The Tension of the Opposites
Years ago, a teacher said, in response to yet another uprising in the Middle East, “like marriage, there is no solution”. I think his students nervously chuckled and maybe even grew silent at his quip. Yet, here I am, about forty years later, quoting this teacher.
This is not intended to be a political post. It is meant to be a psychological one. I will try and stay in my lane. My father, a long-distance truck driver would say, “Keep the yellow line on your left, what is in the rear-view mirror is the past, and there ain’t no road long enough that doesn’t eventually turn for home”.
What does it mean to hold the tension between the opposites and not split? Not side with the left or the right, the black or the white, the good or the evil? It means to endure the suffering of bringing to consciousness what would prefer to stay in the dark. Our creation stories, or at least some of them, pronounce that in the beginning chaos ruled, and then there was light and dark and day and night.
I watched the launch of Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship. I watched as it tore from its structural womb and rocketed toward the heavens. I also watched its singularity disperse into a multiplicity of smoke and light. It was impressive. Extravagant and wasteful? Who am I to say? It “left the surly bonds of earth” and to those interested, we collectively gazed toward the heavens, however brief was the cathartic voyage. Was it purposely detonated at 90 miles above the surface of the earth? Or, as some more radical on social media would surmise, did it reach the barrier of the Firmament and destruct? The firmament generally refers to the arc of the sky but is regarded in biblical cosmology as the dome created by God separating the earthly realm from the heavens.
As the rocket launched, Elon Musk tweeted, “For the first time, there is a rocket that can make all life multiplanetary. A fork in the road of human destiny”. Back here on this little blue dot, we are torn asunder by our seemingly inability to comprehend multiplicity. We long for community but regress into conflict. We may look toward the heavens but we are mired in the mud of earth. And the blood. So much blood. What if we had the resources to widen our perspective? Not the billions of dollars it takes to fire a rocket against the firmament, but the deeply bold psychological and spiritual task of imagining more not less of each other.
High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds,—and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air ....
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor ever eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
Surely, it is the “face of God” that has flown the flags of our deepest conflicts. Under the colours of flags, we have justified all manner of injustice toward each other. Some would say that no religion is the answer. Some would say more religion is the solution. The etymology of the world ‘religion’ is perhaps worth pondering. The English word "religion" is derived from the Middle English "religioun" which came from the Old French "religion." It may have been originally derived from the Latin word "religo" which means "good faith," "ritual," and other similar meanings. Or it may have come from the Latin "religãre" which means "to tie fast."
To what or whom are we faithful? To what or whom are we tied fast? Jung posited that religion was an instinct. Today he might revise to say that ‘spirituality’ is an instinct. By instinct we mean intrinsic, natural, innate. Even if we remove all our religions, we do not remove the longing in the mind to reach beyond our grasp. To gaze upon the stars and wonder into the purpose of our existence. For a while, the religions answer our longings with dogmas. And perhaps in the immaturity of our development, this provides a good enough response. Yet, as we come of age, and our individuation impulse awakens, we must extend our understanding into the paradox of our being. How can we be both the centre and the circumference of all that we experience? As a Jungian analyst, I would argue that is the task of consciousness, to transform contradiction to paradox. And how is that achieved? By not giving into the polarities. By not choosing sides. By suffering not escaping the tension of the opposites.
The only solution is perhaps the solutio: The act of loosening or unfastening someone or something; dissolution. What sacred cows are we prepared to sacrifice on the altars of our psychological development? Personally? Collectively? To what do we bind ourselves? To whom? What flags or banners or colours do we stand under? What do we stand for? What and whom do we see when we comprehend all existence from our deepest and highest value? What if this is the god we serve? What if the ultimate task of these times is to know this and find communion with the other? Communion with the Other.
In his seminal work, “Depth Psychology and the New Ethic”, Erich Neumann writes: “by identifying his personal ego with the transpersonal in the shape of the collective values, the limited individual loses contact with his own limitations and becomes inhuman.” (https://www.amazon.ca/Depth-Psychology-Ethic-Erich-Neumann/dp/0877735719)
Perhaps there is no solution to the tension and eruptions in the Middle East. Like marriage, it is a process of growth and understanding achieved through suffering and willingness to suffer. Perhaps the Middle East, like marriage, is ultimately the navel of spiritual consciousness. I have learned that in marriage we turn contradiction into paradox. We are married to many thing. Persons, ideologies, religions, politics. Perhaps what we achieve in this most sacred of unions can widen to include the world. Even the Middle East. Certainly, three of the world’s great religions were conceived and birthed out of this geography. Maybe a fourth is yearning for manifestation. Is there a religion of multiplicity and singularity? Can we trust both the science and the spiritual impulse? The mind and the body? Us and them? Can we vow faithfulness to entropy and the expansion of perspectives that includes rather than excludes? Our first born of this perspecive is surely unity and diversity. Can we come of age and mature into harmony? For the sake of this little blue dot called Earth, I pray we can.