March/April 2003 Living Now
An Interview With Jean Houston

by Connie Hill

Jean Houston is the author of numerous books including Jump Time, A Passion for the Possible and her newest, Mystical Dogs. She also leads students from all over the world on a journey of change in her mystery school. The west coast branch of the school is held in Wilsonville at Living Enrichment Center.

Connie: In your newest book you talk about the many dogs you've had over the years and the lessons each has taught you. Tell me about the first one, Chickie.

Jean: Chickie was my first dog. She's a wonderful mix of Welsh corgi and bearded collie. In my book I talk about how each dog gave me deep spiritual insight. They exemplified stages of the mystical path, and Chickie, the state of awakening. Chickie took me everywhere. I crawled after her as she sniffed out deer scat, mice holes, squirrel trails and bug runs. She taught me to be alert to what was seen and unseen.

Chickie was with me during the most important experience of my life. After seeing a movie I was hoping that the Virgin Mary would appear for me the way she did for Bernadette. But it was just Chickie who kept coming back into my closet grotto with her pups. It was then that I understood that she was the essence of the Madonna. I realized that the dogs in the closet, the fig tree in the yard, the railroad, the little boy fishing in the lake and me--everything was part of everything else. A very important part of my knowing was that this experience was not exceptional; it's coded into our bodies, minds and souls. In the book I tell stories that I think will keep people laughing, thinking about these different dogs and how they revealed different stages, like purification, release, illumination, creativity and vision, also rapture, deep contemplation, the dark night of the soul and finally union. I illustrate it with stories of how dogs really give us access to these important parts of life. They love us, take care of us, teach us, feed our souls and always give us the benefit of the doubt.

Connie: I liked the stories of Champ who took you through a time of grief.

Jean: That's why I use him to represent the stage of release, purification. He was with me as I went from child to adult. Champ introduced me to old men on the street. One turned out to be a shop owner, Dr. Beidermeir, who had sold antiquities to Sigmund Freud. He taught me how to appreciate, date and repair antiquities. I'm an antiquarian by avocation.

Connie: Do you still have Luna, the moon dog?

Jean: Oh, yes she's right here. She's a beautiful and very large dog and she looks like a wolf. But a very elegant wolf turned out by Vogue! That's her picture at the beginning of each chapter. She's a phenomenally beautiful dog and she's a spirit dog. When you see her you have a profound sense that she lifts the heart from the ravages of every day existence. That's why I put her in the chapter where the soul attains union with the one. You look in her eyes and you see all the other dogs. She's really a very inspiring animal.

Connie: I was taken with Nova, the medical intuitive. It's amazing that she goes and lays on the part of a person's body that needs healing.

Jean: She's a Xolo (pronounced "sholo"). They have been doing that for thousands of years. Many dogs and cats have that ability. They have many senses we don't have. I wrote about how we err when we think we should measure animals by ourselves. Dogs are not underlings. They are other nations with capacities we have lost.

Connie: I think it is interesting how, we in this country, measure everything as if we are better, including many cultures we look down on.

Jean: Many native cultures have preserved the wisdom of how to get along with each other and the earth. They have not lost the intuitive and instinctive relationship to the world and each other. I was a representative of the UN global meeting in December in Marrakech. Several thousand world leaders attended and the United States wasn't mentioned once.

Connie: There's some reason we're where we are though. Many of the people I know are here to change the idea that we are better than anyone else.

Jean: More people do have that awareness. With the internet we are interconnected in ways that we never were before. We are part of the world mind taking a walk with itself. In our life time we have moved from a tribal or national point of view to a cosmopolitan, planetary sensibility. It means lifting and releasing habits of millennia. In my mystery school I always deal with the extraordinary mystery of the present. Other times in history thought they were "it." They were wrong, this is the most powerful and interesting time in history. It's no longer possible for us to live pale and diminished versions of ourselves. We need a new mind with expanded senses, a deepened mind and a profoundly enhanced spirit to be able to deal with something as complex as our time.

Connie: What is a mystery school?

Jean: A mystery school is my version of an ancient school where people learn things that they really needed to know that they never learned in school. This will be its 20th year. All the exercises, processes and lectures involve intentional repatterning of physical, psychological and internal life to enable the activation of many human potentials.

Connie: What it says to me is that it opens people's minds so that they are able to go back into their part of the world and make change.

Jean: That's right and they do it. Ninety percent of the people who come to the mystery school have a very creative, conscious and compassionate impact on their society. What happens is that you are able to restore the sense of personal power and possibility and enhance the capacity for accomplishment. You'll be able to confront this time which is fraught with both ambiguity and promise by exploring the deeper meaning of what is trying to happen. You become a social artist. It's not an innocent thing. People go into a mystery school and come out profoundly able to do things they were never able to do before.

Connie: Well, Jean, thank you for taking the time to talk to me and I look forward to seeing you when you are at New Renaissance Bookshop in March (see below for the date and time).

Join Jean Houston at New Renaissance Bookshop on Thursday, March 13, 7-8:30 pm for her talk, Mystical Dogs. Call 503-224-4929 or visit www.newrenbooks.com to register.

Connie Hill is the event manager at New Renaissance Bookshop and is a local astrologer. She can be reached at 503-291-8229, ext. 2 or gmnite@yahoo.com.