Category: Feelings and Emotions

The Flowering of Consciousness

Altazar Rossiter

Re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul. ~ Walt Whitman Awakening More and more people are beginning to awaken to themselves as they figure out the inherent emptiness of a life rooted in mainstream beliefs and practices. The experience of life is not generally enhanced by anything promoted in the media or traditionally held as the limits of reality. None of it is enough, and most of it’s a distraction from what’s really important. This phenomenon is driving the quest for deeper meaning in our lives and the rejection of the forms of existence permitted by the dominant ideologies of civilisation as we know it. It also fuels much of the extremist fundamentalism manifesting in opposition to the historically determined righteousness of the imperialist age and its ruling classes. Those… Read moreThe Flowering of Consciousness

The Seduction of Safety

Altazar Rossiter

This phrase ‘the seduction of safety’ occurs in Mary Oliver’s poem The Journey and it suddenly struck me as identifying a significant problem for many of us. That problem is the belief that the world is a dangerous place, and it’s not safe to be here actually alive in a physical body. This belief informs the matrix of existence here on earth, almost universally. It gives rise to a culture of fear that supports notions of ‘security’ on an industrial scale. It might even be dangerous to read this article.

This Heartbreaking World

Altazar Rossiter

I like to do crossword puzzles, I always have. There’s something about manipulating words and extracting obscured meanings that fascinates me. And just as I was wondering what this article needed to be about I came across a crossword clue that gave me the answer. The clue was the title above: This heartbreaking world (5). And the solution, if you’re not there ahead of me, is EARTH, because if you take the word HEART, break it up and rearrange the letters they make the word EARTH. Few of us haven’t experienced heartbreak of one form or another. But heartbreak isn’t the real issue, it’s what you do with it that matters. It’s the interpretations you make and the significance you attach to these that inform [in-form] you, and condition the life you lead. There’s no denying the agony of heartbreak. It devastates your inner… Read moreThis Heartbreaking World

Walking in the Mind Field

Altazar Rossiter

The hardest challenge is to be yourself in a world where everyone is trying to make you be somebody else. – e. e. cummings Being yourself may well be the biggest challenge you will face in life. Not least because it involves discovering who you are first, and that’s no mean feat in itself. Do you actually dare to consider who is actually walking around in your skin, or will you settle for who your world tells you it is? There’s a huge, complex, invisible structure that exists to tell you who you are and what you should do, think and feel. This structure is the cultural consensus. It’s a shifting interconnecting network of collective thought-forms – a mind field. The mind field comprises a combination of beliefs, stories, fears and the generalised interpretations of personal experience of every member of the social order…. Read moreWalking in the Mind Field