On My Mind
By Joseph Dispenza
November 14, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

Getting back to the garden

We are stardust, we are golden,
And we’ve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden.
 - Joni Mitchell, Woodstock

The Barack Obama presidency symbolizes the recovery of the youth within—reconnecting us with the high ideals and aspirations of our youthful selves. For me, the seemingly eternal presidential campaign just ended turned on a single string of images.

During the second debate between the two candidates in early October, the one with the “town hall” format moderated by Tom Brokaw, I found the body language of the two men so compelling that at one point I turned off the TV sound and just watched them dance around the little arena surrounded by neat banks of well-dressed citizens. Obama was as sprightly and bright-eyed as a young spaniel. He stood straight and smiled disarmingly and when he shifted his body position he glided easily from place to place.

McCain, on the other hand, his shoulders hunched up and his head bent, lurched around almost robotically. He seemed neck-less, stuffed into a too-small suit, a handicap that restricted his mobility and made his movements jerky. Over his tired eyes worry lines waved like a fear-flag before disappearing into his thin white hair.

With the sound off, Obama appeared like a youthful Romeo; McCain a scheming, misshapen Richard III or worse, a furious Lear. I had made up my own mind months earlier, but this evening, I thought, not only clinched the election for Obama, but was what the election was really about. The next morning Tom Shales, the TV critic for the Washington Post, observed telegraphically what could not have been missed by the millions watching that night: “Brokaw looked old. McCain looked old. Obama looked young.”

What has unfolded in the past few weeks and months is nothing less than the stuff of myth. The great changing of the guard in our culture—and it is now a world culture—signals a renewed hope in the future and the recovery of our own youthful high ideals and aspirations.

In the world of symbols, dreams and archetypes, the exhausted husk of the old yielding to the fresh energy of the young is a natural and necessary occurrence. It is Saturn, the old king, fading into the background so that Jupiter, the new king, can reign: the king is dead—long live the king! It is the Death Card of the Tarot, which signifies the transformation from the old and useless to the new and useful. It is the archetype of the Destroyer—Shiva, Angra Mainya, Cailech and all the other gods of Darkness—laying waste the past in order to make room for the next thing.

If we are to have a new world, the old world must die. The only other option is to cling to that which we know and sink with it like the victims of the Titanic (another apt symbol for the end of the old way of doing things and no accident that the story of the “unsinkable” ship has resurfaced, to widespread popularity, in our time).


We may think it a coincidence that Obama’s grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, died the day before the election, but in the land of myth this event fits perfectly with the archetypal pattern of passing the scepter. In dream language, the grandmother stands for all the ancestors back to the edge of time; when she dies, the hero, leading the new generation, can at last live fully and express himself in the world.

Without knowing it (these things are always unconscious), the greatest compliment McCain gave Obama during the campaign was to call him inexperienced. McCain, as the symbol of the “experienced”—the old, the used-up, the stale leftover for the compost heap from which would spring new life—was uttering his own death sentence and writing his own epitaph.

The great transformational drama playing itself out on the stage of our collective imagination has a special meaning and a particular poignancy for members of the Baby Boomer generation, my generation. I was surprised to find out a few years ago that the 78 million boomers in the US are only a small part of the estimated 450 million Baby Boomers worldwide, mostly in the industrialized countries, which is to say, in the countries involved in the mid-century world war.

The name of the revolutionary epic at hand is the Recovery of the Youth Within, wherein we who were born in huge numbers all over the world between 1946 and 1964 identify ourselves with the youthful new president and pick up, as if returning to a bookmark in a treasured volume we never finished reading, the elevated ideals of our own youth.

Those aspirations forged in the sixties were wrought from the burning desire to be wholly realized persons, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. The vision was an Aquarian dream of humankind as a vast interconnected tribe living in peace on a planet we had turned into a garden by our loving stewardship. It was about making ourselves and the world better, first by living personal lives of integrity, awareness and depth, then by completing ourselves through service in the world: maturing to adulthood as a spiritual path.

The boomer generation grew up in a unique historical moment. At the end of World War II, there was prosperity, a sense of expectation and hope about the future. As the boomers came of age, they pushed every imaginable social hot button, expanding the universe of choices people have, from civil rights to women’s rights to gay rights.

They became the most highly educated and wealthiest generation in history with a spending power of two trillion dollars a year. But they have spent far more than they have saved—much of it on themselves—part of a legendary self-indulgence that has a shadow side.

“When you look at us, we’re the most obese generation, the most drug-abusing, and we cause the most crime problems. We show the biggest increase in AIDS and new HIV infections,” says University of California-Santa Cruz sociologist Mike Males. “The conventional wisdom is that in our youth we were a wild generation—all kinds of partying, drugs and political protest. And then when we got older, we settled down and became very austere and clean living. But that’s not happened at all. We’ve actually gotten worse as we’ve aged,” Males says.

What became of the spiritually imbued promise of our youth? We had imagined a world where there would be “harmony and understanding, sympathy and trust abounding,” in the words of Hair’s anthem, “Aquarius.” While we have grown in years, we may not have matured emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Our entire generation appears to have gotten stuck in a kind of perpetual adolescence of self-absorption, greed, materialism and laziness.

Can Democratic primary voters have seen in Hillary Clinton and her husband the embodiment of that narcissistic and self-indulgent side of the boomer character, and rejected it? If so, it may be the first sign that we are ready to awaken from the long spiritual slumber into which we had sunk.

This is the vital importance to boomers of the Obama presidency. He is the symbol of our recovered youth and the promise of a second chance to change ourselves and, by so doing, change the world. Whatever we may be expecting him to do now that he is president, in a way he has already served the metaphorical purpose of the moment. Simply by being there, he has brought all of us to a place where we can reclaim the youth within and rise from there to a spiritual adulthood.

Whether we actually pick up the journey we began long ago, before we were detoured by the psychopathologies of our leaders, which were our own weaknesses magnified and projected, remains to be seen. On election night the CNN exit polls showed that boomers (Americans aged 45–64) voted 50 percent for Obama (the future) and 49 percent for McCain (the past), indicating that we may be ambivalent about or afraid to commit to the challenge of restoring our youthful ideals. Will we rise up to finish the humanitarian, world-healing work we envisioned or remain comfortably on the couch? This one may be too close to call.

The tide of the times, led by a man who also represents the integration of our shadow (Obama is half-black, half-white), could be so compelling as to be irresistible. We might imagine a loud rush of wings from all quarters, led by boomers all over the planet rediscovering themselves in the presidential avatar—us, but young. George Eliot says, “It is never too late to be what you might have been.”

Beginning the last third of our lives, we may at last be able to create the heaven on earth we imagined in our youth, when we had neither the resources nor the power to bring it about—by becoming fully realized, by becoming, finally, truly and in all ways adult.

If the election of Obama has taught us nothing else, it has brought home the clear and uplifting message, so woefully missing from the lexicons of recent occupants of the office: We can be better. We can make the world better. Yes we can.

Joseph Dispenza is the co-founder of LifePath in San Miguel and the author of several books, including God on Your Own: Finding a Spiritual Path outside Religion. He is a spiritual counselor in private practice.

Post-election anxiety
By Sergio Rodríguez

What has been called the longest US election race has finally finished. It has been interesting, exciting, emotional and extremely anxiety provoking. It is settled now; Barak Obama will be the next US president.

Now many people (including many San Miguel expats) will be able to begin recovering from a syndrome lurking around: Election anxiety. It surely has hit us hard, even in our peaceful town.

Being a therapist, I have noted how as election day got closer, people worried more and anxiety levels escalated. I have heard countless arguments about the vices and virtues of each candidate. People became restless, turning into TV news addicts and info junkies. Some, unable to bear the idea of not being up-to-date with what was said and done, angst-surfed the net endlessly for election blogs and online commentary. Some grew irritable and edgy, lost sleep or appetite, suffered headaches and increased nervous habits such as drinking, nail biting and smoking. The anxiety level skyrocketed the night of November 4. In bars and restaurants around town you could see all eyes stuck to the screens, while the tension defused or increased as the results became apparent. 

At some level, it was understandable to feel anxious; there were many things at stake. Obama himself summed things up: “Two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.” Will the anxiety recede now? Hopefully so, but probably not. 

You see, fear, anxiety and worrying are human natural responses and ways of being in the world. Fear is a normal reaction to actual or potential threat, while anxiety and worry usually come from psychological or social situations. As long as they remain within manageable levels, feeling anxious can even be healthy. Problems arise when the unpleasant feelings become overwhelming, unyielding, paralyzing or generalized. Then, it really does not matter what is going on in the outside world (e.g., the election’s outcome) since the worrying is coming from inside. The election just happened to be the most recent excuse to which these maladaptive patterns are latching. People facing this type of anxiety try to convince themselves (and others) that “as soon as ‘X’ is over, things will be all right.” However, as soon as it has happened, a new situation arises to worry about. There will always be good “reasons” to worry, right?

I invite you to observe yourself after knowing the results. Do you still feel tense, irritable, fearful, unsafe, stressed out, have sleeping problems, grind your teeth or present similar behaviors? Then the causes of your anxiety may be more within than out there (and as the old saying goes, you cannot outdistance that which is running inside you). If the anxiety seems excessive, constant, is difficult to control, leads to emotional distress, personal suffering or significant interference in work, school, home or social activities, it is advisable to do something about it (besides worrying, that is).

The good news it that you do not have to live that way. You can learn skills to manage election anxiety (and anxiety in general). Below are some suggestions.

Become aware of your thought patterns. How do you make yourself nervous? Hear your inner dialogue and note what you tell yourself.

Learn to breathe. Whenever we are stressed, our breath turns shallow, which in turn sends the signal to the body that we are in danger. Deep breathing may relieve tension, anxiety, headaches and chest pains.

Learn to relax. Among many ways to slow down your body and mind are mindful meditation, visualization, progressive muscle relaxation and yoga.

Take care of yourself. Eat well, get enough sleep, exercise regularly, get a hobby, join a club. Activity gets you out of your worrying mind and into your body. 

Develop and cultivate a social network. Socializing will make you feel better and improves your health.

Volunteer. Get out of yourself and the vicious anxiety circle by focusing on helping others. San Miguel offers plenty of opportunities.

Talk to a specialist. If these strategies are not enough, you may consider talking to a therapist or even explore whether medication is an option for you.

These suggestions will help to improve your health and quality of life. Stress and anxiety can be handled; even in these stressful times. Follow these suggestions or join a stress management class to learn ways to keep them within manageable levels.

Sergio Rodríguez, M.A., may be contacted at LifePath, Recreo 80, 154-8465 or 044 (415) 112-5222, or via email: seroca25@msn.com  if you would like to learn more about this topic.

A prayer for Barack Obama on Election Day 2008
By Art Bone

Editor’s note: This letter was sent out by email and I requested permission to publish it from the author, Art Bone, who writes motorsports sagas for Atención.

Obama reminds me of another young African-American man with not one, but two, funny names. Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali, like Barack Hussein Obama, had strength when strength was needed, speed when speed could save the day and, most importantly, intelligence when the other two failed. In some of his most brilliant bouts, Ali won not by overpowering his opponents, but by letting them defeat themselves.

It is six o’clock on the morning of the day I believe will change America in the most fundamental way. America has done wonderful things. She’s tamed the West, won wars, gone to the moon, built a magnificent country stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific. One of the things she hasn’t done is conquer her own racism, and today she seems poised to take a huge step in that direction.

Obama is going to win this election, not because he’s part black or because he’s got a funny name, but in spite of that. He’s going to win because, when the voters looked at him and looked at his opponents, it was clear who was the most intelligent, had the best judgment and had the best ideas for the future of this country. And this country, arguably more than any time in the last eighty years, desperately needs that intelligence, judgment and wisdom right now.

This election is not about his needs, but ours.

As a confirmed atheist, prayer doesn’t spring readily to my lips (or my fingertips.) It’s hard for me to know who to address a prayer to, but desperate times call for desperate measures, so here goes:

To whatever invisible man in the sky is watching and listening:

Please let this young man reach his full potential, not for me or him but for the United States of America and the world. Protect him from physical illness, political chicanery and assassins’ bullets. Prepare 

him for the titanic struggle ahead. Let him lead our nation, not to monetary or military security, for there is no such thing, but to be a moral, temperate and just society. Let him lead by appealing to the 

best that we have in us, not the worst. Let him use the power of the United States to lead the world by example, not by force.

I believe that Barack Obama, like Martin Luther King, has been to the mountaintop and seen the Promised Land and, like Dr. King, he probably won’t be able to lead us all the way there. But please let him lead us on the next leg of that journey.

In the words of Dr. King, “Let us not wallow in the Valley of Despair” but build our nation into a beacon of Hope, Justice and Equality.

By the time anyone reads this, the election will be decided and the party hats put away. Then will begin the hard work of restoring our nation. The struggle will be all uphill, but I’m looking forward to the next four years.