I'm just, I'm just building my little slideshow here cuz time got away from me this morning. So if you can just review last week. Yeah. And I'll be able to finish up.
Yep. Absolutely. Yes, I'm right. Welcome. Hello. Nice to see you all. Last week. I think you were all here last week. Lorraine, were you here last week? I don't think so. You weren't here? Yeah. There was. Only Laura Lee was not here. Hey, Darlene, can you hear us now? Yes. Okay. So I'm just gonna do a quick recap of what we talked about. And I have asked Jeff to do a little presentation about the wills specifically. Because as Karen pointed out last week, we talked, we've talked a great deal about thinking and about feeling, but not so much about the will. So I wonder actually, if we should just do a quick check in though, first, and then we'll get into short and sweet presentations, because there's not so many of us. So why don't we just do a quick round of chickens when you're coming in with an if you have any questions that you want to bring today? Please tell us couple of feeling words, some quick. I'll start, I'm feeling very present and happy today. That's my ticket.
I am feeling like I never know how I feel. Okay. I'm feeling confident and a little cocky that I've sort of like, throw something more of me, come on, I want to chat, I want to put this theory to the test, because everything's rolling along pretty smoothly. So I'm feeling a little bit cocky.
Whoa. I can go sorry, was someone else about speaking. I mean, I'm feeling stiff from too much time in this chair. I'm feeling excited about today's call and about everything that I want to share, both on this call and in the further community of life with you and other people in this school. And I I'm feeling determined, because I can tell Karen and others need this next module. And so, um, I we have worked on a lot of things lately, and I've had to get that done. But now the decks are somewhat clear for me just to dive in again. So I'm excited about that. And I want to get it done ASAP for all you people. So that's me. Who's next?
I'm feeling awful, happy and extremely hot. Got a big heatwave in Germany, and that new ac 35 degrees is
it's also warm here in the Bay Area. And so it's closing, pulling shades down and all of that sort of thing, which I don't like to be huddled inside with everything. Sort of shades pulled them.
Think Yay. And Laura Lorraine, your last. Yeah,
I'm feeling actually very proud and encouraged by having implemented a very basic thing that you guys taught us. And that has been coming at me from a few places actually put it into practice. And it worked. So I'm grateful. Just a bit like recognizing feelings and being outside of them and observing instead of being composed into the word viral. So I feel a moment of pride on that.
Awesome. That's a wind. I'll take it. Awesome. Thank you, everyone. Yeah, it's good practice to suddenly have to come up with what am I feeling in the moment. But you know, we need to we need to practice it's really important because The animals in our lives always know. And they really need us to know to this is one small example. And children, especially small children who are so open and one with the world. Alright, so last time, we really dove in to another way of looking at the anatomy of the soul, to help us navigate through the stormy oceans of the subconscious Shadow Realm, we need all the help we can get when we are stirring, stirring the pot, as we say. So the way that we talk about this is, we call it thinking, feeling, and willing, these are three aspects or three archetypes of the soul. So we're not bringing you a construct, or, you know, a framework. It's a framework that's built out of a phenomenological approach to observing this inner life. And this thinking, feeling and willing was given to us by Steiner, and was taken up by some of his students, one of which was cool event, they will cool event. So it's not just coming from Jeff and me. However, we've been working with this this particular particular anatomy for years and found it very fruitful. So that's why we want to bring it to you. So and it also it also,
it also predates Steiner by a long way to but just in a more, you know, more esoteric form, because the exercises in that old European schools, and even an older indigenous schools all still pertain to this taxonomy, but in different forms, and in different ways based on those cultures and that context and where our consciousness was and so forth, was, he was deriving it and distilling out of older Wow, that's really cool.
Yeah. Okay, so you guys are familiar with thinking, thinking you could say is the place where we have the most agency, you know, to Lorraine's chicken, she used her her brain power, just say ha, I'm observing myself do this thing, I understand what this is with your with your thinking, which enabled you to intervene in your feeling life, and the feeling life is less under our control, or we have less agency there. If we, if we if we experienced a trigger, and we feel angry, just try to not feel angry, it's impossible. You know, it takes time to kind of come down from that. So we really are at the mercy of our feelings. So in order to intervene in our feeling life, we we come at it from the thinking, this is why we do habit loop and I spooks, and all these all these concepts that we bring to help you, right. And then the third area or sphere is the will, and we have even less agency and the will. So we have to come at the will and its evolution, from the thinking into the feeling and down into the will. And if you don't believe me, just think about it. Explore it live with that idea. And then, you know, tell me what, what you experience. So for instance, just to use an extreme example, addiction and compulsion, which is really something that ends up in the will, you know, no matter what we do, we can't resist the chocolate cake that is right there. Right? No matter what we do, we can't resist procrastinating. It's really difficult to intervene directly in the world with our willpower. Right? So we have to come at it indirectly. So that's a extremely short summary. I really want to spend most of our time you know, talking about all of this and hearing your questions and and sort of deepening this, but first, I just want to pass it over to Jeff, who can really go into the will in a bit more detail to set the set the tone of the conversation. So over to you Jeff. Okay.
Yeah, I wasn't sure how far Are y'all had gotten in? And what the particular questions are, you know, points of interests were around this. So I just prepared a few thoughts which I can, which I can share. And, you know, I'm kind of guessing because I don't really know where everybody is. But I'm kind of happy also to just guess. And and then I'll try to make this brief so that we can just talk about, we can just talk about it. If that works, yes. Okay, well, let's just dive in, let's just dive in. So it's important as always, that, you know, we want to remain with the phenomenology of transformation, and observation, because only in that way, are we really developing organs of perception. And this organs of perception that are going to actually help us not only to do our own work, but to build social fields in our work. So it's a, I don't know, if you've been able to watch that webinar that we recently did, but it I encourage you to if you can, and if if you need it, we'll send the link. But in there, we talked about this principle of fractal failure, that when there's an initiative, a change initiative, or an impulse to do something in the world with others, the initiative has a visible component and an invisible component. And it's often the invisible dynamics between people and the subtle egotism 's and assumptions and the presumptions and the violence that we do to each other at a very subtle level that rips apart the initiative. And so we can, if you do this enough, you know, you can start to see that the invisible chaos, the the invisible dynamics at play at large scales are also at play in smaller scales. And they're more they're more observable and more and more tangible. Say, in a room of 80 people that you're working with over a few days, or, or a team of five people that you work with, day in and day out. So, and yourself. So these are fractals hold, there's fractal fractal principles work, because the inner life is real, and it's everywhere, where human is and so you get these very human all too human dynamics showing up. So we want to stay with the phenomena there's so in, in this framework, as Louisa said, I'm just want to underscore it. This, this has to be used as a kind of gateway to experience not belief, not intellectual games, or, you know, reflecting on it intellectually is fine, and it's good, but it's just not the purpose of it. The purpose of it is to get you into these phenomena of these activities. And once we do get into the phenomena of these domains, you could say, you'll, you'll see, it's not as it's not all that cut and dry. This is a living, living, burgeoning area. And when we give it a label or lens, we're kind of giving it a handle in a way of thinking about it. But it's also simplifying it too much to be fully accurate, right, so we just stay with the phenomenon and the reality of the phenomenon. So Louisa, caught us up on these a little bit, I want to talk about this transformation of these, especially the will and but all of it really, and where I want to start is with this picture of the superfluous energies. And we've covered this in a couple of calls that in childhood, there's creativity and it shapes both our organism and consciousness, that these potentials that creative potentials of the human being becomes sort of freely and generally available to the operator. And that if they don't get used, which is the case because humans aren't perfect yet, you know, we don't really know what we've been given as potentials as a set of potentials, well then they have a tendency to kind of do their own thing right. And and even spoil Okay, become closed loops, in thinking and feeling and the will they become habits in in all those in all those domains. So the work of transformation, which is the work of modules two and three. Is is related phenomenology of
excuse me, resting orbit Said reclaiming those potentials for freedom for agency
for
your, your use, okay, your your choice, your choices, that's really what it's about. It's not about and I'm thinking of some a lot of these questions over the last few months, it's not about having a blueprint or pre determined solution or the right way or the wrong way, it is about agency and choice where we don't yet have agency and choice. So I want to give a picture that I want to, I want to kind of just go back a little bit in the history. This is Kepler's mysterium cosmic graphical accom, and is a work of astronomy that Kepler did, where he took the six planets known at the time, and he and he had conceived of a geometric model that can conform to illustrated the orbits, and the distance distances, relative distances of these planets from each other. Because in those days, it was common to seek the perfection in the micro and the perception of the macro, As above, so below, macrocosm being the cosmos, the microcosm being the human being, and you can kind of see this in all all conch, all significant cosmologies in the ancient world, all over the world, there was a correspondence between the the world of nature the great world out there, and how humans organized the their schools of consciousness development. Okay, so there have always been schools of consciousness development in every culture, and they vary wildly, they vary based on the age, you know, the century that they were in the time that and then the culture and, and where they were on the earth, their integration into the natural world, and many other factors. But the reason I'm sharing this model is that it was felt for for centuries, and in different forms, you find the same principle expressed, for example, in indigenous cosmologies, you'll see masks of animals and animal deities as part of nature. Okay, so the human would in certain ceremonies and rituals take on the forms of these deities. Well, in in Kepler's time, it wasn't deities only it was geometries. Because the same principle of correspondence. Okay, I just picked this because I'm going to use a geometric representation here in a bit. So if you think about these, these these nested forms, or these layers or these sort of archetypes, as Lisa mentioned, it can be a helpful mental framing, to enter distinct area phenomena with clarity. Okay, so for the Native Americans, bear medicine meant something different than snake medicine or Eagle, and these archetypes, these archetypal domains of imagination and meaning. Okay, so in a, in this school of thought that we've learned in practice and sticking with the phenomenology that is sort of less symbolic, less symbolic than the animal deities and less symbolic, even even the geometries is this taxonomy of thinking, feeling and willing, and I've drawn it in a nested form, in a certain way, based on what Louisa pointed to, which is that thinking is the most immediate is the most accessible. Now, a lot of people think about thinking as something that's dried up and withered and abstract, it doesn't have the same life and vitality, as the feeling life as the as the life of passions and surging energies of conviction and desire. And, and, and even the impulse of the will The, the, you know, the getting out there and running and doing things. And that's true at first because thinking is it because thinking is the most immediate, we tend to weather it and wear it out. We tend to dry it up. Feeling and will are a little bit more, a little bit less available. To us, they're more kind of
they happen on their own, in a certain sense. And so they do tend to feel more alive. However, the transformation of thinking which we talk, which we're going to talk extensively about in the second Video of Module Three, is really the transformation from dead thinking or thought eating, having thoughts, a churn of finished ideas. associative thinking to what we call living thinking, where thinking is where you become awake, and, and perceiving and aware of the thinking activity, the life in thinking before it hardens into a thought. Okay, so philosophers in the 20th century of called that becoming, is the space and I know this sounds weird, but it's the space where reality is born. Where, where the reality of the world emerges, and becomes clear. And we can train ourselves to go from a thinking that's full of kind of content, already finished content to a thinking that's not full of content yet, but it's still very active and aware, where where we can see content coming in to be, where meaning is being made, or reality is coming into view. So we talked about the course as looking upstream. And we're going to do that in Module Three. And there are similar transformations in feeling and the will, where what is our habitual way of feeling becomes available to us first. And we can, we can choose, we have agency to dissolve our tendency for our habit, to feel impulsively, to react emotionally, and to be being more sensitive to the world of feeling. Now, at first, you might think that this means blunting the world feeling because you're, you're becoming conscious of it, and you're dampening it down or controlling it or constructing it has not at all what I mean, what I mean is feeling as less of a blunt instrument, and actually becoming more refined or sensitive, more awake, more feeling sensitivity, more life, in the in the realm of feeling. And we talked about that as cognitive feeling. And again, that's kind of a dry word, because people think of cognition as something very deadening. But living thinking can become living feeling. I mean, it's corollary not become but correlate. And so for the feeling life can be activated and nourished, so that we feel so that our feelings are consciously less habitually driven. And more under our, under our agency, meaning we, we use our feeling life differently. Okay. And the same is true of the will. So I want you to think about, I'm almost done here, I want you to think about the will, as this container, this is a cube with these two top lines taken out. And the will is very, very interesting because it's the area that we kind of on a daily basis, we know the least about so if you like move your arm, just like every day, everybody just came like right now just just experience where it's like to move your arm. Okay? You don't know how you do that. Okay, you you just move your arm. But it's very different from say, you know, picking up a compass and drawing a circle. Right? You know, you can think that through, you think you can think circle and you can see it transparently are two plus two is four this cube, you can you can think of thought and it's immediately there and you have you have activated that thought. So, so for example, it just lays something out for you. If you ask a question.
There's two things going on. One of them is given and the other is not one of them. One of them you're responsible for you do and the other is not the one that's the one that the thing that you that you initiate is that you ask the question, you choose the Question you said, What are you talking about? Jeff? Right? That's not given to you. You provide that. And by not given I mean, it's not given by nature. It's not given by divine forces, the content of your question is something that you choose. Whereas the faculty, or the possibility of asking a question is given, right? You don't, you don't invent that. You don't have to create in yourself the very possibility or say, the faculty of wondering that, that faculty that possibility is what the philosophers called part of the given, it's not something that we have to create, it's given to us as a potential. So there's empty potential. Okay. And then there's activation of that potential. So when you, when you ask a question, you understand that question, you can transparently see through it. But when you move your arm, it's not as transparent, you don't really know how you do it, how you activate those muscles, those nerves, those fingers. And for a musician, for example, playing the piano, it's beyond computation, to hit the note with the right, energy and sound and tone and take rest and take a breath. If a musician thinks about how exactly they're moving their fingers, and oh, this one a little bit higher, Oh, this one a little bit lower. There's no music. So there's this, there's this superconscious intuitive ability, and it's very similar to not knowing how we speak, we know what we want to say, but we don't have to compute and calculate how to move our tongue and now I'm going to close my mouth. And now I'm going to need, we don't do that. So there's a there's something that's given to us as a faculty that we choose to use, but we don't we're not responsible for the faculty itself. Which means that that faculty is superconscious Okay, and you all know that language from the course. Okay, so, what happens with with the, with the mind and the soul, that this container here is that this, that this container is kind of built for us this cube, this possibility of activating these faculties of thinking of feeling and will, and then there's something that kind of streams into it, like the possibility of asking a question or the possibility of activating our arms and our limbs and the possibility of feeding, feeling sorry. So, these pink lines represent this sort of influx of superfluous energies that are handed to the operator. And this, inside this cube inside the mind, in the soul, a lot of this becomes very turbulent in the adult and forms into closed loops. And so, the transformation of of what happens there. So to diminish the turbulence is in a certain I'm giving you a picture. Now, transformation consists in gradually diminishing the chaotic turbulence that happens by accident. And gradually learning into the phenomena of thinking as it streams into us feeling as it as it streams into us as it reveals itself to us and the will. And, and so there's two things that happen at the same time we gain agency and we learn about their nature, before we screw things up. You know, in the old world, it can be said before the fall
before you know the fall into all cosmologies have this picture of the fall right. So what is it like to perceive thinking before it gets muddied and distorted and our own thinking patterns? What is it like to perceive feeling when it when it is allowed to exist here and when we can see it and perceive it for What it is before we accidentally trample on it? And what is like, what is thinking? In other words, what is feeling? What is the will. And the transformation that we're going to be sharing with you is really both perception of these higher potentials. And the growing out of those things, which blocked up perception, which are the same things that muddy and cause that turbulence, because when there's turbulence you can't see right. Is this making sense as a picture?
Almost. Yeah.
So there's, when you say to yourself, Oh, I see. All of a sudden, you've lifted you lifted out of not seeing to see. And now you don't know how you do that. It's great. Right? But you, you do it through intuition. So the possibility is given to you. Right. And so there's something that pre exists that turbulent mind, a turbulent state, that when you see something, you temporary lift temporarily they lift out of that turbulence and you see it, you have a moment of transparent, seeing awareness and understanding. So this is something that the possibility for that understanding is given, the activation of that understanding depends on you. You see the picture here. So the pure possibility of that it's bound up in thinking and feeling and will and remember, this is just a taxonomy, but the phenomena themselves the pure possibilities of experiencing what that is, are, is given to you, but you have to activate. Okay, and that activation is the schooling of consciousness is the is the kind of spiritual path in this school of thought. It's the, it's the conscious engagement, to perceive those phenomena for what they are before. We kind of put them in our pocket before we before you know before we unconsciously trample them, I that's not the best way to say it. But we're activating a potential in us which is given to, to a transparently perceive what they are. Now, as we do that, I have one more image and then I want to talk about it. As we do that, there, there are facts of a transformation in these sweet in the spheres in this geometry. Okay. I just hastily put this together and these aren't the best colors, but but that's probably the wrong color for thinking it should be. It should be brighter than that. But somehow Oh, that's because my Illustrator file is CMI K.
Anyway
doesn't really matter.
Being an artist. colors really matter.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, just to get the, you know, get this sense. accurate. You know, it's it, you know, so yeah, colors matter. But anyway, you get the picture. That there is, maybe, maybe this is better. Okay, you can still see that right? Yeah. So there's, there's, there's a transformation in these domains. Where you can actually learn to allow thinking to metamorphose and you will you increasingly allow thinking to think in you rather than kind of grinding your own thoughts out all the time, you know, the sausage maker, you you you can increasingly allow feeling to feel to do its thing. In in you, and you have agency you didn't invent love, right or calm or presence or creativity, but you have that's those are Given as potentials, but you have the critical agency to activate and allow those to reveal themselves to stream to stream in, you have the critical agency to perceive and let those in through the cracks. And the same is true for the will, and will list of really, really hard one, but like, if you talk to Lorraine, and when she talks about long distance running, you can see a picture of, of a will, that not only a physical body capable of running 40 miles, but the will itself goes through a development, the will becomes capable of carrying the body 40 miles. Or in my case of painting paintings, it becomes capable of doing things that it can't get to. right from here. Right, so, so the will, the esoteric transformation of the will, is really about surrender. surrendering the personal will, the me will like what I want, through perception, to a will that is very strong, very creative, but not exclusive of others. It's not just focused on the personal, it's, it's I and other, it's connected with other people and what's good for them and what serves them. And even to the point of sacrifice. Now, there's different schools of thought, there's different schools of thought, some schools of thought, transform the will, into an instrument of personal power. There are there are esoteric traditions, there are schools of thought there are exercises you can do to amplify and strengthen your will to become a ferociously strong instrument for your ego, for your egotism. And they're like,
hey, Jeff, can we just pause there and just see what's coming up for people?
Let me just finish that thought, yeah, sorry, there are there are other schools of thought which transform the will to be in service, and to be selfless. And, and their, their, you know, that's ours, because that's there's much less costs down the line. To that, to that method, or that approach, I would say. So this is all very varied. So I'm giving you a lot of pictures here, and I'll shut up and we can talk about it. But there's no absolutes. This is the terrain, you're in charge. You're the driver of your own development. But this is just some of the terrain that we're going to be now entering in Module Three. And we'll give you what we know, and what we experienced and what we kind of suggest. But you're in the driver's seat for your own path. Sorry, that was longer than anticipated. But that's the terrain as I see it.
How's that landing with you guys?
I'd love to share that, as you were speaking, Jeff, I was reminded quite heavily of the doujin sort of teachings where it talks about that, that moment, like the door and like the potential of the day where the sun's just cracking above that, and like, that's the door that so there's no judgment on it is just literally the observation of life at the moment before it becomes like it. So it's an idea and it's the moment before sort of gets tainted by the actualization. So it's just that sort of crystalline perfection of the potential you know, and to really sit in that. So, I've found a lot of lot of synergies in what you were saying to that, that that teaching.
Did you say dogen?
What did you call it? Yeah, the dojo in the dojo. It's kind of dog shin. Version. Let me let me research and on there, but I've got a friend who's really into the dogen I'm probably saying it completely different to how people say it here. Yeah. zongshen Yeah. The zizo version. But it's a it's just a very old ancient, one of the oldest teachings Buddha's teachings. Wow.
Yeah. Thanks, Karen. Yeah.
I think something that was coming up for me was I feel like Jeff and also Louisa in the last session, and then building today, you've given me language for something that I've sort of been accidentally sensing and not really knowing how to manage. So in particular, the thing that you've sort of packaged very helpfully for me is this notion that we have so much more potential than then we're typically realizing and talking about those creativities. And it's even, like, even as I'm using words to describe what I'm saying, I'm aware that words are just this kind of borrowed practice to state in a way that I can communicate with you, but there's so many more angles and pieces to it. And so, I guess, first of all, just very concretely, I'm glad to share that validation. I don't know if you guys can hear the screaming child outside my window, too. So, um, I don't know who's kidding. Um, so I'm grateful for that sort of reminder. Yeah, there really is a lot of this creative stuff floating around us. It's there, it's super rich with potential. And then the other thing that you've given and I got to think a lot about more about this is this notion of agency. And okay, we start with a lot more agency and thinking, and then a little less than feeling. And so will is the hardest one to access. But I feel like there's a lot of blur there. And I had this sense of an embroidery thread, like a gold thread. And if, if the gold thread is the thread of agency, and I'm more practiced in stitching it into thinking and just beginning to stitch it into feeling. Well, it's a matter of practice and time and recognition and acceptance before I can also stitch it in will. And then that one thread binds all of them. And we've just got these three words thinking feeling will, because again, we use words, but they're not really separate. So I just had a sense of like, both amazing potential Yes, it's all around us. I've been sensing that for a while and then like, stitching it together with this. Twinkle, I don't know anyway, very, very gratifying to hear you put words to those Inklings.
Of course, you need well, to think to activate your Will you have to throw to activate your thinking you need to use a little bit of will. Mm hmm. And to make a choice between feeling rage or feeling compassion, it's the will. So it's very difficult to separate these things out completely. In fact, it's impossible. But really, we do it just so that we can look at the pieces before we put them back together
again, huh. Wow.
Any other thoughts? impressions? Questions?
I have lots of
love to hear your thoughts. Yeah, I
think that what what was interesting when you talked about the, like, the thinking becoming more alive, like, to me the moments when the thinking becomes more alive is when I when I'm improvising or when I've not thought through or when I'm just kind of like creative mindset, like writing poetry or writing. You know, just some kind of creative writing Well, I'm not trying to win I'm not binding myself to any rules. And then does that feel like flow or the word feels like I'm not I'm it this is really like the writing is live. What I'm feeling is a life. Or what I'm thinking is like everything somehow matches in this moment, and then we would have like, everything becomes alive at the same time, I would say like both the feeling the thinking and the willing. Like there is this perfect alignment. And so I was wondering if, in a way, sometimes when you feel alive in one dimension, the other, I don't think it's possible to have it if you don't have the others, like, it feels like the three dimensions are actually really bound together in those moments. And I was wondering what you thought about that. And at the same time, those moments that feel more alive, have become more and more intense of a time. So before when I had those moments, I felt like, Okay, I'm alive, like this is alive. But as time passes, as I go deeper into whatever is happening to me, like I get to all the depths, and I'm like, maybe I was not that alive before or like, maybe there is more alive. And then it raises the question like, is this? Is this some kind of weird? Like remains of the old mindset where you always want more or like always looking for more? Are we actually like going, I can lightness always expand and show is trying to expand it? Or is it some audience sometimes more alive and sometimes less alive? And it doesn't really matter? And then about the will, like, will for ego? global good, or, like, selfless will. Sometimes I wondered.
If they're not
if they're not related in a way that we don't understand it, in the sense that when I was a kid, when I was 12, I mean, I've, I've always been like, someone that's very strong will. And when I was 12, like I plan my entire life, I decided, you know, to work in, like I did, I changed everything about my life, just to get out of my house, and like, put the whole plan in place. And I just, you know, did it, although it went totally against what I kind of felt like doing what I enjoy, like, I just had those objectives, and I stick to it, stuck to it. And, and it felt in a way, like in retrospect, it was a pretty, a go with stick type of dream. Like I wanted to get away from my house, I wanted to have a good job later that they can have money and not money problems like we were having. So it felt like I was really trying to focus on myself and my own success in a pretty materialistic way, in addition, and but at the same time nowadays, when I look back, it feels that it was actually I mean, feels like part of a whole process that may be more selfless than it seemed to be. And so even when people are doing things that, you know, selfish, right? Are there really? Or is it just part of an overall process. And if you focus on the moments, you'll see this as selfish, but if you see the entire life process, or what it creates in other people in terms of awareness of things, they don't want to do themselves. And maybe it has a different impact than what you can narrowly understand if you look at a few, like a sequence of actions.
Those are awesome thoughts. But let's hear also from Mary before we dialogue, Lena wrote them all down.
Well, um, a few things. Many years ago, like in the 80s, I have a friend of mine, borrowed my car to go to a workshop in the East Bay about Waldorf education. And she came back with my car and said, she wanted to start a Waldorf School in our area. And I think many times about her idea and the power of it. And so that's one thing there's, I still have a sense of mystery about that. appreciation all about. The other is I think we've talked about it before that rather than thinking about a decision and then sort of chaos or thinking about what to do and maybe feelings associated with that of maybe this process is just discovering what has already been decided. And
yeah, that's a really good question How, how decision making and how are we? Where are those decisions made? Obviously, finally in our will, but what's the process We use to get there. And the subtle weaving between emotions and concepts and desire, which is in the will, and all of these things and how they weave together.
The third thing had to do with triggering when someone else is triggered, and, you know, with what we've learned or being aware of that in our feelings, but then in on it comes to the will, I think what Jeff shared, maybe is a guide in the resolution being helpful to all of those involved, including the person that was triggered. Just how to move through that process with this awareness.
Well, this is a very rich and deep pictures, all three of them.
Yeah.
Well, then, you know, thinking about Waldorf then I start thinking about your thoughts and starting the school for the social future and curiosity about that birth or that conception?
Yeah. Deep, far back in time.
dragged along, kicking and screaming.
Surrender.
Yes. Some of that.
Yeah, we do need longer calls.
We do.
I don't mind staying on today, if people want to stay on. Stay on for a bit.
Yeah, do you have to bounce bounce, but those are a lot of very rich questions that Laureen and Mary just brought, I don't think we can we can talk about more. But what about Betsy? I haven't heard from you yet. And Sue.
Personally, I just I think I understand more of how it's applied and my personal life.
And Lorraine's visual, kind of brought that together for me. So thank you for that. Mr. Brain.
I don't know that I have much to comment. Other than that, but I mean, like, pieces started clicking together. So I have more willpower than I give myself credit for.
The part that that really fascinates me is the the alive thinking and feeling that that can move into willing, and I love your, your visual Lorraine. And I understand that we said that you can't really separate them, but somehow to, to, to activate them to activate what we've been given. We need to separate them to be able to sort of think through, and I'm thinking about the possibility of moving. And so right now, that's, that's about all I can think about. And how, how I could serve the world better, in a different way, a different place a different a different way. And so everything feels really alive right now. I can't separate them. But I I know that something's really happening with this faculty, these faculties that I've been given, and something new is being born. So I can say,
I mean, I want to just make a quick comment on that. I think there's a there's a big question on the table about how these work together. apart and piecing them together and working on them versus their, their whole function as three or as one with three faces. But first, I just wanted to make a comment on that question of egoism at the right time. You know, egoism in a five year old, or in a 12 year old, or in a 17 year old, or even in a 25 year old are all perfectly acceptable. And they present as part of youth, and empowerment and powering agency. But the same kind of, you know, drive of self realization presents very differently in a 25 year old than it does say, in a 55 year old, who's still all about me. And my grandiosity, it just becomes a little bit less generous. So it's, so what came up for me was just that, that principle of self preservation to leave a house that wasn't working for you, or self discovery, to say, I am here for a reason, or I want to do this, or I have these ambitions. You know, just offer that reflection, that it's something can be very good at one time in one context, that is not very good at another time, and not in another context. So I would just urge against absolutes, but to, to kind of wait each situation and say, you know, if it, if it 47, you're still trying to do what you were on about at 27. And there's not been a lot of growth, then in a certain way, you're a 27 year old and a 47 year old body. You know, you mentally still 27. And I think there's a lot of people in this world, especially in positions of power, who are basically 27 years old. They're forever, on the great knee, and I can do it, and it's my will or you know, my way or the highway, and we're still going to just assert our selves, and just, you know, climb, you know, what I'm saying? So, the second piece about abundance, or or, rather, what did you say, a likeness always expands? You know, before we get to this question of unbundling, and bundling, and how they're all combined, and so on. I think that art is a very good and essential part of human life. Because in art you, you can experience what it's like to be at that threshold between yourself and the source of inspiration of imagination of intuition. And you can go into flow in a certain way, by forgetting yourself, you're so absorbed in what you're doing. And you're so there, that it's a real state of flow. And I think that's really healthy for the mind and soul. It's like food for the body, really good food. And when you start working on your creativity, or the faculty, then you can keep making art that's really wonderful because of that holistic development that art affords. And it's also possible in parallel to, to be born more intentional about developing the faculties that are given to you as grace as part of being human. But there's no upper limit to there. Alive vnus Okay, so as you as you develop them, and this is where we get into different schools of thought, you might choose to develop your will for you want to because you want to indomitable personal will. You want to, you know, make a dent in the universe, you want to like be this hero. And there's other things where you can you can transform your will to be a force in service
to something to others to love to life. And so at that point, being able to to cultivate these faculties wisely or say, in a way that makes you know that accords with your true goals becomes important and becomes possible becomes possible. Okay,
can I reflect on that something was bouncing around. So you, Jeff, I didn't capture the whole sentence, but you just you, you use the word dominant. And I feel like going back to the habit loop stuff that you've talked about that it's not about saying, like, having a particular feeling is good or bad, but more that, if you're being compulsive into something, the thing that I've just sort of come to realize is, that's another form of, of domination, if your feelings are causing you to do things, if I'm doing things out of a reaction to feelings, and I'm being dominated by my own feelings, it's still me no other actor doing things to me. But there's something very freeing, and that that alive, pneus expanding thing feels like it gets to come out and the energy gets to go into a good place. And I have found in recognizing that even really negative feelings, like extreme anger, don't have to be dominant in in that they don't have to decide what I do. And it's so cliche, like, I sort of feel like, you know, I was maybe just the other day that 27 year old in a 50 year old buddy, I know it's very cliche to say you, you don't get to decide what happens you do get to decide how you react. But to actually do it is sort of revolutionary. And so to to be free to see feelings as beautiful, which Louisa you you remind us like they're beautiful, universal things, these feelings and as our needs, still doesn't mean they have to dominate and decide. So I just I guess I'm sort of reveling in a newfound freedom, even in, like rolling through some of the worst anger and frustration and sadness that I think I felt yesterday was like, a horrible day from an emotional perspective. But actually, it was a triumph, because I was like, look how bad those emotions are. They're horrible. I feel awful. And then it was like, but I get to decide how to recognize and deal with that. Um, yeah, so there's, I don't know, I guess I'm just reveling with gratitude and then realizing the eight, okay, there was a point to this. This isn't just like group therapy, so that we're happier people. I interpret the the value of this school. The reason I'm here is so that as a happier person, I can live in service to a greater good far beyond me. And so I just got, like, physiologically got that without my own ability to see the phenomenology of what's happening. My Services will not be well rendered. And so yeah, it just feels so much more possible for that ever expanding a lightness to actually go wherever it was supposed to go
far beyond me. It's exciting. Yeah.
Love that. love hearing that. And also gives you this, I want you to not lose sight of as you get to know this phenomena in yourself. You're going to start like this the separation separating out of the feelings and then what you do with the feelings. Do you react? Or do you not react? You know, that's the will, obviously. And then you can start you'll start to see everywhere in the world and Hmm, dynamic the same phenomena playing out at different fractals? Uh huh.
That's, that's exactly what I was falling asleep with. Last night. I was like, everything from breathing, to like, the seasons to like, everything was just suddenly this oscillating circumstance that repeats and repeats and repeats. Yeah.
And I want to just give you a picture. Let's say you're facilitating a workshop or a meeting in the future, and someone erupts into violent anger. Or they're just boiling there with violent anger inside them. If you've been through that, you can remain absolutely calm, absolutely unperturbed. And you can you can love them with without any difficulty at all. Because you see, and you know, so well the difference between the anger as a passing storm and, and they say the true self, or the persistent self. And, and you can help the group then not react not come apart, not explode. But focus on the fullness and the wholeness of what's there and just find a way through and no problem. Because you've traversed that terrain and built that organ of perception in yourself. It's to Mary's point, it ripples. You see the trigger, you have an awareness, you don't trigger. And suddenly the group is stabilized. Because someone in the group isn't triggered. There. There's completely calm completely. They can, they can laugh, they can smile, I get in trouble, because someone will get mad and get upset, and I'll be smiling. And they'll be like, what the fuck? And I'm just like, sorry. Because it can be like, it's no problem for you to feel what you're feeling. I still see you still love you. I still respect you. I still want to know what you think you're still here. No problem, just. So it's a capacity that you're building in yourself that can serve others, as well.
What's coming up?
Yeah, to me, that's that's actually what freedom is. Like, that's freedom. That's right. That's right. You can live anything, you can be anything, you can do anything like nothing is ever going to take away this freedom that you have in this moment where you're not driven. And, and at the same time, nothing is is worrying or stressful anymore. I mean, if you're fine was like the worst emotions coming up, or like what you were so afraid of. And then you just see them so now sometimes I'm when I'm sure like extremely, I don't know, like waves of sadness or desperate or stuff that just comes. And I'm almost enjoying it in a strange way. So Oh,
that's just wrong emotion. Goodness.
But there is this like absolute safety and feeling it? Yeah, also feels like freedom.
Yeah, cuz you're not afraid of them anymore. And if you're not afraid of that in yourself, you're not afraid of them in other people. So when they bring the drama, you're not, you know, embroiled in the drama
reasons to your point married?
Well, yeah, I'd love to share a quick story about energy healing. Well, I mean, I'm curious about the relationship between our bodily reaction because I did this energy clearing work that was based on the AASHTO firebreath. And I did that I worked with this energy healer, and she, you know, I had for 15 minutes I had the whole you know, it was kind of painful. But after doing that, for two weeks or something, I had cleared so much energetic baggage that as I was breaking up from my boyfriend, I was able to kind of sit in the corner of the room and just observe what was going on. I wasn't triggered at all. And so it would be interesting to dive into how our bottle body reaction and whether it is related to whether we've cleared energy from our body anyway, I just wanted to sort of share that because I've had that kind of experience and really seeing outside of my body and not be any reactive at all. And it was I didn't know all the the habit loop and everything or teaching at that point. But that energy, just clearing it out. For some some reason it had that effect, and I didn't it didn't perturb me, I was like, Yeah, you're calling me That doesn't matter. Yeah, fine. So either easiest breakup I've ever had.
Yeah, well, it just, you know, we often sit with the belief, and it is a belief that consciousness is only in the brain. Well, what about when you have a gut feeling? Where do we feel grief? We don't feel it in our heads. We feel it in our bodies. But also the question I want to put to you is what comes first, the body, or the soul, when it comes to experience. So one of my favorite vloggers, who is pretty out there, but she's all about horses. She says the body is the densest part of the soul. So for her, it begins in the soul, and lands in the body. And so when we talk about healing, we work with horses, but I think this is with humans, we have to come at it from both directions, we support the physical body and its processes, because whatever you're feeling is impacting the body. So we can come at it from from the bodily, energetic, you know, meridian perspective. And we also have to come at it from the source, which is that began in your thinking, and your feeling, and in your in land in your will. And all of that comes, you know, is your body. Your body carries the score, as we say, in trauma work. So,
just in terms of how you've described that, Louisa, are you thinking the soul is the thinking feeling? And will?
Yeah, that's an anatomy. That's, that's one way of talking about the anatomy of the soul. How does that land with you?
It's surprising. I mean, you know, it's all feels so unquantifiable in many ways. So I like this framing, because it's, I guess, pointing to our essential, true nature. And the way that we express ourselves.
Yes. Yeah. We often so one of the things I, I confess, I'm not very knowledgeable about Eastern meditative processes. But from what I've seen from people that I've worked with, is that they, they talk about the meditative, you know, exercises they work with, and they often use breathing. And they're very surprised when I say why, you know, my meditation, I don't do any breathing at all, and they're like, why not? And I'm like, well, because my consciousness is not limited to my body. I don't want to be limited by my body, as I work with cultivating and developing my consciousness. And maybe you could say the same for your soul. You know, the body is the densest part of your soul. Why would you want to just limit yourself with your body and meridian lines and energy and breathing? Why not have an expanded definition of the soul and have a little bit of a sense of the distinctions between these these different natures, different bodies, of the human being? Physical soul spirit? This is this is where we're going in terms of an anatomy of what is the human being? We're so much more than just the physical body, so don't limit yourself. Right? So what comes up when I say that?
Can I just can I just pause you here, because that is a whole other development. And I wonder about other people needing to go so I'm just I just saw that Laura Lee and bounce and I'm just checking in about other people's schedules and whether we want to pause and continue. So let me just step into that facilitation role, just to say,
yeah, even though I'm the one who said we need longer calls, and I think we do need longer calls. I'm gonna have to go in a few minutes to but I love this conversation. I feel like we need like six or seven continuous days. And then another six or seven continuous days, but I can listen for a bit but then I'm gonna have to drop it.
You have to go to bed. Yeah, you need to go to work. Yeah, yeah.
Well, let's keep going next week.
By bt Bye, everybody. By the 355
Take care guys, I'll step in here to buy buy, buy marry, bye bye. We'll see you
next time Mary. Okay, good to see you. Hey kiddos. I had a watch
