Jung, wrote, \u00a0\u201cWhere love reigns, there is no will to power, and where the will to power is paramount, love is lacking. The one is but the shadow of the other.\u201d (Collected Works, vol. 7, par 8)<\/p>\n
I invite you to sit with this for a moment. Can you think of a time when you were motivated by the will to power? Even a very subtle behavior. I know I can, certainly going back to adolescence, and even last week. I stormed out of the Starbucks, practically mowing down a person who was trying to sweep up, because I was hungry and I was late.\u00a0 Take a moment to remember\u2026What feelings emerge?. \u2026 Now, its opposite, the desire for love\u2014and here we could ask, \u201cWhat is love?\u2019 How related to the desire for approval or to fill in the cracks of self-doubt. Think of an example in your own life. I know I have floodgates on this one\u2026<\/p>\n
Introspection is essential as we struggle to position ourselves in the daily chaos of our time. In a recent interview on line at chironpublications.com, Jungian analyst Murray Stein quoted the words of Winston Churchill from World War II: \u201cKeep Calm and Carry On\u201d Dr. Stein went on to say, \u201cThe psychological reality is that racism, to pick just one of the negative items embodied by Trump will never be effectively dealt with unless we all recognize its existence in ourselves individually and collectively. That\u2019s our \u2018Inner Trump\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, the young man I mowed down in the Starbucks was African-American. I didn\u2019t even realize it until I was in the car and on the road. I felt awful.<\/p>\n
I agree with Dr. Stein that we must look inward. Notice and own when we exercise the will to power, or inappropriately act to gain love, or approval, to compensate for an inadequate connection to ourselves.<\/p>\n
At the end of his interview Dr. Stein reflects on the difference, the split in substance and perception, between Barack Obama and Donald Trump. With what I imagine was a catch in his voice, Dr. Stein said, \u201cPersonally, I feel that America does not deserve a president as balanced, brilliant, and perspicacious (showing mental discernment, clear sighted \u2013 I looked it up) as Obama. He is a Nobel Prize winner for a reason. If there were an anti-Nobel Prize, Trump would be the top candidate for it. What comes after this? Will it be a swing to the opposite of Trump, which would perpetuate the split in the collective, or will it be a \u201cthird\u201d , as Jung writes about the resolution of opposites? I\u2019m afraid that the nation\u2019s fate hangs on this question. Without a uniting Third, the split will deepen and could destroy us as a nation.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the tragedy in Las Vegas, this theme has been echoed in the media. In his column reprinted from the New York Times in the October 9th<\/sup> edition of the Seattle Times, David Brooks writes, \u201cGuns are a proxy for larger issues. The real reason the gun rights side is winning is postindustrialization. It is an issue of values and identity. Today, people in agricultural and industrial America feel that their way of life is being threatened by postindustrial society.\u00a0 Owning a gun has become an identity marker for freedom, self-reliance and the ability to control your own destiny. Today we need a grand synthesis that can move us beyond the current divide.\u201d<\/p>\n Unity of Opposites. The \u201cThird\u201d. The Grand Synthesis.\u00a0 The Reign of the Madness of Trumpism has certainly pulled the duct tape off our eyes, ignited our anger, and unleashed our grief. But out of this, I\u2019m asking if we can we use this heightened state of being to shepherd the Will to Power\u2014in ourselves and those around us— through an alchemical tunnel to become the Power of Insight, Action, and Unity, with Love as its guiding principle?<\/p>\n A tall order? I agree. But essential, at this crossroads in the development of the human psyche on our fragile, beautiful earth.<\/p>\n To help us hold these concepts I turn to Andrew Harvey, author and spiritual \u201cinvestigator\u201d, his essay on the Black Madonna. He first encountered Her in Ann Baring\u2019s book, The Myth of the Goddess.<\/em> Some time later, Dr. Harvey did a pilgrimage to Chartres cathedral. He writes, \u201cI worshiped for the first time with the fullness of my being the Black Madonna in the \u2018Virgin of the Pillar\u2019. I came to understand very deep things about Her\u2026.Her agony, power, and extreme vibrant, violent purity of compassion could be revealed to me.\u201d<\/p>\n I am struck by his choice of words, \u201cVibrant, violent purity of compassion.\u201d<\/p>\n I recently saw a photograph that I believe captures this vibrant, violent purity in a modern day Black Madonna. Taken in the Congo by Seattle Jungian analyst Eberhard Riedal, it is titled simply \u201cRemembering\u201d. \u00a0Her gentle features and composure belie her brutal history of rape by warring tribal soldiers, at 13 and throughout her adolescence.<\/p>\n The Black Madonna is our blessed Goddess of Paradox. Like Kali, the ancient Hindu goddess, some of you have seen pictures or statues of her \u2013 4 arms in constant motion. She holds the tension of opposites of Creation and Destruction, In The Dark Goddess and the Transformation of Consciousness,<\/em> Marion Woodman and Elinor Dickson write, \u201cAt first Kali comes across as the devouring mother \u2013 swords and a human head in her hand \u2013 a closer look, however, reveals a great halo around her head, attesting to her need to be understood not only as a devourer, but also as a transformer.\u201d<\/p>\n I have colleagues who refer to our modern era, with the destruction of climate, the deconstruction of so much in our lives, as the Kali Yurga \u2013 a cycle of destructiveness, out of which a new creative energy will emerge. Woodman and Dickson write that Kali is very threatening to the patriarchy, because she holds the unity of creation\/ destruction as one reality. <\/em>\u00a0Patriarchs are deeply invested in a black and white view of the world. They must be Right\u2014everyone else Wrong. Kali and the Black Madonna hold this \u201cThird\u201d reality, that black and white are One.<\/p>\n Andrew Harvey believes that this cycle of destruction will lead us to awaking to a time of divine power. This is the \u201cwisdom of the dark night\u201d known well to great mystics like of Rumi and Teresa of Avila. Out of this destruction will come a new consciousness of our divine nature through the birth canal of apocalyptic energy.<\/p>\n Harvey writes, \u201cWe have a natural need to recognize The Mournful Face of God\u201d\u2014Eberhard\u2019s Madonna of the Congo \u2013 It is only when the Dark Feminine is not recognized that She is tormented, though us. When denied, She disappears from our conscious life only to become an unconscious, unquenchable, and destructive drive to disavow all suffering , at all costs\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Let this sink in\u2026 When we deny the Dark Feminine, push her aside in our own denial and need for distraction, She becomes a destructive drive, within us, and in the world, the anima mundi. <\/em>Seen from this perspective, we have an influence on the Kali Yurga. I think this is good news. A part of our i<\/em>dentity, our <\/em>self- determination. I invite you to take a moment. If you choose close your eyes. Breathe. Place an image in your mind of a conflict in your life, a tension of opposites begging to be unified; the Grand Synthesis or the Third. What are some feelings, some hopes, some fears, that accompany this image. I will imagine my Libertarian brother.<\/p>\n With my brother, I realize how I often used my will to power to convince him he is Wrong\/ I am Right. What folly. As Tali Sharot notes in her book, The Influential Mind <\/em>when you present people with evidence that goes against their deeply held beliefs, the evidence doesn\u2019t sway them. If anything they become more adamant about their position. So, with my brother, without denying the differences, I transform my Will to Power, into the power of a loving choice: in political discussion I listen and don’t lecture, respecting his values, and we always have our mutual love of art, theater, and beauty, and there we find our Third.<\/p>\n Andrew Harvey offers another powerful essay, Mystical Activism<\/em>. I have distilled the major points:<\/p>\n First, How We Got Here. What Harvey calls The Seven Heads of the Beast of Total Destruction :<\/em><\/p>\n Next Harvey postulates The Seven Stages of the Birth of Humanity<\/em> \u2013 down the birth canal past all of the devastation above.<\/p>\n Harvey believes it is not sufficient to have just mystical awareness OR activism, but to be effective in the world today, we must combine the two in MYSTICAL ACTIVISIM. For this, he offers the following powerful guidelines:<\/p>\n Recently a wise woman told me, \u201cSelf care is the most radical form of Social Activism\u201d. So true. We must all hold this in our minds and hearts. And as we care for ourselves, how do we \u201creach across the aisle , to our neighbors and families, transforming our Will to Power into the Power of Compassionate Choice, uniting Power and Love into a vibrant Whole?<\/p>\n Resources:<\/p>\n Jung, wrote, \u00a0\u201cWhere love reigns, there is no will to power, and where the will to power is paramount, love is lacking. The one is but the shadow of the other.\u201d (Collected Works, vol. 7, par 8) I invite you … Continue reading \n
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