"The Unfolding" - Musings
by Carol Jacobs
As I journey in the second half of life, I both ponder and become clearer. I have questions and I have some answers. What I know is, however, that it matters deeply how I show up in this world, in this universe. I find myself returning often to the dream statement from the wise woman in my dream from many years ago. In the dream, in recital, I have finished playing Chopin’s Ballade #1. The wise woman says: “Let the Music Play You”. For me this has been a major “life” dream. It speaks to allowing one’s life (my life) to unfold. She didn’t supply the answer as to how I was to do that.
Rilke speaks to this - “have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to live the questions as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language.” Rilke and the wise woman in my dream are both inviting an exploration of the inner world. Mary Oliver, in her poem “When Death Comes,” says-
When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular and real.
If we’re paying attention we may hear the gentle or perhaps strong activation from our internal Self that calls us to a deeper listening, for a tending to our true essence. It is no small task to open the portal into the unconscious. Hidden in that space, tucked away in that space, is what Jung calls the shadow - parts of ourselves that are unknown to us - both the darker parts of what of what makes us human - jealousy, anger/rage, sadness, etc., and…… the so-called positive parts that stay covered because of our fear of being visible.
Jung says: “One does not become enlightened by imagining beings of iight, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.” I suggst that this statement, while true, could be stated a little more accurately. So often the journey of “making the darkness conscious” is more thatn “disagreeable”. It can be frightening and even terrifying to open to the wondedness and suffering and even tha potential that is inevitable in our being human. Courage and discipline are required of us as we respond. We become disciples to the Self, to the Soul.
As a guide to self -exploration we might ask ourselves some questions:
1. Do my life choices enhance my life and bring integrity into the world?
2. Can I trust the mystery of life and respond from my heart, letting my ego and intellect rest by the side of the road for a while?
3. Can I risk being vulnerable, to my self and others? What do I need to access in order to allow this?
The final question and musing asks: What am I grateful for and how do I live from that place? May we remember to pay attention to the unfolding and expansion of our lives.