Chuck’s Place: Light One Candle

From the dimly lit living room... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
From the dimly lit living room…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

I open my eyes. I know without looking that it’s time to get up. I pause to review the residue of the night’s journeys. Nothing pronounced.

It’s writing day. The Gods are clamoring as I cast my line into the pool of possibility. Jan and I sit in the dimly lit living room, around the glass table. Jan has a calling to light the candle, the one that lately doesn’t stay lit. I watch it struggle; it’s not going to make it. Jan gets another candle and ignites it from the dying flame. The light is strong and bright.

Slowly, dreams, readings, and world events begin to energize as we talk, to combat, to intertwine and finally, as we bear the tension, the synchronistic dance begins to reveal itself. I have my writing topic.

We step outside. It begins to rain. I realize that I’m being directed to go inward instead, to capture the choreography of this dance before the competing Gods of Light and Day steal the thunder of this revelation so recently come to me in the dimly lit living room.

Lao Tzu writes in the Tao Te Ching:

“Without going outside, you may know the whole world.
Without looking through the window, you may see the ways of heaven.”

Look to the kingdom within, I say. Where is Assad within? Who is he? He is a shadow God. He has gassed his people. Who is the God that poisons us within? Is it a food? Is it a substance? Is it a belief? The toxicity is evident now. Consciousness cannot ignore it.

Assad is a God of destruction. He is a God of dissolution, of death. And yet, he is simply the dark side of God. All Gods come with two faces, one of light and one of darkness, just as we do.

We constellate the God we need to address our current challenge. We are challenged now to face the destructive God that has held reign within us. Can we acknowledge our collusion with that God? Unless we are outright psychotic, we must grant access to that which controls us, however powerless or unaware we conceive ourselves to be.

What are the reigning attitudes, judgments, and compensatory self-destructive behaviors that we give license to every day? What God do we allow to rule our lives?

President Obama emerges as the God of Light, poised to take on the God of Darkness, but the world protests! It’s not about assuming some fervent corrective attitude to stamp out the darkness. The world populace has awoken from its groundhog day of slumber. Jimmy Carter calls for a peace conference. Obama turns it over to Congress. A brighter candle is lit. Let’s shed new light on the process. Consciousness must take responsibility to weigh the forces at work, to discern the truth, to be led to right action.

Don't let the light go out! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Don’t let the light go out!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

The God of Darkness, if we are indifferent, will be emboldened. Perhaps this is how we got here in the first place, our child selves feeling powerless, seeking relief and distraction. Clearly, if we allow our ego selves to be so dominated, we will be brought to our own destruction, even death. Perhaps there must be death and destruction of our current ego attitudes. New life always requires the sacrifice of old ways.

The righteousness of the God of Light must be challenged as well. 9/11 was, after all, the inevitable compensation for a world dominated by greed that rejected its own darkness. Eventually, the God of Darkness would need to exact revenge, level the playing field of the truth. That’s where we are today: 9/11—Take Two, with the possibility of consciousness—that faces all sides of the truth—trumping the old attack and root-out the evil “over there” approach with a new approach that takes responsibility for our own darkness.

Inwardly, our warrior selves must employ energy in bearing the tension of our psychic reality, giving way to changes that reflect the true needs of the Self. Each warrior that advances this cause within, synchronistically participates in the advance of consciousness to new frontiers without, with the opportunity for greater stability and new possibility on all fronts.

Don’t let the light go out,
Chuck

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