CANDLE IN THE WIND

_______________________________

 

One of the big themes I am exploring with the Guides right now is the experience of CHILDLIKE REVERIE that is the womb of all creation. 
 
Too often the streams of our passion and "inspiration" become torrid whirlpools of a battle for dominance that has been going on for time everlasting.  Is the battle between Form and Void,  Theos and Chaos, and Masculine and Feminine. 
 
In the steaming cauldron of that Alchemical Blend, there is plenty of posturing that occurs...............as the various "players" don the masks that each of their "roles" demand in the dance of the flames. 
 
Meanwhile, back at the sandbox, the little girl or boy appears............to portray for us the CLEAN AND EMPTY SLATE of a mind and heart that is uncluttered by unmet need, suppressed desire, or emotional conflict.  Instead of eternal longing and fragmented will--- this little one is playing happily and freely.  She has no "agenda," save the momentary excitation of senses and intellect that have not yet been programmed or "trained" in any way. 
 
In this way, the TANGO IN THE FLAMES is reduced down to a CANDLE IN THE WIND..................
 
And the very strength and invulnerability of that moment dwells in the realization..........held within each person who witnesses the miracle of that childlike "play"..........that the moment is extremely FRAGILE, and any degree of INTENT or INTENSITY could immediately snuff out the candle, leaving only a wisp of smoke to tell the tale! 
One of the Reconnections is my dear friend and poet W. B. Yeats, over whose grave I stood in 1994, in Ireland...........and asked, simply......"Teach me."  
 
And Yeats has taught me, off and on, to this very day.  In a real way, my own Channeling and Composition process that is my personal form of returning to the innocence of that sandbox..........opening myself, and not making "demands" on what comes forth. 
 
In a composition about Yeats and his creative process, scholar Michael Fleming makes this observation:
 
"Defending the infinite pains of composition and revision that poetry cost him, he (Yeats) wrote:

The friends that have I do it wrong

Whenever I remake a song,

Should know what issue is at stake:

It is myself that I remake.

   His program of spiritual renewal was a concerted effort on several fronts; he adopted the role of Maker in order to remake not only himself but also his art and his religion. Like Joyce, Yeats wanted to forge the spirit of Ireland in the smithy of his soul, but unlike Joyce he could never satisfy himself that his own soul was itself ready for the task. In his autobiography he wrote that "all life weighed in the scales of my own life seems a preparation for something that never happens." In fact plenty was happening -- Yeats was continually remaking himself.

   In an address to the British Association in 1908, Yeats outlined his belief that artists

"........are Adams of a different Eden, a more terrible Eden perhaps, for we must name and number the passions and motives of men. There, too, everything must be known, everything understood, everything expressed; there, also, there is nothing uncommon, nothing unclean; every motive must be followed through all the obscure mystery of its logic. Mankind must be seen and understood in every possible circumstance, in every conceivable situation."

Yeats viewed his own life as a paradigm, an experiment in the shaping of humanity, and his own experience was everything to him. "We can know nothing," he said, quoting Vico, "that we have not made."

 His conception of the self and the anti-self became less and less passive as time went on, and grew into his famous theory of the mask. Essentially, the theory posits that no man can be fully himself until he makes himself fully his own opposite, and through the tension created he can realize his own nature. "I think that all happiness depends on the energy to assume the mask of some other self; that all joyous or creative life is a rebirth as something not oneself, something which has no memory and is created in a moment and perpetually renewed."

DJ:  One of the most meaningful times of the Conclave was our exercise of Shadow Work.   During our session, we each wrote down on a piece of paper the thing about ourselves that we most wanted to change.   We did it anonymously, and we put all the papers in a big bowl.  Then, each person picked one.................making sure that it belonged to someone else. 

The exercise was called "Someone Else's Shadow" and turned into one of the most profound experiences of the trip.  As we went around the circle, each person presented the Shadow Self to the group AS THOUGH IT WAS HIS OWN. 

Fortunately, our group was replete with talented actors and actresses.  The Shadows were presented accurately, and with complete sincerely.  At one point, it became very hard to distinguish whose Shadow belonged to whom.  And therein was the purpose of the exercize. 

This process came directly from our dear friend and Reconnection Yeats:

"I think that all happiness depends on the energy to assume the mask of some other self; that all joyous or creative life is a rebirth as something not oneself, something which has no memory and is created in a moment and perpetually renewed."

Fleming goes on to comment:

  " Probably such an extremely self-conscious notion of the creative self is better suited to the printed page, but without Yeats the self-created dramatist there could have been no Yeats the natural lyric poet. The maker had to bring himself to a state "full of uncertainly, not knowing when I am the finger, when the clay."

DJ:  Yeats joined us on this trip because he (along with many other Masters of His Day).........longs to be part of the Global Reconnection of Humankind with All That Is.  And we, who have less "stature" in our own eyes........must not prevent them from sitting among us.............for they, too, belong with us on the Multidimensional Ship. 

They, too, must go forth as "bare-assed babes" into the mystery of this wondrous transformation.

Elton John recently put his finger on two "innocent babes" that the world has come to revere as the quintessence of that childlike Oneder. 
 
In Marilyn Monroe, he saw a confused and exploited woman, who was..........quite literally...........USED UP by the imaginations and furtive fantasies of humankind.  Though she, herself, was barely touched by the scorching heat of her Goddess-Like Bearing..............humanity sucked into her, like a flex-straw.............and, in the end, only a shell of her was left. 
 
Elton says:
 
"I would have liked to know you, but I was just a boy.  Your candle burned out long before your legend ever could." 
 
In truth, Elton DID know her..............as a boy.  It's the only way a person COULD know Marilyn, and really touch into her...........by staring, wide-eyed and REAL..........not hiding your fascination behind the manipulations of guile and exploitation. 
 
And then there was Diana..........who pulled more at the heartstrings of humankind than just about anyone.  She was "England's Rose"..........and she was picked and pruned by royalty, who also discovered that she had THORNS, by the way................
 
We saw her childlike wonder in that shy, upward gaze that became her trademark.   She was OUR CHILD, even though she, herself............was fighting hard to become a woman, a wife, a mother.................A REAL GIRL............(Gepeto, where are you when a girl needs you, huh?)
 
And she was starved for attention (physically and figuratively)............and we were starved for the innocence that was ebbing out of her by the day. 
 
What is missing in the equation is the SAFETY of a LOVING FATHER-FIGURE................who, sitting calmly nearby..........protects the child from those who would enter the sandbox and harm her. 
 
Diana's father was nowhere near the man he needed to be to counsel and protect his daughter from the ravages of royalty.  In the end, her brother was a suitable CHAMPION..........as he told the world, in no uncertain terms, what it is that they had snuffed out............
 
And each "Candle in the Wind" in our midst............yearns for the safety that is provided by childhood, and a loving father and mother..............who simply sit by, and ALLOW.......the gentle inquiry of the unbridled mind and senses, while stepping in..........only occasionally, to remind the little girl that it is a LION'S MOUTH that she has put her head into............and gee......"That fellow needs some dental work, Mommy...........and his breath stinks." 
 
And so it goes.   As I hear people ramble and wrangle about their own "candles," I see lots of discomfort about having to return from the "sandbox" to the world of money, taxes, back-stabbing bosses, intense husbands and wives......... and whatever.
 
And it is a wise person, indeed..........who can manufacture within him or herself.........the comfort and safety of the LOVING FATHER ENERGY to protect and sustain the creative process................and to actually make an impact on the world that lives on and on..........
 

"The friends that have I do it wrong

Whenever I remake a song,

Should know what issue is at stake:

It is myself that I remake."

 

Copyright, 2001, by  Daniel Jacob.  May be copied or shared for purposes of personal growth and/or research.  Any reproduction for profit requires the written permission of Reconnections, Inc. 

HOME