The siren call of Mystic Activism
A Mystic Activist in service to the Anima Mundi asks humbly, How can I help? and then waits patiently for the response from the soul of the world.
A Substack post by Jungian therapist and author Satya Doyle Byock entitled “The Activist vs. the Mystic” caught my eye recently; her description resonates so much with how I feel in these tough early days of 2025:
“The Activist wants to save everyone who can be saved and protect our democracy from inconceivable (yet painfully conceivable) decline. The Activist is terrified. The Activist is grieving. The Activist is worried and reading and meeting with neighbors.
“The Mystic trusts that times of decline refine our connection to life itself, to the meaning of existence, the power of community, and the importance of LOVE. The Mystic knows that struggle begets greater consciousness. The Mystic has faith. The Mystic trusts the dreams that say: you are strong; this is necessary; there is life after death.”
Byock goes on to quote mythic storyteller and wisdom keeper Michael Mead, who shared in a recent newsletter:
“In troubled times it becomes important to know that at every threshold there are creative energies waiting to enter the world through us. As everything else seems to fall apart, the deep ‘knowing self’ within us moves closer to the surface and seeks to become known.
“Personal and collective crises may threaten our habitual ways of being on one level, while opening the doors of vision and understanding on another level. Threshold moments and transformative events can break time open and reframe our entire life, altering its trajectory and renewing its vitality.”
Byock doesn’t take her inquiry much further than this, beyond posing a potent question to her audience: “Is there an inner transmutation or battle between your Mystic and Activist taking place? What is trying to come through you in these times?”
YES! I want to shout at her in answer—I feel acutely the interchange between my inner Mystic and Activist, and yes, I feel there is an important opening to be explored in the creative tension between these two ways of perceiving and going at the world.
Looking back through history, it seems that when those two inner archetypes merge strongly in a single person, it supercharges the ability of that person to influence others and shape the world.
The Activist and the Mystic are most powerful when they work hand in hand, the Mystic striving to listen for the inner promptings of intuitive guidance, and the Activist taking that inner wisdom out into the world, where so much needs attention.
But it can be dangerous when these two archetypes fuse in a person who believes they have a “God-given” task to change the world. That’s how religions are founded…as well as destructive cults of personality.
It’s important, especially in our troubled time, to distinguish between mystics who have an inflated sense of ego and mystics who are humble receivers and transmitters of messages received from metaphysical or transpersonal Source.
Here is what Source is saying through me today:
Every single component of Gaia, from the tiniest particle to the largest animal or tree, participates in the sacred dance between the nonphysical creative matrix (pure cosmic energy) and the physical world with all its heavy, embodied limitations and possibilities.
We humans like to give ourselves an exalted role in this co-creative process, but that is just the ego muscling its way in and trying to proclaim, “I alone can fix it!”
Humans can break things, humans can fix things, but only to the extent that their divine inspiration (what Socrates called his “Daemon”) is activated and channeled into the physical world.
A Mystic Activist in service to the Anima Mundi asks humbly, How can I help? and then waits patiently for the response from the soul of the world, which encompasses the entire Gaian spectrum of energetics and physicality, both the 2% of matter and energy that humans can measure, and the 98% that we only dimly infer exists.
These early days of 2025 have been marked by great strife and division, with activists called upon to take a side and shape the world according to their own competing, polarized visions.
My challenge as an activist is to stay in touch with my inner mystic—the one who hears the sacred bell tolling beneath all the static and noise of the present moment, the one who understands that we who are embodied now on Earth are here to listen closely for our calling, and let ourselves become a conduit for that which can come forth only through us.
I am trying to understand the heinous, perfidious, cruel, vindictive rage driving the people behind “Project 2025” as a manifestation of their own version of mystic activism.
But it is a perverted form, as are all religions that seek to impose by force their own way of thinking (and guilt, fear, deception and seduction are all forms of violence).
The challenge of our time is to resist all forms of dogma and indoctrination while still staying attuned to the inner bell of mystic activism that calls us to become servants dedicated to the higher good of all life on Earth, the greater good of Gaia herself, of which each of us is a tiny but vital part.
In the vastness of the Anima Mundi, size is irrelevant. We are each as individual as a snowflake, yet we can come together as a blizzard that brings the physical world to a halt.
For those who oppose the current takeover of America by activist zealots, our task now is to stay grounded in the higher truth of our purpose as incarnated beings in this particular time of strife and sorrow, and to do what we came here to do: to sow Light, seed Peace, and manifest a vision of a kinder world in which humans live in harmony with each other and our great Mother Gaia in all her myriad forms.
When we bring together our inner Mystic and Activist, we become powerful agents of transformational change. Mystic activists are not here to impose our vision, but rather to invite, to persuade, to soften—and yes, to resist when resistance is appropriate and necessary.
To those of you who are writers, I ask: do you hear the clarion call sounding now?
It’s calling you to your task, telling you clearly that now is your time to channel what you know into writing that can inspire others. Now is your time to write to right the world.
Yours in the tossing sea of the Anima Mundi,
Jennifer
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Yes! This resonates so deeply for me. I am grateful for you putting into words how I am feeling about being here in this time of absolute madness. Love the quotes you chose by Byock and Meade. I am making a conscious daily practice of deepening my connection to the mystical realm, knowing that only then can I be of good use in the physical realm. And the living Earth, Gaia, has been an absolute saving grace in lifting me up and grounding me. Just to lean on a tree and breathe. I'd be lost without it right now.
"...our task now is to stay grounded in the higher truth of our purpose as incarnated beings in this particular time of strife and sorrow, and to do what we came here to do: to sow Light, seed Peace, and manifest a vision of a kinder world in which humans live in harmony with each other and our great Mother Gaia in all her myriad forms." Yes!
Thank you, Jennifer. I too have been listening for “what is mine to do” and feeling the two inner archetypes negotiating their both/and balance. Your post is great good for thought. :)