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Photography and Transcendence RYAN BUSH, Ph.D.

The year 2014 was a period of intense work for me, both in my photography and in my inner work, as I ended up exploring many different layers of my self, including the physical body, the subtle body, psyche and spirit, and emerging with much deeper connection with the capital-S Self than I had ever thought was possible. I’ll show four bodies of work that burst out of this deep creative and transformative process in the last year, Visions, Self-ies, Satori, and Presence, and will talk about how the photographs relate to the inner work that I have been doing, such as active imagination, dream work, and visions, which culminated in a powerful experience that has been called by many names, like satori, or samadhi, but I’ll simply call it “Transcendence”. It’s important to note that I’m not claiming to be fully enlightened or realized on a permanent basis, as that can take many more years or perhaps lifetimes of hard work, but my hope is that more people will understand that a life-changing peak experience of Transcendence is possible, why it’s worth pursuing, and have some ideas on how to get there (such as by decalcifying your pineal gland, and working with various layers of the subtle body), though there are many different paths that lead to the same place.

Visions You could say that this journey began one morning in early 2014, when I woke up and looked out my bed room window at a tree. Even though I’d seen that tree countless times before, this time was different. My sense of perspective suddenly shifted, like it sometimes used to do when I was a kid, and the tree suddenly looked immense and very far away like the axis mundi or world tree. Time slowed down to a trickle, and I found myself in another state of consciousness, as I was mesmerized by the vast complexity of this tree that was both ordinary and other-worldly.

Originally presented at the Art & Psyche in Sicily Conference in Siracusa, Italy, in September 2015. To see more images from the series, please visit RyanBushPhotography.com. The strength of the 3-D effect in the photographs depends greatly on how large the image is and how far away you look, so imagine seeing the photographs at 40x40 or 6060 on the wall in front of you, taking up your entire field of vision.

Ryan Bush is a fine-art photographer, author, and Reiki practitioner based in Los Gatos, California. He uses techniques such as multiple exposures and 3-D photography to explore themes of consciousness, the visionary experience, our connection with nature, and the mysteries hidden in everyday things. Bush earned a BA in Linguistics and Russian from Swarthmore College in 1995, and a Ph.D. in Linguistics from UC Santa Cruz in 2000. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and is in several collections including the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Stanford Medical Center, and

Ryan Bush, Photographing Transcendence

I knew I needed a way to have my art express at least some of that feeling of profound awe and mystery. I realized that I needed a way to overwhelm the eye with complexity, so the rational thinking mind lets go and we can shift over to that other way of seeing, connected with the world of visions, dreams, and the imagination, the world that Henri Corbin calls the mundus imaginalis. (Corbin 1969, Bush 2014).

Carl Jung described the visionary experience as “sublime, pregnant with meaning, … it arises from timeless depths… it can be a revelation whose heights and depths are beyond our fathoming, or a vision of beauty which we can never put into words.” ( Jung 1966: 140) Whether you believe that visions are real, or just products of the imagination , they’re undeniably powerful 1

experiences, and that’s what this series tries to recreate. You don’t have to be Moses or Teresa of Avila to experience visions, or have powerful dreams, or connect deeply with the world of imagination. You just have to learn to connect with the mundus imaginalis.

After experimenting with a number of different approaches, I found I could take multiple-exposure photographs, and make them three-dimensional. The works are meant to be viewed both with and without 3-D red/cyan glasses, so I’d suggest that you look at them both ways. When you put the glasses on, you literally see a new dimension unfold in front of your eyes, like moving from ordinary consciousness into that visionary state of consciousness.

The works are meant to be experienced many different ways, from close up and from father away, even upside down, which reverses the 3-D effect . The longer you look from the exact same place 2

without moving, the stronger the effect is, so the images can be used as meditation tools, to practice single-pointed focus.

In other words, the distinction between ‘imaginal’ and ‘imaginary’, as in Corbin 1969, or Watkins 1973.1

During my solo show at the Houston Center for Photography in 2014, viewers could rotate the works to view them right side-2

up or upside-down, making them co-creators in how they see the work, and how they choose to leave it for the next viewer.

[email protected] www.RyanBushPhotography.com

Vision #30 Vision #20 Vision #22


In this series, I often use black to represent the ordinary physical world, and lighter gray to represent the subtle world of spirit. In Vision #30, the mixing of dark and light parts reminded me of Mercurius or Hermes, who will show up in later parts of this story as well.

To create these photographs, I start by focusing intensely on a tiny part of a tree, like a single twig, or a single point in space. I then take four or eight exposures by rotating the camera around that same point, hand-held rather than using a tripod, and combine the exposures together in the camera, all while staying in a deep meditative state.


Vision #32


I’m never sure exactly what I’m going to get when photographing these images, and slight variations creep from the tree moving, or from me moving, or if I forget my focus amid the vast complexity of the whole tree. If I just copied the same photograph in Photoshop, the result would be perfectly symmetrical, but also perfectly boring. My goal is a balance of symmetry and asymmetry, or perfection and imperfection.

For the two-dimensional multiple-exposure image, I remain very faithful to the original composition, but when adding the third dimension in Photoshop I have complete freedom, and I think of it as the dimension of the imagination. Working on this new dimension often feels like composing music, designing architecture, or sculpting invisible clay.

Vision #32 is one of my favorite photographs in the series, though the tree I was photographing is a gnarled, unusually-shaped tree that most people would consider ugly and stunted. Figure 1 shows what a single exposure looks like, while Figure 2 shows what I see in the camera after I’ve taken all the exposures, and Figure 3 shows the final 3-D version, where what would conventionally be considered ugly and misshapen is transfigured into a pulsating mandala of energy.

I would often be surprised by the symbols that I ended up seeing in the camera, such as the Star of David shape in Vision #31, or what I think of as the eye of God in Vision #29 (which I like to


Fig. 1 Vision #32, single exposure

Fig. 2 Vision #32, multiple exposures (2-D)

Fig. 3 Vision #32, final (3-D)

Vision #29 Vision #33Vision #31


pair with Stravinky’s “Rite of Spring”). The 3-D effect came to me in a flash of inspiration and all fit together so perfectly, I didn’t dare modify it for more than a year. Meanwhile, Vision #33 is one of the few compositions that I planned ahead of time. I saw an image in my mind of a Celtic knot, or a whirling mandala or vortex, and after a month of searching I finally found a tree that bent the right way for me to be able to create this image.

I spent hours staring at these images on my computer screen, immersed in the mundus imaginalis, or in what Karen Armstrong calls the “place beyond words”. My nights were filled with images of numinous mandalas, and I began to feel the beauty of the Divine that the Sufis call the the “luminous black”, or what Monika Wikman calls the “pregnant darkness”, which I see in Vision #25.


Vision #25


Meister Eckhart once said “To find nature herself, all her forms must be shattered.” That may be 3

true, but we also need to put the pieces back together, into a new vision of wholeness and interconnecteness, where the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Vision #19 comes the closest to the feeling of another dimension unfolding, connecting with a deeper level of reality, whether you call it the Source, the Brahman, the Tao, the capital-S Self, the Holographic Universe, or the Bulk. 4

This series is ultimately about the balance of symmetry and asymmetry, between order and chaos, which James Joyce joins so beautifully in the word chaosmos: the apparent chaos of our everyday world and our busy minds, joined with some cosmic order that we may not always see or understand.

To see more images from the series, or to read my artist’s statement about the work, please see my website. For more information about the series, please also see my forthcoming book The Transfiguration of Trees. In my journey of art and psyche in 2014, the Visions series was just the beginning, where I began to follow my intuition wherever it leads, even if it’s into the complex, multi-layered world of visions and the unconscious. And sure enough, there were a lot more layers of my Self still to explore. Self-ies After I showed the Visions series in Houston, Texas in March of 2014, I was exhausted and needed to recharge my batteries. I found myself taking a lot of quick self-portraits, or ‘selfies’ with my iPhone. I had never been interested in photographing people before, and I know that selfies have a bad reputation as a superficial way to show off, but since I was taking so many selfies, I figured there was something I needed to explore. I had never been comfortable in my body

A photographic equivalent to that might be the multiple exposures by Ralph Eugene Meatyard, “Fourfold Vision”.3

For example, see notions of the holographic universe, or String Theory’s higher-dimensional membranes and the bulk, or David 4

Bohm’s implicate or enfolded order)


Vision #34Vision #19 Vision #27


before, and there were some parts of myself (like my head and face) that I was really self-conscious of. But through the camera lens, I began to find angles and perspectives on myself that I had literally never seen before. For me, selfies ended up being a form of active imagination, a way to get to know myself from the inside out.

I noticed that that my attention would quickly bounce around between different aspects of myself - there was me as the photographer, me as the subject, and also the ‘felt sense’ of what my body was experiencing. I decided to slow down the stream of my thoughts, what Buddhists call the “monkey mind”, so I could concentrate fully on one thing at a time.

As part of my meditations on the body and the felt sense, one time I concentrated only the sensations of the middle left side of my back. After a minute or two, I felt a beautiful golden glow that gradually grew until it filled up my entire being. After I returned to ordinary reality, the experience reminded me of the transcendent experience that Jill Bolte Taylor described in her book Stroke of Insight. This was just my first glimpse of Transcendence, perhaps what Zen


“The body really is a temple, and our kinesthetic intelligence can be just as powerful a way to connect with the infinite as anything else.”


Buddhists call kensho, but it helped me understand that the body really is a temple, and that our kinesthetic intelligence (or body consciousness) can be just as powerful a way to connect with the infinite as anything else.

During my meditations, I went deep into one part of the body after another, until I felt each part ‘came alive’ and was independently conscious, and then I would take a photograph, both to 5

remind myself of the experience, and to practice staying in that deep, wordless place for longer and longer. I began to photograph my shadow, because there are so many other parts of the 6

whole self besides just our physical exterior. Sometimes my shadow reminded me of my higher self or Buddha self (as in the image on the left), and sometimes my shadow reminded me of the deep wordless parts of me, like the so-called ‘reptilian brain’ that controls our usually-unconscious functions such as our heart rate and breathing . The image on the right is based on a 7

numinous dream in which I was a frog . 8

Avicenna, a 12th century Persian Philosopher, represented the tension between higher and lower selves, or between superconscious and subconscious, as a soaring eagle chained to a toad on the ground. Before I had seen this image, I had had a surprisingly similar dream of a dragon in the air tied to an elephant far below, and intuitively I knew I had to strengthen the connection between my higher and lower selves, into one united whole.

For example, the right hand alone has an incredible range of sensations, so I would focus just on what one particular finger is 5

feeling, then what the whole hand is feeling, or shift to sensing what the finger is touching against.

Only later did I realize this is one of the key techniques recommended for developing single-pointed focus - give quote from 6

Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, about reaching the place beyond words, then gradually doing things.

“The Evolutionary Layers of the Human Brain.” http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/d/d_05/d_05_cr/d_05_cr_her/7

d_05_cr_her.html, accessed 7/28/15.

It also reminds me of the notion of “ontogeny recapituling philogeny”, and of Aristophanes’ play The Frogs.8


Fig. 4: emblem of Avicenna

http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/d/d_05/d_05_cr/d_05_cr_her/d_05_cr_her.html


I began to do active imagination by typing it out as I went, eventually using a format inspired by Jung’s Red Book ( Jung, 2009). I highly recommend the experience of typing active imagination, especially when using a screen that takes up your whole field of vision so it is an immersive experience. It felt I was a medieval monk working with an invisible quill, and the longer I looked, the more exquisite the letters became, each letter outlined in gold or scarlet. After a number of active imagination sessions, I began to recognize a number of different inner voices. Most voices felt like parts of me, such as my inner critic or animus, or my libido. But sometimes I encountered a voice that felt completely different. The thoughts came to me fully-formed, and the voice sounded much older, used more formal and erudite words, and tended to speak only in the present tense, as if this voice didn’t have the same notion of time as we do.

Even though this new voice was patient, full of wisdom and love, and had the unshakeable certainty of gnosis, it was still unnerving to not know where the thoughts were coming from. Were they from a part of my own self, like Jung had his mystical “Personality #2”? Or was this


Fig. 5: example of my journal and active imagination


the voice of some autonomous figure like Jung’s Philemon or Socrates’ daimon ? And if it is some 9

kind of autonomous, imaginal voice, should I listen to it? 10

Two things finally convinced me to pay attention. One was a dream where I was in a huge hemispherical cave, dark as night. In the middle of the blackness, I could gradually see exquisite letters made of glittering diamonds that said “Let Me Out!”. It was so breathtakingly beautiful and numinous that I decided this voice was worth listening to.

The other thing that made me pay attention to this mysterious inner voice was the photograph in Figure 8, where my shadow turned into a mysterious figure that made me think of Mercurius about to ring my doorbell. Later I discovered that deeper synchronistic events were occurring, as the planet Mercury was actually in retrograde (which creates challenges for communication, but also opportunities for great insights) , and then the planet went back into ‘direct’ mode the day 11

after my Satori or Transcendence. Little did I know at the time that synchronistic effects are one sign of being connected with the ‘field’ associated with mystic experiences and transcendence (Cambray 2012).

"The favor of the gods," said Socrates, "has given me a marvelous gift, which has never left me since my childhood. It is a voice 9

which, when it makes itself heard, deters me from what I am about to do and never urges me on.” (Merton). In Plato’s Apology, he said this “something divine or spiritual” was “a sort of voice” that has come to him since childhood. (Plato’s Apology, 31d.)

Penney Pierce describes the emergent, intertwined nature of these selves like this: “An odd thing happens; as you let your 10

diamond light body [her visualization of the higher Self] take over to guide you, a saturation point is reached where you “flip” and realize you are the diamond light body. Your identify shifts. As you hear the voice of guidance from the light body, you realize it’s your voice.” (Pierce 2009, p.121) People describe this experience in many different ways, including connecting with their higher Self, an inner Muse, their ‘over-soul’, or a spirit guide. For psychological discussion from a Jungian perspective, see Mary Watkin’s Imaginal Guests. Some examples of channeled works include The Book of Ra, The Pathwork Guide Lectures, and Emmanuel’s Book.

Only later did I realize that I took this image during the height of Mercury’s disruptive effects, when it goes into so-called 11

Retrograde Motion.(June 7, 2014 was the height of retrograde, with disruptive effects intensified June 26-June 30, and returning to direct on July 1st), which is said to correspond to disruptions in our ordinary way of seeing things, as well as jamming communications. However, it can be a great opportunity for significant change, as Hermes’ transformative energy sweeps out old, stagnant energy, and opens space for new energy to come in.


Fig. 7: Jung’s spirit guide PhilemonFig. 6: Socrates’ spirit guide Daimon Fig. 8. My mysterious visitor


After I started really trusting that inner voice, it led me to read about the pineal gland, or the ‘third eye’, which Descartes believed was the seat of the soul. Widely associated with visions, creativity, and spiritual openness in children, the pineal gland gets calcified in most adults due to things like fluoride in the water. The good news is that you can remove the calcium deposits by using the vibrations of saying ‘tttttth’ at a particular frequency (936hz), for five minutes on three nights in a row. After the first night, I got a slight headache as predicted, and when I lay down to sleep, I suddenly heard a ‘tink’ sound inside my head, which was the calcium gently falling off of my pineal gland. As I continued deep meditations, in about two weeks I had a profound experience of Satori or Transcendence, leading me to believe that having a functional pineal gland is a crucial factor in this process that is often overlooked.

Around this time, I started feeling powerful surges of energy pass through me, sometimes feeling like buzzing bees, or bolts of lightning rewiring my nerves, but often feeling like warm ambrosia or pure love. Wherever the energy flowed, I could do things I never had before. I would suddenly have perfect balance, or be able to move more gracefully than I ever had before, or be able to sing better than I ever had, and I started writing poetry for the first time in many years. My limbs started spiraling into unusual poses, which I later learned were called ‘kriyas’, spontaneous movements from the awakening of so-called kundalini energy. Meanwhile, during my active 12

imaginations, this inner guidance changed from a quiet intuitive sense, into clear, confident wisdom that came fully-formed.

Kundalini is “a normally dormant mechanism, or organizing principle, that could be activated or aroused under certain 12

conditions to strengthen or purify an individual’s prana, transforming its effects upon the individual…” (From Kundalini Rising?) There are many names for this type of energy, such as prana, mana, qi…biomagnetism, which scientists have known and measured for years (but have not yet understood the real connection with auras and the subtle body), orgone, “Shakti, the Odic force, the Holy Spirit, the Pearl of Great Price, the Serpent Power, the Rod of Aaron, the Sacred Fire, Osiris, and the Sun Behind the Sun.”(Khalsa et al. 2009, p.359)



I still sometimes felt pulled in two different directions, rather than being one unified whole, and I knew that some piece was still missing that could tie it all together. Yet again, the inner voice led

me to the solution, as intuitive leaps led me to open my pituitary gland, which is associated with the crown chakra, and is the key part of the endocrine system that ties it all together, as well as releasing the chemical oxytocin, which produces the blissful feeling reported by many mystics . 13

The experience of an open crown chakra is difficult to describe, ranging from a subtle, ’oddly-pleasurable’ feeling, to the feeling 13

of honey dripping down the inside over your skull, or the feeling of a thousand petals lining the inside of your head. When experienced on a constant basis, this is known in the Hindu tradition as sahaja samadhi. A surprisingly similar sensation is described by those who experience ASMR, which I started experiencing around this time, especially when stimulated by soft whispering, rustling, or plashing noises. Since the pituitary gland is physically associated with nursing and lactation, perhaps the link with high frequency noises does not seem accidental.



The jarring sensations started to be replaced by a wonderful sense of bliss and calm, and my selfies took on an increasingly transcendent quality. I practiced remaining in a meditative state without thoughts or words, but still having single-pointed focus throughout the multiple exposures, where I overlapped photographs of myself with photographs of the sun, and felt the light grow inside of me.

Almost every night from around 1 to 2am, I would lie half-asleep in a blissful or ecstatic state, while it felt like I was studying in some kind of other-worldly school, learning how to work with energy , or looking at mandalas. Then in the morning, before I would wake up, sometimes I 14

would realize that I’m about to reach consciousness, rushing downward through a dark tunnel and a moment later I would wake up, in a process that I later realized was strikingly similar to the transition from the spirit world into this world, as described in the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.

Satori At this point in my journey, I was so steeped in transcendent energy that it seemed like something was waiting to happen, but just needed a little nudge. My intuition indicated that I should try doing yoga, so the last Sunday in June, I did half an hour of yoga (just some basic poses, nothing fancy). Later I learned that the original goal of yoga is to help raise your kundalini energy, but at the time I didn’t even know what that energy was called, and wasn’t trying to reach any particular goal.

The next day, I sat down to meditate, going through the usual steps to calm my mind and raise my energy. I had been thinking a lot in previous weeks about how the Buddha sat under the bodhi tree and wrestled with Mara, an imaginal figure of desire and temptation. I wasn’t sure if it

For example, learning to sort energy appropriately by repositioning blocks in a shifting maze.14



was prudent or not, but I spontaneously decided it was time to have my own confrontation with Mara. I saw desire in one form after another, and realized that I didn’t need to overcome Mara, but to love him, to embrace desire and the shadow as essential parts of myself. Now that I felt love for every single part of creation, all distinctions and boundaries fell away, and all opposites were joined together - masculine and feminine, the earthy, pulsating desire of Kundalini and the eternal stillness of heavenly Shakti energy, everything was one.

I felt energy shoot up my spine, and my inner sight was filled with a vast white light. I kept rushing upwards through a tunnel of concentric rings of light, with vast amounts of information streaming towards me, until I reached a powerful feeling of pure love, bliss, and Transcendence, beyond time and space, where there was no distinction between me and not-me.

With an intense feeling of gnosis, I knew the white light was pure love and consciousness. I knew that this expansive self (whether you call it the Buddha self, the higher self or the capital-S Self ), it’s our true deepest nature. I was what I had been looking for the whole time! I felt like I understood everything, I finally knew who I was, and felt a profound sense of liberation. Once the conditions are met, we just need to remember to open the door - we’re already free.


The Book of Non-Duality: Hour #11



Eventually I decided it was time to return to ordinary consciousness, and opened my eyes. I may

have been there for an hour, but it felt like an eternity. I didn’t know quite what had happened, but I knew that my life had changed, and I finally knew who I am.

Over the next weeks and months, I started trying to figure out what had happened. Although I’m not part of any particular spiritual community, I’m most familiar with Tibetan Buddhism, so I started there. I found a lot of parallels to my experiences , and found that I had intuitively been 15

doing a lot of the practices that they recommend (such as meditating on mandalas, visualizing expansive white light, and cutting through the thoughts of so-called ‘grasping mind’ ). However, 16

I was disappointed by the repeated emphasis that you should only practice with the guidance of a teacher or guru. After all, the Buddha didn’t have someone tell him how to reach Transcendence. A teacher can certainly be helpful, as there are a lot of pitfalls to avoid, but you shouldn’t have to devote yourself to a guru in order to learn what a tradition has to offer. I firmly believe the time has come for what I call ‘open-source mysticism’. Spiritual wisdom should be available to anyone that wants it, and no one should have to reinvent the wheel unless they want to.

Looking beyond Tibetan Buddhism, I found many different people that described something like what I had experienced, though each tradition used a different name. Gopi Krishna describes the mystical ecstasy of samadhi as having “vivid sensations of light both within and without, a feeling of extreme rapture… a sense of intimacy or proximity to an infinite Presence or a celestial being, contact with an infinite fount of knowledge, a sense of unbounded wonder and awe at the surpassing vision, and intellectual illumination with jnana, or perennial wisdom.” (Gopi Krishna, The Awakening of Kundalini, p. 127) 17

For example, Sogyal Rinpoche talks about “all the material phenomena around us were dissolving… Wonder and bliss were 15

beginning to carry me away…” (Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, p. 106) Compared to Zen Buddhism, Dzogchen Buddhism seems to downplay the experience of Transcendence, to avoid getting attached to it. However, that misses an important opportunity for learning while in the Transcendent state.

In Tibetan, these techniques are called tögal and trekchö.16

Another quote from Gopi Krishna: “No words can express the grandeur and sublimity of the experience nor the happiness and 17

serenity felt during Samadhi.” (Gopi Krishna, as quoted in Khalsa et al. 2009, p. 557)




Jung said “The occurrence of satori is interpreted and formulated as the break-through, by a consciousness that is limited to the ego-form, into the non-ego-like Self… This view is in accord not only with the essence of Zen, but also with the mysticism of Meister Eckhart.” ( Jung, as quoted in Harold Coward, Jung and Eastern Thought, p.162, see footnote 52) 18

Ranging further, I found similar descriptions from channeled material, such as in the Law of One:

“The experience of each entity is unique in its perception of intelligent infinity. Perceptions range from a limitless joy to a strong dedication to service to others while in the incarnated state. The entity which reaches intelligent infinity most often will perceive this experience as one of unspeakable profundity.” (McCarthy et al. 1981b, p.63)

Whatever spiritual tradition I looked at, I found some kind of parallel to my own experience, but each one focuses on a different part of it. For example, Zen Buddhism and Hindu Vedanta focus on reaching Transcendence (which they call Satori or Samadhi), while born-again Christians might focus on the relationship with Christ Consciousness . Meanwhile, other traditions focus 19

on the concept of the fundamental ground of being that’s experienced during Transcendence, such as the Source, the Dao, Rigpa, or intelligent infinity . 20

Some aspects of Transcendence are similar to an experience that Jung had at age 12: “Suddenly I had the overwhelming 18

experience of having just emerged from a dense cloud. I knew all at once: Now I am myself! It was as if a wall of mist were at my back, and behind that wall there was not yet an ‘I’. But at this moment I came upon myself.” (Jung 1961).

Kundalini energy is “known by Charismatic Christians as manifestations of the Holy Ghost” (Khalsa et al. 2009, p. 294)19

“In Tibetan we call it Rigpa, a primordial, pure, pristine awareness that is at once intelligent, cognizant, radiant, and always 20

awake. It could be said to be the knowledge of knowledge itself.” (Sogyal Rinpoche 1992, p. 108)


Fig. 9: Traditional view of chakras Fig. 10: Chakras when seen with clairvoyant sight


Many paths definitely lead to the same place, and many people have experienced Transcendence before me. Once you get past the specific beliefs or dogma of traditional religious views, the more mystic versions of each spiritual tradition are clearly talking about the same thing, as shown in the documentary With One Voice (Temple, 2009), or in Ken Wilber’s work on Integral Spirituality (such as Wilber 2007). It’s not that every religious concept is equally right, but everyone has part of the full picture. In some ways it would have been reassuring to be part of some spiritual community to have a ready-made explanation for what I had experienced, but I’m glad that I had to figure it out for myself, because I ended up studying many different traditions to get a fuller understanding of how all these pieces fit together

I spent a lot of time learning to work with energy and the subtle body, because they’re crucial for Transcendence, but aren’t familiar to many of us in the West. I started by studying traditional views of the chakra system, as Figure 9 (below), though I kept wanting to understand more about where exactly these energy centers were, and how they are rooted in the physical processes of our bodies. Fortunately, some people can see this energy, like Barbara Brennan, showing that the

chakras actually are swirling vortexes of energy, corresponding to the major nerve centers in the body, with many having both front and back components, as in Figure 11.

With clairvoyant sight, Brennan can see what each layer of the human energy field looks like (also known as the aura, with each layer corresponding to one of the chakras). It’s one thing to read about them, and another to experience them yourself, so I learned to feel the energy with my hands, and can sometimes see it (though nowhere close to as well as these diagrams show). I also ended up getting certified in the Japanese healing tradition of Reiki, which has the most systematic way I’ve seen for raising your energy to connect with intelligent infinity. Thinking back to Avicenna’s image of the eagle chained to the toad, now I understood that the chain was made of all these different nesting and interpenetrating layers, each with their own character and important in their own right.


Fig. 11: Layers of the human energy field


In terms of the benefits from a peak experience of Satori or Transcendence, one is that my creativity went through the roof. Poems and photographs poured out of me, and I created the Satori series of 3-D photographs to help remind myself of what the experience was like. With the pressures of daily life, it can be all too easy to slip back into old patterns, to forget that a state of perfect clarity and liberation actually exists, and think it was all just a distant dream. This series is in 3-D, so I’d suggest you view each image both with and without 3-D glasses.


Satori #1


Another benefit of experiencing Transcendence was that I suddenly had the courage to face complexes that I’d avoided dealing with before, and my emotional and interpersonal intelligence suddenly increased (so I could process much more effectively with my husband, for example), I felt more connected to others than I had before, and I felt a strong desire to be of service to others any way I can.

I found I could absorb information quicker than I had before, making connections and drawing inferences that helped me read book after book on a wide range of subjects, and much more trusting of the wisdom of my body, and connected with my intuition. I’ve also become more open to exploring sources I hadn’t considered before, such as becoming curious about astrology, due to the synchronicity of Mercury being in retrograde during the crucial weeks leading up to my Transcendence experience, and there being a conjunction of Venus and Jupiter on the very day of the experience.

As powerful as Satori or Transcendence is, it’s important to point out that it doesn’t instantly make you fully enlightened or realized, and it can take many, many years (or perhaps lifetimes) of further work to become ‘fully realized’. As Sheng Yen says:

“Ch'an [Buddhist] expressions refer to enlightenment as ‘seeing your self-nature’. But even this is not enough. After seeing your self-nature, you need to deepen your experience even further and bring it into maturation. You should have enlightenment experience again and again and support them with continuous practice. Even though Ch'an says that at the time of enlightenment, your outlook is the same as of the Buddha, you are not yet a full Buddha.” (Chan Master Sheng Yen (2006) p. 54)

After weeks of intense learning, I needed to find a way to integrate all these layers of my self into one unified whole. Linda Carter ended up providing the key when she mentioned a connection between my photographs and Emergence theory. After reading Joe Cambray’s wonderful book Synchronicity (Cambray 2012), I saw how relevant it was not just for my 3-D photographs, but as a model of the whole multi-layered Self. When faced with a new order of complexity, old structures are no longer enough to support them. In a system with a single point of failure (like the ego’s desire to be in control and understand everything), it’s easy to get overwhelmed, but in


Satori #2 Satori #6 Satori #8


an emergent system each part contributes in its own way, and some order will emerge. I had to let go, to accept that there will always be so much that’s beyond rational understanding, and find a way to just effortlessly be.

In finding a way to bring in my experiences into everyday life, I was inspired by the “Ten Ox-Herding Pictures” of Zen Buddhism (as in Senzaki and Reps 1957), which show the steps of the journey to Transcendence, and what comes after that. In the beginning, there is “aimless searching, and only the sound of cicadas”; then the search for the bull (as a metaphor for seeking our Buddha nature, or the true nature of our minds). Then we tame the bull through discipline, and eventually reach the great white light of Satori. After that, you reach the Source, where there is effortless being, and as before, only the sound of cicadas.

Presence One afternoon as I was reflecting on my Satori experiences and taking pictures from some trees in our yard, I put my camera down to rest for a minute, then when I looked at the viewfinder, I saw my shadow against the ground, and the background was pulsing with golden-white light that reminded me of Transcendence. I moved around a bit to get a better composition, and in the viewfinder, I saw my shadow merge together with the ground, fusing into one unified whole. I could feel the dry leaves against my back, which matched how worn out I felt from all the intense inner work I had been doing. But I also saw this green shoot of life coming up through my chest, which I felt as an upwelling of love that filled my heart.


Fig. 12: The Ten Ox-Herding Pictures (Unknown author, 2012)


The voice of intuition (which I believe comes from my higher Self ) wanted me to add, quote: “The green shoot in the photograph represents love, because that’s what the Divine is. Not something complex that you have to reach or attain, or something out somewhere else, the Divine is right here, right now, the Divine is everything that has ever been.” And as I wrote that, I felt how deeply we are all love, more than I had ever before.

To take these photographs, I don’t carefully arrange objects on the ground. Instead, I align myself to what’s around me, removing all sense of separation between me and the environment. When


Presence #1


taking Presence #12, I lined the yellow flowers up with the chakras on my spine, so my chakras felt like yellow buds looking out at the universe.

My earlier Self-ies may have been a preparation for this series, because Presence #13 feels like the truest self-portrait I have of my ordinary self. I moved my shadow until it lined up with a string lying on our deck, that felt a lot like the tangle of thoughts in my head. Then I followed the energy down through my spine until I was grounded, and remembered that my Self extends up above my head, and let my thoughts untangle in that effortless state of being I had been searching for. In fact, I used this image as my headshot for Spot Magazine. After a few weeks of trying to take an ordinary headshot, I realized I already had an image that represents my interior world with its pull of competing priorities, which may at times end up gently balanced in a state of presence or grace.

I took Presence #17 in our driveway. It has some cracks and old leaves, but when photographed together with my shadow, the driveway was transformed into a sea of shining jewels, while a lightning bolt of inspiration enters through the top of my head. While taking this image, it reminded me of the Egyptian Goddess Nut, dividing earth and sky, night and day, inner darkness and outer radiance.

When I took Presence #11 (below) for the first time I felt that my shadow was truly beautiful. If you look closely, you can see that the edge of the shadow is a blurry in-between area, so it’s not clear where “you” ends, and the rest of the world begins. In a sense, that’s what this series is all about - letting go of the illusion of separation between our self and everything around us, because when we expand our sense of self beyond the level of duality, all boundaries disappear, and we are one with everything. That state of oneness is what many call ‘non-duality’. Jung said: “At times I feel as if I am spread out over the landscape and inside things and am myself living in every tree,


Presence #12 Presence #13 Presence #17


in the splashing of the waves, in the clouds and animals that come and go in the procession of seasons.” ( Jung, as quoted in Frequency p. xxviii) , 21 22

Most simply, this series is just about being fully present, like when you realize you’ve been caught up in your thoughts, and you look around at the world and see how completely beautiful it is, like emerging from a dream, feeling fully alive for the first time. It’s like what the Buddhist monk Pema Chödrön calls the state of “radical presence”, and what the artist Marina Abramovic calls the “charismatic space” in her work, The Artist is Present (Akers and Jeff Dupre, 2012). It’s also related to what the Japanese healing tradition of Reiki calls “the reiki space” (Stiene and Stiene 2010), where you are fully grounded, with your mind clear of all but intention and love, and you are connected to your Higher Self, and to intelligent infinity . 23

When my shadow fell on an old, weedy bush in our yard, they merged into the wild figure of Presence #19 that reminded me of the Green Man, or Khidr, with a fierce crown of radiant, dry leaves. While I felt like I was started to get to know the various parts of my own self (such as what Jung called his analytical “Personality #1” and his mystical “Personality #2”), during my written active imaginations, I still encountered thoughts that didn’t feel like my own, and I remained curious about who or where they came from.

Through my dreams, I started to get acquainted with what I believe are my spirit guides. In one dream, I saw an old man looking for me in a crowd. I hid from him, because I couldn’t understand where I knew him from, but when I finally stood up and greeted him, it was pure radiance. Some photographs in the series, like Presence #5 and Presence #8 (below), feel like figures one would meet in a dream or a vision.

Another way of looking at it is:“The Law of One… may be approximated by stating that all things are one, that there is no 21

polarity, no right or wrong, no disharmony, but only identity.” (McCarty, et al. 1981, p. 92)

“What the sutra followers call absence of conceptualizing is to settle into the state that is free of perceiver and 22

perceived.” (Padmasambhava et al. 2008, p. 122)

Also known as the Tao, the Brahman, the Self, God, the holographic universe (physicist David Bohm), and the Bulk (String 23

Theory).


Presence #11 Presence #24 Presence #19


In ancient times of oracles and seers, no one would think it odd to talk about visions, or feeling connected with imaginal figures. But these days we’re so over-reliant on our rational minds that most people would think of visions and imaginal figures as signs of mental illness, rather than a connection to the imaginal world of spirit. In talking about these things here I’m inspired by Lesley Dill’s presentation at the last Art & Psyche conference, where she talked about seeing visions, and by recent work like Mary Watkins’ book Invisible Guests, where she notes that “if one lingers with the experience of the figures autonomy, … development is seen in terms of the manner of relating to the figures, rather than the gradual reabsorption and disappearance of the figures”, as suggested by other psychological theories. (Watkins 1973) At some point, we may need to let go of the need to understand whether these figures are part of our own self or not, and just relate to them.

However, it’s important to note that not all inner voices are the same. Our unconscious voice tends to jump in right away, so it’s best to wait for a different voice to respond. Some people do experience schizophrenic-type voices that lead to confusion and dis-integration, but for a great many others, visions and imaginal figures can be sources of immense wisdom and insight, and don’t interfere with a healthy, sane, and productive life.

For me at least, the results of listening to my inner voice have been very positive: I’ve gained a laser-sharp focus, a much stronger connection with my intuition and clear sense of guidance, and new series of photographs burst out of me quicker than ever (for example, most of these Presence photographs were all done in two weeks).

There are clearly many more mysteries still to explore, more layers of my Self to still meet, more obstacles to overcome, and I’m still far from fully conscious, but now I felt that I had all the tools that I need. When we are fully present in the here and now, free of all thoughts and boundaries, we truly are liberated, and we can finally just Be.


Presence #5 Presence #8


Conclusion

The past year has showed me how intertwined art and psyche can really be, with my art pushing my psyche, and vice versa. I’ve found that photography can be an ideal medium for active imagination, and to develop the abilities of single-pointed focus. The Visions series opened up a new dimension in my self, going beyond the rational mind into the place beyond words. The Self-ies series helped me explore the temple of the body, and enter into a direct relationship with the many different layers of my self, and paved the way for experiences of Transcendence. Unconsciously or not, my art has always been trying to evoke Transcendence, but with the Satori


Presence #18


series I was conscious for the first time of the experience I have been trying to show. And with the Presence series, I practiced being ‘radically present’ in non-duality, where we can see what an incredible Eden we already live in.

This past year also showed me what’s possible when we explore all our different layers -not just the rational mind, but also the body, energy and spirit. Experiences of Transcendence are absolutely possible, and well worth the effort, though many different pieces have to come together.

With the concept of Integral Spirituality, I believe that we can put together a more complete understanding of Transcendence if we combine the best parts of many different traditions, comparing our own experiences, and staying connected with our inner voice of wisdom (whatever exactly that voice is, whether it’s your own unique higher self, or some external, imaginal figure). The path to Transcendence should not be undertaken lightly, but I believe the time has come for “Open-Source Mysticism”, where people can study any topic they want, even Transcendence. After all, it’s our birthright to be able to know our whole selves.

Based on my experiences, and comparing with teachings from a number of different traditions, here are some of the factors that seem necessary to experience Transcendence:

• Make sure all of your ‘energy gates’ are open (meaning all your chakras, joints, nerves and meridians), including a healthy and decalcified pineal gland (aka the ‘third eye’).

• You also need to have an open channel for energy through the top of your head (that’s one reason a teacher can make it easier, if they do an initiation known as a darshan or reiju), though you can do it yourself if you raise your kundalini energy.

• Let go of all negative emotions (like anger, fear, and worry), but you don’t have to be a saint or already be perfect.

• Fill yourself with complete love for yourself and all others. • Raise your frequency/vibration (e.g. with deep breathing, grounding on the in-breath,

expanding on the out-breath, such as Reiki’s joshin kokyu ho, or Holotropic Breathwork) 24

• Keep spine straight, help spinal fluid circulate (slight sinuous movements help activate the pumps at the coccyx and top of spine)

For details on Reiki, see Stiene and Stiene, 2005. For Holotropic Breathwork, see Grof and Grof, 2010.24


The Book of Non-Duality: Return to Eden #1


• Calm your mind, entering the ‘gap’ between your thoughts, to enter a deep meditative state. • Combine together all opposites, and let go into non-duality. • Connect with the vast, ‘great white light’ above your head (the ‘transpersonal chakra’).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Akers, Matthew, and Jeff Dupre. 2012. Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present. (documentary) Brennan, Barbara. 1987. Hands of Light: A Guide to Healing Through the Human Energy Field. New

York: Bantam Books. Bush, Ryan. 2014. “Abstract Photography: A Bridge to Imaginal Worlds”. ARAS Connections, Issue

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University Press. Chödrön, Pema. 2006. True Happiness. Sounds True. Corbin, Henri. 1969. Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi. New

Jersey: Princeton University Press. Corbin, Henri. “Mundus Imaginalis, or the Imaginary and the Imaginal.” http://hermetic.com/

moorish/mundus-imaginalis.html, accessed 12/27/15. Coward, Harold. 1991. Jung and Eastern Thought. Sri Satguru Publications.


The Book of Non-Duality: Return to Eden #2

“You can’t [teach] enlightenment, but only [teach] information, inspiration, or a sharing of love, of mystery, of the unknown that makes [others] reach out and begin the seeking process that ends in a moment, but who knows when [someone] will open the gate to the present?” (McCarty et al., 1981)

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Grof, Stanislav, and Christina Grof. 2010. Holotropic Breathwork. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Jung, Carl, and Sonu Shamdesani (ed. and transl.). 2009. The Red Book (Liber Novus). W.W. Norton & Company.

Jung, Carl. 1966. Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 15: Spirit in Man, Art, And Literature. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Jung, Carl. 1961. Memories, Dreams Reflections. New York: Randomhouse. Krishna, Gopi. 2014. The Awakening of Kundalini. The Institute for Consciousness Research and

The Kundalini Research Foundation. Khalsa, Gurmurkh Kaur, Ken Wilber, Swami Radha, Gopi Krishna, and John White. 2009.

Kundalini Rising: Exploring the Energy of Awakening. Boulder: Sounds True. McCarty, James, Carla Rueckert, and Don Elkins. 1981. The Law of One, Book I. LL Research. McCarty, James, Carla Rueckert, and Don Elkins. 1981. The Law of One, Book II. LL Research. Merton, Reginal. Mystics and Seers of All Ages. http://www.alchemylab.com/daimon.htm, accessed

12/27/15. Pierce, Penney. 2009. Frequency: The Power of Personal Vibration. New York: Atria Publications. Pierrakos, Eva. 1996. Pathwork Lectures, Volume One. International Pathwork Foundation. Plato. 2013. The Apology. CreateSpace. Rinpoche, Sogyal. 1992. Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. HarperCollins. Padmasambhava, Erik Pema Kunsang, Yeshe Tsogyal, Marcia Binder Schmidt. 2008. Treasures

from Juniper Ridge: The Profound Instructions of Padmasambhava to the Dakini Yeshe Tosgyal. Boudanath: Rangjung Yeshe Publications.

Senzaki, Nyogen, and Paul Reps. 1957. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings. Charles E. Tuttle.

Spira, Rupert. 2011. Presence: The Art of Peace and Happiness.Salisbury: Non-Duality Press. Stiene, Bronwen, and Frans Stiene. 2005. The Japanese Art of Reiki. New York: O Books. Temple, Eric. 2009. With One Voice: Awaken to the Reality that Unites Us All. Unknown author. 2012. “Configuring the Varieties of Experiential Nothingness”. http://

kairos.laetusinpraesens.org/geozeroc_1_h_1, accessed 7/15/15. Unknown author. “The Evolutionary Layers of the Human Brain.” http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/

flash/d/d_05/d_05_cr/d_05_cr_her/d_05_cr_her.html, accessed 7/28/15. Watkins, Mary. 1973. Invisible Guests. City: Publisher. Wilber, Ken. 2007. Integral Spirituality: A Startling New Role for Religion in the Modern and

Postmodern World. Boston: Shambhala. Yen, Sheng. 2006. Attaining the Way: A Guide to the Practice of Chan Buddhism. Boston:

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