Largely unacknowledged by both the worlds of mainstream media and academia (the media is addicted to perpetuating the crisis of fear, while academia is addicted to the logic of impossibility) a spiritual [r]evolution in awakening consciousness is happening all over the world – perhaps on an unprecedented scale. Mainstream media tends to operate at a very base level: lodged in the fear of an untranscended root chakra, it demands a perpetual state of panic in order to prevent people from ascending on a large scale. Academia operates at the other end of the sushumna: the highbrow logic of impossibility that is the result of centuries of disembodiment between the head and the shoulders. It’s stuck in an isolated head-space that only knows that it’s impossible to know itself.
Between these two extreme states of being, a [r]evolution of consciousness has begun and it’s located at the heart. Millions, or perhaps even billions of people worldwide have been steadily working to heal and restore the balance in their chakras, painfully overcoming their challenges and breathing with their demons to regain the flow of energy through the spinal and etheric column of the soul. These people are living from their hearts. Re-membering the severed cords that have led to so much isolation and dislocation from themselves and others. The shamanic practice of soul retrieval brings back the fragmented shards of soul that have been shattered through trauma. To heal is to be made whole again.
I want to inscribe that evolution of consciousness, as a manifestation of the utopian consciousness: the post-human consciousness that knows its own divine beauty. I want to write it as it writes me. And I want to explore its implications for our narratives – how does/will it affect the stories we tell of ourselves and others?
The basic shape of both our narrative plots and the codex book form that holds them is founded on the biblical model; it’s both linear and teleological (end-oriented, towards the apocalyptic climax of all life and meaning in the revelation and salvation that comes from the external source of the author/God). But what happens to our narratives once we recognise ourselves to be part of the divine matrix (ma-trix/mother/creator/womb) and therefore both reader and writer of our lives at the same time? That the author is neither external nor internal but within and beyond both? That we hold the key to duality within our very breath and being, and this is the experiential logic we now embrace? That infinite possibilities arise with every moment and we are vibrating at the edge of the known universe in all that we are and all we do?
Because surely, this does have implications for the stories we tell and are told : and the ways we tell them.
My PhD project, and all my associated writing, is all about this.
How do we inscribe our world when all the parameters have shifted? How do we write the new utopian consciousness that we’re becoming? How do we write utopia now?
Sally-Shakti Willow 
This really is a beautiful, engaging piece.
Great stuff.
X
On Thursday, 11 February 2016, Sally-Shakti Willow wrote:
> Sally-Shakti Willow posted: “Largely unacknowledged by both the worlds of > mainstream media and academia (the media is addicted to perpetuating the > crisis of fear, while academia is addicted to the logic of impossibility) a > spiritual [r]evolution in awakening consciousness is happenin” >
“No plan survives contact with the enemy,” – Moltke the Elder. This is true of conceptual utopia as well. For a utopia to work or a utopian idea to be “True” there can be no dissent. One person who disagrees with the utopian dogma of choice renders it faulty, non-utopian and (quite possibly) dystopian. What I’m saying here is that while I respect your opinion and think you’ve phrased it beautifully, I object and disagree on just about every point (I, then, become the dissenter which destroys the ideal – sorry about that) and actually found some of it offensive (due to my near-opposite beliefs, meaning I’m sure you would be equally offended by my beliefs).
Having studied journalism I can agree that it is founded in scaring people, but disagree as to why (news began as a way to make people aware/be wary of things that could actually affect them and increased circulation lead to blatant fear mongering for the sole purpose of making sales) and that’s pretty much the only thing I can agree with you on. (Also, I suggest that you include or have prepared a rebuttal in your PhD project, because someone is bound to argue that the apparent spiritual improvement – which many people would argue is regression because it is spiritualism – which you say is, as a fact, occuring right now is merely the latest in the historically evidenced cycle of romanticism and enlightenment, named for those two eras, wherein public opinion ping-pongs every few decades between favouring science and favouring spiritualism; a cycle which goes as far back as the earliest records of philosophy and social opinion. You’ll want to be prepared for that.)
Thus, based on what I said at the start of my comment – that utopia is crushed by single dissent because of it’s fragility – and because I’m sure that I’m not the only one who will disagree or be offended by some of your opinions, I have to argue that the moment shifting paradigms and new utopian conciousness became a thing (which I would argue that it hadn’t anyway, but that is not actually relevant to the issue) it instantaneously ceased to be on account of the fact that it met with something mutually exclusive. It’s like Schrodinger’s Cat and quantum physics – the particles/cat/utopia changes direction/state/existence based on whether or not it is being observed and by whom.
Again, I do think you’ve phrased your opinion beautifully and admire the eloquence with which you’ve given it.
Thanks for commenting 🙂 I appreciate your opinions and thoughts, and you taking the time to read and respond to my words again.
I agree that there’s a long way to go with making sure my PhD’s robust – but I’m only just starting my research so there’s time to develop it. But thanks for the pointer on romanticism/enlightenment. I was reading a really interesting article by Ruth Levitas on that theme today: ‘Marxism, Romanticism and Utopia- Ernst Bloch and William Morris’. It outlines the utopian as a function, rather than a form, and re-emphasises the radical anti-capitalism at the heart of romanticism, which informed both Marxism and the work of William Morris.
I agree that there are (perhaps many) elements of spiritual Utopianism that can be regressive, and again, this is why I am particularly interested in utopia as a process or function, rather than a form or system – as a state of consciousness that mediates between hope and actuality, possibility and reality, rather than as a definitive description of a place or social system.
But I don’t agree that the utopia implodes with the raising of a single dissenting voice. If the utopia is a function of possibility and fulfilment, rather than a rigid definition of a place or system, then it remains open despite dissent. It’s not a utopia of patrolled borders and compulsory participation. It’s a utopian consciousness that’s being experienced by individuals and communities in various parts of the world: those who experience it experience it, and those who don’t, don’t. My intention is to give voice to the experience that I and many others are encountering, as something that I call a utopian consciousness, and to experiment with forms and styles of writing that can embody this experience in a variety of ways, so that new stories can emerge with new ways of telling. These may or may not be of interest to everyone within a society, but my project isn’t to sharply define a totalitarian utopian state in which everyone must conform. That, total conformity and a disdain for dissent, is my idea of an absolute dystopia!
I appreciate your comments on my posts. I might not have addressed everything you raised here, but it’s given me plenty to think about.
I’m glad to do so – it’s a fascinating topic and I enjoy discussing it with you. 🙂
Despite disagreeing with you on a lot of things (agree to disagree, I say), it sounds pretty well put together already. But I’m glad the enlightenment/romanticism bit was of use.
That makes sense.I wasn’t actually referring to utopian states as crumbling at one dissenting voice (although given your description of utopian conciousness, one could argue that the utopian state is the more fragile and easily broken of the two) what I meant was more to do with how people interact with the idea. That is to say, many people find themselves in a conciousness focused on hope only to interact with those who feel that their idea about “good” or “hope” is all wrong and, in the process of either trying to improve their own idea to suit others or trying to “correct” those others, they ultimately destroy that hope and ideal inside them. So it sort of mimics the fault in utopian states (in which totalitarian refusal to accept dissidence is inevitable because it’s supposed to be a system in which everyone is happy and when someone doesn’t like the system things get… ugly), despite being different. Or maybe that’s just my own cynical view of humanity born of watching a few too many ideological differences tear people apart. I hope that makes sense.
There’s no need for you to address everything unless you want to see what comes of debating each point. I hope, despite disagreeing on several points, that it’s useful to you. 🙂