The Spheres
Experience The Upper World, The Middle World, And The Under World.
Photo by Elina Fairytale, Pexels.com
The Spirit comes more into one’s consciousness as one transcends or moves up the branches of the Beanstalk of Spiritual Development. The Ego comes more into one’s consciousness as one interacts with family members, community members, workmates, and playmates. The Soul comes more into one’s consciousness as one develops greater individuality and discovers of one’s ultimate place in the world. A person’s calling is discovered by connecting with nature.
The Spirit comes more into one’s consciousness as one transcends or moves up the branches of the Beanstalk of Spiritual Development after considerable prayer, after meditation, after contemplation, or after yoga. The results of such transcendence in the realm Plotkin calls the “Upperworld” (2008, p. 59) are numerous:
a sense of unity,
non-duality,
grace,
bliss,
enlightenment, and, when one achieves the highest levels, and
a dis-identification from all attachments, including personal and cultural beliefs, goals, and desires.
The Ego comes more into one’s consciousness in one’s every daytime life—the waking time when one differentiates the Self as one interacts with family members, community members, workmates, and playmates. The results of such differentiation in the realm Plotkin calls the “Middleworld” (2008, p. 59) are the healing of emotional wounds; the development of physical grace; the creation of personal bonds; greater empathy, imagination, authenticity, and intimacy; enhanced emotional expressiveness; and improved feeling, thinking, sensing and intuition.
The Soul comes more into one’s consciousness in the nighttime dream world. Here, one deepens or ripens one’s Self as one confronts in the realm Plotkin calls the “Underworld” (2008, p. 59). The Underworld is confronted through dreamwork but also through deep imagery journeys, nature communication, drumming, symbolic artwork, and Soul-oriented poetry. In these ways, the Underworld helps to spawn greater individuality and the discovery of one’s ultimate place in the world.
Whether it is “Upperworld” transcendence, “Middleworld” differentiation, or “Lowerworld” ripening, such soulwork is vitally important to eartHearts. It is all about finding one’s place or purpose in the world.
The place—the “Here” that is a person’s calling––is “granted and revealed by nature” (Plotkin, 2008, p. 61). This is one reason why eartHearts need Plotkin’s wheel and not just the Beanstalk of Spiritual Development inspired by Deepak Chopra.
HumaNatureConnect Activity
Photo by Andrea Piaccquadio, Pexels.com.
Generating Patterns Of Human-Nature Interaction # 2:
Sleeping Under The Night Sky
For this activity, sleep under the night sky near an attractive natural being. You could be sleeping in a closed-up, heated or air-conditioned house with an image of the sky in a framed picture high up on your bedroom wall (a perverse interaction pattern) or sleeping in a tent in your backyard (a domestic interaction pattern). By choosing instead to sleep directly under the night sky near an attractive natural being (a wild interaction) you are doing something that has a more positive psychological affect on you. In your journal, write down what meaning you would derived from this wild interaction pattern (sleeping near an attractive natural being outside under the stars); what joy, if any, it produced; how, if at all, it built within you a bond between your mind and nature; and how, if at all, the wild version of this interaction pattern was better for you than an imaged or remembered perverse or domestic instantiation of the same interaction pattern; and how not being allowed to participate in this sort of wild interaction pattern––sleeping near an attractive natural being under the night sky––would make you feel? How does interacting in this way in the presence of your attractive natural being make you feel? How would it feel to have this interaction without the presence of your attractive natural being? In writing down these responses you will be adding to our collective nature language, so important to rekindling the bond between humans and nature. After your journaling about your night’s sleep outside, look over your impressions and think about them as you fall asleep tonight (indoors or outdoors) before dreaming.
Nocturnal Pilgrimage
Photo by Anna Tarazevich, Pixels
The nighttime complement to connecting with attractive natural beings in the daytime is tending to Indigenous Images (discussed previously) after dreaming.
