We need to know about transformation. We need to hear transformation stories. We need to be encouraged, inspired, and uplifted. It is too easy to lose sight of where we are going, to forget our possibilities, to get stuck in the work of getting there. It is too easy to begin to believe that women's lives are only about oppression and struggle, pain and limitation, and to forget to see the magnificence and power of being a woman in the 21st century. In my mind, we are at the 3rd wave of feminism which is a time of personal and planetary transformation. ---Joyce Gayles, Ph.D. April 13, 2000 As a psychologist since 1985, I have been working with individuals to transform their lives. I have been aware of my own personal process of healing and transformation for 20 years now. I have been both an experiencer and an observer of this process. I am aware of transformation on a planetary level and the interplay between individual transformation and the transformation of our world. Tools of Transformation Stages of Transformation Characteristics of the Transformed Life

Transformation is about change, a change of consciousness. Sometimes transformation has the quality of the laser, or of lightning, like the Tower card in the Tarot. Sometimes, probably most times, transformation happens like the gradual shifting depicted in images of the snake shedding her old skin.

No matter whose voice we hear...from Alan Cohen to Audre Lorde to Joanna Macy to the futurist Marilyn
Fergerson...transformation of our world begins as an
"inside job." In other words,"If I not part of the solution, then I'm part of the problem." What I do and don't do makes a difference.

Prominent scholars such as Joseph Campbell and Marija Gimbutas emphasize that transformation is based in feminine consciousness with its focus on cooperativeness and harmony, the more mystical and magical aspects of life, the power of our connection to the earth, and right brain openness that is a foundation of creativity and inventiveness.

We live in an evolutionary reality. It is easy to forget that when we see only short segments of time. Yet the process is excelerating. Transformation is the experience on our planet. We can lose sight of this if we focus our attention too narrowly.

Transformation occurs when we use psychotechnologies for change. Humans have always created technologies for transformation. In our ancient histories (to some extent in our current one) sacred ritual and ceremony, initiation rites, storytelling and the passing on of knowledge and skills by oral tradition were technologies of transformation. These experiences awakened us, guided our exploration, supported us through the emptying and the birthing of our new selves.

Our current psychotechnologies include a whole array of arts and sciences for the body, mind/emotions and spirit. There are countless body disciplines and therapies such as yoga, Tai Chi, karate, dance and movement therapies, various types of body work, to name just a few that shift the energies in the body, support the release of old patterns, and help us to be able to live more comfortably in physical form. Approaches like biofeedback and autogenic training, help the body to be in a relaxed and alert state of consciousness.

There are contemporary psychotherapies, which support our movement through the process of transformation.
Approaches like EMDR, Eidetic Imagery, Neurofeed-back change the patterning in the brain so that old, traumatic based patterns can release and be replaced with more transformative ones. There have long existed self-help and mutual-help networks whose rules or steps include paying attention to one's conscious processes, acknowledging that one can choose behavior, and cooperating with a "higher power" by looking within.

Experiental seminars like Life Training and Lifespring attempt to break the cultural trance and open individuals to new choices. There are also feminist consciousness raising groups and other experiences, such as Dialogue Racism, that awaken awareness and alter old patterns.

Meditation techniques of many descriptions: Zen, Tibetan Buddhist, Transcendental, Kabbalist, Christian, etc., help put our minds and energies into a calm and heightened state of awareness.

The whole array of what we call "New Age" practices, magical arts, ritual, and spirituality connect us to realities beyond those of third dimension.

Physically exhilarating activities, such as skydiving, scuba diving, iceskating, can cause a qualitative shift in ones sense of being alive. Wilderness retreats and sensual experiences that connect us to nature foster self-discovery and a sense of timelessness.

There are identifiable stages of transformation:

1. Awakening
2. Exploration
3. Emptying/Loss
4. Disintegration/Dark Night of the Soul
5. Birthing of a New Self/Life
6. Movement toward Integration
7. Coming into Fullness

In the transformation process, we become artists and scientists of our own lives.

In the transformed life, our perceptions are changed, we become whole-seeing and creative.
We become playful and recapture the childlike qualities of being human.
We let go of our denial and rigidity and open to flow.

The Transformed self has access to new tools, gifts, and sensibilities. Like the artist, it sees patterns, it finds meaning, and its own originality.
Like a good scientist, the transformed self experiments, speculates, invents and relishes unexpected discoveries.

Awake to the impact of culture, the transformed self attempts to understand diversity with great curiosity and interest.

It understands that diversity is the reality of endless human possibilities
The transformed self is a student of the bonds of community ,
yet it knows about realms beyond linear time and limitations.
The transformed self is a visionary, imaging alternative futures and designing its own realities.

The transformed self is successful in the "stuff of life", and
is co-creator of all that is transforming our world.

--Marilyn Ferguson, 1976