THE PRIMORDIAL ISON

According to modern physics, everything began in an ‘atom’ of singularity, a point of such high pressure, density and temperature that the forces of nature – strong nuclear, weak nuclear, electromagnetic and gravitational – existed in a merged condition as one. Then, something happened which triggered cosmic inflation, and the ‘big bang’ caused the initial singularity to expand until it gradually became the cosmos we know today. String theory suggests that the ‘something’ which triggered inflation was a vibration of what are called branes, physical objects which generalize the notion of point particles to higher dimensions. Even today, radio astronomers are able to detect the cosmic microwave background radiation, which is basically the shock wave from the big bang (although it wasn’t really an explosion as the name suggests, it was more like a balloon expanding). So our scientific instruments are able to detect truly ancient vibrations reverberating throughout the universe. The cosmos is built with and around vibration. Matter itself is vibration, as quantum physics has shown. This world is one great theatre of sound.  That deep frequency is a source, perhaps the source, of healing. But how can we hear it today, with devices constantly peeping and rumbling, construction work, traffic, parents who deny their screaming children the valuable lesson of quiet, flashing screens, noisy ‘music’ in shops, people apparently talking to themselves in the street on their phones, and a million other noises and distractions? The primordial ison is at the heart of all sound. The way to hear it however, is counterintuitive: the more we furrow our brow and strain to concentrate, the more distant it becomes. To hear the healing sound of the cosmos, we must relax. Allow all sounds to take place. Open our minds and our hearts, and let the vibrations wash through. And only then, we might discern a very faint signal, like a snowflake singing, tinkerbell’s giggle. 

SUPERSTAR

Today I heard a song over a set of public speakers. It was a pop song, and the chorus went “you’re a superstar…”.  It made me think about stardom. The greatest occult figure of the 20th century was arguably Aleister Crowley. He said “every man and woman is a star”. The matter our bodies are made of, originated in the core of a star. Yet we constantly forget our stellar origins, and project the light of our own glory onto the stars on our screens, today’s celebrities. Have you heard of UY Scuti? No, it isn’t the name of an Italian fashion designer. It’s the largest known star in the universe, UY Scuti is a variable hypergiant with a radius around 1,700 times larger than the radius of the sun. To put that in perspective, the volume of almost 5 billion suns could fit inside a sphere the size of UY Scuti. It isn’t a coincidence that you and I had never heard of UY Scuti (until I googled it). The brightest stars in this world remain anonymous to most people.  The brightest star you will ever see of course, is the one which lights up your chest from the inside. If you’re not too busy imagining the glow is coming from the screen you’re watching.

PHYSICAL ILLNESS

We live in an age so blinded by science and technology, that we regard matter as the ultimate reality. We may even be psychologically minded, and able to recognize some of the metaphorical implications of physical illnesses, say the emotional implications of the heart attack. or the way headache can be the sign of annoyance, a skin rash the sign of irritation. But we still think of the physical symptom as the primary reality, and the psychoanalysis as a clever metaphor, a play on words and concepts. A true understanding of psychology however, sees the primacy of the psyche. The occasion of our birth, the material existence of our physical body, our life events, our physical illnesses and our death, are the result of a set of spiritual dynamics activated by what our parents imagined when they conceived us. My whole existence in this country, this family, and the subsequent course of my life is an expression, a single instance of the archetypal forces operating for millennia across history and prehistory from the beginning of time and space. My psychology isn’t metaphorical, it is literally what it is. My headache, my skin rash, my cancer and my car accident are the metaphors. This doesn’t decrease the suffering we experience, but it does put it in perspective.

SCIENCE AND POETRY

Science and poetry are two wonderful, complementary ways to approach nature. Clearly not all questions which nature puts to us, can be answered by rational argument, the scientific method, statistical analysis or mathematical formulation. A question such as “why do almond blossoms evoke a sense of humility?” may best be answered by a poet, an artist or a musician. But beyond poetry and science, I think there is a third way to approach nature, and that is the way of a child returning to its mother. Nature is home, where we can breathe freely. And just as only lost children have to seek their mothers, so also mothers would go looking for their children long before the children even realized they were lost. Let nature approach you. Sense how every breath you take is a gust of wind across the earth’s surface, sense how your need to sleep is a setting sun, your dreams are the nocturnal plants and animals which decorate your sleeping mind and the surface of this planet, your flesh and bones the soil and stones you are standing on, your tears a salty sea. Just as you gaze at the humble almond blossoms, let them also gaze back into you. Their gaze is mother’s embrace, gathering her children in for the night.

FREEDOM

Birds control the movement of their wings. But they also sense the direction of the wind. Flight is the result of a detailed dialogue between the bird’s body and its environment. Freedom is paradoxical for us humans, too. Whosoever shall gain his life will lose it, and whosoever shall lose his life will gain it. The strongest self is the self which is able to consciously surrender. The weakest self is the self which is unconsciously possessed. Hence in addiction, for example, the ego is unable to control its impulses. The Latin word ‘addictus’ indicated a person sold into slavery. The addict is like a bird unable to control its wings, or to respond to the wind. The growth of personality therefore depends on our ability to let personality go, but also to recall it when necessary for dealing with life’s challenges. An ego which is always in control is a rigid bird, which cannot fly. An ego which is never in control is a bird blown about.

UNIFIED FIELD

The light which reaches our eyes consists of photons travelling at different wavelengths, which are basically energies of different intensity: lower energy at the red end of the spectrum, and higher at the blue and violet. In the same way, from the perspective of our deeper awareness, the objects, events and people around us are not separate. They merge into the one light of consciousness which gave them birth. And just as electromagnetic energy has radiations other than visible light, like x-rays and radio waves, so the people, objects and events we perceive with our five senses are far from the only reality surrounding us. Yet all realities emerge from their single source, the origin of an as yet unnamed and undiscovered unified field. Including ourselves.

ON THE DEATH OF VANGELIS

The year was 1980 or thereabouts. I was a rather dreamy and introspective teen, unsure whether I wanted to become a writer or a scientist, but curious to discover the nature of the strange universe around me. Although I knew we couldn’t afford it, I dreamed of places like Harvard, Yale, Cambridge and Oxford. And Carl Sagan whetted my appetite with his “Cosmos” series like no popularizer of science has before or since. Even the illustrious and affable David Attenborough played second fiddle to Sagan in my adolescent imagination. Carl was prematurely taken from us in 1996 aged 62, due to a terminal fight with cancer. Vangelis, who contributed to the beauty of the Cosmos series with a soundtrack which was really so important to the whole experience that it could be said to have had the status of another separate character in the show, next in significance to Carl himself, also departed a couple of days ago aged 79, due to that other big killer, heart failure. Vangelis also composed that unforgettable tune, for the movie Chariots of Fire. Vangelis and Carl, two men who inspired me to become a better version of myself. A Greek and an American Jew, their ethnicity was also significant to me, at a time when the voice of people from minority or ethnic backgrounds was not often heard. Greeks were known primarily as purveyors of souvlaki, and American Jews as neurotic comedians. But the cosmos is very large, and there’s space for everyone. Intelligent personalities like Carl Sagan and Vangelis Papathanassiou will continue to inspire us across the generations. And who knows? At some point in the future we may read their books and listen to their music on Mars, or on the surface of a planet outside our Solar System, beyond the boundaries even of our galaxy.

Byron J. Gaist: I live in Cyprus, and I’m of both English and Greek – Cypriot heritage.

I studied psychology at undergraduate and postgraduate level in England in the 1990s, and I’ve been a practicing counselling psychologist and psychotherapist for nearly three decades now. I’ve worked in the areas of gerontology, family violence, addictions and in general private practice with a diversity of clients. Currently I am head of the Policy Department at the Cyprus National Addictions Authority, and I also continue to work with clients in private practice, both in person and online.

I have pretty much always been drawn to Jungian ideas. My first book about Jung was Man and His Symbols, which I read as a teenager. In 2009 I completed my PhD in Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex, which focused on the relationship between Analytical Psychology, Orthodox Christianity and the archetype of the Wounded Healer. My thesis was published as a book by the Orthodox Research Institute in 2010. 

In introspective moments I write poetry, and occasional prose pieces such as the ones submitted here, often posting them as musings on the social media which I use as creative outlets.  My cat Zeus, and my disabled dog Lucy never ‘like’ my posts, but I still feed them.