New Zealand - Standing For The Sacred

Introduction

Once Upon a Time,
at the Beginning
of a Millennium ...

“May you live in interesting times.”
 —Confucius

We do indeed live in interesting times. The interconnectedness and rapid change in our external global environment is mirrored by equally far-reaching changes in our subjective lives. We are being asked—on all levels of organism: global, national, family and individual—to find new well-springs of meaningful life, both within and between ourselves.

The illusion that we are somehow separated from external sources of happiness and fulfilment is fading fast. In short, humans are being given the opportunity to become mature and assume their collective spiritual responsibilities on this planet—as sources of love, light and creative power in their environment. We are beginning to realise more fully the wonder and potential of what it is to be human and how, together, we might cooperate to experience ourselves as an awakened, loving and empowered humanity.

On an individual and group level, there are many examples of joyful contribution and expressions of what it may truly mean to fully live the human experience. This book explores the possibility that New Zealand could be a model of such an empowered, joyful humanity.

A first question we ask is: How does a nation identify its calling?

Is it by rediscovering a destiny, by evolving a new, collective vision, or simply by believing what others tell us about ourselves? If we believe that each nation, by birthright, has a destiny which it grows to express, then we would look to our national ideals and myths and seek ways of developing them prominently into our national life. If we think that a nation creatively evolves its vision in response to internal and external circumstances, then we might look closely at where we are today, a beautiful, island nation in the South Pacific, set to flower in very interesting times.

If, however, we think that listening to the many voices of humanity will tell us about where we are and what we should do, we hear a variety of perspectives, some hopeful, some dire: environmentalists tell us that we are destroying the planet; economists base their decisions upon uncertainty; scientists explore the furthermost regions of space, inner and outer, and discover unexpected truths every day. The internet has revealed an unexpected way of instantaneous interconnectedness and access to knowledge.

Prominent, of course, among any of these approaches in determining our national role, is the fact that we are about to enter the Second Millennium. Some say this portends the so-called Age of Aquarius, a time when brotherhood will be an accepted fact of relationship, not an ideal that must be strived towards. Or, as many religions suggest, this time may portend the return of a Messiah, the start of a Golden Age. Our doomsayers predict the end of the world. Whatever the cosmological implications of this new millennium, psychologically it is an opportunity for review.
 
 

 “Where one nation leads, others may follow.”
 —Te Uri o Te Pani Manawatu

Nations take their identity from within a global context, as individuals see themselves in relation to their community. No matter what perspective we take, hopeful or doubtful, the fact of interconnectedness is unavoidable. We are in this together. As we look at the structures that underpin our civilisation, we find many of them wanting. The worldview or paradigm upon which these structures is based has radically changed. Global consciousness and the redefinition of the Earth as a living spiritual organism means that humanity is having to deeply question its attitude and function within this greater being.

There is a danger of distortion in focusing on the millennium, however. In the big picture, this paradigm shift is likely to develop over several decades or perhaps even centuries. It seems legitimate though to view this time as a major earthquake in the ongoing shift in our collective consciousness. We are restless, like animals before and during earthquakes, sensing that something big is coming, and something real is happening.

There is a growing climate of fear and excitement that flows in both directions from this epicentre in time. Therefore, our national life is exceptionally interesting, because we are “coming of age” as a nation at a time when the world is desperate for a true perspective and fresh ideas of how to proceed. Humanity is searching for new ways to collectively see itself and express itself in a global context.

Along with Australia, New Zealand is at a stage of transition as we prepare to cut the final constitutional apron strings and stand on our own. This time marks our adolescence as a nation, and we face the same dilemmas and opportunities that all adolescents face.

First, we may experience the natural oscillation between feelings of excitement and of uncertainty. Second, we may wonder how to find true friends and allies. We will strive to avoid being exploited through learning both trust and boundaries. Third, we may endeavour to truly contact and develop our unique identity in ways that contribute meaningfully to our lives, our surroundings, and the world.

Psychologically, adolescence is the time of first entry into the “grail castle” where we contact the sublime soul-filled realm of our inner potential and must ask the right question to avoid exile into the wasteland. Taking time for the process of introverted self questioning can give us a sense of who we are that enables us to seek the right allies for our process.

In some cultures, adolescents were sent for a time into the wilderness on a vision quest—the idea being that, alone, they could tune into the greater spiritual reservoir which could reveal to them a symbol, totem, or dream that would become for them a touchstone on their journey into adult life. It would represent both their source of spiritual power and their gift within the community or tribe.

This developmental need for us to find our vision as a country is reflected in our high teenage suicide rate. It is a truism that without vision the people perish. It is our children who have the greatest investment in the future, and the fact that they are not seeing one for themselves is an urgent call for ‘soul searching’. As a country, the search for means must give way, and is giving way, to the search for meaning.

People in all areas of our national life are engaged in an often conflicted, and yet creative process, as they seek to midwife the birth of new visions in political, social, educational and artistic areas. When this happened in America in the late 1700’s, the result was a constitution that sounded the keynote of American national life. Brave and idealistic principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity were enunciated and shaped into the structures of society. For many years she was seen as a symbol of light and hope for much of humanity.

Currently, however, America is going through a kind of mid-life crisis where she is having to examine the widening gap between her founding principles and the reality of her national life. The American Dream is tarnished: Hollywood co-exists with the homeless, and the national debt is horrendous. The land of hope and glory is having to examine its ‘shadow’ of denial and greed.

One of the primary characteristics of New Zealand life is its groundedness, its connection to the land. This can make receiving a vision more difficult because it tends to precipitate and become ‘form’-alised too quickly. We can imagine our symbol of the kiwi standing with its great feet on the forest floor and reaching up for the sky. It can be easier to simply graft on someone else’s vision than to learn to fly ourselves.

The American eagle has the opposite problem—it sees the big picture but often has difficulty grounding. Winning the America’s Cup was an interesting symbol for New Zealand. Metaphysically, the “cup” could symbolise the holy grail—one hundred years after acknowledging the feminine in the outer world (women’s suffrage), we have a symbol for the feminine in the inner world. It is still, of course, the America’s Cup and carries much of the shadow of the American myth: high emotional satisfaction for the winners; enormous consumption of resources and little long-term practical value for those outside of its spell. If we harnessed the same spirit for a vision that arose out of our own national dream, I wonder what we could achieve.

It is interesting to remember that New Zealand was home to the world’s largest eagle,
which only became extinct 500 years ago.
Maori legend has it that this eagle still lives, though invisible,
and the sound of its wings—hu-u, hu-u—can be heard at night.
Can we, as a nation, begin to hear the sound of our own vision landing?

Two things adolescents do: brag and bleed

Bragging teaches us to acknowledge our own strengths and have others do so, too. New Zealanders are, on one hand, slightly ashamed and have an inferiority complex. On the other hand, we quietly indulge in reading our newspapers, full of per capita statistics hunted up to show us in a favourable light, to tell us that we are superior. We can just accept all this as part of the process of developing pride.

Pride sometimes has a bad name because it is seen as competitive and separative. However, a healthy sense of pride defines our unique individuality and therefore our ability to contribute effectively to the larger whole. It is also one of the best means for protecting against exploitation. A sense of pride helps us define our boundaries and say no to what is not compatible with our sense of identity. Healthy pride helps us develop a “wisdom nose” Arrogant pride often earns a bloody nose.

Adolescence is about trial and error, and bleeding symbolises here how we learn our limits. As well, the feminine experience of menstruation teaches limits of the body, connecting us with the earth, personal pain, and the possibility of being responsible for creating new forms. Another type of bleeding occurs when we look upon the world stage and witness the struggle that occurs within the body human. This opens us to compassion and places our lives and our dreams into greater perspective. This is a very real first impact of pain upon the growing human psyche.
Perhaps because many of their mistakes are ahead of them, adolescents have a role in society to point out the Emperor’s lack of clothes. This lack of clothes they see clearly; it is their first time looking at the world, and they find it wanting.

Thus, as those who are freshest, who have the most promise of all possibilities, they may see more clearly than their parents realise, that our values are not consistent with our lives. There is much to genuinely grieve in our world. Adolescents are looking for strong models, direction, and discipline, but too often they seek help from those who are dealing with hurts from their own past.
 

This brings us to the major theme in our national subjective life: the pioneer myth.

As a nation we have the opportunity to demonstrate our pioneering potential, this time in consciousness. An extension of the pioneer myth is that we are the first country to see the sun of each new day. Although this is made manifest by international time zones, more mystically speaking, the sun (Sol) represents the soul.

Therefore, a potential translation is that we have the opportunity to demonstrate a society based on soul values. Soul values are about contribution to the whole, in contrast to personality values, which are focused on survival of the part. While these two value systems form part of a greater unity, there has been such a developmental bias towards survival that old structures have become crystallised.
Globally we are in that transition time now where we have new consciousness and old structures. This could be an exciting time to experiment and explore creatively how to develop new forms to contain new values based upon a sense of greater unity.

A prime example of a world problem is hunger. Thirty-five thousand people, most of whom are children, die of starvation every day. We are told that the problem isn’t so much lack of food, but lack of distribution. As we become aware in consciousness of our global connectedness, the world soul writhes in pain at the needless loss of thousands of our children daily. The facts are plain. There are enough resources, if adequately distributed.

As our consciousness changes, our will to do something awakens. Yet our behaviours, and the structures we collectively channel our behaviours through, are slow to change. They keep churning around our old fears of not surviving. Our global structures as a whole are still predominantly geared around competition, survival and money. The point is, if you are trying to develop your ability to contribute in a healthy way, you do not look for help from those who, while more experienced in some areas, are not able to demonstrate what you are trying to achieve.

This is the major psychological and spiritual wounding of our time: those to whom we look for help are unable to give it, as they too are in need. Children come on to this planet as souls with many subjective gifts and no experience of the environment in which they must learn to express them. They look to those who have been here longer, their parents, for help. Their parents, by and large, and because of the stage of evolution of human life on this planet, have lost much of their soul connection in the need to adapt themselves to their own survival needs. They teach their children, by example, to devalue the inner connection and maximise their usefulness to the needs of the external environment. The children either conform, adopt the family script and feel diminished in some way, or rebel and feel alienated and cut off from society. (Naturally there are many exceptions, which says much for the human spirit!) The thing about this discrepancy in child-parent energies is that it is no one’s fault. We could spend a lot less time in therapy if at least this was realised.

So much of our rebelliousness and alienation is simply the result of the quite unique global opportunity in front of us. There is a time window available where whole sections of society can focus on something other than survival needs. Many are the children and adolescents of today, and they will change this world fundamentally. Their parents in western society have come through four agonising decades, starting in the 1960’s, where they have tried to balance the two paradigms of contribution and survival inside themselves. They are transforming themselves or getting out of the way.

So in international terms, New Zealand must try to be its own parent, as there are no available role models of countries fully demonstrating soul consciousness. At the same time, we are being looked at as a model in many areas; we are being treated as a testing ground by many international organisations in a social, scientific and commercial sense.

The best place to look for support is from within other countries and organisations. In the same way that the best ally for the adolescent is that part of the parent that wants to keep growing, there is an enormous ground swell globally for change. The realisation that ‘no one is coming to fix it for us’ is producing the will to personal responsibility.

As people look into themselves for solutions, they are discovering those deep wells of timeless spiritual principles that work in their individual and collective lives. The ordinary members of western society are becoming more enlightened than many of their business and political leaders and are more rapidly outgrowing social structures.

The thing about soul consciousness is that while it produces a synthesis of activity, the way it produces it is very different from the way the personality operates. It cannot be imposed from the outside, but must be arrived at independently through each individual’s personal contact within a transpersonal truth. Personality based structures produce uniformity (one form) whereas soul based structures produce unanimity (one soul). Within this independently arrived at unanimity, the opportunity for diverse self expression is very broad. Head and heart approaches meet.

With the expansion of consciousness there is also a global awakening of the heart. Once we realise our connection with all other lives, we begin to feel that connection, and once again many people are seeking models of appropriate action to take in order to express that feeling.

Within this unprecedented global environment then, this nation has an enormously leveraged opportunity to individualise itself in a way that makes a significant contribution. Not because we are in any way superior, but because it is our time. Our youth, our small population size, our standard of living and education, together with our stage of development, combine to draw us to the edge of the nest. It is our time to fly.

Mythologically we are at that stage called the hero’s journey. We know what to expect. The hero leaves behind the known and comfortable life, taking with him certain sacred implements, receives divine aid of some sort, encounters various dragons and adversaries, achieves or fails in his quest and returns with greater self knowledge and skill.

Symbolically the cup represents the grail or deep inner feminine aspect. There is also a sword or spear of destiny which represents the deep inner male. This, as a nation, I think we are still finding, although the anti-nuclear issue was a beginning (sometimes we need to stand against in order to find what we stand for). It represents the Will, first of all to leave behind the preoccupation with our internal needs and focus in a larger arena, knowing the greater includes the lesser; and secondly, to persist in the vision in the face of opposition.

In a sense, America has shown us what it is like to have the grail without the spear—great loving vision, little will to actually carry it out; and Germany the spear without the grail—a tremendous sense of destiny, no love in its expression. Each is needed to balance the other and produce the third symbol of the torch or light, which provides for appropriate and intelligent action. (It is interesting that Australia is hosting the Olympics, with its symbolic torch, at the same time we have the America’s Cup here in New Zealand.)

Divine aid takes many forms but could be thought of as energies and forces outside a system’s control that act in ways that reinforce the system’s aims to the extent that they are compatible with the larger systemic goals. Another way of saying this is that nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come.

The greatest historical problem with divine aid is “inflation”. The personality of an individual or nation assumes credit for the support it receives, taking it as a sign of some inherent superiority. To the extent that such inflation occurs, a crash is inevitable as the personality takes over and the contribution to the collective is diminished. The wave moves on.

In international terms, New Zealand can expect to be lifted into prominent world focus over the next two decades as the emergence of our national identity coincides with a global identity crisis and restructuring. How we handle these changes will determine long-range effects on our national life. In mythology there are many stories of heroes who become preoccupied with their mission and the attention they receive. They often return to find their home kingdom has been plundered and is in turmoil.

Just as we are likely to encounter external aid, we will doubtless meet with strong external resistance. As anyone who has tried to stand for one set of values in an environment that supports different ones will know, the forces of inertia, vested interest, and fear of the unknown are formidable. No less so in our internal environment.

One of the most important aids on this journey is self knowledge ... an ability to clearly acknowledge strengths, weaknesses, resources and where we are in our developmental process. As the ancient oracle expresses it:

 “Know Thyself.”