Image by James Jean
One of the primary archetypal tasks of political establishments is to harness the energies of chaos and order, in ways that support the collective developmental maturity and growth. Invariably however, they have a long and dark history of acting out in the face of the energies they are called to process, re-inflicting age-old wounds and traumas.
The current world order has opened us up to our deepest vulnerabilities, as we sail towards the unknown in a state of disorientation, anxiety and distrust. In the time of Trump, Brexit, and most recently the election of Bolsonaro in Brazil, societal divisions and splits are amplified. Left and right, women and men, rich and poor, natives and foreigners, become the battlefields we enter to negotiate the next developmental stage of the human race. The underling archetypal tension we are navigating is between intimacy and isolation, separateness and interconnectedness, between a coming together or a tearing apart.
The tension of the opposites is a dance as ancient and elemental as time itself, fueled by the winds of hope and fear. The two opposing ends always feel separate from one another. Each time one end gains new ground, the other end fears disintegrating annihilation. And yet history reveals the opposite is true, each time there is a shift in one direction the rules of balance require a shift of equal measure in the other direction. All opposites grow and build together since in reality they have existed symbiotically forever, like night and day, like yin and yang. Each of us, positioned in our place across the political, moral, environmental, spiritual spectrum hold on to our beliefs and value systems ready for the fight, firmly believing in the righteousness of who we are and what we stand for.
Positioned in this way ensures that the gap between the opposites widens and the chances to meet each other greatly diminish. It is only through meeting one another that we will master this cosmic game. And yet, it is incredible how painful it is to truly meet. How language is not resilient enough to hold the tensions between us. It is perhaps easier to belittle, dehumanize and obliterate the ‘other’, feeding the splits that are already aching us.
By engaging internally with these tensions that so pain, frustrate and alienate us, we fuel a potent energy in us. If properly channeled, this energy can mobilize our human potential. If we face, bear and survive the tension of opposites internally, within ourselves, they will gradually give way to a third, more balanced and integrated position for us to stand on and act from. Carl Jung called this movement of integration the transcendent function.
The inner journey requires us to recognise ‘our opposite’ as part of our very own shadow, the unintegrated aspects of Self we have disowned. On a collective level we hold a collective shadow. Here we deposit what has been banned and shunned, but it still finds expression through fractions of the world that will uphold it. Our collective shadow contains potential and peril in equal measures. In this psychic space we have delegated our concerns about the environment and human rights alongside our deepest dark, our aggressive and self-destructive tendencies. History has always called on us to process our collective shadow and we have learned along the way that if we don’t own it, it will own us with disastrous effects and repercussions.
Our deepest darkness grows out of our collective dormant wounds and traumas that have led us to endless wars of elimination and extinction. The task ahead requires demanding inner work. We have to turn towards our shadow and meet the wounds it feeds on. Doing so will help us develop our compassion for ourselves and by extension for others that act from their unprocessed instincts and psychopathologies. We have to locate ourselves and those ‘others’ we don’t belong with in the wider whole we all belong to. We are being called to collectively re-member ourselves into our wider wholeness where everything belongs and has its rightful place.
The current amplification of archetypal energies signals deep collective movements. If we can channel and utilise their force, we can support our developmental journey towards healing and growth. These painful but precious opportunities for maturity and growth can be thwarted if we act out on the discomfort we experience within, if we don’t sit next to our rage, pain and fear as midwifes committed to birthing life forth. Our times call for outer activism to be matched by inner activism. We are tasked with finding ways to bridge the opposites back into the spectrum of wholeness. Civilisation as we know it is pushing through the rebirth canal.
