by Michael DeMaria, Ph.D.
2001, Terra Nova
Praise for Ever Flowing On
"
This is a book that explores deeply our longing for Being, our inmost yearning for Oneness. It is a timely book written with compassion, wisdom and devotion...It provides the reader with gentle wise council of how to find our way back to the simple miracle of living and being, while discovering a renewed affection for our life. You will begin to feel good about the miracle of being truly who you are, instead of trying to be something you are not. This is to learn to love and belong to your life in an intimate, authentic and genuine way."-Robert Johnson
Author of He, She, We, Inner Work,
and Balancing Heaven and Earth
"Michael DeMaria is a rare, loving wisdom teacher who has befriended the human psyche and traveled to its depths. He knows how to extract the psyche's sacred treasures that lead to our full awakening as spiritual beings in human bodies. I love this book! It is profound! It will guide you and transform you if you will follow its gentle trail to wholeness."
-Jacquelyn Small
Author of Becoming Naturally Therapeutic,
and Transformers
"Ever Flowing On is a wake up call to those who live at the edge longing and yearning for harmony and connectedness. Brimming with gems of wisdom it is priceless to those who are committed to living simply. This timely book is a valuable contribution to consciousness. I highly recommend it."
-Malidoma Patrice Some', Ph.D.
Author of Of Water and Spirit
"This powerful book describes in detail and with great clarity the process of 'being and becoming oneself'. Drawing from rich personal experience as well as varied cultural background ranging from Aztecs to Zen, Michael DeMaria offers a most useful map for our spiritual journey."
-Piero Ferrucci
Author of What We May Be,
and Inevitable Grace
"Ever Flowing On is a helpful guide for the soul's journey. Full of insights and markings on the trail of life for the serious seeker. I highly recommend this book."
-Angeles Arrien, Ph.D.
Author of The Four-Fold Way
"Michael DeMaria's book lays our lips on the beating pulse of Being, reconciling us to our inevitable estrangements, and pointing our way back to wholeness in the most genuine and natural way. In this way our everyday life is seen for the magnificent and sacred adventure it truly is."
-Stuart Miller, Ph.D.
Author Hot Springs,
and Understanding Europeans
"Ever Flowing On is a spiritual guide book for our post modern age. In our rapidly moving world of technology, globalization and materialism, one loses the inner connection with oneself thus a loss of true intimate relationships with others. We feel isolated, depressed, driven, and lack a sense of well being. This work describes the passage back to reclaiming our core nature, the essence of one's being. This absorbing, well designed book is about becoming friends with one's soul. And it is soulfully written. I find it to be a true contribution to understanding the processes of self-development."
-Nancy Qualls-Corbett, Ph.D.
Jungian Analyst, Author of The Sacred Prostitute
"Michael DeMaria gives us the gift of a skillful and beautiful interweaving of existential psychology, cross-cultural symbolism, the vision quest, autobiography, therapeutic case vignettes and various related topics. He provides a gentle guidebook for our journey with life and shows "how the agony of the quest blossoms into the joy of the dance." This book will be, for many, the most useful and inspiring description of this domain."
William F. Mikulas, Ph.D.
Author of The Way Beyond,
Skills in Living, The Complete
Counselor.
"In the tradition of Sam Keen and Robert Johnson, soul doctor Michael DeMaria has brought a fresh and discerning voice to psychological and philosophical thought. Here you will find a response to our inner yearning for a model of the self and life journey which is at once elegant and authentic. Ever Flowing On is a heart centered approach to living and being."
-Barry Arnold, Ph.D.
Author of In Pursuit of Virtue
and Essays in American Ethics
EXCERPT - CHAPTER 9 - Ever Flowing On:
To understand our lives from the perspective of the river has proven itself so very helpful in my day to day life and in the lives of those I work with. For all of us to realize that it is right, good and inevitable that the river keeps flowing, that in our perpetual letting go, we too are also flowing on; towards new vistas, new canyons, new terrain that we never imagined. We are not born to be static creatures, for in our very essence is the aesthetic beauty of the river itself. To begin every day by asking, "Where is the river flowing today?" is a profound psychospiritual practice in the art of being. For we ride the most ancient river of all, the river of our own breath, that ceaselessly flows on. Knowing this we can ride the waves of the moment, of the breath, the blood coursing through our bodies as we die so many times in one life time. In a way every expiration, breathing out, is a death, we expire. In every in breath, every inspiration, is a birth, a renewal of spirit. To practice this is to make this automatic rhythm conscious, becoming aware of the river of our lives which will in time allow us to face the ultimate and grand expiration transition at physical death, where we finally come face to face with who we truly are, and if we have truly prepared we will not shrink in fear, but celebrate the river flowing into the ocean.
DIRECTION AND THE RIVER
Is "ever flowing on" the same as "going with the flow"? No, it does have a direction. Although it may meander here and there, it continues towards a distant horizon with determination and persistence. As in life itself, one must have projects, goals, which continue to challenge you, pull you forward, like a gravity pull. If the challenge is too great there will be anxiety, if the challenge is not great enough there will be boredom. So flow occurs when the activity leads to further growth and discovery.
If we stay at the same level for too long, we will become bored or frustrated. As important as being in the moment, is having an eye on the horizon. If I am canoeing down the river I have to be vigilant both of where I am and where I am going. It is this dynamic tension between past, present and future that is the river of life. Many eastern practices tend to focus far too exclusively on the present moment while the western practices often over emphasize the past and future. Rather the best of both practices incorporate a dynamic, sacred tension between one’s being (present) and one's becoming (future). This is to live one's life in accordance with the river.
This blessing of our essential multiplicity shows an ancient wisdom that we have lost and that furthermore, provides a healthy and effective way of dealing with the contingency of our lives and impermanence of nature. At the same time, it allows us an opportunity for connecting with the greater patterns and flows of life, by realizing we, too, like the forest, are a vast ecology that must circle endlessly through ever-changing seasons with their ever- present lessons of living and dying.
Photons are mysterious, just like the self. Although they light up everything we see, including the rainbow, no scientist has ever been able to pin them down. With out photons you could not be reading these words, yet where "is" the light? They come out of nowhere and return to nowhere. They can not be stored, measured, weighed. Physicists have tried to pin them down in space and time, yet, it is as if they have no home in either. Light, the manifestation of the dance of photons, has no volume and no mass. Investigators into the nature of the soul said it did not exist because you could not locate it in space or time right after death. A body measured and weighed the same before and after death. Any good scientist knows that you cannot prove something does not exist. So the soul, like a photon of light, can not be located in space and time. It cannot be measured. Yet, it is every bit as real as the photon and also has a similar job of helping us see. Just like the amazing dance of electrochemical activity in the brain, the liminal shifts between a molecule, a thought and an action. Where does one end and the other begin? It is the ever flowing field of being.
Although photons can't be fixed, located, they light up all we see, all we feel, all we touch, they are completely out of reach. It has much to do with contradiction and paradox again. The way the self flows through time and space is much like a photon: there, yet not there, like the darting dancing of a flame; observable, objective, but fiercely out of reach to try to contain it, grab it, get hold of it, make it into some kind of a certain predictable something. To make it into a noun, a thing is to lose it. Yet it's still there and still lights our way.
Copyright Michael DeMaria, Ph.D. All rights reserved. No portion of this material may be copied or used without the authors permission.