Casting Out The Dark
As young developing humans most of us learn to reject ‘undesirable’ aspects, to repress them in order to feel comfortable with our selves, and to ensure acceptance in our social group. We select what we are, and what we are not. In order to elucidate I will use the most basic example: I am light, I am not dark. However, if we are truly a reflection of the whole, then we should contain everything, even darkness. In rejecting and ‘disowning’ our dark parts we cast them out. But where do they go? I suspect this energy, cast out of our inner world, manifests in our external reality.
Rejected as part of the whole, thrown away from love, these elements seek to be re-integrated. They show up everywhere in our environment waiting for recognition. We perceive them as threats, and try to fight or ignore them. This doesn’t work; it only exacerbates the problem and reinforces the dualistic state caused by the self-imposed separation. If we recognize that external reality is a reflection of our inner state, it becomes clear that it is important that we take responsibility for our energy. In order stop adding to the problem we need to cease focusing so much on the outside and do some inner housekeeping. By healing our inner world, through acknowledgement of all that we truly are, we take responsibility for our energy and cease contributing to the darkness of our outer collective reality.
In order to illustrate my point I will use an analogy of a gardener. Imagine each of us is a gardener who has been gifted with the responsibility of managing every seed in existence. As this gardener we become aware that there are some seeds that develop into beautiful food and flowers. We value these seeds and carefully plant and nurture them. However, we also believe that some seeds grow into nasty weeds. Fearing the potential of these seeds we don’t want to be associated with them so, like most other gardeners in our world, we toss them away into the wind. ‘This is not me I want nothing to do with these seeds.’ These unclaimed, unmanaged seeds end up everywhere and thrive and threaten to dominate our environment. No one is willing to take responsibility for these plants. ‘No, I would never plant such a seed; this plant has nothing to do with me. It must just be the nature of reality.’
If instead we accepted responsibility for ‘owning’ the whole gamut of seeds, we could cease contributing to the communal problem. As a wise gardener we would not toss the potentially dangerous seeds away, we would do the opposite, aware of their power, we would keep them close by, where they could be kept in check and managed responsibly.
Continuing on with the gardening analogy, when we stop fearing the seeds that we allowed to get out of control through neglect and mismanagement, we might discover that judging them as weeds may have been rash decision triggered by fear and misunderstanding. If instead of pushing away the dark seeds, we chose to look at them more closely, we might discover that they have valuable qualities and attributes that we were previously unaware of. When tended and cultivated consciously, with understanding and awareness, we might find that their growth can actually have benefits for the whole.