Let bygones be bygones as you move forward now into new life. Leave behind old regrets and resentments that will only inhibit you, hold you back and keep you attached to an old self who was not yet prepared to advance. The first step in advancement is to decide what you will take with you and what you will leave behind, ashes on the sacrificial funeral pyre. For every new beginning requires the sacrifice of something old. What no longer belongs in your life? What needs to go? It’s never too late to make a move in a new and positive direction. It’s never too late to change.
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.
Hold yourself accountable for your own life, the playbook of your journey. For though you may feel pushed and pulled by circumstances, lost at times, and completely at the mercy of those around you, the moment you grasp that everything is in your control, that everything is your own doing, then everything will change. Once you realize that it’s your own life to live, conquer and enjoy, you will understand what it means to be accountable, to take responsibility for your life. Take back your own life, perhaps for the first time ever, by fully owning it, by taking control and by finally living to the fullest, as you wish.
Two very common dream scenarios, related to new life, are encounters with snakes and with children, which I will explore separately.
Snakes molt. They regenerate by letting go of their old skin, literally. To be bitten by a snake or chased by a snake in a dream, or to house a snake beneath the floorboards of one’s dream home all herald the message that it’s time to let go of an attitude, belief, or habit that has been dominating one’s life.
Snakes seek a remote, hidden locale that allows for total exposure to the heat of the sun to facilitate the release of old encasement. Our world is now heating to record levels, forcing humankind to let go of old ways of living.
The sun, our ultimate source of light on Earth, symbolizes the penetrating light of consciousness we apply to discern truth. The truth is the stuff of the new skin that will contain us as we shift into new life.
Arriving at truth is like lying in the sun, relaxing in a fixed posture, allowing the rays of the sun to penetrate our rigidity, as we soften and receive its transformative impetus.
The release of old attitudes and attachments allows the crusted-over energy of our old skin to be revamped and redeployed for new life. Letting go is a breakdown phase that does require the destruction of beliefs that have served in the past but no longer promote new life.
The universal symbol for new life is the child. Whenever children appear in our dreams, some part of our unborn self is seeking to come to life.
Carl Jung was careful to point out that the shadow in the human psyche is both a place of repressed experience but, more fundamentally, is also the home of our unfolding inherent self. There are parts of our core seed self that may not be ready to be born in our human life until we are well into the second half of life.
If your actual child appears in a dream, the dream might refer to your child but more likely it refers to a quality of that child seeking to evolve within your own self. Pregnancy in a dream, however unrealistic to waking life, strongly hints at the coming birth of new life and new potential.
Too often, we are apt to interpret the appearance of our child self in our dreams to mean our actual inner child. This then associates to childhood, with its focus on trauma and unmet needs, that beckons ego, or someone else, to take better care of its neglected inner child. Though of course this might be true, more likely the child might represent a vital potential within one’s core seeking to find its way into life.
The Greek god Kronos was the father of Zeus. Kronos had the habit of eating his newly born children to ensure his safety and continued rule. Kronos operates in all of us through our judgments and attitudes that refuse the change into new life. Eating the children can take the form of entrenched habit that disregards any new possibilities that contradict one’s ruling beliefs.
“The King is dead, long live the King!” This cry expresses the necessity for the ruling, anachronistic attitudes in the psyche to die for the new King to emerge and bring new life to the personality. This is the true fountain of youth.
When we heed the call of the snake to allow for the breakdown and letting go of Kronos, we open the way for the innocence of the child to be born, as we regenerate, renew and become new life.
Notice how tiny deceptive thoughts can anchor in the mind and blow up into large phenomena. A tiny seed once planted, if constantly nurtured with additional thoughts, can blossom and grow out of control, becoming an invasive weed. Be careful of what you think. Keep a clear mind by doing constant cleaning, ridding the mind of those invasive seeds before they take root. Turn to the heart more often so that invasive ideas can be discerned and discarded, for the heart is the place of truth and a pure heart will not lead you astray. A heart that is turned to often is a heart that is strong, pure and nurtured, and what grows in such a heart is only the most creative thoughts, ideas and visions of a beautiful future. Listen to your heart.
