I wanted to believe that this might be the only blog in town this week not about Osama or Obama. That I wouldn’t write a tome about “to kill a killer” or “to gloat or not to gloat.” Yet, in the end, it’s all really about the meaning of life, anyway. I’m talking about BIG stuff, here. I’m talking about THE POINT.

What’s the point?

And I’m not coming from that nihilistic, black nail polish kind of place. I’m coming from that stare into the mirror and sigh sort of place.

It seems like back “in the really old days” people had basic survival to contend with more than anything. Hunt, gather, and/ or grow food and do ones best to protect the family from marauders and generally bad people. Also likely was the added concern with the fate of one’s body, mind and spirit in the assumed or hotly debated afterlife.

Today, we’re still concerned with the procurement of food ( I mean, who doesn’t like a cold Coca Cola) and self-protection (could I ever build a wall high enough), however these basic needs are often overshadowed by the pursuit of new technology (patiently, peacefully waiting for the IPhone 5), preparing for retirement (what does that really mean in this day and age) and where and when we will take our next vacation (when did we need a fancy term for staying home instead of going somewhere else).

Back in the day when folks were primarily concerned with the survival of self and soul, do you think they felt an overarching sense of meaning in their lives? Do you think they felt connected to the rest of the planet; a kinship with other humans? Even without CNN? Makes me wonder…

When faced with my survival, is there really significant emotional and physical space to worry about the existential nature of meaning and purpose?

Today there are surely billions of people who are still concerned with their souls in the afterlife and who derive a sense of meaning from their respective religions or beliefs. Yet, I am unsure as to whether there is a unifying, universally coherent, common purpose for us all; something that draws us all together. Was the notion of the Tower of Babel (one of my favorite parables) merely about language or was there a deeper, existential notion of DIFFERENCE?

One would think the condition of our environment would have accomplished a unification for our species long ago yet the fact that the nations of the world can’t seem to work together to solve global warming is an indication of our state of affairs. We still remain scattered across the earth doing our own thing. Some countries still consider global warming an Other issue as a matter of public policy.

Then there is, of course, the issue of doctrine, dogma and subjective truth. The marauders attacking my village thousands of years ago believed they were justified in attacking my village even though I strongly disagreed. I mean, I REALLY disagreed with the essential premise of their approach to life.

Many of us today are in favor of free speech and democratic process until someone threatens us for real. When marauders come rolling through my sense of peace and calm, I want to stop them by any means necessary because I’m still basically a human being who doesn’t care about you until you make changing me and altering my agenda, your agenda. Then we have a problem, man.

The notion of that primordial tower was for all the nations of the earth to band together for a common end and build a structure so amazing that we could reach God, thus becoming Gods. However, that scoundrel God “confounded the language of all the Earth.” (Genesis 11:5-8) and set us back a ways. Now look at us.

I used to live on a small ranch in New Mexico where my neighbors and I enjoyed plenty of room between our respective properties. A gorgeous rock cliff served as demarcation to the north and then there was just land everywhere else sprinkled with some houses, horse corrals and the train tracks to the south. Each morning I’d open my front door and my dogs would take off into the sage brush and chamisas, doing their business as they saw fit. No leashes, plastic bags or parks. In fact, no one seemed to care what my dogs were doing or where horses pooped or how deep into my land the neighbors’ llamas grazed.

And yet, I was very aware of an unspoken code of boundaries. An understanding existed, floated, between all of the land-owners out there in the high desert. Centered on respect, folks out there beneath the big sky understood that we all lived out in the hills because we wanted the privacy, freedom and peace to live our lives without much interference.

Floodlights were put on motion sensors so as not to disrupt the natural beauty of the night sky for anyone else. No radios spewed unwanted music across the succulents and pinon trees. Our road remained unpaved year after year in order to keep traffic at a minimum. It was quiet and simple enough to focus on what was happening internally without many external distractions.

Many people thought I was off my rocker when I voluntarily moved to the heart of Chicago. And yet, city life isn’t terribly different from rural living. Not terribly…

People still like their freedom, peace and privacy they just go about it a bit differently. Less of an unspoken code here, folks seem very committed to the written laws in place and are often rapidly on board when it comes to their enforcement. People seem resolved never to see the night sky so who cares if you leave your lights on all night or if your car alarm goes off three times a night? Living on top of and beneath people day in and day out, it also gets hard to avoid being in other people’s business. I can easily distinguish when the neighbors are fighting and when they are making up…Hey, that’s city life, right?

Boundaries are a funny thing in the big city. We love our freedoms but we’re willing to do all sorts of things in order to make sure other people are following the rules properly. We love our peace and quiet but we can only attain real peace here by consciously choosing to be unconscious. While I don’t mind living in the city now, I do miss the unspoken commitment to live and let our neighbors live.

I believe that history has a funny (not always ha-ha) way of repeating itself, both personally and globally. It makes me feel better when I catch myself seemingly repeating the same behaviors over and over again to think that it isn’t just me slipping into those old patterns. You do it too, right?

History repeats itself because we often (usually subconsciously) seek out excuses in order to justify acting a particular way:
*Well, because I only quit smoking for a year last time, the likelihood is that I won’t really make it that far this time.
*I always eat too much over the holidays so I assume I’ll do the same this year.
*I’m typically weak when it comes to that ex-him or her, so the likelihood is that I’ll sleep with them again if they come knocking.

Let’s take this simple concept that most of us would agree upon a step further. C.G. Jung suggested that there is a direct correlation between my personal process and the process of humanity as a whole. Somehow the decision tree whereby I calculate the choice not to sleep with that person because I can choose a better path now as opposed to before is indeed a universal progression not limited to my own little drama. Isn’t it yours as well…?

“An archetypal image transmutes our personal destiny into the destiny of humankind” (Collected Works of C.G. Jung, 15/129). A common symbol, idea, experience, even a common dream, has the ability to connect my inner and outer world with your inner and outer world, linking my personal journey to the path of humanity as a whole. There is a certain magic to this concept that makes the world an even more fascinating, more alchemical place to live.

Alchemy is the ancient study (some adepts would suggest practice) whereby putrifaction leads to the transmutation of matter, most notably of metals into gold. The notion that we can seemingly convert static objects and states like stone or metal into a state of change and transformation was a process that intrigued many people before we were given the brain-numbing answer to free time and boredom, reality television. People living only a hundred years ago used to pursue the alchemical mysteries like folks today chase dreams of creating an internet start-up company or a new app for a smart phone.

It was commonly believed that for a person to attain the knowledge whereby an alchemical conversion was possible, a deep process of self-realization and personal development was essential. In this technologically advanced age, video games, Facebook, Twitter and TV in general, not just the reality kind, are things one would arguably need to suspend during the intensive, introspective, transformational process. Creating gold out of old Matchbox cars and cell phones takes focus. Some would say it requires a degree of enlightenment.

The Latin definition of Alchemy, Solve et Coagula can be translated as separate and come together, dissolve and coagulate. Those are VERY intriguing words for a psychotherapist, and I imagine for many others as well.

Jung suggested that the alchemy of the Self is a process whereby the individual exfoliates, even burns, layers of the self away to reveal the truest, most enlightened, version of our being. Alchemists of the Middle Ages believed that the person who could turn common metals into gold would need to have discovered a panacea, a veritable elixir of life, because it would necessarily be the universal solvent that when mixed with whatever form of matter, creates a metaphysical play dough that can be shaped into whatever the Alchemist chooses.

Following this so far? It’s the key to eternal life (and a reduced need for psychotherapy) so stay with me.

In order to transform the self I have thus far manifested in my relationships, my thoughts and in my life story, I need to uncover a personal elixir, a universal substance (or idea) that allows me to dissolve the places I am stuck and then draw together my broken pieces into a new, more empowered and enlightened form. That’s what I do when I do the work on myself to change old patterns that create harm or hurt for myself and others: I dissolve the old and form new ways of relating. It is also the process I personally strive to facilitate for clients each day in their therapeutic discovery and psycho-analysis.

Which brings me back to Time. I have a tendency (as do many good humans) to view my life historically, through the relationships I have created, maintained and dissolved. I conduct this self-analysis by understanding those connections through the context of time and space as well as my judgment of how I conducted myself in those situations. Hopefully, I view my past in terms of events and behaviors I want to learn from and improve.

For example, “I was a real jerk to that person in college, but I was just a kid trying to figure things out…”

“I ended up having that affair back then because I was longing for love and partnership but I wasn’t fully capable of committing so I chose someone who wasn’t truly available… “

“I chose to marry my husband or wife because I had done enough work on myself, dissolved and coagulated, and felt capable of creating a new version of who I am throughout time and space that, like gold (and Frosted Lucky Charms), I perceived to be magically delicious.”

There is a recursive regression that occurs in and for my self out of my own alchemical process whereby I transform myself in this moment as a result of a series of similarly transformational but static moments in my past. Like Bill Murray in “Groundhog Day,” recursion suggests that I am able to define my present state of conscious awareness by relying on a series of moments from the past when I believed I was indeed fully conscious. And yet, like two mirrors facing each other, I am able to see the mirror exactly in front only combined with a series of reflections of the same mirror somehow projected within the image.

Is it possible to perceive the changes I am making right now in the way I do “me” outside of or separate from the moments in my past when I was also conscious of change happening?

Is this possible without a universal solvent? Is there a panacea that allows me to solve et coagula?
There must be some common denominator throughout time and space that allows me to view myself as a self-aware person within a process of transformation. Relying upon this element, I build each moment of transformation upon itself, erecting a metaphysical slinky that when stretched and pulled forward enough, eventually snaps all of my past experiences and internal movements of consciousness forward in an instant. It soars through time and space and slams into the present moment at a grand, alchemical intersection of evolution, transformation, and perhaps even enlightenment. It changes us forever.

As we begin another year in the life, I’d like to invite you to take some time in the coming weeks to consider what constant has existed throughout your life that has helped you dissolve and coagulate. Perhaps it is not something you have ever contemplated and yet it might be something worth identifying, appreciating and nurturing as you move forward on your personal path to self-realization. What idea or belief, physical place, activity, relationship, etc. has truly served as a catalyst for growth and transformation in your life? Are you aware of your universal solvent? Perhaps it is time to become aware and pull the slinky of change forward…

Happy New Year!!!

Exactly twenty years ago this month, I visited Germany for the first time. As a 19 year old university Junior on my semester abroad in the international city of >Geneva, Switzerland, the allure of a week-end jaunt to Munich with some friends for a stint at the Hofbrau Haus tent was too “educational” to pass up. It was to be far more enlightening than I ever imagined.

In many ways, the fair itself was a kitschy display of Germania, much like an Independence Day picnic with fireworks or even Thanksgiving in the U.S. People were happy, drunk and stuffing brats in their mouths with great strength.

Coming to Germany offered a momentary tilt of the head as I considered the history my family had in and with Germany during the last world war, however I was 19 and this was going to be a blast. A huge party.

The party was pounding. We raised our enormous beer steins to the sky and shouted the drinking songs with the rest of the happy people, consuming more beer than I choose to remember. We met up with several more folks from our college who had the same idea for a free week-end in Europe and the group of us stood on a picnic table and fit right in.

Some other folks began to huddle around us as we were becoming rather rowdy, sharing our Colgate party skills with the rest of the world. Before I knew it, some of the onlookers were now participants, standing up there on the table with us, their steins raised and their cheeks flushed. A few of these new friends were even more aggressive than we were. Black jackets, tall black boots and white T-shirts. One of the guys, sporting a blond crew cut and a faded tattoo on his neck, was particularly interested in my friend Haroon. He kept on clinking steins with him and wanted to talk rather than simply laugh and drink.

“Where are you from, my friend?” he asked.
Haroon was a very proud son of his country, and shouted “I’m from Pakistan!” with passion and a requisite raise of his beer.
The gentleman began a rant about how the Moslems were taking over his country, living off of his taxes and taking his jobs. He was what many of us commonly refer to as a buzz kill. We just didn’t realize soon enough that he would actually try to kill the buzz for real.

Somewhere during the rant, Haroon offered the sensible recommendation that our new friend go fuck himself. I saw the now empty stein sail past me and land on Haroon’s temple in a moment that I replay from time to time when I think about how important it is for me to remain sharp and alert in most situations. The assailant was disappointed that my tall, robust friend did not fall with the first blow, smashed his huge glass (I know, really?) stein on the edge of the table and proceeded to stab him in the head.

There were, of course, other branches to this conflagration that occurred simultaneously. Our rugby friends from school took on the other two skinheads while Haroon and I were left with the chief assailant. For the first time in my life, I jumped into a real fight. It all happened quickly, but I tried to stop the shard of glass from hitting Haroon with my bare hand which was in turn, mangled with glass and blood. Ouch. Haroon was pummeled unconscious before the police reached us and I had managed to kick the skinhead off the table.

In a surreal turn of events, the German Red Cross threw all of us in the same ambulance as we raced to the hospital. The skinhead managed to cut himself with his own weapon and he sat in the front with the ambulance driver as I sat with Haroon in the back, my hand wrapped in a blood soaked napkin while Haroon lay unconscious beside me, his head wrapped in stained gauze. The idiot in the front tried to apologize for hurting me, noting that his only beef was with the half dead Pakistani. I decided to leave the part of my being Jewish out of the dialogue, but still managed to repeat Haroon’s previous recommendation.

Haroon received over 100 stitches that night and I came out with ten. We were very sober, very quickly. It was a turning point for me. At nineteen, I discovered that I would fight for a friend and that I would also put myself in harms way when I believe in something bigger than myself. It was huge. The scars remain on my hand to this day as a reminder.

I was reading Pepe Escabar’s article on Islamophobia on AlterNet and I couldn’t help but remember the skinhead who tried to kill my Muslim friend and left us both scarred. Angela Merkel suggestion that immigration is prejudicial to the German economy reminded me of a twisted double standard that is true not only in Europe but in my own country. The belief that letting other ethnicities inside our “pure” culture in order to work in jobs that we tend not to want to do is somehow a compromise to the homogeneous bubble we enjoy is not only farcical but is dangerous to the immigrants we welcome as well as the hosts that open the doors.

I always think of the pride in Haroon’s voice when he lifted his stein and shouted “Pakistan!” when I consider the danger of nationalism. Just a few degrees past pride lives extremism. A notch above that floats terrorism. We must find a way to reconcile the global culture that is rapidly enveloping us all with the onset of technology and the stale, limiting belief that we are still one nation under God.

How often is it that we take responsibility for our real feelings and actions in our relationships with others? For many, many years, I did not take a whole lot of credit for myself and what I was doing and saying to the people that supposedly meant the most. In fact, I oftentimes found contempt in others for exactly the things I was struggling with in myself. Here’s a brief video where I get into this issue and what I refer to as, The Law of Responsibility…