it.
Arrived on other side of the country, got a place, got a job. Oozing self assurance tinged with some arrogance and ignorance, lots to say and my space still getting imperceptibly fuller by the day. Plenty of room to move however, even when in a confined commercial kitchen space chopping vegetables for a pizza, rubbing shoulders with a fellow worker and pontificating on the wisdom so far accumulated in life. Drawing upon vast chunks of information from my space on world religions, a science degree, a mantra and a practice of the presence of God for goodness sake, I turn to my coworker and say “ there are many people to show us how to experientially derive the most from life”. Then, like a spear of lightning not anticipated he penetrates my space deeply and immediately responds without competition or ego saying “no there aren’t, there is only one” and left it at that.
Half an hour later the space in the kitchen began to shrink and become stifling. Wondering off to a nearby park for some breathing space, I sit leaning against a large pine tree and began to weep like I’ve never wept before. And it went on and on with no idea of why I was weeping. No pain, no joy, just weeping. A few weeks later another acquaintance invites me to a talk about inner peace. Resistance engulfs the entirety of my space but I am unable give a reasonable excuse not to go.
In an unremarkable hall, lots of space between the seats, a few humans and a young modestly dressed guy with an American accent starts speaking. All was utterly normal. He spoke, I listened and replied and commented, silently of course, with the normal dialog between my ears. He spoke more, followed by more quick chatter from me, around and around and on and on for about five minutes. No religion, no commitment, no techniques, no singing, no hype. Unremarkable. Something about a princess in a tower and a white handkerchief. I’m 29 years old.
Then something unexpected happened. I’m alone. I mean I’m alone within me. The chatter between my ears stops. Completely. Just me. I’m listening. Listening to the man speaking. This new found space was indeed new but felt completely familiar. Reassuring. I relaxed into the inner space, the talk finished and I left. It made little sense at first so I came back for more talks, more exquisite experiences of noiseless inner space and more weeping for at least a year.
INNER SPACE
A long, long time ago, with family and tribe safe and fed in the back of a cave with a warm fire, you stood and looked out upon the beauty and stillness of a moonlight un-rippled lake. Or perhaps it was the embers of the fire at night or the billions of stars in the vast space of the night sky that captured your attention.
The calmness you witnessed was reflected fleetingly back to you and, for a moment, your focus of interest shifted from thoughts of survival to a feeling that emanated from somewhere within you, some restful inner space and you found yourself becoming aware of the simple act of breathing.
Perhaps, almost intuitively, you stayed with this simple attention on the breath for a little while and your perception seemed to transform, so that more and more of the beauty, always there yet often un-noticed in the world around you, flooded in. Simultaneously, subtleties of new and exquisite feelings danced ever so ephemerally within you.
Questions of “who am I” or “what am I doing here” receded momentarily into the background and you where forever transformed with the knowledge that you had an inner life, a comforting inner space that truly felt like home. And that this inner space might be the source of exquisite goodness. But you didn’t really know how to recreate this experience and at the risk of forgetting, you communicated and openly shared with others around you.
You found they too had transcendent experiences to share. One of your companions found herself deep in a cave in utter darkness, yet when she let go and even shut her eyes, she found a hint of some inner light that bought solace and comfort. Another tribe member was alone in a quiet breezeless valley, and he recounts sensing a soothing sound that had no source outside, almost as if hearing the silence.
Stories of other’s encounters with a font of sublime yet inherently human experience originating from a space, a source within, began to come together over generations and generations. Often someone in the tribe or village had the gift to hold and embody these stories and experiences and share them with others and pass the knowledge on through the spoken word and simple know-how to the next generation.
Over thousands and thousands of years this fascination with self-emanating feelings of joy, tranquillity, kindness and aliveness began to awaken and transform human consciousness. Masters, mystics, wise men and wise women of a time made themselves available. For all of us who had convinced ourselves we had it all, knew it all, yet carried a hungry heart.
And those that thirsted for greater understanding in making a conscious connection to their inner life space whenever they needed, sought out one who could assist.
It’s the late 60’s and 70’s again. A wave of wisdom, culture and experience from the east, mostly India, washes over the western world. Young people are the predominant catalyst for the melding of cultural consciousnesses. They seek out or at least allow baptism offered by the wave, a ritual washing away of out-dated societal clutter that encroached on people’s freedom space.
Moreover, it quickly became apparent that pleasurable expansive novel states of consciousness, clarity and insight, could be invoked and sustained without drugs or substances. Cool. It’s the right time, right place, right space for east meets west.
The dawning of an acknowledgement of a potential filled inner space within a human, has been brewing for millennia, however. You might say that prayer speaks to that space, particularly as the divine also resides there. Mystics, saints, devotees have endeavoured to stay close to and bathe in this inner space.
Even the alchemists, who could supposedly transform Lead into Gold, in reality spoke about and practiced ways to connect with the source of exuberant feelings emanating from a space within, thus transforming the commonplace yet unnecessary suffering and unconsciousness that afflicted many of us.
After a while in this time of the Beatles and enthusiastic embracing and exploration of the eastern esoteric practices, it became evident that some knowledgeable stable non-exploitive trustworthy living human guide was needed who could help row and steer our boat to the other shore of inner space and back again, intact. A strong master oarsman.
Young early adopters, explorers and pioneers of the new world within, were trying to levitate, revelling in making animal sounds to assist in getting to the inner space or sat still with eyes open in a satisfying trance like state, utterly exhausted after hours of selfless service to others.
Some of my friends and I only needed a few pages from a book on consciousness, a mantra and some space in a quiet room to begin literally diving within, only to find a space so new and vast that I had to stop myself from continuing to literally fall within. Enthusiastically void of guidance or discipline.
Yet even at this tender young age, there was no going back. You couldn’t un-feel the inner expanse or forget being closer to the source of unstimulated joy or the non-sleeping rest while in the space within. Most importantly perhaps, was the realisation that there was somewhere to direct or apply one of our most valuable assets. Effort. Directed effort, focused attention that felt worthwhile. Another jewel for my space bag.
INFINITE SPACE
At a kitchen table, the older style with a green laminex top, several friends hovering around and out of pure curiosity and fun, a page is taken from Einsteins playbook and we decide to conduct a simple thought experiment. Free from hallucinogens and using only imagination and what ever cognitive executive functioning I have, a journey is begun that attempts to reach the furthest reaches of space and beyond, with myself as pilot. Beyond the known, unknown and indeed the unknowable, the infinite, for want of a better name.
Solar system planets and bodies whizz past my cognitive spaceship with its pedal to the metal. Further and further and increasingly there is some vague sense that infinity is out there. Enough curiosity fuel to get us to the infinite and back. Reassuringly, I even feel safe hurtling towards the unknown, through uncharted space.
Soon however it becomes apparent that thought power and imagination is not enough to get us to infinities door or even a glimpse. With just a vague sense of infinities existence, the green table top comes back into view and the experiment ends after some debriefing. Although not before Space Central crackles over some inner space radio, in a whisper and says “keep moving forward”.
This radio announcer seems to have roots and knowledge that go way way back through time and space and is able to dispense necessary life sustaining instructions through instinct and intuition when most needed.
You followed those instructions with a gusto when, as a microscopic sightless head propelled by a furiously flapping flagellum, you swam upstream through warm space as if swimming towards the infinite. Bang. A really really big bang as you collided with a sphere that had border control lockdown producers so advanced that you and only you entered and were subsumed as your space immediately began to exponentially increase.
Not long after this fusion event, things started getting cramped as you took up all available space and so began the journey back again, the way you came, but this time to a new home with new laws and infinite possibilities. And your entry onto the earth was like a blazing comet, a marvel to behold and upon landing you were granted the gift of breath, your first jewel in a new life space. And the miracle that is you travelled through dream space, my space and inner space, carrying perhaps some residual yearning for the infinite, as you moved with all your baggage and jewels forward.
Some of our jewels in space are gifts. Consciousness is a gift that even our best scientists don’t yet fully understand. Interestingly, you and I, may be the most qualified to comprehend consciousness. Know thy self implies knowing what influences, affects, contributes to the space we spend all our time in while alive, our consciousness.
It is the space where everything that has happened and everything that is happening now is connected via memories, strings and unknowable spaces within spaces. As we invest more and more in the welfare of our own vulnerable yet evolving consciousness via leaning, experience and paying attention, the interconnectedness we see with the earth and our companions, leaves less and less space for mere fatalistic coincidences.
The 6th August, 2021. We are sharing our space on planet earth with a little microscopic piece of RNA that constrains our resources albeit indirectly. Our breathing space and the oxygen there-in. Our work space and flow of energy and money there-from. Our human to human relationship space that we now no longer take for granted as doors, borders and planes are tightly locked or mothballed.
Yet the irony is, many of us now have more space than we have been trained to deal with. And in this space is me, myself and I. A curse without prior training and practice in being with ourselves and a blessing as an opportunity to make amends and reconcile through the simple act of allowing emotion and feelings to move through the healing space of our consciousness.
Yet we also struggle when our personal space is encroached upon. Crowded home spaces, unable to go out to work. Even walking in an open space of a park, my attention gets momentarily hijacked as my personal space is intruded upon by the mere sight of another human, even though they are still 50 metres away. Our personal space maps onto our states and national spaces, as border controls keep others out not belonging to my home state.
At the height of a global pandemic, in my home state it’s snafu. No restrictions of space or community contact, no virus in sight. A community market open once a month hosts open cafés and bars where my human condition is on display. With copious space outside, my friend and I squeeze into a pizza bar café where shoulder to shoulder contact is the norm, particularly at the bar.
Like a diamond purged of all available space over millions years of coal compression, audible sound is tightly packed into this enclosed public space with density and intensity at peak. Almost impossible to discern a continuously dialled up background Austin Powers soundtrack song, from the increasing cacophony of human speak.
Jostling with other hungry customers, an empty table materialises before us. As we squeeze into a small seat, careful not to make eye contact with humans to the left and right, I’m reminded that each grown human on earth requires about one tenth of a cubic metre of space.
As I sit there attempting to savour the moment before the pizza arrives, a momentary meta analysis of the situation flows through my consciousness. Having read an article that very morning on the sublime experience of a scientist in the space of utter noiseless stillness on the arctic ice, it occurs to me that as humans we may be constantly attempting to reconcile the apparent duality that our consciousness is often consumed with and indeed afflicted by, albeit imperceptibly. Afflicted because of the energy hungry cognitive and emotional load of constant deciding, deciphering or flipping between inner space-my space, finite-infinite, kindness-harshness.
There is no space between our physical body and our consciousness. The implications for this are yet to be revealed as it becomes obvious that your humble narrator still has a lot to learn and more jewels to gather.
No quick fix to overcome the gravity of duality on offer here. No placating words to numb us to a polarised way of living with knowledge of an inner life and positing it against incessant acquisition of space starving clutter and the crazy goings on of our created world.
So finally, as our story comes to an end, purged of belief and pretentious advice, this much I know.
The concept of duality begins to dissolve as I become engaged, grateful for this beautiful planet and my fellow companions. Consciousness infused daily with ebullient feelings from time spent rubbing shoulders with a source of all within and occasionally listening to wisdom and words that remind, align and speak of what has been vaguely articulating within inner space for millennia.
Acknowledgements
Carl Gustav Jung, doctor, pioneering psychoanalyst and author of Memories, Dreams and Reflections. 1957
Robert A Johnson, psychoanalyst and author of Inner Work. 1986
Prem Rawat, master storyteller and author of Hear Yourself, How to find peace in a noisy world. 2021