Dear Readers,
Today is the last day of March, and I have not yet posted this month’s installment of Just like Eve, another conversation between Davie and Ethan that I started drafting a couple of months ago. (I like Ethan so much, I decided I have to bring him back.) But in this tumultuous of all months, I haven’t finished it. So, in order to show a post for this month, I’ll spiral back to Transcending Trials. This spiral back will be brief, because right now, I feel like I’m lying dead before the Tree of Life.
As I thought I had shared in Transcending Trials, but did so better in the final part of In the Beginning, most Christians think the Tree of Life is forbidden, and most people, regardless of their religion or non-religion, live as if it is. Why? Well, according to the Myth, it is guarded by two angels with flaming swords. Pretty terrifying. That makes it look like it must be forbidden, right? It isn’t. You just need to face those angels with flaming swords and not run away from them.
I’ve been discovering what it takes to do that. Integrity. Integrity is not at all easy. Either you must bravely live out your integrity (and make some enemies for it), or you must deny yourself the chance to live it out and, instead, creatively sublimate your integrity into art. In both cases, metaphorically but also in some very real ways, you have to die. You might even face a perfect storm of varying forces within your life and have to hold true to your integrity in both ways, then die in many ways all at once.
If you crawl deep inside yourself and discover your truth within yourself – and it takes many painful years to do this, by the way – and you commit to living into this true Self, you are going to meet those angels with flaming swords. You might discover they represent your religion, or your family, or your culture, or all three, and you will have to break their rules in order to live into your True Self. They are likely to punish you for that. You might die. But guess what? You have met those angels with flaming swords. And they also have the power to resurrect you. I have to trust that, because I haven’t been resurrected yet, but that is the truth of the Myth.
You might also discover that you have to die to what you’ve found to be true in your heart so that you can show love to everyone else. Does this mean you bury it? Pretend it’s not there? No, that’s not integrity. No, you keep your truth, and you sublimate it into something beautiful. Like an alchemist, you transform it into gold. Like an artist, you create it into art. You throw a little of yourself into a great cauldron, then the sources of inspiration from above throw in a little of this and a little that from outside of you – you don’t know where it came from, but there it is – then you boil it and stir it up, and throw a little more in, and the heavens throw a little more in too, and then you boil it up hotter and stir it up faster, and poof! Magic! You have just created art.
To determine which is the right path – living into your integrity or sublimating it into art – depends on your love for your Self and your love for others’ Selves. Notice this is not about coddling egos or lessening people’s fears; it’s about love for your Selves. Sometimes, you live into your integrity, even though it will hurt egos, but it will uplift Selves, because honesty ignites evolution. Other times, you have to creatively sublimate your inner truth into an artistic form.
Sometimes, in the space of a very short time, in different parts of your life, you find yourself doing all of this. In one or more parts of your life, you live out your integrity, and you get punished for it. In another part of your life, you creatively sublimate. And when you've done this, you might find yourself like you are lying dead before the Tree of Life, and you have to trust that those angels will resurrect you.
My daughter – a teen far, far wiser than her years – says there is only one place to go from here: Up. Yes. And here’s the surprising thing: it is harder to walk toward those angels with flaming swords than it is to be struck by them. In some ways, the swords are a relief. You’ve finally faced them; they’ve pierced you; the worst is over; in that alone, you have some relief.
On this last
day of March, I am meeting my goal of a post every month, so I must have moved
up from that lying dead pose at least to my knees. And one day, I will stand. But I am not standing yet. At some moment in the future, I trust that I will
spiral back to this post to share the rest of a story that is to be continued .
. .
Spiral back to Transcending Trials and In the Beginning, Part 5
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