REFLECTIONS YARO - JANUARY BLOG - 2023

 

JANUARY 2023

 

Dear Reader,

I am looking out of my window and see the summer sun shining upon my garden. December is summer here and I am reflecting about the parts of our planet where there are winter disasters, terrible volcanos and war in Ukraine where people have no electricity nor heat to stay warm and enjoy the coming new year.

To me it all feels like the 2022 was a year of painful crises. COVID pandemic still with us, divisions in world politics, and authoritarian leaders who, without any conscience are adding more pain and destruction to many people in many countries.

Michael Meade’s podcast speaks about the myth of the Greek gods called THE TITANS. These gods delighted in creating pain and destruction among the people. Here is his quote:

 

“There are times when myth and fact coincide, when events in the common world become mythical in shape and scope. In such radical times, myths can offer ways of understanding what otherwise appears as completely unprecedented events and impossible dilemmas. In mythological terms, we are facing the end of an era during which everything can seem to collapse back into chaos and darkness before a regeneration of the dream of life can occur.

In some Greek myths, the Titans appear as primordial, pre-cultural giants who act out the extremes of insolence and arrogance, vengeance and wanton violence. They were called “the strainers” as they were full of hubris and strained to be like the gods. Before civilization could develop, the Titans had to be pushed down and be held in Tartarus, the deepest darkest part of the underworld.

However, it turns out that while the archaic energies and raw emotions can be suppressed, they cannot be completely eradicated. When the dark times come around again and people feel under great pressure, the deeply repressed energies, emotions, and forces can erupt back into life. As the web of life loosens and meaning and trust drain from cultural institutions, unconscious energies from deep in the human psyche can become loosed upon the world. Extreme beliefs and raw emotions can infect and inflate both individuals and groups as unconscious forces lead to extreme and inhumane behaviours.

All around the world, we can see these kinds of energies manifesting in the form of extreme political parties that act with the fervour of religious zealots. And in the rise of authoritarian figures who, in their hubris, insist that everyone must follow and be loyal to them while they, like the ancient Titans, break all the rules and follow no natural order. Having no genuine conscience and no inherent meaning of their own, they can only destroy whatever carries meaning for other people.

The rapid spread of all kinds of conspiracy theories, the increase in acts of hatred and violence can also be seen to involve an uncovering and release of the deep shadows that grow beneath the shiny surface of mass cultures.

The counterbalance to collective forms of extremism and tragic acts of inhumanity must be found, first, in the awakening of the individual soul to a greater sense of the underlying wholeness and inherent meaning of life on Earth.

Just as the earth continually renews itself from its own deep resources, each person harbours hidden resources that try to awaken in the darkest times. In awakening to the presence of the deep unifying self and the ancient wisdom of the soul we become more able to shift the darkness and assist the return of the original dream of life on earth”.

Michel Meade

 

As we are coming to the end of this year, I am trusting and hoping that we are all filled with the desire to make things better and joyful for all. As the story goes, the old man year is leaving this world and the new one is arriving full of hope and happiness. This is my new year wish”

That the collective wisdom of billions of people on this Earth will join their energies to defeat the TITANS of today and thus shift the evil energies cleaning all the corners of this planet. This is not an easy task as the death of one force requires a space to defeat another and another and ‘ad infinitum’.

This fight is well documented by the Tibetan masters, and they call it THE BARDO journey of the Soul. Here is a definition of this spiritual practice:

“The "bardo" is the state of existence intermediate between two lives on earth. According to Tibetan tradition, after death and before one's next birth, when one's consciousness is not connected with a physical body, one experiences a variety of phenomena. These usually follow a particular sequence of degeneration from, just after death, the clearest experiences of reality of which one is spiritually capable, and then proceeding to terrifying hallucinations that arise from the impulses of one's previous unskillful actions. For the prepared and appropriately trained individuals, the bardo offers a state of great opportunity for liberation, since transcendental insight may arise with the direct experience of reality; for others, it can become a place of danger as the karmically created hallucinations can impel one into a less than desirable rebirth”.

Tibetan book of Living and Dying.

I imagine that as we travel from the ‘old year’ to the new, we need to make that journey through a series of “bardos” to enable the new year to be born again.

“Peace requires us to surrender our illusions of control. We can love and care for others but we cannot possess our children, lovers, family, or friends. We can assist them, pray for them, and wish them well, yet in the end their happiness and suffering depend on their thoughts and actions, not on our wishes.”
― Jack Kornfield

BLESS ALL!