The other day a blog flew out of me entitled Enantiodromia. It was slated for publication today. The next night I woke up several times with dreams about acceptance. I got up yesterday and acquiesced to writing a new blog entitled Acceptance.
Jan got up yesterday and quietly channeled the Soulbyte for the day. She read it to me. It was all about acceptance and acquiescence. Of course, I’d shared nothing of my nighttime adventures nor morning resolve with her before she channeled. It’s just how things flow.
Enantiodromia defines the phenomenon of a total reversal from one action to another; what goes up must come down. One day I had completed a blog, the next I swung to scratching it and writing a new one, this one here.
My dream in the night began with an encounter with a tired middle-aged, somewhat unkempt, poorly shaven merchant going through the motions of collecting payment for a needed service. He showed no enthusiasm as he dealt with customers; he was a bit of a curmudgeon and I strongly doubted the value of his service given his unfriendly attitude. Just a bored merchant, exploiting a human need, not even happy about all the money he was collecting. I deeply felt the meaningless of his routine life, yet he continued it without question.
Next, we were at a courthouse, in a lunchroom on a break. The merchant sat eating alone. Another man became deeply outraged at the merchant for his unethical, insensitive attitude toward the people who were buying his services. As he protested loudly, I deeply felt his need to confront the merchant for this lack of care to the true needs of the people dependent upon him.
– Photo by Jan Ketchel
Just as I was about to merge with this man’s agitated emotion and action, my attention was drawn to another, older man, sitting in the cafeteria with a broad, calm, welcoming smile on his face. I watched him scan the room with his eyes, in complete acceptance of everyone in the room, of all the stages of life and folly, seeing everyone as part of the greater whole of life, everyone having a place in it. Suddenly, I was relieved of the tensions of the merchant’s mood and that of the activated protestor—I too was in acceptance of the wholeness of everything.
Life is bipolar. Electricity requires positive and negative poles. Rivers require high and low locations to flow. When we are in the river of life energy—as I was as I felt the energy of the merchant and the agitated protestor—we find ourselves impacted by the tension between the opposites and tend to identify with one or the other. A different resolution comes about if we can step outside the river of energy and notice how everyone is part of and necessary to the entire picture. This leads to a comprehensive acceptance, as presented by the third man in my dream, the calmly smiling onlooker.
Of course, acceptance does not simply mean sheepishly acquiescencing to how things are. However, it does start with a valuing of all persons or things present as necessary parts of the whole, all as equal and necessary in the greater picture. Tao might be better served with a change in attitude, but polarity is the reality of life in this world.
To seek resolution through blame and dismissal only increases the probability of retaliation in an enantiodromic reaction to one-sidedness. In contrast, acceptance of the value of all parts, no matter how polarized, sets the stage for real negotiation.
Blog delivered,
Chuck
P. S. You might also want to listen to this week’s audio channeled message re: the river of life: The Individual Path
