mortality

From fishing to bean soup

~ TracyMarrs ~ Leave a comment

The time grandpa lost his patience with me

My grandpa was a kind and patient man. He was slow to anger and quick to smile with us kids – but there was a time he lost his patience with me, a time with Jeff, and a time his dad lost it with him that I want to share. These stories have continued to be told in our family as the few examples of times when grandpa’s patience wore thin.

I don’t know when my grandpa started to take me fishing by myself. I must have been about my kids’ ages (7-10) when I became a good fishing buddy. We enjoyed fishing the Santa Ana River in Southern California together.

My kids when they were little, at the Santa Ana

I was a city kid. My dad didn’t take me fishing and my mom and stepdad do not fish. It was grandpa that introduced me to the river, that taught me about the currents, and that showed me where to cast my line so it wouldn’t scare the fish, but flow naturally so they would bite.

Grandpa also shared his love for photography with me, specifically black and white photography. One winter day, grandpa thought it would be fun to take me to the aspens to take black and white pictures in the snow and catch a little fishing on the way home.

Like I said, I was a city kid, wearing city clothes. A long sleeve shirt, light jacket, jeans, and tennis shoes. If you are unaware of how to dress for a day in the snow and at the icy river – it is not jeans and certainly not tennis shoes.

The day started out beautifully. The aspens were the perfect subject for our pictures – especially in the snow. Soon however, my feet started to hurt and I wanted to go back to the warm car, but I was a trooper and I didn’t complain. I don’t think I even had gloves on – I was clueless.

We had time to warm up in the car from the aspens to the river. It was a pleasant drive as grandpa told me stories and we watched the snow covered mountains and trees pass the window.

As we walked out to the river, I hesitated. I knew the further we walked out, the further we had to walk back – and I was still cold. But, grandpa loved fishing, he wasn’t going to let a little ice on the creek stop him (he had full waterproof waders on). His enthusiasm was contagious as we got to the river to fish.

It was cold – but it was also very pretty. Until I slipped on one of the icy rocks in the river. I fell – hard – into ice, cold water. That was it, I had enough and wanted to go NOW! Grandpa was concerned but I was okay and we hadn’t fished long. I was crying and making lots of noise – between my splash and noise, he wasn’t catching any fish anyways and we hurried to his green Ford Explorer and cranked up the heater.

It wasn’t major, but I know my grandpa was irritated with me that day. His tone was different, his actions sharper – he has lost his patience with me. I felt like a fussy baby, not the tough oldest grandkid of Jack Jones. I was wet and cold and at that moment couldn’t even enjoy the beauty of the snow – it was the only time I remember grandpa becoming irritated by me.

The time he lost his patience with Uncle Jeff

Grandpa told me a story about a time he lost his patience with my Uncle Jeff when he was just a boy. They were walking the river, fishing. My uncle, being a small boy was lagging behind, I’m sure, and his arm brushed against a purple thistle. If you’ve never touched a thistle, it stings! The sensation is similar to how I imagine a hundred burning pins. There is an easy way to ease the pain – you either hold the affected area in the cold water or put cold river mud on it. At the time, my grandpa was already annoyed with Jeff.

Maybe grandpa didn’t know how bad a thistle sting could be but after seeing why Jeff was crying, my grandpa did something uncharacteristic – he lost his patience and got angry. He told Jeff that those flowers didn’t hurt that much and grabbed the thistle firmly into his hand.

Purple thistle
Illustration by Ben Levitt

Now, I’ve touched thistles plenty of times, but never grabbed it to were the needles would press into my skin. Grandpa told the story about how his anger made him foolish and the pain made his eyes well up with tears. He told me it was one of the worst pains he ever felt and it was even worse because it was a pain he deserved because it came from anger at his hurt son. He told me the story to teach me not to touch thistles but also to warn me not to let the anger win.

The time grandpa made his dad swear

I never knew my great grandparents except through stories, but my great grandfather was a good, kind, and gentle man. He was a farmer that prayed and often shed a tear when he took an animals’ life for food. My grandpa was raised a Quaker and according to him, his father never cussed or swore but did have two ‘Yankee curse words’ and I want to share a time of when my grandpa made his kind and gentle father so mad – he said them both.

Grandpa as an adult was mischievous and a bit of a trickster so I can only imagine what sort of fun he must have been as a young boy. One time, he and his friend got the idea to trick his dad. They got a bucket, filled it full of water, and balanced it on the wedged door his dad would be coming through and then, hid and waited.

When great grandpa walked through the door, the bucket did not turn over and instead of having a bucket of water spill out on his head, he had a bucket full of water fall directly, with full force onto his head – and then spill on the floor.

My grandpa said he could still remember the sickening sound of the bucket hitting his father’s head and the extreme sudden remorse he felt. He had only meant to play a joke, not seriously injure him.

Little boy grandpa and his friend stayed hidden out of fear as his father’s face grew red from the neck up and tears rolled out of his eyes down to the floor and he very quietly, but with great anger said “Rats … BEAN SOUP!”

And that is the only time my grandpa said he remembered his father cursing.

I found this image when I typed in rats and bean soup. Kind of funny (it was with a story of a soup company that made rat meatballs which isn’t as funny) but I liked it enough to add as a combo of the swear words – rats and bean soup.

Grandpa Jack‘s anniversary

~ TracyMarrs ~ Leave a comment

Today would have been my grandparents 69th wedding anniversary – my grandfather passed away almost two years ago and my grandma just remarried this week. Needless to say, I’ve been thinking of my grandpa more lately. I miss him so much and I cry more now than I did a year ago. He was an awesome man.

My grandpa and I had a special relationship and part of that relationship was built on fishing. I love fishing because it is a connection to my grandpa, to his dad, to my children, to my husband, and to my grandpa’s family in general.

So today, I was going to go to the creek to remember grandpa, but it didn’t feel right. We went with the kids to celebrate his life but this was his anniversary and my grandma was freshly married.

I wondered what grandpa would have thought. He loved grandma with all his heart. His love was beautiful, their love was beautiful. It was an example for our family and for the many people they reached through their lives.

Grandma was sad without grandpa, her health deteriorated, and she began to feel she could not live independently. Her new husband makes her happy, he brings the bounce back to her step … at 90, my grandma is giddy with new love. I know grandpa loves grandma enough to want her to have that happiness. I can almost hear him chuckle with her at her girlishness. I’m crying as I write this. My grandpa had a great laugh.

So, I didn’t go to the creek, I painted. I painted a fish, a frog, a puma, and another rainbow trout for grandpa.

I think grandpa would like my paintings. I think he would place them on reading desk in the back room or on the bookshelf in the living room. I think he would be happy to see how we have carried out what we learned from him.

I miss him most with the happy times. He would have loved getting to know my husband better, seeing the great grandchildren with their growing personalities. He would be happy to know Mike’s kids live a country life, that Joe’s kids are as athletic as ever, and mine have their mother’s creative spark. He would love knowing we all keep the river in our hearts as a part of him.

So happy anniversary grandpa. We love and miss you forever – here’s some rainbow trout for you – I hope you enjoy them in heaven as much as I enjoyed painting them for you here on earth.

Transmuted interpretations

~ TracyMarrs ~ Leave a comment

The elements in the crucible of the classroom combine in a specific way to transform my base comprehension of alchemy into something precious, something new; new interpretations for alchemy. The transmutation of knowledge was as deliberate as any alchemist in a lab mixing elements to transform metals with both students and teacher as alchemists attempting to create something of value. The purpose of this paper is two part. First, to introduce and validate organic and intellectual alchemy by showing the similarities with traditional alchemy. Next, I will attempt to demonstrate that while the similarities within these interpretations are how I relate to alchemy, the differences in value, personal cost, and availability of both creation and elements is what defines that value and ultimately, these versions of alchemy as transmutations, not replications of alchemy.

At first, I had a great aversion to the study of alchemy. It was very foreign to me and the idea of taking something and attempting to change it into something better bothered me. Also, I am a lover of nature and I mistakenly thought that to accept alchemy was to betray nature. I had the idea that to embrace alchemy, one had to concede that synthetic could equal or transcend nature. So, while I acknowledged that great things had been accomplished through the alchemist’s attempts to recreate or improve nature, I was still uncomfortable with the idea of attempting to transcend nature. Not to mention the idea of individuals spending all of their time and wealth trying to find a way to get more time and wealth seemed ridiculous to me. Alchemy seemed so remote and slightly ridiculous to me until our third class session when we listened to Judy Collins sing William Yeats’ poem “The Song of Wandering Aegeus,” talked about James Joyce’s “Finnegan’s Way,” and Dr. Evans Smith discussed the idea of the artist as an alchemist. All of a sudden, this topic which seemed so foreign took on a whole new meaning and became relatable. Alchemy isn’t just a quest for everlasting life or how to make gold, it can be about change and creation.

Suddenly, I could relate to alchemy. I enjoy art and while I am not by any means an artist, the idea of transforming colors or raw materials into something better, something beautiful is familiar to me unlike the mixing of metals. The attempt of art is to take raw materials and create something of value is like the alchemist taking base metals and mixing them in different combinations to solve the mystery of the puzzle to make gold. Affecting change on the canvas or on a lump of clay and creating something of value can be argued to be a form of alchemy. To differentiate this form of alchemy, I will call it organic alchemy because even though it is deliberate; it is not the traditional alchemy of crucibles and laboratories. To take the idea of organic alchemy a step further, I found I could relate to organic alchemy through my role as a parent.

The alchemical process didn’t stop there with my understanding of and relating to alchemy. From traditional alchemy to organic alchemy, I thought I should also include what I will call intellectual alchemy. While an artist affects physical change on raw materials, so too does an author take mere words and create whole new worlds. This change happens within the mind, it is not a physical creation like with traditional and organic alchemy but it is a conscious attempt to change and create. Authors aren’t the only people to practice intellectual alchemy, I will show that teachers are intellectual alchemists, and we use selected materials to create knowledge and understanding within a specific topic.

The concept of organic alchemy became relatable through my misinterpretation of the William Yeats’ poem “The Song of Wandering Aengus” and because of the name of the character from “Finnegan’s Way.” I like to call it a miss-interpretation because I saw the poem through the female lens, specifically through the lens of motherhood. It may have been because it was sung by a female or because I have recently become a mother to a little girl or most likely, both of these elements come into play. While the poem is a love poem of a man to a woman, I read it as a poem from mother to daughter. In this reading, the mother is the organic alchemist and her precious creation is her child. Like an alchemist, so engrossed in their pursuit for gold, this misinterpretation was so powerful and resonating with me, I did not even stop to think of any other interpretation until I started to do research. I do know this was not Yeats’ meaning when writing this poem but the alchemical process from adding this poem, having it sung so beautifully by Judy Collins and heating it in the crucible of my mind made this interpretation of the poem and alchemy. Here is my miss-interpretation of the poem as it relates to organic alchemy and parenting:

“I WENT out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,”

Here we have a deliberate capitalization of the word WENT, the act is deliberate, it is the authors decision to actively make a change. To start the change, “she” goes out into the hazel woods, hazel is associated with creativity. The author wants to make a change through creation and the fire in the head is how the crucible gets heated. Here it is like parenting since it is with the deliberate act of trying to have a child, the parent thinks they will create something more precious than gold and better than themselves.

“And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread;”

Here the interpretation is purely personal. Fishing and especially by using a stick and berry makes me think of fishing with my grandfather as a child and fishing with my son now. He taught me to value simple things, like a homemade fishing pole and we always fished with salmon eggs which are small, red and round and look like little berries. He instilled in me a love of fishing and an appreciation of nature as a small child and I hope to do that for my children and grandchildren. It makes me think of so many generations constantly trying to create something better than themselves.

“And when white moths were on the wing,

And moth-like stars were flickering out,”

The moths are out so it is still dark outside and they are white, pure and new. The next line with moth-like stars flickering out actually indicates that it is during a time of transition from night to early morning, the beginning of a new day. This relates to the beginning of the alchemical process of creation.

“I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.”

Since the berry makes me think of fishing with salmon eggs it makes sense that these lines relates to biology of creating a child. The egg that the author drops into the stream is her own and the stream which represents the father’s contribution also represents change because it is always moving. It isn’t just putting these two elements together that creates the new precious material it is putting them with something that combines and changes. The trout is the child and like a little silver trout, a small baby is slippery and wriggly when it is pulled from the stream, the place where the elements combined and transformed or born.

“When I had laid it on the floor

I went to blow the fire a-flame,”

Here it the author lays the creation on the floor and goes to the work of getting the fire started. I live in the mountains and our primary source of heat is a wood stove so I often set my daughter on the floor with some toys and make a fire for us. To me, these lines represent how quickly the time goes by as a parent, people often say it’s like they blinked and the child had grown. Which is represented in the next six heartbreaking lines, the moment you turn your back the child is grown and speaking your name. Then she is a glimmering girl who calls your name, she is has a blossom in her hair so she is already a child. Next she calls your name and runs and fades away through the brightening air. Children as they grow naturally pull away from their parents and eventually move away and create their own life and family and into the brightness of the future.

“But something rustled on the floor,

And some one called me by my name:

It had become a glimmering girl

With apple blossom in her hair

Who called me by my name and ran

And faded through the brightening air.”

I could not accept the interpretation of the author’s daughter growing to the point that she fades away into the future but that was reconciled through the next six lines:

“Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done”

The author says if this separation from her daughter were to occur to she would wander the earth to find her and kiss her lips and take her hands and walk with her until time and times are done – how breathtaking is that? I see no comment is needed on these lines, they stand so beautifully on their own.

‘The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.”

The last two lines I interpreted as showing that this poem is both personal and universal. An apple is literally a fruit, the product of the parent. It is also round and contains the seeds for the future, a continuation of life through the generations, an attempt to have a part live on forever. Silver and moon represent the female and the golden and sun represent the male. I saw two possible interpretations for the male and female. The surface interpretation that they represent the parents that created the child but it could also be showing that this poem and its sentiments are universal. Since the apples are the fruit that will transform and holds the future then they are the children so this poem relates to how mothers feel to all their children, their silver daughters and golden sons, precious metals and precious creations. This is organic alchemy, a deliberate transformation of two base elements to create something precious.

Sometimes as with alchemy when the elements mix, they do not make a better creation. There are sometimes problems like mental illness which was the case for James Joyce and his daughter, the writer of “Finnegan’s Way.” As pointed out in the lecture in class, Joyce may have intentionally named his character Nuvoluccia to try to transform his daughter through a different kind of alchemy. Intellectual alchemy, changing something through the mind, he remade his daughter Luccia without the schizophrenia as the New Luccia. The artist as an alchemist. Parenting is also so much more than the organic alchemy of creating through the combining of elements, it is also very much a long process of intellectual alchemy. The parent is like an alchemist toiling away for endless hours, often into the middle of the night to effect the transformation from themselves into something better. They try many different elements to effect change in order for the child to transform and improve. This is also like teaching.

The teacher is an intellectual alchemist. They take a selection of elements and combine them into something new and valuable. Had Dr. Smith not combined the exact elements of the poem, the song, and the interpretation of the artist as alchemist, I would not have made such a lasting personal connection to alchemy, which to me is gold. A transformation occurred intellectually that was purely intellectual but it was a combination of elements that created something new and better. The thing that is beautiful about intellectual alchemy is the ability for it to be shared with many people at once. For each student, there is a different creation based on what they bring to the crucible classroom. Each element is necessary for that exact transformation because they each add something to the mix so it is like a recipe in alchemy, attempting to mix the elements for something precious. The teacher like the alchemist toils away night and day over the betterment of their recipes and creations, always striving to improve their lessons and products they create. They also have to choose between the many elements of texts to assign and materials to be included and left out. The teacher, like the alchemist, has an endless combination of elements to experiment and attempt to make a precious creation. The creation of something precious, gold and silver apples.

This leads us to value, how do we determine what is precious and how does availability of creation and elements transform value within the three methods of alchemy, traditional, organic, and intellectual. First to look at what is valued, what is the precious creation the alchemist is pursuing and what elements does the alchemist implement in that pursuit. Next by looking at the availability of the elements and products and how this defines value within each form and inevitably separates each practice of alchemy.

In traditional alchemy there are two primary pursuits, gold and endless life. Both of these are limited which gives them high value. They also both have attractive qualities that give them obvious desirability. Gold equaled wealth and to possess gold was to have wealth which represented comfort, stability, protection, and power. Who doesn’t want all of that? The problem is that if gold could be created, it would no longer be limited. In this case, success in the creation of the precious metal would devalue the gold because it would no longer be limited. The same applies to the other quest in traditional alchemy, life. Part of what makes life so valued is that it is limited. We cherish the time we have specifically because we don’t know how much we have but we do know it is limited.

The elements used to pursue these precious creations are unlimited. Alchemists used combinations of metals, in different amounts, using different shaped crucibles with various heats to attempt to create gold. They used elements from nature and basically any combination they suspected could lead to the universal elixir. The elements for creating the precious goal had an unlimited supply because there were endless combinations. Compared to the goal, the elements have little value but many alchemists spent fortunes chasing the precious outcomes. The personal cost was high even if the elements are unlimited, the acquirement of the elements and the necessary equipment came at a large cost. The cost was not important to the alchemist because the goal was so valuable and to achieve it was worth the great cost. To give an example of personal cost and value, I will relate my current situation.

As I write this, I have my six-month-old daughter sleeping on my lap. It isn’t ideal but it is limited. While it would be easier if I could put her in her bed and type more comfortably, her desire to be with me is endearing. Part of me enjoys holding her as I write. I know that it won’t be forever that she will be sleeping on my lap. Too soon she will be the small girl with an apple blossom in her hair. Because it is limited, I embrace it and enjoy what I can but if it was endless it would lose value. As pretty as it may sound in poetry, if I were actually to hold her all the time until the end of time, it would lose the endearing quality. The ability to endure through the personal costs like back pain and difficulty doing most any task is due to the fact that it will not last forever. It is for only a short time so while it can at times be difficult, it is something of high value. If it was to be endless, it would lose value. Time with children is especially limited, they are growing and becoming more independent progressively through time. This gives childhood and children value because it has defined limits that can only be kept by transforming them into intellectual creations through memory.

For organic alchemy, specifically parenting, the elements are limited and as a consequence, so is the creation. For women, the limitations and personal cost are much higher so motherhood often has higher value in many societies. In American society, parenthood and the creation of a family is the highly sought after quest of many unsuspecting organic alchemists. They desire to create something new and better by using the elements of self and partner which makes them organic alchemists. Art is organic alchemy and parenting is part organic, part intellectual alchemy.

Intellectual alchemy differs from the first two interpretations of alchemy because it does not produce a tangible product. An author may write their words on a page, transmuting them into something that exists within the world but the actual process of creation in writing is purely intellectual. Teaching can also be a form of intellectual alchemy with the goal of transmutation of knowledge. Besides not having a tangible precious creation, intellectual alchemy has the added distinction of multiple alchemists. I would argue that both the teachers and the students are the alchemists and the elements. The teacher is the head alchemist, the one that chooses the elements to include in the lesson but the students are also working toward the goal of acquiring knowledge and understanding. Intellectual alchemy is unique since it requires at least two alchemists and the transmutation which occurs in the minds of the alchemists.

Knowledge while not tangible, is highly valued. The elements used to create it are endless but at the same time, limited. The teacher as an alchemist has a wide assortment of materials for the procurement of knowledge but it is also limited by circumstance. Teachers can only assign so much reading which means with each element they are choosing to add, they are choosing to leave something else behind. Also, each individual brings their own set of elements with experience and interpretation to the material. For each person in the room, knowledge is usually acquired but it is different for eachc individual. Intellectual alchemy is the easiest to successfully practice but the results are never the same. The precious goal in this alchemy is attained and still valued.

This is a major break from the other interpretations of alchemy. Intellectual alchemy increases in value as it is shared. The knowledge created does not lose value from multiplication because it is still precious and unique to each individual. The personal cost of knowledge leads us back to traditional alchemy, time. All of these things cost us time. While science has managed to extend the time we have on this earth, it is still limited and that limitation is unknown to us. Time, our most precious resource which has yet to be produced by the alchemists will remain the common thread to all that is precious because it is the only thing that truly can’t be replaced. It can be transformed into memory and story telling but not duplicated.

 

Works Cited

Smith, Evans Lansing. “The Romanticism to Postmodernism.” Third Session: Alchemy and the Hermetic Tradition. Pacifica Graduate Institute, Carpenteria. 8 Nov. 2014. Lecture.

Yeats, William. “Poetry Archive | Poems.” Poetry Archive | Poems. 1 Jan. 1899. Web. 21 Nov. 2014. <http://www.poetry-archive.com&gt;.

Collins, Judy, and William Yeats. “Judy Collins – Golden Apples of the Sun.” YouTube. 14 Dec. 2009. Web. 21 Nov. 2014. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alIUW_JY03I&gt;.

Transformation: Amduat, the college student, and the river that unites them

~ TracyMarrs ~ 5 Comments

Sixth hour images

6th hout

moment of the spark creation of consciousness

Seventh hour

7_Hour.jpg2.jpg

The Greek philosopher, Heraclitus wrote “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” This quote unites the river and man as both experiencing change but the connection between the soul and the river go far beyond their inability to escape change. For ancient Egyptians, the Nile River was life. More than just a metaphor, the river brought life and death. It was the soul of Egypt. Ancient Egyptians knew that the river and the soul were natural and could not be controlled but they were not passive with this knowledge. One reason the Ancient Egyptians thrived for longer than any other known society is that they were active in their quest for wisdom and growth. They had core knowledge and they made sure that people knew these secrets to life and living. Egyptian civilization centered on the cycles of the river just as life of the individual is determined by the state of the soul. The Nile was studied and tended to, in order to maximize growth and minimize risks. Similarly, they studied the soul. They monitored the soul and tended it just as they did the river. By applying this knowledge, the Egyptians didn’t merely survive, they continually blossomed. The value of this knowledge did not escape the Egyptians. They made sure to record it to guide those that wished to follow the same path and to further their society.

The crucial knowledge for life and growth was recorded in multiple forms and texts. The Amduat is one of the oldest texts to record the knowledge of transformative growth. It shows Re, the sun god, as he journeys from sunset to sunrise. It is a guide for the afterlife but afterlife can’t be known. The idea of an afterlife is an attempt to create immortality. The attempt to understand the afterlife comes from the knowledge that time is limited. The idea that the body is mortal yet the soul lives on forever offers people the hope that part of them will not perish. A possible extension of existence gives people meaning in this life. The only way to attempt to understand the afterlife is to look at it as a reflection of life. Examining the Amduat as a reflection on life reveals a great deal of insight on the human psyche. It shows the fear of wasting time, how to continue to grow, the need for social interactions, the need for education, and how to navigate transformations.

The Amduat uses this reflective awareness metaphorically to explain how to grow through transformation. “The Amduat, written 3500 years ago, contains in a nutshell the knowledge necessary to reunite the individual soul with this inner guiding light” (Abt and Hornung, 9). It teaches how to have wisdom. Wisdom is knowing what to do, how to do it, and when it should be done. To have wisdom, a person needs to know themselves, they need to understand their motivation and ability to carry out their ideas. Thousands of years before Freud and Jung gave us the vocabulary for depth psychology, the Egyptians used the story of Re to instruct people how to grow and improve through transformation. Re’s journey through the underworld is not a map for the afterlife, it is a guide for the soul during transformation.

There are three levels for change. These are simple change, transition, and transformation. Simple changes are slight. Like with the water flowing along its path. Most people would look at the river and believe it to be unchanged but it is never the same river. Just like a person may seem the same but the soul is always changing even if the change is not easily recognized. Transitions are more noticeable, like a twist in the river’s path that causes a change in direction. Finally, there is transformation. Transformation is more than a change in direction. It is more like the river that goes underground and resurfaces in a new place. Transformation requires an individual to dive down into unconscious to gain knowledge, learn to accept and incorporate this knowledge, and finally to rise back up to the surface as a new person. Changes, transitions, and transformations are natural. In order to thrive and avoid death, the Egyptians learned the natural paths for growth, both agriculturally and psychologically.

Changes, transitions, and transformations of the soul can be understood through the river. They need to occur for the health of the river and soul. There is no way to escape change. If the water in the river did not flow, it would become stale and cluttered with weeds and algae. It would cease to exist as a river. In the same way, the soul of a person needs to flow or it can become stale and cluttered. The soul and the river can change, transition, and even transform without intervention. If a person just stands in the river, the water will continue to move by them. Life in the form of rain or drought can cause dramatic transformations to occur. The question is what type of transformations will occur. Passive living allows for the currents to deliver life giving water but it also opens a person up to being swallowed by the tides. The river, like the soul, may be just fine following the natural path. However, when the risks are so high, it seems foolish not to take action so the changes create growth instead of destruction.

How can a person create change? Manipulating change effectively and achieving the desired results takes time. Time to acquire knowledge and complete the action necessary for the chosen outcome. Effective change can’t be done with knowledge or action alone, it requires both. A person can know what to do but without actually doing what needs to be done, thus making the knowledge useless. The mere knowledge of how to divert the water from the river to the fields will not get the water where it should be. It takes the work of digging the trenches and constant monitoring for changes to make sure the water continues to flow. On the other hand, action without knowledge is equally useless. An example of ignorant action would be like trying to divert that same water by digging a hole instead of a trench. It doesn’t matter how hard the person works or how deep they dig, without the knowledge to dig trenches instead of a hole, the action is wasted. Not only does lack of knowledge create impotent action and loss of time, it can cause harm. Transitioning improperly is damaging but transforming badly can be disastrous. It is easier to correct a bend in the river than to redirect water that has gone underground. “The journey into the unconscious – encountering, befriending, and integrating the shadow is not to be undertaken lightly” (Brewi and Brennan, 261). In order to create transformation that inspires growth instead of decay, a person needs informed action. Ignorant actions won’t always lead to despair but without growth, they have no meaning. Similarly, knowledge without action can’t grow and will cause the person to remain stuck and unsatisfied.

Transformation requires knowledge and action. For a soul to continue to grow, a person needs to cycle between action and knowledge. A person needs ignorant action to gain the insight that they need knowledge. Once they gain knowledge, they will need to use that knowledge to perform informed actions since knowledge without action has no point. The new action will lead to knowledge through experience but it will also lead to mistakes which should make the person seek knowledge to improve and so on until death. This is why it takes time to become wise. It requires the cycle of action and knowledge. Wisdom is the ability know how to apply knowledge to action. Society needs this wisdom to thrive. Acquiring knowledge and applying it are the quickest ways to reach wisdom. For society to continue to grow, it needs people to reach wisdom at a younger age so people can apply it for the benefit of the society for a longer period of time and continue to grow. With more time, the amount of wisdom a person can achieve is greater. There is a French proverb that has also been credited to Sigmund Freud that expresses the need for early wisdom. “Si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse pouvait – If youth knew! If age could!”  This is saying if only we could have wisdom earlier in life so we had time to apply it and increase the time to gain more knowledge and insights. The purpose of education is to make the person better than their old self and increase knowledge and wisdom in a society. By lifting up others, we all rise.

The two sources of knowledge are experience and social interactions. A person can gain knowledge through experience, a series of trial and errors. This is the hardest, most time consuming, and least successful way to gain knowledge because it requires experimentation through ignorant actions. Ignorant actions can lead to insight but they can also lead to cycles of ignorance and despair. The other way to gain knowledge is through others. By learning from others, a person saves themselves time, heartache, and general overall stress. The realization for an individual that they do not have to do it alone, that others have had a same experience, helps to make transformation more tolerable. Egyptians recognized the need for social knowledge transmission which a reason they permanently recorded texts like the Amduat, to light the way.

The Amduat shows that people need people to grow.   Some people may argue that a person can be self-educated or that the knowledge exists within the soul, a person just needs to access that knowledge. Even personal journeys to enlightenment are social experiences. To unlock inner knowledge a person needs the keys. The keys are only available from others; directly or through art, writing, and other forms of recorded knowledge. Reading requires a writer, a painting needs a painter, and a piece of music needs a composer. Since learning is social, the type of knowledge a person will acquire is dependent upon their society. The more wisdom within the society, the easier it will be for an individual to also gain wisdom and contribute to the wisdom of the world. The knowledge we gain from others could be flawed and following it leads to problems. This is why people seeking knowledge are best served entering societies with others that are seeking knowledge.   By participating in a society of knowledge, a person will more easily learn how gain meaningful knowledge and how to apply it. The best place to find a society of knowledge seekers is to go to school. In America, school is required for preliminary instruction of young people but formal education after this point can dramatically aid in growth and living a fulfilling life.

The goal of college is change. I have never heard of anyone that went to college so that they would have the same life and way of thinking as they when they entered. Education is about opening doors. It opens doors within the mind, soul, and society. There are many motivators to go to school. Some of these motivators include societal expectations of college as the next, natural step from high school, a person may want to improve their employment opportunities, they may simply want gain knowledge, or a parent may want to set an example for their kids to pursue education. One thing all of these motivations are the same – they all open doors. The Amduat is about opening doors. Re moves through gates as he progresses through the subconscious. College requires gaining knowledge but it also requires applying that knowledge to the self. During college, people determine their future path. They learn their strengths and weaknesses. They learn to have confidence in their knowledge so that it can lead to action. It is a period of great excitement and danger. Facing the self, taking action into the future, and growing are not easy. A soul can easily become lost. Texts like the Amduat can help.

As a text about transformation, the Amduat details the soul’s journey through the world of night. The Sungod, the conscious self goes through death and descent where he is united with his brother, Osiris, the subconscious and ascends whole and renewed to the world. Thousands of years after the Amduat was recorded, Jung also used the journey of the sun to illustrate the process of a midlife experience. He explained that the sun shines it light on the world (action) but then reaches a zenith and finds it necessary to turn that light back in to the self (knowledge) in order to become wise and experience satisfaction in the second half of life (informed action). As a person in the middle part of life, I agree with this analogy but I disagree that it is limited to a specified period of life. There are biological factors involved with the midlife experience that make that specific transformation unique but transformations occur through life. Just like the journey of the sun occurs every day, a person has to go through transformation through life in order to continue to grow and avoid stagnation and dissatisfaction of the soul.

The Amduat is recorded as a combination of hieroglyphics and text which makes it especially rich. It is like the text is talking to the conscious, logical part of the person but the hieroglyphs speak to the soul what words can’t convey. Each register contains incredible insight into the psyche. Due to the density of the material, I will limit myself to elements of the sixth and seventh hours and how they mirror the experience of college students undergoing transformation. These hours address the obstacles of growth. Many students that start college do not make it to graduation. Each person has their own set of obstacles to overcome in order to succeed in college. In Amduat, these obstacles are identified as Apopis. Apopis is appears in the seventh hour as a giant snake. Apopis doesn’t want Re to unite with himself. Apopis are the people that don’t want others to succeed. It is the flat tire on the way to a final exam. Apopis is all the things that block transformative growth. While the obstacles are limitless, they can be divided into two categories, external and internal.

External obstacles are the things outside the self that get in the way of education. These include financial difficulties, lack of support or even resistance from a social group, and health problems. These obstacles are real but that doesn’t mean that a person has to let them block the path. Obstacles make the path more difficult but overcoming those obstacles helps a person in gaining both knowledge and confidence to take further action toward growth. Obstacles can be seen as something that holds a person back or as the very things that cause growth. It takes wisdom to resist getting held back by obstacles. Since the college student is seeking wisdom, they need to get the knowledge from others. In order to learn how to get funding for education, how to deal with the people that hold others back, and how to prioritize obligations are all things college students can learn from others. Colleges have counseling centers specifically trained to help students navigate the path but many students do not seek that guidance due to internal obstacles. Passive living is allowing outside obstacles to get in the way of inner growth. This pattern resists taking responsibility for the obstacles as using them as excuses instead of opportunities. “By not accepting personal responsibility for our circumstances, we greatly reduce our power to change them” (Maraboli, 37). Once a person falls into this trap, it takes guidance to gain the knowledge to become free.

Internal obstacles are much more crippling than external forces. In fact, for any excuse to fail, there is a person who proves that it can still be done. External forces are only able to control people because they can’t get past the internal obstacles of fear and ignorance. Ignorance is overcome by knowledge and fear is overcome by taking action and gaining confidence. This is why the answer for overcoming these obstacles is to seek knowledge and take action. In order to gain knowledge a person needs other people to light the way and help defeat Apopis. Apopis is a formidable foe and can’t be overcome alone.

The sixth and seventh hours are the heart of the journey through night. They are the Amduat’s Nile River. It is these two hours where transformation occurs. The first register of the sixth hour contains the spark of knowledge that starts the transformation process. Both hours show the danger of undergoing transformation and the need for others to guide and aid in overcoming obstacles, Apopis. The final register for the seventh hour illustrates how helping others to transform allows others to grow and share in renewal. Together, we rise. Very beautiful message that is may be even more necessary today than ever before. So often, people feel that they have to go through life alone. They may be afraid to admit they need help. They may think asking for help as a weakness. Some people think that in order to prove themselves, they need to do it on their own without help. Whatever reason a person has for not getting help from others the result is a more difficult transformation and most likely not one that will include transformative growth. Without others to guide and support the transforming individual, it is all too easy to get lost and for Apopis to gain power. Receiving help from others is not a weakness or inconvenience; it is an opportunity to turn obstacles into growth for both the receiver and giver. The ability to ask for and receive help is one of my internal obstacles that I continually have to destroy in order to grow. The Amduat helped me to see how receiving guidance and support not only helps me; it is beneficial to the person that gives that guidance and support.

These two hours of the Amduat are crucial knowledge for college students. Seeing their struggles – actually “seeing” them through hieroglyphs that have been around for thousands of years – not only serves to give guidance, it gives hope. I agree with Abt and Hornung that the ability to see the battle with Apopis as an archetypal situation is a profound insight. It can be a transformative insight. The realization that transformative growth is difficult for everyone and that no one is able to do it alone can make difference between quitting and graduating.

The sixth hour is crucial because it is the moment where the soul and the body unite and the action reverses. This is the moment where Abt and Hornung say that consciousness is created, the “very moment of the union of Re and Osiris, the divine eye of the Sungod appears for the first time as a pair of eyes” (80). In the top register there is a small pair of eyes above the head of a lion, Osiris. Osiris represents the subconscious. He is the one that must face the internal Apopis to unite with Re and face the external Apopis. In the central register, Re is sailing along but suddenly there is a break in the action. The center of the entire Amduat is at this physical point. It is lifted, from the rest of the register as if to emphasize the importance of the moment. I think it may even suggest the elevated nature of the scene. It contains the heart of the message, the need for guidance and fortitude in this journey. It is done within the subconscious unlike the barque on the river, like the student enrolling in school that is an outward action and the transformation process is enclosed in the protective embrace of the snakes. This protection is to keep the newly transformed individual for the future battles but also represents the mysterious nature of transformation. It is a process that at this point has to be done internally.

This divine eye is the spark when the student decides to go to school. The transition, the turn in the river, starts here. The text for the Amduat for this moment reads “The Bull with roaring voice rejoices, when Re rests upon his divine eye” (Abt and Hornung, 80). The Bull with the roaring voice is the lion but the roaring voice with rejoice brings to mind Whitman’s barbaric yawp. The spark of consciousness brings an invigorating sense of joy which is needed to sustain Re and Osiris through the next hour of the journey. It is empowering to create a change in direction and actively create an identity. The student begins the journey in the central frame with the barque on the river. Once in school, they begin to gain knowledge but they need to gain wisdom not knowledge or action alone. To turn knowledge and action into transformative growth, the individual needs only to turn to the heart of the Amduat for guidance.

The very center of the mid hour of the Amduat has Thoth, the god of Wisdom in physical form, the baboon, presenting himself in spiritual form, an ibis, to a woman that is hiding eyes behind her back. He needs to surrender his soul in order to gain sight. After the surrender of self, there is a reconnection “with the ancestors’ knowledge and experience of renewal. By respecting the ancestors, the one in need of renewal can find the necessary confidence and mental support” (Abt and Hornung, 83). Once a person meets the shadow, they need to surrender, they need to accept the shadow in order to gain knowledge and growth. On the one side of the woman with the eyes is Thoth. He is seeking the sight. The other side shows generations of pharaohs and a transforming self. This demonstrates that knowledge, sight, can be gained from others and from searching the self. Adler explains that it is in these times of transformation, when a person is in a new situation that the self is exposed. The transforming self since it is exposed is especially fragile requires protection from Apopis. This register gives the key to success in college. The difference between acquiring knowledge and developing wisdom. Wisdom is acquired from others, the past, and the discovery of the new self. Achieving wisdom is achieving a transformative growth. This is the goal of college.   “The rekindling and self-generation of the young light is a moment of great danger” (Abt and Hornung, 90). The sense of danger continues to the lower corner of the bottom register where the snakes are lined up with their knives. The sense of an impending battle is strong as Re moves into the seventh hour, the confrontation with Apopis.

The seventh hour is exciting and beautiful. It is in this hour that both Osiris and Re triumph over Apopis with the help others and unite to become a renewed being. Up to the sixth hour, the river ran its course. Then the person gets the spark of awareness and the river changes direction. As Thoth offers up the soul, the river has surrenders itself to go underground. There the river encounters rocks and other obstacles but in this analogy, it also connects with a hidden underground river and the two unite and rise up together, a new river. Like the river, the self gains wisdom by going down in the subconscious, uniting with the hidden waters within, facing obstacles, and rising renewed. The difference, as shown in the Amduat, between the transformation of a river and that of a soul is that soul transformation requires outside assistance. It can’t be done alone.

The top and middle registers are of Osiris and Re facing their enemies. Osiris is first to face his enemies but with both brothers, we see that they are not the ones performing the action. They are in their protective Mehen-serpents. Abt and Hornung suggest that this protection is confidence from making it to this point in the journey. It also fits for a college student. There is a sense of confidence that comes from being in school. The label of college student is an outward sign that the individual is in a quest for transformation. It is a sign that the person wants growth, they want something more, and they are active to make change. However, it is not all smooth sailing. The inner doubts begin to attack the soul. Many people experience feelings of inferiority and may set standards that are impossible to reach which guarantees failure. It is crucial for the person to complete the journey. Not every person needs to go to college but when a person decides to go to college but doesn’t finish they must carry that dream unfulfilled. Once a transformation is started, it has to be completed in order for the person to grow without regret. Without a complete transformation, part of the river remains underground and becomes an obstacle in future transformations.

It is important that Osiris triumphs over his enemies first. In order to overcome the external obstacles, the self needs to have inner fortitude from defeating these enemies. In order to succeed, a person has to be determined not to fail. They need to have determination that they will make it through no matter what before they encounter Apopis. Without this inner strength, Apopis has a better chance to stifle growth.

Life is change. Things will happen in life while the student is in school. The successful student has already defeated the inner Apopis. In reality, this is an ongoing process but the initial battle has been won which strengthens the individual against future attacks. Once Osiris triumphs, once the student has gained confidence that they can succeed they have to make the decision that they will succeed and take action to make it happen. The knowledge and action in the mind then connects to knowledge and action toward the external forces. This unity is what makes the individual strong enough to face Apopis. It gives a person the keys to life’s secrets. Without success in the subconscious, external obstacles will easily stop a student from succeeding and often it won’t even take external forces. “He or she will be the tragic victim of horrible devouring emotions … Apopis will succeed in preventing the individual, but also a society, from achieving any further development or metamorphosis. The result is psychic stagnation” (Abt and Hornung, 93). The person becomes stuck. They started the transformation process and they turned the light in. Instead of accepting themselves for their perceived strengths and weakness, they allow the weakness to cripple their progress. Obstacles and insecurities are opportunities for growth. When a person recognizes this they don’t let the “problems” of life of life stop them, they use those problems to create solutions.

As I briefly mentioned, the brothers do not defeat their obstacles on their own. In both registers, it is others that have stabbed, decapitated, and done general violence to the enemies of Re and Osiris, including Apopis. This is to let the person know that they are not alone and they need others to get past obstacles. It is in the middle register of the sun where the slain Apopis is presented to the god. This is the outside sign that the obstacles have been overcome and destroyed. The final death of Apopis is graduation for the college student. Osiris and Re have united and fulfilled their destined mutual healing. Re does not rise up as Re, he is new because he is the consciousness merged with Osiris, the unconscious. The transformation is complete which leads to the bottom register.

This is where this hour becomes beautiful. In this register, the renewed Sungod is seated in front of many stars that are sent on their way. “They proceed before the sun to the eastern horizon and share in the renewal” (Abt and Hornung, 94). By going through transformation and gaining wisdom, the college student doesn’t rise up alone. They are joined by the people that helped them achieve that goal. It is through each other that we rise up and gain wisdom. It is through each other that we grow as a society.

 

 

Works Cited

 

Abt, Theodor, and Hornung, Erik. Knowledge for the Afterlife: The Egyptian Amduat – A Quest for Immortality. Zurich: Living Human Heritage Publications, 2003. Print.

 

Brewi, Janice, and Anne Brennan. “Emergence of the Shadow in Midlife.” Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature. By Connie Zweig and Jeremiah Abrams. New York: Putnam, 1991. 260-61. Print.

 

Heraclitus. “A Quote by Heraclitus.” Goodreads. Web. 25 Mar. 2016. <http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/117526-no-man-ever-steps-in-the-same-river-twice-for&gt;.

 

Jung, C.G. Modern Man in Search of a Soul. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 1955. Print.

 

Maraboli, Steve. Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience. Port Washington, NY: Better Today, 2013. Print.

 

“Si Jeunesse Savait, Si Vieillesse Pouvait.” If Youth but Knew; If [old] Age but Could. Web. 25 Mar. 2016. <http://www.proz.com/kudoz/french_to_english/art_literary/144795-si_jeunesse_savait_si_vieillesse_pouvait.html&gt;.

 

 

 

Dante’s midlife transition: Learning to live and love

~ TracyMarrs ~ Leave a comment

(I have been working on this one in my head and will rewrite it soon with new insights)

Transitions are part of life. Nothing in this world can remain unchanged partly because the world itself is in a constant state of transition. Transitions follow natural order – spring follows winter and caterpillars become butterflies. In nature, the only alternatives to change are stagnation, purification, and death. Humans are no exception to this rule but what about the inner world, the world beyond the biological, physical realities and laws? Fortunately, while these internal transitions may feel foreign and unknown, they too are natural and have a natural path to follow in order for growth to occur. When a person does not follow the natural order in psychic growth the result is the same, only psychological. A person can suffer psychological stagnation, purification, and death. However, unlike biological consequences, a person’s inner consequences are not fixed and while the person may seem “dead inside” they can be resurrected. In order to grow, a person has to find their individual purpose and to do that, they have to discover their individuality.   The most true self, psyche, or soul is individual and the transition will have different revelations for different people but the journey to enlightenment will not change. The natural path to inner light is through the darkness.

For the first half of life, a person follows the natural path of life, moving forward and upward. Suddenly, they reach the top of the hill and from this new perspective, they begin to see things differently. The urge to continue up is challenged and a new direction is introduced. This transition sets the tone for the second half of life.  When a person is at midlife, they look forward and face death and realize that their time is limited. They feel lost and don’t know which direction to go. If they continue to climb, they find themselves no longer making meaningful progress and stagnate. If they try to go back and live in the past, they see themselves as less than their former selves and putrefy. Finally, if they refuse to change, they face the worst fate of all, psychological death. Growth at this point means to move down and make a descent into the unconscious. Instead of onward and upwards the movement becomes inward and down. This transition is difficult. It turns everything upside down and inside out. Many people do not make it through this transition unscathed. Marriages, careers, and identities are in jeopardy at this point because the goals of the first half of life no longer seem the same. In the face of death, these world-based successes have different meaning and may lose importance. Creation is not without destruction and in order to grow at this point, some tearing down of ego and discomfort is necessary. The process is difficult but the rewards include continued growth and a life with meaning, love, and joy.

“When I had journeyed half of our life’s way, I found myself within a shadowed forest, for I had lost the path that does not stray” (59). This is the opening line to Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Commedia, one of the most prolific pieces of poetry ever penned to paper. Dante wrote The Divine Commedia in the early 1300’s about the poet’s journey through all of the levels of hell, purgatory, and heaven. Dante describes in great detail the realms of the afterlife but the poem isn’t really about what happens after death. It is a guide to navigate the midlife transition and a warning of what can happen if a person doesn’t fully make the transition. The shades in the poem suffer or rejoice endlessly in their assigned places. Fortunately for us, we are still alive and capable of growth. We don’t have to remain stuck in purgatory or inferno. We can reach a psychological paradise. Just like Virgil guided Dante in his journey, Dante illuminates the way for the reader.

The afterlife can’t be known. The only way to attempt to understand it is to look at it as a reflection of life. Dante uses this reflective awareness to reveal how to love and how to live. Centuries before Freud and Jung gave us the vocabulary for depth psychology, Dante wrote about the midlife experience as he transitions from darkness and fear to light and love. His quest for knowledge of the afterlife is a metaphor for the quest for knowledge of the unconsciousness.

The time setting of the poem is no accident. Dante begins the story on Good Friday during his own midlife transition.  In the Christian faith, Good Friday is the first day of the Easter weekend. It is the day that Jesus is said to have died for the sins of the world. This is considered the ultimate act of love. He sacrificed himself in order that Christians would have eternal life. The final day of the poem, Easter, is the day that Jesus is said to have risen from the dead and ascended into heaven. This mirrors Dante’s experience as well as the midlife transition all people go through. It is in this period that people experience a profound shift in the psyche. They are faced with their own mortality and it creates the need for a new way of being. All through life to this point a person follows the natural path, the “path that does not stray” only to find themselves lost in a shadowed forest. This period in life is often labeled as crisis because it can be jarring to have the world turned upside down. As Dante demonstrates through his poem, while the experience is jarring, it doesn’t have to be a crisis. With guidance, it is possible to illuminate the darkness to find the path to light and love.

In order to understand this transition, it is important to understand why it occurs when it does to people throughout recorded history. What is it about the late 30’s to early 40’s that makes people change their perspective so dramatically that a change of life occurs? Jung wrote that for a young person, it is not good to be too occupied with the self. When a person is young, they still need to climb up in order to grow. They are not ready to face the shadow. For a person to face the shadow, they need to have a strong ego. “The journey into the unconscious – encountering, befriending, and integrating the shadow is not to be undertaken lightly. Nor can it be undertaken at all until one’s ego development is strong enough and consciousness truly valued and secured” (Brewi and Brennan, 261). Around midlife, a person has an established identity. All the conditions ripen to this point and it is “a duty and a necessity to give serious attention to himself. After having lavished its light upon the world, the sun withdraws its rays in order to illumine itself” (Jung, 109). What Jung so beautifully expresses using the metaphor of the sun, is this period of time is about shining a light on our inner selves. The thing about shining a light is that light creates shadows. The more light that is turned in, the more shadows are revealed. There are transitions through life but the midlife transition, by its very nature, is the point people are closest to their most creative (womb) and destructive (tomb) energies at the same time. Many people find themselves, like Dante, lost in a shadowed forest. The unknown and change are both scary and exciting. While the transition will be experienced differently by different people, the goal is the same – to find meaning beyond the natural functions of worldly successes.

Facing mortality does something to the psyche. Humanity is uniquely aware of the finite nature of existence but when the sands of time begin to be more plentiful on the bottom half of the hourglass, that awareness transforms. Time becomes so much more valuable and the question of wasting that time comes to the forefront. It is both a blessing and a curse to be aware that the time on this earth is limited. Steve Jobs gave a commencement speech to Stanford students after he had been given the diagnosis of terminal cancer. In this speech he told the audience “death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it, and that is how it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It’s life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new” (2005).

Before the midlife transition time feels unlimited. The person before midlife is aware of their mortal status but when a person realizes that they are half way through this life; time takes on a whole new value and experience. Once a person realizes the precious nature of time they first look back to see whether they wasted their time. This is the time when they have to face their perceived inferiorities. If the person reaches this point and is not happy with how they spent their precious years, they may get stuck in a self-flagellating state similar to purgatory or refuse to turn inward at all and continue on a path of ignorance similar to the inferno.

This journey to the self is fraught with danger. Dante believes to get out of the forest, he needs to climb just like he had done through his life to this point. Virgil comes to him and tells him that in order to escape the forest, Dante will need to journey down. Dante can’t make the passage on his own, he needs Virgil to point the way and keep him moving. Like Dante, we find that this path should not to be taken alone – even though the journey is a personal one through the inner workings of the soul, we need guidance and support to make it through. This is why works like The Divine Commedia are so important because they help guide us through the treacherous journey from the pits of hell to the heights of paradise. Dante often has to be told to keep moving by his guide, Virgil. Without guidance, it is easy to get stuck in hell or purgatory – it is only through others that we can reach the final level of enlightenment which is knowledge, acceptance, and ultimately – love.

This poem illustrates metaphorically what happens to the psyche during and after the midlife transition. There are three distinct realms for the soul, three possible outcomes for the soul in and after midlife. The first possibility is that the person can refuse to transition. This person will continue to chase worldly pursuits. Without the light, without change, these people have no hope, they will stagnate and die. Their soul will suffer a type of inferno. The second possibility, as I have previously mentioned is purgatory.   The shades from purgatorio no longer have a shadow because they are acting out their shadows through their punishments. The light created the shadows. They are acutely aware of their shadow but they fear it, they are unable to accept it. They spend their time looking back and punishing themselves over past transgressions. The final possibility, the desired outcome, is for the soul to reach paradise, love. This is where the person has successfully navigated the midlife transition, integrated the shadow, and learned how to love and live a life with meaning.

Dante uses the play of light and shadow as he travels from hell to paradise to explain concepts that psychology wouldn’t ‘discover’ for hundreds of years. To talk about these concepts, I must first define some terms as I have come to see them through Dante. The first and most difficult term is love. Love is the key to living a meaningful life. Love is something that is not easy to put into words, it is complicated and mysterious yet also incredibly simple. In the poem, love is simply light and acceptance. Since this poem is trying to illuminate the path to enlightenment and love, it makes sense that light represents knowledge, specifically the quest towards knowing the self. With light comes shadow. The concept of shadow in the poem follows the concept of shadow for psychologists today, it is the unconscious, our inferiorities and inflations. Last, I would like to define fear. Fear is as hard to define as love. It is the opposite of love, simple yet complex. Just as love is knowledge and acceptance, fear is ignorance and denial. It is fear that in the poem, just as in life, blocks the path to love.

Each realm of the afterlife has its own relationship to light and shadow as it pertains to this midlife transition. The first realm is the inferno. One of the most well-known lines from Dante’s poem are the words above the gate to the inferno “Abandon every hope, who enter here” (68). The inferno is a place of hopelessness. In this realm, there is no light, no shadow, and as a result, there is no personal responsibility taken by the shades and they are hopeless. Lack of introspection and responsibility diminishes hope. “By not accepting personal responsibility for our circumstances, we greatly reduce our power to change them” (Maraboli, 37). Since the shades are past the point of change, they are without hope but we are alive. This represents the psyche when a person does not make the midlife transition. These people are without hope because without light, they don’t even know that they need to change. They lack knowledge and without knowledge, there can be no hope, just endless action. When the shades enter the inferno, they are judged and sent to a level for eternal torment. They do not even know themselves enough to know where they are to be placed for punishment and often refuse to accept responsibility for their fate. They are doomed to suffer from the unenlightened actions of life for all of eternity. The inferno is a place that isn’t just absent of love, it is a place for love betrayed. The sinners in the inferno failed to love themselves enough turn the light inward. Without this self-awareness, they were incapable of loving others because they didn’t have knowledge. They were absent of light and thus absent of love.

The next realm, purgatory, has light and shadow but not love. Love is light (knowledge) and acceptance. The shades of purgatory started the transition but became stuck. This is the only of the three realms that still allows for movement because this is the only realm where the shades place themselves. The shades have the power to move up or down the mountain of purgatory and even have hope to move into paradise. This is because these shades have light, they have knowledge. They are lacking acceptance not knowledge. Once a person begins the transition into midlife and turns the light inward, they rarely like what they see. Every person has ugly truths they do not want to bring into the light because the shadows those truths cast can become so overwhelming they crush the psyche. The shades that exist in this dimension can’t get over the past. Many of the shades in this dimension ask Dante to have people pray for them because they say this will help them move up the mountain. This is their biggest flaw, they are looking for acceptance from the outside instead of seeking it from within. The opposite of love isn’t hate, it is fear. The shades are afraid they are not worthy of ascension, they fear that they can’t be loved because they don’t accept themselves. They have seen the shadow, they have faced the past, but they have not accepted it. They may have also faced the future – the possibility that there is hope but again, they can’t accept it. In purgatory, the light, because it is absent of love leads to fear and rejection. Whether the light casts shadows on the past or the future doesn’t matter – it is the lack of acceptance that makes purgatory absent of love.

Purgatory is the most complicated of the dimensions. The inferno represents the absence of love, it is a place of betrayal and fear. Paradise is love, a place of knowledge and acceptance. Purgatory can be summed up easily by saying it is knowledge without acceptance but what that means is much more complicated. People in life become stuck, usually in the past but also in the future. A person stuck in the future loses sight of the here and now. They fear to move forward because of some future that doesn’t even exist. These people are passive in life, they are waiting for something to happen, and they do not truly live. Since they do not live, they do not love. Theirs is a life of purgatory.

The second way to live in purgatory is to know the past and not accept it. When writing about men at midlife, Levinson writes “If he is burdened excessively by his grievances and guilts, he will be unable to surmount them” (263). It is impossible to live tomorrow or yesterday – it is only possible to live today. The past has already happened, so in order to experience life and love it is necessary to accept it. This means to allow it to be as it is and move on. People stuck in the past are beyond passive, they are victims. They can’t get over the transgressions of the past and continue to see themselves as less than because of that past. This is the person that is still wounded by childhood abuse or angry at themselves for not pursuing a dream. They have the knowledge but instead of accepting these things they, like the shades of purgatorio, are doomed to relive these events over and over and allow themselves to be defined by them. Knowledge is the first step, turning the light inward, but knowledge without acceptance is as crippling and useless as knowledge without action. The key to accepting and overcoming the past is to embrace it and allow it to work for you. The purpose of shadow work isn’t merely to expose the shadow, it is to accept that the shadow isn’t separate from the self – it is a part of the self and has purpose and value. Often people find their greatest strengths in their perceived weaknesses. The shades of purgatorio have seen the shadow but they allow the shadow to crush them instead of integrating it to allowing for it to heal.

The final path is the one that leads to paradisio, to love. Paradisio is full of light, reflections, and acceptance. This is what happens when a person successfully integrates the shadow. The shades of paradisio know and accept the past so it doesn’t have power over them like the shades of purgatorio. Accepting the past doesn’t mean to condone it, it simply means allowing it to be as it is. It is only through light and acceptance that love can exist. Love is letting go of fear. When a person is able to know their true self, shadow and all, and accept themselves as they are, they will find to love themselves. Once a person can love themselves, they can love others. Love them in a way they deserve to be loved, completely, with knowledge and acceptance.

 

 

Works Cited

Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. Trans. Allen Mandelbaum. Everyman’s Library. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995. Print.

Brewi, Janice, and Anne Brennan. “Emergence of the Shadow in Midlife.” Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature. By Connie Zweig and Jeremiah Abrams. New York: Putnam, 1991. 260-61. Print.

Jobs, Steve. “‘You’ve Got to Find What You Love,’ Jobs Says.” Stanford University. 14 June 2005. Web. 25 Mar. 2016.

Jung, C.G. Modern Man in Search of a Soul. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 1955. Print.

Levinson, Daniel. “For the Man at Midlife.” Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature. By Connie Zweig and Jeremiah Abrams. New York: Putnam, 1991. 262-264. Print.

Maraboli, Steve. Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience. Port Washington, NY: Better Today, 2013. Print.