Though you may feel ashamed of something you have done, something that happened to you, or something others think about you, if you sit long enough with the shame it becomes apparent that it is nothing more than energy within you trying to get your attention, alerting you to something deeper about yourself. Don’t get caught by the temptation to stay stuck in the vortex of your shameful self but let the energy of it take you beyond it. Use it as your power to think, discriminate, and change yourself. Use that which holds you back as the energy to take you forward. Transform negative energy into positive energy and transform yourself too. Everything is energy, but you decide what meaning gets attached to it and what attitude you take towards it. Something you perceive as bad may in fact be really good!
There is a thief who lives inside me. She’s quiet and stealthy, good at what she does. She used to steal little things, a comb or a lipstick from the drug store, instinctively knowing how to slide it up her sleeve slowly and covertly, like a magician hiding a sword. She never got caught stealing little things, nor did she do it that often, only when in the company of other equally daring teenagers. When I was a grown up, in my twenties and living and working in Stockholm, Sweden as a freelance artist, the thief inside me returned from wherever she’d been hanging out and struck again.
I was working on a project with the Creative Director of a large international advertising agency. He was American, newly hired to take over the small but busy office in downtown Stockholm. I was a freelance artist and had been introduced to him through an acquaintance. I did the work that was required and submitted my bill. The honest perfectionist inside me, always careful to follow directions, noticed that at the bottom of the detailed instructions for submitting a bill was the statement to “submit two copies.” So I did. A few weeks later I got paid, and it was a substantial sum for those days; the advertising world always paid well. Then, a week later, I got a second check in the mail. How could this be? Were they paying me double, once for the sketches, as was common, and once for the final artwork, or was this a result of the request to submit two copies of the bill, as I had so dutifully done?
I approached the Creative Director, letting him know that I was confused. Why did I get paid twice? He couldn’t make heads or tails of it. “It’s just a mistake,” he finally said. New to the position and perhaps not wanting to be seen making mistakes, he told me to just ignore it, to keep the money, as it would be too hard to undo. It bothered me, but I kept the money, or the thief inside me did, or both of us did. I felt guilty about it for a long time and a lot of energy was lost to the stress of wondering if the company would come after me to return the money. Nothing happened. Eventually, I surmised that the company never realized their mistake. I breathed a sigh of relief and the thief inside me settled back down into her hideout.
I can’t say I haven’t seen her since, though I did make a pact with myself after that to try and be more honest. It’s harder than you think. What do you do when someone gives you the wrong change, when an item you are buying doesn’t get scanned at the cash register, when someone makes a mistake that benefits you, even just a little? There were minor incidences over the years when I would take what was provided, or not. Sometimes I’d feel justified that the universe must want me to have something, that someone else’s mistake was my gain. After all, it wasn’t my fault if someone wasn’t paying attention. But then I recapitulated and things changed.
In recapitulation I confronted the thief who lives inside me, remembered all the times she stole something, took something, got away with something. As I said, she was good at what she did and she never got caught, though I would suffer knowing that I took something that did not really belong to me, no matter the circumstances of how it landed in my hands. We met face to face in recapitulation, consciously and deliberately. I could not ignore her nor simply expel her from my life; she’s as much a part of me as my honest self is.
I acknowledged her and her desire to take what did not rightfully belong to her while she acknowledged me and my desire to be honest. Why did she steal in adolescence? It was a daring, thrilling act that left her feeling powerful; for once she was in control. It not only compensated for the lack of control in my life but may actually have helped me survive, given me just a tad of badly needed self-confidence.
As we recapitulated we agreed that stealing wasn’t right, but also that being straightforwardly honest wasn’t always right either. Sometimes it’s just better to not say something than to offend. Sometimes it’s just better to be tactful and walk away. In the end, we agreed that being able to discriminate, to have empathy, and to do what was really right in any particular moment or circumstance should win out. I also had to admit that there were situations where stealing might be absolutely right and necessary and I reserved the right to exercise that option should it arise. It’s not just a black and white issue; nothing ever really is.
In recapitulation the thief inside me and I met each other openly and honestly. We confronted our deepest issues with each other and reconciled our differences. We allowed how we really did need each other, how we each had our place in the grand scheme of life. We now live together in harmony. Yes, I was bad, but now I’m good and bad!
In recapitulation all parts of the self are acknowledged and integrated and the result is a more even and flowing life, all parts exposed and on board, in good alignment and willing to work things out rather than simply compensate for each other by going to the opposite extreme. It’s a great way to live.
There is no need to impress anyone, only a need to press upon the self the importance of being real, honest, fully present and true to the self. A beautiful flower grows to its full potential unaware that it is impressive, it simply is. It simply fulfills its genetic possibilities and experiences itself in whatever shape or form it is. Without discrimination, judgments, comparison or criticism it simply blooms. Let the self be like a beautiful flower, free to be who you truly are. Expect the best of yourself. Without so many negative ideas about yourself, simply be the beautiful being that you are. You have it in you, all the potential in the world. What are you waiting for? Time to bloom!
Reason lacks passion, passion lacks reason. Reason issues from the light of consciousness. Passion hails from the many moods of the moon.
Reason at the center, like the brain, surrounded by passion… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
The coolness of reason separates itself from the chaos and passion of nature. Reason seeks to create and impose order. Passion issues from the instincts of the body, from which it emotionally imposes its will.
Reason cuts off passion at the throat where rising emotions seek to overpower the brain, the home base of reason. We call this a tight or sore throat, psychologically it is dissociation.
Passion cuts off reason in the belly and the bowels, refusing to digest the will of reason. We experience this physically as indigestion and IBS, psychologically as anxiety.
Reason is associated with the brain, the engine of abstraction, the organ of our body least associated with nature and feeling. Reason is responsible for the creation of our technological world, as well as the order we create in civilization. Reason is considered our highest evolutionary achievement.
Passion, associated with instincts, imbues emotion with cascades of numinous energy. The delight of eating, the ecstasy of sex, the blood thirst of war, the agony and ecstasy of parenthood are all endowed with the passion of instinct.
For centuries reason has grown in power; frankly, to the point of god status. Reason is antithetical to belief and the irrational, to the unprovable, so that though modern humans might still affiliate with religious traditions outwardly, the individual and collective compass for life is still reason.
Within the individual the conflict between reason and passion results either in depression, where passion is lost, or compulsion, where passion overtakes reason’s restraints.
The conflict between passion and reason in our collective world is currently being expressed through the breakthrough of a passionate leader who creates fire and fury wherever he turns.
For many, this powerful emergence provides the relief and release of long suppressed passionate emotions. What has amazed the rest of the world is how unreasonable this passionate leader can be and yet be so dearly cherished by so many.
The real lesson here is how disastrous it is to neglect passionate instinct. Eventually it will break through, with a vengeance. And reason is no match for its wrathful coming to power, which can go so far as to bring us to the brink of destruction. Take note reason: Suppress passion and risk an orgy of destruction.
This is not a Trump diatribe. Trump embodies a pagan energy that invites and incites passionate expression. C. G. Jung identified a similar breakthrough into the collective German psyche in the 1930s as the restless wandering pagan god of storm and wind, Wotan, who unleashed the passion and frenzy responsible for the atrocities committed during World War II.
Though leaders must be held accountable for their actions, it is equally true that the latent readiness in the populace to respond to passionate incitement reflects a burgeoning readiness to erupt.
What is constellated in America is a resurgence of a suppressed passionate energy at war with reason. And reason still believes that logic trumps passion. Time and time again Trump teaches us how easy it is to dismiss reason, simply by calling it bad, so bad.
Without entering into the argument for the need for regime change, I cut to the real crux of the problem: the reconciliation of reason and passion.
The technology of Christianity that sought to control the passion of sexuality was compensated for by the overarching shadow of its disowned sexual instinct emerging in sexual abuse, which haunts many religious institutions. What is suppressed will find its way out somehow, often in a most exaggerated, destructive way.
The technology of reason that once governed our political process and national identity is succumbing to hair-trigger instinctual rule. Clearly we need a new technology of balance.
To contine to project badness outside of ourselves is an archaic technology certain to end in destruction. To impose the technology of reason over passion results in, and will continue to result in, a stalemate and an escalation of tensions. To simply bury statues is like burying the pagan gods—beware the revenge of Wotan.
As is my proclivity, I turn to the individual, as the hologram of the world, to truly solve the issue. Passions must be lived, somehow. If reason is to remain in charge of life, it must honor and live alongside its passionate partner, consciously allowing the irrational to renew its connection to nature. This is a task for every individual to solve within themselves, and within their relationships, if we are to achieve a new balance in the world.
Passion hates limitation, but so does reason. Perhaps if reason can agree to limits, passion will comfortably acquiesce to limits too. Imagine these two opposites in harmony. Wouldn’t that be something?
If our country can come together and collectively enjoy reason and passion facing off in a solar eclipse, surely we can bear the tension of this standoff within ourselves and find our way to higher consciousness.
The old technology to go to war within and without to relieve the tension of reason vs. passion needn’t be our fallback solution. We are ready for new evolutionary possibilities. Explore them within the self, advance the world.
When the light of the sun is darkened, the corona is visible… -Photo by Jan Ketchel
We’ve been posting a few insights lately as this day of the solar eclipse has approached. Today’s Soulbyte, a posting from Chuck, a video link we posted on our Facebook page yesterday, and this audio channeling offer, we sincerely hope, some guidance around what is happening in our world. Today is a momentous day to be sure. May this channeling offer some help with the mystery and the anxiety of it all. Be calm and breathe!
