“Imbue thyself with the power of imagination.” Our conscious participation is essential to manifest the Christ Consciousness. Rise to our soul’s responsibility.
TRANSCRIPT:
Anne (00:01):
Okay. Thea, we’re recording now. Hi.
Thea (00:05):
Hi.
Anne (00:08):
And so we want to cover a lot and we’re going to want to do it in like 20 minutes. And we want to get a bit deep and real, and I’m going to open though with a kind of more personal mundane perspective on what I want to get into. We are each going through various situations in our lives that seem to be revealing, more starkly, patterns that are not serving us. And we’ve each witnessed many of our friends, family, and associates going through a similar kind of what I call it, a bit of a dark night of the soul, where, you know, I mean, throughout our lives, these patterns emerge that we have an opportunity to recognize, put language on and work through and try to heal, try to repattern.
Anne (01:22):
And I think we’ve each done that to more or less degree, but it almost seems like it’s accelerated right now where perhaps what hasn’t been addressed or “pushed into the past,” as Paul Tillich says, maybe those are now just really just rearing their head. We’re being given this opportunity in a kind of more compact time to just knock them out of the park and, and come out the other side. And I say this with an awareness of a larger cosmic and human event taking place on a more macro level.
Anne (02:17):
This, this past year has been enormous for everyone. Existential fear, existential threat has been perceived by most of us, whether or not we are afraid of a virus––which I’m not––or afraid of tyranny, which is more my concern, or afraid of an increasing evidence of cult programming among human beings around us, or more and more and more. There are many, many different things we can choose to focus on and be fearful of. I think that this is coinciding with what many people in many Christian denominations would suggest is End Times, or whether you go by the Mayan calendar, or moving into a different age astrologically, or more. I mean, we’ve touched on this a bit, But we are in a moment in time, a very significant moment in time. And we have an opportunity now, and I want to share my insight. I am right now, living in an area very different than the area I moved from. There are many people here who are followers of one sect, denomination of Christianity or another. And I’m witnessing folks being very aware of the significant time we’re in, but who from my outside perspective seem to be awaiting an external event to steward them out of the darkness.
Anne (04:35):
And I think that is missing the mark. If that is the focus. I, as you, as folks who are familiar with us know, we are, informed by a lot of Rudolf Steiner’s insights, lectures, and writings, and the way he presents it is that the––so let me back up, people are awaiting the return of Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ. Right? So Steiner explains that humanity has the opportunity to manifest the Christ in the Etheric, rather than..go ahead. Would you help me?
Thea (05:41):
Just maybe instead of going directly like that, but more that humanity has the tools to work with the Christ impulse as we are, but it takes the will to do so. So we have to direct that action. But we are responsible. We have been given that––as humanity’s state now––to have the Christ impulse within us, as well as outside of us. And that’s where the importance of the relationship of each human being to the greater whole of humanity and the cosmic order, that relationship and directed action is essential. And that’s what I think you’re saying. You’re seeing and hearing a sleepiness, a childlikeness––which we’re all––I’ll speak for myself, waking from. There is this waking up into my own tasks and my responsibility, but that it is mine. It’s not going to come to me or directly lead me. I must seek it. I must take a step and it will come to meet me when I’m doing that work of creating the movement of, with my will and with will itself.
Anne (07:28):
Yes. And perhaps that’s the distinction that I am seeking to articulate. That it is––I believe it is––more than just being a good Christian or, or good Muslim, good Jew, good person, good atheist. I believe that it is requiring a consciousness, uh, of our, of our responsibility in bringing this event about, and, and I don’t want to get too literal about what the event is, but I do think it’s an actualization of our true human nature. And I believe, see, we have a unique perspective as human beings in relation to the divine beings. We have entered matter in such a way that provides a unique perspective, and we can bring it through that perspective of perceiving through matter, and through the intellect, the very heavy intellect that we have developed as a result of our material inhabitation. We have the remarkable opportunity to recognize our eternal nature in that temporal matter.
New Speaker (09:30):
I want to add something if you don’t mind, please, to your stream, because I’ve been thinking about this and we’ve been talking about it, there’s this––what is it when you’re saying this developed intellect, if I’m not missing it, but the idea that the intellect is not bound to our head, right? It’s not severed from every other perceiving aspect of our humanness. And I feel like it’s important because I think an old view of our intellect, or maybe just a lost view–– maybe it’s not old, I don’t know––because what about our humanness that’s so individual or so necessary for this evolution of the Involution is, is that we are thinking, perceiving. Thinking is not just of the head, I guess that’s all I’m trying to say.
Anne (10:53):
Are you talking about Aristotelian logic as intellect?
Thea (10:58):
No, I don’t think, I mean, I don’t know what I’m thinking of. Exactly. Just that true intelligence, intellect is not just of the head thinking. It is of the wholeness of perceiving and understanding that we are keenly designed to do.
Anne (11:24):
Well, that’s the intelligence. Right? And my understanding is that because we have had this, have this experience, on the material plane, there s a danger in separating the intelligence from the intellect and that, in order to merge that again, to be in communion with the intelligence, we have to infuse our intellect with spirit. But that doesn’t come in the same manner it came perhaps 2000 years ago, 600 years ago, 150 years ago. It has, it requires more consciousness on our part to infuse that intellect with spirit and to see the spiritual, see the divine in matter in the material world around us.
Thea (12:42):
Which also includes us.
Anne (12:47):
Exactly. Well, exactly! Our divine being or eternal being is inhabiting matter right now. So we’re getting heady and abstract and who knows who’s going to even follow any of this. But what I’m recognizing is, so maybe how about you read that Terence McKenna quote that you were sharing with me?
Thea (13:19):
Sure. Yeah. This, this quote I have come back to again and again, through different stages of life. And it continues to resonate, exponentially. “Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream, and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted––who really touched the alchemical gold––this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it’s a feather bed.” And we as a whole society right now are on this ledge, or walking to this ledge of, of all of the structures that we have grown into filling and functioning within are cracking and crumbling and dissembling. And we must, I think simply imbue these structures with this divine nature of each human, that we each hold, to transform what we’re living and seeing.
Anne (15:03):
And what I realized as you were reading that quote is hat’s faith. So, you know, don’t, don’t misperceive what faith is, right? Faith is a belief in possibility really, right? It’s even a belief in the impossibility, right? And that guards against fear.
Thea (15:35):
Well it’s because it is strengthening courage. It is, it takes courage to have faith because there’s a moment of unseeing of not seeing or not the tangibility it’s intangible in a moment.
Anne (15:55):
Yeah. Yeah. It’s intangible, which is all the more reason. I mean, gosh, it’s like so many conversations I can think of to go tangent on. Okay. I’m thinking about the fact that that’s why it’s very important to recognize how limiting, the purely material vision is. You come up against how narrowing, how narrowing it is, whether it is allowing your intellect to override your instinct and intuition and imagination. If you let your intellect do that, you can spiral just into the smaller and smaller and smaller points of being that in my experience leads to a more fearful, anxious state of existence.
Thea (17:05):
Well, it’s a contraction. So, so that’s exactly what that is. And we’ve all experienced that at some point, right?
Anne (17:18):
Totally! In many levels and capacities of our lives. And of course I can see where, you know, this crazy, seriously insane obsession with this like, these flying germs that are to be feared. When, when you are focusing your fear into this tiny little concept, it’s neverending the measures that you’re going to try to take to safeguard yourself against it. It’s just, it’s reductivism at its absolute insane possibility, but whatever. I mean, whatever, we’ve all got our stuff and we all came in for a reason with this. And we’re all facing our fears in different ways. The key is to face it with consciousness. And, let me just read this, this one thing I’ve shared with you from Paul Tillich’s “The Eternal Now.” He said, “This is what ‘last judgment’ means––to separate in us, as in everything, what has true and final being from what is merely transitory and empty of true being.”
Anne (18:43):
So I guess I just kind of want to conclude with my understanding right now, my increasing understanding or my journey of understanding, I guess, is what I should say. I just thought of something. There’s some meme that I saw going around, that’s this picture of a butterfly sitting across the table, having coffee with a caterpillar and the caterpillar says “You’ve changed.” And the butterfly says, “We’re supposed to.” And I think to myself with that, you know, beyond that, like, “And why haven’t you?” Right? “Why haven’t you changed?” It’s very important to continue examining what we are being presented with every day. I think that we can transcend this, the fearful state of existence and bring about the Christ consciousness by recognizing our freedom to do so. The power of our thought, the fact that we now control our thoughts and consequently control our reality.
Anne (20:26):
We must be conscious and put into practice anything we can to be conscious to when the fears––I’m starting just to refer to them as––when the demons try to enter. When the Ahrimanic spirits try to get in there, when the fear tries to enter, and throw us off course. Now, first off, think about this. When we are in a state of fear, we are not clear. We are certainly never at our best. I don’t think clearly when I’m in a state of fear or anxiety. Let’s just also talk about anxiety because some of our obstacles and patterns come to us as just anxieties about this or that or that, right? When we are in that state, we are somewhat paralyzed to a greater or lesser degree. Some of us are very functional in it, but still not free to dream and be our full self. So that alone should be a sign that that’s not a state of being that one should cultivate for any reason. It doesn’t mean to escape from it, by zoning out in whatever way you can zone out. But it means to recognize that those fears are our enemies. Like the FDR quote, “We have nothing to fear, but fear itself.” What were you going to say?
Thea (22:20):
Well, there are a few things along the way. One, just to go to the beginning of it was with your Caterpillar meme––which I love that my friend calls it a “Memé”–– is that with that “And why haven’t you?” I would say, it’s the timing. It’s the season. And I was going to say for the change, now is the time. And so that’s one part. And then with the dynamics of anxiety and fear––which as, you know, talking about those movements of feeling that spiral into a small space to inhabit in ourselves––and we can know that when we feel anxious, we get smaller, we get tighter, which means we’re less present. And so if finding our ways to become more fully present, when those contracting energies are coming at us or coming in towards us––one of my main teachers kind of describes it as––fill up all of the spaces. That’s something we’ve spoken about. If we are not filling ourselves up, something will fill that if it’s simply a void of fear, if it’s of an unknown anxiety. So, like a glass of water, let’s fill it to the top and spill over the top so that we are like a fountain of light and fullness of being.
Anne (24:26):
Yeah, you just made me realize, I mean, it’s so obvious, but fear prevents us from being present. So it kind of drives parts of ourselves out, away somewhere, into the shadows or something. So I shared with you that something I’ve been saying is my own mantra, whenever any of those things, whatever they are come in. I say, “I choose faith and freedom over fear.” And I focus on that. “I choose faith and freedom over fear. I choose faith and freedom over fear.” And it doesn’t mean that I’m going to not––at a point that I’ve moved past that initial kind of danger zone of letting the fear take hold––it doesn’t mean I’m not going to return a little more consciously and even keeled to that thought that maybe I need to address. But I’m starting to recognize this as a metaphysical battle. And I think we’re all warriors in it. And I think the sooner we all realize that, the easier time of it we’ll be having. Because kind of like, you know, a drug trip, right? When you’re having a bad drug trip and you realize, if you don’t let that take hold and you recognize that it’s something that you’ll move out of once the drug itself leaves your system, kind of the same goes. So kind of meta-conceptualize these fears, these anxieties, put them a little further away from you.
Thea (26:15):
Or even turn them inside out is what I think of when a fearful habit or journey or thought, or a descent into darkness is coming in to your sphere. I have the picture of wrap it up and then turn it inside out. So it’s not even I have to push it away, but you can just turn it around. And it just made me think of the song in “Battlestar Galactica,” you know, “There must be some kind of way out of here….”
Anne (27:00):
Yeah. And of course, “Battlestar Galactica” and any hero’s journey, tale, describes this beautifully and illustrates it. And by the way, of course, I’m getting the signal from my son that we went way over time. So let’s wrap it up for now.
Thea (27:26):
And I’d love to conclude with the Steiner verse that many people that are familiar with Steiner are familiar with. And this is one that I work with quite a bit too, which sort of wraps it up in a nutshell.
Anne (27:54):
Oh, and you know what, let me say something right before you do it. It’s not just fear. It’s not just anxiety. It’s grief, it’s sadness, it’s pain. It’s anything that we can drown in. And it doesn’t take away from the realness of that pain. The realness of that grief and struggle, it doesn’t take away from it at all, but we can separate ourselves to a degree whether it’s turning, or maybe separate ourselves, isn’t the right word. We can take it, we can be mindful of it. Let’s just be conscious of it.
Thea (28:37):
Yeah. And I mean, it makes me think of, with a young animal or a young child, or anyone when fear is coming in, our gesture to dissolve it is to embrace them. Right? We give them the warmth and holding, and we can do that with ourselves too. Because you know, I haven’t thought of fear this way before, but that it needs to be held to be transformed out of that singular way of being. That it can be, it can be changed, and maybe that’s part of the opportunity. I haven’t seen it this way before right now, but with the world and people living in so many different qualities of fear that that’s really what it’s asking for. Is for us to open our arms fully and embrace it all so that it can be transformed into warmth and light and love. Which makes me want to cry a little bit. So…good old Rudolf––”Imbue thyself with the power of imagination. Have courage for the truth. Sharpen thy feeling for responsibility of soul.” And each of those lines means more and more every day. I see more in each one. So you know, this task of humanity, responsibility of soul, the courage for the truth, which means it’s a dispelling or a transforming of the fear, you know? And the power of imagination to dream the impossible dream. So we’re here together to do it, yo. And the earth, the cosmos need us to. That’s it.
Anne (31:00):
All right. That’s it!
Thea (31:03):
Until next time.
Anne (31:06):
Okay. See ya.
Thea (31:08):
Bye.
