Signs of Aquarius

Be water, my friend.

(Bruce Lee)

Hello.

I would like to comb my hair again.

One more time.

Of course, I am not talking about the hair on my head, which is trimmed to be about bald. And no, I’m not thinking about my hair where I don’t wanna know you are thinking of right now.

I am talking about my thoughts.

Going through them once again.

Straightening them out.

It seems every time I go about my thoughts, I am removing some of the clutter, some of the tightness, stickiness, knots and tightness.

Maybe that’s what a good massage feels like.

Never had one.

Okay, so let’s massage some brain, let’s comb through some thoughts.

I recently had to write a summary of the book I am hoping to publish. It is a book in Dutch, so it’s not for everyone. Just for my fellow countrymen who deserve to be given a special treat once in a while.

My first book in Dutch was called ‘the magic of psychoanalysis’, and if this one makes it to the presses, it will be called ‘the mystic of psychoanalysis’.

But just so my dear and dearest English-speaking audience can grasp the gist as well, I want to summarize my thoughts here for you.

The key of the matter is, that it all starts with a revolution and subversion of current state academic psychoanalysis.

For today, neurosis is considered to be the end point of human psychodynamic evolution. We emerge from the turmoiled seas of the physical drive, the Freudian libido with all of its perverse Eros principle, and we struggle to climb onto the safe deck above those waters, that consists in first identifying with the instance of restraint, next choosing a logic for it as to become a fully-fledged neurotic personality.

When we see the reasonable restraining of our physical drive as the norm for human sanity, we may complain when this rational mode of controlled living and operating comes to lay under siege.

When the physical asserts itself, which is to say, a part of the drive that was denied its conscious state of existence, we become bothered. We want to know how we can keep this reassertion from disturbing our orderly lives. For in such cases, disturbed is the word to describe what we are feeling like.

Well, psychoanalysts say, we call this a partial regression. Your feet are starting to touch the waters of your libido once again, and the thing is, you cannot stop from getting a little wet. You cannot raise the deck forever higher. Just let it pass, let it through, see it, accept it, feel it.

Remember.

And when you have become aware of the waters that have risen up to touch you on your wooden deck, they will no longer make you wet. They will become your friend, and help you live more authentic.

Of course you can see, this is a problem, for there may be many waves to be analyzed, worked through and remembered, and if getting wet is the road to sanity, then why are we not in the water in the first place?

Why do we choose and struggle for the drought of the wooden deck?

You can even ask, when you are getting so very very wet, if you could not just drop the deck all together. Wouldn’t you be all authentic then, and fully healthy?

The thing is, we don’t know the water is our friend.

We have forgotten the water to be our original home.

At first, when we meet it in the course of feeling disturbed and becoming acquainted with the repressed parts of ourselves, it is a kind of logic we must get used to. To accept, to see, to feel.

It is a growth of mindfulness, that is advocated as a medicine really.

However, in my opinion, it is not us ourselves who have struggled to be on deck, to leave the waters of the drive in the first place.

We were hauled onto the deck, we were stolen from the waters.

Abducted from our home.

Dragged to Babylon.

And it is not really a ‘regression’, and it is not really a ‘disturbance’, it is home jumping joyfully up our legs, like a sweet puppy wagging its tail full of love and ecstasy, so happy to see you.

And we may come to love the unconscious mind, and we may go through an episode, by accident or by personal choice and exercise, to grow our mindfulness ever more. To see more, to open the eye of sexuality.

To reclaim our original nature of being one with the cosmic ocean.

We may want to leave the deck, and move with the sea of consciousness.

We may become a spiritual psychonaut.

We may strive to no longer be dragged onto the deck, by the forces of restraint in the name of culture.

We may strive for full and unwavering authenticity, we may yearn to become fully conscious, and the ego, that which fears the waters and their dynamics, we may fight and overcome.

It may take patience, it may be a deep and relentless struggle.

And maybe we have no choice, as in the case of psychosis, which psychoanalysts call a full regression, to demonstrate the difference between getting our feet a little wet from some waves in partial neurotic regression. In psychosis, the ocean comes to reclaim her child fully from the realms of drought.

It is just, in the current state of theoretical development, we see it from the point where neurosis is the healthy and desired end point and required state of consciousness. Restraint, lawful logic.

When we subvert things, as an inclusion of shamanic and meditative theory invites us to, we come to see that we do not need to fear the waters, as the ego would have us do.

As the devil tells us we need to do.

There is no danger, there is only love, when you let go so many times that you have let go of your clinging altogether. When you are letting go of perhaps your securities, your safe haven, your obligations, duties and obsessions. And the belief that they are required, that they are necessary.

A necessary evil.

They may very well not be, and it may be that the universe is opening doors for you when you reach them, and it may be that nature is a Mother who provides.

And you may be able to swim a hell of a lot better than you think.

It may be as natural as breathing.

Only, you forgot, you forgot you were an aquatic being.

And all your suffering on the deck of drought, was because you were thirsty for your real life, your true existence, your authentic home.

Your home is so much more than the culture which demands you to freeze yourself and live by repression and restraint. Your home is the stars. Your home is the galaxy. Your home is the universe. That is where you are truly alive, that is where you are you for real.

So get a little wet, regress a bit, and learn to become mindful, even if it is ‘disturbing’.

Learn to sense, learn to feel, learn to see, learn to remember.

And if you love the waters, why not take a dive, why not seek to experience the true nature of your being, why not set out on a journey home.

It takes courage, and you may be reluctant to leave the certainties of your culture and you may be scared of giving up control.

But I believe you will love the ocean of love, I believe you will swim like a dolphin, turning, jumping, making sounds too dear and precious to behold.

It is okay, I believe, to go on this journey.

It is being a little disturbed that can show you the water.

And perhaps being very disturbed, you will find your fins as sure as night turns to day.

So are we born for the drought, are we born for the safety of the deck, or is ours the outdoors and the natural spirit of adventure?

Are you fit to be a pirate?

Are you ready to sail the seas?

Can you take a little fate, can you go, and go on and on and on with just the flow?

I do not believe we are meant to live in the safe drought of our decks, I do not believe all these cultural prescriptions of how you should act, feel and behave are the desirable end point for the well-being of the human race. I think under the numerous flags of culture, many souls are starving, are suffocating, are struggling and dying like fish on land.

A fish needs to be in the water.

We do not need to be keeping ourselves down so full of shame and fear all of the time. We need to feel our strength, and hear the beating of our heart. We need to be ourselves, our real selves, not the puppets we are taken to be.

I never said it was easy, but I do believe there is good reason to have faith.

To go on that adventure, to set sail for that other side.

To turn around, look back, take a step back, and return home, where we are truly alive.

So the physical drive, it is the tai chi I guess. It is spontaneous movement, it is like a dance, it is a little folly, it is a sacred joke. And I believe it can be fun, and if you want me serious, I believe it can change and guide and save your life.

So move, move with the tides, go with the flow. Dance the dance, sing the song. See what you see, feel what you feel, hear what you hear, for God’s sake, just live your life.

Ours is a very 'evolved' culture. We are far in the regions of drought. We really believe the waters would kill us, as the beings of the fear are preaching. We believe there is no other way than not to live our lives and never to be who we really are.

But just as today sexuality is not so sinful anymore as it was sixty years ago, one day we may fully embrace our passion, our soul powers, our libido.

We may move with grace and see with clarity.

And what is my dearest hope, is that we will no longer be terrified just to be ourselves.