We are beings in the process of becoming. Our families, through socialization, help us to mold our first containers to hold and manage the prima materia, the innocence from which we are all created. This human mold becomes our identity, our sense of self—a being with continuity—a being we can wake up to in the morning who resembles the being we were when we went to sleep, what psychology calls an ego self.
The truth is, however, that what we are molded into says very little about who we really are, or who we will become. In truth, it’s just a working model, quite universal actually, a mold used and reused billions of times in forming the human race. That mold is the birthplace of our consciousness, our first bicycle, precious for a time but hardly a tool of navigation for an entire lifetime. In truth, consciousness must grow and become increasingly aware of its full nature to remain an effective navigational tool.
It was nature that decided to become conscious in the first place and we human beings are just that: nature that decided to become conscious. Our container, or ego self, is nature’s organ of consciousness. Our fledgling ego self, though, knows nothing of its true nature; it knows nothing of its true parents, nature itself. Our young ego self is an orphan child, separated at birth from its true parents and thrust into a mold that is supposed to know everything about navigating life, yet is so lacking in nature’s true knowledge.
Face it, consciousness enters life seriously stuck behind the eight ball, so different from its natural parents—the deep unconscious of nature—yet expected to have all the answers. The ego self, separated from its roots, has no answers and so little experience, yet is supposed to figure it all out for itself. All it has to work with are the rules, the laws, handed down through its socialized container’s book of rules. Those rules might be helpful in the beginning, but they are not the products of conscious experience and, underneath it all, we, as conscious beings, are deeply insecure beings; all of us nature’s orphans.
And yet, at the same time, we are nature itself, nature’s most evolved experiment! Nature intended to take life in a new direction when it created the human, to not remain bound to its old, redundant patterns. Consciousness was born, conceived to herald in this change that evolved into the human being. What nature didn’t bargain for was that consciousness in the human ego container would become a renegade ship, a child overwhelmed by its power and ability to create, hoard, dominate and destroy. It’s the renegade stewardship of ego consciousness that’s brought us to where we now find ourselves: perched on the brink of destruction, with our true parents, nature, attempting to reign in this runaway ship before it’s too late.
What nature really seeks of us is that we take its prima materia, all the stuff of what we truly are, of what is, and find new expression for all of it in the living out of our lives.
In order to do this we must, of necessity, encounter, in consciousness, all the forces or essences of true nature inherent within all of us. These are the compulsions that come to grip us in fascination, in love, and in terror. These forces rock our containers, beckoning us to face them, own them, and find life for them. How will we fit them into our containers? Do they really belong in our containers, or must we simply acknowledge them and make peace with them? Are we ready to expand our containers, perhaps like the hermit crab that parts ways with its old shell and looks for a new one? Is it time to trade up to a new, expanded, conscious ego self?
The forces of nature within us are varied. Some are radiant and nurturing, others are greedy, vengeful, and deadly. All insist upon some place in our lives. It is the fundamental charge of consciousness to discover these forces of nature, acknowledge the truth of their existence, experience them fully and figure out what to do with them—how to live, balance, express, and evolve them forward.
Consciousness is nature’s evolving organ, it is nature’s grand experiment and its decision making organ, and we are its container. To date, consciousness has largely mismanaged its nature. Collectively and individually we walk the razor’s edge of psychosis, which is nothing other than nature’s way of reasserting its control over a renegade ship and a failed experiment.
On the other hand, nature is completely supportive of its offspring, if that offspring is willing to squarely face the full truth of all that it is. This requires recapitulation—the process of learning to release ourselves from the containment of old, those limited containers of self, as we discover and integrate the fullness of our true natures. This also requires a willingness, on our parts, to take our full natures into the adventures of uncharted waters, within ourselves and in the world without. This is nature’s imperative at this moment in time—to keep evolving into new possibilities, but now responsibly, in full consciousness!
An awesome experiment indeed!
Part of the experiment,
Chuck
