Saturday, February 12, 2011

Shadow Boxing the Collective Consciousness: Snapshots of a Discussion with a Friend

I realized a long time ago that all elevated truths are beyond polarity and are therefore paradoxical in nature. This is because they transcend polarity. From a point of view of universal truth, opposites always true at the same time. And depending on where you are looking from, you will see one or the other aspect. A kind of Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle applied to truth. However it is difficult to describe transcendence of polarity in a polarity world with a polarity language. How do we express paradox? All descriptions are limited in describing what is ultimately the territory of the mystic.

In the case of our discussion on the Nazis. Were the Nazis creative? Yes they were. Were they destructive and a force of involution? Yes they were. Both, at the same time, depending on what level one is coming at it from. I am going to approach this from an astrological perspective here.

Astrologically the time of the Nazi was the time of the discovery of Pluto. When a planet is discovered the energy represented by that planet bursts into consciousness. Alternatively one could say that the collective consciousness is such that it is ready to see the energy of that planet, hence the planet is discovered. Pluto represents the path of transformation through the shadow. Pluto is the ruler of volcanoes and boils. It brings stuff that was underneath to the surface. Psychologically it brings into consciousness the unconscious dark side and shoves it right in your face. Pluto transits on a personal level can be very uncomfortable, especially if one has a lot of repressed material. However, Pluto is also the ruler of death and rebirth. From the death of a part of the self through the confrontation with the shadow, a new more evolved self is born.

When Pluto was discovered or entered into consciousness, it was time for a certain aspect of the shadow of humanity to surface. The Plutonian energy was calling for an embodiment and some beings answered that call. It is not by chance that there were the Nazis in Germany, the fascists with Mussolini in Italy, Franco in Spain and more totalitarian energy in Japan, etc. all happening roughly at the same time in various parts of the world. And that there were also many people in the various countries happy to go along with what was going on. Pluto was affecting the whole planet, not just one nation. These were manifestations of Pluto acting on a collective level. All were feeling Pluto in one way or another either by embodying the shadow or by fighting against it. However the shadow was that of all of humanity, not just of those that embodied it. The evil- for lack of a better word- that we saw belonged to the collective psyche, with some of the collective acting it out and some being the receivers or victims of it.

The opportunity presented here was that of transcending it. Seeing the horror and saying- no more. Seeing the horror and aspiring for a more evolved expression as human beings, with more compassion, more love, more wisdom. In this sense, taking the bigger picture approach, the Nazis could be seen as the ones that volunteered, consciously or not, to embody the shadow for all people. One could even go as far as being thankful to them for providing such a good wall to push against. In this sense, the Nazis could be seen as creative, as, although individually destructive and devolving, they served a creative function when looked at from a larger prospective, by serving the collective evolution of their times. There are even deeper levels to this, as we can go into describing the various dimensions, their nature and their purpose, but I am choosing to stop here. A good series of books to read for an inter-dimensional cosmology that includes light and dark as well as the cyclical nature of dimensional shifts is “The RA Material” channeled in the 80’s by L/L Research.

Using again the model of astrology for this, as it works well in describing these phenomena, interestingly, when 9/11 happened there was the same Plutonian aspects as at the beginning of the Nazi regime. Saturn opposite Pluto, if you want to check this out. Growth is cyclical in nature as can be seen clearly using astrology. Astrologically, we were at a half growth cycle of the energy that produced the Nazis. Time for another embodiment of the shadow, time for another look at the unresolved baggage festering underneath the surface in the collective psyche. So here we have the Bush gang - but also notice similar people in charge in England (Blair), Italy (Berlusconi), etc. Pluto is calling for embodiment and the collective responds by providing dark players. This way we get to see the shadow very clearly. The danger is thinking it is their shadow and not ours. In Jungian analysis this is called shadow boxing. We project our shadow out there onto someone else and then we fight them. Somewhat it is inevitable that we do so. But the problem only solves when the shadow is integrated. Fighting it is the first stage, but integration must follow.

Bush and gang are where they are, doing what they are doing because, on some level, in the unconscious of humanity, we have created them. They represent an amplification of an energy of greed, ruthless individualism, disrespect for nature, pursuit of self interest, judgement of what is different and blind black and white thinking. Extreme self-protection and fear of death within a materialistic world view. Resistance to the end of a certain kind of lifestyle. Are these energies really totally outside of ourselves or are they within us? Doesn't all of our western society, to some extent, have these ideas somewhere within it? Each one of us carries some of these energies, in a microcosm kind of way.

Look at how many people sacrifice their true vocation to financial security, stay in bad marriages for fear of change, shun their sons and daughters if they happen to be too different, will compromise their ideals for a promotion, will buy prepackaged food and don't recycle, use toxic chemicals to clean their bathrooms, dump their shit into the oceans, drive SUVs when they could get the bus for the sake of convenience. Here in California there is not even proper public transport - nobody wants it- and millions drive on their freeways each day, one person in each SUV, with their "promote peace and love" stickers on their rear. Bush is the shadow of all this, embodying the contradictions. Through the Bush gang the shadow is being magnified and externalized in all its ugliness for all to see. And we have the opportunity to say “actually this sucks, lets create a world that is a bit more evolved than this”. We have the opportunity to create something new. But the integration will happen when we all recognize the energy of Bush within us and do something about it by truly walking our talk.

By finding the festering anger and judgements within, the laziness that makes us cut corners because it is convenient. Laziness that allows us to continue to buy products without thinking of where they came from, without questioning, without asking about for example who suffered so that we could have a cup of coffee at Starbucks, who suffered so we could eat our burger, how many trees were cut so we could have white paper for our printers and so that we may continue to read our exaggeratedly filled Sunday papers... Are we willing to let go of the little things through which we are contributing to what is going on at larger levels? Are we willing to be the change?

So, again, the individual energies of people like the Bush gang are definitely focused on involution, but unwittingly are at the service of evolution, as they trigger the collective, unwittingly becoming catalysts for change. When the collective really wants change and has “grown up” so to speak, energetically, this outer world dark shadow will dissolve in a second. The more the collective resists evolution, the darker the shadow will get- and the darker the deeds of the men that embody it. It is a natural dynamic, as there is no separation between us and them. That is why we – all of us – need to work on ourselves and become more conscious of our blind spots. The nature of Pluto, the great purifier, when not taken seriously, is deadly. In psychological astrology, Pluto is seen as a force that does not care for the survival of the ego and the personality. It would rather kill the form than for it not to transform, in this case the form being our society. And it might use the embodied dark lords to accomplish its task. Luckily, I think most of us are doing our homework this time around and I trust fully that integration will occur.

Copyright 2004-2011 Katie Gallanti. All Rights Reserved. http://katiespapers.blogspot.com






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