Creating a Golden Age

Building Paradise Within Ourselves

CREATING A GOLDEN AGE

I suspect none of us has the capacity to foretell the future of the human race. No one—not psychics, not doomsayers, not intelligent optimists, Indigenous shamans—no one.

There is a persuasive case to be made that this is the worst of times, and an equally compelling case that this is the best of times; a case that everything will collapse into a miserable dystopia and a case that we are on the verge of a golden age. It’s impossible to know in any objective way which is truer.

Anyone who asserts they do know is cherry-picking evidence that rationalizes their emotional bent. The variables are chaotic and abundant and beyond our ken.

In the meantime, let's do what we can to create a golden age. How?

• Prepare for the unpredictable. Cultivate mental and emotional states that ripen us to be ready for anything.

• Don't get lost inside our own heads.

• Avoid being enthralled with the hypnotic lure of painful emotions, past events, and worries about the future.

• Trust empirical evidence over our time-worn beliefs and old habits.

• Turn up our curiosity full blast and tune in to the raw truth of each moment with our beginner's mind and beginner's heart.

• Be eager to maintain our poise and grace amid the confounding questions that tease and teach us.

Everything I just described is also an excellent way to prime yourself for a chronic, low-grade, always-on, simmering-at-low-heat brand of ecstasy—a state of being more-or-less permanently in the Tao, in the groove, in the zone.

WHO WE ARE

We are dissident bodhisattvas rebelling against potencies that celebrate fear and blaspheme love.  

We are spiritual freedom fighters plotting and wrangling to revere nature and incubate the still small voice and foment the wildest peace we can conjure. 

We are subversive mystics stoking the cool blue fires of poetry and lobbying for the liberated imagination.  

We are militant ecstatics invoking the transformative powers of pleasure to sanctify and beautify our one and only Earth.  

We are mutinous purveyors of grace who redistribute the wealth so that all creatures may have the means to thrive. 

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YOUR SPECIFIC GOALS

You may already understand what I’m about to tell you. But in case you don’t, I’ll say it. Few principles are more important than those immediately below. 

Be crisp and clear about naming your concrete intentions. The more specific your goals, the more likely it is you will accomplish them. 

You can’t create vivid visualizations of abstract, generalized aims. They may appeal to your intellect, but they can’t mobilize you all the way down to the roots of your desires. As a result, your motivation to achieve them will be wan and weak. 

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I began to formally study at an occult magick school at age 23.

I was surprised and amused when the first lesson of the first course, “Seven Steps in Practical Occultism,” informed me that the most important thing I needed to do as a magician was to know exactly WHAT I WANT. 

What specific experience, feeling, or situation do you want the most? 

EMPTINESS MAY BE OVERRATED — by Jonathan Zap

Jonathan Zap wrote all the words below: Emptiness may be overrated. I agree that a state of mindful self-awareness is a higher level of development as compared to someone who uncritically identifies with their thoughts. But I’m more interested in working actively with my inner contents -- which I find entertaining and creative and out of which I am able to create products I can export to the world.

I see more value in engagement with life, the temporary opportunity of human incarnation, rather than being detached and in a state of empty abiding -- though I get it that a daily meditation practice can help with mindfulness and focus.

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Most people experience only “passive imagination” — an unstable, often toxic montage of images reflective of their state of psychic entropy; whereas I practice “active imagination,” where I edit and direct my imaginal process in ways that I find entertaining and revealing.

Western neurotics who are oppressed by psychic entropy are often seduced into what James Hillman called “going eastern.” They nonsensically think that they need to get rid of their ego and thinking function. This is like someone whose computer is infected with malware thinking that the answer is to get rid of their computer and all software.

What they may actually need is to develop a stronger, more conscious ego and to get better at thinking and imagination. They also need to learn something about the hierarchy of psychic functions, and that their ego and thinking functions are indispensable, but must not be in the ruling position.

The ego and thinking function need to work under the guidance of the Self, which can direct them via deep, global intuitions. Most people have an ego-mind alliance in the ruling position, a role these functions are not competent to fill, and that leads to psychic entropy.

I think there are a number of key flaws in emphasis in many eastern modalities: a one-sided emphasis on vertical transcendence over horizontal psychological development.

One of the consequences of this one-sided emphasis: abusive gurus who have had transcendent experiences and falsely conclude, and persuade others, that they are permanently enlightened while they are blind to their shadow, thereby empowering it to act as a ruling autonomous complex via “crazy wisdom path” rationalizations, while they commit endless abuses related to power, sex and money.

Emptiness is also sometimes referred to as “oneness,” and there are some eastern influenced and/or New Age folk who will monotonously insist on the oneness of everything no matter what is being discussed, and use this obvious reality as a way of leveling all difference, distinction and discernment.

This point of view can be even more limiting than the tunnel vision of the reductive thinker, since at least the reductive thinker is still thinking about and investigating something, no matter how much they miss the infinite, interrelated context of the something.

Some, however, use oneness and emptiness as a you-can’t-top-this truism that relieves them of the need for thinking, discrimination and discernment. They will pull emptiness or oneness out of their hat, like the most tired of magician’s rabbits, believing they have conjured the ultimate profundity that answers any challenge, question or proposition.

More than a century ago, William James wrote that besides the oneness of things, anyone who glances at the phenomenal world should also be struck by the eachness of things. We see a world of unique individual trees and people, for example, and not a homogenous mass of tree-ness or undifferentiated pool of humanity.

The one-sided emphasis on emptiness and oneness over content and eachness results in a diminishment of individuation and creates a boring, one-size-fits-all goal for everyone.

I’ve used myself as an example, but I am not offering a one-size-fits-all formula that assumes that what works for me is suitable for everyone. Tastes vary. I like to prepare, for myself and others, nutritious meals with varied, interesting tastes while the next person might like to feast on the vacuum of emptiness while sitting alone in their room.

Abiding in emptiness once in a while can be a restful relief from psychic entropy, but overall I prefer interesting, entertaining, developmental content, content providing, individuation and engagement with inner and outer life.

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Jonathan Zap, author of the piece above, has an engaging website and newsletter. Sign up for his newsletter here. You can also get an oracle reading with his oracle cards here.

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

For The Week of May 16

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Hypothetically, you could learn to give a stirring rendering of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 on a slide whistle. Or you could perform the “To be or not to be” soliloquy from Shakespeare’s Hamlet for an audience of pigeons that aren’t even paying attention. Theoretically, you could pour out your adoration to an unattainable celebrity or give a big tip to a waiter who provided mediocre service or do your finest singing at a karaoke bar with two people in the audience. But I hope you will offer your skills and gifts with more discernment and panache, Taurus—especially these days. Don’t offer yourself carelessly. Give your blessings only to people who deeply appreciate them.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): When I lived in San Francisco in 1995, thieves stole my Chevy Malibu. It was during the celebratory mayhem that swept the city following the local football team’s Super Bowl victory. Cops miraculously recovered my car, but it had been irrevocably damaged in one specific way: It could no longer drive in reverse. Since I couldn’t afford a new vehicle, I kept it for the next two years, carefully avoiding situations when I would need to go backward. It was a perfect metaphor for my life in those days. Now I’m suggesting you consider adopting it for yours. From what I can discern, there will be no turning around anytime soon. Don’t look back. Onward to the future!

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Cancerian basketball coach Tara VanDerveer is in the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame. She won more games than anyone else in the sport. Here’s one aspect of her approach to coaching. She says that the greatest players “have a screw loose”—and she regards that as a very good thing. I take her to mean that the superstars are eccentric, zealous, unruly, and daring. They don’t conform to normal theories about how to succeed. They have a wild originality and fanatical drive for excellence. If you might ever be interested in exploring the possible advantages of having a screw loose for the sake of your ambitions, the coming months will be one of the best times ever.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Am I one of your father figures, uncle figures, or brother figures? I hope so! I have worked hard to purge the toxic aspects of masculinity that I inherited from my culture. And I have diligently and gleefully cultivated the most beautiful aspects of masculinity. Plus, my feminist principles have been ripening and growing stronger for many years. With that as our background, I encourage you to spend the coming weeks upgrading your own relationship to the masculine archetype, no matter which of the 77 genders you might be. I see this as an excellent time for you to take practical measures to get the very best male influences in your life.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Now that your mind, your heart, and your world have opened wider than you imagined possible, try to anticipate how they might close down if you're not always as bold and brave as you have been in recent months. Then sign a contract with yourself, promising that you will not permit your mind, your heart, and your world to shrink or narrow. If you proactively heal your fears before they break out, maybe they won’t break out. (PS: I will acknowledge that there may eventually be a bit of contraction you should allow to fully integrate the changes—but only a bit.)

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): I would love you to cultivate connections with characters who can give you shimmery secrets and scintillating stories you need to hear. In my astrological opinion, you are in a phase when you require more fascination, amazement, and intrigue than usual. If love and sex are included in the exchange, so much the better—but they are not mandatory elements in your assignment. The main thing is this: For the sake of your mental, physical, and spiritual health, you must get your limitations dissolved, your understanding of reality enriched, and your vision of the future expanded.

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SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Scorpio writer Andrew Solomon made a very Scorpionic comment when he wrote, "We all have our darkness, and the trick is making something exalted of it." Of all the signs of the zodiac, you have the greatest potential to accomplish this heroic transmutation—and to do it with panache, artistry, and even tenderness. I trust you are ready for another few rounds of your mysterious specialty. The people in your life would benefit from it almost as much as you.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Have you been nursing the hope that someday you will retrain your loved ones? That you will change them in ways that make them act more sensibly? That you will convince them to shed qualities you don’t like and keep just the good parts? If so, the coming weeks will be an excellent time to drop this fantasy. In its place, I advise you to go through whatever mental gymnastics are necessary as you come to accept and love them exactly as they are. If you can manage that, there will be a bonus development: You will be more inclined to accept and love yourself exactly as you are.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): I brazenly predict that in the next 11 months, you will get closer than ever before to doing your dream job. Because of your clear intentions, your diligent pragmatism, and the Fates’ grace, life will present you with good opportunities to earn money by doing what you love and providing an excellent service to your fellow creatures. But I’m not necessarily saying everything will unfold with perfection. And I am a bit afraid that you will fail to capitalize on your chances by being too insistent on perfection. Please assuage my doubts, Capricorn! Welcome imperfect but interesting progress.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): In his book Ambivalent Zen, Lawrence Shainberg mourns that even while meditating, his mind is always fleeing from the present moment—forever “lurching towards the future or clinging to the past.” I don’t agree that this is a terrible thing. In fact, it’s a consummately human characteristic. Why demonize and deride it? But I can also see the value of spending quality time in the here and now—enjoying each new unpredictable moment without compulsively referencing it to other times and places. I bring this up, Aquarius, because I believe that in the coming weeks, you can enjoy far more free time in the rich and resonant present than is normally possible for you. Make “BE HERE NOW” your gentle, relaxing battle cry.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Two-thirds of us claim to have had a paranormal encounter. One-fourth say they can telepathically sense other people’s emotions. One-fifth have had conversations with the spirits of the dead. As you might guess, the percentage of Pisceans in each category is higher than all the rest of the zodiac signs. And I suspect that number will be even more elevated than usual in the coming weeks. I hope you love spooky fun and uncanny mysteries and semi-miraculous epiphanies! Here they come.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Polish-born author Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) didn’t begin to speak English until he was 21 years old. At 25, his writing in that language was still stiff and stilted. Yet during the next 40+ years, he employed his adopted tongue to write 19 novels, numerous short stories, and several other books. Today he is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language. You may not embark on an equally spectacular growth period in the coming months, Aries. But you do have extra power to begin mastering a skill or subject that could ultimately be crucial to your life story. Be inspired by Conrad’s magnificent accomplishments.

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