There was never a dawn, regardless how beautiful or promising, that did not grow into a noontime. There was never a noon that did not fall into afternoon. There was never an afternoon that did not fade toward evening. There never was a day yet that did not get buried in the graveyard of the night.
John O’Donohue
The task is to shift the identity more toward the movable conversation that stands behind us, a deep undercurrent we can tap into that carries on unconcerned with the surface tribulations. In this depth we try to create a real silence in which to keep our long-standing, well-established, self-protective stories away, to let ourselves alone so we can experience the physical vulnerability of the question and be transformed by it. We give these smaller protective stories away so that we can see how they come back to us once we have established a larger way of being in the world.
David Whyte, The Three Marriages
I was once told that certain spiritual masters in Tibet used to set their teacups upside down before they went to bed each night as a reminder that all life was impermanent. And then, when they awoke each morning, they turned their teacups right side up again with the happy thought, ‘I’m still here!’ This simple gesture was a wonderful reminder to celebrate every moment of the day.
Susan Jeffers, Embracing Uncertainty
The afternoon of life is just as full of meaning as the morning;
only its meaning and purpose are different.
C. G . Jung
The first of the leaves are starting to change colour here in Ireland, announcing the immanent arrival of a change in the seasons. So, a short reflection on the different rhythms and periods in our lives. Nikos Kazanzakis once told of a talk he had with an old monk about the changes that happen in life. He asked him “Do you still struggle with the devil?” “Oh, no,” the old man replied, “I used to struggle with him, when I was young, but now I’ve grown old and tired and the devil has grown old and tired with me. We leave each other alone!” “So it’s easy for you now?” asked the young Kazantzakis. “Oh no,” replied the old man, “it’s worse, far worse! Now I wrestle with God!”
The Old Testament story of Jacob wrestling with God all night long is in the background here. What the monk suggests is that there are different challenges or tasks at different times in our lives, and that struggles can mean growth and are not necessarily a sign of problems. In the early part of our life the main task is to develop the ego sufficiently to leave ones parents and establish oneself in the world. There is a certain, necessary, focus on establishing a career, independence and relationship, with a paradigm of succeeding. So one can be driven by the strong forces of ambition and the need for achievement, position and a recognized role.
The task in the second part of life is quite different. The struggles can be can be other than what we had to face earlier on. The drive for success which marked the first years has achieved all it can or has not delivered the fulfillment it promises. The underlying needs of the Self begin to assert themselves. What I notice most in working with clients is that a new paradigm is needed. A deeper struggle – this time largely inside the person – takes place, often to fill in the missing pieces of the personality, neglected up to now. The challenge is to become more honest and more whole, to free what was blocked and live life most fully. We have to wrestle, sometimes with a crisis, defeat, disappointment or loss, in order to leave behind patterns or strategies that are no longer effective and will no longer bring us growth.
I mean the Angel who appeared
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament …
Whoever was beaten by this angel
(who often simply declined the fight)
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater things.
Rilke, The Man Watching
The wine of youth does not always clear with advancing years; sometimes it grows turbid. The very frequent neurotic disturbances of adult years all have one thing in common: they want to carry the psychology of the youthful phase over the threshold of the so-called years of discretion….The neurotic is rather a person who can never have things as he would like them in the present, and who can therefore never enjoy the past either.
Jung, The Structure and Dynamic of the Psyche
We are a “first-half-of-life-culture”, largely concerned with surviving successfully. We all try to do what seems like the task that life first hands to us: establishing an identity, a home, relationships, a family, community, security and building a proper platform for our only life. But it takes us much longer to discover “the task within the task” as I like to call it: what we are really doing when we are doing what we are doing.
Richard Rohr, Falling Upward.
