Pondering Dark Matter
I’ve been reflecting on Dark Matter. So often we put up borders between fields of knowing, learning for example poetry and quantum physics and yet many people remembered for their scientific study were also philosophers, artists, musicians and even mystics. It was the integration across modes of experiencing that allowed them to connect to new or unknown or subtle aspects of awareness and perception and to ask new questions. I think that the co opting of education in the service of capitalism and the subsequent splitting of reality into many separate specialisations has taken us away from the joy of discovery and learning that is innate in every person. The commercialised agenda-driven way we operate now as made many children conditioned to see learning as effort, indeed to believe that effort is the hallmark of learning. This is contributing to many folks feeling exhausted, unworthy, lost, caught up in personality structures and social ambitions and unsure of their belonging. We are creating a culture that wants to impose human concepts at the expense of the natural intelligence of life and this is leading to many people being trapped in a superficial and dehumanised approach to life caught in distraction and performing roles that compound their suffering. We have an opportunity to reorient and come back to life as process and let that process be our teacher, to be curious about and interested in our breath, sensation, the life forms and systems around us, our heartbeats and those of our nearest and dearest.
Reading Underground by Robert McFarlane has brought to my awareness that all my life I have been studying or perhaps following the teachings of dark matter. The unseeable, unknowable mass of life. This notion of dark matter speaks to the experience of those of us diagnosed as mentally ill, neurodiverse, odd or difficult, to the simple, small, unknown and unrecognised, the quiet magic unfolding in each of us, the grace and miracle of our being here at all. This dark matter is the beautiful shadow of what is seen, known, stated, that interacts with us at every level, all the time. Perhaps some of us are sensitive to it, relating with it. It has its own intelligence as speculated by Phillip Pullman in the Dark Materials trilogy? I don’t know but I like the enquiry. I think I’ve always been afraid of the dark matter of my experience, it’s otherness, it’s strange music and language and yet it feels like the essence of who I am, the truest part of me. A magic that communicates and informs, observes and unfolds through me.
This helps me to appreciate why it has been so hard to name my experiences and also to describe my work. I’m a pragmatic magician working with the dark matter channels within you to help you access more of yourself! It’s an unconventional brand… but as I get older and as I see the state we’re in and the beautiful magic so many of us are missing out on. I realise that now isn’t the time for worrying about being understood or palatable. Those who my work speaks to will hear the call and I can trust that other folks will know best how to find support/energy which resonates more accurately with them.
So if you’re looking for a pragmatic magician to help you with opening up to more of your life energy, if you’re up for a journey of mystery, practicality, magic, embodiment and creativity and deep observation let me know. If you’re ready to connect with the edges of your experience and looking for resilient company with someone who knows how wondrous and scary the unknown can be check out my one to one work here.
