Memory is neutral. Our experience of memory is charged with emotion. We perpetuate and replicate experience of memory through expectation. This is how human history is repeated.
Every external dilemma is a reflection of inner turmoil in history — yours, mine, and ours. Until we understand “the world” mirrors all the unconscious aspects of personality, and there are as many worlds as there are people, human beings will continue to experience the past on repeat both individually and collectively. The only way out is through the study of self and it’s a learning process of the truth: We carry sublime power that can and will transmute, sanctify and redeem history.
The ancient Delphic maxim to know thyself was a discovery process leading to the divine spark in the human heart. Socrates taught that to know thyself is to know the universe and the Gods. Lao Tzu wrote to know others is intelligence, but knowing yourself is true wisdom. Ibn Sina’s philosophy stated it is through self knowledge that knowledge of God is attained. Yeshua ben Yoseph (Jesus the Christ) taught the kingdom of heaven is within you. In the Gospel of Mary, it is on the breath of silence we return to our true nature. So I propose that to know thyself is the ultimate way for women to gain mastery over our lives in this day and age.
As to this self-knowledge, this real penetrating knowledge of our own being, do not make the mistake of thinking that it means seeing through the ego. To understand the ego is child's play, but to see through the Self is something totally different. The real difficulty lies in recognizing the unknown. ~ C.G. Jung
It is not work for the unwilling woman. It is work for the woman who intuits there is something great in her wanting to be spoken, shared, and sung through the ages. For there is a lie we have all been living and it is a dangerous force lurking in the shadow of any woman who believes she is weak, forgotten, unsupported, lost, and humiliated.
Many talk about female empowerment yet few do the real work it demands today. I learned that when I was no longer compulsively attached to the outside world nor was I carrying the burden of disappointment because my life hadn’t delivered what I expected, I moved into myself in ways I’d never foreseen and what a relief! For what women have encountered and endured through history has been very difficult indeed. But it lives in us. There is nothing “past” about it!
There are two great works for women today. The first demands we stop seeking the conditioned ideal of who we think we should be and behold our own shadow for this is where we encounter that past. We will never rise above what we don’t acknowledge and understand. The lessons must be learned.
The second is to claim reverence for the life we have been given. This demands we restore feminine values in a world generally built to deny these values. No personal rights eclipse the value of life to live, all life. So we’ve got our work cut out for us. We either think of ourselves as products of our oppression or we understand ourselves as daughters of life gifted with experience meant to grow the human soul. These are the only two choices we have. All else is secondary. Choose fear or choose love. For we cannot be victims of oppression when we move into mastery of our lives.
Modern woman must learn to walk where her nature is leading and embody her own creative work. It will not be dictated by anyone or anything outside of her. She must discover it from within herself to claim true authority; she must know thyself.
Question for Reflection:
Am I ready and willing to find out something about the unknown in myself? Can I learn to love the life I have been given?
Magdalen Bowyer
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