Shaping
the Cloud

Chronology and Self

Just as every state has some element of duration, every story has a component of time. Some stories have linear narratives that take you from beginning to end in a straight line. Some move generally in one direction but jump over irrelevant periods. Some stories may be told through multiple points of view that run through time parallel to each other. Some are told through backstory, through unpredictable jaunts forward and backward in time, and even through entirely random sequences. While human life is usually represented as a straight line from birth to death, our minds rarely operate in a linear fashion. We respond to the movies, stories, and novels that are told in flashbacks, foreshadowing, and parallel story lines because that’s how our minds often organize our own memories and experiences.

The straight line state of mind may be an artifact of language and the metaphors that we use. The associations that we use to recall memories often have more to do with state than chronology. The feeling of a state can initiate transderivational search, flipping through a range of memories with the same feeling. When someone feels sad, everything they remember is a bummer, and when someone feels joy, everything they remember about life is good. The same holds true for other kinds of anchors; for instance, the smell of apple pie may bring up memories of childhood or mom or favorite desserts of the past decade. It may be that only after we retrieve a memory via association do we apply the linear structures, much the way we might piece together the chronology of a fictional mystery only after enough clues have been revealed.

And the solution to that mystery is … ourselves. Outside of conscious awareness, the brain somehow manages to pull all kinds of wonderful story elements from the fractal complexity of our ongoing experience. Chronology. Plot. Characters, including that principal character, the self. These are all constructs, creations, beliefs that we make about who we are; self-created meaning applied to … self.

The sense of self assures us that we are the same person from moment to moment, that there is a continuity of something that we identify as “self.” A network of structures in the right frontoparietal area of the brain appears to account for the identification of “self” in the present moment.¹ When this area is damaged, anesthetized, or disrupted with a magnetic beam, subjects are unable to recognize their own face in a mirror and may not recognize their own limbs as belonging to themselves. Normally, the brain continues to identify “me” even though it might be an angry me, a bold me, a shy me, a me who hasn’t yet had his or her morning coffee, or a me on a woohoo-saturated adventure. Behavior and experience may be totally different, yet we still “know” who we are—unless somehow that area of the brain is shut down.

Of course, that part of the brain participates in the dance of information between the mirror neurons and the default network. Just as we make judgments about memories of every kind, we also apply a similar yardstick to the internal representations we make of ourselves. In fact, every memory includes ourselves and the submodality information that modifies the form of that memory tells us something about who we were then. The “self spot” in the brain applies the “me” to the memory regardless of what state, actions, knowledge, and entities were in ascendance at that time. When we get past that illusion of “me,” however, we may find that the starring role in the tale was performed by a cast of actors, with a large supporting cast of internal entities representing friends, family, acquaintances, and everyone else who plays a part. And along with the “real” people in our memories, many supporting roles are played by imaginary entities, from the tiny embodied metaphors of our language, to the big, culturally based memetic entities responsible for religion, politics, ethics, morals, science, and so on. Each one of these internal representations has its own chronology, its own tale, its own life and deeds. And these are all part of us, part of the full-sensory story that we experience as our lives.

Once a memory is moved from short-term memory in the hippocampus to long-term memory throughout the brain, the storage system is not particularly chronological. Older memories may start to lose detail as they become compressed more and more into the implied “brain language” of submodality information. They become more vague and the states become more memorable than the content of the experience. You remember how good it felt to be on vacation all those years ago, but perhaps forget the name of the really nice waiter in the restaurant or the color of his eyes. Older memories can be brought back into short-term memory and revived at any time via memory reconsolidation. Aside from the differences in how older memories are stored, the memories are organized by association. Timelines and other metaphors for time seem to be a way of sorting through all of this stored experience and thought, useful structures for bringing memories into conscious awareness.

The Cloud

As the matrix within which we can find timelines and other chronological metaphors, think of our memories, including all our accumulated knowledge, experience, skills, preferences, and tendencies, as a cloud-like array. For many people, this is a fairly random formation and the associations made between one memory and the next are likewise based on the happenstance of state. Alternatively, magical and metaphysical traditions often seek to sort these perceptions and experiences into consciously created categories, providing an overall structure and shape for our lives. For instance, in the tradition of Qabala, the world—our collection of experience and knowledge—becomes organized into the shape of the Tree of Life. States are categorized into the ten sephira, and transitions, associations, and combinations of these states are collected onto the paths between them. In traditions of yoga, experience and states are organized via the chakra system. In astrology, the stuff of our lives is arranged on the chart of our planets and signs.

If you notice that the metaphors we use to shape the entirety of our lives are the same variety of elements as those used to shape our internal entities, you get a gold pentagram. Everything we recognize as an entity is based in the same neurocircuitry that makes our own minds. Our world or universe as a whole can be experienced as the largest entity yet, a fractal reiteration of consciousness on a grand scale. Once we are able to recognize the pattern on this larger, higher, deeper (or submodality term of your choice) level, then we can move the bit of consciousness marked “I” (your point of view) through it in any number
of ways.

First let’s conduct a little experiment to find out how your cloud of perceptions and memory is sorted now.

Exercise 10.1 Cloud Watching

 

Create a list of the most important states in your life. If you’ve experimented with the exercises to this point, you’ll have some idea of what kinds of things you’ll want to work with. You can include states like sleep, meditation, or trance, or states that relate to qualities in your life such as compassion, patience, focus, work, and so on. These can be generalized and the list need not include every single kind of state, just the main ones that help to define your life. This list can be created by asking an entity, as we did when finding elements, or it may already be obvious to you. For this particular exercise, stick with states rather than using a traditional metaphysical system.

 

For each state you have listed, access a range of memories by transderivational search:

 
• Recall a single experience of a state.
 
• Pay attention to the feeling associated with the state.
 
• While experiencing that feeling, let your mind find other memories in which you had a similar feeling. Notice how these additional memories are accessed—whether they come easily, which senses are involved, what information you can recall that you haven’t thought of in a while, and so on.
 
• Notice the location of these memories. Again, we are thinking about location as a submodality quality, where you place the representation of the memory in your cloud of perceptions. Once a memory is accessed, however briefly (and some may take only a fraction of a second to identify, or may be identified too quickly for conscious awareness), it can be represented to consciousness as a shape, icon, or presence in space—constant awareness of the content is not necessary.
 
• Repeat with the rest of the states on
  your list.

 

Notice the overall shape of the cloud. Remember or record this shape, if possible.

Your cloud may be symmetrical or asymmetrical; it may be regular or irregular; it may have an identifiable geometric shape or it may not. This configuration of memories and experience is as unique to each of us as our retinal pattern or kitchen clutter. Actually, it is probably more like the kitchen clutter; it can be organized and adapted to different configurations and environments. That is, you can change the shape of your cloud at any given time (and, very likely, you already do; you can find out by repeating your cloud watching on different occasions, in different states).

Navigating the Cloud

The cloud is the medium within which the story of your life is stored. A personal narrative is formed by the associations between memories, represented metaphorically by the way you navigate through the cloud. By choosing new ways to move through the cloud, new narratives can be created and resources can be carried from one area of life to another.

In occult Qabala, the magician has a choice of how he or she will explore the sephira, whether the journey starts at the bottom or the top of the tree, whether it moves sequentially, in the numbered order of the spheres, or whether it zigs and zags in different patterns. Likewise, the way that you explore and move through your cloud to identify or create narratives can follow a variety of differently shaped paths. The following exercise explores a method for creating these paths and patterns.

Exercise 10. 2 Cloud Hopping

 

Imagine the shape of your cloud matrix. If necessary, you can enlarge the shape, blow it up so that it is large enough to walk around in. If such a size is too unwieldy for your space, you can imagine the size and navigation without physically moving.

 

Create a geometric shape within the cloud. These shapes can be two- or three-dimensional. They can be timelines or they can be figures whose meaning is not known until you explore them. Suggested shapes include circles, squares, triangles, spirals, cubes, and pyramids. Imagine the shape superimposed within your cloud.

 

Either physically or imaginatively, move along the lines of the geometric figure you have created, experiencing states and memories as you pass through them. The speed you travel may determine the amount of detailed information that you experience as you move through. It is not necessary to consciously retrieve all memories or information; get as much as you feel comfortable with.

 

Notice if new personal narratives occur to you, new ideas about yourself, or new ideas about your world. Remember or record these.

 

Repeat with different geometric figures.

What you carry with you through life, your beliefs, attitudes, presuppositions, skills, and tools, will also change how you respond to the perceptions and situations that you encounter. Just as it was possible to carry a state and/or entity up and down your timeline, you can bring states and resources with you on your journey through your cloud.

Exercise 10.3 Energy Cloud

 

Imagine the shape of your cloud matrix.

 

Create a geometric figure within it, as in the previous exercise.

 

Create an energy flow within your body for a powerful, positive, and resourceful state.

 

Move through the cloud, along the lines of the geometric figure, experiencing states or memories as you pass through them.

 

Notice if new personal narratives occur to you, new ideas about yourself, or new ideas about your world. Remember or record these.

 

Repeat with different energy flows and
geometric figures.

Exercise 10.4 God/dess’s Choice

 

Imagine the shape of your cloud matrix.

 

Create a god/dess by one of the methods
explored previously.

 

Ask the god/dess what geometric shape it prefers to navigate through the cloud.

 

Step into the god/dess.

 

Create the geometric figure.

 

In the form of the god/dess, move along the lines of the geometric figure.

 

Notice if new narratives occur to you, about your self or about the god/dess, or new ideas about your world. Remember or record these.

 

Repeat with different energy flows and
geometric figures.

While these exercise descriptions are brief, you could literally spend the rest of your life exploring inside your cloud. And, in a sense, that’s pretty much what we do, consciously and unconsciously, all day long—although in a somewhat random and haphazard way. We go in and out of states as we encounter anchors within the maps of our environment. The exercises offer guidelines for making conscious and even purposeful explorations.

Cloud Organization

We can decrease the randomness and increase the woohoo by making a few adjustments to the shape and organization of the cloud. Rather than applying a traditional metaphysical system as the organizing principle, we can organize the whole structure of our cloud in the same way we organize other representations of the whole. We can ask an entity for a set of elements, for the factors that make us who we are, and then sort our memories and experiences through the elemental arrangement, as in the following exercise.

Exercise 10.5 Elementary Cloud

 

Select a god/dess who has toured through your cloud in its present form, as in the God/dess’s Choice exercise.

 

Ask the entity what it believes the defining elements of your consciousness may be. Make a list and remember or record it. This list may be similar to your original collection of states from which you derived the cloud, or it may be very different.

 

Ask the entity what shape to arrange the elements. Be open to any kind of arrangement. Elements may be distinct or may overlap each other. Elements may be arranged symmetrically or asymmetrically.

 

Imagine the new elemental arrangement superimposed over your existing cloud. Begin to sort memories, ideas, behaviors, and everything else you’ve got in there into these elemental zones. Some may be filed in more than one category. This can be accomplished in several ways:

 
• Stand or imagine yourself in a zone. Recall or create an experience that relates as purely as possible to that element. Use the Transderivational Memories technique to allow your mind to range through associated experiences. Repeat at least twice for each zone.
 
• Ask the god/dess or other entities to sort the experiences for you. Make sure that you observe this in at least symbolic form.
 
• Look, listen, or feel the complete shape of your cloud and identify what submodality markers are associated with each element. Memories might be tagged with colors, shapes, words, sounds, or particular feelings. Sort the memories into elemental zones based on these sensory distinctions that you have made in your metaphoric model. For instance, send all the glowing blue ones into the zone for “relaxation,” all the dark red ones into the zone for “passion,” and so on, depending on your chosen elements and the sensory markers that you have noticed.

 

Notice any thoughts, epiphanies, or new narratives that occur to you.

Think of these reorganized clouds as experimental efforts—as something that can be modified, changed, or done away with at any time. In fact, it is possible to have a repertoire of different elemental qualities and cloud shapes; you can select the most appropriate one for whatever situation you find yourself in. To do this properly, these cloud structures are best worked out and practiced ahead of time, before they are needed. Each can be recalled with an anchor of some sort, a word, a symbol, or, if it is unique enough, the shape of the cloud arrangement itself.

We can take these shapes and have even more woohooful fun with them by applying some of our submodality knowledge to the totality of the cloud.

Exercise 10. 6 The Silver Lining

 

Imagine the total shape of your cloud, in whatever arrangement you prefer to work with. See it, feel it, and hear it as a single unified object.

 

Adjust submodalities for the entirety of the shape. Move the shape into a location that has a lot of woohoo. Make your representation of the cloud bigger, shinier, or more colorful. Add sparkles, glows, diffraction, or whatever increases the good feelings, interest, intrigue, and general level of woohoo.

 

Remember or record this representation.

 

Notice any thoughts, epiphanies, or changes in your life as a result of this adjusted shape.

Once you have found a cloud shape that is personally appealing and full of woohoo, you can repeat the Energy Cloud and God/dess’s Choice exercises, moving through the newly adjusted cloud to find new associations, ideas, and narratives. But now, of course, it is probably a more definite shape and you may want to call it something other than a cloud. Just as the qabalistic Tree of Life suggests the shape of a tree, perhaps you can find a pattern of wholeness in your former cloud that has an obvious and useful name.

The stories that can be derived from journeys through these “organized” clouds often suggest more in the way of mythic narrative than clouds in their original forms. Hierarchies of states and entities may become apparent. Different stories can emerge depending on which direction you move through the representation, transitioning from one element to the next. Again, this is similar to Qabalistic practices in which the magician moves up, down, or following the paths of serpents or lightning bolts, between and through the sephira. Following these practices, narratives and diverse ideas may come to you as a result of conscious efforts to derive them or they can subtly replace the background presuppositions of your life and generate almost-unnoticed shifts in attitude and awareness.

Once again, these techniques are general guidelines for practices that might continue for years—or a lifetime. Hopefully, as you get involved in mining relevant stories from your mind, specific details will emerge with greater clarity and frequency. And, again, these can be very simple, linear narratives, or they can be complex, non-linear, and featuring a cast of thousands. All the details are right there in your cloud of consciousness, your map of the world; you have all the tools and concepts you need to create your own kick-ass, sparkling, shining, mighty, mythic tales of woohoo.

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