Focus on what is possible and doable while never forgetting that nothing is impossible. Keep an open mind, but keep it focused and occupied so that it does not sabotage your spirit, that part of you that has knowledge of bigger and better things to come.
Physical life offers many challenges and its focus should be on accomplishing what comes to greet you every day, the small things and the seemingly insurmountable. Let physical life guide you through each day while simultaneously allowing the spiritual to perform its own duties, showing you what is ultimately possible. In this manner find harmony and balance, always expecting a new door to open when least expected.
Inner alchemy is the art of creating a fulfilled life that encompasses, unites and transcends all the polarities within the Self. This state of unified wholeness requires several steps to achieve.
The first stage involves the breakdown and dissolution of our current state of being. Truthfully, we are always in a state of wholeness, as we are always all that we are. At issue is the state of balance our wholeness is in.
For example, suffering a painful backache could be a displaced psychosomatic exchange for repressed feelings of sadness. Here, balance is achieved through the experience of emotional pain converted to physical pain.
Caroline Elliot’s Existential Kink playfully explores the many personality kinks hidden in the shadow of the self, which serve to balance the dominance of one-sided conscious attitudes. I recommend exploring her work to reveal the kinks that might be disrupting personal balance.
The current state of our world reflects extremely volatile states of balance that are serving the breakdown and dissolution of the world as we have known it. The primary elements of fire, water, earth and air are all engaged in environmental extremes that are insisting upon a new way of living that can usher in a sustainable balance. This breakdown of what has been is the essential first step toward new life.
Inwardly, breakdown of the ruling attitude in the psyche is the essential first step to new life. Often this can take the form of an immobilizing depression that refuses to fund our ability to experience ourselves, and life, in our familiar comfort zone. Such a withdrawal of life energy prompts the need for a soul retrieval; that is, a journey into the unconscious to discover and recover unknown or lost parts of the self, the building blocks for new life.
The second stage in the art of wholeness is the untangling and separation of opposites within the self. This is the stage of know thyself, with detachment; that is, not identifying with a one-sided feeling, attitude or judgment that precludes a broader inclusion of all parts of self.
The separation phase is dramatically reflected in the absolute polarization of citizens throughout the world into black and white one-sided attitudes. This stage of separation is still heavily intertwined with the breakdown phase, as people are blinded by projections that would have them resolve imbalance through the elimination of those who oppose them. This was Hitler’s final solution to the challenge of opposition.
Inwardly, this state of separation can result in a state of mental cruelty, with negative critical thinking constantly judging and putting the self down. Nonetheless, if one can hone this reflective impetus into objective introspection, one can arrive at a state of clarity that prepares the way for new union.
Dispassionate knowing and acceptance of the truth offer preparation for a new union of elements within the self, the third stage, in which a new worldview or ruling attitude achieves a durable balance.
This stage is represented symbolically in the conjugal union of the opposites of man and woman. The mixture of these elements will ultimately result in the creation of a child, which presents a life that has incorporated the opposites of its parents into its own unique wholeness. As I discussed in my blog last week, a child in dreams often reflects this alchemy within, seeking to find its way to birth into life.
Hold the perspective that the chaos and separation both within and without are necessary stages in the art of wholeness. Ancient alchemists performed their operations within a sealed retort, allowing the contained energies themselves to facilitate the process of transformation.
In our day and age, containment socially would mean not engaging in heated interchange, but striving to arrive at detachment and truth within.
Similarly, containment within is best served through detachment from mental cruelty, as the point is to transform the old attitudes and thoughts into a newly sincere commitment to know and serve only the truth.
Maintain equilibrium at all times, striving to achieve an alignment of mind, body and spirit so that you are not thrown easily by dire circumstances. Maintain a cool approach rather than a hotheaded one so that your mind is clear enough to see the truth and to act upon it. In times of stress it is good to remember that all things change, that this time too will pass, but how you handle it while in the midst of it is equally important. That’s where equilibrium comes in and does its job to keep things in perspective and to maintain a balanced outlook on life. Change is inevitable, but don’t make it harder on yourself. Stay balanced in all things at all times.
Archetypes are nature’s crowning achievement. Our ability to survive is rooted in the activation of these evolutionarily sound, instinctual patterns of behavior etched in the fabric of the subconscious mind. Before humans had consciousness, with its ability to reason and make decisions, the automatic subconscious mind was the center of human decision making.
The guiding principle for the subconscious mind is association. If my senses detect a loud sound in the woods, images of a falling tree or an exploded firearm immediately come to mind. The subconscious associates the images to the sound, as action hormones are released in the body, which push for cautious investigative action.
With the birth of consciousness I can rationalize, that is, think about, the sound, and talk myself out of the need to investigate. My conscious will can subvert the subconscious story and call to action. Of course, through this suppression of the subconscious, a part of my mind may remain unsettled, but, as compared to primitive humans, I am not obsessively controlled by the absolute rule of the archetype.
Reason’s growing hegemony over the human mind is an evolutionary exercise that has produced mixed blessings. Scientists have proposed that we are now in a new geologic time period, which they are calling the anthropocene epoch, highlighting the overarching impact of human decision making upon the Earth.
It could certainly be argued, as does the Garden of Eden myth, that human beings should never have stolen access to the fruit of the tree of knowledge and instead stayed obediently within the rules and laws of the godly archetypes.
The subconscious, had it remained in total control, would never have allowed the kinds of duplicitous decisions that ego has made during its reign as CEO of the planet. The subconscious rules with the intention of survival. When it acts upon a suggestion, that suggestion has impressed it with its utility, due to its frequency of appearance.
Reason, of course, would argue that evolutionary patterns can be cumbersome and non-related to the challenges of modern life. Despite some truth to this argument, reason itself has been unable to use pure reason as a basis for environmental decisions. In effect, reason has acted like an imperious child, holding the keys to the kingdom in its own self-righteous hands.
The subconscious is the section of the mind where spirit and matter mate. From spirit issues a dynamic suggestion in the form of a word. The subconscious mind opens to receive the word, which it then magnetizes to attract matter and give birth to spirit’s intent in physical form. From this union, the word literally becomes flesh.
The will of ego can, and does, impress its suggestions upon the subconscious mind, subverting its creative potential for its own self-interest alone. The speed of communications nowadays, through social media, flood the collective subconscious with suggestions that are literally generating alternative realities, which are grounded only in the fact of their repetitive frequency.
In the meantime, the archetypes that once balanced the Earth’s ecosystem are flagrantly misfiring, or are being pitted against each other in battles for dominance. Who, for instance, defines modern masculinity? Are ancient archetypal patterns relevant to being a man? Should reason dictate the curriculum of identity?
The subconscious and reason are reconcilable partners. The bridge to this partnership is objective truth. The subconscious might very well be the most powerful section of the mind, but, by lacking critical thinking, it can be manipulated for less than positive intentions.
The ego has free will, its crowning achievement, but it lacks the ethical grounding to do the right thing. The home of truth is the heart. The Egyptian Goddess Maat is the Goddess of Truth, Law and Justice. Upon death, a person’s heart was weighed against her feather. Only a heart weighing less than the feather was a pure heart.
A pure heart, one that tells the truth, can weigh both the appropriateness of ego’s reason and a suggestion posed to the subconscious. Decisions from the heart center elevate the subconscious and the ego to be in alignment with the true needs of the Self, and the planet as a whole.
As individuals, we are most responsible when we bring heart to weigh upon the validity of our thoughts and the appropriateness of our instincts and impulses.
Let stress be your guide to relaxation, to calmness and to balance. When stress arises, dispel it with breath. Eradicate it with thought that is mantric, healing and soothing. Tell it to go away with firmness, for what is stress but a thought gone awry, that has lost its way and only needs to be told that it is not wanted, that it does not need to suffer in the land of the living, for stress comes from outside. Keep this in mind whenever stress is present in your life, that it is conjured by thought not conducive to a calm central nervous system. Breathe. Calm the body with breath. Calm the mind with breath. Let breath be your stress reliever.
