Watch your energy. Keep it well protected from outside forces that seek to utilize it for their own intentions. Instead, be mindful of what you are choosing to do each day, where you put your attention, and what you are asking for. Not everything you think you want is good for you. Far better to stay contained within the self, calm and contented, and let yourself be guided to what is right. There is plenty of good surrounding you that will show you the way without you having to do more than ask to be guided properly. Then wait. Act only when the time is right. In this manner save your energy for when you really need it, and in the meantime remain calm.
Calcinatio in the retort of the body… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
My Spirit sees everything from an evolutionary perspective. Thus, even the sobering truth of Maureen Dowd’s editorial, Apocalypse Right Now, is not a dealbreaker for my optimism.
All are encouraged to examine the truth, to the extent that that is possible, but then to exercise Carlos Castaneda’s number one dictum, Suspend Judgment, in order to reach the deeper truth of the soul’s fantastic voyage.
Sir Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos sought to actualize achieving such a high level perspective in their respective launches into space these past couple of weeks. I see their journeys as transcendent attempts to free their spirits from the gravity of the mess on the ground of planet Earth.
Indeed, the thrust of the Spirit now is for the human race to up its Olympian game. This does not require that all go in search of transcendent out-of-body experiences. In fact, though I am impressed with the recent space adventures, they appear a bit compensatory to the truth on the ground. Good to be reminded of the potential of the human ego spirit to rise above the mess, but can it apply itself to the needed changes below?
We are all in this world on missions of growth. Most are born with a blank slate to protect those intended missions from confusion and interference from their Spirit’s prior journeys in infinity. Though the soul brings with it the fruits of its prior adventures in the form of its innate intelligence, it temporarily releases the memory of those experiences to be fully available to the life at hand.
Thus, the purity of Spirit’s intent imbues one’s life with purpose yet becomes clouded over by one’s material DNA and physical life circumstance. Nonetheless, one’s physical life remains the playing field for the Spirit’s intended growth.
We could say that the purity of Spirit becomes muddied and weighed down by the imperfections of material physical life. The journey then, in this earthly life, is one of working through the impurities of our physical trials to further add to our Spirit’s clarity, knowledge, and growth.
Carl Jung spent much of his adult life unearthing and studying ancient alchemical texts. Most modern psychological researchers question his sanity for having wasted so much time on such obscure nonsensical pre-chemistry texts. Jung, however, discovered that the alchemists were deeply engaged in a series of operations seeking to release the Spirit from its material impurities.
Psychotherapy, for Jung, was the application of a series of alchemical operations upon the psyche, seeking to free one’s Spirit from the bindings of illusion that overshadow one’s life and block fulfillment—the refinement of one’s Spirit.
The alchemists began their operations by choosing a substance to work on. In psychotherapy, one chooses a core stumbling block in one’s life to work on.
Alchemists used a retort, a vessel that the substance was placed in and then sealed, while they performed their operations upon it. In psychotherapy, the retort becomes the introspective ego that is asked to stay in body and be with the thoughts, beliefs, feelings, memories, sensations and dreams that arise as one works with an issue.
In psychotherapy, the sealed retort is equivalent to the body and psyche containing the intense energies of a conflict that has arisen, which is so tempting to release through blame, rationalization, a new illusion, or an emotional catharsis. Like the pot of water that never boils if we keep lifting the lid, we will never achieve the desired transformation if our retort is prematurely opened.
Planet Earth is clearly in the midst of its own alchemical processes of solutio, via flooding, and calcinatio, with fire. The retort of Earth is performing the necessary operations to reshape itself, and the lives of its inhabitants, and to cleanse itself of the illusions that have encumbered its Spirit.
Humans are simultaneously being asked to stay grounded and face the truths of their own lives, without opening the retort to the inflation of Icarus or the deflation of morbid depression. Containment of volatile emotion is a necessary precursor to transformative change. Acquiescence to necessary behaviors that reflect the truth is the ego’s greatest challenge.
These are the earthbound tasks for all humans now, as we individually and collectively seal the retort and are driven, by the thrust of the Spirit, to advance deeper into truth, survival, and evolution.
Beware of the tendency to forget that you are half spirit, that your spirit self is just as important as your body self and that it needs equal time for rest and work, play and entertainment. Keep your spirit self in good attunement. Pay attention to it, feeding it and nurturing it, exercising it and keeping it in good shape, just as you do with your body self, for both are equally important on your journey through life. And there is only one that you will take with you when you leave, so get to know it now, your eternal self that desires to live and learn, to grow and evolve in all the good ways that you dream of for your physical self. Equal time, equal attention will create the balance your body and spirit so desire as they seek to live in harmony.
The body and the spirit constantly vie for attention. Which will win out? Watch for signs that one is gaining more power than the other so that you can keep them in balance. Balance of the body, the physical self, and the spirit, the energetic self, is key to maintaining unity. Unity within is the key to maintaining the balance that will keep you in alignment, neither body nor spirit in control but both happy in equal companionship. Get back in balance. It will do you good.
Let there not be dispute about that which is most possible, that all beings operate from a place of love and compassion, for all human beings have the capacity to do so. It is the basic and ruling emotion that seeks its place among you as the guiding light. Everything else pales in comparison. Do not let fear keep you from your capacity to love unconditionally. Exercise this most natural and most important aspect of being human. It will only do you good.
