The work as the path

by Richard Reeve on January 17, 2009

in AziMuth

Buddhist mandala
Image via Wikipedia

“The goal is important only as an idea: the essential thing is the opus which leads to the goal: that is the goal of a lifetime.” ~Carl Jung, The Psychology of Transference

Without digging further into the references, I’d like to share a sense of our condition from two perspectives.  Jung felt that the universal images, the archetypes, reveled aspects of the Self, the archetype of our psychic wholeness.

The mandala, with its intricate designs looking like complete a world provides a image of our psychic wholeness as if seen from above.  Like the images of Earth from the moon, this perspective shows the Self in totality.

The labyrinth, with it’s confusing twisting paths that seem to lead deeper and deeper into the unknown, can also be seen from above, but I’d like us to consider this image from the experience of walking the paths.  Many congregations have invested the time and energy to create gardens where labyrinth designs are mapped out.  The reflective engagement with the patterning provides a wonderful lived metaphor of the relationship of our time bound awareness to the Self.  Walking a labyrinth design provides an image of our experience of the mandala.

Each day we can only travel that limited aspect of the winding path where we find ourselves.  Each day, we can only commit fully to the opportunities of the path we find in order to create the opus of our life.

So, mandala and labyrinth, images disclosing our human condition, limitation amidst wholeness.

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  • Recently I had been in a very dark mood.. the part of my being that has to be dragged by destiny was the dominant experience of my consciousness. It was a kind of feeling of being oppressed by the labyrinth.

    Usually when I think of the labyrinth I think of it as the Freudian unconscious.. the Shadow.. and the problem of having to go into to find the boon.. that part of are total potentiality that hasn't made it to adult realization.. that is needed for the challenge of becoming that we are confronted with.

    It was at this point in time that I started a new art project.. well a musical one really.. The process of which was a real Minator tango.. where in very short order I felt helpless to make anything of value.. it was a deep wrestling with self doubt.. which characterized my over all feeling of life at that moment.

    And then I had a conversation with a friend. I have a number of friends like this.. who look at me when I'm wrestling with self doubt as if I'm out of my mind.. which I suppose, in a certain sense, I am. They talk to me in this ridiculous manner... like some language I can not understand.

    At a high point.. when I'm really feeling in the groove.. and the "it" is happening.. I feel like I'm dancing with the Gods.. As if to say that the God's where always just a projection of inward potential, and here.. in the "it" well they are no longer projected outward.. we are one..

    Anyway.. these ridiculous friends talk to me in a way that would make sense to me if I were in that kind of "it" state of mind... It's as if they are telling me that "dances with Gods" should be my Indian name.. and what am I doing in this silly despair.. and how have I gotten so confused, yet again, about my true nature and sense of identity.. I'm not an ugly ducking for I'm not a duckling at all!

    Well.. whatever part of my that's able comprehend this sorta ridiculous talk.. seemed to be able to knock on my thick head enough to inspire something or other..

    So in pretty short order the sonic crap I was wrestling with in my sound project.. got transfigured into some golden thing.. and suddenly I'm catapulted to the "it" with the God's again.

    There's still some problems to be worked out in the sound project.. and I've really only just barely started it anyway.. but there's a giant neon sign pointing to it's potential.. and I'm ready for the adventure.

    What struck me was.. as a result of the catapulting.. my whole mood and feeling about life shifted. I no longer felt the oppression.

    So reading you're blog post, sorta struck me about it.

    It's as if.. life is an adventure in the Labyrinth.. In the kind of Freudian Civilization and it's discontents sorta way.. that sense that we are forced, inside of a certain sense, to give up our whole self.. or at least deal with constraints of the labyrinth on our becoming.

    At moments when I feel over come by a feeling of enlightenment.. I feel as if every thought, feeling, impulse.. whatever.. that's in my conscious mind.. or maybe inside my being.. is good, and is there for reason.. that all the demons we try and throw out are angels.. are our helpers.. It's just that they need to find a place in the order of our lives.. they're constructive roll.. that this is the real problem.

    It's as if the labyrinth is the responsible party, as far as transfiguring our angels into demons.. All these paths we could go down.. what is the right one? And really, all the paths are for us to walk down... was it Led Zeppelin who wrote a song about this? Something about how there's two roads you can go down, but in the end it's one road? Something like that?

    In any event.. so my feeling is.. that the art making process was kind of like a meditation on these disparate wills.. In much the same way that making a mandala would be.. a process by which you think "jesus, these disparate wills will never come together to form a whole" like.. they just don't go together.. I mean that's a demon over there!

    But if we can just explore the paths.. we come to find the angelic in our demon friend..

    So as in our daily life.. the way that we can, as you say, only fully commit to the possibilities of the path we find in order to create the opus of our lives.. That path is rather like Odysseus being the no man who is every man.. it is the no path that is every path. We and the path are one, and all that...

    Err... and something, something. something.. lol, guess that's my thoughts for the day...
  • Looking forward to hearing the new musical project Matt. It's a powerful idea that the left path and the right path are actually the same path. The transition from the either/or mind frame to the both/and one is a long slow process.

    I relate to your sense of being in flow, and work to push against my inertia when I'm not...
  • Ah-mazing!
  • Rich,
    Great embedded insight. Thank you for the feedback.
  • kathryn
    "limitation among wholeness" - the struggle, how to recognize the wholeness and give in to the limitation.......
  • Dear Kathryn,
    So fine of you to visit. Acceptance of the experience with an understanding of the totality does not remove the struggling or even the suffering that resistance, either from without or within, always is. Your sense of giving in...or as an old friend of mine like to say "surrender to win," is not a thing of weakness but the portal through which initiation into the mystery of Self begins.
  • Ahhh, you show me yet another path in perspective, Richard! Thank you!

    ...even better perhaps to create our own "magnum opus!"

    Am so grateful to have found you along my path :0)
  • Henie, I like the idea of merging the art of living with the living of art...
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