Satya, you've given me a new lens for understanding my impulse to join the Peace Corps right out of college. I tend to focus mostly on the transformation initiated 16 years after that, when I divorced the fellow Volunteer I'd fallen in love with and married. Both were initiation experiences. The first: out of childhood and into a more worldly existence; the second: out of my need to be good and helpful and live up to everyone's expectations, and into a more authentic version of my Self. Thanks for this. So interesting, also, to look around and see the different ways people are drawn to danger and violence... We need healthy rites of initiation!
It was refreshing to read your words. Do you have any openings for therapy? I kid, I can't afford it. But it would be nice to speak the same language as counsel while in this tempest of meaning making.
In my late teens/early 20's, I also sought a meaningful life. But that journey was largely unconscious. It nearly killed me, more than once.
"The world" seduced me back into its fold.
I would have to wait until my forties to try again, but at least I was fully conscious. The journey was and remains very painful, sixteen years on, because it is in opposition to the world in which we live. There's no sanctuary.
Beautifully articulated. That yearning and desire for a big experience, an embodied experience, at the threshold to adulthood cannot be found in an ivory tower. This is why I think gap / travel years are so important, and why emphasis on college immediately after high school is so backwards. Young adults need to experience the world, experience themselves in the world.
As an astrologer/psychic medium/taroist, I see people of all ages.
Your essay touches upon a common thread among the people who come to me. It is a feeling of being on a vision quest, only the vision is missing, or the vision they have been told to achieve does not feel worth questing after.
Thank you for articulating an aspect of something that a "gap year" will be unable to bridge.
I've been reading lately about "dispensational premillennialism" and how it relates to the environment of "implicit gnosticism" that was interwoven into the founding of America (as well as the "pessimistic impulses of our Neo-Gnostic climate"). Specifically the way hostility to the body emerges out of early gnostic ~heresies~ and went underground for many centuries until finding a new fertile subterranea in the USA. It makes me think of the ways Jung played with the gnostics -- the jewels of the gnostics (Philip, Thomas, etc) -- while also subverting the body-hostility implicit in the tradition. That fascinating discourse between -- the physical resurrection of Christ sanctified the body, and the gnostic view of the crucifixion and resurrection as immaterial, the body as a means to an end rather than an end in itself. It is tricky, very tricky, to dance with gnostic lore and metaphor without simultaneously internalizing a subtle (or overt) hostility towards body and matter. Ever deeper connection to the body IS the goal (right now) -- and an amazing seedbed ~ for even more of the material mysteries ✨🌠
I am always inspired to think more deeply when I read your posts. Your work encourages me to actively engage in a better understanding of myself. Thank you for continuing to challenge us to think! Many of us have become better people because of what you do.
I love this! As well as shining a light on this cultural moment, when we are so badly in need of renewal and rebirth, it makes sense of so many of the dark places in my own life, and turns them inside out (as in, not just naive and foolish, but initiation). Also, I thoroughly enjoyed your book on the quarter life. As added benefit it has helped me as I rethink/revise a (fiction) book of my own. THANK YOU.
Thank you for this beautifully written essay. It helps put into perspective some of my experiences that were difficult and to remind me that the learning can come in unexpected ways.
I'm deeply moved by your story, Satya. Your courage to venture out into dark territory as a young woman, and then your devotion to your Self not to just put this behind you as a life-adventure, but to search more deeply into your own version of the 'shudder'. At 75, I continue listening for and opening to what that compelling 'shudder' is at this age and stage of life. Several recent dreams are offering signposts, as are body-symptoms... The great course-correction needed in our fractured society is mirrored in the microcosm of my immediate landmass, the only space and place where I can turn the screw and make a difference. Thank you for the depth of this sharing. And also, for the quality of care and deep listening you provide in your webinars!
Satya, you've given me a new lens for understanding my impulse to join the Peace Corps right out of college. I tend to focus mostly on the transformation initiated 16 years after that, when I divorced the fellow Volunteer I'd fallen in love with and married. Both were initiation experiences. The first: out of childhood and into a more worldly existence; the second: out of my need to be good and helpful and live up to everyone's expectations, and into a more authentic version of my Self. Thanks for this. So interesting, also, to look around and see the different ways people are drawn to danger and violence... We need healthy rites of initiation!
I loved reading this and would love to read the poetic depths of your lived experiences. 📖 Grateful for you and your meaningful life’s work!
It was refreshing to read your words. Do you have any openings for therapy? I kid, I can't afford it. But it would be nice to speak the same language as counsel while in this tempest of meaning making.
In my late teens/early 20's, I also sought a meaningful life. But that journey was largely unconscious. It nearly killed me, more than once.
"The world" seduced me back into its fold.
I would have to wait until my forties to try again, but at least I was fully conscious. The journey was and remains very painful, sixteen years on, because it is in opposition to the world in which we live. There's no sanctuary.
Beautifully articulated. That yearning and desire for a big experience, an embodied experience, at the threshold to adulthood cannot be found in an ivory tower. This is why I think gap / travel years are so important, and why emphasis on college immediately after high school is so backwards. Young adults need to experience the world, experience themselves in the world.
As an astrologer/psychic medium/taroist, I see people of all ages.
Your essay touches upon a common thread among the people who come to me. It is a feeling of being on a vision quest, only the vision is missing, or the vision they have been told to achieve does not feel worth questing after.
Thank you for articulating an aspect of something that a "gap year" will be unable to bridge.
I've been reading lately about "dispensational premillennialism" and how it relates to the environment of "implicit gnosticism" that was interwoven into the founding of America (as well as the "pessimistic impulses of our Neo-Gnostic climate"). Specifically the way hostility to the body emerges out of early gnostic ~heresies~ and went underground for many centuries until finding a new fertile subterranea in the USA. It makes me think of the ways Jung played with the gnostics -- the jewels of the gnostics (Philip, Thomas, etc) -- while also subverting the body-hostility implicit in the tradition. That fascinating discourse between -- the physical resurrection of Christ sanctified the body, and the gnostic view of the crucifixion and resurrection as immaterial, the body as a means to an end rather than an end in itself. It is tricky, very tricky, to dance with gnostic lore and metaphor without simultaneously internalizing a subtle (or overt) hostility towards body and matter. Ever deeper connection to the body IS the goal (right now) -- and an amazing seedbed ~ for even more of the material mysteries ✨🌠
I am always inspired to think more deeply when I read your posts. Your work encourages me to actively engage in a better understanding of myself. Thank you for continuing to challenge us to think! Many of us have become better people because of what you do.
So very powerful, thank you!
I love this! As well as shining a light on this cultural moment, when we are so badly in need of renewal and rebirth, it makes sense of so many of the dark places in my own life, and turns them inside out (as in, not just naive and foolish, but initiation). Also, I thoroughly enjoyed your book on the quarter life. As added benefit it has helped me as I rethink/revise a (fiction) book of my own. THANK YOU.
Great essay! It contains a message our culture needs to hear.
So beautifully articulated, Satya! Thank you for this
Beautiful Satya 💜
Thank you for this beautifully written essay. It helps put into perspective some of my experiences that were difficult and to remind me that the learning can come in unexpected ways.
I'm deeply moved by your story, Satya. Your courage to venture out into dark territory as a young woman, and then your devotion to your Self not to just put this behind you as a life-adventure, but to search more deeply into your own version of the 'shudder'. At 75, I continue listening for and opening to what that compelling 'shudder' is at this age and stage of life. Several recent dreams are offering signposts, as are body-symptoms... The great course-correction needed in our fractured society is mirrored in the microcosm of my immediate landmass, the only space and place where I can turn the screw and make a difference. Thank you for the depth of this sharing. And also, for the quality of care and deep listening you provide in your webinars!
This is great! Thank you so much for sharing.