Emotion
Whatever hits the heart is here.
The tarot card “The Tower” suggests outright catastrophe and tragedy.
Its true meaning is the collapse of a misconception that we believed and protected for too long. A flawed and unstable investment that falls under its own weight. The suddenly revealed falseness of a deep belief that has held us prisoner. Tower moments are the terrifying thing we need to grow. People have devoted their entire lives to forestalling dreaded tower moments. If they succeed, that is the real tragedy. That is the veneration of the old dead skin rather than shedding it.
These quotes all shine a little light on the tower from different angles.
“A setback has often cleared the way for greater prosperity. Many things have fallen only to rise to more exalted heights.” – Seneca
“Disappointment is considered bad. A thoughtless prejudice. How, if not through disappointment, should we discover what we have expected and hoped for? And where, if not in this discovery, should self-knowledge lie? So how could one gain clarity about oneself without disappointment?” – Mercier
“You cannot protect yourself from sadness without also protecting yourself from happiness”. – Jonathan Safran Foer
“If you correct your mind, the rest of your life will fall into place.” – Lao Tzu
Simone Weil: “Imagination and fiction make up more than three-quarters of our real life.”
“It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.” —Epictetus
“Find a place inside where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.” –Joseph Campbell
“It’s better to conquer grief than to deceive it.” – Seneca
I slept and dreamt that life was joy.
I awoke and saw that life was service.
I acted and behold, service was joy.
Rabindranath Tagore
I know the way you can get
When you have not had a drink of Love:
Your face hardens,
Your sweet muscles cramp.
Children become concerned
About a strange look that appears in your eyes
Which even begins to worry your own mirror
And nose.
Squirrels and birds sense your sadness
And call an important conference in a tall tree.
They decide which secret code to chant
To help your mind and soul.
Even angels fear that brand of madness
That arrays itself against the world
And throws sharp stones and spears into
The innocent
And into one’s self.
O I know the way you can get
If you have not been drinking Love:
You might rip apart
Every sentence your friends and teachers say,
Looking for hidden clauses.
You might weigh every word on a scale
Like a dead fish.
These came to me today feeling completely original. It seems unlikely but if true, I think they’re pretty good. Don’t forget your attributions kids!
Forgiveness is the best revenge.
Wounded pride is the hardest material in the world.
If there is forgiveness why isn’t there forgetness?
“First of all, love is a joint experience between two persons — but the fact that it is a joint experience does not mean that it is a similar experience to the two people involved. There are the lover and the beloved, but these two come from different countries. Often the beloved is only a stimulus for all the stored-up love which had lain quiet within the lover for a long time hitherto. And somehow every lover knows this. He feels in his soul that his love is a solitary thing. He comes to know a new, strange loneliness and it is this knowledge which makes him suffer. So there is only one thing for the lover to do. He must house his love within himself as best he can; he must create for himself a whole new inward world — a world intense and strange, complete in himself. Let it be added here that this lover about whom we speak need not necessarily be a young man saving for a wedding ring — this lover can be man, woman, child, or indeed any human creature on this earth.
Now, the beloved can also be of any description. The most outlandish people can be the stimulus for love. A man may be a doddering great-grandfather and still love only a strange girl he saw in the streets of Cheehaw one afternoon two decades past. The preacher may love a fallen woman. The beloved may be treacherous, greasy-headed, and given to evil habits. Yes, and the lover may see this as clearly as anyone else — but that does not affect the evolution of his love one whit. A most mediocre person can be the object of a love which is wild, extravagant, and beautiful as the poison lilies of the swamp. A good man may be the stimulus for a love both violent and debased, or a jabbering madman may bring about in the soul of someone a tender and simple idyll. Therefore, the value and quality of any love is determined solely by the lover himself.
It is for this reason that most of us would rather love than be loved. Almost everyone wants to be the lover. And the curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state of being beloved is intolerable to many. The beloved fears and hates the lover, and with the best of reasons. For the lover is forever trying to strip bare his beloved. The lover craves any possible relation with the beloved, even if this experience can cause him only pain.”
Carson McCullers, The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories
Have you ever met someone who was nice or cheerful to a fault? They are all about being positive and cooperative but you glimpse in them tiny reflections of rage, sorrow and cruelty? They are at the office, at the PTA, and abundant in church groups. As they grew up with people who couldn’t stand their anger or spontaneity, these vital human traits were shoved downward until not even they themselves knew the behavior was there anymore. These are the psychological materials and the mechanism of the Shadow. Any part of us in the shadow is prevented from maturing naturally and finding the right place in a rich personality. Shadow materials grow dusty and miserable, paralyzed or barbaric. They raise themselves without guidance or human contact. As exiles from the country of self we see them as repellent refuges who may be hated openly. The shadow material is externalized in other people as lazy, crazy or slutty for example. The frequent connection to anything foreign is a way of distancing themselves from these forbidden elements of self as much as possible.
When someone in our lives needs to relate to us on a level that includes shadow material we deadlock, rage, and reject over the very existence of the problem. Frozen families and crippled relationships live here, if they live. The only way to surmount this logjam is to open the oubliette where we have hidden them and begin by recognizing who is in that dungeon. You can’t instantly free them, they are barbaric and immature, they do not know how to behave. First we do an inventory of our exiles and accept their existence. Then we make visits to them and hear their story. Then slowly we let them find their place in us again, bit by bit. People who have done their shadow work are more trustworthy, their decisions are more reliable and their kindness is more genuine. They listen better.
The harsh and moralistic tone of people denying their shadow is how they represent themselves as more trustworthy, etc. but prevents them seeing the “fine print” their secret inner lawyer attaches to every contract. If someone hasn’t done their shadow work but is forced to encounter their shadow material, the result is often a psychological crisis and breakdown. If the work has been done the same situation may result in a rueful smile or a humble (but not shamed) acceptance. An explosion in the open air is far less destructive than a buried and contained one.
The amazing poet Robert Bly is the hands down best writer on the the shadow.
2000-year-old Tombstone found recently in a Slovenian river. The inscription says:
Aerius Jucundus, father (set this tombstone) to his 12-year old daughter, Arellia Argolis.
Evoking love and loss 2 millennia later.
