Fleeing from the Past

 The twentieth century poet and playwright T.S. Eliot wrote, "Those who flee from their past always lose the race."

Hmm. I think it depends on the reason for the flight. For example, if someone flees from an abusive relationship, they are winning the race to start a new and better life. 

But maybe he is talking about our natural reluctance to confront our shadows - those inner parts of us which were formed earlier in our lives and which we hide away deep inside us and hide away from dealing with. I've written about this before: "When we ignore the shadows in our lives, we are not living authentically. Because all of us have shadows - the things in our lives we do not want to face up to, the parts of our personality we are in denial about. Dealing with these aspects of our lives is called shadow work, and I have blogged about it here. I do believe that it is only when we go deep that we can understand ourselves fully. Doing this necessary shadow work can be very painful, but it is necessary, if we are to grow into our best selves, our whole selves. Life isn't all sunshine and rainbows or walking through beautiful woodland. It is by learning from the shadows, from the sad or painful things that have happened to us, that we grow."

I can remember when I first signed up for spiritual direction and my director asked me about my childhood. I responded by telling her it had been idyllically happy, which she immediately queried. And made me look inside myself for the first time and remember some things I had shoved down so far I had forgotten they were there. Which was the beginning of my own race towards living an authentic life, with all of me, shadows and all.

But I do believe we have to be well-supported on this journey. If we try to confront our demons on our own, we may end up losing the race anyway, through depression or despair. Loving and empathic support is needed to do this work. Each of us needs a friend or mentor who will hold us lovingly as we deal with the past of our lives. Someone who will listen without judging, someone who loves us unconditionally, warts and all. 

May we all have the capacity to be such friends, each to one another.

Believe in the Light

 I'm not sure I agree with the French poet and dramatist, Edmond Rostand, who wrote, "It's only at night that it's nice to believe in the light."

Unless I'm misunderstanding what he's saying... 

From a theological and spiritual point of view, of course, the Light often stands for the Divine Other. Quakers in particular frequently speak of the "Light of God", of "holding yourself and others in the Light" and about "experiences of the Light".  And one of the Christian views of Jesus is as the Light of the World. 

I find this way of referring to the Divine Other, to God, helpful. My imagination can picture God as a warm, yellow Light which is all around us and also emanating from us, because I believe that God is both transcendent and immanent, both "here" and "everywhere". And in some special way, it also holds us - holds the divine essence of who we are as individuals. 

One of the Quaker advices (no. 32) suggests that we "bring into God's light those emotions, attitudes and prejudices in yourself which lie at the root of destructive conflict, acknowledging your need for forgiveness and grace." Which I guess is why psychologists and spiritual teachers call the process of acknowledging our inner failings "shadow work". It is our job to bring the bits of ourselves we would much rather ignore out of the shadows into "God's light" so that we can be helped to acknowledge them and overcome them, to integrate them, so that we can become whole.

So no, Monsieur Rostand, I believe in the Light all the time, not only at night.

The Path of the Night

 The Lebanese mystic and poet, Khalil Gibran, once wrote, "Dawn can only be reached by following the path of the night."

Dawn is one of my favourite times of day - if I'm awake in time to witness it. The night sky begins to lighten slowly as the sun begins to rise. Sometimes gold, sometimes orange, sometimes red, sometimes purple, and all the shades inbetween - sometimes, I stand at my bedroom window for minutes together and watch the eastern sky change before my eyes. It is never the same twice and always a source of gratitude and wonder. Here is one from a month ago (although my photo does not do it justice):

I think the point that Gibran is making is that we will not really appreciate the beauty of the sky at dawning unless we have experienced the darkness that comes before it. And as in the real world, so in the spiritual world.

I do not know anyone who has not gone through dark periods in their lives, companioned by gloom, depression and despair. Which makes the return of the light even more precious, because we know what it is to be without it. 

And I think we can take his words as a promise too - that there *will* be a time of light and beauty after the darkness, that our night will not last forever. But that we have to walk along the path of the night to get there, have to do the shadow work first.

Which is probably one reason why I find such value in stories - the stories in which the hero/ine has to go through all kinds of trials and tribulations before attaining their goal. But at the end, the goal is reached or achieved and the light can return. Reading such stories is a promise of future light to come, that the darkness will have an end, if we have faith in the possibility of dawning. I know that when we are in the middle of the darkest passages of the night, the darkest times of our lives, it can be difficult to believe that better times are ahead. But they always are. We just have to hang on to hope, hang on to faith.

Growing into Beloved Community

 I have just returned from an inspirational conference at the Nightingale Centre at Great Hucklow. It was my first visit for two years and it felt so good to be back. For me, the Nightingale Centre is a very special place, my spiritual home.

Our guest speaker was Alistair McIntosh, Quaker and spiritual activist, and his theme was on becoming the beloved community. He explained it was about combining being engaged with the world and society from a deep place, in which we realise we are part of a deeper reality.

It doesn't matter what we call this deep, implicit, underlying order. He gave us many definitions: the Hindu word, dharma - the deep structure present in reality, the Taoist Way, or Christian God-consciousness. It's all about walking in the ways of good. It's about practising the central spiritual question of discernment: "Does this bring life? Does this lead you into life?" (rather than back into the concerns of the individual ego).

He explained that we live in a deeply materialistic society, in which it seems to make sense to compete. And that self-referential narcissism cuts us off from community. All of us are complicit in the capitalist, consumerist paradigm that is Western society.

But we all have souls - that deepest part of us that enables us to connect with each other on a deeper, more spiritual level. There is a level on which we are all members, one of another. He gave the example of the difference between being individual fingernails on a hand, and the hand as a whole.

At this deeper level of interconnection, we are able to grow into becoming the beloved community.  But in order to reach that point, it is necessary to do deep spiritual work, to get the shadows, the concerns of the ego, out of the way. Even then, we only get glimpses or intimations of the Way. It is a task that will take the rest of our lives.

Our job as Unitarians is to offer a safe and sacred space in which this deep spiritual work can take place. He quoted Ram Dass, "We are all walking each other home." Home in this context meaning being in right relationship with others and with the Divine.

It was a rich few days and I have come home feeling inspired and grateful and connected.

Facing the Sun

 This week's quotation comes from Chinese wisdom sources, "Always turn towards the sun, then the shadows will fall behind you."

And there is a certain amount of wisdom in that. Reading it reminded me of Plato's famous allegory about the prisoners in the cave, which he used to think about the nature of belief versus knowledge. You may be familiar with it: There were some prisoners chained together in a cave, facing the cave wall. Behind them is a fire, and between them and the fire are people carrying puppets and other objects, which cast their shadows on the wall of the cave. The prisoners, who can only see these shadows, believe they are real.

Plato goes on to wonder what would happen if one prisoner finally managed to free himself, see the fire and realise that the shadows are not real. He escapes from the cave and discovers there is a whole world outside, which he was previously unaware of. He believes that the outside world is more real than that of the cave. So he decides to go back to the cave to try to free the other prisoners. 

In a weird twist, he is blinded on his return, because his eyes aren't used to real sunlight. The other prisoners see his blindness and believe they will be similarly blinded if they try to leave the cave.

Most of us believe that what we see is true.  So most of the time, it makes sense to face the sunlight, to see what is real, rather than relying on the words of others to tell us what is true.

On the other hand, when we ignore the shadows in our lives, we are not living authentically. Because all of us have shadows - the things in our lives we do not want to face up to, the parts of our personality we are in denial about. Dealing with these aspects of our lives is called shadow work, and I have blogged about it here. I do believe that it is only when we go deep that we can understand ourselves fully. Doing this necessary shadow work can be very painful, but it is necessary, if we are to be whole. Life isn't all sunshine and rainbows and it is by learning from the shadows, from the sad or painful things that happen to us, that we grow.

A Few Clouds in the Sky

 Henry David Thoreau, the 19th century Transcendentalist, wrote, "Just as there must be a few clouds in the sky, so the mind needs a few moods."

Blue sky days are lovely and I very much enjoy walking in the forest on such days, like this morning, when the trees are silhouetted against the rich, glorious blue. 

Yet I know that without the rain we've had for the past few days, the forest would not be as green and lush as it is. So yes, the clouds (and the rain) are needed.

So much for the first half of Thoreau's words. I guess by "the mind needs a few moods", he means that we can't be happy all the time. Or if we are, we're probably ignoring something in our own lives, or in the world around us. For example, many folk are nostalgic for the past, which their memory has edited into an ideal golden age, where everything went right. If I think back to my own childhood summers, the sun was always shining and I was playing outside happily with my friends. Yet I know objectively that rain often "stopped play" and we were driven inside. And that my childhood, like most people's, was not a time of undiluted happiness.

It is only when we go deep, and see the clouds, that we can understand ourselves fully. Doing the necessary shadow work can be very painful, but it is necessary, if we are to be whole. I have blogged about this here. Life isn't all sunshine and rainbows, and it is by learning from the clouds, from the sad or painful things which happen to us, that we grow.

Let us embrace all our moods, which have something to teach us, if we are patient enough to sit and observe them, rather than rushing into action to make ourselves happy again.

Understanding the Past

Stefan Zweig wrote: "Wer die Vergangenheit nicht versteht, versteht nichts wirklich." Which being translated, means: "Whoever does not understand the past, does not understand anything, really."

We are human beings, living in time, and hence have a natural bent for looking forward, rather than back. Our minds are generally on what we are about to do, planning for the future, anticipating it with either pleasure or dread.

But I have come to understand that if we do not deal with things which happened to us in the past, they can sneak up and catch us unawares in the present. For this reason, we do need to understand the past, our own past. Which means befriending our shadows, those dark, unacknowledged sides of ourselves we do not want to think about.

I blogged about this on my other blog, Gems for the Journey, in a post Befriending Our Shadow. I mentioned a book called The Dark Side of the Light Chasers by Debbie Ford, which I would recommend to anyone who feels they are ready to do this hard, but very rewarding work.

This befriending process is often difficult and unpleasant, and is, for me, very much a work in progress. But thanks to my efforts, I now feel more whole, and have got better at standing back in hard situations, rather than jumping in and reacting straight away.