Integrative Explorations Journal
Shamanic Processing: Magical consciousness as worldly expression of the integral 1 Michael Purdy Governors State University Retreat to Nature: Upsurgence of the Integral There are major fragmenting stresses at large in the late modern world. Gebser and others have expressed our anxiety over time and space and nature. This drives people to want to retreat to nature, away from what we call civilization, to recoup some lost feeling of the healing womb of the natural world, the vital connection that has been lost. Or on the other extreme they strive to enhance the vital through skydiving, car racing, bungee jumping or mountain climbing. Such acts put them in touch with their body and the flesh of the world. Many people also desire a simple life and retreat to nature for succor. They perceive the magic of nature as a helping factor in reintegrating the world, and making whole the fragmentation of our age. They look for healing and a sense of wholeness in a world that continuously separates and divides, dichotomizes and sorts out the uniqueness that highlights the differences of each person. There are many today who go on quests of one form or another to get in touch with nature, to recapture the natural world, or more typically today to find themselves in the solitude of the woods. One of the more interesting recent experiences Running to the mountains: A midlife adventure is written by Jon Katz (1999), a writer for the cutting edge technology magazine, Wired. Katz bought a small house in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. Katz writes of his own very personal dialogue with himself. He also writes about the real Thomas Merton who he did his (often tortured and forced) retreats. Katz decides that what Merton was trying to do was unnecessary (159, 171, 185) and most likely drove Merton to the brink of insanity, at times. Katz decides he doesn’t have to give up his family and his normal world to get away from the buzz of city life. Of course, he winds up taking along all the comforts of home on his trip into solitude: satellite TV, a VCR, a portable computer and his two dogs. We might find all of this laughable, however, Katz says the question of technology was irrelevant because the real questions he was seeking to answer were: “who am I? What am I about? what do I want to be?” To answer these questions technology was not really an issue one way or the 1 This paper was first presented at the XXIX Annual Gebser Conference, Worldly Expressions of the Integral, October 19, 2001,Ohio University, Athens, Ohio.
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