Click on the above title to read the complete report on the workshop entitled: The Delicate Balance of Gaia held in August, 2015 in Bear River, Nova Scotia
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Consciousness, Cosmology & Climate Change with Dennis Klocek May 2008
Summary Comments
By Maggie Keppie
Key point: The two topics of climate and consciousness are linked together by morality.
NB. Al Gore calls attention to this point that the climate crisis is fundamentally a moral crisis.
Key question:
What is the relationship of the ensouled human being to the ensouled being of the earth?
Autobiographical footnote: Dennis Klocek served on a nuclear sub from 1967 – 1969 with 240 warheads (i.e., more power than all the bombs dropped in WWII) and participated every 6 or 7 days in practice drills in which the commander had the key to unleash all that power, sufficient to end the world as we know it. For Dennis, the question arose, “What power has allowed this to happen?” and started a lifelong inquiry into why the great gifts of the mystery teachers are not balanced with the great capacity that exists for destruction. His study led him to see that the archetypal pattern had existed from the beginning: It is not a flawed design, but a divine plan.
The archetypal pattern: The divine plan is first evident in the story of Cain and Abel. The pattern appears as a contrast between POWER and WISDOM. Throughout history and in our lives as we know them these two streams can be glimpsed through the following references:
Power / Wisdom
Cain / Abel
Hiram / Solomon
Aristotle / Plato
Death / Surrender
Memory / Imagination
E.A. Burtt in Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science (1924) details the shift of consciousness from a wisdom filled geometry to a computational, rational, ordered mathematics, which was necessary to advance science at the time. Key figures include:
Kepler – caught between his inner wisdom and his reductionist, abstract nature, he never really made peace between these aspects of his being; he had fevers and blackouts which generated his insights, and when he would calculate he would get headaches;
Newton – dwarfish and dreamy, but then had an awakening when he developed the ability to grasp the whole picture; only 1/10 of his work concerns math, the rest concerns God and consciousness, symbolism, etc. generally considered to be the ravings of a lunatic; he was deeply embedded in the wisdom stream though he also had a great capacity for the power stream;
Descartes – by his time the conclusion had been reached that geometry no longer describes reality; geometry had been part of the stream arising from an appreciation for a grand harmony of spheres; now the principle of extrapolation became established and the dominant interest shifted to computation rather than geometry; computation was increasingly recognized as a powerful tool.
The developing split in mathematics: Computational mathematics became dominant in scientific research. The clear, unambiguous power of computation in the material world greatly overshadowed the earlier appeal of mathematics as a way of imaginatively appreciating the cosmos and its multiple harmonious relationships. A few mathematicians saw that the focus on computation would lead to a problem between human beings and the deity. They began to understand that there were relationships (harmonies) based on geometric projection rather than computation. This approach allowed the creation and understanding of unique perspectives with a particular (personal) relationship to infinity. Pascal was one who wrote in this vein, and his work was actually burnt, as were the works of other like-minded researchers
In the past, people were taught sacred geometry so they could develop morality, that is, develop moral perception. Rudolf Steiner in his wisdom felt there needs to be a new kind of morality based on a new kind of geometry. He recognized in projective geometry the kind of thinking which would allow the development of moral perception without an external authority.
Implications for scientific research today: In researching climate change, Dennis Klocek found he couldn’t trust the data on which reports were based because he hadn’t gathered it and couldn’t check it himself, The one area he could check has to do with planetary motion. Dennis Klocek has carried out extensive research that suggests a close connection between planetary movements (cf. the orbits of Saturn and Jupiter, lunar nodes, etc.) and warming/cooling patterns experienced here on earth. Based on this research, he has come to realize there is a cosmic dimension to climate change.
Furthermore, he assumes a moral stance and encourages a moral perspective of his work through problem solving with others using alchemical processes that rely on individual morality rather than external authority. These include shifting from dis-cussion to con-versation.
(NB. ‘dis’ derives from an ancient word for Pluto, God of the Underworld, and ‘cuss’ is from ‘cutare’, to cut into little pieces; while ‘con’ signifies ‘together’ and ‘verse’ indicates poetry and connection, thus to discuss it to cut apart with the power of the underworld, while to converse is to make poetry together, expressing wisdom and harmonious connection). Steiner elucidates the rhythm of speaking and listening by pointing out that a listener needs to sleep to the other’s meaning, and the more one knows the harder it is to do this because what we know interferes with hearing what the other says. However, to converse, we have to sleep to the other’s meaning to take it in harmoniously through honoring the “I” of the other and thereby allowing him or her to feel heard, even when we do not agree.
Dennis also demonstrated and advised using a profoundly simple alchemical mandala like a musical fugue in life generally, and in every situation, as a roadmap for how consciousness unfolds. He has yet to find a situation in which it does not apply.
Modification
(AIR)
Process (WATER) (FIRE) Implication
(EARTH)
Fact
EXAMPLE: In partner work, the ‘Other’ represents ‘air’. That is, between you and your partner there is ‘Other’. When I give my fact (i.e., something I have thought, considered, imagined, identified, designed, etc…. my idea, and perhaps even a fixed idea if I have added emotional energy to it) to an ‘other’, I lose control of my fact and my process because the ‘other’ always modifies it. The characteristic of the ‘other’ is modification, because the other is a complete and separate universe from me.
If I can tolerate the difference, I can “sketch” with the other and go to the ‘fire’ level together. At this point we try to jointly work out the implications. This is where ‘conversation’ can arise, although it will be stifled if a mood of ‘discussion’ prevails and one tries to focus on particular details as seen solely from one’s own perspective. In conversation, it is essential to ask questions, even if you think you already know, rather than simply submitting your own ‘fact’ in return. According to alchemical tradition, there will be a time in the future when people will not be able to tell if a fact is true or not. When faced with lack of proof, we must learn to use the boddisatva gesture of asking for help from the other.
Finally, decide together if you are dealing with a ‘fact’ or a ‘process’: a ‘fact’ is self-evident, while a ‘process’ requires context. If necessary, cultivate the capacity Keats named negative capability, that is, the ability to stay focused enthusiastically on a problem that has no hope of solution.
It is possible to break a ‘stalemate’ by thinking a sequence backwards. This applies to any thinking sequence. The work is about reaching into another’s point of view; not about necessarily agreeing with the other. To do this work it is necessary to recognize that ‘I have a problem’ without blaming anyone else and without thinking it is their fault, or thinking they have caused it, or shaming them into taking responsibility for it. In order to realize this, one has to train oneself not to move into the blame and shame mode, although the feeling of being powerless to solve the problem will make this mode ever stronger and more compelling. To move through the impasse, one has to find a way to deconstruct one’s own belief structure. Reversing a sequence of thought is one way to do this.
Question: When we consider climate change what is an alternate view that doesn’t just lead to anger or to hopelessness?
Possible answer: An alternate view involving cosmology … Steiner’s insights brought forward in Anthroposophy offer a different perspective by taking the problem to a higher realm and acknowledging both a soul and a spiritual realm of the earth.
Question: Can we accept different points of view without requiring them to be right or wrong?
Possible answer: The climate crisis can be an opportunity for a kind of schooling of consciousness.
Question: How can we conduct research if we cannot establish definite cause and effect?
Possible answer: The field of climate is stochastic: there are too many variables to really show cause and effect. Stochastics is a mathematical discipline that studies events that appear to happen randomly. However, even in systems that appear to be random, there will be times of resonance, that is, patterns that appear for a while and are predictable for a time and then lose the pattern again. The term ‘strange attractors’ refers to these patterns of resonance within a chaotic system which otherwise consists of ‘noise’. .While computers can be used to assist analysis of such patterns in the short term, they follow the Law of Extrapolation, which introduces the problem that small errors are re-iterated to hugely significant levels over longer periods of time.
A new science has to look for models of moving patterns and periods of syzygy . Pattern recognition is the basis of phenomenology. In phenomenology knowledge is advanced along lines indicated by Goethe in his remark: “the anomaly reveals the type.” Perception with a ‘field consciousness’ rather than a ‘point consciousness’ allows the identification of causally related things, rather than identification of actual cause and effect directly. Learned people today are almost exclusively concerned with solving problems, but this is not a necessary goal of learning, as we know from the fact that in the Middle Ages the concern was to reveal the mystery. Perhaps this will rise to prominence again.
Patterns suggesting causal relationships, without definitively identifying cause and effect, do serve the purpose of effectively revealing mysteries to stimulate further work. Some such patterns which Dennis Klocek has identified include:
Using global climate indices and comparing warming periods and rates with the observable retrograde motion of planets, it is clear there is a correlation between the retrograde motion of planets and El Nino. When 6 planets are in retrograde, El Nino does not develop. (NB. Retrograde motion is only apparent, so ‘hard’ scientists don’t know how to study it.)
If you put Orion over , all the rest of the zodiac spreads out in a way that has all the signs match actual realities on earth.
Each year two sets of eclipses affect the weather. Consider that the sun is higher than the celestial equator. (NB. If you mark the sun’s height at noon each day on a large window, the sun is 23 N max. and 23 S max. The moon’s path is both higher and lower than the sun at 28 N max and 28 S max. When the moon path crosses the sun path, which happens twice, the sun, earth and moon all line up which produces an eclipse, also called a node. The interesting point is that these nodes do not shift at a regular rate, but rather in a 6 month pulsing rhythm which creates a pulsing rhythm for the earth, since the line-up of sun, moon, and earth is a strong event.
©2006
rudolf steiner nova scotia 