From Trauma to Inscendence
Link to File
From Trauma to Inscendence
by Mary C. Coelho, PhD
This essay is a deeply personal story about seeking to respond to a strong spiritual invitation and becoming conscious of the hidden reasons that prevented the author from responding fully, particularly a family tragedy that had an enormous spiritual cost. The essay describes the importance of the great breakthroughs in worldview brought by the new cosmology and the radical discoveries in physics. Coelho describes their importance for human self-understanding and as a foundation for entering the fullness of our being. Given the depth of our belonging revealed by the New Story, we dare to become aware of the consequences of trauma that may be buried in our consciousness, according to Coelho.
After identifying some of the consequences of the tragedy in her infancy, she then describes the way she became conscious of their influence on her daily life. The pathway to freedom from the power of what had been largely unconscious is described. This consciousness and healing opens a door to a spiritual deepening of the person. Upset that her suffering over many years was caused by a random event, Mary briefly explores how our understanding of randomness is changed in the context of the new cosmology.
The above water color, An Impeded Stream, is by Mary C. Coelho.
- Used by people who call the work: Story of the Universe, The New Story
- Applies a deep time evolutionary perspective to: Religion/Spirituality
- File:https://dtnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Trauma-to-Inscendence1.-Final-2.pdf
- Posted By: Jennifer Morgan
- Date Added: October 3, 2024
Dear Mary, I just finished listening to you paper that Jennifer share in the Cosmogenesis daily posts. I intend to contact you to express my appreciation of your inner journey of healing. I have a several articles by Christopher M Bache I think you may enjoy reading, if you haven’t already A Reappraisal of Teresa of Avila’s Supposed Hysteria . Mysticism and Psychedelics: The Case of the Dark Night On the Emergence of Perinatal Symptoms in Buddhist Meditation. Much respect and applause for you work to bring your perinatal trauma and love into consciousness to be alchemized in the ‘Heart… Read more »
Hi Sheila, I have to find the place in the website where you sent your email. I’m not good at finding my way around the website. All three topics you name are very interesting. Many thanks for your response. Mary
Sheila’s email is [email protected]
Thank you, Mary, for sharing your journey of healing. I am touched by how hard you have worked to unlock fear and pain. It strikes me that you have done the soulwork you were driven and needed to do, to arrive at a deep place of integration and peace.As your life continues to unfold, you are giving life to others.
Thank you Gretchen for your thoughtful words. I did need to do the work although some of it became conscious, not by my effort,
Dear Mary, Thank you for sharing such vulnerability, openness, and raw truthfulness about your life, your early wounding, and your healing journey. Your account touched many places in my own life journey and struggles and I appreciated both the vividness of your narrative along with the deep wisdom you bring to the possibilities of deepening even in the midst of such difficulties. Your integration of the psychological, spiritual, and cosmological is really profound and I too, feel that all these factors are intertwined in our lives and daily experience, so that the opening of one dimension of our inner life… Read more »
Thank you, Steve for all that you have written. I hadn’t thought of the stream continuing to flow as part of the image that is not shown in the painting. I have to think about how that might be painted, I think the water would be clearer so you could see more deeply into the stream and there would be some calm pools. Yes, opening the door to the “integration of the psychological, spiritual, and cosmological” is one of the gifts of the new story. Mary
Dear Mary, I was fortunate to be a part of the summer class led by Judith Keller when we carefully read your book Depth of Our Belonging, and communed with your paintings. Tonight, you will be talking in our Advanced Leadership Class. In preparation, I just read this paper. As a depth psychoanalytic therapist and a person also born into the family grief after the death of a son before me, I am moved by the long journey of healing. So many people do not understand how the protections and defensive patterns formed to survive trauma are unconscious and cause… Read more »