{"id":797,"date":"2013-03-14T13:51:13","date_gmt":"2013-03-14T13:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/asenseofplace\/?p=797"},"modified":"2013-03-14T21:44:25","modified_gmt":"2013-03-14T21:44:25","slug":"enchantment-coming-back-to-our-selves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/asenseofplace\/2013\/03\/enchantment-coming-back-to-our-selves\/","title":{"rendered":"Enchantment: coming back to our Selves"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u2026 I looked at her<\/em>
\n And felt her watching;<\/em>
\n I became a strange being \u2026<\/em>
\nD.H. Lawrence, upon seeing a doe<\/em><\/p>\n

Last week I discussed my need for more enchantment, which led to a conversation about \u00a0dis<\/em>enchantment, and its alienating influence on society. \u00a0 This week I conclude by talking about \u00a0the internal impact of objectification, and how I (re)enchanted my life.<\/p>\n

There is a Void at our core. \u00a0So threatening is this hollowness that it presses us to a-Voidance.\u00a0 We search out \u201csecondary satisfactions\u201d to fill the emptiness inside. \u00a0We seek to re-create a state of undivided consciousness\u2013the \u201cprimary satisfaction\u201d of unity with our environment. \u00a0We long to re-connect. It may be drugs, alcohol, or sex that we use as our substitute, but other likely candidates are food, romantic love, rearing of children, religious ecstasy, pursuit of career, sports, technology, and even the pursuit of artistic expression. \u00a0All these outlets can serve to produce the same effect: to temporarily relieve the \u201cno-body-ness\u201d\u2013and their effect is dramatic! \u00a0Yet, the a-Voidance returns, often in short order, and we again desperately seek the experience of \u201cprimary satisfaction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Our bodies, our somatic experience of the world\u2013of our Selves as part of that world\u2013 is our primary satisfaction of wholeness. \u00a0It\u2019s what we are built for. \u00a0But if we are out of our bodies we need a substitute\u00a0 for the feeling of being grounded.\u00a0 Much of what passes for \u201cculture\u201d and \u201cpersonality\u201d in our society tends to fall into this substitute category, and is in fact the result of running from silence, and from genuine somatic experience. However,<\/p>\n

\u2026if you are embodied \u2013 if you are in-corporated \u2013 if you are in your body most of the time, the Void is not so threatening. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

This search is not simply a private one, or even a collective private one.\u00a0 The scope of this is much larger than personal anguish or individual dilemmas.\u00a0 Our social and political life is a charade, asking us to take substitute activity seriously.\u00a0 This is particularly true in the case of the worlds dominate ideologies.\u00a0 In capitalist\u00a0societies\u00a0 for instance, the search for love and primary satisfaction often takes the form of the drive for success.\u00a0 The ideology of achievement and productivity extends to virtually every activity, even the writing of poetry.\u00a0 Ambition is, for us, unquestionably \u201cgood.\u201d\u00a0 The poet who is \u201cnot producing\u201d is invariably inferior, in our eyes, to the one who has a \u201cprodigious literary output.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ideologies arise when people feel they have no real somatic anchoring.<\/em>\u00a0 The person who is truly grounded in him- or herself as a biological organism may espouse a cause, but they do not need it in order to feel that their existence is validated.<\/p>\n

Careful now, this is a slippery slope!<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We have inherited a civilization in which the things that really matter in human life exist at the margin of culture.<\/p>\n

And it is at this margin, at the hedge, so to speak, that we begin our (re)enchantment. \u00a0For here, we are at a crossroad, and any choice we make will altar<\/em><\/span> us.<\/p>\n

For now, we must ask ourselves: \u201cWhat matters<\/strong>?\u201d<\/p>\n