Get Consciousness Right
When we get consciousness right, everything else flows. Stuck? Blocked? Angry, worried, or scared? That’s a consciousness opportunity.
Preparation for awareness
Tools and experiences that bring us back to awareness can be severe, and since awareness comes before getting consciousness right, we need those tools now more than ever. Trauma is an consciousness-correcting experience, at least according to Epictetus. Psychedelics, cold immersion, ultra-marathons (ultra anything, really), hot yoga, dopamine swiping…you know the drill: these are all experiences that soften the hard shell around modern consciousness while fooling us into thinking we’ve elevated consciousness.
If we get below the surface to the point our knee-jerk defenses are truly breached, our awareness sharpens. We no longer wield a butcher knife where a scalpel is needed. It becomes possible to feel the subtleties of consciousness again – the shading of emotion, the graduations of thought from good to better to best. Mimicry-based narcissistic tendencies soften, self pity evolves into self compassion, hatred of the other resolves into curiosity.
Corporate consciousness
Of course, getting consciousness right isn’t for everyone. There is growing evidence, though, that interest in evolving consciousness is finding a place at the table both individually and collectively. For example, certified B-Corp status results from a rigorous examination of how a business’ awareness is reflected in the ways that business measures its social and environmental impact. “Social responsibility” guides investors, too: like corporations, some investors don’t make the cut of higher consciousness.
How to get consciousness right
Getting consciousness right isn’t just vibrating at a higher level, using the “right” frequencies, reading your aura, tuning your chakras, or huffing and puffing into light-headedness. It’s not corporate DEI, regular attendance at the “right” church, donating to or volunteering with the “right” charity. Consciousness is what happens after you’ve worn out the sensory awareness of your body and mind; it’s what can arise when all the rest of you is spent.
From ancient practices such as Kundalini yoga to modern interventions such as Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises, it’s clear that the body/mind must get out of the way before consciousness can play. The violent purge-based forms of psychedelic journeying also offer the same fundamental truth that wisdom keepers and prophets have taught for ages: consciousness happens when the rest of us is still. Meditation isn’t an antidote for agitation; when used properly by a prepared being, meditation opens avenues to explore higher consciousness, not to merely intervene with a troubled one.
The shadow (or heroic) journey
Shadow journeying is another tried and true way of using up our built-in resistance to higher consciousness. We must go one to one with our shadow Boss – there’s no sustainable growth without doing so – if we want to truly change our consciousness.
Although psychology can fascinate us, and though we nod to Jung for giving us language to describe the shadow journey into the psyche and defining the archetypes we may encounter there, shadow journeys are not the exclusive provenance of either psychology or psychedelics. For advanced passengers, a shadow journey is both the ultimate awareness that leads to moments of expanded consciousness and the process by which we lock down that consciousness and make it practical in life.
So how do you do the shadow journey? This isn’t a therapy-based exercise; the shadow journey is individual. It’s also not a psychedelic journey: the purpose of psychedelics is to open up potential, not to walk us through an encounter with our internal darkness. For the shadow journey to work we need to be fully aware of our head, heart, body, and soul, not blissed out of our minds or terrified into submission.
Wrung-out shadow journeyers are passengers of a different sort. They’re powerfully humble, strongly submissive, acutely aware of processes (not things). In the paradoxical threshold of a shadow journey, practiced passengers look forward to the experience even as they buckle in tightly, since every shadow journey can be a wild ride of awareness before the treasure appears. David Whyte illustrates this in his poem, “The Well of Grief:”
Those who will not slip beneath
the still surface on the well of grief,
turning down through its black water
to the place we cannot breathe,
will never know the source from which we drink,
the secret water, cold and clear,
nor find in the darkness glimmering,
the small round coins,
thrown by those who wished for something else.
© David Whyte
Are you ready?
Do you have a shadow journey practice? Have you practiced for when a shadow journey beckons you?
It is possible to rehearse the shadow journey process – to prepare for the “real” ones – but you won’t learn the tools in any STEM program. In fact, STEM programs attempt to entirely obliterate the need for shadow journeys. Aspects of this include the STEM-enabled assault on the arts and humanities, which shows up in content such as endless worn-out derivative CGI-intensive movie sequels to some long-ago blockbuster, or the spew of AI articles, reels, and books that are merely warmed-over SEO-enhanced and dumbed-down old ideas attempting to sound new and impress us with their pith.
So what are the real preparation tools? One that has been hiding in plain sight for millennia is known by modern research for the incredible power it has over our heads, hearts, and bodies. In fact, in addition to this, modern research has begun to admit that evidence for this tool’s effect on our souls – our consciousnesses – is both present and powerful, even without the physical measurements Science craves. You already know what that tool is; why aren’t you using it with skill?
How do you get ready?
Most people won’t pay attention either to the necessity for the shadow journey or the tools to practice for it. The world offers so many distractions (we’ve mentioned a few above); many simply avoid the actual journey and believe they are accomplishing it through self-inflicted duress or serial psychedelic tripping, or can afford to purchase ignorance of the journey as if it could be avoided.
That’s not the same as a shadow journey. How do we know? Look at the effects: has your life transformed in any substantive and lasting way as a result of <fill in the blank with your favorite shadow journey avoidance mechanism>? We’re talking about a process that can squeeze a camel through the eye of a needle, right? A process that shuts rich people out of the Kingdom? Those aren’t metaphors: they’re meant to evoke the same kind of bursting lungs that Whyte finds at the bottom of the well, but that isn’t yet the real difference between avoidance practices and a genuine shadow journey.
The real difference between those who merely believe they’re shadow journeying and those who truly are lies in the open question Whyte challenges us to answer: what will we do with those “coins thrown by those who wished for something else?” That’s a question that deserves a practiced answer! Isn’t there a distinct quality of consciousness that snatches the coins as personal treasure versus the quality of consciousness that uses the coins for an elevated purpose? It’s the difference between sharing a popular meme (or popular regimen) and confronting the darkness behind that meme (or regimen).
Are you ready for that?
How we can help
Musimorphic™ is, among other things, a practical way to both prepare for and take the shadow journey. No need to wait until you’re lost and afraid in the embrace of your shadow self; you can train for the encounter now. Ask us how to make every one of your shadow journeys successful. Successful shadow journeys result in powerful positive evidence of elevated consciousness to the world, and when it happens to you, we’ll be grateful and celebrate it with you.
——————————————–
Over the course of more than 40 years of paying attention to how music works on us, Bill Protzmann has rediscovered the fundamental nature and purpose of music and accumulated a vast awareness of anthropology and sociology, as well as the effects of music, the arts, and information technology on human beings. Bill has experimented with what he has learned through performing concerts, giving lectures, facilitating workshops, and teaching classes. He first published on the powerful extensibility of music into the business realm in 2006 (here and abstract here). Ten years later, in 2016, he consolidated his work into the Musimorphic Quest. In this guided, gamified, experiential environment, participants discover and remember their innate connection to this ancient transformative technology. Also, The National Council for Behavioral Healthcare recognized Bill in 2014 with an Inspiring Hope award for Artistic Expression, the industry equivalent of winning an Oscar.
In addition to individuals, Musimorphic programs support personal and professional development and wellness for businesses, NPOs and at-risk populations.
