It’s not easy to change, to go through a process of real and lasting change. Mostly change occurs within and that can indeed be a slow and meticulous journey. Too much expression outwardly and the process may stagnate rather than accelerate, for release of the tension that creates the foundation for change to happen leaves one feeling empty and unfulfilled. It is in the tension itself that one finds the stimulus and the potential that fuels and gives change its meaning. Bearing the tension is thus a beneficial process. Change is happening all the time, even during those times when you feel it the least. Stay contained and let the process take its natural course. Each day something new will reveal that you are indeed on the right path.
Don Juan Matus explained to Carlos Castaneda that, yes, our world is a world of separate objects. However, beneath that world of separateness, we are all in a state of one interconnected energy. In that state of oneness, love is the energy of cohesion, that which holds together and welcomes all of its neighbors.
Don Juan also explained that we live in a predatory universe. Indeed, all life feeds upon life, and yet, at a soul level, energetic life is never lost, it merely changes form.
Survival, in our separate human form state, requires an instant ability to judge safety and danger. That which we judge to be dangerous we come to hate. Hate is the emotion that allows us to dehumanize and destroy that which we judge to be different and threatening to our survival.
Oneness and separateness are a pair of opposites that constitute a core challenge to life in human form. It all begins with the symbiotic oneness of mother and embryonic fetus, in pregnancy, that ends in the separation of the one into two distinct beings at birth. The challenge to become a fully realized separate being, who can open to the oneness of love, is the art of human life.
We are drawn to relationship in a quest to reunite with our lost oneness. Union is driven by the natural attraction of opposites for each other. This is love in energetic motion. When these opposites unite there is frequently a honeymoon phase, where opposites relish the relief and ecstasy of restored oneness.
However, as relationships progress, one’s separate, differentiated self reemerges and finds itself in opposition with its soulmate. This reemergence frequently leads to competition and opposition of viewpoints in the relationship. The couple is then challenged to make room for their differences in the wholeness of their relationship. Far too often, bearing the tension of these unreconciled opposites results in the solution to hate one’s partner and end the relationship.
The solution of hate, devaluation, and demonization of the other is the frequent outcome of attempting to bear the extraordinary tension of differences necessary to reach a reconciling of opposites. This is evident in the wars that plague our world. The underlying energetic imperative to embrace all parts and peoples of the world in the oneness that we truly are is the evolutionary and karmic challenge of our time.
Beneath the opposites of love and hate is the oneness and separation phases of human and cosmic evolution. The separatist, hateful stage of human interaction must ultimately acquiesce to the greater harmony and love of energetic reality, which, like day turning into night, will naturally reassert itself.
As we live through this stage of human evolution, which emphasizes separateness and hate in human relations, may we bear its tension and find the path that will lead us to our underlying wholeness, with renewed balance. This is the path where love and hate meet in a union that makes room for all.
Standing on a narrow ledge between worlds… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
All night I dream different versions of the same dream. I am standing on a narrow road dividing two worlds. In the beginning of the night I am between Heaven and Earth, between water and land, between psyche and soma. At one point I am on a narrow line between my past and my future. At another time I am between my two selves, the human self and the spiritual self. By the end of the night I end up in the deep South, in Georgia during the Civil War. I stand on a narrow strip of road between the two warring sides, the Confederates to my south and the Union soldiers to my north.
I tell them they have to stop fighting. I tell them that they each had some things right and they each had some things wrong, but I am not taking sides. There is nothing to fight about any longer, I tell them. I know you both fully and equally well. No one is more powerful than the other; no one is more influential that the other. No one is the good guy and no one is the bad guy. Having learned all this, a new me is in charge now and no one is going to get the upper hand.
I stand in the tension between the warring sides, waiting for them to lay down their arms and come out to greet each other as equals, to declare that they are each equally responsible for all that once was and all that is to be, as am I too. I declare that since we are fully known to each other all conflicts that arise in the future will be sorted out in similar mature fashion with equal honesty and clarity, all sides present and participating.
I patiently wait for them to make admissions and amends as I have done. I am solidly calm in my stance. I will not budge, but neither will I let either of them declare victory. The war is over; no one is the winner; no one is the loser; all sides have revealed their weaknesses and their strengths. It’s time to accept the position we are in and move on from stubborn self-righteousness into a new world where everything is acceptable and everyone is honest about who and what they are.
In the morning, I read of astrological aspects that signify taking a careful and balanced look at many conflictual situations, old and new. For myself, an old conflict had arisen the day before. I got caught in an old thought. I didn’t run from it but sat in the tension of it. It was unpleasant and a bit challenging but it was also necessary. I did the inner work by remaining mature, balanced, and aware, being totally honest with myself. It seems that my dreaming self finished the job nicely, showing me how multileveled our conflictual self really is, spanning all aspects of life and awareness, conscious and otherwise, and how strong and capable of gentle resolution we really are once maturity, honesty, and calmness step in.
Attending to the busy work of the psyche brings release… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
By the time I woke up I felt quite peaceful and rested, in spite of the difficult situations I found myself in during the night. There was tension to withstand and yet I knew that only by standing in the tension and facing everything would the conflicts fully resolve so that no residual issues remained.
Recapitulation teaches us that once we’ve faced our inner conflicts and resolved them they no longer appear to grab our attention as they once did. On the rare occasion that they do appear, like my own old thought pattern, we are readily aware that they have come to teach us or remind us of something. In addition they point out the reality of now and how far we have actually come.
In balanced self we can firmly let those old issues know that they are no longer part of our life, but we must also attend to the lessons they have come back to teach us. This is standing on the line drawn down the center of the battlefield, bearing the tension of the conflict that needs resolution. Once we have achieved mature mutual agreement our conflicts dissolve and we can move on.
All things in the universe are bound to change. It’s the cyclic nature of reality; the stars moving and aligning, the moon waxing and waning, the sun rising and setting, the tides ebbing and flowing, the constantly changing days and seasons. We too are as cyclic as nature and so we must remember that inner conflicts will naturally arise and recede. But we also learn that they reappear over and over again, coming back to haunt us, presenting a narrow band of tension, a strip of fear and uncomfortability that we will live with for most of our lives if we don’t face our issues. Just like the returning seasons those issues come to stir us to action, often screwing things up for us until we finally make the decision to deal with them, to face them head-on by standing on our own battlefield of conflict resolution.
After recapitulation our own nature is finally freed to enjoy life in a new way… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Nature regularly plows things under, never to be seen again, but unlike nature we have consciousness and a psyche that keep us company and keep us on the straight and narrow road of life, asking us constantly to face what comes to greet us in our daily lives or suffer the consequences of failing to do so. With the proper ground upon which to do our most challenging inner work, we can volitionally counteract the cyclic forces of nature. By taking on what the psyche presents, we can consciously change ourselves with intent. And then the resolution is long-lasting, sending us one step further along on our true journey.
Sometimes the ritual is as simple as shedding what we don’t need so that who we really are can bloom… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Ancient rites of passage championed the mature achievement of adulthood as the requisite linchpin to mastering life’s deepest challenges. Without the establishment of this mature adult self we are ill-equipped, or defensively overladen, to journey forward into life’s deepest needs and challenges.
The modern technological world has failed to collectively build the bridge to maturity that was once constructed by the transformative power of ancient ritual. Nonetheless, the modern world and life itself force us to forge an adult self. It is only the adult self that can take the journey forward, and that journey—if it is to be fulfilling—requires a recapitulation of life lived, with all its deficits, hurts, disappointments and traumas, to release frustrated energies and find renewal in deep connection with the greater self.
The adult self must ready itself to take the recapitulation journey. For this it must learn to be present to needs, feelings, and impulses, without collapse. Collapse here means caving to the demands of another part of the self that seeks release or relief in a compulsive, impulsive, habitual self-destructive behavior. The adult self must learn to stay still, to breathe and bear the tension of inner pressure in order to consciously choose the best course of action—that is, action that supports the true needs of the self.
Sometimes the tension must be borne for some time before the clarity on what is the right decision is achieved. Sometimes the adult self acts precipitously, only to realize it has been duped into traversing an old road once again. This is a critical juncture in the process, but one must not be swallowed in negative self-judgment or talk of failure, for that is the one-way highway to the helplessness of the child self, bemoaning its position, steeped in the powerlessness of self-pity.
The work is always for the adult self to stay present, both in the experience and as the detached observer, allowing for all the feelings, judgments, sensations and truths to be fully known. The adult self feels but does not get weighed down by its discoveries, though it can take some time, and repeated dives into the deeper self, to achieve this state of detached equilibrium.
The job of the adult self in recapitulation is to acknowledge, learn, and take forward into life the new awarenesses that are achieved, once and for all freeing the self of the need to cling to old habitual patterns and illusions. Resisting judgment, the adult self gradually molts into new life. Intense emotions and physical tremors are par for the course, bringing the necessary accompanying release of the multidimensional self as it frees itself of the past and moves forward to claim its innate potential.
It’s all about sitting in the tension and growing right where we are planted… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
In this powerful physical release the adult self loosens and releases a torrent of energetic waves, once again fully present but staunch observer as well. Here, bearing the tension is allowing for vulnerability; complete physical and emotional release without constriction.
The crux of forging the adult self to fully live, is to learn to bear the tension of being fully present to all that was and all that is. In full presence we reclaim our birthright, our higher potential, completely freed to enjoy new energetic life.
In ancient religions, the standard-bearers of this ability to withstand the tension is the image of Christ on the cross and Buddha beneath his tree. In each of these ritual dramas, bearing the tension led to freeing the self to higher vibrational energetic life beyond the body, into full enlightenment in complete awareness. We too can achieve this state. Recapitulation is one tried and true method of taking the journey.
Keep it simple. Bear the tension, stay fully present, release the old, and move forward into wholeness, breathing in new life and new energy.
