Morphic Fields I

Juno was the Patron Goddess Ancient Rome. Most of us steeped in mythology know her as the jealous and wrathful wife of philandering Jupiter. But to the Ancient Romans, she was a living Being full of sharp and seemingly conflicting facets that mark so many of the supra-human gods of the day—gods embodying multiple burgeoning energies, untouched by the monotheism that tends to force-distill most modern folks into ever-simpler images of ourselves and our deities. 

Juno’s complexity still foxes most scholars today. She guarded over marriages, mothers and childbirth, families, love, youth and fertility. But she also protected soldiers manifesting their full vital powers. She is credited with defending Rome (and the sovereignty of all people) while leaders increasingly sought her tutelary guidance in matters of politics and war—even stepping in when the real king, whether human or divine, fled. In short she was more than human (perhaps even more than human understanding), and she was a major player in the Morphic Field of Ancient Rome. 

What are Morphic Fields? (I’ll give you my take here, but there is no way I’m going to cover this sprawling topic, so pull up your browser windows and do some Googling. It’s a term coined by scientist Rupert Sheldrake.) They are fields of energy that are habituated into certain patterns, understandings, and modes of behavior. They can control the growth of a seed into a plant, an embryo into a human or a fish or a rabbit (these biological ones are specifically called Morphogenetic Fields). They are why family members maintain semblance in looks and behavior. It’s what makes Paris feel romantic or Jerusalem sacred. And we can only connect to them through our Inner Senses—whether we use these senses consciously or not.  

Everyone both contributes to and are affected by the various fields that they are in (or are connected to). Every time someone breaks a new record in running a mile, it gets easier for others to do the same. At a party, you’re more prone to drink each time someone else decides to imbibe…and if you drink, it makes it that much easier for others to do so as well. Visiting your family home, you’re more apt to re-enliven the old childhood grudges against your parents than when you’re hundreds of miles away in your apartment. 

The term “Morphic Fields” has many siblings:  quantum fields, Genius Loci, strings, trances (as Adam Crabtree describes them in Trance Zero), Archetypes, Sacred Space, etc. 

In fact, Morphic Fields closely follow the way each of our own neuropathways develop—the more we do an activity (rollerskating, playing the piano, learning a new language, etc.), the more we myelinate those neuropathways, and the faster/easier/more-proficient we are at that activity.

What does all this mean? The implications are immense. It means that when you visit a place, you connect with all the habituations (and therefore the history) of the locale or a group. If you’re psychically sensitive, you may start acting out in uncharacteristic ways. Visitors to Jerusalem are prone to a religious mania called the Jerusalem Syndrome. It means that habits, or “thoughtforms” in shamanic-speak, in your family will either get reinforced by your behavior or you will introduce new patterns that offer alternate avenues to rechannel the energy. It means that we, indeed, co-create our reality and that we all share responsibility for everything “out there.” 

So, I’ll let this sit with you all. I feel myself wanting to go in a bunch of different directions regarding Morphic Fields and their significance—which means I have to take my hands off the keyboard now. More later…

Magical Thinking and Our 360 Senses

Ancient Egyptians believed that full humans (which may mean people who have run the gamut of initiations) have 360 senses. Mind Scrambling. My marbles roll confusedly on the floor just thinking about it. Okay, so we've got five down...more or less. Rupert Sheldrake tells us that sixth sense has been appropriated by scientists to categorize the way that animals use the magnetic, gravitational and electric fields to detect migrate, detect prey, etc. (and there has to be at least a few senses stirred in there). Sheldrake goes on to coin the term "seventh sense" to engulf all the other extra-sensory perceptions like clairvoyance, precognition and telepathy (the three that he focuses on) and describes how difficult it is for researchers to tease these three apart.

Those of us who have taken classes from Betsy Bergstrom knows that there are different types of extra-sensory perception like clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, clairolfaction, instant knowing, etc. If we stretch everything out to its extreme, we may come up with almost 20 senses that we know of. The implications of this are immense.

Ancient Egyptians had an understanding that we do not know a concept or thing until we knew all aspects of it. Quick calculations say that the most astoundingly psychic of us would know only about 5.5% of anything. This is where humility and the Great Mystery come in.

Do you remember when you were little and you made something, a picture perhaps, and you showed it to someone who didn't appreciate it or thought it was just clutter? If this happens on a regular basis, eventually that special something that we had (that we put into the picture) withers and goes dormant for lack of recognition, acknowledgement and feedback from the outer world. It's like it didn't exist. Eventually, we ourselves forget about it. This, my friends, is soul loss. Lack of perception can engender soul loss.

What happens when we walk the world, appreciated only for the quantifiables: money, possessions, appearances, career, etc.? What happens to all of those non-goal-oriented parts of us? What happens to the peach-lick toed, mudlicious, creamy nougat, juicy joy parts that could: feel what Christmas Morning was, sniff the change of seasons, eat the sunshine in an orange or allow the undulations of the sea run through our bodies as we stand on the beach?

This is what makes life worth living. Jobs and possessions allow us to live so we can experience the world in our own way, to feel these things and thereby become one of the tongues of God/Goddess/Allah/All-That-Is that's busily licking our own scoops from the 5-gagillion flavors of the Great Baskin-Robbins of Life.

Such people, each in their own way, contribute to the experience of the greater whole of which we are all a part. So it behooves us to help people find their destined scoop of life and regain their abilities to enjoy it--because at the deepest levels (where our commonality finally trumps our divisions) we are enriched by their experience too.