Aquarius Now by Marilyn Ferguson

Author:Marilyn Ferguson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Red Wheel Weiser Conari

8

REKINDLING THE FLAMES OF INTUITION

The Firemaker

Set yourself on fire, and people will come from miles around to see you burn.

—UNKNOWN

You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself.

—ALAN ALDA

* * *

Lightning, meteorites, volcanoes—such natural phenomena gave our ancestors their first experience of fire. We can only imagine how awesome flames were to their curious eyes, how beautiful, mysterious, and intimidating. We have to admire their efforts to conjure up this blazing deity with sticks and flint.

According to Greek legend, fire was given to humankind by the god Prometheus, whose unilateral decision angered the other Olympians. Polynesians in the Cook Islands maintain that the god Maui went to hell and back to retrieve the flaming gift. A Native American myth credits the buffalo. As the herd ran at night their hooves struck against the rocks causing sparks that set the brush ablaze.

By making it possible to live in colder regions, firemaking inspired people to migrate, thus shifting the centers of civilization. Other than language and agriculture, no development has more significantly shaped our social evolution than the ability to make fire.

A bolt of lightning is one thing, and the ability to light your own fire is quite another. Just as our ancestors could move about more freely with their blazing technology, we can more freely innovate and solve problems by getting more in touch with our intuition.

Kindling Sensations

William Gray's proposal that cognition itself is organized by feelings was verified, in part, by psychologist Eugene Gendlin of the University of Chicago. Gendlin developed a technique called “focusing,” in which attention to a “felt sense” produces spontaneous insights.

The universe of feelings seems to have a profound logic all its own. “The heart has its reasons,” Blaise Pascal wrote, “that reason knows not of.” Great poets and scientists have praised the role of vague feelings in alerting the muse.

If our goal is to become more visionary we would be foolish not to pay more attention to subtle sensations. Feelings are the bridge between mind and matter. They are the lingua franca, the universal language between our intellect and our biocomputers. They describe associations and possibilities, offering clues for vigilance or attraction.

The word intuition comes from the Latin intuere, to know instinctively. Occasionally we'll hear someone say that their intuition didn't “prove out.” But an intuition is correct by definition. If an occasional hunch doesn't hit, either it was misinterpreted or wrongly executed. We might get a strong signal that requires timing and strategy. The first flush of an intuitive knowing is an impetus, not a permanent blueprint. Sometimes we follow inner guidance that leads us into a painful situation. It may be that our higher intelligence sets us up for hard but necessary lessons.

There are also the little hunches that get us through the week. We say, “I have a feeling,” or “It occurs to me…” In the ebb and flow, intuition sometimes flourishes like a gracious servant.

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