Inner Michael

Announcement and Update:

Hello and welcome back. Sort of. I am saying “welcome back” because Inner Michael has been experiencing technical difficulties. My web host had some security issues and then upgraded the security. Meanwhile, the comments didn’t work and nobody could leave a comment. A reader suggested I let you know what has been going on and why I haven’t been here and the site has not been operative. There are still problems uploading images, so bear with us while we work on the glitches.

The other announcement is that I will not be posting as frequently as have for the last 5 years. Twice a week Inner Michael has featured a new post which was especially important just after Michael Jackson died because people were deeply and surprisingly touched and reached out to me after I wrote a review of “This Is It” for a magazine. That article was shared and many people who were suffering the loss of an old icon who had graced most of their lives, or a new icon just discovered that elicited a mysterious deep grief. Some of those in the throes of grieving never gave a thought to Michael Jackson until his death. They were inconsolable and they were puzzled. Sometimes there is no (earthly anyway) explanation for the rise of a phenomenon. And this certainly was a phenomenon. Coincidentally (or not) a year earlier I had completed my study in “Spiritual Emergency” at seminary. This “phenomenon” had all the earmarks of a spiritual emergency but it was taking place on a global scale. People from all over the world began to contact me.

I was dumbfounded. It seemed strange but in the messages I read from people all over the world was a longing to understand, to connect, to hang on to something or someone tangible and hopefully grounded, because their experience was anything but ordinary. I had no experience with this kind of thing and was a relatively newly minted minister ordained in 2006, a mere 3 years before Jackson’s death. And my knowledge and training in spiritual emergency was tailored to counseling an individual finding themselves mired in a dark night of the soul– a common and eventual juncture for those on the spiritual path. A dark night of the soul is like a crucible that refines the soul of the seeker by presenting them with a difficult and dark time in life where one experiences an existential crisis. A true existential crisis causes one to question everything including the existence and influence of any deity, the self and even the reason for existence– one’ own and existence itself. The ultimate dark night (so far as my training and experience) is the experience of “no self.” The ego simply dissolves. I had gone through such a transition during my empty nest adjustment after the emancipation of my children. The inner dialogue called “monkey mind” by many disciplines went silent. A later trauma provoked a high pitched frequency tone that burst through the silence and mimicked tinnitus until I assimilated. There are stages that are part of the death of the ego or its submission to the higher faculties of the divine self or soul.

I had never seen it or even heard of a dark night or spiritual emergency happening on the kind of scale I was encountering. I didn’t know what to call it and I didn’t know anything about a collective dark night in mass consciousness triggered by the passing of a particular soul. Certainly the events of nine-eleven in America triggered a collective dark night as seemed reasonable given the wide dissemination of news about what occurred in New York City on that day. Anyone who witnessed it– first hand, second hand or any kind of hand, was deeply affected by it. And it also seemed to set something intangible but powerful in motion. It may have benchmarked the new initiative toward building another kind of world community. Everything points to that.

But the deep grieving over Jackson’s loss, especially by some who were never fans or followers, was if nothing else– unusual. I contacted experts in these matters to find answers for what was happening and how to address the many souls who were mysteriously and unreasonably devastated by the loss of a man they never knew or never paid attention to. I spoke to psychologists, to clergy, to my teachers and nobody had an explanation for me. I even spoke to those who call Spiritualism their religion. Known for communication with the beyond and the afterlife, they could only say that yes, this was a phenomenon they had encountered in their historical readings, but they could not name it or define it for me. It had some of the characteristics (and asanas) of a Yogi or Avatar who has gone on to another realm but continues to impact this one. I had, of course, read about such benevolent beings but had no direct experience with the phenomenon. In a workshop with Ram Dass, I learned of someone who had experienced such direct communication with a once worldly teacher.

I still didn’t know what to make of it. And I wasn’t sure that exploring “Michael Jackson” was something I really wanted to do. While it’s true that “when the student is ready the teacher appears,” and I have had many teachers, I wasn’t sure I wanted one who was a controversial figure on a global scale. Not at this stage of my life, anyway. Couldn’t my soul have called a less polarizing figure? Someone who was not a lightning rod for controversy? A man who was hated as much as he was loved?

In studying with my shaman for the last decade or so, I have learned that there are some things that one just does not question. I have learned that yes, Spirit works in mysterious ways and I have learned that there are realms (and realms) beyond this one. When I was inexplicably and involuntarily drawn back to the movie “This is It.” I went the first time to sort of pay my respects to someone who influenced a culture and was at one time a bright star and who may have fallen because of human foibles. My study has taught me that nothing is accidental and the soul chooses to go through human incarnation as a means to expand itself and move closer to enlightenment. It’s been a comfort to know that the crucifixion of Jesus had a soul purpose and was not just random violence for its own sake. Even the most enlightened beings had missteps in their journeys and I went to the theater alone to watch “This Is It” as a way of say goodbye and to wish Jackson’s battered soul comfort and Godspeed. I knew something was up, however when I found my feet making their way back to the theater to see it multiple times. I knew there was something there and I could only hope it would reveal itself to me. I recognized it as shamanic and I’ve learned not to question such impulses for they always lead somewhere.

I saw “This Is It” on many levels. The first time I saw Jackson and his talent. During subsequent viewings, other things began to be revealed. And in one unpeeling of the layers, I saw something in the movie I had missed before. Even though trained by teachers to see and know the spiritual infused in the material, I had completely missed the moment where Jackson connects with the otherworldly and begins to embody something else. The realization hit me like a baseball connecting with the side of one’s head. That wasn’t coming from Jackson; it was coming THROUGH him!

Well, that flash of insight changed everything. It meant that his work, his music, his talent and even his fame–was Inspired. (Capital I.) His was an inspired work. I had glimpsed something significant but I had to make sure. So I went looking through his videos and his life for clues that would confirm my finding. I began with watching the videos which were all over the Internet and I got a copy of “Dancing the Dream.” A spiritual seeker and student of the Divine Impulse in creation, one gets to know the language and images that communicate the origins of someone’s imaginings. When one reads the works and biographies of the mystics and religious devotees throughout time, the clues come in patterns. The experiencers tend to use the same descriptions and the same language that to one who has studied many students of the divine, is immediately recognizable.

The only way to explain this for someone who has not embarked on this journey is to liken it to buying a red sports car. As you set out on the highway in your new vehicle, suddenly red sports cars stand out everywhere in places where you never noticed them before. It’s a kind of faculty that is ignited and set aflame that shines a light on all that is even remotely related to that original fire. The fire, it is noted can come in many forms– a match, a candle, a lighter, a forest-fire, lightening… but it’s all still made of the same element– fire. It’s a kind of awakening to something that previously went unnoticed. It’s like swimming all your life and waking up one day to realize the water is wet! it has another faculty! It’s– oh my god– wet! Before it was just a medium that allowed an experience– the medium through which your body glided– but now it is the experience appreciated on a whole other level. And off you go– to explore wetness and what it means. Next you’ll wonder what else you may have missed about water. And suddenly the awareness of its buoyancy and weightlessness sends you off on a exploration of gravity and anti-gravity. You’re off to another world. And that’s how awakening or awareness works. Suddenly you’re in a place that has always been there but you never noticed before.

As I read “Dancing the Dream” I marveled at how connected Jackson was– to his personal and to universal spirituality, how aware he was of the spiritual realms and how his inspiration was driven from there. Who knew? He had remarked many times (and it was dismissed or mocked by biographers or reporters) that his music came from somewhere else. He couldn’t take credit for it, he said because “it’s created in space.” He spoke about how the universe was a symphony of creation created out of sound and vibration and that music was a stepped down form of that same energy– kind of like a transformer steps down electricity before its consumed because the higher frequency would burn and destroy not just the bulb transforming it to light, but the person turning on the switch. Sound in fact, was Jackson’s obsession. In scripture from many cultures, creation arises from a sound– in some traditions singing into (and out of) being (singing the spirit home) and in some, “the word” become manifest, created the Universe.

Once that level of spiritual vibration is achieved, it is maintained only through a practice or discipline. The West was introduced to Transcendental Meditation by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the sixties and seventies and many describe reaching bliss through their practice. Kirtan, a chanting discipline where the different names for god are chanted repeatedly, can cause a kind of ecstacy. This is called in theology the “ascending gesture” where humans long for union with the divine and “send up” that longing in thought, chant, prayer, meditation, etc. For Jackson, the ecstatic state came in the form of dance. He entered a numinous state during his performances, resulting in an inspired work emanating from the stage. Dance has the power to produce that hypnotic and intoxicating state; whirling dervishes attained it through spinning dance.

The fact that Jackson attributed all his work to the divine indicates an egoless kind of humility that recognized he was not the originator but simply the messenger. In speaking of the Universe as a symphony, he acknowledges that his music is not his own nor did he create it but that it exists in that other realm (“in space”) and he simply plucks it from it’s original residence and brings it into this realm. Many have spoken of the “music of the spheres” and Jackson saw himself as the transformer– or vehicle through which the music flowed. Since a spiritual discipline is necessary to keep that ability going, his meditation and by all accounts of those who knew him, his constant prayer, would have kept him in that state between two worlds. By all accounts of his spiritual life, he was a Jehovah Witness in childhood and a voracious reader, he studied all the traditions calling upon gurus like Chopra and others to teach him the disciplines. It is clear from “Dancing the Dream” and from his portrayals of Siddhis (Hinduism) in his videos, he knew of the advanced states humans may achieve with spiritual disciplines. An example of an advanced ability achieved by a human is, for example, Jesus’ ability to walk on water. Walking on water involves having a command over the atoms of that substance. He was also able to calm a storm– another example of mind over matter by an advanced disciple as we know Jesus was.

An avid reader with 10,000 books in his library, Jackson, possessed of a ravenously curious mind, read about these subjects and their advanced counterparts regularly. One visitor described him as having several books lined up with pages open to different places. This same visitor explained how Jackson didn’t think in terms of individuals or events, but in planets. That is a testimonial to someone who is a cosmologist and likely an empath who not only thinks in worlds but feels in them. That evidence too, is in his vast body of work. How does one know pathos intimately at the age of an elementary student?

Many of these concepts and experiences are difficult to put into words and escape defining in understandable terms. For a language major or orator, it would be difficult; for a boy home schooled and who speaks through his music– a transcendental medium– it would be nearly impossible. It can sound really corny to say: “my music is created in space” and when that is distilled down to everyday language, it can make someone seem “wacko,” but that’s because there are no words for some things or some spiritual experiences don’t translate well into words. And the percentage of the population seeking and living spirituality as their prime directive is tiny. Most people don’t live that way. Most people don’t pray “thank you” for everything they experience– from a beautiful sunrise to a spontaneously occurring melody in your mind. Jackson did say “thank you” all the time. That knock on the door of his heart from an otherworldly place occurred when he was a child. He never knew anything else. Perhaps that is what made him seem untouchable, otherworldly, mystical, an enigma and… threatening. Loyalty to the Source of one’s Inspiration, misunderstood and un-translatable can appear as “madness” to the uninitiated.

His close friends have described to me a man haunted by pre-creation (something that wants to come into material form- the “unmanifest.”) One artist told me “he heard the music in his mind in perfect form; the entire process of honing, recording it, and all the way to releasing it was always his attempt to get as close as possible to that original perfection– what he heard in his mind.” That explains his stubborn perfectionism; if he saw it as God’s work, duplicating it with anything but precision would be to disrespect the creator. He once said to Kenny Ortega who encouraged him to rest before the “This Is It” tour, that he was downloading (my word) a new song from the creator and if he didn’t capture it with diligence, God might give it to Prince instead. As a writer I can understand that mindset from my perspective– a piece or a story that needs telling– no, demands telling– will haunt a writer until it is put to paper. It will not leave you alone until it is born in some form– a poem, a feature article, a book… The creative impulse and from whence that originates, can be a slave master demanding to be set to pen, to music, to image– in a musical composition or score, a painting, a poem, a performance, a dance, or expressed somehow in whatever medium the artist is gifted in. Art is, in my thinking, God’s way (by whatever name that god, through whatever cultural door) of speaking to us.

He knew this. He revered the process of creation from galaxies to guitars. He acknowledged it as holy. He worked hard to be worthy of his gift. He persevered even though few understood and many mocked.

And I think what allowed him to survive was that he knew that “Michael Jackson” was just the vessel.

 —————–

As more and more people wrote to me of their distress and need after Jackson’s death, I got behind in answering because I couldn’t keep up. That frustration provoked a meeting with my mentor and minster who told me it sounded like a “calling” to her. She viewed Jackson as a true innocent who was misunderstood and mistreated. She didn’t know how she knew this; she just knew.

My response was that I might agree but why me and why now? And why a figure who was such a lightning rod for controversy?

“You’re the perfect person,” she responded, or it wouldn’t call to you. “Will you answer the call?”

There were too many messages to answer individually. Too many people asking for explanations. Too many people who obviously could intuit that I might be able to give them some answers. So the research began and “Inner Michael” website was born. Liz Taylor began to send people who wrote her for solace to Inner Michael. They needed a touchpoint. They were obviously in distress and “Spiritual Emergency.” I had the training and I could write. How could I not?  “The rest is history” as the cliché goes.

The original article that started it all : http://www.onewordsmith.blogspot.com/2009/10/michael-thank-you-for-mirror-gift-from.html