Before jumping to conclusions, flying off the handle, or reacting without thinking, allow the self to pause, to breathe, and to contemplate why you are having such reactions to another person, a situation, or an idea. Let the gift of a few moments of time calm you down so you can decide what really matters, so you can go to your heart and ask where love is, what love says, and how love would react. When loves comes into play a whole new experience happens. Don’t forget about love.
True balance requires a constant giving and receiving, taking in and transforming what is taken in into dynamic energy. At first, what is taken in will be used by the self for energy and what is given will be practical, but eventually what is taken in should be love and what is given should be love. When one is in perfect harmonious balance this is what is in constant flow, within and without, the energy of love.
A wise person does not use aggression against another person but only to stir the self out of complacency and into compassion, for a wise person knows that aggression only leads to more aggression while compassion leads to love, and love is what it’s all about.
I am deeply optimistic about our world’s survival. The challenges we face represent a grand adventure in the evolution of consciousness and the refinement of love.
Currently we are in the grip of a global mental virus that has undermined the cohesion of our consensus reality, evident in the extremely polarized interpretations of reality competing throughout the world. Conflicting views on the treatment of the physical virus, Covid-19, clearly illustrate this point.
The mental virus that is afflicting us has even fatally wounded many intimate family relationships, the bedrock of civilization. Most disturbing has been the failure of communication even between friends and family to bridge this deep divide.
As a therapist, I have experienced this failure of reconciliation with even the most caring of relationships. At this stage, calm, rational communication is trumped by this mental virus. Individuals are so sure of their interpretations of reality that communication is limited to argumentation and the intent to convince.
The time for successful communication to promote communion of polarized opposites has not arrived. Indeed, communication, however well intentioned, is simply not effective at this time. Other processes are currently in motion that must be completed before the ingredients for effective communication can be joined.
Earth itself is engaged in a major transformational process. Transformation requires first a course of breakdown of what is before a reformation of those materials can be accomplished. In alchemy, two major operations that accomplish breakdown are calcinatio and solutio.
Calcinatio is the destructive force of fire. Currently we have a winter fire burning in Big Sur. Last week we had the volcanic explosion that devastated the island of Tonga and was felt around the world.
Solutio is the dissolving power of water as it floods the Earth. Currently, Iran and Zambia are dealing with severe flooding. January 2022 has already seen flooding in South Africa, Madagascar, Uruguay, Peru, Brazil and France. Will Russia dissolve the autonomous country of Ukraine, with its military might swelling at its border, portending the flood of invasion?
The operations of calcinatio and solutio, in human terms, are the expression of passionate emotions that seek to break down the status quo through heated verbiage and flooding of emotions. Humans, physically constructed of the materials of Earth, are behaviorally reflecting her transformational process, currently in the destructive phase.
Separatio is an alchemical operation that separates the broken down materials into their component parts. This is a process of differentiation that values the purity of unique ingredients. On the human front, these are the separatist, or xenophobic, movements that seek to cleanse their enclosed borders of those who seem different from themselves.
In human relations, all three of these operations are concurrently active. These forces of breakdown and separation are all precursors to coniunctio, the alchemical stage of union, where all previously broken down and separated elements are rejoined in a new chemical bonding.
The forces currently active in nature, and human nature, will eventually reach this stage of union. However, that stage has far from arrived as we are still in the midst of breakdown and differentiation. How does one then hold together, with self and other, in such a time of disintegration and separation?
Do not try to force union. Reason cannot contain the forces of destruction and differentiation. Nonetheless, love—the ultimate glue that holds together the oneness of everyone, and everything, at the subtlest energetic level of being—is ever-present, regardless of the alchemical processes currently dominating the world stage.
Rather than bad rap, laugh at, marginalize, or hate those who passionately oppose me, can I see myself in all others? Every attitude, emotion, thought, and belief that I see expressed by another, that I personally differentiate myself from, is actually in me too, somewhere, however dormant. Can I find it, examine it, value it, and include it in my own wholeness? This, I can certainly accomplish within myself.
Though we may not be at the place of union without, can I hold onto the most subtle truth of our oneness within? In wholeness, all belong, none can be eliminated. This ultimate truth is expressed clearly in the revelations of transpersonal psychology and subatomic physics.
Thus, those who heap aspersions upon me are as much a part of me as those I asperse against. Though we might at present be quite separated and unable to communicate, I can still feel love and compassion for all in our interconnected oneness.
Union, like separation will have its day. In the meantime, hold onto love, especially for those you must now oppose.
When something overwhelms do not immediately feel sorry for the self or get caught off guard but ask the most important question: What does this mean? Everything is meaningful. Find the meaning in everything so that you may advance along your path, so that you may move one more step in the direction of clarity and enlightenment, so that you may begin to figure out why you exist in the life you are in. The true purpose of life is to grow and serve others in a loving way. Find the path that will lead you to your personal unfolding of this universal mission of love. Or perhaps you are already living it and just need to refine it. Live with awe, gratitude, and an open heart and all will be well.
