Thank you two so much for this heartfelt convo. I've been thinking a lot lately about the Fisher King myth, which I conclude with in my most recent paper: "The symbolic significance of the Holy Grail in this story has to do with a sickness that is on the land. Camelot is an impoverished place, as captured eloquently in the “broken images” of T.S. Elliot’s “Wasteland” (where he poignantly poses the question: “That corpse you planted last year in your garden, / Has it begun to sprout?”). In his first visit to the palace, Perceval fails in his quest to obtain the grail. It is years before he gets a chance at redemption, and wiser this time he succeeds. The sickness is lifted from the land. How? Simply by asking the Fisher King the right question: 'What ails thee?'
In a very real sense, this question marks an evolutionary leap in human intelligence when the
word “trauma” ceases to refer solely to physical injury, as it originally meant in Greek, and
instead takes on a new dimension of psychological injury - the way we understand trauma today.
The King is unable to heal because the psychological wound that he carries, masked by the
physical wound, has yet to be acknowledged, let alone addressed. Once it is brought into the
light of awareness by Perceval, and perhaps for the first time acknowledged by the King himself,
healing becomes possible, and almost magically commences. The wasteland itself is regenerated
- thus recognizing the direct connection that exists between human trauma and environmental
Love how your bring in this mythic dimension. Feel an impulse to quote from your abstract from the paper, for those not already familiar: "Given the existential dimension of the current meta-crisis, it is incumbent on those professions most responsible for promoting good mental health to become much more proactive andprescriptive in addressing the collective pathology grounded in the objectification of self, others and nature. Such a ‘radical’ reorientation requires the promotion of a positive psychology, rather than simply applying psychological triage to the symptoms of climate trauma. Such a positive psychology should be well-suited to bringing about the kinds of quantum leaps in social attitudes, civic relationships, and personal lifestyles that are going to be needed for humanity to become more resilient, naturally coherent and, ultimately, regenerative. The approach suggested here would have mental health professionals advocate for shared responsibility towards the climate and biosphere and, on that ethical ground, promote a holistic model of cultural indigeneity that would be instructive for individuals, families, and decision-makers." Beautiful.
“My favourite phrase here is that ‘we are all walking around with trauma’ — and it’s like traumatized bodies with layers of makeup — and then make money in this hyper-individualistic, capitalist world to try to cover our layers of grief with more cars, bigger houses, more consumption.
“So that trauma and that shame, that inadequacy, that comes from not having taken care of each other’s pain, is driving us to embrace a system that is killing our Mother Earth. So this trauma healing work is essential.”
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
— Walking around with trauma (often in dissociated state)
— Focus on making money and consuming (flight response)
— Ignoring the pain of others because ‘feeling’ others pain can cause us to have to feel our own pain and suffering which might perceive as unbearable or too immense to face (Michael Brown makes that point in the Presence Process).
— Supporting system that destroys the planet which is utterly unsustainable.
Thanks for presenting the basic bullet points and how trauma and health of planet is connected.
Anna, I love how you break down Kritee's comment even further, and unpack the trauma response operating at each level of the processes she describes. thank you for your considered response!
I don’t know ‘considered’ it was… just summary of points — but, thanks for responding. I wanted to say I appreciate your interview. You seem like a thoughtful person that appreciates logic and reason. I want to come back to these ideas when I have more time. Thank you.
Thank you for this interview and exploration, Matthew. I feel touched and resonant with what you both shared. It occurred to me around your surprise visitor, that that experience might be feedback to your inquiry in that moment? Part of my dream practice is to begin looking at everyday life as if it were a dream and also as a feedback mechanism to intention or inquiry. So, if I had been inquiring around resistance that I felt to participating in a grief ritual (even though I am often around people grieving in my work and I am not a stranger to deep process work) and a young female child walked into the room/into the conversation, I might take that as feedback around , the young feminine might need to be brought back into the conversation because she needs something and it’s related to my ability to grieve. So, it might be about reclaiming the young feminine child within myself? Or maybe something about the young feminine within needing the attention of an attuned father within? (Which your young one received in that moment.) Then I begin to think collectively, and how that might be feedback as a collective about needing to restore relationship to the feminine and the relationship to feelings and emoting that comes with that. Also, maybe weaving in, what is the collective masculine relationship to the collective young feminine as it relates to relaxing into grief rituals and processes? The fact that the feminine was very young interests me? Maybe saying something about the innocence of a child needed to meet the grief? Or maybe that’s the age at which our inner feminine is arrested as a collective? Or maybe it might be speaking in a myriad of ways yet to be discovered the more we process what arises?
Tracy, wow, thank you for this beautiful inquiry! I love your invitation to engage with reality as it were a dream -- it feels reminiscent of Paul Levy's teachings in this domain, as elaborated in the Quantum Revelation. It's also a perspective that has been shared with more recently, in the conscious dream circle we are developing among participants in the TWT. Very rich to explore the potential significance of Matilda's appearance -- and these lines of exploration all feel resonant to me. Particularly appreciate you drawing attention to the "collective inner feminine/masculine." You are bringing so many rich new lenses! And thank you as well for being present at the launch of the summit. It was great to see you in the call.
My pleasure. That’s awesome to hear that there’s a TWT dream community forming, because dreaming as a way of working really efficiently in collective healing has been a strong theme coming up in me for the last year. That there is huge potential here! I had this experience where a client of mine called in Thomas into the imaginal realm during a piece of therapeutic work to be some ideal father energy for them for a re-parenting experience and we both had our socks blown off by the energy that entered the space (in different ways). My client felt met on all levels (a very new experience for them)and I was experiencing intense love energy and a huge upsurge of creativity in my awareness that I need to start a dream group and start teaching people dreaming as a therapeutic practice. Prior to that I had been practicing myself for 15 years, but it was nowhere on my radar to start a dream group or teach it in any way! So I did. Then I saw your podcast with Charley and read his book and it stoked the fires even more! So, I’ve added becoming lucid and partake in a healing process to my dream intentions. I’ll be excited to hear more on your group experience of dreaming!
Thank you two so much for this heartfelt convo. I've been thinking a lot lately about the Fisher King myth, which I conclude with in my most recent paper: "The symbolic significance of the Holy Grail in this story has to do with a sickness that is on the land. Camelot is an impoverished place, as captured eloquently in the “broken images” of T.S. Elliot’s “Wasteland” (where he poignantly poses the question: “That corpse you planted last year in your garden, / Has it begun to sprout?”). In his first visit to the palace, Perceval fails in his quest to obtain the grail. It is years before he gets a chance at redemption, and wiser this time he succeeds. The sickness is lifted from the land. How? Simply by asking the Fisher King the right question: 'What ails thee?'
In a very real sense, this question marks an evolutionary leap in human intelligence when the
word “trauma” ceases to refer solely to physical injury, as it originally meant in Greek, and
instead takes on a new dimension of psychological injury - the way we understand trauma today.
The King is unable to heal because the psychological wound that he carries, masked by the
physical wound, has yet to be acknowledged, let alone addressed. Once it is brought into the
light of awareness by Perceval, and perhaps for the first time acknowledged by the King himself,
healing becomes possible, and almost magically commences. The wasteland itself is regenerated
- thus recognizing the direct connection that exists between human trauma and environmental
injury." https://www.academia.edu/125461505/Gaia_Psychology_A_Positive_Psychology_Reset_for_an_Ecological_Future
Love how your bring in this mythic dimension. Feel an impulse to quote from your abstract from the paper, for those not already familiar: "Given the existential dimension of the current meta-crisis, it is incumbent on those professions most responsible for promoting good mental health to become much more proactive andprescriptive in addressing the collective pathology grounded in the objectification of self, others and nature. Such a ‘radical’ reorientation requires the promotion of a positive psychology, rather than simply applying psychological triage to the symptoms of climate trauma. Such a positive psychology should be well-suited to bringing about the kinds of quantum leaps in social attitudes, civic relationships, and personal lifestyles that are going to be needed for humanity to become more resilient, naturally coherent and, ultimately, regenerative. The approach suggested here would have mental health professionals advocate for shared responsibility towards the climate and biosphere and, on that ethical ground, promote a holistic model of cultural indigeneity that would be instructive for individuals, families, and decision-makers." Beautiful.
I need more time to think about this —- and
These quotes from interview stick out:
“My favourite phrase here is that ‘we are all walking around with trauma’ — and it’s like traumatized bodies with layers of makeup — and then make money in this hyper-individualistic, capitalist world to try to cover our layers of grief with more cars, bigger houses, more consumption.
“So that trauma and that shame, that inadequacy, that comes from not having taken care of each other’s pain, is driving us to embrace a system that is killing our Mother Earth. So this trauma healing work is essential.”
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
— Walking around with trauma (often in dissociated state)
— Focus on making money and consuming (flight response)
— Ignoring the pain of others because ‘feeling’ others pain can cause us to have to feel our own pain and suffering which might perceive as unbearable or too immense to face (Michael Brown makes that point in the Presence Process).
— Supporting system that destroys the planet which is utterly unsustainable.
Thanks for presenting the basic bullet points and how trauma and health of planet is connected.
Anna, I love how you break down Kritee's comment even further, and unpack the trauma response operating at each level of the processes she describes. thank you for your considered response!
I don’t know ‘considered’ it was… just summary of points — but, thanks for responding. I wanted to say I appreciate your interview. You seem like a thoughtful person that appreciates logic and reason. I want to come back to these ideas when I have more time. Thank you.
Thank you for this interview and exploration, Matthew. I feel touched and resonant with what you both shared. It occurred to me around your surprise visitor, that that experience might be feedback to your inquiry in that moment? Part of my dream practice is to begin looking at everyday life as if it were a dream and also as a feedback mechanism to intention or inquiry. So, if I had been inquiring around resistance that I felt to participating in a grief ritual (even though I am often around people grieving in my work and I am not a stranger to deep process work) and a young female child walked into the room/into the conversation, I might take that as feedback around , the young feminine might need to be brought back into the conversation because she needs something and it’s related to my ability to grieve. So, it might be about reclaiming the young feminine child within myself? Or maybe something about the young feminine within needing the attention of an attuned father within? (Which your young one received in that moment.) Then I begin to think collectively, and how that might be feedback as a collective about needing to restore relationship to the feminine and the relationship to feelings and emoting that comes with that. Also, maybe weaving in, what is the collective masculine relationship to the collective young feminine as it relates to relaxing into grief rituals and processes? The fact that the feminine was very young interests me? Maybe saying something about the innocence of a child needed to meet the grief? Or maybe that’s the age at which our inner feminine is arrested as a collective? Or maybe it might be speaking in a myriad of ways yet to be discovered the more we process what arises?
Tracy, wow, thank you for this beautiful inquiry! I love your invitation to engage with reality as it were a dream -- it feels reminiscent of Paul Levy's teachings in this domain, as elaborated in the Quantum Revelation. It's also a perspective that has been shared with more recently, in the conscious dream circle we are developing among participants in the TWT. Very rich to explore the potential significance of Matilda's appearance -- and these lines of exploration all feel resonant to me. Particularly appreciate you drawing attention to the "collective inner feminine/masculine." You are bringing so many rich new lenses! And thank you as well for being present at the launch of the summit. It was great to see you in the call.
My pleasure. That’s awesome to hear that there’s a TWT dream community forming, because dreaming as a way of working really efficiently in collective healing has been a strong theme coming up in me for the last year. That there is huge potential here! I had this experience where a client of mine called in Thomas into the imaginal realm during a piece of therapeutic work to be some ideal father energy for them for a re-parenting experience and we both had our socks blown off by the energy that entered the space (in different ways). My client felt met on all levels (a very new experience for them)and I was experiencing intense love energy and a huge upsurge of creativity in my awareness that I need to start a dream group and start teaching people dreaming as a therapeutic practice. Prior to that I had been practicing myself for 15 years, but it was nowhere on my radar to start a dream group or teach it in any way! So I did. Then I saw your podcast with Charley and read his book and it stoked the fires even more! So, I’ve added becoming lucid and partake in a healing process to my dream intentions. I’ll be excited to hear more on your group experience of dreaming!