I was given a gift, the other night, of a painting of the Egyptian Goddess Nut- that I had lusted after for some years. It belonged to a client of mine, who had it hanging in their living room, and said they had a duplicate, that they had brought back from a trip to Egypt.
Nut is a feminine presence that is difficult to describe, and as I drove home with the painting in my possession the other night, I could imagine I saw her, lovingly arching over the whole world in the sunset glow, a feminine presence that is all knowing and all protective- Rather a significant difference as a sky-mother than the harsh judgments of Jehovah, the sky father that so many of us have been taught to fear.
It is an estrangement of ourselves from ourselves. Sitting alone, in front of the computer screen, night after night, we seek that which we hoped would fulfill us- all the while not knowing that what we sought was already present, in a dimension we had not imagined until we were forced to become aware of it, by circumstances beyond our conscious control.
This is the endless lesson. To let go of who we think we are, and to embrace what we know not- in an almost romantic rapture that delivers us whole, upon the sandy beach of discovering who we might actually be. The question is rather beyond an ontological criteria- and into that of non-cognition and inhabituition. Where we are slowly becoming aware of who we are, from our life here.
In this place, that is all places, we begin to embrace ourselves, in the endless dancing of the Cosmos. But wait! you may say. What about me? Well, what about you? Where are you? This is the unconscious mind. Walter Pidgeon in his role as Morpheus in one of the first Science Fiction classics “Forbidden Planet,” outed an obsolete malefic Freudian presence that had been given unlimited power by unimaginably advanced technology. He called them “Monsters from the Id…”
And if unacknowledged, as we have found with so many, when given power, the shadow nature of humankind can become monstrous. If we attend to these monsters when they are tiny, before they become inflated with fear, we can be playful and compassionate with them. It is a significant error to ignore them, for then they feed on the fearful energy of the ignorant. It is such a simple solution to be playful, with these energies in particular.
We continue to learn about the mind, and the unconscious forces that shape our every day decisions. Freud was consumed by his own sexuality, Jung actually liberated into the Cosmos by his willingness to fearlessly face the unknown, aided by Philemon.
And we have the opportunity, aided rather other than by technology (though technology certainly plays a role) to delve into what has been called the “collective unconscious,” in ways we are just becoming aware of.
Think about how in your own life, where you live, you happen to find yourself making certain decisions that you have become accustomed to think are yours. When we allow our awareness to shift levels, we may begin to see how the involvement at the individual level is rather a function of the collective awareness- though so many are unaware of this.
In all of it, there is a compassion for one another, who is ourself. In the USA I marvel and wonder at how people who I am certain are of good faith, so consistently act against their own interest-
Well, this is a long way from where I started, talking about Nut, and her over-arching loving presence at sunset that I felt a few nights ago. I’ve written in this blog about leaping, and screaming, and offering life- and now I’m suggesting we consider trust and play. Trusting our lives, and trusting others- in all the mis-takes we might make, yet continuing to trust, and be playful.
©2011 Anthony S. Wright, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved.
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