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Do you believe in magic? Chapter III: Beginner’s Mind

 

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Found on galeri3.uludagsozluk.com

It had been three days since he last left the old wizard. The sky was heavy with rain. Water rushed like a whitewater river down the street filling gutters like a dammed spillway washing all the flotsam and jetsam from the neighborhoods high on the hill toward the city center below. Here and there drains were filled with so much debris that small lakes formed around them obliterating the intersections. A wind blew down from the top of the hill with its full force channeled by the rows of houses and narrow street driving the rain deep into any nook or opening in the well-kept buildings or any man foolish enough to be outside on a day like this.

A young man braved this storm wearing only a short slicker and a knit cap hoping to arrive at his destination before thoroughly soaked. Of course it was not to be and soon he found himself standing before the familiar door and waiting for what seemed an eternity, dripping from every fiber of his being, for the invitation to enter.

Standing in the foyer and creating a small puddle on the floor beneath him he smiled, shook the water from his hair and took off his jacket hanging it on the hook directly across from the door. Before he could squeak out a greeting the old man began speaking.

“Sooo, did you let go of all your attachments?” asked the old man.

“Yes, it wasn’t easy, but, yes.” The young man exclaimed as he removed his sodden shoes and nudged them to the side.

“And?”

“And nothing! No magic, no nothing!” The boy said in anger as though he had been duped. The perceived failure of the last three days along with the miserable weather had ruined his mood leaving him none too polite with his mentor’s incessant questions.

“Then you didn’t detach.” The old man exclaimed with an air of dismissal.

“I did so!” said the boy stubbornly.

“Did you expect that when you finally detached then you could do magic?”

“Yes, of course!”

“Then you were still attached to the outcome. You probably had the thought that I had ripped you off in some way and that thought instantly took you over and you couldn’t let go of it. That’s another attachment, attachment to your thoughts. You probably felt proud of yourself having been so successful, didn’t you?”

“Yes I was!”

“Pride, expectation, thoughts, beliefs. You just exchanged one set of attachments for another. I said to detach from every thing!”

The boy just stood there, gaping. “But I thought…”

“That’s the problem, you’re still thinking. You actually think that your thoughts are important don’t you?”

“Yes sir. But now I’m beginning to wonder.”

“Stop befriending your thoughts, stop acting as though they have any real contribution to your life whatsoever!” He demanded emphatically. “They’re worthless when it comes to magic. Just let go of everything, even your silly little thoughts!”

“Silly little thoughts?” The boy exclaimed defiantly.

“Do I detect pride? Have you become the thought that your thoughts aren’t silly? Foolish boy!” said the old man as he taunted the young man without mercy.

The boy clenched his hands into fists and could feel the heat of anger crawling up his neck and onto his face. He was starting to lose conscious control of himself and words of fear and threat and rage spit from his mouth, words that he had never heard himself say. This wasn’t him speaking and then it struck him. His expectations, pride, and anger were taking over. They were in control and were beginning to dominate everything. Not only was he attached, but literally joined at the ego.

With great effort he began to relax and to let the fire of his ego slowly extinguish. Finally he found his own voice again. “This is, isn’t as easy as I, I thought.” He stuttered.

“Nothing worth being or having ever is.” Said the old man with a sigh.

“Too much thinking gets in the way of being magic. You want to let other things take you where they will. If you want to get to the place where the magic lies, you need to get outside your thoughts and let the soul move you. This is what world-class dancers, musicians, actors, poets and writers do– during creation they transcend the ego and let their soul guide them. It’s in this space that the magic will find you. Stop trying to control and let that which animates you guide you.

Now go home and wander around in your thoughts for a while. Don’t try to change them, or to not have them, just notice them as they wander through your mind. Notice what happens in your body when they come to visit and what other thoughts enter into the conversation. I want you to be an observer of your thoughts and feelings throughout your day, not a participant. Observe without judging or figuring out, or predicting, or labeling– just watch them. If at any time you notice that you’ve gotten caught up in them, acknowledge them and go back to observing without judging yourself.

Imagine having a mind like that of a baby, a beginners mind if you will, a mind that embraces nothing but the moment. I want you to especially observe your expectations. There is no expected outcome for this exercise. Whatever you do is just fine.

Let go of the expectation that if you were to practice rightly, if you were to achieve ego detachment that you will be a better person. You won’t, you’ll be the same as you’ve always been. This process is not about getting better or being better. This is not about better.  Also, there’s no meaning in the exercise, that’s an attachment to ‘meaning’. Just do it, for no reason and take what you get.

Do this for a week, then come back and see me.”

The young man nodded and turned toward the door. For a moment he was devoid of thoughts, then turned and said, “Thank you” with more earnest gratitude than he had ever experienced before. And the old man smiled for he knew that the acknowledgment came not through a thought but from the very soul of the boy himself and for one moment the room lit up brightly.

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Do you believe in Magic? Chapter II: Detachment as the gateway to magic

 

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The magus picked up his still smoldering pipe and took a long, leisurely draw, slowly exhaling and engulfing himself.

 

The young man awoke late the next day. Without hesitation he rolled out of bed to his knees, straightened awkwardly and hopped to the bathroom intending to shower then changed his mind given that he was already dressed what with having fallen asleep on the bed from the exhaustion experienced the day before with the old magician. Grabbing a stick of deodorant he quickly rubbed some under his arms, slipped on his shoes, picked up his jacket from the floor where he had tossed it earlier, and bolted out the door barely taking time to lock it behind him and charged down the stairs and into the street.

It was late afternoon and the rows of aging Victorian two and three stories known affectionately as “painted ladies” so named from their elaborately architectural ornamented and multicolored façade had taken on a glow of warmth as though readying themselves for a long nights sleep. Though the sky was still light the large picture frame windows of some houses shown with a warm amber glow that added to the sense of their aliveness.

As the young man skittered up the tree-lined street he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this excited about something, about anything actually. He almost flew over the sidewalk, grabbing a tree with one hand at his destination, and using the momentum of his run to swing him around and into the alcove of the three-story walk-up where his new mentor lived.

“Oh God, what if I’m too early, or too late? He didn’t actually say what time I should show up except that it should be about the same time as yesterday. I don’t want to piss him off before we really get started. Magic, imagine, me, learning to do real magic!” He mused as he slowed his pace while walking the long entrance to the staircase at the other end where he paused to gather his wits. “What was it he said?” “You can’t ‘learn’ magic.” And then pontificated. “Learning is through the thinking mind.” He exclaimed that the process of discovering that I already know the magic is something that he could help me with, though he wasn’t sure about what the old man meant by the ‘already know’ part. “I mean what did he know?” he pondered.

He stopped at the foot of the stairs, unsure as to whether he should go up. After all, he had been so confused the night before. What made him think that this evening would be any different?

Summoning his courage he climbed to the first floor entry and knocked on the wizard’s door. He heard a muffled “Enter” and tried the knob, entering slowly and peering around the door then catching a glimpse of someone sitting in an overstuffed leather chair with pipe smoke curling up and disappearing somewhere into the exposed rafters above.

This time he noticed that the room was warm, musky and smelled of cherries and old books a rather inviting fragrance he thought.

“You’re just in time” said the old man as he pulled the pipe from his mouth and set it smoldering in the bowl next to him.

Without even a “good evening” he motioned the boy to sit on the floor before him and began to talk. “First of all you need to remember that magic is not about things. Things have no magic. To the degree that your consciousness is preoccupied with things– the having and not having of them and your unending compulsive plans around your life, to this degree you will not be able to produce any magic.

I will not teach you magic but I will teach you how to open the door to it. This is not the magic of medicine bags, wands, and charms nor is it the magic of tranquilizers, drugs, rationalism or the power of your will. You can’t even begin to see what it is as long as you’re attached to the world of things. When you realize that you are not one of those things, but the container of all things, then and only then, will you be open to magic. What we will be doing from here on is to disentangle you from all inner and outer attachments of your life.”

“When your identity is able to disentangle with the ego, the center of your consciousness, and open to the space between it and the unconscious mind you will create a new center of being that will then allow you to be magic. Do you understand?”

“I do, sort of, though I’m still confused as to how I get there.” The boy said as he trembled at the thought of what “there” might mean.

“The first thing you’ll have to do is to give up your attachment to all things.” He said dryly.

“What? What do you mean give up my attachment to everything? You mean give up everything I own? Are you kidding?” He noted that this was beginning to sound a lot like all those boring sermons at church when he was a kid.

“I mean, you must give up your attachment to these things, including your ideas about them. You are attached to the outer world and that’s your greatest obstacle to the introspection necessary to discovering your magic. You believe that you need these things in order to survive do you not?”

“Most of them, yes, yes of course!” The boy said emphatically.

“Most of them?” Said the old man as he raised one eyebrow.

“Well food, water, life seem like necessary attachments don’t you think?”

Without answering the old wizard went on.

“You also believe that no rational person would give up everything to go chasing after some fantasy do you not?”

“I do.”

“Do you label your fantasies as just daydreaming– something to just while away some boring hours but without any real substance?”

“Mostly, yeah!” He said while wondering where the old man was going with this.

“Be careful, here, for it is the essence within your fantasies my dear boy that enables magic. When it comes to magic your rational mind is your biggest obstacle to wielding it. To become it you have to be willing to embrace even death.”

This of course shocked the boy and he became highly alert and suspicious of the old man’s intentions. He quickly looked about him for some avenue of escape should he need it. The room was dark all around them except for where they were sitting. He wasn’t sure where he would go if he had to move quickly. He could feel the fear swell in his chest.

Noticing the boy’s change of affect to one of fear he quickly interjected. “Not the death of your body for goodness sake! I’m talking about detachment from that well regarded ego-self of yours that dominates your every move. The ego doesn’t know magic! It can’t because magic doesn’t come from ones ego. Understand?”

“You seem to think that who I think I am is something different than who I really am. This is me, what you see is what you get, what I really am.” The boy said defensively.

“Really? Are you sure about that? What if I told you that your personality, the thing that you think you are, isn’t who you really are, that it’s all made up?”

“I’d say you were crazy.”

“You said that the last time we met. But can you hold the image of that possibility that you are not what you say you are? Can you just for the next few days sit with the notion that you have no idea who you really are?

You have many things in your life i.e. objects and ideas such as your name, your degree, your size, your beliefs, your likes and dislikes, who your parents are, family traditions, cultural traditions, the foods you like and don’t like, the style of clothes you wear, the music you like, politics, sports teams, the type of girl you’re interested in all of which you’ve attached your identity to. What would you be if they were all gone? What would you be if you were to just be unattached to anything?”

“Well I, I don’t know.” said the boy hesitatingly.

“Go home and detach. Be without for a while and then tell me who you are. But don’t come back until you do– until you’ve let go of every thing.

Bewildered the boy got up and looked sheepishly at the wizard because he was not really sure what he was asking of him, but resolved to at least try and then absently wandered out of the room saying a barely audible “goodbye” as he closed the door behind him, started down the stairs and walked into the night.

Strolling home he looked out across a cityscape that was here and there covered in fog and landed his gaze upon one of his most favorite visions. Peeking through the fog a lighted bridge with reddish spires jutted across the darkened water of the bay’s entrance and seemingly disappeared into the mist before getting to the other side. A wry grin crossed his face when he realized that this was like a metaphor for what he was feeling, incomplete and only partially there.

The magus picked up his still smoldering pipe and took a long, leisurely draw, slowly exhaling and engulfing himself. Feeling a chill he shivered and drew the fire ever closer. In his minds eye the room seemed to flicker and a canopy of stars spread out across what had once been his parlour ceiling. With another puff of his pipe he stretched out, “Now we climb down the rabbit hole once again.”  He whispered as though talking to some unseen entity and leaving only his smile glowing through the smoke.

 

 

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Do you believe in magic? Chapter I

2267148-208751-magic-book-on-a-blue-background-with-the-lines-and-lights.jpgWhat foolishness is this? Everyone knows that there’s no such thing as magic. You believe there’s no such thing, don’t you?

Are you sure?

What if I were to tell you that yes indeed there is such a thing as magic? I can’t teach it to you because it’s not mine to teach. I can, however, show you the door, that door into that part of your mystical self that holds the power of the universe…

 

Chapter I : A New Beginning

While sitting before the fire one cold and blustery evening I heard a gentle rapping, a hesitant tapping at my livingroom door. “What now?” I thought as I put down my pipe and rose to answer. “It’s been some time since someone came to visit.” I mused. Upon opening the door the visitor stood up straight and without any greeting or explanation blurted out…

“Can you teach me magic?” said a curious young man standing before me and looking at me hopefully.

Inwardly I moaned but outwardly exclaimed, “No!” I said rather brusquely, and ready to close the door in his face. But I hesitated not really expecting this to end his quest. I was really more interested in his resolve, because it was this resolve that would speak to his level of intention and commitment. If he wavered now, then he wouldn’t be able to make magic anyway, but if he persisted, well then, maybe. But so many had quit before the real training had even begun. It was no use wasting precious time on yet another wannabe.

“But I want to know. You see, I’ve forgotten how.” He said with a far off look in his eye.

Now this was a hopeful sign! I thought to myself.

“To say you’ve forgotten how presupposes that you once knew. What say you about that?” I cocked my head to one side and gestured with my palms outward so as to elicit a response.

“I know that I knew at one time, sometime before this.” Again said with that wistful air.

“Have you been here before?”

“My dreams say I have.” He looked up at me hopefully, sensing that I was showing interest.

“Do they now?” I said with much disdain. “What do they tell you about magic?”

“That I need to learn again how to do it.” He said haltingly.

“Well they’re wrong! Magic can’t be learned!” I said with emphasis on the last word and then shoving my fists onto both sides of my waist as a gesture of defiance. Abruptly I turned as though to leave.

“Please?” Said the young man practically getting down on his knees to beg.

In turning back, I invited him to exit the cold and enter. Closing the door gently behind him I asked, “Do you even know what magic is?”

He paused for a moment in thought, then said, “I know that it’s everywhere.”

Hmm, this boy has potential. I thought.

“Okay we’ll work on it.” I said and placed my hand on his shoulder indicating that I wished him to sit. I then pulled up a chair from the side of the desk and sat down facing him. His dark brown eyes widened in anticipation of what may be the most transformative moment of his life.

“First of all, magic cannot be taught, you cannot learn it, it is not a rational thing that can be understood in the conventional way things can be understood, for you see it is not a thing. It can be understood, but only in an incomprehensible way. Do you understand?”

He looked crestfallen– almost in shock. “N, no” stammered the young man looking much confused.

“Good, that’s a start! You will have to learn to let go of your rational mind, that which thinks things through, for you will not find magic through thinking. The rational man doesn’t need magic, therefore he can never hope to wield it.”

“That sounds crazy!” Said the boy disgustedly.

“Precisely! We humans spend so much time thinking about things through the rational brain, that we have lost the ability to be magic. Now I’m not referring to the kind of magic practiced by some religious ritualistic nutcase who believes that their rituals and thoughts can bring about real-world effects, where ideal causes are mistaken for real ones. Nor am I talking about the pointing of some stick and chanting a series of words so as to manipulate another person or object. That’s just sloppy thinking. That’s just “more thinking” and therefore comes through that place in the mind that filters all material on a self-interest level. Magic does not come through the “thinking” mind. “Do you get that?” I said while punching the air in his direction with my index finger for emphasis.

“Most of the time we avoid the place of real magic as though it were a contagion that if confronted would throw us into utter confusion and chaos.”

“Well I’m confused!” He said accusingly.

“That’s good! See if you can just sit with your confusion for a while longer without trying to figure out the meaning of what I say, or reject what is being said either. Can you do that?”

“I, I’ll try.”

“Good! You have now opened just a crack in the door into your deeper self, the place where chaos and confusion lives. It is in there that magic also lives. I cannot teach you the way of magic, but I can introduce you to where it lives and let you discover it yourself. Magic can never be summoned, it arises at its own will, not yours. But you can learn to open to it. It comes from disarray.”

Seeing no light in his eyes as yet I asked that he think about who is responsible for what he does or does not do. “Who is responsible for running your life?”

“Well, uh, I am!” He said as though it were obvious.

“But what if you were to find out that this has never been true?”

“Really?” He squeaked.

“Well the ‘you’ that you identify as being you, never was in control, it isn’t now! The chaos and confusion that you shut off into your unconscious runs you more than that little bit of territory you call consciousness. You spend so much time trying to be what you’re not, that you’ve hidden what you are. The magic you seek is all around and within. You are the magic!”

For one brief moment the light in his eyes shined through the darkness, very brief, and then was gone. “What was that?” I asked to get him to focus.

“What was what?”

“The look on your face. What just passed through your mind?”

“I, I don’t know.”  He said looking even more confused.

“Straighten up and sit there for a moment. Quiet your thoughts and listen to the voice deep within you that is whispering, ‘There is something more, all of your thoughts about life so far aren’t quite right no matter what anyone says’”  I said in a muted stage whisper. “Do it now and we will talk again later”.  He sat for a moment then suddenly opened his eyes and exclaimed in the same hushed whisper, “I heard it!” 

“The journey has begun.” I said and brought the conversation to a close by getting up and walking to the door and motioning for him to leave. “See you tomorrow, same time.” He fairly skipped from the room, opened the door and strode out into the night.

 

 

 

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Black Dreams

 

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Dreams of being a child have come into my sleep along with being wrong and making mistakes, feeling shame and powerlessness and falling. When my waking dream becomes too stressful, when I find that I can’t stay in the here and now because I’m caught up in worries about the future, or guilt from the past, I find my dreams full of powerlessness and fear. Hurricanes, storms, titanic waves, and floods wash through my dreams and add even greater stress to a psyche overburdening itself. If the dreams shared with me on-line are any indication, I’d say this might be true for many of you.

Though I did not measure up to my personal expectations, to the image of myself that I thought I should be, I realized something much greater. The Black Dream where I found myself in the waking world had been giving way to something new.

When facing the darkness one can receive images much grander than those limited images one has of themselves. For me I saw that I never gave up, though the way looked impossible; that I always strove to become better than either my own judgments, or the judgments of others. Somehow I found the courage to stand up to the feelings of failure and rejection and to face what I judged to be humiliation with my head held high. I allowed myself to feel the fool and to grow from its presence, to go beyond the fears and become bigger than my estimate of self.

The experience of recent events and the consciousness they brought in their wake have helped me to realize some of how big I really am. I may not be what I think I should be, an ego-self desire, but once again I’ve discovered that I’m really so much more.

Until I was willing to truly accept the darkness and honor its value, I couldn’t see the ever so small light flickering in the corner. I’ve been fighting the darkness ever so long, but the truth is that rejecting the darkness also rejects the light. This morning, I saw the barest glow and reached for it and it warmed and filled the space that dispelled the darkness before it. Hanging onto the light often seems harder than living in the darkness. But I think it’s a miracle that the light is there at all.

And that’s the gift of the Black Dream, the Shadow, the darkness; it highlights the flicker of light that is our true self. I can also see that to keep it burning I need to share it and it’s in that vein that I do so now. As I’ve said earlier, love is the cure for our nightmares; it’s the light within our darkness.

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Saturn’s Child

On occasion I have written about the phenomenon I call “eating the heart”–self-judgment and depression. Most of the time I can see that there is no real cause for this mood–no real reason to feel depressed, or reason for self-flagellation, so I just let it be. Some of the time I resist it because it robs me of feeling good about myself and being happy in the world. And all of the time I don’t much care for it. What I haven’t done is to embrace it.

werewolf_by_viergacht-d6ex664.gifWhat the ancients called “coming into Saturn,” or being Saturn’s Child is an expression of soul as much as is happiness. For me, depression and self-judgment has provided the energy to look deeper into the meaning of my life and to explore what it means to be fully human. I don’t want to make my shadow a friend, but I don’t want to ignore, or deny it either. Being whole and complete means to embrace (and accept responsibility for) everything that you are and are not. I don’t want to be a shallow personality, but this has a price in that more often than I care to I fall under Saturn’s spell.

Is it possible that depression is not always an evil neurosis to be mechanically controlled through medication and/or counseling? It is possible that the soul is more than just goodness and purity, that it is dark fantasy as well. It is also possible that the process of depression is similar to an alchemist’s crucible where what you are becomes ground and reduced into the essence of being.

Sometimes people need a dark and shaded place to withdraw to and allow the perfectly legitimate feelings of depression to have free reign. Sometimes the act of resisting this natural element of what we are can entrench it and over time cause it to become pathological.

Depression can be a gift in that it causes one to evaluate the life they’re living–it causes them to go deeper and to begin to ask the fundamental questions of, “who am I and what is my purpose?”

What happens when we always resist Saturn?

In our society we spend a lot of time and money entertaining ourselves so to not experience this part of our soul, our humanity, our essence. I think when we suppress anything for too long it begins to express itself in aberrant ways. Denying a part of the soul causes it to ‘act out’ in order to be expressed. We can see this acting out all around us through violence, both verbal and physical.

Religious zealots who’ve mistakenly assumed that one is either good or evil become evil themselves through resistance to the reality that each of us is both Christ and Satan, spirit and ego. Denying a part of oneself is being less than whole and this leads one to fear, and fear can lead us to act in small ways such as to hate or kill what we fear. We see the results of this misunderstanding of how big we really are and the denial of the shadow in the violence sewn by Muslim fanatics such as al-Qaeda and Christian hate mongers such as the Westboro Baptist Church people. As with the denied, or unconscious aspects of ourselves, rigid dichotomies frequently lead us to all kinds of intolerant and aberrant behaviors.

If God is indeed the unlimited source of all there is, then any limitation becomes a sin– a missing the mark. Fear is a limited perspective also and is seldom a positive emotion to act out of. It may have served us well when we huddled in our caves, but it often gets in the way in the modern age. Defining God too narrowly is also a sin of limited perspective, as is doing hateful things in his name. All of this misses the point of the fundamental unity that a broader perspective generates.

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Dark dreams may have the most to tell us

 

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It’s a thin veil between the conscious and unconscious mind and though it may reveal our very salvation we fear to tread its ancient paths.

In the book The Archipelago of Dreams, the world that Robert passes into is the Otherworld of the Psyche, the mind, the unconscious depths he has avoided all his life. Shadows lurk there, dark and barely seen, never having seen the light of day. These shadows are not just the stuff from which Robert’s nightmares grow, but are the primordial ooze from which all our nightmares crawl.

It’s a thin veil between the conscious and unconscious mind that Robert pushed aside as he crossed a darkened lake and entered the mysterious and confusing world of the unconscious. It is this world that seems so personal but turns out to be a collective shared by us all.

There are images within the unconscious netherworld that we all share, though they may be expressed differently by culture. They are the same archetypal boogeymen – devils, the walking dead, life-sucking vampires, possession by ghouls, or evil spirits. All are the resident shadows that lurk within the deepest recesses of our minds, part of us and yet we deny them. And in their denial they become more fearsome.

Our shadows will not be denied. They will project themselves into everything and everywhere, demanding to be recognized. Greed, ill will, pride, all of the cardinal sins are but reflections of our shadow selves. But it is fear that commands the greatest attention and it is our fears that our greatest nightmares are trying to overcome and come to terms with.

Many of our movies, especially those scary-violent ones that threaten to possess us, are dealing with the myriad manifestations of fear e.g. the fear of loss – loss of life, love, respect, self-control, personal power, or soul.

We project onto our movies these fears and how we want to conquer them. Movies like The Exorcist on Warner Bros, Insidious – The Movie, and The Body Snatchers are examples of possession themes – the loss of personal control, the fear of helplessness. Zombies can represent the fear of being consumed by fear itself. This was the case for Jaws as well. Freddy Kruger, Jack the Ripper, Jekyll and Hyde and others represent the animal in each of us that we fear we won’t be able to control.

In The Archipelago, Robert is confronted with many of his fears, some of which are projections from his own unconscious mind, and struggles to understand and master them. For if he doesn’t, it is more than just his life he could lose.

What is it that goes bump in the night when it is only you and your nightmares in the room?

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Embracing the Shadow

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“Yesterday, upon the stair,

I met a man who wasn’t there.

He wasn’t there again today,

I wish, I wish he’d go away…”

 

We all have a person who isn’t there. It’s a shadow that follows us everywhere we go even on the darkest night with no moon or streetlights’ glare. It hides behind a mask amongst the deepest caverns of our mind, lurking, stalking and waiting to strike. He or she are all the emotions and distasteful parts of ourselves that we just as soon not see during the daylight but often show up in our dreams at night.

We shun them for they are not who we want to be. We lock them up in our cages so deep hoping that they will never escape. We hide them in the dark, dank and stinking tunnels of our unconscious trying to forget the smell of them and hoping that eventually they’ll die. But they never die for you see they feed on our fear and the energy we use to keep them hidden. Occasionally they’ll escape to the upper realm and play havoc with our relationships, our emotions, our goals and plans. Like little gremlins they toy with us.

“When I came home last night at three,

The man was waiting there for me

But when I looked around the hall,

I couldn’t see him there at all!

Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!

Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door…”

 The shadow is a universal archetype whose presence is felt by us all from time to time. We deny its existence but that won’t do any good. Why won’t he go away? Because he can’t, he’s part of us and if you could cut him away we wouldn’t be us any more.

His power and persistence in our lives lies in our resistance to him. When pretending he’s not there he can wheedle his way into everything we do and try to be often with disastrous results.

“Last night I saw upon the stair,

A little man who wasn’t there,

He wasn’t there again today

Oh, how I wish he’d go away.”

                        –Antagonish by

                                              William Hughes Mearns

There’s a paradox here in that he won’t go away until you ask him to stay.

Accepting all parts of the self both light and shadow is to honor your wholeness. Treating all aspects of yourself as equal will allow you to use all your energies in a direction of your choosing rather than moving to the hidden ghost’s bidding or wasting your energy trying to keep half of you caged.

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Nevermore!

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“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.”

–Edgar Allen Poe

 

Those lines from Poe’s The Raven really creeped me out when first I read them oh so many years ago. Since then I have stood on many an abyss peering into the darkness where my dreams were of those that “no mortal ever dared to dream before”.

In that epic poem the narrator expected to find someone on the other side of the door, but instead found nothing. Now he’s beginning to get really paranoid. The possibility of a supernatural presence creeps into his mind.

That sense of supernatural presence has often haunted me in my dreams, sometimes jumping out at me or crawling up my spine and engulfing my mouth so I couldn’t scream their name.

It took me years to learn who they were and what it was they wanted of me, but they’re there, hidden, squatting in the dark corners of the cellars of my mind waiting for me to pass their way again.

Poe wanted to handle his demons by not entertaining them, by not reinforcing their taunts:

“There are moments when, even to the sober eye of Reason, the world of our sad Humanity may assume the semblance of a Hell… Alas! The grim legion of sepulchral terrors cannot be regarded as altogether fanciful… they must sleep, or they will devour us–they must be suffered to slumber, or we perish.”

 –Poe in The Premature Burial

 But through countless confrontations I have learned that our own demons are nourished by the fears that cause us to “suffer their slumber” it is our very resistance to them that feeds them. With each year they grow ever bigger when we lock them away and will gain strength to break through the bonds and locked cages we’ve assigned them to. They pounce before us ready and wanting to be seen, or if not, to devour. Hiding from them is futile. Calling them by name and inviting them into the upper floors of our consciousness is the only way to deal with them effectively.

Alas Poe was not able to do this and ended his life haunted, hopelessly alcoholic, maddened, and in great distress having failed in business and losing everything that he had loved.

 “And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,

And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted – nevermore!”

 Poe gave into his demons by not negotiating with them. If he had only discerned the meaning of the raven sitting upon the bust of Pallas, the Greek goddess of wisdom, he might have opened to the deeper definition of his night shadows. Had he known that the nightmarish Raven was symbolic of his own self-betrayal, but also a symbol of death, of letting go of his self-haunting he might have been able to rid himself of its terror.

Like all dreams Nightmares come in the service of the health and well being of the dreamer. For me the Raven’s entreaty of “Nevermore” relates to never more ignoring the dark denizens of my repressed shadows.

Posted on by The Book of Dreams blog

Dueling Shadows

 

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The Dream:

In a dream some time ago I experienced trying to serve a customer where I had to follow strict Muslim ritual. Because I was unfamiliar with the ways, I was quite slow and humbly apologized to the customer. Another customer who was Muslim was watching me closely and I daresay was judging my performance.

When I walked away to get some materials for the sale I walked by a long table set for a Queen with all sorts of fancy dinnerware placed just so. I realized that both experiences were ritualistic in their own way.

Interpretation:

In this interpretation I am using meanings for symbols that are exclusive to me. The Muslim traditions, as they seem to be practiced, seem oppressive to me especially in how they appear to treat women. I am not however, suggesting that the religion itself is oppressive, quite the contrary. But I do have judgments about the manner in which it is practiced in some parts of the Muslim world or within the Christian world for that matter. Perhaps I should just use word “world” which should pretty much cover the bent toward misogyny I’ve seen all over the world regardless of religion.

There are oppressive aspects of myself that come out when I’m stressed or tired, or particularly self-critical and I’ve become more an more aware of them as of late, not really liking what I see and preferring to not think about them too deeply. I’d rather dwell on high fantasy and on what looks glittery and fun versus what looks dark and foreboding.

There are several oppositions in this dream e.g. lower status vs. higher status; ignoble vs. noble; and ignoring vs. facing the shadow (the tendency to ignore the shadow is characteristic of most of us). Actually, both events have their shadow side; the Muslim symbol I’ve explained, but the noble or queenly symbol also has its shadow in the way they treat and think about those whom they consider their inferiors.

The ritual aspect represented by both might suggest an addictive tendency on my part with respect to certain behaviors and I’m finding that I’m becoming increasingly uncomfortable with ignoring them. This is a good sign for me, and one that I have been looking for in my dreams for some time.

Posted on by The Book of Dreams blog

Give your Shadow a hug every once in awhile.

 

“Our job in this life is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.”

 ― Steven Pressfield The War of Art

 

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When I use the term “shadow” it’s not always referring to the dark side, or the negative aspects of an individual. Sometimes it’s referring to a person’s opposite aspects, that which are not the default ways of being.

Sometimes our shadows and nightmares are like candles bringing light to our darkness.

During the month of June 2010 I had a series of dreams that reflected some difficulty I was having processing some critical statements a close friend had made about me. Images of floods, drowning, and being attacked filled my dreams every night for five days.

The so-called critical statements alleged that I was pompous and arrogant and these evaluations didn’t reconcile with my self-image of being humble and self-effacing.

Then one night I dreamed of being overwhelmed by a flood and climbing the stairs to the second story in order to gain safety. And in that second floor experience I realized the answer to my emotional dilemma. In my dreams and my working with them I was being guided to realize that I was actually humble and arrogant, pompous and self-effacing! I was both my bright and shadow self.

I have known people who were basically kind, but who would “flash” anger onto others for what seemed the most insignificant of reasons. This continued for quite some time until they came to realize that this side of their personality had been rejected and shoved down into their subconscious for so long that it was beginning to leak out.

Basically, an unacknowledged shadow will dog you until you pay attention to it and acknowledge its presence as being a part of you. As humans we are sometimes happy, sometimes angry, sometimes humble and sometimes arrogant, sometimes brilliant and sometimes dull. This is the human condition, but if we spend too much energy trying to not be our opposite we can become out-of-balance and eventually this can cause mental, emotional, and/or physical sickness.

Every so often a sleeping nightmare will visit or a waking world nightmare will disturb your peace of mind. Don’t reject them out of hand because they both can be there in the service of your health and well-being. Every once and awhile you need to embrace your shadow self.

Some psychologists and therapists believe that to bring balance to our lives we need to strive to become whole, that is to accept what we are and to create ourselves endlessly.

We are more than our limited image of our self. We are greater than what we reject and than what we keep.

 

“We fear discovering that we are more than we think we are. More than our parents/children/teachers think we are. We fear that we actually possess the talent that our still, small voice tells us. That we actually have the guts, the perseverance, the capacity. We fear that we truly can steer our ship, plant our flag, reach our Promised Land. We fear this because, if it’s true, then we become estranged from all we know.”

–Steven Pressfield