Tag Archives: magic

Dragons and princesses: the magic and power of the shadow

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I’m feeling resistance to delving further into this topic of the shadow. It demands honesty and strips off masks. With nothing to hide behind, I tell myself it’s too hard or it’s all been said before. What can I possibly add to the conversation? And yet this resistance itself is a perfect invitation, a dare to keep going. Shadow is not only a repository of shame and evil. It’s a treasure house of insight for those with the courage to look.

As slippery and tricky as the shadow is to pin down, we encounter it daily just by living life. Whatever shows up to block my way, to challenge and frighten me—that’s showing me my shadow. When a person or situation brings up strong emotion—especially aversion, fear, anger, or shame—that’s revealing something deeply buried. Either I know about it and thought it was safely under lock and key, or it’s been so long ignored, denied, or unacknowledged, I’m taken by surprise. Being blindsided happens less often now, but it does happen. Continue reading →

Does shining light have value beyond avoiding darkness?

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I’ve seen the kingdoms blow
Like ashes in the winds of change
Yeah but the power of truth
Is the fuel for the flame
So the darker the ages get
There’s a stronger beacon yet

Let it be me . . .
If the world is night
Shine my life like a light

I love these lines by the Indigo Girls. They say something important on my behalf, something I wasn’t even aware of until I heard this song for the first time. One reason I decided to explore the shadow now is that my tendency to light candles rather than curse the darkness can become a crutch, an attempt to shortcut or avoid the unknown. In a recent conversation, a friend made the comment that focusing too much on the positive leaves out a whole rich aspect of reality: the shadow. What can this wild, mad, evil, naughty, unpredictable, untamed, uncontrollable part of us teach us about ourselves, and—more ambitiously—about our culture? The way we approach it makes a difference. I believe that way involves contrast, balance, artifice, and time-honored art forms.

The British actor, David Oyelowo, played Rev. Martin Luther King in the recent film, “Selma,” and a Black Panther member in “The Butler.” (There’s a wonderfully awkward dinner scene in the latter, in which Oyelowo’s character disses his real-life hero: Sidney Poitier. It’s the most difficult line he’s ever had to say as an actor.) In an interview with Terry Gross, Mr. Oyelowo said that he always turns down stereotypical afterthought roles like the “black best friend.” When she asked if there are other roles he declines, he said something very interesting: Continue reading →

What the river says

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. . . We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.
~ William Stafford, from “Ask Me“

When I go out into a forest with awareness of my senses, I find myself being called by one of the Others who dwell there. A hawk may circle overhead. A spring wildflower may signal its curiosity. A stately poplar tree may entice me with its craggy bark. Whatever encounters I have will leave me with a sense of wonder, marveling at the intricacy of this tiny part of the animate world. At its unique perfection, a beauty that extends far beyond physical qualities. It is an invitation to the peace of belonging.

A marvelous thing happens when I compare what I have heard in wild places with what others hear. When we gather for Restorying retreats and send people out on the land, they return with movingly personal stories that are also messages to all of us, individually and collectively. It is not unlike working dreams with a few friends. Even though the dream may seem at first to be meant only for me, after some consideration its universal themes begin to emerge. There is the distinct feeling that the dream was sent through me to benefit others, as well as myself. Continue reading →

The constant invitation of the eternal

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It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

There is a literal way of seeing this that comes out of my Catholic upbringing. How fitting that I should finally be considering this final verse of St. Francis’ prayer on Easter weekend. The literal story is that Christ came to live among us as a man. “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. . . .” So the verse goes. I was taught that Christ gave his life so that humans may have eternal life—in a place called Heaven.

It requires a certain effort to pan out to see a bigger picture. The story can be a lens through which to view an individual life (mine), in the context of a culture and, beyond that, ecosystems and planet and universe. And, zooming in the other direction, inspired by the great short film, “Powers of Ten” by Charles and Ray Eames, to see what goes on beneath the surface of my skin, in those interior realms of thought and belief and intuition, and deeper still to shadow and unconscious, into the place before thought and individuality. Continue reading →

Pardoning helps us experience interconnection

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It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.

Under the influence of the Judeo-Christian values of modern culture, I have the habit of believing the story that we are all flawed, that part of my task in this life is to work on myself, to fix my failings, and try to be less bad. While it’s certainly rewarding to grow and learn and increase my awareness and equanimity, there is a big difference when I come at it with the intent of discovering innate capacities, rather than purging unwanted ones, or rooting out evil and unworthiness.

Forgiveness and blame are two sides of the coin of pardon. When I forgive another, I forgive myself, because pardoning comes from a sense of worthiness—my own and another’s. We are all worthy of empathy and understanding, and therefore pardon. Blame is the opposite of pardon. Blame directs anger outward, making an object out of a subject, creating separation and “othering.” Through empathy and compassion, pardon draws both subject and object together through a shared understanding that we are all connected. Continue reading →

Seeking to console another is a way of summoning powerful allies

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O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,

Two aphorisms come to mind: You reap what you sow, and ‘Tis better to give than to receive. I mentioned at the beginning of this project that I had been reciting St. Francis’ prayer each morning before meditation in the months leading up to my father’s death. During the sad days and weeks following his passing, this phrase was very much in my awareness, offering its own consolation.

Seeking to be consoled is a turning inward, a way of balling up into a shell and waiting for help. I might as well dare people to show me that I am worthy of love. Consoling, on the other hand, is an act of loving connection, even at a time when everyone is in need of consolation. The distinction is not between being selfish or selfless. It’s about hiding or reaching out. Continue reading →

Doubt and faith and nihilism, oh my!

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Where there is doubt, faith;

Faith must be the most written-about subject in human experience. Faith asks us to trust in the unseen, and we may see it as a hallmark of holy people, too rarified for most of us. And yet, faith is both cause and effect. It flows from the willingness to be an instrument of the divine, while at the same time, is a way of courting that willingness. It’s easier to be faithful when rewards come and also turn to it in times of great crisis and despair. And what about all the other, more quotidian, times in between?

“Faith is not a cushion for me to fall back on. It is my working energy.” ~ Helen Keller, from Let Us Have Faith

While faith is an active choice, it is also a passive outcome of devotion. In Helen Keller’s words, it is fuel. Energy. All energy on Earth comes from the sun; everything alive draws sustenance from it. Faith, at its most primal level, then, is knowing that the sun will rise each morning. Trusting that this spaceship we’re riding on will once again turn its face to the great star that powers all life. Continue reading →

Practice being an instrument of peace

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Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.

I made several failed attempts to capture my response to this first line of St. Francis’ prayer. Here is one: “It is perhaps a sign of spiritual maturity to dedicate oneself to be of use in the world. There is a nice reciprocity in knowing that the world is not only for me, I am also for the world.” But that sounds like I’m saying I’m spiritually mature, which could not be farther from the truth.

What I love about this line is its humility, the willingness, perhaps longing, to turn over my life to. . . .Well, to what exactly? That word, “Lord,” keeps tripping me up, steeped as I have been in Western Christian tradition, with its centuries of patriarchal hierarchies. I tried dropping the word altogether, leaving “Make me an instrument of peace,” which sounds nice but utterly bland. That higher power is stripped out, that appeal to the unseen, the majestic, the other-than-worldly. In short, the sacred. That’s it, isn’t it? Those eight words are an invocation, a summoning of great power, and a linguistic bowing down. Continue reading →

Allowing emerging new stories to have their way with us

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“We need a new story” seems to be coming out of more and more people’s mouths these days. From Thomas Berry to Joanna Macy and Charles Eisenstein, to David Korten and Duane Elgin. Each of these deep thinkers and actors has their own unique spin on the diagnosis, as well as ideas for what we might do to begin changing the story. One of my personal favorite pieces of writing about this is “Dark Ecology,” by Paul Kingsnorth, the co-founder along with Dougald Hine of the Dark Mountain Project. At the end of that essay, he cautions:

“If you think you can magic us out of the progress trap with new ideas or new technologies, you are wasting your time. If you think that the usual “campaigning” behavior is going to work today where it didn’t work yesterday, you will be wasting your time. If you think the machine can be reformed, tamed, or defanged, you will be wasting your time. If you draw up a great big plan for a better world based on science and rational argument, you will be wasting your time. If you try to live in the past, you will be wasting your time. If you romanticize hunting and gathering or send bombs to computer store owners, you will be wasting your time.”

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The source and craft of “always more”

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A friend recently began working with a new writing mentor, a well-known author who has been at it for over twenty years and has much to teach. It is humbling to be reminded that there is always more to learn, and yet I am aware that it works both ways. There is always more from the source of ideas, of images and words and revelation; I experience it daily in writing this blog. The creative source is boundless and endless, a reliable example of abundance. I have only to tune in, listen carefully and let myself be taken for a ride.

That there is always more I can do to hone my craft is at times inspiring, at times frustrating and depleting. It helps that I started in architecture, which is sometimes called an old man’s profession; it takes a good twenty or more years of practice before you begin to be any good at it. With writing, it’s said that you have to write 500 bad poems before you can write a good one. I’ve heard the same thing about drawing. Both refer to the requisite 10,000 hours of practice before mastery of anything that Malcolm Gladwell wrote about in “Blink.” Continue reading →