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In his book ‘Owning
your Own Shadow’, Robert Johnson draws a distinction between contradiction and
paradox. Contradiction is the normal human condition: we view one half of our
experience as good, as desirable, and we judge and shut out that which is not
so.
In our work
and busyness-obsessed culture, you may feel guilty because you got up at 11am
when there were all these things needing to be done. Or virtuous because you
did indeed get up at 8am and got busy. The truth of it probably was that you
had 2 conflicting wants: to lie around and dream, and to get things done. (And a guy with a big stick telling you one of them is right and the other wrong.) If
you can hold both of these urges without judging either, without having to come
down on one side or the other by feeling virtuous or guilty, than you are in
paradox rather than in contradiction. And a new type of consciousness can
emerge, that is outside of the usual boxes in which we and in which society
finds its life. Really, it is outside of space and time, and there is joy and a
deep relief around it, since we are no longer ‘doing’ something to ourselves, not carving ourselves up. We are with the Divine, with Spirit.
Contradiction
is fundamental to the way we generally work. It is easier than paradox, though
it comes with a price. Try it with politics: argue the case for the bunch you
don’t vote for, appreciate their humanity. Most people don’t seem able to do
this. In fact, it seems to be part of their ‘spirituality’ to remain in
contradiction about their politics, and to heavily judge the other side as
uncaring or whatever, instead of moving into paradox.
Generally,
we want to know where we stand, and we want it simple. When we die – well, in
medieval times, you had heaven and hell. That is simple. Nowadays you have extinction
of consciousness – that is simple too. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as
it is simple. It is simple psychology that requires something 'certain' outside of itself in order to feel it is secure, that it has a foundation. Part of
our job as healers is to open up those rigid tramlines, for they can also cause
illness. But not to disrupt them so much that the person cannot cope, or takes
against us. Spirit will generally show us how far we can go.
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I
offer Shamanic consultations, usually by skype, in which we can talk
over anything you want to talk over. I may use the Medicine Wheel,
Journeying, Astrology, Tarot or anything that works. And it centres
around listening to ourselves in a deep way. I work on a donation basis,
and I am happy with whatever is easy for you: I love this work.
Contact: BWGoddard1@aol.co.uk
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| Mandorla at Chalice Well, Glastonbury |
The Mandorla
is a mystical medieval Christian symbol created by overlapping 2 circles. The
almond shape where they overlap is the Mandorla – the word itself is Italian
for almond. The 2 circles are the state of contradiction – of good and bad – in
which we normally live, and in which religion finds it place. Where the circles
overlap is where good and bad are held together in paradox. It is where the
mystic goes, the mystic who knows God, who is an open channel for Spirit.
So
notice it is only an overlap. It is an overlap because it is not a place we can
live all the time. It is a special place, the place of vision, of visitation by
poetry and by angels and other beings. Like it or not, we live in the world, experiencing
opposites such as pain and pleasure, life and death, which come with having a body. It
is important to incarnate, as well as to be aligned with the visionary
dimension.
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I offer skype/FB video astrology
readings, by donation. Contact: BWGoddard1
(at)aol.co.uk
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| MEDICINE WHEEL |
In the
Medicine Wheel, the equivalent of the Mandorla is at the centre, the point of
balance. The centre of the Wheel is not a mild dilution and equalising of the 4
elements that we find in each direction, but a dynamic fusing of them that
creates something new, a new level of consciousness that is more complete. We
find this idea in the Middle Way in Buddhism, which again can sound a bit watered
down, neither one thing nor the other. But again it points to the diamond that
is formed when large opposing forces are allowed to synergise.
In the
Medicine Wheel I use, this principle lies in the Blue Road, across the East-West
axis. The Blue Road represents gifts from Spirit that are not ours to determine.
The Red Road is North-South, and is Mind and Emotion, something we can work with
in our everyday lives, and which eventually results in the accession of Spirit
of the Blue Road.
So the Blue
Road. East-West is Fire and Earth, Spirit and Body. It is the light of the Sun
and the darkness of the dream and of incarnation, of the struggles of everyday
adult life (which the West also represents). It is this tension between the
ideal and the real, along which we often take sides. Politically, you could
say, the left represents the ideal, the East; the right represents the real, the West. One prioritises caring
for people, the other the state of the economy. And of course both are needed,
without judging either of them. And most of us find that so difficult.
The purpose
of our lives, at least according to a Chippewa Cree guy I asked, is to become a
balanced human being. I can go with that. If all we do is to discern and hold
the different forces within ourselves, without judging between them, then
Spirit will take care of the rest, for it will have room to come in and
illuminate with its more complete way of knowing.
And this can be very
difficult when we are in the grip of powerful feelings that we may just want to
flee from and get drunk. Just stay with it, hold it, your guides are there
loving you and egging you on. This is why I say the Centre of the Wheel is not
like a dilute cordial that satisfies no-one, but more like the place where
diamonds are created from huge pressures, that may indeed tear us apart, but
for the purpose of revealing some new and more whole life within.
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| Profound magic: Possession by the Spirits |
One way we
can hold these different forces is through dancing them. Robert Johnson, as a
therapist, had a client who would do this in the consulting room, while he
cowered behind the sofa. This suggests it was pretty wild, which is how it
can sometimes need to be. Uninhibited. This is something we have forgotten over 1000 years,
as the controlling forces of organised Christianity took hold. So yes, we need
an ongoing self-awareness of these contradictions. And then times, such as in
trance dance or in prayer, where we can let these voices speak in their
fullness. There is a Spirit behind them. All this is a profound alchemy.
