The "successful" journey through life often presents itself as linear, or as an inclined linear passage, meaning that one climbs to a summit of success. The illusion being that one can, through conquest and successful will power, achieve a steady upward progression through life. To set goals and strive to achieve them is not at issue here. What I'd like to explore is how this notion of linearity flies in the face of life's truest, deepest rhythms and challenges.
While we are so often presented with the notion of climbing and striving as being the true challenge and test of one's character, the reality is that it is surrendering to the descent and accepting the paradox of transformation through death and re-birth that requires as much, if not more, strength, grace and grit than the upward climb. The ultimate paradox lies in the fact that to truly surrender and accept life's realities requires levels of courage that lie closer than bone, and a strength that can endure the shattering of what one has held sacred.
We are in the realm of the deep feminine here.
In Sylvia Brinton Perera's groundbreaking study Descent to the Goddess, she explores the feminine cyclical pattern of death and rebirth through the Sumerian Inanna myth. This is not your average fairy tale - the myth is challenging, dark and, at times, frightening. It is all these things because it is about what we often fear most - death. Not just physical death, but the death of our ideals, the death of relationships, the death of identities, and the death of old patterns and ways of relating.
Perera writes:
The Inanna mythologems of descent and return reintroduce two great goddesses, primal feminine energy patterns and their partners, and the possibility of an individual human response to bring them into incarnated, personal life. The story presents a model for health and healing the split between above and below, between the collective ideal and the powerful, transformative processual reality underlying the feminine wholeness pattern...[and can lead us] on the path as we suffer the return to the goddess and renewal.
Healing the split between above and below can be understood at a personal level as healing the split between the mind and the body - cleaved apart by a rationalism that does not hold the body's wisdom in an equal and loving embrace. Yet by healing this deep split, we are returned to our birthright as embodied souls and can better express the full spectrum of our humanity.
Our bodies are the reminder of why the linear incline is an experience within life, but cannot be a model for life itself. It is our bodies that undergo the descent and transformation of a mortal journey - meeting the deep feminine through death and decay. This embodies both the literal experience, and the metaphorical understanding of death as that which brings forward new life - that real transformation is, in fact, only possible through death.
Another paradox presents itself here: by accepting that truth, life becomes more vibrant and filled with possibilities. When Plato was asked to summarize his life's work and philosophy, he responded by saying, "Practice dying." In essence, Plato is inviting us to practice surrendering to change, practice accepting what is, practice releasing the fear of the unknown, and practice letting go.
When the fear of change and letting go is preventing new energies from being born into your life, steel yourself with Rumi's question:
When have I ever become less by dying?
While we are so often presented with the notion of climbing and striving as being the true challenge and test of one's character, the reality is that it is surrendering to the descent and accepting the paradox of transformation through death and re-birth that requires as much, if not more, strength, grace and grit than the upward climb. The ultimate paradox lies in the fact that to truly surrender and accept life's realities requires levels of courage that lie closer than bone, and a strength that can endure the shattering of what one has held sacred.
We are in the realm of the deep feminine here.
In Sylvia Brinton Perera's groundbreaking study Descent to the Goddess, she explores the feminine cyclical pattern of death and rebirth through the Sumerian Inanna myth. This is not your average fairy tale - the myth is challenging, dark and, at times, frightening. It is all these things because it is about what we often fear most - death. Not just physical death, but the death of our ideals, the death of relationships, the death of identities, and the death of old patterns and ways of relating.
Perera writes:
The Inanna mythologems of descent and return reintroduce two great goddesses, primal feminine energy patterns and their partners, and the possibility of an individual human response to bring them into incarnated, personal life. The story presents a model for health and healing the split between above and below, between the collective ideal and the powerful, transformative processual reality underlying the feminine wholeness pattern...[and can lead us] on the path as we suffer the return to the goddess and renewal.
Healing the split between above and below can be understood at a personal level as healing the split between the mind and the body - cleaved apart by a rationalism that does not hold the body's wisdom in an equal and loving embrace. Yet by healing this deep split, we are returned to our birthright as embodied souls and can better express the full spectrum of our humanity.
Our bodies are the reminder of why the linear incline is an experience within life, but cannot be a model for life itself. It is our bodies that undergo the descent and transformation of a mortal journey - meeting the deep feminine through death and decay. This embodies both the literal experience, and the metaphorical understanding of death as that which brings forward new life - that real transformation is, in fact, only possible through death.
Another paradox presents itself here: by accepting that truth, life becomes more vibrant and filled with possibilities. When Plato was asked to summarize his life's work and philosophy, he responded by saying, "Practice dying." In essence, Plato is inviting us to practice surrendering to change, practice accepting what is, practice releasing the fear of the unknown, and practice letting go.
When the fear of change and letting go is preventing new energies from being born into your life, steel yourself with Rumi's question:
When have I ever become less by dying?
