safety, truth-telling and authenticity
Jan. 12th, 2005 08:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chelidonIt's snowingSnowingSNOWING, woo hoo! The trees are again thoroughly dusted with anti-shadows, and the gloriously magickal nature of the world is even more resplendent and obvious than usual. Starting later today, though, they're predicting almost 48 straight hours of ice, rain and freezing rain, and a high tomorrow of almost 50 degrees F, in *mid-January* Bah to global warming, sez I.
This is a list post I wrote a couple of years back, after being involved in helping to teach a week-long intensive camp which centered, in part, around truth-telling, being your "authentic self," and the story of Thomas the Rhymer. For me it touches on the work and role of the artist (which we all are), and especially on the importance for us to have space to tell our own truths, but also the knowledge that truth-telling is an inherently unsafe art ;>
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Here is one of my stories, that is true for me:
Being your authentic self, and sharing your own stories is very, very important, even essential, both for personal growth, for the health of the local community, and for the world as a whole. I personally will do what I can to make space in my life, and in the world, for those stories to be told.
However, being my authentic self is not an easy thing. There is no guarantee that others will receive my stories in any particular way, and in fact, if I tell my stories with a particular goal, response or outcome in my mind, I may well be disappointed. In some cases, to act so could even be considered manipulative-- at the least, it is likely an unrealistic goal. If I share my story, I do it because it seems right to do so, and I try to give up too much attachment to any particular outcome from the telling. I may have hopes, but try not to have expectations. Others will receive my truths in their own way, or they may choose not to hear them at all. That is not my choice, or something over which I have any control-- my choice lies only in being true to myself, and telling the stories I feel it is right to share. In fact, if everybody agrees with my stories, those stories are probably not actually deeply true or significant. If I agree with all of the stories I hear around me, I am probably in too comfortable a space, and am not fully engaging with the world.
Being in your authentic self is no guarantee of safety, in fact, it is a recipe for being unsafe. There is an old Mongolian proverb: "Those who would speak the truth should keep one foot in the stirrup."
Safety is overrated. Most, if not all, of the greatest things in life which people do, occur as a result of being unsafe, of walking over the line. Change is unsafe, and life is change. Compassion is relentless, joy is relentless, love is relentless, and none of them are remotely safe. If you reach out and touch the infinite, if you genuinely identify your own small ego-self with the entire universe, you will be changed, and change can often be unpleasant and uncomfortable...
That does not mean, for me, that I should seek to be unsafe or to deliberately put myself into situations which increase injury or hazard in my life-- that seems generally like an unhelpful and unwise pattern, and one which can be a convenient excuse to avoid doing my real Work by artificially manufacturing situations which inevitably result in crisis and chaos. Deep truths are often unsafe, but it does not then follow that what is unsafe is always true or useful. The True Fool does not seek out the cliff or the flame, but neither does s/he turn away from it, if that is where the path leads.
To be true, to touch and be the divine, to taste and be dissolved in the One Taste of the kosmos, to engage with the vital, pulsing eternal cycle of life and death, to experience the infinite fullness, splendor and terror of the universe and come to the place of ultimate, timeless paradoxical, joyously terrible truth, beauty and love... how could that even begin to ever be considered the least bit "safe?" The Wild is not safe-- if it were, it would not be the Wild.
So my job is not to try to make things safe, or comfortable. My job is to make the space to tell my own stories, and to listen to others when they tell theirs. I do not need to agree, I do not necessarily need to defend my beliefs or attack others, or have any particular predetermined reaction at all. What I need to do, is listen, with compassion, from a place of authentic self, not veiled by expectations of how I should respond or what I should think or feel. That, for me, is the precious place of authentic being.
Once again, thank you all for sharing your truths-- they bring me tremendous joy. They are all bits of the infinite diversity of life, and all precious pieces of the whole, splendorous, unsolvable puzzle.
Warm hearth and sweet medicine,
--Chelidon
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Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.
--Gandhi
This is a list post I wrote a couple of years back, after being involved in helping to teach a week-long intensive camp which centered, in part, around truth-telling, being your "authentic self," and the story of Thomas the Rhymer. For me it touches on the work and role of the artist (which we all are), and especially on the importance for us to have space to tell our own truths, but also the knowledge that truth-telling is an inherently unsafe art ;>
-------
Here is one of my stories, that is true for me:
Being your authentic self, and sharing your own stories is very, very important, even essential, both for personal growth, for the health of the local community, and for the world as a whole. I personally will do what I can to make space in my life, and in the world, for those stories to be told.
However, being my authentic self is not an easy thing. There is no guarantee that others will receive my stories in any particular way, and in fact, if I tell my stories with a particular goal, response or outcome in my mind, I may well be disappointed. In some cases, to act so could even be considered manipulative-- at the least, it is likely an unrealistic goal. If I share my story, I do it because it seems right to do so, and I try to give up too much attachment to any particular outcome from the telling. I may have hopes, but try not to have expectations. Others will receive my truths in their own way, or they may choose not to hear them at all. That is not my choice, or something over which I have any control-- my choice lies only in being true to myself, and telling the stories I feel it is right to share. In fact, if everybody agrees with my stories, those stories are probably not actually deeply true or significant. If I agree with all of the stories I hear around me, I am probably in too comfortable a space, and am not fully engaging with the world.
Being in your authentic self is no guarantee of safety, in fact, it is a recipe for being unsafe. There is an old Mongolian proverb: "Those who would speak the truth should keep one foot in the stirrup."
Safety is overrated. Most, if not all, of the greatest things in life which people do, occur as a result of being unsafe, of walking over the line. Change is unsafe, and life is change. Compassion is relentless, joy is relentless, love is relentless, and none of them are remotely safe. If you reach out and touch the infinite, if you genuinely identify your own small ego-self with the entire universe, you will be changed, and change can often be unpleasant and uncomfortable...
That does not mean, for me, that I should seek to be unsafe or to deliberately put myself into situations which increase injury or hazard in my life-- that seems generally like an unhelpful and unwise pattern, and one which can be a convenient excuse to avoid doing my real Work by artificially manufacturing situations which inevitably result in crisis and chaos. Deep truths are often unsafe, but it does not then follow that what is unsafe is always true or useful. The True Fool does not seek out the cliff or the flame, but neither does s/he turn away from it, if that is where the path leads.
To be true, to touch and be the divine, to taste and be dissolved in the One Taste of the kosmos, to engage with the vital, pulsing eternal cycle of life and death, to experience the infinite fullness, splendor and terror of the universe and come to the place of ultimate, timeless paradoxical, joyously terrible truth, beauty and love... how could that even begin to ever be considered the least bit "safe?" The Wild is not safe-- if it were, it would not be the Wild.
So my job is not to try to make things safe, or comfortable. My job is to make the space to tell my own stories, and to listen to others when they tell theirs. I do not need to agree, I do not necessarily need to defend my beliefs or attack others, or have any particular predetermined reaction at all. What I need to do, is listen, with compassion, from a place of authentic self, not veiled by expectations of how I should respond or what I should think or feel. That, for me, is the precious place of authentic being.
Once again, thank you all for sharing your truths-- they bring me tremendous joy. They are all bits of the infinite diversity of life, and all precious pieces of the whole, splendorous, unsolvable puzzle.
Warm hearth and sweet medicine,
--Chelidon
-------
Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.
--Gandhi
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no subject
Date: 2005-01-12 02:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-12 02:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-12 02:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-12 02:40 pm (UTC)Seriously, finding out what that means is a life's work (aren't they all, dammit). I'll attach a bit of a letter I wrote to someone a while back which has a snippet of what it means to me. In short, though, and this is a sharp swerve into mysticism, a big part for me of being my authentic self is about being fully present in the here and now, in my body, and also with my souls aligned, so that my will (small "w"/thinking self) and Will (large "W"/god-self) are conjoined. I do some of that myself with the tools of a triad of triads I work (kind of my version of the Iron/Pearl/Life Pentacles), but there are so many ways to work it.
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It's a parallel to the pairing of authority and responsibility. If we come to realize that we possess absolute personal authority to be authentic, to live our lives in balance, beauty and delight, to place our lives along the course which is true and authentic for us, then we also possess absolute responsibility for doing that--for all of our reactions, choices, our actions, and the consequences of those actions. We own our lives, ever piece of them, and where we give away our personal authority to others, to society, to organizations, we are possibly being inauthentic and not speaking or living truth. And all of that is so, so scary, I find, but it's nothing but the honest truth.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-12 02:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-12 02:59 pm (UTC)Thanks for posting this. This subject has been on my mind the past couple of days. More food for thought. =)
no subject
Date: 2005-01-12 03:09 pm (UTC)Have you read Ken Wilber's piece on "Ego and Egolessness" from _One Taste_? If not, I'll email it to you. It puts it far better than I ever could. In a few short words, he posits a form of Tantric stance that I find personally resonates with me very strongly. Come to think of it, I'll probably post it to my LJ at some point -- it's such an amazing piece of work and it definitely rocked my world (as I find much of Wilber's writing does for me).
I'll attach just a small piece of it here, so you get an idea where he's coming from:
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There is certainly a type of truth to the notion of _transcending ego_: it doesn't mean destroy the ego, it means plug it into something bigger. As Magarjuna put it, in the relative world, _atman_ is real; in the absolute, neither _atman_ not _anatman_ is real. Thus, in neither case is _anatta_ a correct description of reality. The small ego does not evaporate; it remains as the functional center of activity in the conventional realm. As I said, to lose that ego is to become a psychotic, not a sage.
"Transcending the ego" thus actually means to _transcend but include_ the ego in a deeper and higher embrace, first in the soul or deeper psychic, then with the Witness or primordial Self, then with each previous stage taken up, enfolded, included, and embraced in the radiance of One Taste. And that means we do not "get rid" of the small ego, but rather, we inhabit it fully, live it with verve, use it as the necessary vehicle through which higher truths are communicated. Soul and Spirit include body, emotions, and mind; they do not erase them.
Put bluntly, the ego is not an obstruction to Spirit, but a radiant manifestation of Spirit. All Forms are not other than Emptiness, including the form of the ego. It is not necessary to get rid of the ego, but simply to live with it a certain exuberance. When identification spills out of the ego and into the Kosmos at large, the ego discovers that the individual Atman is in fact all of a piece with Brahman. The big Self is indeed _no small ego_, and thus, to the extent that you are stuck in your small ego, a death and transcendence is required. Narcissists are simply people whose egos are not yet big enough to embrace the entire Kosmos, and so they try to be central to the Kosmos instead.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-12 03:14 pm (UTC)That's a conundrum-- what does the "self" want, when clearly, we are fragmented, with various desires and intents in conflict, etc. I actually wrote a bunch of stuff on this when preparing to teach the Intent section of my Will/Intent/Desire path a few years back. I'll see if I can find something that fits and send it to ya, in case it might make any sense.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-12 03:34 pm (UTC)-------
What the ego "wants" (or more accurately, what all of the different components which make up the ego-self want), definitely dilutes intent. The ego is always fractured (moreso in some than in others), with different wants and desires and needs constantly in conflict with one another.
To focus intent and increase the chance of magickal success, then, it's necessary to solve that problem. One approach is to quiet/silence the ego, to try to remove it from interference with the will. Another approach would be to attempt to work with the ego to unify the conflicting ego-parts, to reduce or remove the internal
tug-of-war. And a third approach is to shove the magickal act below/above/past the level of the ego, attempting to bypass it entirely. I think that all three of these methods are workable to one degree or another (and all have plenty of historical precedent ;>)
no subject
Date: 2005-01-12 03:46 pm (UTC)I tend to think that we all need to tell our true stories (but that's not my place to say, other than for my own), but my own part in it can be to tell my own truths, and to try to make space for or encourage others to tell theirs.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-12 04:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-12 04:36 pm (UTC)Twinkles on the Rilke overlapping. I'm thinking just right now about the evolution of the True Tongue and what a parallel journey to Thomas' in the Human Realm might look like - or has looked like for me.
The context in which I've been pondering the last couple of days has to do with boundaries and the few classes I've attended where the teachers have stated they are responsible for my safety as a participant in the class, but they are not responsible for my comfort . . . the differences between comfort and safety. And what does safety really mean anyway?
no subject
Date: 2005-01-12 05:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-12 10:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-12 10:37 pm (UTC)Indeed. And then when I read the next line in your comment, I first read it as "Twinkies on the Rilke overlapping." The mind boggles.
I can understand a teacher saying what you state above, to mean the intent of providing the opportunity for growth experiences, which are often uncomfortable, and/or to indicate that they don't intend to coddle people, or even as a kind of magickal machismo, i.e., "this is going to be hard work, buck up."
But I've always thought that no teacher can promise either comfort or safety. What you can do is do everything in your power to prevent actual physical, emotional or other damage to participants, particularly where you are setting up work you know to be actually dangerous (which does describes a relatively small minority of the kind of work we typically do).
There's a fine line -- if you spend too much energy on the intent of making things absolutely "safe" for people, you preclude much of the potential for change, and thus, real work. On the other hand, it's the responsibility of the person setting up the container to make sure there are "adequate" safeguards and supports there.
Nietzche was wrong, or at least incomplete. That which does not kill us may or may not make us stronger, and it can certainly involved a lot of wasted time spent healing and incapacitated ;>
no subject
Date: 2005-01-12 10:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-13 02:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-13 03:10 pm (UTC)Funny, your LJ link to the images of the Peacock God has a quote by Orryelle-- Orry's an old friend of mine, a fascinating and unusual person.