TRAUMA AND THE ONTOLOGY OF THE MODERN SUBJECT

John Lloyd Roberts, MA, JD – Doctoral Candidate- Department of Psychology

Roberts’ dissertation, situates trauma historically as a persistent rupture in the philosophical structuring for the modern subject, bearing the failure of representation and integrative temporality, and it suggests that continual deconstruction of such discourse calls for an ontology of trauma. Although drawing from Foucault, the dissertation argues that Heidegger, Levinas, and Lacan capture the ontological and ethical dimensions of trauma through several aspects of self-withdrawal – that of being-towards-death, alterity or non-Being, and castration. The author contends that traumatic ethics for the modern subject transcends one’s usual notion of knowledge, as the modern subject’s relation to itself implicates its assumption of responsibility for its truth, whose origin in time is unknown to thought. Finally, the argument asserts that the clinical discourses on trauma operate to technologically and ontically conceal the ontological, which is a mode of disclosure for the modern subject and its originary source in trauma.

A public presentation will follow in July.

Committee:

Kareen Ror Malone- Psychology

Christopher Aanstoos – Psychology

Hugh Crawford- Georgia Institute of Technology- School of Literature, Communication & Culture

Nothing new to report from today’s mid-day visiting hour with Aimee.

-Saturday, May 19th, 2pm

Aimee is doing well today.  Her vital signs are as positive as her spirits.

-Friday, May 19th, 6pm

Aimee is still a very sick girl… she had a tracheotomy yesterday, which should help her in her recovery, as well as bravely said “let’s do this” when explained how she would need to have her hands and her remaining foot removed.  That surgery happened yesterday afternoon.

-Thursday, May 18th, 7:57am

Read the full post by Andy from May 18th, 7:57am, here: Aimee Copeland’s story. Andy shares updates and his inspiring story from his heart.

“Hospital time is much slower than “mind” time, so updates will always feel incomplete. We will let you know when a major change in her condition occurs.”

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Aimee’s timeline, in brief:

5/1/12 Tuesday: Zip line accident

Tuesday- Thursday: multiple visits to hospital and doctors

5/4/12 Friday: necrotizing fasciitis takes over leg, leg is amputated, goes into arrest, transferred hospitals

Since Friday: on life support

Earlier this week slowly regains consciousness.  In and out.

Blood vessels in hands and remaining foot die.  More amputations are necessary. Hopefully the palms of her hands will survive.

5/11/12 Friday: Regains enough conscious to mouth the question “where am I?”

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3 Ways to help:

1) Donate blood

-Donate blood in Augusta at the Shepeard Community Blood Center, 1533 Wrightsboro Road, Augusta, GA 30904  (706) 737-4551.

-Blood Drive at UWG campus :  Another is scheduled for 6/01.  Noon- 5pm.  In the small gym across from the new bookstore.  Parking allowed for the public in the student parking lot behind the bookstore.

-Blood drive at Snellville First Baptist: Monday, May 21 from 10a-6p. By South Gwinnett Rotary Club and Shepeard.  Register here.

Donate blood anywhere -give blood to help all of those in need.  Giving blood is giving life.

2) Donate money

Instead of flowers (which aren’t allowed in the ICU) and gifts, Aimee’s father is requesting financial support.

Or, send a check made out to an account set-up by her father:

“The Aimee Copeland Fund”

United Community Bank

2168 Scenic Highway

Snellville, GA 30078

This money will be used for hospital and/or rehabilitation expenses.

The fine print: The Paypal account is secure, allowing for donations to meet the needs of Aimee situation.   We cannot allow for tax-deductible donations as we were told by our local community foundation that “you can’t use nonprofit status to donate to an individual.”

Fundraisers:

5/18th, Fri, 8pm: Sunnyside Cafe, Carrollton: $10 cover to Aimee.  Gospel bluegrass.  With Americana Express and Not by Chance

5/22nd, Tues: Sunnyside’s/Farmer’s Cupboard parking lot: live art event and concert with headliner Corey Durkin (see video below).  Raffle and silent auction.  Moon walk, face painting, BBQ, and more!  Sunnyside is looking for more donations to the silent auction, including gift certificates.

5/26nd, Sat, 7-11pm: Sunnyside: Rock n’ Roll concert.  With David Pippin, STiL, and more.

3) Raise awareness

Homemade zip lines are dangerous.  Leave zip line construction to professionals.

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About Aimee:  bright star, lover of life, infinitely generous of heart and spirit.  From Snellville, GA.  B.A. from UGA in 2010.  Nearing completion of her Master’s degree at UWG Psychology.  Loved dearly by family and friends.

Click here for some photos of Aimee

Aimee is a masters student here at University of West Georgia Psychology. It is a program that attracts students who are seeking a psychology with heart. With Maslow’s Humanistic Psychology as our foundation, we explore existential-phenomenological and transpersonal, amongst other, approaches to understanding the human experience.  Aimee was attracted to this program because she sees psyche and spirit as inseparable.  She feels that psychology divorced from spirituality is “reductionist,” and is missing the greater Unity of Existence; that humans are not things or objects, yet rather are an inseparable part of the Web of Life.  We are no different that the leaf which has no separate existence from the tree, from the ecosystem, and from the totality of Existence itself- whatever you may call it (i.e. God, Gaia, All, Cosmos).

Aimee is particularly interested in eco-psychology; the study and practice of re-harmonizing with Nature as a means for creating psychological health and vitality. She believes in the power of Nature to heal the trauma of the psyche. Indicative of an eco-psychologist perspective would be this:

“Take some time away from the man-made world, go into nature, and realize that you are an inseparable part of Existence.  It is not a sign of dysfunction to not be able to harmonize with society.  Society is inherently ungrounded, as it is based upon the thoughts of other.

“Let go into nature and you will find all of the support to open your heart and to be the full person that you were destined to be.  In nature you can let go of all that is untrue, all the conditioned parts of your personality, and your true self will emerge. This true self is not a personality, but your Being itself, having a human experience.”

Aimee largely created this:  Psychology department newsletter.  It reads:

The Department of Psychology at the University of West Georgia is unique in that our theoretical roots are in humanistic and transpersonal psychology. Our courses range from classically humanistic concerns -like the centrality of human subjective experience in psychology, holistic approaches to psychological understanding,human growth and development, and the enhancement of human potential – to contemporary attention to transpersonal and spiritual horizons.  Themes such as the meaning of genuine community, sociality, understanding oneself and others, and the myriad ways through which we grow and develop are central to our academic learning environment.

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This might be the most thorough article on Aimee’s story that I am aware of.

The Copeland family thanks you for your support through prayers, money, and blood.  This website has had hundreds of thousands of visitors over the past few days.  The shared hosting server that we were on collapsed, and we had to upgrade to an expensive enterprise grade designated server.

Two businesses donated the resources to fund the additional expenses that this  site was unprepared for;  the lime slaker manufacturer Sodimate and the Chicago Midway Airport Hotel Carlton Inn Midway.  We thank them for their generosity.  We hope that all technical issues are behind us.  We apologize for the periods that we were down.  We have been working day and night to keep this site available and updated with the latest, most comprehensive, and most accurate information.  Thank you all.

With endless love for Aimee,

Ken Lewis

The 14th Annual

Student Psychology Annual Research Conference (SPARC)

one of the largest student psychology conferences in the Southeast!

To be held on Thursday Thurs April 12, 2012

Lunch: 11:30-1pm.

Talks start at 1pm and will end around 5:00pm.

Location: Melson Hall classrooms.

SPARC is a research conference designed to facilitate personal and professional enrichment as both undergraduate and graduate students share their papers and projects in a 10 minute presentation, followed by a 5 minute question/answer period.

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William George Roll II, 85, of Villa Rica, Georgia died at 5:05 a.m., January 9, 2012 at the McLean County Nursing Home in Normal, Illinois. Bill was born July 3, 1926 in Bremen, Germany, where his father was American Vice-Consul. His mother was Danish and he attended Holte Gymnasium in Denmark. He obtained a BA from the University of Berkeley, a B.Litt. and M. Litt. from Oxford University and a Ph.D. from Lund University. Bill served in the Danish Resistance movement during World War II.

Bill is survived by his wife, Lydia of Villa Rica, Georgia; his daughter Lise Roll-Pettersson and her husband Hans of Nykoping, Sweden; his son Leif Roll and his wife Ginia of Bloomington, Illinois; his son William G. Roll III and his wife Jenny of Brewster, New York. He is also survived by his 7 precious grandchildren: David, Martin, Jensen, Giles, Georgi, Annika, and Anders.

In addition to being a devoted and loving husband, father and grandfather, Bill enjoyed everything Mother Nature offered including hiking in the Appalachian Mountains, sailing in the Atlantic Ocean, and travelling the world. He also had a huge heart for all creatures, big and small. Everywhere he went and everyone he met could feel the warmth of his heart and his love for all life.

Bill also had a lifelong love affair with his work. In 1957, Bill and his family moved to Durham, North Carolina for a position at the Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University under J. B. Rhine. He remained there until Rhine retired in 1964. This was a remarkable time in many ways and it was during this period that Bill began to study poltergeists, a phenomenon which was to become the area within parapsychology in which he made the greatest contribution.

Between 1964-1985 Bill was the director of the Psychical Research Foundation where he continued his research in out-of-body testing and ESP experiments with mediums and psychics (also coined RSPK – recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis).

During his career as a parapsychologist, Bill appeared on numerous segments of Unsolved Mysteries, in the series A Haunting on Discovery Channel and other television documentaries. He served as a faculty member at the University of West Georgia and also wrote over one hundred scientific papers, contributed articles to anthologies, edited eleven volumes of Research in Parapsychology, and wrote four books, The Poltergeist, Theory and Experiment in Psychical Research, Psychic Connections (with Lois Duncan), and Unleashed: Of Poltergeists and Murder: The Curious Story of Tina Resch (with Valerie Storey). In 1996, Bill received the Outstanding Career Award from the Parapsychological Association and in 2002 he received the Tim Dinsdale Memorial Award from the Society for Scientific Exploration.

His memorial service will be held this summer in Denmark. Memorials may be made to the Parapsychological Association Inc. and the McLean County Nursing Home.

His family would like to thank the staff at the McLean County Nursing Home and OSF Hospice for all the loving care they gave Bill.

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For more information on the life and work of Dr. Roll, explore the following resources:

Dr Roll and his work in the University of West Georgia Ingram Library’s Special Collections

William G. Roll on Wikipedia

Dr. Roll’s Parapsychological Association profile

An Interview on ParaNexus Universe Paranormal Talk Radio  (skip the intro, begin at the 3 min point)

* student price is limited to first 50 students

Doctoral student Neil Walsh shares his appreciation of the education offered in this department.  He discusses how it is a return to the roots of Western education that emphasized character formation rather than skill training.  He warns potential students to not come here if they are seeking a practical, worldly learning experience.  He mentions Tobin Hart’s work in contemplative education and the return to the inner liberal arts.

An admin note: this department does not have an absence of training or skill-development opportunities.  It just doesn’t emphasize them or prioritize them.  They come along with the greater education, but are not available exclusively.

In this video, Doctoral student Neil Walsh shares his understanding of the research interests of several of UWG’s psychology faculty members.

It should be known that this is all based upon my experience, not based upon the words of some book.  I had some deeply meditative periods of my life, and I thus I know the difference between “trying” to meditate, and “surrendering” into meditativeness.  Let my years of groping and discovering be of benefit to you.

You Can’t Rush the Process

Meditation is not an activity, it is a state of expanded consciousness.  Unlike an activity that can be rushed,  the state of meditativeness takes time to develop.

A useful metaphor offered by a mediation teacher to me is that one’s presence is like a river.  It takes many tributaries or streams to flow into a river to make it a great river.  The conscious cultivation of presence, which is known as practice, delivers an additional stream to one’s presence.   The more diligently and regularly we gift ourselves the opportunity to come to the now, the more water in our river.

So, if one wants to develop from their status as a stream to that of the mighty Mississippi, we can approach it like an engineer to understand the most efficient means to that end.  And, if one is successful, then one day he/she might be given the grace of Existence and over flow beyond one’s banks, and experience the transpersonal states of nonduality.

What Does the Practice Need to Achieve?

Once you recognize that patient and regular practice is essential, then the natural question is which practice will deliver the most water into your river.  The answer to this questions is complex, as the answers are as plentiful as there are people asking the question.  However, there is a basic understanding that I’ve developed through my years of experimenting across the spectrum of practices that might help you in navigating this terrain.

Much of our initial stages of practice address our existing energy blockages.  Our energy system has certain channels and patterns to it.  These have been described as meridians (the energy pathways of TCM- Traditional Chinese Medicine) and the chakras (the seven wheel-like energy centers of the Hindu yoga system).   Intertwined with these energy systems, and their related blockages, are the blockages of our mind and emotions.

The first stage of meditation is then spent on releasing these blockages.  You can think of the blockages like a clogged artery, which becomes so encrusted with plaque that the blood cannot even flow through it.  Or, you can do a similar visual, yet with the plumber’s pipes- a pipe that is so clogged with crud cannot be an effective delivery system.

If our inner pipes are all clear, then the natural energies of life flow through us unimpeded, and we live deeply in the present, totally calm and confident in our true nature, and meditation permeates every moment of our lives.  This is the path to real joy.  This is our natural state of being.  We now live as cripples.

Types of Beginning Practices

How to unclog those blocked pipes ?  There are several approaches, all of which, I deem, are worth exploring.

Relaxation Practices & Activities:

The first category of approaches can be lo0sely termed relaxation.  Relaxation’s effect is that as the pipe itself relaxes, much like when you relax a tense muscle or your fists, there is an expansion that takes place.  Within this expansion of the pipes comes the opportunity for the crud to dislodge and flow away.  Without tension holding our pipes/channels tightly together, there is no gripping effect to hold our crud.

Relaxation approaches are many.  And, they need not “look” meditative.   A simple way of tapping into meditation is to lie down on your back, on a firm (not bed/sofa) surface.  Place your right hand on your hara, the point just below your navel, and the left hand on your heart.  Invite your attention to the body.  Notice your weight of the body on the floor, notice your breath, be with the experience of the body in the moment.  If your mind drifts into thought, see it, accept it, and move on… back to being mindful of the body.  Always invite, not demand, the mind to take interest in the body.  You’ll see find the movement and feeling of the body to be fascinating and comforting.  Do this type of practice once or twice a day, for one hour per session (set a subtle alarm).

This practice can also be done in the sivasana, corpse pose, yoga position, which is the same, yet the arms and hands are at the side of the body.  This can be done in total silence, or with soft, meditative music.  My music of choice is Tom Kenyon’s Soma.  It is an extraordinary three-stage album that lulls one into deep relaxation using beta/theta waves and masterful touches by this superb musicologist and spiritualist.  I used to do this for 1-2 hours per day, and another practice Breema for 3-4 hours per day, and I was enveloped in grace.

More common techniques of relaxation, such as getting massage/bodywork, sitting in a sauna/steam room/hot tub, etc, are all of value.  In addition, to really achieve the relaxation necessary to progress in meditation, one needs to bring this relaxedness into their daily life.  “Don’t sweat the small stuff- and it is ALL small stuff,” needs to become the posture.  Or, from a different angle, develop “an attitude of gratitude.”  Don’t worry, don’t rush.  Don’t be the type-A superhero that America so badly wants you to be.  Be willing to disappoint others.  Realize that you have “no where to go, no one to please,” that all is available in the “Here and Now.”  That you are good enough just being you.  That you have nothing to prove.

This relaxation stage of spiritual practice is usually the greatest stumbling block.  It is easy enough to sit for 20 minutes a day for “Buddhist” meditation, but that is 100% worthless in my eyes and my experience, if the whole of one’s life doesn’t become a supporting force.

One practice that has helped me tremendously in this stage is Breema Bodywork.  It is an approach to meditative mindfulness, to Being Present.  In the bodywork itself, there is an opportunity to passively receive.  And, Breema offers us the 9 Principles of Harmony which are directional principles.  The direction is towards harmony, and the path to getting there is to drop all of the resistances and tensions that we habitually carry.   The principles help unclog the pipes, so that we can be natural.

Confronting Suffering:

We’ve all heard that in Buddhism life is considered to be rooted in suffering.  We only resist this notion so long as we escape our suffering through tricky methods.  We avoid feeling by thinking, fantasizing, becoming dramatic, or watching dramas on the tube.  We are masters of avoiding ourselves.  Whether your drug of choice is booze or pot, Dungeons and Dragons or chess, movies or sports, we have mastered avoiding our experience in this moment.

If you want to face the suffering that you’ve been running from your entire life, then a great place to start is with Goenka’s Vipassana meditation.  The introductory 10-day retreats are offered around the world, and throughout the ten days one must obey the codes of personal conduct that include no self-pleasuring and “noble silence.”  Noble silence simply means that not only can you not talk, unless it is with the mediation leader in a private session, but you cannot touch or make eye contact with anyone.

I’ve done this 10-day meditation twice.  If I remember correctly, it is about day 4 that people begin freaking out inside.  When the whole outer world is silenced, and when you are constantly pointed away from your habitual escapes, you end up having to face the horrific monster of yourself.  You’ll clearly see how insane your mind is, how addicted you are to thoughts, and how deeply uncomfortable your body is with its lifetime of built-up tensions.

The whole point of confronting your suffering is that by shining the light of consciousness on it, by seeing and accepting it, it will fall away.  What keeps us in the dark is our fear to admit it.  Once we see how deeply tense our minds, bodies, and feelings are, we have gather the strength to face them.  Otherwise, we will live like the rest of America, if not humanity as a whole, like an ostrich with head in the ground, thinking that we are safe.

The 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat, with the teachings, food, and housing, is by donation.  It works on a pay-it-forward system.  The advantage of this is that in your peak of suffering you won’t be blaming them for taking advantage of you.

Active Practices:

Walking meditations, chi practices (tai chi, chi gung), yoga, sufi whirling, Gurdjieff movements, and Breema bodywork are some of the practices offering active components.  Some people just do active practices, and think that it is complete.  These people tend to be athletic types, and they avoid the necessary relaxation and feeling of one’s suffering that is necessary for the average person to transcend.

Active practices all directly approach “flow.”  They get you moving in a non-mental way, so that without your mind’s involvement a deeper flow of energy can be achieved.  Use these as supplements, but do not expect that they will fulfill all of your needs.  If they seem like “all” to you, then you are avoiding a deeper level of feeling.  Let these be your joy, not our ground.

Explosive Practices:

These are active practices on steroids.  They are intense, and totally push you beyond your comfort zone.  These practices are spectacular in bursting through our repressions.

Repressions are like pipes that are totally closed.  When someone reaches the extreme of total repression, their natural sex drive turns into a total condemnation of others sexuality.  They begin to see sex as the work of the devil, and they deny that they have any sexual urges themselves.  In some way they are being honest, as when the sexual pipeline is totally packed up with hardened crud, there is no sexual flow happening.

The belated spiritual teacher Osho offered the world some wonderful explosive practices.  Some are stages within one hour meditations, so that their is cathartic release before their is spiritual surrender.  Others are part of workshop “groups,” which are often multi-day experiences led by experienced group leaders.  I’ll mention a couple of these that have lasting impressions on me.

Emotional Freedom, not to be confused with the more well-known Emotional Freedom Technique, is a group often led by Veet Mano.  In this group, which I experienced many times and trained to be a group leader, the participants are led through stages of full-on emotional release.  This includes anger, sadness, joy, laughing, and tapping into one’s sexual feelings.   With padded walls, pillows to beat, loud music appropriate for each emotion, and very clear boundaries and directions, this safe, well-planned opportunity to tap into one’s emotions is priceless.  Veet does an excellent job at detecting where people’s blockages are, and works with them verbally and using role-playing to better uncover and release the emotional crud.

At the end of the process, I truly felt emotionally free.  I first tried this 15 years after I began mediating, and I was surprised how many pipes I had that were still clogged up with crud- emotional crud- much of which was rooted in my early childhood before my adult mind could understand why the world was as it is.

Other components of Osho meditations which have explosive effects include: acting out insanity in whatever way it comes out, doing gibberish and moving one’s body wildly simultaneously, and multiple approaches to screaming and shaking the body.

Not Starting With Intermediate Practices

There is this stereotypical guy in my head that we all want to avoid being.  In this case he is a real estate developer, and he spends his days buying, building, and selling building.  He makes a ton of money, and he feels like this reflects on his greatness.  Then he decides to go chill out.  He decided to tap into some zen-like calm.  He heads to the Buddhist meditation center, and he walks in with the intent to master meditation in his first week or two.  He wants it as another tool on his belt, another sign of his greatness.

But the sitting practice that he steps into is far beyond his capacity.  He should be learning his ABCs, not trying to create poetry.  So with all of his repressions and tensions, with the swirling of thoughts in his head, and his total disconnection to his body, he sets out in his ambitious endeavor.

Buddhist mediation centers are hotbeds of repression.  Tread cautiously.  There you will find people who are deeply familiar with spiritual texts, yet have limited, if any, spiritual experiences.  Buddhism is not a style, it is not something to identify with.  It is a practice pointing one deep within.  If one isn’t ready for it, it’s like teaching poetry to a 2 year old.

The Buddha came from a different time and place.  And, he didn’t have any 21st Century Western disciples.  His words don’t necessary point to what we need in order to open.  That is why modern teachers, such as Osho, have so much to offer.  They can see our neurosis, they can see our sense of performance, they can see how we beat on ourselves for not being perfect, and then they can devise methods to supports us from where we are starting.

If you step into the world of Buddhism before you blow through your anger and other emotions, and before you move deeply into relaxation, I believe there is no other beneficial way than to jump into an extended retreat, like Vipassana, so that you really face the suffering fully upfront.  Without that, it will be too easy to use your Buddhist practice and community as a crutch, as another tool of the ego to be better than others and to indirectly try to stop hating yourself.

Commentary

The more you focus on cleaning those pipes, the more water will flow to your river.  Eventually the water will continue to flow without even trying as the pipes will all be wide-open.

Relaxation has to be the core of your practice, as tense pipes will always squeeze in again and cause more blockages.  Part of relaxing is the physical practice of stillness, and the other part is opening up your sense of self so that you don’t take yourself and life so seriously.

If you get disappointed rather than angry at situations, if you can’t release anger with the intensity of a ship’s horn, then you need to practice opening up that channel.  If you can’t feel your disappointment with your parents, with the life, and most of all with how people treat each other, then your sadness is blocked, and you need to reopen that channel.  If you can’t laugh without control or concern for how you look, if you can’t tap into total drunkenness on life, then your laughter is suppressed.  Release your emotions and any other energy blockages so that you can be free and flowing.

The psycho-analytic term for the crud that is blocking the pipe is the shadow.  It is the crud that our we fight to avoid seeing.   A sign of psychological health is a willingness to see that crud.  In seeing it, the releasing of it begins.  If you ever have spoken with someone who is deftly defensive- someone with no desire, capacity, or availability to discuss their shortcomings- it is this crud in their channels that they are hiding from an crippled by simultaneously.  A hallmark of these people is that they can’t laugh at themselves.  This likely originates in their parental relations up until they were about four years of age.

So, before you jump into some deceptive sitting practice, go on a long retreat- 10 days minimum- so that you can get the grounding necessary to make strides on that path.  The masters all say that one should never begin meditating alone because the ego is a master of deception.

Related Topic

You have to value peace:  It takes an enormous commitment to simplifying your life in order to release the necessary stress for meditation to blossom.  If you don’t have a burning desire for freedom, it won’t work, so don’t waste your time and the frustration of failure.  If you are ready for meditation, you’ll need to cut off the voice of the other as much as possible.  This includes disconnecting from the mass media.  No tv, no newspapers, no web news.  You’ll likely need to cut all entertainment, and stop using Facebook.  You will need to take on the Breema principle of “no extra.”  You are complete as you are, and nothing extra can make you more complete.

You might have to leave your current life:  For centuries spiritual seekers went to the forests and mountains to find solitude and to connect to the natural rhythm of life.  As spirituality became more organized, there developed the retreat center.  In many traditions, particularly the Eastern ones, it is expected that you leave behind the householder life.  It is expected that you leave begin all obligations and attachments.   Some Western traditions, particularly Judaism, practice spirituality in the family and community and marketplace.  Yet my personal exposure to the mystics of Judaism, in Tzfat, Israel, and with those in India and Tibet, informs me to value the paths of isolation and retreat more.  Thus, retreating from the culture of your conditioning- which tugs your strings like a marionette- might be in your best interest.  May I recommend a couple years (or ten)  in India?

Right livelihood:  In simple terms, if one finds a way to earn a living that allows them to flow mentally, energetically, and emotionally, without facing resistances, then they have discovered right livelihood.  It is marked by the experience of grace, not by how closely it matches the ideas in our heads.  When one has found their right livelihood no energy dissipates, no pipes have leaks, no crud blocks one’s flow.  The grace of relaxation, heightened consciousness, and right livelihood, would be the perfect catalyst for transformation of our world into a more heart-centered, gentle, supportive place.

Links

Goenka’s Vipassana: American Centers

Breema Center: Oakland, CA

Osho: Articles and Mediation Resort in India

All subsidized student loans will seize to be offered as of July 1, 2012, so this is your last year to get them.  The program has been placed on hold for a ten year period.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that while undergraduate Pell grants have been saved, the negotiating card by Obama for this victory was to give up on subsidized graduate student loans.

They report that “Mark Kantrowitz, a student-aid expert and publisher of FinAid.org, estimates that the average graduate borrower will pay an additional $7,000 in interest on federal student-loan debt.”

So where are all of our students who have taken Chris Aanstoos’ Psychology of the 60s class?  Isn’t this the time that Chris prepared you to protest?

Ah, the apathy of 2011.

New PhD Student Orientation (cohort 5): Monday, Aug 15th at 4:00 PM.

All PhD Student Meeting: Friday, Aug 19th at 3:00 PM.

Classes begin on Monday, Aug 22nd.

Some books are already in the bookstore, but surely not all.  Please support this site, and purchase your books via the links on right side of this page.

Thanks, and enjoy the rest of your summer!