Think about your life and consider the question: can you experience an ending that’s not truly a beginning; a fall that’s not truly a rise; a release that’s not truly an acquisition? Think about your life and consider the question: can you experience a no that’s not truly a yes?
And if you can, then I will ask you to think again. For, I really don’t think it’s possible.
It’s a very Taoist idea, you know: seeming opposites coexisting – not as antagonists but as necessary counterparts (as fond bedfellows, if you will) – each providing the energy that supports and empowers the existence of the other – seeming opposites coexisting in something of a beautiful, symbiotic unity.
The very symbol of the Taoist tradition itself speaks to this cosmic dance, to this universal interplay of seeming opposites that so defines what it means to be a soul privileged with this earthly experience of shadow and light, cold and hot, down and up, death and birth. And make no mistake – that’s what it is – a privilege.
I have to believe that countless souls linger on the fringes of this world, longing for this thick experience in which we can touch each other’s hands, smell baking bread, watch the miracles of Puget Sound, listen to the concertos of Chopin.
How tempting it is to miss these simple yet glorious experiences because of schedules and problems and responsibilities.
The Buddhist tradition says it this way: that if you toss a life preserver into the oceans of the planet, the likelihood of receiving a human incarnation is about the same as one, specific sea turtle randomly surfacing to find his head inside of that life preserver. So, to be clear, if you consider the area of the oceans to be some 341 million square kilometers, and the area of a life preserver’s opening to be, maybe half-a-square meter, we arrive at odds of that sea turtle finding himself wearing that new, polyethylene necklace somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 in 700 million.
And here’s the deal: in considering the countless events which conspired for the incarnation which landed you in that seat listening to these words, scientists would say that this metaphor actually offers pretty accurate odds.
Myrtle Fillmore spoke to this subject, and I quote, “Unity's mission in our world is to help people release those fears and hurts that bind and confine, that we may experience and express the love that we are.”
Charles Fillmore, in more colorful language, and I quote, “The mind, like the bowels, should be open and free.”
It’s an idea mirrored in history.
Ancient people recognized nature as a wise teacher who dictated the release of aspects of life as the years go by – relationships, attitudes, habits, attachments – that life might reveal new potentialities; a paradigm representing a reality in which endings and beginnings coexist.
And it’s an idea mirrored in religion.
The Hindu goddess Kali is the great Mother Goddess. She is seen as the womb from which all are born and to which all return – a goddess representing a reality in which beginnings and endings coexist.
And the Hebrew Bible reminds each of us that there is a time to be born and a time to die, a time to sow and a time to reap, a time to tear down and a time to build up, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance; a teaching representing a reality in which endings and beginnings coexist.
It’s an idea mirrored in mythology, told in the fables of the phoenix of Arabia who, upon reaching the end of a cycle of life, builds a pyre for himself. And upon being consumed by the flames, he issues forth as a new being – young and renewed from a red egg.
Some describe her feathers as colored like those of a peacock; others, as tinged in purple like the robes of a nobleman. Ezekiel the Dramatist claimed that her legs were red and her eyes striking yellow while Lactantius (lak-TAN-tee-us) claimed that her legs – covered in scales – were yellow-gold with rose-colored talons and her eyes blue like sapphires.
Now this Phoenix is not the bird of Arabia alone. He’s also known to fly through the Northern Lights over the plains of Lapland. And he’s also known to hop among the yellow flowers in the summers of Greenland. And he’s also known to float down the sacred waters of the Ganges on a lotus leaf.
But regardless of form, what is this winged wonder if not yet another restatement of a reality in which beginnings and endings coexist?
In the Southwest he looks like the Thunderbird; in England, she looks like Arthur's dragons. I might propose that this phoenix looks a lot like you. And she looks a lot like me. For whether you look to history or religion or mythology, the message is the same: there is a reality in which beginnings and endings coexist.
So, take a deep breath. That which is difficult isn’t your enemy. You have no enemies; for even that which is difficult conspires for your soul growth, unfoldment and development.
So, rather than framing today as a willingness to release all out there that’s difficult, consider framing it as a willingness to transform all in here that’s ready. For while a narrow perspective would have us believe that fire represents release, a broader perspective would have us understand that fire represents that sweet point of transformation between that which has come to pass and that which has come to be.
It’s all-too-common for our rituals, for our prayers, to represent changed circumstances without changed consciousness. In other words, it’s all-too-common for the human creature to want a new outer world without a new inner world (we want a changed life without a changed mind) and that’s not the prayer we teach or encourage.
So, I invite you to affirm the following statement from Christian wisdom teachings, “I am willing to be born anew.”
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