In Search of Answers

Looking out a window at the world passing by, this young Chinese girl is enjoying late fall sunshine in Changzhou.  There is something comforting about being in the sun's warmth and looking at out at the world while being safely contained.

One looks out with real curiosity at the world and wonders.  All those passing people, all the stories untold are mysteries that feed an inner curiosity.  One wants to know, but one doesn't know.

"The problem always comes back to the fact that we do not know what we do not know.  We are not conscious of that which we are unconscious.  We do not apprehend that which lies beyond our instruments of apprehension.  The wise from Socrates to the present, know that they do not know, so all of life remains a mystery, a curiosity, which gets, as British astronomer J.B.S. Haldane once concluded, ever curiouser and curiouser." (Hollis, Mythologems, p. 29)

Children, like this girl are also wise, an instinctual wisdom, as they know that they don't know.  So many adults, in fear of the unknown, proclaim truths and hold to the "hard facts" of science or the "word" of their religions.  Curiosity is a danger as it questions and doubts.

Did our world emerge out of a big bang or was it created by some deity or . . . ?  So many answers claiming the "truth," the ultimate answer.  Yet, the truth is that we don't know, that we can never be conscious of the unconscious.  And coming to realise that I don't know any of the answers, I allow myself to become curious, especially about the questions themselves and where the questions come.  What is it within the human psyche that probes into the unknown in search of beginnings, that searches for the roots of self?

Gods and Goddesses Within

This small church, St. Antoine de Padoue Church, is located in Saskatchewan, in what is now a National Park called Batoche.  There is a history lesson in the story of this church, but that story is not for this blog.  Just an aside, the church is still in use for occasional services for the Métis community that lives in the area.  I took my brother here for a visit in order to see if there was any connections to be made.  Though we are Métis, the tiny rural community and church didn't provide any threads of connection.  I should have known that quest was doomed to fail as I was again looking outward for connection, for validation, for salvation.  To be honest, I must own my story and my own quest and not place it on a community or a "faith."

"By identifying the unconscious as the source of every God or Goddess who ever, in whatever guise, addressed mankind, Jung challenges humanity to take heed of this side of itself, to gain a heightened awareness of the direction from which it is approached by the deities and to enhance its appreciation of the continued power.  Put briefly, Jung is saying that since mankind cannot divest itself of its relation to Gods and Goddesses, it wold therefore be in its best interests to face that side of itself from which they come, in the hope of teasing from them a myth which would be safe for its collective survival and enrichment." (Dourley, The Illness That We Are, pp 75-76)

It's tempting to cling to one of the new and revised holistic "faiths" as it would mean that I could have a rest from owning the roots of my own spiritualism.  But, for whatever reason, each of these new containers of "hope" leave me resisting.  I am left saddened and worried.  I ache for the loss that is lived by all those who migrate to new faiths, loosing their old faiths as much as I ache for those still unconscious of their own worth as they worship a God that is more and more distant, Gods who promise a holocaust for the human race.  I ache for those who almost gleefully grab the latest books proclaiming the end of the world.  If only they could discover the beauty within themselves, the gods and goddesses within themselves.

Taking Life Seriously

This little girl was playing in the park near her mother just before Halloween.  Yes, Halloween has made it to China, but it is not the full-blown version of Halloween.  It is simply an opportunity to add colour and playtime for young people - no trick and treating, no pranks, no associations with the nether world of ghosts on the eve of All Saints Day.

I know that I take life too seriously most of the time and don't make much room for play for myself.  Watching the youth in Canada as they grow up in the school system, I saw them too old for their years - they, too, took themselves seriously.  They wanted to be teenagers years before their time; they wanted to be  old enough to drink just barely into their teen years; they wanted to be seriously in love and acting accordingly before childhood had finished.  And parents, wanted their children to hurry up with the growing up so that they could go on with their own lives or find a way to live vicariously through their "hurried children."   Imagine my surprise when I found that the youth in their early twenties that I taught haven't been rushed.  If anything, the college years are the final playground before they get tossed out into the adult world.

Growing up in the Catholic religion, children are expected to be miniature adults, serious in their intention to be on the battlefields of good versus evil.  With confirmation at the age of seven calling on the children to become "soldiers of Christ," there is no room left for being a child.  One was made aware of an external god that was ever-vigilant and had the power to condemn even a child to the fires of an eternal hell.  One was made aware of an almost as equally powerful devil that would be working overtime to tempt one into sin, the route into hell.  And, one was made aware that the robed men of the church were the only ones who could help save your soul, something that even the parents couldn't do.  One was taught not to trust one's self.  One was told to trust the church, to believe what could never make sense, to have faith in an idea that defied one's experiential knowledge of the world.  Catholicism is just one sect of the big three western religions that demand the same from each child - blind faith and obedience.

Awakening from the cocoon that religion wraps around the psyche is a shock.  One is adrift, removed from the community of "faith" that has provided all the answers and the road maps.   Before venturing too far into this unfamiliar realm, one must learn to begin trusting the "self."  And that, is what one didn't learn when one took life seriously as a child.