We are born an emanation of creation
We grow up and slowly build an individual identity
Encountering the physical challenges of growth and the existential ones
Within our family, tribe and culture – we try to fit in, and we rebel
We encounter trials, tribulations and traumas
Life confronts us
We adapt and gain experience
Making medicine from some of it
Protecting ourselves from some of it
Dissociating and abandoning ourselves
All lost to fear
We triumph, are defeated, feel joy and excitement, engage, and retreat
Slowly individuating
Being tempered by the fire of life
Transforming into a unique separate person
With strengths, flaws, and broken aspects
We strive to be successful
Then in the second half of life we see a glimmer of something more
We ask a bigger question
We recognize that part of our identity is built on a foundation of fear and trauma
We feel the inner emptiness, the separation
And we either; close the door and distract ourselves with the entertainment of our culture, and the further pursuit of success, wealth, power, influence, travel, pleasure or “spirituality”
Surrendering to the neurotic nature of our being
Or, we respond to the new call
The challenge of becoming an expression of the unconscious, of spirit
And we begin the process of tearing down the walls of fear we have built
We address and resolve the past traumas
The abandoned aspects
The parts relegated to the shadows
Feeling the regret of past choices and actions
Examining a life that always falls short of possibilities
Tearing down and apart who we thought we were, and who we fought so hard to be
And once again the fire of life burns us and burns through us
Re-tempering us to know compassion
We must voluntarily engage in the difficult work and accept suffering rather than death