Become Enlightened or Brave Enough

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light but by making the darkness conscious.” C. G. Jung

So, The Red Book was a disappointment, but Jung’s writings continue to intrigue me. What he says above is quite controversial really. What is imagining a figure of light? And if one does not become enlightened this way, how does one make the darkness conscious? I would propose, that it is often through imagining figures of light that we do indeed create lanterns for ourselves by which to make the darkness conscious.

It is easy to see the dark side of figures of light, and how people can internalize destructive religious based schemas and distort messages of light, and so for Jung, perhaps easy to discredit what he called ‘figures of light.’ It is easy for new agers, even now, to latch onto their own figures of light, and not realize them for what they are, systems for understanding chaos and uncertainty.

In order for the darkness to become conscious, we need to see the darkness, to bring it into our realm of vision, and to see the need for this to become a welcomed part of self. Oftentimes, it takes another to see our darkness, to be ok with it, in order for us to also embrace this darkness. Perhaps then, the darkness is not blackness, not emptiness, but gradient dark shades of color, deep plum, dark grey, intense blue, like the water in the lake on an overcast day.

Who is brave enough to face the darkness? Oftentimes it is those who carry a God figure as a lantern. Is this God figure imagined? Constructed? Learned through sacred texts? Does it matter? I would propose that as long as the figure of light, is indeed a figure of light, of security, of hope, of compassion, that this figure could prove a strong talisman on the journey into darkness, and it is this light, which cast upon the darkness, will show that truly, the darkness is not empty and dark, but a myriad of tones, of which without, our lives would be only less contextual and rich.

Psychic Clutter

I bought a book yesterday with my daughter at Barnes & Noble, and the clerk asked me, as they always do, if I had a ‘member’ card; to which I said, “No.” And then they always ask if I want to get one, to which I reply, “No” and tell her I’m not interested in paying Barnes & Noble for the privilege of a discount. They, of course, are banking (quite literally) on me spending money duped into thinking I am saving money. She then proceeds to ask if I want to give her my email so she can send me coupons, once again I say, “No thanks.”

This time I’m getting peevish, already having been in a peevish mood, and I say to the clerk, “Getting all those emails takes up too much psychic space.” And she replies, “No, they’re just emails.” And I reply, “But they take time to read and the space in my head while I’m reading them.” She takes my money, gives me my receipt and we’re out the door, my daughter looking at me like I’m crazy. “Mom, she’s just doing her job, they make her ask those things you know.” I feel bad, I do know, I’ve been in sales, and so I told my daughter, “You’re right, I’m just cranky today.”

But, I’m right too. And I’m tired of all the psychic and material clutter. I find that I get emails about the same things I’m getting things in my snail mail about. I didn’t know that being a grown-up in our culture, having a home address, phone numbers and email addresses leaves you open to receiving things from strangers trying to tell you or sell you something; constantly. How many minutes in each day of sorting through ‘junk mail’ add up to whole hours and days?

I’d gone to Barnes & Noble after being at the library, where I spent a good 10 minutes at the reference desk asking them to please stop leaving cranky messages about a huge fine that someone else who’d once had or given them my phone number had. The lovely reference librarian was able to ascertain that I was not the person in question. But she did find that not only did this person, with a $40.00 fine, but also another person, both had my home phone number listed with their name. My phone number was not listed with my name, you know why? I’m avoiding giving out my phone numbers to just about any entity anymore. It’s days like these that make me want to move to a village in France, change my name, and grow my own vegetables.

Always Winter, Never Spring

It seems that there is no solace anywhere this morning

My car lies under snow and ice and the roads will be slippery

and its near the end of March and I need to see some green

I won’t beg with God and plead for blue skies

or for someone to come into my life and make it all better

If begging hasn’t worked all these years

It’s time to put it aside

put on warm boots

gloves

brush off the snow

scrape off the ice

be grateful for a car, a job

and the promise that April

will be

warmer

Oh Danny Boy

My father was 1/2 Irish, today I think of him. I remember him on St. Patty’s Day, coming down for breakfast, like he did every single weekday. Sitting at the end of the big oak table in the breakfast room, the room at the end of the house, off of the kitchen, next to the dining room, the room with walls of windows on two sides, which faced the back yard, the east, the rising sun.

My dad ate breakfast every day, served by my mom, coffee always ready when he came down from upstairs, freshly shaved with shirt and tie. Eggs, toast, orange juice, or later in life, shredded wheat with honey. On St. Patty’s Day a narrower than usual green silk tie, with shamrocks, that looked old in it’s narrowness, new in it’s greenness, a once a year tie.

He was usually kind in the mornings, polite and ready to go to work. After breakfast, he’d put on his suit coat, kiss my mom goodbye, and give me a hug and a kiss on the cheek, he’d smell fresh and good, not like beer. These mornings in their routineness made me feel safe. A feeling mostly unfamiliar to me.

I named my oldest daughter Kathleen, to hold onto and cherish the memory of my dad singing, “I’ll take you home again, Kathleen”, to my older sister named Kathleen. I’d watch as he’d sing sweetly to my sister, both entranced and jealous at once. The song is so sad, but the tune is sweet, and today, today, I honor my dad, Daniel.

I'll take you home again, Kathleen
Across the ocean wild and wide
To where your heart has ever been
Since you were first my bonnie bride.
The roses all have left your cheek.
I've watched them fade away and die
Your voice is sad when e'er you speak
And tears bedim your loving eyes.
Oh! I will take you back, Kathleen
To where your heart will feel no pain
And when the fields are fresh and green
I'II take you to your home again!


Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side
The summer's gone, and all the flowers are dying
'Tis you, 'tis you must go and I must bide.
But come ye back when summer's in the meadow
Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow
'Tis I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow
Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so.

And if you come, when all the flowers are dying
And I am dead, as dead I well may be
You'll come and find the place where I am lying
And kneel and say an "Ave" there for me.

Ainsworth, Bowlby, Children and Attachment

If money does not indeed buy happiness, and if we can seemingly have wonderful lives complete with food, designer bags, and trips, and still be miserable, what are we missing? We can count money, and we can count how much education we have or how many trips we get to go on, ways our culture manages to account for success, but how can we count how happy and securely attached we are?

It’s difficult, but two amazing early 20th century research pioneers did it, Mary Ainsworth and John Bowlby, and I’m reading all about their research in Becoming Attached: First Relationships and How They Shape Our Capacity to Love, by Robert Karen. It’s a fascinating look at attachment and mothering, topics I’ve been interested in for nearly 30 years now, since I first became a mother and wondered about my own attachment.

If life’s pursuit is not about success then perhaps it's about loving. Perhaps. This too is a topic I’ve long been interested in, but the topic seems relegated to pop lyricists and I’ve yet to find a grad program that grants you a degree in love. OK, well Ken Wilbur seems to have a go at it, but still I'm not convinced he's the one to show me what I need to know. I have seriously wondered; what’s love got to do with a child’s success; their ability to make their way and feel safe in the world?

A mother who is secure and is able to be secure in her parenting will mother a child in a way that is attuned to that child’s needs. To be attuned to her child’s needs, the mother needs to understand and respect her child’s natural tendency to seek out fulfillment of their own needs, “The baby is not a passive recipient creature who becomes attached to his mother because she satifies his needs. [Ainsworth says:] ‘These are very active babies. They went after what they wanted’” (p. 135).

This is important, because this might be where many mothers first feel resentment of their babies, because women have not been socialized to go after their own needs. This whole concept of a child being born with a sense of their own right to demand of their caregiver what they need, set’s the mother’s world on edge. This is just a hunch on my part, yet, I’ve seen women’s rivalry of each other many times, and I’ve understood it to be part of their own powerlessness in a culture where women still have less power than men, and in some families, less power than boy children.

Love after all, is somehow about getting our relationship needs met. It’s about how safe we feel in our homes, and then taking that safety out into the world. Looking for our place, or actually creating enough space for ourselves out in the world, while creating a safe home is what makes the whole life journey the dynamic experience that it is. It seems like I’m just beginning to make sense of this all, but it is making sense, thanks to Ainsworth and Bowlby, my attachment guru heroes. So it seems, that if we want to have safe places for children, we need to have safe places for mothers; and this means we have some work to do, as home, sadly, is one of the most dangerous places for women.

The Historical is Personal

There is a feminist saying, that goes, “The personal is political.” And it is. An apt example is abortion, where a highly personal decision is polarizing parties and influencing political decisions. As I unravel my own past, my own life and try to understand where I’m at in this journey without a single map, I’ve found that the historical, too, is personal.

I’m reading about the historical roots of attachment theory, trying to understand how people best grow into their most authentic self, how our earliest attachments, do indeed either give us a knapsack full of rocks, burdens to bear, or a picnic basket full of sustenance for our journey, or sometimes, a combination of the two. I didn't have a horrible childhood, but my parents were not attuned to me. This means, they did not notice my emotions, or help me regulate them, or talk about them, or reassure me much about life. And now we know that this is important.

A bit about the history, well into the 1930’s and 40’s sterility was still the most important thing in hospital wards for children. Handling or holding sick children was thought to spread infection and even parents weren’t allowed to visit. About this time, however, clinicians were also finding that children were not thriving and even dying in this environment. Now, of course, we know, that children need to be held and cared for, and picked up when crying. There is no such thing as ‘spoiling’ babies and children, something I was warned against when raising my own children, in the not too distant past.

I see now, the world into which my parents were born did not prepare them to emotionally attune to their children. My parents were most likely only marginally attuned to (if at all, if not dismissed), and so with this missing piece, how do we even know what to look for? Dan Siegel, researcher in interpersonal neurobiology puts it this way; Contingent communication has three steps; 1 perception of signal, (the parent hears the child), then, 2 makes sense of the meaning and 3 can respond back in a timely and effective manner.

This might sound simple, but what is responding back in a timely and effective manner? This is where I still trip up! I still flounder at times for words that are kind and compassionate, instead of flip or show my frustration in the moment. Part of the problem is not hearing the script growing up, and by not hearing the script, not connecting the emotional pieces, either. I’m rewriting my family history, undoing decades of un-attuned parenting. It's really slow going sometimes, but my family continues to grow in love and compassion as I do. It's a legacy only I can leave.