Candlemas

Well, it seems we are in a Trade War with our closest neighbour. Not locally. Internationally. Our local neighbours are gold. On the 1st day of February, on Imbolc, the day the seeds wake beneath the snows, on St. Brigid’s Day and the eve of Candlemas, a 25 % tariff on goods passing back and forth between our Southern border was declared. An economic shot was fired and met with the same. Clearly, the tariffs are better than bullets and armaments, and a Trade War is not the same as a military invasion; however, I think a power complex is driving the actions and reactions nonetheless. As C. G. Jung professed, "Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other."

It has been said by our current leader, ad nauseam, “Diversity is our Strength”. I think we heard last night that diversity without unity is nothing short of chaos. Will our retaliatory response to the aggressor unite us? That remains to be seen. The words currently sound hollow. I expect escalation before good faith negotiation. And, I am not sure that we allies to the North, or even the South, are the true targets. I think what we see in this tariff wielding Executive Order, is global power posturing. If this is how one relates to friends and neighbours, what message does this send to enemies? There are layers and layers to this economic declaration. Let us dig deeper.

I have tried in this blog and in my attitudes to be more psychological or spiritual than political. Politeia (πολιτεία) is an ancient Greek word used in Greek political thought, especially that of Plato and Aristotle. It is derived from the word polis ("city-state"), it has a range of meanings from "the rights of citizens" to a "form of government”. In Jung’s parlance, politics is grounded in the Spirit of the Times, rather than the Spirit of the Depths. Nevertheless, while I believe that politics flows down river from psychology and spirituality, is it not simply a lower more unconscious expression of our collective complexes? Complexes are the human knots we tangle ourselves up in. Politics is oftentimes the outward expression of our narrowing attitudes, undeveloped courage, and our afflicted responses to fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the other. In the consequent polarization, we get caught up in the attempts to manage and control the interior chaos activated by exterior experiences. We are human, all too human. The best of us strive for perfection, the ideal, yet, fallen as we are, fallen from the garden or the top of Sinai, fallen from Grace, we too often miss the mark. Sin and ignorance clouds our vision. When, in our lostness, we make our Politics the god, the false ideal, we follow the wrong trade routes and the wrong leaders home. There are grander routes, first in our hearts, then in our actions toward one another.

I feel like this country, young as it is, experienced an alarming initiatory moment on February 1. The older brother, the bully, the transgressive moment, was perhaps the long overdue perturbation necessary for our maturity. Will we accept the challenge? Stolen from the ouroboric lap of our innocence, our sanguine niceness, we are now thrust into the economic forest of fear and chaos. The ouroboros is a symbol of unconscious unity. A snake eating its own tail. Can this unity be made conscious? Can it hold gravitas? Can we rally and develop the agency necessary to meet the deeper and higher call? The call to a grand adventure? Our individuation as a nation? Can we suffer the wound with dignity and persevere until we receive the promised blessing of our destiny?

I remember in an indigenous rite of initiation, I was told by an Elder how the boys of the village were ushered into the masculine mysteries by the grotesque mask clad and wild men of their fathers, uncles, and grandfathers. Abducted from their mother’s huts and taken deep into the forest of fear and trembling, they were each, in turn, branded with a red hot stone over their hearts. The searing pain was instantly met with a healing balm, a special leaf placed over the wound containing the anaesthetizing medicine. In that moment of pain and relief, the mask of the transgressor was removed and the young boy, now initiated into the grit and glory of his emergent manhood, discovered that the transgressor was his own father. The wound and the healing came from the same hand. The blessing and curse strangely offered up an integrated new attitude. The scar over his heart would be a constant reminder to everyone of the transgressive and transformational moment. I was told that the young men were then instructed to jump over the fire. They left the ground of their mother, soared over the paradoxical fire, and landed in all their awakened virility and agency on the far side of the flames. A border crossing bar none. The next step was the most essential. This unbridled virility and agency of the newly born man, needed to be tempered or else the fragile balance between creation and destruction would be compromised. Like it seems to be today. How un-tempered, how uninitiated, how immature our masculine appears in our western politics. And the world teeters on the edge of the abyss. I was told how that at that moment of masculine awakening, the young women of the village were then invited to approach. With tinkling bells braided into their hair, they stepped tentatively and tenderly toward the new masculine. Each new man had to hold and contain the raging fire coursing through his body. He had to know its power and tame it. Too much and he would be rejected by the approaching feminine. Too little and he would be passed over. He had to stand firm and tall and strong, until he was deemed a suitable mate. She, in choosing, vowed to help direct and temper this masculine power. He, in being chosen, vowed to surrender. Together, the masculine fire, in relationship to the feminine, would move them both toward creation rather than destruction. New life would be the golden teleology of this union.

Rilke offers the blessing: “Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other”

Today is Candlemas. The day that candles are presented, dedicated, and blessed. On Friday, the Eve of St. Brigid, her blessings blanketed the land and promised hope to the downcast. On Saturday, the Celtic feast of Imbolc, the seeds of life reportedly woke up and began the climb toward Spring. Today, the light itself is presented, dedicated and blessed. Few of us know that to bless comes from the Old English word blǣdsian, which means "to consecrate with blood.” In all relationships, between man and woman, between friends, between neighbours, even between nations, sacrifice is at the root of making sacred. To what or to whom are we called to sacrifice? Economics? Politics? Power? I think not. When darkness, dissolution, and chaos encroach, we must be a candle. A blessed candle. Each to each. A blessed candle burns brighter, longer, and is dedicated to the highest marriage of diversity and unity. Trade, not so much with one another, but through one another, might be our grandest ideal. Trade between two solitudes. Between the sacred and the profane. Between the human and the divine. Between heaven and earth. When, with the perturbation, he trembling is felt only horizontally, across temporal borders, between neighbours, the deeper call is vertical.

Pray that I can be that candle, even in the wind. Be that candle, even in the dark. Be that candle, even in the uncertainty. Be that candle to myself, my family, and my nation. Pray that you can too. This is the blessing promised to Abraham. If we answer the deep call to adventure, the call to initiation, the call to unity, at the pumps, the grocery store, the job site, with willing sacrifice, dedicated to the best in each of us, both sides of the border, the voice that answers might be just what the world needs. Love. Only love.

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Matt.22: Verses 34 to 40