POLL: The Shadow Dance - Indigo Sun Magazine

[innergame]

This article, "The Shadow Dance - Understanding Repetitive Patterns in Relationship" based on the work of DR. CARL JUNG, might be of use to the members of the Board.

I've found it extremely valuable in understanding myself, how I am reflected in my relationships and generally how I relate to people. Rather than try to summarize the article, here's the header so you get an idea of what it's about:

"What is it that constitutes a good relationship? Is it getting along harmoniously, being loving, truthful, honest, supportive? These are certainly virtues and ideals that we all strive for. And yet despite our most valiant efforts, we continually come across problems and situations that puzzle us about our relationships.

A very interesting thing about life is that it all starts repeating at a certain point and those of us who are willing to live a reflective life, have to ask ourselves some very important questions. What is this about? Why did I attract him or her? And why is this repeating in my life?"

Hope you guys find it worthwhile. http://www.shadowdance.com/shadow/theshadow.html

Innergame

[Kenneth]

This is a nice article, Innergame.

I use Jung's concept of the Shadow a lot in my creative work (that is, I explore those parts of myself through sublimation) and, for anyone interested, there's a great book by Robert Bly, A Little Book on the Human Shadow.

As to the behavior of my uBPex, I gave myself and her a little speech. "All of us have flirtations, stirrings towards others, and chances to begin new relationships, but, as adults, we can recognize a lot of these feelings as natural, can make wise decisions so we do not act impulsively and hurt others, and pay attention to the relationship we do have."

I'm still of the mind that what she did (cheating, lying, pledging undying love then bailing) I would not do. But perhaps I'm denying that part of myself that would do, could do, these very things happenstance I were in the fragile emotional chaos she herself feels due to the BPD. Really, in the end, we're all capable of doing horrible, horrible things to other people--but it takes a lot of work to recognize when we are projecting and when we are suffering from our very own strains of cognitive dissonance.

One of things I like about this site and these boards is the urging to let go of the anger and resentment part and parcel of abusive relationships. None of us wants to get stuck there. Right?

[innergame]

One of things I like about this site and these boards is the urging to let go of the anger and resentment part and parcel of abusive relationships. None of us wants to get stuck there. Right?

Thanks for the book tip Kenneth!

Always been a fan of Jung and anything that makes his ideas accessible is all the better for everyone. His 'Shadow' is my personal favorite archetype and definitely relevant on the Boards.

I think you've hit it there with the value of 'letting go'. It's holding on to the anger and resentment that keeps us in a lock and prevents us from focusing on ourselves and the way we interact with the world. That's what makes us prone to repeat behaviors -- we can't really know ourselves when we're in that state. As transitional states on the path to a more complete self awareness, or wholeness of being, such 'negative' emotions might be necessary and useful, but they can't sustain us or protect us indefinitely.

Thanks for your feedback, Kenneth,

Innergame

[Ghostgirl]

Innergame and Kenneth,


I'm also a long-time reader of Jung. I've also read much in alchemy, the inner alchemy more popularly refered to as depth psychology I believe in the modern world. The "as within so without, as above so below" quote from that discipline has haunted me a while. I was recovering from being raped when I discovered Alchemy. I read that quote and I had to look at the fact, much disallowed in rape recovery for the emphasis it places on the victim, "I brought this upon myself" and "I made this happen."

There's a difference in what I meant in those words from the usual victim self-blame, which I did not indulge. The guy was a monster. However, in seeing life as a journey of self-discovery wherein "all experience is an arch" through which we pass into deeper self-understanding, I had to stand under the arch of this event and ask what darkness lies in me that would manifest externally as this?

It was the soul's question, not the body's. And for the soul, life is a hall of mirrors persistently shining back on us what we can't shine our inner light upon within--until we have these moments of recognition.

This recent discovery of BP-ness and its proliferation back through my life answers so many questions I have had about that other violent experience. Why I did not fight. Why I caught that person's attention. There were events that led up which, in memory, seem to have been orchestrated from without--sudden changes in the evening's flow which left me without my intended escort for the evening and with this particular person not once but three times, the last being the context for attack (the first two being context for it to become "aquaintance rape," much more difficult (read: impossible) to prosecute.) I can read the story/ tell the story very much on two levels, the material and the mythological. On the former, it is unspeakable. On the latter, it was voluble and continues to speak. On the material level, it is the worst night of my life. On the mythological, and I mean this, dangerously, it is the most important night of my life.

On a rooftop in Manhattan I came face to face with the darkest thing within me. Danced with it even. Literally. Even the day after, I attended a garden party  (we were both in a wedding, another profound mythological context--ghostgirl "marries" her shadow) seated between it and a high ranking FBI agent and could not tell one about the other.

I see this recent relationship, though on the surface everything the opposite of "that night" it is a long re-living of it, a slow motion replay, and my physiological responses following its end are perfect echoes. It is stunning to me how much more I had yet to learn. A therapist friend taught me a quote from a shamanic elder, "Life is dream lived backward." In the soul's vision, it is. Every next step a journey deeper into our past. (doesn't The Great Gatsby end with something like that--"and so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." I looked it up: yes.  I think Look Homeward, Angel ends with a similar statement but I won't turn this into a google-fest).

I am, at this point, in awe of the geometry of it, even more than I am bothered by the pain (among other effects) it has caused. I am humbled by life's poetry. These days, I feel so much like a baby bird or the most fragile of butterflies fresh from a chrysalis. I've lessened my social engagements nearly to nothing, I've shrunken my life to the size of a handkerchief, and at the exact same time, I feel this mythological self entirely expanding in order to make room for all this new information and understanding. And I sense that in the same way something external "arranged" that dark night in New York, that same external thing is oddly protecting me from distractions (the other day I received only two emails and was certain there was a glitch someplace, normally I'll get around twenty or thirty, much of it ridiculous) and also sending me what Wallace Stevens would call Necessary Angels.

I know I've spoken of fighting a lot--a battle with a demon that allowed this one last BP into my life. But it isn't really a battle. The battle is with my tendency to focus on one external being, or on my father, or on my attacker. But they're all projections of me, and I don't hate any part of myself. So what is it? If they are emotionless, soul-less (for it does look like a disconnection from a soul) objectifying, self-obsessed, violent, detached abominations of beings (there, I said it) then drop by drop I can fill that emptiness within from which they grew. To continue the thought is impossible, I don't know how. But I will.

Being able to name is the greatest gift we have. In the Bible it's what Adam is told to do. But it takes so long to get the words for everything. But once we have the word, we are given the tool or weapon (depending how you hold it--thanks, Ani DiFranco) we need to set ourselves free. I feel that happening. I can honestly tell myself "the monsters are gone now" and begin to tidy up the devastated city.

Thanks for the meditation, Innergame.

Ghostgirl

[innerspirit]

Hi everyone -- I attended a workshop by Linda Schierse Leonard, sponsored by the local Jung association.  Got a copy of her wonderful book, THE CALL TO CREATE: CELEBRATING ACTS OF IMAGINATION (Random House, 2000.)

From the flyleaf:
"Many people do not think of themselves as creative.  Yet their everyday discoveries ... and personal lives are creative acts... Leonard helps us identify the characters and archtypal patterns that rise up inside us as we go about imagining a better life.  These characters can be hinderers -- such as the Perfectionist, the Cynic, or the Escape Artist -- or helpers, such as the Sower, the Adventurer, or the Celebrant.
Leonard encourages readers by showing that the obstacles preventing them from creating a better life are like those that artists confront, and that imagination can be born of frustration... We can develop and appreciate creativity in everything from our search for meaning to family and relationships, from communcations and business ventures to artistic endeavors."

[innergame]

Ghostgirl,

You're welcome.

Innergame

[innerspirit]

Thanks Innergame for bringing this up.
For so much of the time with X and since, I've tried to find myself in books.  I've gone thru so many of them, about walking on eggshells, about verbal abuse, etc., needing to find passages that spoke to me and confirmed that I wasn't alone in this. 

Which was my biggest fear and one that X capitalized on -- to "justify" his privilege of trashing me.

When looking at it directly was too painful, metaphors and symbols have made it easier -- has it been that way for you too? 
The first one I thought of was a crazy version of the Emperor's New Clothes  --- he was indeed naked, I tried to blow the whistle but the whole town was convinced he was fully clothed.

Wow, SHADOW DANCE is a brilliant title isn't it?  Shadows of past relationships, dances that take on a life of their own.  Makes me think of all the arguments at the kitchen table (where I was ordered to sit still!) with these big distorted projections on the wall, intimidating, parrying, thrusting, then trying to do a civil minuet.

[Kenneth]

Thanks, Ghostgirl, for such a thoughtful and brave post.

[innergame]

Hi Innerspirit,

It’s safe to say I’ve done my share of book reading on BPD and related topics. After a while it can become a blur but while the information is necessary and useful it’s the metaphors and symbols and even the humour that stick out in the memory more than anything else when I’m trying to make sense of it all.

Jungian archetypes like the ‘Shadow’, totems like Christine Lawson’s Waif, Queen, Hermit, and Witch, spring to mind more readily and imprint on the psyche more powerfully than an armchair comprehension of the DSM-IV. 

Your humour, the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ (classic), disarms these aberrant BPs quite literally divesting them of their power. Even ‘Stop Walking On Eggshells’, at once a goal, but it speaks so loudly of our discomfort, I mean really, just imagine walking on friggin’ eggshells all the friggin’ time people. You’ll give yourself a heart attack just thinking about it.

Then there’s the gruelling alchemy of physical and metaphysical undeniably present in Ghostgirl’s struggle with her shadow self. She puts a knife to its throat and renders it insubstantial, nothing lofty or proud in her story, but unflinching honesty; self acceptance liberates from bondage to the Shadow.

For me, humor deflects the parries and thrusts in that shadow dance on the wall, but the metaphors give me something to sink my teeth into and chew like hell. Once I’ve had my fill I’ll dispense with it in the usual fashion.

The shadow tastes awful by the way, needs more salt.

Innergame

[innerspirit]

...I’ve done my share of book reading on BPD and related topics. After a while it can become a blur but while the information is necessary and useful it’s the metaphors and symbols and even the humour that stick out in the memory more than anything else when I’m trying to make sense of it all.

Jungian archetypes like the ‘Shadow’, totems like Christine Lawson’s Waif, Queen, Hermit, and Witch, spring to mind more readily and imprint on the psyche more powerfully than an armchair comprehension of the DSM-IV. 

Your humour, the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ (classic), disarms these aberrant BPs quite literally divesting them of their power. Even ‘Stop Walking On Eggshells’, at once a goal, but it speaks so loudly of our discomfort...
Then there’s the gruelling alchemy of physical and metaphysical undeniably present in Ghostgirl’s struggle with her shadow self... self acceptance liberates from bondage to the Shadow.

For me, humor deflects the parries and thrusts in that shadow dance on the wall, but the metaphors give me something to sink my teeth into and chew like hell. Once I’ve had my fill I’ll dispense with it in the usual fashion.
The shadow tastes awful by the way, needs more salt.

Thank you for this beautiful, articulate, cogent writing.
I've had the same experience with the Big Blur -- voraciously hungry for info to validate what's so covertly going on.  For me it was armchair stuff bordering way too close to what I might slip and use in conversation with X.  Walking on eggshells to avoid being accused as pseudotherapist  -- the ensuing craziness wasn't worth it.

So thankful for this life-changing website -- at last a place for all that has been stored up for so long.  And feedback to support it.  Hands to hold in the dark.
 
Wry humor affirms for me some insight that's more detached, I guess, but without a lot of emotional comfort.  I'll check out Lawson's work -- I'm there too with deeper effect of metaphor, symbols. 
(Have you thought of Plato's Cave too?)

[Ghostgirl]

Hi, fellow cave dwellers--

Innergame's notion of eating the shadow has floored me, and, yes, I'm thinking of Plato, too, Innerspirit. And thank you, kindly, Kenneth, for being here on this journey too.

In the Koran, one of my favorite hadith's speaks "now that you have completed the work of the outer jihad, it is time for you to complete the more difficult work, that of the inner jihad."

This opened a major door for me when I was reading these books for what they teach of the inner work. (Your names aren't lost on me in this, believe me.) The inner jihad is this process of engaging the shadow, of ceasing to allow victimhood to color our thinking and to name all that has happened as a part of us, caused by our soul's need to be found under all the illusions, in short to come out of the cave.

When this past break up happened and I was, the morning at the end of a whole night of BP madness, just standing fully clothed in a river unable to even think, I went under the water as a sort of self-baptism. I understood that I was on the brink of a discovery--because nothing else could hurt so much. This was no "my boyfriend and I broke up 17 magazine advice column break-up." This was a spirit shattering and made little sense. I knew I needed help. It was dawn so I couldn't call the T so I called another number.

During the recovery from the night in new york I'd come to know some power within me to guide me through the roughness, that it had an intelligence superior to mine (here is where schizophrenia and wisdom can easily flip flop and I was terrified, committed to reading as many books as I could in order to "balance" out my psyche). Because it led me through the first recovery so well, I put my faith in it a second time. I said, "Whatever I need to learn from this, let me learn it well." When I surfaced, I said the terrifying words: Show me.

We want to know the truth about ourselves. It is our soul's necessity. And this meant, to me, asking myself the most difficult question: Have I had absolutely no agency in my life, ever? I so hated that question. I so hated the answer. Finding the path through my patterns is the labyrinth, I believe, so honored in ancient traditions. Living my life backwards, I discover all the twists and turns of how I lgot buried.

To name all that I have loved as something other than love has been, for me, the process of disallowing myself my own memories as I've told them. It is violent! It is like taking a giant sword and cutting away the frosting from the cake. All the pretty stories, all the lies that made it bearable.

This is the alchemy of becoming--the separation of parts, the hand from the shadow of the rabbit cast by the hand onto the wall. There was no rabbit. There never was a rabbit. There were no rabbits in the cave.

Joseph Campbell writes that the hero finds before him the journey he is ready for. He may not think he is prepared, but the journey wouldn't appear (even the landscape, he observes, alters) if we weren't. I know that feeling. "You must be mad to think I can take this on," I've said, out loud, on the floor, to something listening. But armed with Campbell's quote I can't help but inwardly smile and say, "I'm flattered that you do so I will honor your confidence and do my best."

It is our destiny to emerge from the cave. I know many choose to remain inside, weeping on shoulders in the dark, speaking of all the horrible things that happened to them. I remember, though, seeing a Sudanese woman on Oprah who was raped seven times (at least) and who carried her children many many miles to a refugee camp, and she looked great, spoke beautifully of life and spirit and strength. Sitting on my couch feeling sorry for myself really isn't an option if she's out there "doing it." If one human being has that sort of strength, all of us do. I have to every day find mine. This is the inner jihad, the exodus from the cave, my destiny I am seizing by reaching as far inward as I can. But the most beautiful part of it is how gentle the soul is with me. It reveals only what I am prepared to see. So, if I find myself here in this place, it is an honor. It is a handing to me of the sword I need to defeat the next illusion, fire breathing dragon or my father I said I love you to and found again in the form of every "loved" one since.

And it is an honor to be here among you other warriors of the soul, all of us finding our way out of something that shouldn't be held us in the first place but did.

Ghostgirl



 

[innerspirit]

Hi again -- I like that, "fellow cave-dwellers."
Thanks for seeing the inner aspect of this -- sometimes the name feels a little presumptuous to see it in print, but for me it was to reassure myself of the intangible as I heal.
You're so right that an advice column in a teen magazine would have nothing to offer here.  This is soul robbery, as a friend has worded it.
Thank you, Ghostgirl, for your resourcefulness, your hunger for spiritual knowledge, and your commitment -- you're an example to follow.  May you continue to find healthy self-love, may you find the real love of others.
I.S.

(I'm concerned that you mentioned schizophrenia -- literally?  A spiritually heightened state?  Are you doing OK?)

[Ghostgirl]

Innerspirit--

I mention schizophrenia as part of the mindfulness. Basically, when we are tuning into a higher power and listening inwardly, we have to be ruthless with attention. Psychosis and the inner journey are compared in Jung and Campbell, so I compare them, too, ever watchful that I remain healthy.

I have a lot to heal from so I use a lot of inner resources in order to heal.

I allow dreams and intuition to affect my process, showing me where to look next, which rock to lift and see under. But I never hand over reason while engaging the irrational. I know many who do, particularly in the New Age movement. One woman wears a tinfoil hat and is certain we all should do so. Not wanting to wear a tinfoil hat, I stay brutally humble and go through each door of awakening incredibly slowly.

I'd be crazy (sorry) not to constantly be watching myself to make sure I am not crazy while I do this work. There's a reason the church outlawed alchemy (Jung's work is in this vein) in the third century. This looking inward business is not for the impulsive or anyone prone to thinking they hear God every time her intuition tells her something. There are entire wings of mental hospitals for people like that, one in Jerusalem entirely for people certain they are the Christ.

The key for me in walking the line between inner and outer worlds is watching my ego. I don't attach to the hints and vagaries. I listen and then write it out to a logical conclusion, drawing on research and experience, and yes, the occasional book that magically falls off a shelf in the bookshop which I buy because I trust something bigger than reason is guiding this. That trust is not the surrender. I don't surrender to the spiritual. I surrender to BOTH the rational and the spiritual. I'm given a whole mind. My job is to learn how to wield its entirety.

The spiritual and schizoid similarity follows:
Our intuition (subconscious memory) knows stuff we don't and is offering a path of awareness we are meant to follow.
Schizophrenics hear voices that tell them things, offer them paths they are "meant" to follow.

This is a valuable thing to bear in mind. The inner journey is dangerous because of it. But we learn how to "tune" in skillfully, using our powers of discernment, logic and reason. A complete willingness to be at times uncertain until we are certain also comes in useful. This is all depth psychology. My T, a Jungian, once said, at a time when I was experiencing a remarkable scope of (what I called) intuitive draw, "if I hadn't been working with you for nearly a decade I might think you were in danger, but I'm confident you're capable of rationally moving through." And I did.

We live in a culture that on one hand is attached only to rationality. On the other we have countless people who've let all reason fly all the way out the window. Neither strategy gets us through healthily to wholeness. We have to open ourselves. And we have to be watchful of what comes in and up. I stay grounded in the real. The zen masters teach: before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.  That's the trick--keeping the material a priority, but allowing it its spiritual, darker evidences is necessary. To go entirely into the latter, is to be mad. To stay entirely in the former, is to be, as they call it in the sacred texts, dead. 

Thanks for asking, Innerspirit.
Time to go chop wood and carry water.

Ghostgirl

[innergame]

Cave Dwellers (awesomely so),

For anyone out there reading who isn't familiar with Plato's Cave, just think of the Matrix as the Cave and Morpheus as a philosopher and you'll pretty much have the gist of it. What is experienced in The Cave has many parallels with FOG as well.

Yes innerspirit, I took my first journey into Plato's cave many years ago. It was all academic back then. I didn't know at the time I would find myself amongst fellow NONs years later sharing shadows for thought in that cave once again.

Wry humor affirms for me some insight that's more detached, I guess, but without a lot of emotional comfort.

There is truth in humor, to be sure, and it can protect the psyche from some horrible traumas until it's ready to heal, but I have no illusions that it's based on anything but anger. I don't always need it, don't always use it, but like you I take no warmth from it and I know when I go there I'm a long way off where I want to be.

When I feel like Plato's philosopher, freed from bondage in this cave, I return all excited to tell everyone the great news of what it's really like out there, and for a time I know what I'm talking about and the world is a beating heart full of compassion. At this stage in my development, all that means is I've had a good day. Pretty soon I'm back in the cave, in chains, staring at shadows on the wall cast by the fire and wondering aloud 'is this really all there is'? That's when I thank my lucky stars there's always someone else from down here in the cave who's had a good day too. They just came back from the outside to remind me that what I saw on my good day was real and if I can find the energy and courage, I can break the chains and be free again.

The more often I break free, the less I rely on the Cave (Matrix) to feed, clothe and define me. Thanks to the people on this Board, it happens more often than not these days.

Innergame's notion of eating the shadow has floored me...

I think of that scene from Phenomenon, where a dying John Travolta tells this kid that an apple cast aside will rot and decay, but if you take a bite out of it, it will become a part of you forever. By eating my shadow, I allow myself to digest and transform it in the way my body and mind was designed to do, but if I ignore the shadow or pretend it doesn't exist, it remains a part of me but rots and decays. It only takes one rotten apple to spoil the rest. Eating my shadow is logical.

Thanks Ghostgirl and innerspirit, you helped move me away from cold comfort toward something more nourishing.


Innergame

 

[innerspirit]

Hi again Cave Dwellers -- hey we've a new abbreviation here.  CD's.
Some thoughts that you have inspired:
Looked up definitions of humor -- one that sticks out is "the experience of incongruity".  Well that would be life with a BP wouldn't it.

It's said that humor is when someone else slips on the banana peel, tragedy is when I do.  I guess it must run in the family -- when in Florida, my brother called me up to say he had just seen a Chiquita banana truck flipped over on its side.

The Monty Python Argument Clinic sketch is funny when viewed from the outside.  It's infuriating when in therapy with my X.   I don't know how many times I told a marriage counselor "I couldn't make this sh*t up."

For me during this recovery, humor and flashes of more heady clarity (like the Plato's cave thing) have felt similar.  A sense that things have clicked in my head but with such detachment that feels like I'm watching someone else go thru it all.  The protective, numbing layers peel back afterwards as they can so more tender things can be felt.

When I feel like Plato's philosopher, freed from bondage in this cave, I return all excited to tell everyone the great news of what it's really like out there, and for a time I know what I'm talking about and the world is a beating heart full of compassion. At this stage in my development, all that means is I've had a good day. Pretty soon I'm back in the cave, in chains, staring at shadows on the wall cast by the fire and wondering aloud 'is this really all there is'? That's when I thank my lucky stars there's always someone else from down here in the cave who's had a good day too. They just came back from the outside to remind me that what I saw on my good day was real and if I can find the energy and courage, I can break the chains and be free again. The more often I break free, the less I rely on the Cave (Matrix) to feed, clothe and define me. Thanks to the people on this Board, it happens more often than not these days.

This brings tears to my eyes, thank you.  When I was asked to be an Ambassador here, I didn't think I was ready -- either inside myself or as a helper to others coming along.  Thank you for writing a mission statement -- loving, compassionate and patient.

The key for me in walking the line between inner and outer worlds is watching my ego... I surrender to BOTH the rational and the spiritual. I'm given a whole mind. My job is to learn how to wield its entirety...
This is a valuable thing to bear in mind. The inner journey is dangerous because of it. But we learn how to "tune" in skillfully, using our powers of discernment, logic and reason. A complete willingness to be at times uncertain until we are certain also comes in useful. This is all depth psychology. My T, a Jungian, once said, at a time when I was experiencing a remarkable scope of (what I called) intuitive draw, "if I hadn't been working with you for nearly a decade I might think you were in danger, but I'm confident you're capable of rationally moving through." And I did.

Thanks for writing this.  Intuitive draw -- so well said.  I have a healer-friend who calls it ordinary vs. non-ordinary reality.

We live in a culture that on one hand is attached only to rationality. On the other we have countless people who've let all reason fly all the way out the window. Neither strategy gets us through healthily to wholeness. We have to open ourselves. And we have to be watchful of what comes in and up. I stay grounded in the real. The zen masters teach: before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.  That's the trick--keeping the material a priority, but allowing it its spiritual, darker evidences is necessary. To go entirely into the latter, is to be mad. To stay entirely in the former, is to be, as they call it in the sacred texts, dead. 
Time to go chop wood and carry water.

Some days it feels overwhelming -- may it cease to feel that way.  Time to just do it, as the Nike ads would say.  And I'll reward myself with the pleasant thought of the three of us enjoying each other's company (and book collections, certainly.)

 xoxox  xoxox
I.S.

[Kenneth]

One of the quotes I carry around with me is from James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time:

"Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death--ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life."

It's no small step here to see how our relationships with our BPs have given us yet another conundrum to confront, whether it be the cave we were stuck inside during those relationships and their aftermaths or the shadows we now must eat.

I do think, however, that the new truths we each discover as we move through the healing process, the truths we'll no doubt take apart and reassemble again and again, will be truths wildly different than the truths our exes uncover, no matter if they move toward healing or not. These experiences--even though we've lived through them together--are set apart by our respective types of suffering.

When Baldwin asks us to "earn our deaths," he's asking us to look into the abyss--and, to some degree, the relationships we've endured have been a glimpse into an abyss not far from death: a loss of Self into another and the subsequent heaving back into the Self when the relationships so suddenly snapped. Although the losses of the ones we loved is a "tearing away," it's also a reopening of our own selves as we reemerge from the cave and into a newer, different light.

Nietzsche speaks of the figure of "the noon" when our shadows are the shortest, when there's a unity of all things, and how there's a split from the "one" into "two" after the noon has passed (or before). I thought of this when Ghostgirl mentioned that split between rationality and emotion and trying to find that balance.

Alenka Zupancic, in a book about Nietzsche, writes about emotional upheaval thusly: "Discomfort is soothed (or silenced) by crisis and states of emergency in which a subject feels alive. But this 'alive' is nothing more than 'undeadness,' the petrifying grip of surplus excitation and agitation." That is, if we were to apply this to our BP relationships, the passions we felt, perhaps because there was so much imbalance in our BP relationships, can qualify as a sort of "undeadness" as well--a painful "alive" too terrifying close to death.

It's unfortunate that in our BP relationships the passion Baldwin refers to becomes a different sort of passion, one gripped inside, or "imprisioned" within, a loss of Self and energy expended into the other. Yet I do believe we've retained our "good" passion--and it might be even stronger because of what we went through in these torn relationships.

[innerspirit]

Hello CD's -- posting again here in the midst of a dark night, one of the darkest in recent memory for me.    I guess the timing is serving me well, the cave discussions, the reading of Nietzchean deaths helping to unblock a lot of tears and grief here.
While away on the recent concert tour, September 3 went by, not exactly unnoticed but rarified in a whole other world thousands of miles away.  With a collaborator who seems to have it all.  Now that I'm back home, it's the let-down back in the house, yeah, it would have been X's and my 20th anniversary, and it's hitting me hard tonight.  My soul feels like it's crying out.
Death of a relationship, death of an era, wondering what personal/professional possibilities are in front of me now -- all feeling pretty overwhelming in a dark cave here where I have tended to isolate myself.

"Discomfort is soothed (or silenced) by crisis and states of emergency in which a subject feels alive. But this 'alive' is nothing more than 'undeadness,' the petrifying grip of surplus excitation and agitation." That is, if we were to apply this to our BP relationships, the passions we felt, perhaps because there was so much imbalance in our BP relationships, can qualify as a sort of "undeadness" as well--a painful "alive" too terrifying close to death.  It's unfortunate that in our BP relationships the passion Baldwin refers to becomes a different sort of passion, one gripped inside, or "imprisioned" within, a loss of Self and energy expended into the other.

What a description of a NON/BP relationship.  Better to have something going on rather than the devastating calm that masks everything that is stuck and unresolved. This is taking some bravery to write tonight -- am trying to stay with the feelings, resisting the powerful temptation to use heady intellect or wit to cover over.  Now that the rollercoaster ride is over (at least with X physically present), the alternating distant numbness and entangled crises aren't protecting me anymore.  The Stepford role never did, except on the outside to fend off some crazy tantrums.  I'm not keeping the peace that I was conditioned to, and that's both a relief and a learned fear -- letting some toxins and pent-up tears out but it's like he'll walk into the bedroom and I'll catch hell for it.  I'm feeling the voids in my life and that's scary.  And the fear of more pain has paralyzed me.  Chopping wood, carrying water, walking thru the dark -- all things I need to DO in one way or the other.  However well-intentioned, my recovery if mainly here on the website creates in itself an unbalance, a kind of cave with virtual walls to separate me from a new, real life in the outside world.

Yet I do believe we've retained our "good" passion--and it might be even stronger because of what we went through in these torn relationships... it's also a reopening of our own selves as we reemerge from the cave and into a newer, different light. 

May it be so and may I find the bravery in this dark night to seek it.
Thanks, my friends -- I know you're there for me as I am for you.

[Kenneth]

Better to have something going on rather than the devastating calm that masks everything that is stuck and unresolved.

Now that the rollercoaster ride is over (at least with X physically present), the alternating distant numbness and entangled crises aren't protecting me anymore. 

However well-intentioned, my recovery if mainly here on the website creates in itself an unbalance, a kind of cave with virtual walls to separate me from a new, real life in the outside world.

So insightful, Innerspirit--both the calm and the crises mask the trouble. The passions brought out through reunion also veil our conflict. In our relationships, because we were enmeshed and acting (however misguidedly) to "save" or keep peace, we adopted new ways of "protecting" ourselves, harming ourselves and our partners just the same.

I wonder, too, about our work on this forum, whether it separates us from fully healing. I'm going to the Batcave to meditate on this provocative question.

Meanwhile, stay strong.

[innergame]

Greetings Ambassador ‘Spirit,

Earplugs in place *nudge nudge* I finally get the chance to hear you.

There’s not much one person can say to another whose “soul feels like it’s crying out”. Platitudes abound and I’m sure there’s the perfect line somewhere that’ll strike just the right chord and set everything to rights. I have nothing so pithy in my repertoire today, but if you’d like to share a beverage with me, name your drink, my shout.

What to celebrate then?  You spoke of the “death of a relationship, death of an era” and Kenneth alluded to an idea that “one ought to rejoice in the fact of death”. Seems like a good idea thanks Kenneth. Traditionally we celebrate death with a funeral, right?

I often talk with my kids about what we want said and done at our funerals. Nothing morbid in that, it’s just when you’re dead, it’s so final that there’s no room for the stages of grief. I mean, that part's over, you’re dead, so what are you gonna do but be dead?

I’m in no way meaning to trivialize what you’re feeling. Even though I feel there was truth in what I said about the way we use humor to deflect pain and manage anger, I still love a clean healthy laugh. Having said that, I commend you for “trying to stay with the feelings, resisting the powerful temptation to use heady intellect or wit to cover over”. I know I find that challenge enormous (when I think of some of my postings, the sarcasm is scathing) and that’s the extent to which I can imagine what you must be experiencing right now.

So if you visualize the funeral for the death of this relationship, what plans come to mind? What songs will be played and sung? What quotes seem apt? What words of your own would you draft? What truths would they reveal? What food would you serve? You don’t have to answer or post on the Board if it’s making you feel unbalanced. Maybe just something to think about on the quiet. Hell, I don’t really know if this means a great deal, but I’ve had what could almost resemble a ‘good day’ and there seems something synchronous in the way this idea came to mind, so it’s what I have to offer.

Maybe what you visualize isn’t something you can realize yet or set a date for, but in the imagining lies the potential. Who knows, maybe someday we’ll all get a chance to celebrate the deaths of our relationships.

Go with the feeling Innerspirit and be at ease with yourself as best you can,


Innergame

[innerspirit]

Thanks guys.  Lots to think on this morning.
Just wrote to thank you in a post ("Eureka").
 xoxox
I.S.

And thanks for the nudge, IG, looking forward to more feedback.   I don't typically drink alcohol -- since I operate heavy machinery after all -- but if it's virtual, what the Hell, make it a double, straight up.

[innerspirit]

Hey Kenneth -- just a quick thought.  There's a Quaker saying:
"everything in moderation including moderation."

[Ghostgirl]

Hi, CD's,

What a rich and developing conversation. . .

Innerspirit, have you ever heard of the black sun?

When I was recovering from the rape I went into death. I understood that many women never really heal from such a thing. I read the online rape narratives and saw how the anger morphs into self-destruction or at the very least into ongoing grief. I didn't want to stay where I was. I didn't want to become one of these women who walks, yes ghostlike, through the world.

If there was such a thing as transformation I wanted to have it. And I understood that in order to get there, one has to die. Not suicide. Just to go as deep into the dark as I could. I dropped my daughter off at my mother's house. I told everyone, except my T, that I was going away for three days. I bought simple food and a bottle of lemonade (citrus always balances me) and I went down deep. I don't recommend this, but I'm explaining the black sun and I found it in this place. After two days of absolute weeping and screaming into my precious dog's witness, I began to feel the urge to paint. I hadn't painted in years. I allowed myself contact with the outside world for what it took to acquire six blank canvases and a hundred dollars worth of big fat tubes of oilpaint. I got to work, outside in the garden, allowed to make as much mess as I wanted. It was very physical, raging even. I painted dark abstract mess and then in one small canvas an image emerged which hangs nearby me now on a wall. It is of a black disc emerging from a golden sky, reflecting on the pale sea. It stunned me.

Next an image of me on a sailboat emerged on a large canvas, sailing on a multi colored ocean.

Something had flipped in me. There was no more stagnation but wind, movement, a great white sail carrying me through the darkness.

In my continued readings, I found the notion of the black sun. In alchemy it is the heart of the darkness where a "shimmer" appears in what a 2nd century writer (pseudodyonisius) calls "the divine gloom." There is an entire depth psychology devoted to this symbol, The Black Sun. It is within us, this turning point, this moment when at our worst we catch a glimpse of what's yet to become. The light within the darkness, it is also the voice inside the wilderness, something alluded to in both visual and sonic imagery in these wild sacred texts.

It is there. I don't know how we come to it. That was my path. I remember saying the words, "I am willing to let go absolutely everything but my breath and whatever you (God) deem necessary to me in order to move through this." It was a surrender of such force but I knew it had to be said.

I have faith that darkness has a light in it. I'm not afraid of the dark for myself and I have every faith that you will find the light in yours.

Ghostgirl

[innerspirit]

Ghostgirl -- hi, I keep on thanking you, and here I am again to do the same.
It's been a brave move to write about such deep stuff, and I'm grateful for the support and confirmation I continue to read here.
A couple thoughts in response:
If you can, check out the Maureen Murdock book I mentioned (THE HEROINE'S JOURNEY -- Shambala, Boston) -- another Jungian, she writes so eloquently about the Initiation and Descent to the Goddess, Meeting the Dark Mother.  Again, not a particular spiritual path that I've embraced but one of the most meaningful things I've ever read.

A songwriter-friend has written the following:  (Her name here would too closely identify me.  She would be OK with the anonymity and honored at the inclusion.)

"THE DARK" -- [The darkness as a source of healing and midwife of transformation.  Note that the lyric "and it's dark, dark inside" follows each line of every verse, indicated as etc.]

(v1) I sing to the light as I see out the door and it's dark, dark inside
I sing for the challenges this path has in store and it's dark, dark inside

(ch) Oh the darkness takes courage, the darkness takes time
Living in the darkness brings a different state of mind
The darkness knows healing, the darkness brings change
Oh Mother darkness, I return to you again.

(v2) I sing for the patience to learn how to spin (etc.)
I sing to remember that still small voice within (etc.)  (ch)

(v3) I sing for the friendship that seems to have died (etc.)
I sing for forgiveness, God knows how hard I tried (etc.)   (ch)

(v4) I sing to the void that embraced me with love (etc.)
The one who enfolds me below and above (etc.)  (ch)

(v5)  I sing to the curtain surrounding my fear (etc.)
I'm breathing the grief I've been holding for years (etc.)   (ch)


(PS.  As I was typing the above, Jennypennysue, welcome to the CaveDwellers -- CD's for short.  I was looking forward to seeing you here.)

[Ghostgirl]

Thank you, Innerspirit, for the song and for your words.

It's interesting. I don't see in my words any more bravery than I see in anyone else's. We each speak our truths from where we stand.

The shamanic journey is what everyone's on here--it's just that we lack as a culture the language for it and are therefore fairly clumsy with the work. Our spirits/ unconsciouses know what we need, though, and will get it for us, somehow. What is the saying, "the universe is conspiring in your favor."

We'll all be just fine.

I send you rip-roaring ready for the journey energy.

Ghostgirl

[innerspirit]

Hi again, cave-dwellers.  Eager for your thoughts on this.  Speaking of archtypes, just wrote this on Lurch's thread about the "Sorry Phenomenon" (how apologies are given, if they are accepted):

I'm wondering how much of this is a gender war. I sure sensed it here with my X.  I don't like the sense of gender stereotype but it seemed to cast a shadow over things.

King of the Castle feels wronged, diminished; he deserves an apology from power-usurping Lowly Queen.  King pumps himself up, he deserves to be in control, he needs to see that reflected in the Queen's behavior.  King berates Queen and demands supplication to suit him.  (Like the guy in the saloon who fires shots at someone's feet and says "dance.")  King beats his breast, satisfied he's back in power again.  Queen must now act like things are back to a happy normal.

Other scenario -- Queen offers apology, tries to divert the expected explosion.  King senses more of a power differential and gets off on it.  King sees it as an opportunity to (verbally) kick Queen while she's down, further rub her nose in it.  Queen must now act like things are back to a happy normal.

Queen's role was to obey King (even though Politically Correct King would eliminate such verbiage from marriage vows), or to be Queen Mother to the Sweet Toddler/Prince.  Queen's role in public was to play with King the Politically Correct Couple Liberated from Societal Notions of Competing for Power.

Innergame, Kenneth, etc. -- What's it like with the male Non and female BP?

[innergame]

Hi Innerspirit,

Been 'disengaging' and getting busy lately.

It's a fair question, and one I've asked myself too. I think, could be wrong, but I think trying to frame the question in terms of 'is it BP behavior or gender war' is another way heading into territory where we attempt to rationalize the BPs abnormal behavior as somehow normal. Thinking that way is a symptom of abuse and one that I've shared on many an occasion regarding the uBPw.

I reckon you could comfortably flip every gender reference you've put down in there and point to behaviors that female BPs perpetrate in their own charmless screwed up way upon their male NON counterparts, and I'm sure gay relationships are no different.

If there's a difference between BPs in gender terms, it's most likely that male BPs have a greater tendency towards Narcissism.

Given how royally messed up BPs are, your King and Queen terminology seems most apt. Solution, move to a democracy.

There's plenty of less crazy systems of government in relationships that have nothing to do with power plays and everything to do with framing things in laughter, and enjoying the hell out of each other. Why, oh why, did we ever settle for anything less than that?

Innergame

I'm wondering how much of this is a gender war. I sure sensed it here with my X.  I don't like the sense of gender stereotype but it seemed to cast a shadow over things.

King of the Castle feels wronged, diminished; he deserves an apology from power-usurping Lowly Queen.  King pumps himself up, he deserves to be in control, he needs to see that reflected in the Queen's behavior.  King berates Queen and demands supplication to suit him.  (Like the guy in the saloon who fires shots at someone's feet and says "dance.")  King beats his breast, satisfied he's back in power again.  Queen must now act like things are back to a happy normal.

Other scenario -- Queen offers apology, tries to divert the expected explosion.  King senses more of a power differential and gets off on it.  King sees it as an opportunity to (verbally) kick Queen while she's down, further rub her nose in it.  Queen must now act like things are back to a happy normal.

Queen's role was to obey King (even though Politically Correct King would eliminate such verbiage from marriage vows), or to be Queen Mother to the Sweet Toddler/Prince.  Queen's role in public was to play with King the Politically Correct Couple Liberated from Societal Notions of Competing for Power.

[innerspirit]

Hi Innerspirit,

Been 'disengaging' and getting busy lately.

It's a fair question, and one I've asked myself too. I think, could be wrong, but I think trying to frame the question in terms of 'is it BP behavior or gender war' is another way heading into territory where we attempt to rationalize the BPs abnormal behavior as somehow normal. Thinking that way is a symptom of abuse and one that I've shared on many an occasion regarding the uBPw.

I reckon you could comfortably flip every gender reference you've put down in there and point to behaviors that female BPs perpetrate in their own charmless screwed up way upon their male NON counterparts, and I'm sure gay relationships are no different.

If there's a difference between BPs in gender terms, it's most likely that male BPs have a greater tendency towards Narcissism.

Given how royally messed up BPs are, your King and Queen terminology seems most apt. Solution, move to a democracy.

There's plenty of less crazy systems of government in relationships that have nothing to do with power plays and everything to do with framing things in laughter, and enjoying the hell out of each other. Why, oh why, did we ever settle for anything less than that?

Innergame

Hey InnerGame -- how's the disengaging going for you?  Hope things are good.
Great weather anyway -- enjoy it!
What I wrote is more applicable to my own marriage where Gender Roles were brought up at every turn.  Exhausting, polarizing.  A  my-issuesthat I'm trying to dislodge and examine.  Yeah under a microscope again, it helps me to put it in another language.
 
A friend here on the website recently posted about Blushing Bride as Alpha Male -- so yes, lots of grey on the spectrum -- I guess that's my point.  (Not that I want to be an Alpha Male, or him to be.)
Democracy -- now there's a concept!  You got my vote.
And humor, even better -- that's when things could finally relax between X and me, oh well.

Take care, Comrade.  (haha)
I.S.

[innergame]

Innerspirit,

The disengaging is going pretty much the course that you'd expect. Straight and slow for me, BP storms, rages, and pathologies abound and surround. It'll get worse before it gets better, but that's talking about her stuff. I'll stay as I am, and keep my stuff together.

Gender roles come up/came up all the time with uBPw (most of what comes up now I ignore with the earplugs in, and it's her stuff so I think of it as past tense). She is extremely chauvinistic, as ironic as that might sound. The 'man's' role is clearly mapped out in her psychodrama, which encompasses a whole lot more than just opening jars. 'Men are this, men are that, a real man would blah blah blah'.

A summary would be that as the MAN I'm supposed to attend to her in EVERYTHING, that attendance is to be UNCONDITIONAL, and that is the role of a GOOD HUSBAND. Yawn.

'Other husbands don't treat their wives like...' and at this point the headphones are blaring. I'm not sure what she says after that. Yawn.

I'd give Communism a go: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need (or needs)" Karl Marx. A nice ideal where everyone gets to be themselves, do their best, and that's ok. Add a laugh a minute and how nice that would be.

Fulfilling the needs of a BP is beyond the ability of anyone.

Innergame

[innerspirit]

Innerspirit,

She is extremely chauvinistic, as ironic as that might sound. The 'man's' role is clearly mapped out in her psychodrama, which encompasses a whole lot more than just opening jars

I like the way you think!

'Men are this, men are that, a real man would blah blah blah'.

A summary would be that as the MAN I'm supposed to attend to her in EVERYTHING, that attendance is to be UNCONDITIONAL, and that is the role of a GOOD HUSBAND. Yawn.

I was indoctrinated that it was the WIFE's role.  We ought to put those two BP's together in a padded room and just watch.  (Do you like to watch?  Haha.)

'Other husbands don't treat their wives like...' and at this point the headphones are blaring. I'm not sure what she says after that. Yawn.

In fact BP indoctrination is the opiate of the people.

I'd give Communism a go: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need (or needs)" Karl Marx. A nice ideal where everyone gets to be themselves, do their best, and that's ok. Add a laugh a minute and how nice that would be.

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana"
- Groucho Marx

You got my vote.  Uh --- if there are votes.
Hang in there...

[oneflewover]

How did I miss this article and you all's engaging and provoking thoughts?

Wow, so much to digest here and too much to even comment on. 

This James Baldwin quote is amazing:

"Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death--ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life."

Thank you guys so much...I am still absorbing these morsels.

[Ghostgirl]

Hi, Oneflewover,

Welcome to the cave break!

ghostgirl

[oneflewover]

Thanks...

I so miss this side of me...and you all's discussion has reminded me of it.

You wrote this earlier Ghostgirl,

If there was such a thing as transformation I wanted to have it. And I understood that in order to get there, one has to die.

One having to die in order for transformation to occur is exactly what happened to me.  It was in my darkest hour in which I stood before that threshold where you truly can will yourself to give up where something did die in me only to give way and make room for my rebirth.

From that pivotal moment forward, everything became different for me.  Life was reduced to something quite simplistic that pushed away a whole bunch of unnecessary clutter in my life.  It really came down to me and how I viewed the universe.  All those perceptions and perspectives got reduced and simplified into a neat orderly package for me.

So yes, I too saw that dark sun...and thank heavens for it.

[innerspirit]

One having to die in order for transformation to occur is exactly what happened to me.  It was in my darkest hour in which I stood before that threshold where you truly can will yourself to give up where something did die in me only to give way and make room for my rebirth.

From that pivotal moment forward, everything became different for me.  Life was reduced to something quite simplistic that pushed away a whole bunch of unnecessary clutter in my life.  It really came down to me and how I viewed the universe.  All those perceptions and perspectives got reduced and simplified into a neat orderly package for me.

Hi OFO -- well I don't know whether I'm thru the dark to that point of clarity yet -- I'm getting there but it comes in installments, I guess.  But the drive towards simplicity is powerful.  And I find getting rid of material clutter to be great therapy -- clears the energy here at the house.

Want to hear something funny?  I have a book called "ORGANIZING FOR THE CREATIVE PERSON: Right-brain Styles for Conquering Clutter"  -- and when I went into my big spring cleaning mode, I discovered I had two copies.

[oneflewover]

That is funny innerspirit...

I think I was talking more in line with clutter in our lives such as negative people, toxic environments, etc. that deplete us and prevent us from knowing real contentment, which should be the love of yourself.  Which if you can love yourself, it should trickle over with loving others too.  Of course, I am still a work in progress however and stumble often.

But material clutter, yes, I can connect with that as well.  At my last place, I simply stopped really enjoying my dwelling because it never felt like home.  Never fully unpacked, never cared to bring in anything new or discard anything old.  It just sort of collected around me with little enthusiasm to go in one direction or the other.  My goal for when I get into my new home is to eliminate unnecessary stuff and to maintain a very simplistic home with reduced clutter.  I think this helps us overall as human beings.  Less is best in so many ways!

[innerspirit]

I think I was talking more in line with clutter in our lives such as negative people, toxic environments, etc. that deplete us and prevent us from knowing real contentment, which should be the love of yourself.  Which if you can love yourself, it should trickle over with loving others too.  Of course, I am still a work in progress however and stumble often.

But material clutter, yes, I can connect with that as well.  At my last place, I simply stopped really enjoying my dwelling because it never felt like home.  Never fully unpacked, never cared to bring in anything new or discard anything old.  It just sort of collected around me with little enthusiasm to go in one direction or the other.  My goal for when I get into my new home is to eliminate unnecessary stuff and to maintain a very simplistic home with reduced clutter.  I think this helps us overall as human beings.  Less is best in so many ways!

I'm finding that the one reinforces the other.  Resolving to be in a positive environment with the people around me, and creating a living space where things feel clearer.  Yeah I stumble too -- I'll confess that I'm not loving being back in the house where X and I lived for 15 years.  But little by little, I feel I'm kind of changing the energy here.  For one thing, he was so demanding and anxious when we had guests at the house -- then I was supposed to LOOK like I was perfectly relaxed when they showed up.  It's a nice change just to be myself and invite friends over.  And just enjoy it without all the crazy-making, projected self-consciousness.

You're so right about the real contentment -- and it helps me to read here that it's a work in progress, I appreciate the sense of community in that.

[Ghostgirl]

Hello,

There is much to be said about relationship between inner and outer worlds.  As I was emerging from the black sun experience, I found myself desiring to decorate! It was the strangest thing as I'd been living in this house for a few years and the walls were bare, not a lot of objects of interest.

The urge wasn't just aesthetic in a surface sense. It was aesthetic in a soul sense, as though my soul was hungry for specific things, specific metals, specific colors. . . I wanted rings, metal jewelry, deep red velvets and peacock tail azure. . . and religious art--I wanted buddhas, mermaids, a Celtic cross, Shiva. ..  the impulse to have and wear these things was met, it seemed ( and this sounds totally crazy ) by a serendipity in the world, so I followed it.

I understood for the first time the real meaning of feng shui, of using metals, fountains, stone, candles and even colors to "balance" me. I found a passage in the bible aboout King Solomon's castle--there's this scene where God decorates--down to the slightest detail, to the number of spoons in the drawer. . .

I think this is one of the stages of deep alchemical (transformative) healing--when our inner eye looks out at the world and can "see" what's needed, and more formidably, an even greater outer eye helps the body in between find it.

It's wild stuff, and I believe that surrounding ourselves with beauty and simplicity (love the story I.S. of two copies!) awakens the inner eye. I also believe that when we're getting in touch with the "truth is beauty and beauty truth" of life, the inner educates the outer. . .

Amazing stuff.
Ghostgirl

[oneflewover]

Ghostgirl, this is interesting what you wrote,

The urge wasn't just aesthetic in a surface sense. It was aesthetic in a soul sense, as though my soul was hungry for specific things, specific metals, specific colors. . . I wanted rings, metal jewelry, deep red velvets and peacock tail azure. . . and religious art--I wanted buddhas, mermaids, a Celtic cross, Shiva. ..  the impulse to have and wear these things was met, it seemed ( and this sounds totally crazy ) by a serendipity in the world, so I followed it.

Right after my separation, I turned to jewelry for this kind of soul sense.  One it was nice to have a new piece delivered to my office, a sort of pick me upper, but two I was finding a connection with each gemstone I ordered.  I researched the history of the stone and what it symbolized.  My first piece was amber...as it represented "tears dried from the sun."  And that was how I was feeling.  The yellow hardoned tree sap represented my tears and what they will turn to when it was all said and done.  Beauty.  A beautiful and significant chapter in my life.  When I wear this amber, which happens to be a cross, this piece is so special to me and really representative of "me" and my journey.  Thank the heavens above that this cross was spared from the thief(s) that broke into my home early summer.   

[innergame]

Hi,

Wow, sooo interesting seeing all you girls talk about aesthetics and transformation. I used to think of all that as mainly girl stuff, but the day I decided enough was enough with uBPw I started to think about surrounding myself with beauty, decluttering without stripping things down to raw asceticism, creating in my spaces a sense of the happiness I wanted to feel by taking pleasure in all things, including the 'unnecessary', even though I didn't feel happy. I'd decided I deserved to have that in my life and used the external as a kind of template for reworking my internal life. The inner and outer kind of feed off each other now, so I tend not to be pulled too dramatically into either. It's an harmonious union that creates a practical balance unlike the abstractions I clung to for sanity in the FOG.

Simplicity for me. Just get in shape, choose the nicer leather case for my phone, spruce up my desktop background with colors that speak to me, watch uplifting shows on TV, cut down the random swearing, don't go everywhere in 'work' clothes - wear something I might not want to damage, have a photo of my kids in my wallet, hang a nice smelling ornament off the rear view mirror. Simple, low maintenance, but nicer.

Innergame

 

[Ghostgirl]

It's fun that we began talking of caves and now we're talking about decor.
One of my favorite Plato quotes is "Life is a Game." The minute I read that in freshman philosophy I was like: yeah, I want to play it well.
One of my other great eye-opening moments was learning that for ancient civilizations every stone, plant, flower, color what have you conveyed a symbolic meaning and speaks to our psyches, as guides and reflections of our inner world. Blew my mind. I remember sitting in a lecture in graduate school learning about plant imagery in ancient Greek poetry and thinking, I want to live in a world soaked in meaning.

At my darkest times, when nothing else made sense, I've gone into this stuff--animal symbols, the colors of alchemy (fascinating! "explains everything") and used it to pull me through. If we think of the psyche in platonic terms, a universal connection with all things, then the psyche is not divided from the world, but speaking with it constantly. We just can't hear the conversation. We're blocked from it, usually. But there's a reason that when we're healing we turn to these practices unconsciously. We "know" what we need. We create our environments intuitively (sometimes counter-intuitively which is worth even more--a casting off of old wineskins and clothes. Aromatherapy, colorful sheets (the day after my break up I bought pink curtains--if you knew me, you'd know how ridiculous a move that is but I did it, to jar myself out of the person I was, AND a rainbow bedspread. Good Lord, so not "me." But "me" had to go away. Leaping to the opposite of me (the "warm" colors) was a way of embracing a nothingness, of creating space for change) all of this are little steps in changing. And sometimes the smallest thing, like an amber ring! or a good scent, can prompt a sort of quantum leap, an awakening. I find the trick is at once to assign a meaning to things but to keep moving through to other things, blending the moments of the past with the development of future. I'm on the lookout for the next bedspread, waiting for it to "speak" to me.. . just as so many other things have. It's a game. We play it with trust.
Ghostgirl

[innerspirit]

Hi,

Wow, sooo interesting seeing all you girls talk about aesthetics and transformation. I used to think of all that as mainly girl stuff, but the day I decided enough was enough with uBPw I started to think about surrounding myself with beauty, decluttering without stripping things down to raw asceticism, creating in my spaces a sense of the happiness I wanted to feel by taking pleasure in all things, including the 'unnecessary', even though I didn't feel happy. I'd decided I deserved to have that in my life and used the external as a kind of template for reworking my internal life. The inner and outer kind of feed off each other now, so I tend not to be pulled too dramatically into either. It's an harmonious union that creates a practical balance unlike the abstractions I clung to for sanity in the FOG.

YES!  And finding beautiful ways to express it verbally as well, there's a real aesthetic in that too -- thank you for bringing it to us here, IG.

Simplicity for me. Just get in shape, choose the nicer leather case for my phone, spruce up my desktop background with colors that speak to me, watch uplifting shows on TV, cut down the random swearing, don't go everywhere in 'work' clothes - wear something I might not want to damage, have a photo of my kids in my wallet, hang a nice smelling ornament off the rear view mirror. Simple, low maintenance, but nicer.

So glad to read this, I.G.
 
 

It's fun that we began talking of caves and now we're talking about decor...
One of my other great eye-opening moments was learning that for ancient civilizations every stone, plant, flower, color what have you conveyed a symbolic meaning and speaks to our psyches, as guides and reflections of our inner world...  I want to live in a world soaked in meaning.

From another modern-day Lescaux-dweller -- here's to bringing back into our respective environments our passions and joys, the symbols of what feeds us and gives our lives meaning  -- I.S.

It's why I'm so grateful to be a musician -- when things feel stale and stagnant around the house, I remember that I can bring in new sound waves, new energy.  It's another (and my most personal) way to air out the room.



 

[oneflewover]

It's fun that we began talking of caves and now we're talking about decor...
One of my other great eye-opening moments was learning that for ancient civilizations every stone, plant, flower, color what have you conveyed a symbolic meaning and speaks to our psyches, as guides and reflections of our inner world...  I want to live in a world soaked in meaning.

Oh me too!  I have so much to look forward to this fall and am really enthusiastic as to how it will inspire me to restore so many things about myself that I have set aside.  It is a much needed spark to reignite many of my passions again.  Cooking, gosh how I have missed this art.  Music consistently filling my dwelling again will just be relished.  I can't play music but my appreciation for it is immense.                 

From another modern-day Lescaux-dweller -- here's to bringing back into our respective environments our passions and joys, the symbols of what feeds us and gives our lives meaning  -- I.S.

Count me in with this commitment I.S.! 

[sashasilver]

I just came across this thread which brought to mind, I guess it's called a sermon as it was delivered at the non-denominational spiritual center I occasionally attend, last Christmas Eve. I'd never cared for the winter, even here in the desert climate I moved to 3 years ago, not so much for the cold weather, I realized, as the shorter, darker days - and the deeper, shadow side of myself, until this helped put things into a "brighter" perspective:

"Darkness represents gestation, the time that is necessary for the growth of something new. Conscious, patient creation is vital to us.  Gestation in darkness means that we allow protection and quiet in the environment within our own soul where new seeds can develop.

Darkness as reflection.  Darkness also represents the void, the mystery, the unknown.  We turn away from the stimulation, from the repetition of what is known, from the surface activity that we see with our senses.  We reflect and ask important questions of who and what we are and who and what we are becoming as emanations of the divine.

And finally, darkness allows contrast.  Our lives are eternal evolutions.  We are one with the divine, one with God and we are naturally always emerging and revealing more of who and what we are.  The shadow times in our lives will lead us to the light not because the darkness is bad and we are going to the good, but because we are in cycles of evolution.  More and more illumination comes as we choose to allow the darkness to serve to enlighten us.

This season, as you enjoy the external wonders of the holy day world, let your spiritual practice be deepened by darkness.  Ask yourself, what is now growing within me?  Who must I be to reveal the light?  As I emerge from darkness, what new evolution do I choose?"

[oneflewover]

More and more illumination comes as we choose to allow the darkness to serve to enlighten us.

I loved all that you shared up above sashasilver.

How can I profit from this? What wisdom can I obtain here from this trial and suffering of mine?  I think we are shown darkness in order to appreciate and value what is good and what is pure.  If we have no measure of comparison, or contrast as you said, than we do not know what we need to value, cultivate and strive for.

Good stuff sasha...

[innergame]

sashasilver,

That quote is beautiful. It's always helped me to see dark and light as different from black and white or bad and good. Your sermon adds dimensions to the idea I hadn't yet evolved to.

Gestation, allowing time for darkness,
constrained by the human condition,
requires patience.

Reflection, evolving out of ignorance through
appreciation of experience,
requires objectivity.

Contrast, the light is meaningless without difference.
Darkness, to be witnessed as part of the whole, not
denied, misunderstood as wrong, and
devalued, for the significance it holds, is
essential, in Aspiration to the Light.

Darkness is part of the whole truth; a contraindication to the light, but not in all ways a strict contradiction. 

This is the kind of homily I listened for as a boy, but rarely heard. It's filled with the compassion inspired by parables and seems highly apropos after all this talk of Jung and Plato in the Lascaux caves.

Thank you, sashasilver.

Innergame