The Accidental Finding Of Treasure

Archetypally, the Life/Death/Life nature is a basic component of the instinctive nature. This is personified through world myth and folklore one that I am speaking about is Lady Death!!

The knowledge of the Life/Death/Life nature has been contaminated by our fear of death (very much so in our culture)….Therefore, our ability to move with the cycles of the Life/Death/Life nature is quite frail. These forces do not “do something” to us. They are not thieves who rob us of the things we cherish. This nature is not a hit-and-run driver who smashes what we valve.

NO- the Life/Death/Life forces are part of our own nature, an inner authority that knows the steps, knows the dance of Life and Death. It is composed of the parts of ourselves who know when something can, should, and must be born and when it must die. It is a deep teacher if we can only learn its tempo.

Poets understand that there is nothing of value without death. Without death there are no lessons, without death there is no dark for the diamond to shine from. While those who are initiated are unafraid of Lady Death, the culture often encourages that we throw Skeleton Woman (aka: Lady Death) over the cliffs, for not only is she fearsome, it takes too long to learn her ways. A soulless world encourages faster, quicker, thrashing about to find the ONE filament that seems to be the ONE that will burn forever and right now…. However, the miracle we are seeking takes time to find it, time to bring it to life.

It is not surprising that people trying to love become confused and harried, and as in Hans Christian Andersen’s story “The Red Shoes,” dance a mad dance, unable to stop the frantic jig, and whirl right past he things they, in their deepest hearts, cherish most.

Yet, there is another way, a better way, which takes into account human foibles, fears, and quirks. And as so often happens in the cycles of individuation, most of us just stumble over it….

The running-and-hiding phase is the time during which lovers try to rationalize their fear of the Life/Death/Life cycles of love. They say, “I can do better with someone else,” or “I don’t want to give up my (fill in the blank)_______,” or “I don’t want to change my life,” or “I don’t want to face my wounds or anyone else’s,” or “I’m not ready yet,” or “I don’t want to be transformed without first knowing in absolute detail what I will look like/feel like afterward.

What a mistake of thinking they are running away from relationship with the lover. They are not or he is not so to speak. It is not about running away from love, or the pressures of a relationship. It is all about trying to outrun the mysterious Life/Death/Life force. Psychology diagnoses this as “fear of intimacy, fear of commitment.” But those are only symptoms. The deeper issue is one of misbelief and distrust.

The only trust required is to know that when there is one ending there will be another beginning.