Do you sometimes feel an inner battle between many different sides of you? I know I do, at times its a daily struggle. I believe there was a time back in time when the idea of a monotheistic God had not yet taken hold, I have read about it. In this time it was recognised that a multiplicity of forces and archetypal energies imbued this universe. Things were not clear cut, black/white, wrong/right with no shades of grey in between. Evil could be found in goodness and be a result of it. Goodness may come out of something mistaken or evil at the end. It was a way and style of thinking less ruled by dichotomies and more by paradoxes.
When I think of the different sides of me I can separate the true self from the conditioned self. My true self is deep and chaotic at times, messy, chock full of at times conflicted or disparate feelings, perceptions and sensibilities. My conditioned self is ordered and controlled and sensible, it looks on the messy self askance with the eyes of a critic noticing all the cracks and flaws in things, it can then get seduced by an offer of seeming perfection from which all mess has been eradicated but the law of life is that eventually things fall into chaos where order and control is absent and then what was the price of seeking for control and perfection?
These themes are on my mind at the moment as I have been looking at a new tidy town house to buy. Corresponded with this is the ramshackled beauty of my weatherboard home, aging in parts with a garden laid waste by an extreme summer where everything can start to look bad. I can judge it as bad and miss the beauty within the character filled imperfection. I long for a more peaceful life though of less worry about things breaking down, a place where my time is not so consumed on the inward side that I am no longer so absent from the outer world. And its interesting just as I posted this a neighbourhood cat strolled into the garden outside my open window and I am reminded that in the townhouse I will be hermitically sealed off from other houses as the front is surrounded by a fence.
I know there are pros and cons to both places. Due to so many other decisions which have seemed to go wrong in my life I am having a hard time choosing which option to take. Do I stay here in a cosy home which in winter will be cold and demand a lot of strategies for making warm? Do I take the easier option and get out of it before it gets too cold? I will be sacrificing the open fire place. Its not an easy decision but I am aware in making it that I need to be careful and mindful of my choices. I don’t want to discard messy parts of me which have value for some thing easier in which I will feel empty. I am not even sure that I will feel empty as I have been feeling less empty these recent days than ever before, its still as scary prospect though. To stay or leave, which to choose? Home to me is the place in which I incubate my soul. I found a card the other day with the message, “Bloom where you are planted”. Was it a message from the Universe, I had prayed that day. Time will tell.
Emerging From The Dark Night 