Whence cometh the longing?
That yearning for home,
for Other?
Where is home if not within?
We travel eternities
through life, death, time and space …
Perhaps each realm confers
its own forgetfulness;
maybe this is the bargain we make
so we don’t jump ship.
Today, I learn deference
if it lasts a matter of hours
or one hundred years.
If I am distracted, time runs out
and I get to do it all over again
as a different constellation
in the vast Unknown.
She doesn’t want to let me go -
it’s in the blood.
Like cells, we divide,
move apart;
couple up with others,
and revel in the familiar
of an original template:
family.
Our mother is leaving us,
hysterical now with dementia.
It’s fun to watch her laugh,
as we know the other side:
disgust, apprehension,
downright terror.
We ourselves are dead or dying,
as one by one
she picks us off
like fleas irritating
a mind tossing darts
at her imminent demise.
When this passes -
and it will -
we will expand our love
to fill the void;
let it seep into the spectrum
of children, spouses, selves.
Affection and endearment
are ours to have and to hold,
from that day forward -
until we, too,
shed these precious skins
and flow back into pure light.
From Wikipedia: the Jungian shadow often refers to all that lies outside the light of consciousness, and may be positive or negative. “Everyone carries a shadow,” Jung wrote, “and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. It may be (in part) one’s link to more primitive animal instincts, which are superseded during early childhood by the conscious mind.”
It is when these ‘primitive animal instincts’ flood into consciousness, void of direction or understanding or the capacity for reflection before action, that we are in deep trouble.
Examples abound. Leaders who make excuses for war and senseless attacks of atrocity, abuse and torture for the sake of profit (and under the guise of justice or righteousness) exemplify this negation of Shadow. Their denial of motives becomes larger than life, which is as close to a holy war as America gets. It comes under the pretense of spreading democracy, but really it is for personal gain of a few misguided souls in positions of power. Many people have simply had enough of it, but feel despondent and powerless. Our democracy-as-participatory government seems a sham. Acts of desperation are often the result.
Is there anything that can be done to avert future acts of violence on a mass scale, such as happened most recently at the Boston Marathon? This kind of madness almost demands an inner confrontation in the individual. Any outer posturing is potentially dangerous. Rather than coming to grips with fears of insufficiency or powerlessness that lurk within, the unconscious among us may simply act out in whatever way seems compelling at the time. If we want to help heal the collective, we must learn to sit with discomfort until it becomes clear how, when and where to act appropriately, after grieving the loss of what cannot be grasped, either conceptually or materially. Facing what we find repugnant, we allow love to restore wholeness within ourselves. We may then begin to understand the capacity for these shadowy elements in others. Out of this comprehension emerges a more compassionate worldview, and healing begins from the inside-out.
Obviously whoever commits acts of desperation or hatred has a warehouse full of undealt-with emotional baggage. All our fellow human beings deserve our understanding and compassion – which is far more difficult to grant when they go out and destroy the lives of other people. Yet it is then, believe it or not, that these acts become our problem. Because they exemplify an aspect of our collective denial, it brings up whatever it does in and for each of us.
We are all in this together. We cheer on with great admiration our best, our brightest – and find it distasteful to observe our deepest, darkest demons out on the playing field. What we are witnessing is, in essence, our collective human drama being played out on the great, grand stage of life. A valid concern might be what role we, ourselves wish to play.
I loathe cold coffee,
though I find cool tea palatable.
Beyond explanation,
only one derives from Latin America,
the other from the Orient.
Perhaps entwined
in the hairlike strands of my DNA
lurks an obscure memory
of peasants whirling; bright colors
arcing like rainbow cirrus
striated across deep azure heavens,
or the sensual backsteps of tango -
dark eyes driving deep into my interior,
demanding passion, not complacency.
Tea, on the other hand, is ceremony.
Small cups and dainty painted-on mouths.
I can sip and nothing is demanded,
save appreciation upon inhalation.
Service, too, backs up -
but shuffles, not gyrates away.
Eyes cast downward, indirect.
Life is lustful; she is sublime.
Tides strip out, swirl and eddy -
roll in, crash to shore.
Claps of thunder or the soft pad
of a snow leopard;
Locked in the embrace of paradox,
I submit to the dance.
In 1969, I was a high school freshman. Middle school had bussed me from a known quantity – a neighborhood in which I thrived with friends I’d known since kindergarten – into flights of stairs and home rooms and tennis courts and football fields and oh, so many students! That original grammar school group was split into three and cast to the winds of destiny. And though high school brought me closer to the mountain foothills where I spent my childhood, once again school chums were cleaved into three groups; three different high schools.
Each time I changed academic institutions, the pond got bigger and bigger. A grammar school class of less than one hundred multiplied by ten in middle school; my middle school class exploded into a high school graduating class of twelve hundred. These were frightening changes to a sensitive kid, but I put on a brave face and kept moving forward. What else could I do? Being bookish, I embraced new arenas of learning. Being an observer of people, I was highly entertained.
Those high school days brought self expression to the fore: the drama cliques, the jocks and cheerleaders, the intellectual/nerds, the joiners/social climbers, the band and drill team groupies, the hippies, the Black Panther wannabes and more. Tumultuous times indeed, they were not without colorful expression and the passion befitting adolescents about to launch themselves into a frightening world replete with social and political unrest.
One of my fondest memories of that time emerges from the center of the school’s interior. Being in a year-round climate meant the quad’s lawn was always abuzz with activity. The hippie kids brought along guitars and beaded headbands; armpit hair, sandals, poetry and song. The Fifth Dimension’s Aquarius hit the top of the charts and my very corpuscles thrilled at its message: When the moon is in the seventh house; And Jupiter aligns with Mars; Then peace will guide the planets; And love will steer the stars …
It seemed all things were possible – that no act of civil disobedience would be executed without merit – we were headed into a new world where our generation would finally have the chance to impact the kinds of positive change we doubtlessly came to earth to embody.
Fast-forward forty years, and the giant clock hands ker-chunk into prayer hands position. Moving into the long-awaited New Age, we discover, to our great consternation, that instead of peaceful euphoria, we are faced with unparalleled atrocities (if only due to our burgeoning numbers, here on Planet Earth). Global warming and random acts of senseless violence pierce the airwaves like Morse code gone berserk. How could this possibly be the same Age foretold in those not-so-long-ago lyrics: Harmony and understanding, sympathy and trust abounding; No more falsehoods or derisions, golden living dreams of visions; Mystic crystal revelations, and the mind’s true liberations … Aquarius! A-quar-i-us?
In fact, Aquarius governs electricity, democracy, technology, computers, the Internet, flight, freedom, idealists, religion and innovative systems such as astrology. Aquarius itself is ruled by the planet Uranus; considered by most astrologers to be the planet of surprise and change. As with any condition on planet Earth, one observes a fair dose of polarity. For all the positive changes that have certainly been implemented in my lifetime, certain incomprehensible acts might seem to negate them. But it is not so simple, for the birthing of a child, of a solar system, of new ideas and concepts and awareness all require tremendous contraction and expansion before settling into the rhythm of existence.
Of course I’d like to believe that events in the recent past, no matter how horrific, will yet result in further awakening humanity; that the chaos perpetrated by a confused minority will result in a collective expansion of noble hearts; of kindness and compassion. I’m hoping that the threat of a planet rife with bizarre weather patterns and melting polar ice, not to mention the extinction of far too many species of flora and fauna, will embolden us to insist special interest groups step aside and let creative innovators help rebalance our planet to the extent that it is still possible. I expect that science coupled with humanitarianism holds the key – that golden key that finally ushers in the long-awaited gifts of the Aquarian Age.
We contain it in consciousness;
Remember, so we do not forget,
and get on with our lives
or risk drowning in despair.
Each day pregnant with unknowing,
we risk all by walking out the door;
mingling with the masses
or digging in the soil.
Even there, shards of glass,
old metal and pottery
percolate to the surface,
surprising skin, unprepared.
Planting over and around the damage;
creating beauty is what I know -
Hands taking over
where the head leaves off;
Mind quiets down.
Mulching the surface,
softening soil to contain
life-giving moisture;
inviting breakdown,
the flowering of vitality.
What is this delicate balance,
how can the human spirit hold
a lifetime of soaking up
splendor that bursts the heart open;
joy in creating - then sorrow,
regret; the shame
in what our species is capable.
How do we sleep at night, cradled
in the knowing, the awareness
that we are doing our part;
contributing to the betterment
of a world in the throes of transformation?
Sowing seeds of loving kindness,
I garden.
There is nothing I can say that could possibly convey my feelings of sadness and horror at what happened at the Boston Marathon yesterday. The complexity of emotions, interplaying with thoughts almost too onerous to bear, needs to be worked out first, somehow.
It is in the spirit of healing that I offer this song, written and performed by friends of ours here on the Big Island of Hawaii along with their band, Big Blue O. I hope you enjoy listening, and feel in your hearts the message, the opportunity to do things differently – to harness our collective intelligence and heart and move forward into another paradigm – one that includes instead of ostracizes; one that appeals to our humanity and to our noble hearts.
Blessings, all.
