Polarity #2

                                            

                                                                       Polarity #2                                          
                                                 
                                            

This cosmic dance of Shiva is called 'Anandatandava,' meaning the Dance of Bliss, and symbolizes the cosmic cycles of creation and destruction, as well as the daily rhythm of birth and death.

“Polarity, or action and reaction, we meet in every part of nature; in darkness and light; in heat and cold; in the ebb and flow of water; in male and female; in the equation of quantity and quality; in the fluids of the animal body; in the systole and diastole of a heart beat.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

In order to have experience as a human being we must have contrast, to feel joy we must reference sorrow, to feel love we must know fear and hatred. This is like the negative of a photograph (before digital photography), which was the necessary substrate before the positive image could be produced.

Jung said; “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious,” this is a key aspect of dealing with our polarity of light and darkness. Our ego functions in a way that pulls us toward what we think we want, need, or like and pushes us away from what repels us, but true psychological growth comes from a confrontation with our shadow. Jung described the shadow as those elements of our psyche that the ego doesn't approve of. Think of a time when you were shamed about something that you thought was a perfectly great interest, expression, opinion, or feeling. Let's say you were trying out your voice singing with others and someone said “You can't sing, you sound horrible!” you will have the painful contrast of your initial impulse to sing and then a big door slammed on that impulse. If you were young and didn't have enough power to protect yourself you most likely internalized that message and it became a life long belief.

Facing and engaging one's shadow is a conscious act of going into the parts of your psyche that have remained dormant, repressed, or compartmentalized. This is an alchemical process of reconciling opposites. So there is a part of your psyche that wants to sing, express, and be heard and another part that says “You can't sing, you sound horrible, just be quiet and listen.” These two aspects need to get to know each other and hear what it is they feel and need. You might have a dream in which you try to sing and others are laughing at you, again those are two aspects within one psyche.

Emerson also said; “What you are comes to you.” This is a law of attraction in which your being will magnetically pull to you what and who you are at your core. When people are having symptoms they are trying to heal, the symptoms themselves are the cure, this was another of Jung's insights. What we perceive of as symptoms that we are trying to get rid of carry the very seeds of their own transformation, making the unconscious conscious is the key to that transformation, this is kind of a psychological homeopathy.

Be mindful of your own tendency to polarize and separate into neat packages of good/bad, right/wrong, dems/republicans, etc. see everything as a play of one consciousness delighting in it's own expressions of diversity, seeing itself in opposites, and coming back to itself as a unity, this is the dance of creation.