Hopeful condolences

I have been writing the same things for over four years now. In my books, on this blog, on the Facebook page of my book ‘the magic of psychoanalysis’.

I don’t know why I do it. Am I crazy? Am I stubborn? Am I an idiot?

Perhaps, it may be, that I am all of these things.

But I am also hopeful.

To me, if I may be so pretentious, it is like I have seen the light, and I feel compelled to share it in a world of darkness and despair. That is why I am hopeful.

Because there is a way out of the darkness and confusion.

That way, is the other side.

It is what psychoanalysis has discovered about man, and I believe the essence of the psychoanalytic work of digging through people’s minds and darkness, fears and obsessions, is the insight that man has a soul, and that this soul is nothing but the purest light.

But man also has a shadow, and it is this dark side of the moon he has been living with for what seems like all eternity.

I believe these are desperate times. These are times when we feel the need to be asking questions. Questions as to our survival, questions as to our behavior, and the sense and ethics of it all.

These are times, I believe, when we need Freud, and we need psychoanalysis.

Because we are looking for some light, we are searching for some soul.

And is it not the soul, that has been, in the typical ways of the shadow, made to look somewhat suspicious? Can we even trust our soul? Would it not be a mistake to choose the way of the heart and to let our light shine from under the smelly bucket we have kept it under? To keep it safe, for sure, but what is life if we don’t take our chances?

It is not so hard to understand. We seek safety, that has probably been a physical aspect of survival since before nature gave birth to the creation of mankind. Animals seek safety. But they do not hide their light. They are who they are. They don’t pretend to be better than what comes natural.

In man, there is an instance, we have said it before, it is called the ego, which is basically a dislike for all things natural. It is a distrust of the soul. It is where we close down our intuition and start to know better. Or at least, we think we know better than we know.

The only problem with this, as Freud remarked, was that there was a kind of protest, a protest of the light, a protest of our sense of intuition. Hysteria, they called it, the protest of the natural and the instinctive life. The protest of the body.

You see, our ego does not trust our bodies. The ego says that the body is stupid and will only lead us astray making nothing but mistakes. We should stick to knowing better, we should always be on our guards. Suspicious.

To be free, and spontaneous, like a child, is something the ego looks down upon. How could I have been so stupid? Why could I just not have been more careful? What was I thinking?

Maybe, for once in your life, you weren’t thinking at all.

Maybe you were just following your gut feeling.

Your basic instinct.

And what Freud said, and what the century since his discovery has been practicing, is that it is impossible to get rid of the soul. It is impossible to fully cover our light with the black box of the shadow.

We can’t always be suspicious.

We can’t always be better than our bodies, better than our souls.

Sometimes, we should just follow our heart and obey and listen to our gut, our feeling, our intuition.

It may not be so bad.

In fact, as Freud has demonstrated, it is what is most healing in all of the turmoil and disturbances of our lives. When we no longer know what to do, how to act or what to think, we need to come home to the voice of the child, who will speak still from the heart, and who will act from his body and his nature.

It is true thus, in a way, that when we are most lost, we should turn to nature for salvation.

Our nature.

Universal nature.

True nature.

Sweet nature.

The soul.

And when we regain the strength to be original, and to be true to ourselves, we become better, we become healthier, we become stronger, wiser and we become whole.

It is a strange thing, to know that you do not know better than you know.

To be naïve, and to know that is wise.

To stand by yourself, when you are being stupid.

To return to mere innocence.

For the original, Freud said, is the only truth, and it is the only thing acceptable to your heart, and it sure is better than trying to overshadow it and be superior.

Superior to whom?

To yourself?

To your soul?

I think it is the most common mistake and sin if you like, to try and be superior to the nature of the soul, the wisdom of the body.

We are whole and perfect from the day we are born. Nature has given us the wisdom of the universe, the sensitivity of the flowers, the strength of the lion and the beauty of the birdsong.

Nature has made us perfect, just like in everything she does.

Nature is wise, and nature is sweet.

And if it were not for our common mistaking superiority and distrust, nature would be healthy and strong.

I believe it is time to question our superior stance, our being better than what we are as a given, from the start.

Are we better than we were yesterday, or are we more astray?

Are we getting somewhere, or are we just always taking one more step away from home?

And if we want to venture out and explore the universe, should we not first explore the life within?

The wonderful life of truth, the splendor of the light that shines throughout our hearts.

Would that not be an adventure and an undertaking?

To see what it would be like, to be just who we are.

Nothing more, nothing better. Just you and your nature. Just you, being some body.

Why would we be stupid?

Why would all of nature have come to a point of producing a species that is stupid?

No, the only thing stupid is to think we are stupid.

Is to think nature is a fool.

We are not fools, though we may sometimes act like it.

And when we do, I believe we are falling, falling from the garden that knows no shame and knows no hiding. We are falling into thought, into thinking, into second thought. We start to question what we know, we start to doubt ourselves, we start to sicken our native hue of resolution, as Shakespeare so eloquently put it. And thus conscience makes cowards of us all.

We need not be afraid to be who we are, we should not fear our hearts, we should not doubt our intuition.

We should stand strong in the winds of creation and flow fluently with the currents of the tide. We should be home on earth and part of nature, as we were since time immortal, since the first day the universe dreamt of creating humanity in the sweet and healing, nurturing bosom of nature.

We are not alone in the universe. We have a whole wealth of plants and animals, food, paint and jewelry, we have the sunset, we have the moonlight, we have the wind rustling through the trees and we have the soft sounds of the water moving. Who could feel alone treasured by a source like this?

And it has been known, and it has been remarked, that nature just being nature the way she does, is a source of healing and of soothing to the human soul. It is where we find our cradle and our mother’s breast. What is called ecotherapy is nothing more than this, the healing wisdom of reconnecting with our roots, of returning to the wild, of letting go of ourselves in the midst of timeless beauty. And to rewire our brains, and to bring our bodies back to the environment that reminds them what they are. Bodies, creatures and spirits of nature.

How can seeing the healing wellness and benefits of oneness with our mother not inspire us to love her? For her wisdom, for her nature, for her naïve and simple heart of just being there.

And if we come to see how healing nature is, and how healing it is, as Freud has pointed out, to seek once again our roots when we are lost, to return to our hearts when we are broken, to shine from the soul when all is darkness, if we come to see the goodness and the loving, healing and restoring strength of nature, how could we not love and heal and strengthen our souls within as without, our nature within as without.

How could we not reconnect and see, that our fate and the fate of the natural world around us, are one, as we are one with all creation.

How could we not come home and cherish the cradle that is always there for us, in more ways than we may ever know, and who is there, not only in food, in medicine, but in the speaking of our hearts and the wisdom of our souls.

How could we ever think we are anything but one, we, the human race, and earth, the world and surroundings that give birth and birth and birth to more and more of loving and compassionate hearts.

But we should not hide our light no more, we should not keep our nature dead. There is nothing better, there is nothing superior to the intuition of the soul, the speaking of the body. And if we think there is, and if we choose the shadow, we get sick, we feel lost, empty, depleted and unreal.

And I am afraid, and very much so, that the world is just mirroring this state of mind that we get into when we keep our true lives dead, and live from knowing better, and insist we are superior, when in fact, we are only a smelly bucket under which still lives our light, living and breathing, and asking for attention.

May we all be a little Freud then, and give it to her, give her the attention, and know not better than just that.