Reflections

O spring like crystal! If only, on your silver surface, you would suddenly form the eyes I have desired, which I bear sketched deep within my heart. ~John of the Cross Spiritual Canticle The myth of Narcissus tells the story of a beautiful young man courted by many women but incapable of returning the affection of even one. The goddess Nemesis takes pity on one of his rejected suitors and determines that Narcissus should fall in love with himself and remain unable to reciprocate, thus cursing him with the unrequited love that had afflicted his cortege of spurned lovers. The next time Narcissus catches a glimpse of his reflection in a pond, lo and behold, he is transfixed by the sight of himself. Enamored by his own appearance, he cannot leave the pond and perishes trying to embrace his elusive reflection on the water. This myth is about conceit. It was conceit that prevented Narcissus from loving anyone and conceit that, in the end, led him to embrace a mirage. Conceit comes from t...

The way out of suffering is through it ~anonymous Shame is the flip side of pride. You cannot experience one without the other. We defend against shame as a threat to our integrity, as though it could consume us like flames. It even feels that way as it creeps up into our faces or down into our bodies, curling us up at the edges and setting our cheeks ablaze. We want to hide from its gaze branding us contemptible. What we wouldn't do to douse the fire of its judgment ripping through us like a meal! Yet the more we fight it, the more we stoke the fire by feeding it pride, what the Greeks called hubris . And like in many a Greek tragedy, it is this which precedes my eventual and total downfall. And I will remain alienated until my pride is leveled, until my nose touches the ground, and fear, fight and frenzy, exhausted, bite the dust. And the fire goes out. Not by pride but by humility are we delivered from shame. As TS Eliot writes: Do not let me hear Of the wisdom of old...

Die before you die ~Muhammad Spinoza wrote: "A free man thinks of nothing less than of death; and his wisdom is a meditation not on death but on life". (Ethics, IV, proposition 67) Yet while I meditate on life, say holding a newborn baby or gazing at the full moon or into my lovers' eyes, I ache. My joy is cradled in a heart that is breaking, like laughter in bruised ribs, and it hurts to know that the seed of life is also the birth of death, and that I’ll eventually be separated from everything and everyone I love. Most people try not to think about that or, when they are faced with death or loss in their lives, respond by defending against distress, investing energy into overcoming it as an obstacle to their well-being. The psychotherapeutic environment is useful in that regard. By providing the scaffolding necessary for restoration or renovation, it enables the self to buttress itself against situational distress, promoting healing enough to move on. But the truth...

Who am I Drops from the tree Like an apple Or a tear from the eye Round and clear But still Holding the querent Until it bursts The heart that wants to see And cries out while dying No! Fists clenched in a dumb roar Against the sky The echo of whose call Across the canyon Leaves Its empty husk On the calloused ground Beneath its feet

Hecate William Blake (1757– 1827) O Féminin O Vierge Au regard amoureux Imperturbablement asexué O Mammifère Qui déborde de lait et de sang sa générosité maternelle Paradoxalement vorace O Prostituée Soumise à la volonté de puissance de l’homme élu Médaille d’honneur, honneur vaincu O Amante Nourrice Déesse Cloaque O Reposoir Viens! Manifester Qui tu es Chacune Femme particulière Toi! Que ton destin soit Ni cela Ni cela Ni cela

The Briar Wood Edward Coley Burns-Jones 1833-1898 The Prince makes his way through the briar patch growing around the castle that had denied entry to others before him. He is the hero that intends his fortune, the Prince that manifests his Princess, bound by a vow, not to her but to the Light within himself, the only beacon that he needs. For he is Love. The bramble is tangled and spiny like a wrathful Castellan. It jealously guards the red rosebud that will open inside the grand delusion wherein everyone sleeps. For she is Wisdom and she too was intended to unfold under the right conditions. The Princess thrilled to the wheel. She couldn’t help it, she was young. And as the spinning faltered at her touch so she buckled and fell, piercing herself with forgetting. Exiled but undying was her curse and blessing. And now the Prince has endured and in enduring found what in faith he knew was always there. The two are conjoined in The Kiss. And as the wheel is set on its axle once ...

The Awakening of Adonis John William Waterhouse 1900 Crisis and change. The one begets the other. This is how things evolve. It's a curse when you want to hold on to something good, and a blessing when an untenable situation gives way. The word “crisis” comes from the Greek krisis which means turning point, the point that Hippocrates thought was decisive to one’s surviving or succumbing to an illness. Crisis is the harbinger of a cure whether that cure is life or death. An existential crisis is essentially creative in that it can give rise to a more concerted engagement with a bad situation, as a quest for its resolution or for salvation. Sometimes it culminates in a conversion or rebirth. Sometimes, though, a bad situation just stagnates, giving rise to that oppressive sense of being "stuck” (like a baby whose head is engaged but cannot descend into the birth canal). It is a dire predicament in which the parties involved, instead of feeling a sense of urgency or cris...