Colette Obrien

Martin Buber in his tiny jewel of a book wrote of the I/Thou Relationship he’d come to understand as a concentration camp survivor.

Somewhere in the divide between opposites is a connector, and the connector is the Self or Soul, the light of which draws all together in harmony and balance.  One finds the Self in the effort to expand consciousness; to go beyond apparent conflict to resolution that does not diminish either side but mediates.

The Self mediating conflict.

I’ve been blessed that my dog and cat are best friends.  They chase one another around the furniture, the cat jumping up to the top of things where my dog pants from below waiting for the moment he knows his friend will jump down, and they’ll wrestle on the floor leaving piles of fur but never a nick in the skin of either. 

They are my model of resolution of difference. Each is programmed to hate the other and yet, being individuals, they choose to relate not as enemies but playmates.  And I, The Self, watch delighted, in hope for the world. 

In a post last week I spoke about the goddess Nemesis who is really a friend in the guise of an enemy.  When we are able to see in such a way, the world will be renewed; mankind will achieve its true potential.

Every adventure is begun by the fool, every treasure discovered by risk, there is no reward without consequence–good or bad?

How many fools headed across America, through unmapped territory inhabited by millions of angry displaced original inhabitants, unheard of mammoth predators, limitless mountain ranges, killer weather, barely anything to eat  . . .  in search of what? Opportunity; gold in California, land for farming and raising livestock, freedom from oppression . . .

All at a risk I’m happy to say I did not have to take.                                         

                                                                                                    Ship Of Fools

 Of the hundreds of thousands of fools on that ship who risked everything for the slim chance of finding Gold, what percentage were rewarded positively for their efforts, and how many, by the end of the arduous journey, felt at best foolish, and at worst were ruined?

Those many unfortunate souls would have certainly believed a cruel April Fools trick had been played on them.  Isn’t that why we have an April Fools Day; to celebrate and hopefully laugh at the times when our foolish leap has ended in our having been tricked?

I have 3 younger brothers and this particular holiday was a favorite of ours growing up. None of us ever missed an opportunity to play a trick, and because it was sanctioned on this day, be forgiven. 

However, being tricked by the fool is difficult to forgive when the trick costs us more than a little loss of face.  The fool does not intent to hurt but only to prick the ego’s bubble when it has become inflated.  (Reference yesterdays essay on the importance of the fool in the courts of kings.)  Losing face is an important side effect of the fool, for his purpose is to prevent us from  thinking too highly of ourselves; his tricks are meant to keep us humble.

Known for his headlong leaps into the void,the fool counterbalances worries and concerns.  Why else have the courts of kings and emperors included at least one fool for he lightened the atmosphere giving a much needed breath of fresh air to the anxieties of the ruler. 

If the ruler of a domain is our ego selves, the fool is that archetype that turns things on their head, makes us laugh, and for a moment, forget our fear. 

Life in a physical body is fraught with danger.  Though we may not be aware of it every moment of the day, the struggle for survival is present in the body every moment of the day. Fortunately the creator of this grand experience has granted us several boons.

Like the child who puts his blanket over his head and believes his mother can’t see him, denial is an effective tool.  Another useful one is distraction; I will pay attention to acquiring things– or any number of other goals– and won’t be aware of the danger.

However, it isn’t possible to completely avoid the fact that we’re mortal and vulnerable to so many forms of suffering on the road to our final destination. 

The fool is the friend who, throughout our life, helps us to walk more lightly , knowing it is temporary and, well, he quips, why not? What have you got to lose that you’re not going to lose anyway?

Encouraging us to risk all in order to experience life fully, he represents purity of action. Only looking forward, never back, never strategizing or over thinking a movement, he seeks to discover, always willing to take a chance, come what may. The fool lives to live. He frightens us a little because nothing frightens him. He is a liberated spirit.

But . . but . . . our fearful selves object, one must not be fool-hardy.  Right-O.  And what pray tell is the difference?

If I am offered an opportunity for an adventure, my fool will say go for it no matter what, while my rational self will insist on considering the possible consequences of that adventure.  Between the two of them a decision will be made. 

If I’m in need of new life experience, I will leap.  If I’m tired, or ill-equipped at the moment to take on the challenge of an adventure, I will decline the invitation.  I would feel fool-hardy only if I didn’t consider both sides. 

I would be even more fool-hardy if I didn’t give license to the fool to take an active part in my daily life. . . who wants to be safe all the time is already dead!

What if the Big Bang were the first kiss?

Aphrodite’s favorite child is Eros, or as the Romans named him, Amour. What does it mean to be the child of the goddess of Love but that he is her messenger? When that powerful goddess chooses to unite 2 objects by sending her son with his quiver of arrows, union is assured. Eros is the connecting force sent by the essence; Aphrodite.

The planet we inhabit revolves around a sun in a spiraling galaxy. On earth, the constant creation of life depends on a cycle of seasons; each one following the other in a continual round.  For life as we know it to endure, there must be a time of birth, growth, and destruction.

Aphrodite/Eros assure creation. Without the attraction of objects to one another there would be no new life.  The earth would stop spinning; the sun, having lost an admirer, would wobble out of control in dark despair and lose its place in the galaxy; with the loss of one of its members the billions of other stars would also loss hope/connection, and very quickly, what began as a first kiss, would end in a rout of unconnected atoms.

Thus spoke an incurable romantic. 

But seriously, love connects everything– it is a force–and maybe what physics calls the electromagnetic force is what we call love. Maybe the reason that we as humans cannot resist Eros’ arrow is because it’s correct to be so humbled; to realize through the experience of inescapable attraction, we’re being moved by a greater force than our small wills, and that that force is benevolent.

Which side of the bed do you want to wake up on?

Wakened from the dreamworld to the rising of the sun (even if it’s behind clouds) opportunity calls like a bugle at revely.  What will this day bring, for every day is new? 

How we greet it is up to us. Do we view it  with dread that more will be asked of us than we feel capable of managing; with a sigh of boredom that this day will be like hundreds of others, a repetition of mundane activity; tired, heavy, physically unwell do we pull the covers back over our heads and wish the sun did not rise; or with hope and anticipation of adventure and exploration. 

Attitude is everything.

However, how much control do we actually have over the outlook we wake up with? The old saying, “He got up on the wrong side of the bed” has merit.  Today I woke up on the right side and greeted the day with optimism and joy, but that is not the case everyday. So what determines which side of the bed I get up on?

Health, rest, chemical balance, hormones, dreams, fears, worries, negative or positive patterns of thought  . . .   including unseen influences outside our awareness; astrology, elemental shifts in the earth, cycles of the moon, the weather . . . !!! So many things influence which side of the bed we get up on that it seems virtually impossible to name the reason or reasons for a sunny attitude versus a dark one.   

It appears we have little choice, yet though we are at the effect of so many different things, we also determine many of them ourselves, and it is to that list we must look for help to find the way to choosing our attitude.

The List:

1. Good diet, exercise, and rest. Knowing our individual chemical and hormonal balance, and monitoring changes over time. Avoiding habits that harm physical well-being.

2. Getting to know and take care of emotional needs. Saying “no” to overextending.

3. Maintaining mental fitness through stimulation; learning new things, dialogue to exchange ideas and some form of mindful practice like meditation to learn how to control thoughts. 

What we control is what we take in and what we keep out of our body/mind. 

As for the rest . . . learn to accept. Tomorrow; acceptance, what is it?

 Oddly out of the ordinary is whimsy’s definition.  Just the feel of the word on my lips makes me smile, a verbal form of Prozac for the spirit.  Like the archetypal trickster in Jung’s psychology and the Tarot deck, whimsy tricks us into a shift of perspective.  To see the ordinary a little out of kilter allows us to play with the object outside of the box of our usual view/belief about it.  Whimsy stands things on their head, or tail, or puts ballet tutus on those we’re intimidated by. Harry Potter learned to handle his fear of dementors by making fun of them.

Playful spirits are a form of whimsy; making the imagination and all of the “unseen” world into a place we can venture into without so much fear.  That’s not to say we can rid ourselves of nightmares but we can balance the tendency of the mind to fear the dark by seeing light within the darkness.

Most of us in the western world today have important concerns but they’re not life threatening; meaningful work, the mortgage, money for our children’s college, our daughter’s weird boyfriend, etc.   We don’t live in Sub-Saharan Africa or any number of other places where whimsy would be inappropriate.  We normal neurotics, as Woody Allen spoofs regularly, are candidates for lots more whimsy.  Most of our fears aren’t helped along by worrying, but will benefit greatly by lightening.

On the table in the dentist’s office waiting room I visited too regularly as a child, was, “Laughter the Best Medicine.”  It really did help make those fearsome visits a little more tolerable. Proof of that is that I remember the jokes, not the drill.

Whimsy is also considered childish. And what is meant by childish? Playful, imaginative, fun-loving, fearless, courageous, adventurous, curious, uninhibited . . .

If by being whimsical adults we tap into that list, I say “Go For It.”