Breaking
the Rules
“Whenever
there is authority, there is a natural inclination to disobey.”
Thomas
Chandler Haliburton
The
seminar, “Breaking the Rules of Love,” is still unwinding in my
mind. Jacqueline Wright, the Jungian Analyst who presented the
program, used the myth of Eros and Psyche to illustrate the point.
You may be familiar with that myth: Psyche, the daughter of a king,
is so beautiful that the people of her father's kingdom begin to
worship her and no longer go to the temple of Aphrodite. This angers
the goddess so much that she curses Psyche, and removes her to a
desolate place. Aphrodite's son, Eros, sees Psyche's plight and
rescues her, taking her to his palace where she can have anything she
wants. The only caveat is that she may never look upon him; he comes
to her only at night and leaves before daylight. Since she is in
love, she obeys this prohibition until her sisters come to visit.
They are jealous of Psyche's lavish life and tell her that her lover
is really a monster and that's the reason he will not let her see
him. They challenge her to wait until he's asleep, then light a
lantern so that she can see him. When she does, of course, she sees
that he's the God of love, and beautiful beyond her wildest dreams.
He wakes, and is furious that she broke their trust. He flies away
and does not come back. The rest of the story is Psyche's rigorous
efforts to find Eros; the seemingly impossible tasks that she must
accomplish and the torture she endures.
Jacqueline's
point is that we must break some rules in order to find our way to
what is right for us. We begin by breaking our parents' rules, and
then our teachers' and, of course, the church's rules. The purgatory
that results from breaking societies rules is our greatest teacher.
Psyche traveled to the underworld to find the tools she needed, but
her rule-breaking didn't stop even then. She broke several more
before reuniting with Eros. Just like Eve in the garden of Eden, our
human curiosity wins out over prohibition even in the face of being
thrown out of paradise. And that's a good thing. Not because it
trashes our peaceful life, but because it forces us out of servitude
to “the way things are supposed to be,” and into a realm wholly our own, where we grapple with the lessons our soul is here to learn.
According
to Henry David Thoreau, “Disobedience is the true foundation of
liberty. The obedient must be slaves.” Don't be afraid to break a
few rules if doing so is the only way to get at your truth.
In
the spirit,
Jane
1 comment:
Maybe one day you will understand. This really is what I want to know.
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