David Peckinpaugh ~ "A Necessary Soulution"

I am sure that we have all heard that ol' folk saying that "necessity is the mother of invention." Now, I ask you, is this just a trite ol' folk saying, or is there some deeper relevance for us contained within the meaning of these words themselves? Is necessity really the mother of invention? Does there "need" to be a need in order for evolution to continue? Does necessity, or need, dictate, for instance, developmental unfolding? Does necessity dictate, in any way whatsoever, novel emergence---does necessity touch us on the level of perception? What does someone like Rumi have to say about this?

This little statement by Rumi serves to illuminate our indelible "neediness" in a completely different light than we would, perhaps, normally perceive. Novelty, creative emergence, and our needs, it seems, go hand in hand. Evolution appears to proceed from out of the bowelsand jowls of necessity.

Without necessity (Life's general "neediness") would there be any evolution to speak of, to reflect on, to foresee, to forestall? The answer is: apparently not. Necessity is the mother of invention; the mother of novelty and creative emergence in evolutionary terms, as well.

And not just I, but we....... We need! We all need---have needs. We, as a race, a species, have increased the range and scope of our needs; by fulfilling certain needs others come to bear on our consciousness. Always a new need to fulfill. We are that "necessitous one" that Rumi spoke of. Life is that "necessitous one" that Rumi spoke of.

Through and because of the most recent of modern and postmodern movements---towards increasing differentiation and fragmentation, specialization and specification---our needs for integration and synthesis have grown. The bride of integration has been shown to reveal her pretty head beneath the veil of differentiation; seducing us all to directly and tangibly integrate into our awareness that which was so freshly differentiated in the modern and post modern eras. Necessity is now dictating a deepening/re-deepening of integration and integralness in general---within/without.

Through a sharing and deepening of co-similar understandings, irrespective of domain and agenda, race and class, culture and creed, a sharing that is already well underway, newly integrative formulations and understandings are revealed to us.

The Mother of Necessity is calling out of us a "new organ of perception"; one that shall perceive what has always already been just so; one that shall reveal the intrinsic dynamics of our shared existence; one that shall sing songs born and birthed out of these altogether new to us integral noospheric conceptions. A re-weaving is commencing because it was/is necessary.

In the past (throughout the evolutionary journey of transformations) our monkey mind was trained by necessity to notice differences (very good for differentiation). Due to necessity, the necessity of survival, we (our ancestors) had to notice the differences in our lifeworld. It was imperative that we be attentive to the many distinctions of our environment. In order to survive and allow for the Game of Life to continue to unfold and unfurl Its innate potential, beings had to learn how to differentiate effectively. Various perceived threats would be recorded and stored in the brain (memory), so that when a like scenario came up again one would be able to react in time so as to save their self and their kind. If one little cue of abnormality in the lifeworld was missed one would soon be the meat of another being. So, difference-noting became a primary and fundamental tool of evolution, of Spirit-in-action.

Without this capacity to notice differences, to differentiate between friend and foe, Life would not be able to long remain, to continue to sow Its diverse seeds, to further cultivate Its burgeoning self-awareness, to one day go on to meditate and reflect on Itself as diversity in the mall, or to run a red light on Ventura Boulevard in a speeding Porsche. The ability and capacity to notice and recognize the different, the abnormal, the threatening perceptions in the foreground of the Living/Dying worlds, was a survival-induced adaptation that has been effective---it has served Life as we know it well. Has.

Now, we are different from the biosphere, in that new capacities are operative within and through us, capacities that are not operative in the biosphere sans noosphere. Yet, this difference has become, in many instances, dissociative. So, there is a necessity born here out of the pathology accompanying the newly emergent.

The need for the noosphere to sufficiently differentiate from the biosphere is not in question. This is, was, and will be a continued essential for the human species. Yet, this differentiation need not turn into a pathological dissociation, wherein one comes to see ones existence as special and privileged, above reproach in relation to the biosphere, with no unbreakable bonds and life-ties of interpenetration to and with the biosphere. After all, the biosphere is still fundamental in relation to the noosphere. It is the noosphere which dissociates itself from the biosphere. It is the mind which ignorantly attempts to sever itself from the bogyground of its existence. The body grew the mind. The biosphere grew the noosphere. Soma supports the unfoldment of psyche. "The lower sets the possibilities of the higher"; (which is tenet number six as taken from Ken Wilber's Sex, Ecology, Spirituality.) This fact, that the "lower sets the possibilities of the higher" can, too often, be forgotten by the oh so forgetful. And just as readily remembered by the mindfully embodied and aware.

We, intimately, know the results of this "collective psychoneurosis". It culminates in a dissociation which is food and fuel for the indiscriminate desecration of the only known home for biological-co-sentience in the Universe. The good thing is that this differentiation turned dissociation is naught else but a hell-bent pursuit to furthering our own necessity; to deepening our need for a more refined integration of psyche and soma, mind and body, noosphere and biosphere. Ken Wilber again:

Now, keep in mind this is not just about one man speaking from personal experience here. This is symbolic, in descriptive terms, about how the noosphere as a whole relates to the biosphere. The noosphere has been, with its whip of irrationality, attempting to beat the biosphere "back into reasonable submission". The individual phenomena that Ken is illuminating is not distinct from the collective phenomena that has touched us all. It is
readily apparent that a collective alienation of the noosphere from the biosphere blankets the globe like a psychoneurological plague. It has infected every continent---and from pole to pole. This dissociation of the "biosphere by the noosphere" is necessitating a deeper awakening, a greater unfolding, an emergence of "new organs of perceptions"---and I pray
just in time.

The further threat to us will be, (even greater than the present dissociation we have been discussing) that this psychoneurosis will no longer be a shock to us---that we will in fact become mute to the call, way too "comfortably numb" with our dis-ease, deaf to the sounds of desecration, immune to the cries of desolation and isolation that pinch on the ears of man wherever she walks.

Will an anguish that is born out of our pathological denials and alienations from the Ground of Life become the norm rather than the abnormal? Will the reverberations of atrocities become just another background noise we filter out of our lifeworld? Will we grow accustomed to the toxic conditions of our homespace? Will we no longer awaken when the call to action sounds? Has the little boy cried wolf one too many times?

And yet this "collective psychoneurosis" will continue to be readily apparent to all of us everytime a child is stricken with a birth defect attributable to environmental toxins, or when the mother of that same child later on comes down with breast cancer. The toxic alienations of the noosphere hit home at the level of the biosphere--at the level of our food, our air, our water, our forests; our diseased body; our strained home.

The ill-conceptions, born out of the dis-unity of pathological differentiating, touches us all---no matter how far removed we may or may not assume ourselves to be from the epicenter of the ecological crisis. There is now nowhere left to run to--no safe havens of isolation. The degradation that occurs upstream is no longer confined to just there (and never was), it touches us all--and intimately. The Native American teaching of the sacred hoop--the one that has been broken--can be taken quite literally by us. All comes around again to touch All...... comes around again... to touch......

The body has been severed from the mind by the mind. The biosphere has been severed from the noosphere by the noosphere.The collapsed, once multi-dimensional circle draws nigh, with our children somewhere in the center, standing on nutrient depleted soil, rocked by the ill-fated devotions of their forefathers, whirling vertigo-like, wondering where to turn to for direction and guidance---wondering, "what the hell were they thinking?"

So, it is past-time for us to, collectively speaking, face the music of our own dissonance. It is past-time to return to the Alpha of our alienations, the origins of our obstinate procrastinations, in regards to the fouling of our nest and nature. Only the total uprooting of this pathological separativeness will serve to achieve the resolution of our "collective
psychoneurosis"; that pathological differentiation that has resulted in such a toxic biospheric continuum. Again, Ken Wilber:

If noospheric dissociation and alienation from the ongoing efforts of Nature to biospherically integrate is the primary cause of ecological desecration, then dealing with this noospheric dissociation should be our main task as a collective. In other words, if dissociation of the mind from the body---the self-sense from the Other---is the many tendriled root of our collective alienation, then dealing with this separative-seeking/reinforcing mentality is the greatest healing work we can be and do (in any way whatsoever). And in failing this "greatest healing work" we fail to deal with the cards of necessity dealt to us. We merely pass the burdensome buck of a spoiled and polluted existence---an ongoing ecological degradation--on to our children, and
their children, and so on.

One need not look around too far from home in order to notice what needs attending to. I am not trying to offer a prescription here. I am merely pointing out what I see; where and what I see the collective attention/energy being devoted to at present, and how this collective energy/attention is either going to contribute to an exacerbation of our root dilemmas or undermine the taproot of those very same dilemmas.

This is just one instance of where our collective attention/energy is being devoted to. Casinos and sports stadiums are a higher priority than the schools our children spend the majority of their waking moments in. This is pathological behavior in my book--at the societal level; an alienation of our future in exchange for an extraneous frivolity.

Certainly not everyone has a desire to heal, to set right, to learn of the subtleties of life; to understand why suffering is so pervasive---and how to, perhaps, alleviate such suffering. At the same time, there are many who do desire to understand, who do choose a life that moves towards healing and wellness, who do intend to live life in accordance with those
laws/codes/canons that result in a beneficial experience of existence for themselves and those who they touch and dance with in their lifeworld.

Our differentiation madness has brought about the necessity of integrative artists, ones who can reweave the tapestry of "perception" anew. If we recall the Rumi quote at the beginning of this piece, we can, perhaps, more thoroughly understand how necessity has begun to dictate that we, artists all, organize perception anew (unfold "new organs of perception"). In this integrative sense, we become realizers of correlation, associaters of significance, bridge-builders and connection-makers par excellence. It becomes a sacred
undertaking to write the wrongs of differentiation gone amok, to allude to the subtle intricacies, those fine filaments of connectedness---threads of interconnectedness that escape the blind and sleeping, that elude the culturally sleepwalking amongst us.

This here, these connections abound, and are not without significance for you and you and you. This here, this is how and why, this is where and when, this is the story of Us. This is how we have been programmed by evolution and this is how necessity is now dictating that we become more and more conscious of our own evolutionary processes. This is your/our greatest work. This is your/our sacred deployment. This is your/our gift to the children of the new dawn. This is why ye/we have come. This. This here.

See. Look anew. Breathe. Relax that leaping lemur, that one that wants to run and run, that bounds from limb to limb seeking sweet satiation, seeking fruity distraction. See into yourself. Know you are not that frantic movement to and fro, but the ONE that is Stillness pervading all movements; the Stillness that pervades even the movement that is that jagged knife thrust deep into the chest of the enemy; the Stillness that pervades the
movement that is that slow-burn of a throbbing Lover into the not so patient loins of the Beloved; the Stillness that pervades the movement that is the quickened turning of the Earth about the Sun; the Stillness that abides with the movement that always seeks its rest and renewal in that which pervades it---Stillness. Oh, to be enveloped in Stillness, emptied into Emptiness ItSelf, bled freely into the calm Sea of Tranquil Evervesence. Oh, to be still for just a moment---such a necessary soulution.