Three Themes from Social Artistry

I mentioned that I attended a Jean Houston lecture. Most of that entry was a summary of her background and the experience. I did not say much about the content of the evening. Here I will pick three of the main themes and summarize. These themes and more are elaborated in detail in an online interview.

• We are in a time when something big is trying to happen


• We have lost touch with our senses, both externally and internally


• We have the potential to push through the current transition but we have to learn to fire on more burners

These are three of the themes that have been a part of her work over many years. They are elaborated even more in this interview. Much of her social artistry work is intended to help people find ways to add and express personas in order to get more in touch with the multiple dimensions that help us grow into change.

One way to move consciousness and being forward and upward is to remove negative patterns of thought, which in turn remove negative patterns of behavior. Houston agrees this is a valid approach, but prefers something that Jung also preferred that can be called "active imagination". In this approach, positive thoughts become personas and are added as dimensions to our being. As new things are added, old patterns wither and die due to lack of fertilization.

We are in a time window in the last quarter century that is the beginning of a momentous change in human history. Sadly, our brains, educational systems and culture is much better suited for the world as it was 150 years ago. The increase in speed of information transfer, cultural change and financial-political upheaval are building toward a new paradigm that has not been adequately articulated with a story that can carry the weight of the change.

We have become too uni-dimensional as humans. We allow our technology to run us rather than the other way around. We lose things that are valueable that have a much higher sensory value and is replaced by more cerebrally-focused activities to the exclusion of the senses. We do not have the inclination or the power to go within and explore an expansion of inner sensory experience that can grow us in the external world.

All of this is involved in "firing on more burners". As mentioned before expanding our awareness into new areas including artistic, scientific, physical, technological and emotional realms feeds new thought patterns and personas that turn on more and more existential burners. As thought produces action, the world is changed and created by opening the tap of infinite thought to express itself to the quantity and degree of open lines to each burner. Stopping up a burner produces a weak flame. Open the tap wide and the fire will blaze.

I am not a Jean Houston fan, follower or disciple but I have come to respect many of her ideas. Being able to have the live experience certainly added extra color and dimension to my concepts of human potential and expression that I can further synthesize into my continued search for truth.