Full
Circle
“My view
is that you do remember things that are really vital, but you forget
much that isn't. At any rate, you remember the early things. And then
there is, so to speak, a choice: you can either let that state, as
people naturally do, become nostalgia, or even senility, or it's
possible that those memories suddenly acquire an enormously enhanced
meaning in the whole of your life; and you begin to see your life as
a circle instead of a straight line.”
Helen Luke
(“Then It Is Given to You;” A Conversation with Helen Luke;
Parabola, Summer, 2016)
This Parabola interview
on the wisdom of aging with Helen Luke, Jungian author and Analyst,
was conducted in the 1990's. Luke died in 1995. She spoke about
coming to full consciousness as a human being, and instead of seeing life as a
straight line from birth to death, understanding it as a circle, a series of steps toward gaining that consciousness. Part of the process is being able to embrace all of one's life; instead
of condemning parts of it as bad, and celebrating parts of it as
good, seeing each aspect as vitally important to the whole.
She spoke of the need for
compassion in using hindsight—compassion for others and for
oneself. Instead of the passion one has in youth of wanting to save
the world, one grows to simply love the world. It doesn't mean that
we shouldn't support causes that we truly believe in, but with
forgiveness and compassion rather than anger and aggression. There
is a season for everything.
Luke's view from the
perspective of age is that the polarities become balanced. We no
longer bounce from anger to indifference, but find a place of genuine
joy and love beyond desires and emotions, which includes all
the opposites. That is why she says, “It is enormously important
for the whole world that some individuals grow to a deep and full
consciousness.”
This state of being,
where life becomes a circle of compassion and acceptance, requires
letting go of the desires of the ego. It is a lifelong undertaking, a
soulful endeavor that leads to glimpses of ultimate reality—all is
one, all is included, and all will be well.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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