The Time Zones of Life

It’s poetry this time…

I walk around the lake.
I walk and the voice of the wind has changed.
It’s deep, it’s metal.

I walk.
And I know, as I walk, that my footprints on the track will be gone,
soon,
when the rising sun melts the frost.

I walk.
And I know, as I walk, that the sordino of the leaves is gone,
for now,
and I know
with that wind
I will have gone, in one second,
through the time zones of my life.

I walk around the lake.
I walk myself to myself,
I walk to stories and poems,
to images and sounds,
to yesterdays and tomorrows.

©Copyright of the poem: Maarit Suokas-Alanko

Advertisement

“Don’t take it personally”

“Your blog posts are nowadays more personal than what they were when you started”, a friend said recently. He added it was just an observation he had made, and not really a comment on whether it was good or bad to be “personal”.

“There is no privacy in life.” I think it was Vimala Thakar who once said those words in some of her books. She certainly did not refer to tabloids that publish revelations of celebrities’ private lives. If I remember the context correctly, she meant that we are all interconnected. We may think that we can do something in the privacy of our life, but on a deeper level, or in a bigger picture, our lives are connected to each other and to the life of our planet, and therefore matter, in one way or the other, to everything.

So what is it then – to be personal? Or to take something personally.

The word persona comes of course from Latin, where it originally referred to theatrical mask. Persona played an important role in Carl Jung‘s theories. He defined it like this:

“The persona is a complicated system of relations between individual consciousness and society, fittingly enough a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and, on the other, to conceal the true nature of the individual.”

(The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious” (1928). In CW 7: Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. P.305)

Now you may have noticed that I like to use ingredients from very different sources – because, at least for me, that often brings about new insights. So I ask you to allow me, in my eclectic way, to put together Vimala Thakar and Carl Jung, because that creates an interesting equation: if we all carry this mask – the mask that both tries to impress and conceal – we come to a conclusion that we are all governed by similar, universal laws. This raises more interesting questions: If we all somehow accepted that we carry this mask, wouldn’t it be a relief to start taking it less seriously? In other words, we could stop trying to continuously hide ourselves – and then the need for locking away our lives behind a veil of intense “privacy” would become less?

Seeing that, the big illusion of our time, the one that deceives us into thinking that we continuously have to prove or defend our individuality, would burst like a soap-bubble.

On a deep level there is not so much difference between my story and your story. Of course there is variation between different people, but ultimately, what we so often try to defend or what we try to reveal and emphasize is, after all, just a mask.

Can you see what I mean? Imagine a huge amount of masks, every one of them saying: “I am unique and different from everyone else.”

We do need that mask called personality to make it through life – but being conscious of the mask makes a big difference. Ultimately, what is there really to defend about a mask – particularly when every one else is defending their own mask?

After saying this I already hear someone asking: “Is there then anything behind the mask?”

That question leads us to a gate that opens to the world of spirituality. (Although I think that “spirituality” is not any specific department in the totality of life. All life is spiritual, and spirituality is life.) My personal experience is that there definitely is something behind the mask.

The most recent discovery that I have made into this theme is the approach of  A.H. Almaas. He uses the word “essence” to desribe our “true nature”.

I finish this post and leave you digesting that mysterious “something” behind the mask by quoting A.H. Almaas:

“Essence is not an object we find within ourselves; it is the true nature of who we are when we are relaxed and authentic, when we are not pretending to be one way or another, consciously or unconsciously. Essence is the truth of our very presence, the purity of our consciousness and awareness. It is what we are in our original and undefiled beingness, the ultimate core reality of our soul. Essence is the authentic presence of our Being; it is, in fact, Being in its thatness. Different spiritual traditions have given it different names: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam called it Spirit; Buddhism calls it Buddha nature; Taoism calls it the Tao; Hinduism calls it Atman or Brahman. The various traditions differ in how they conceptualize Essence and how much they emphasize it in their teaching, but essence is always considered to be the most authentic, innate, and fundamental nature of who we are. And the experience and realization of Essence is the central task of spiritual work and development in all traditions.” Spacecruiser, p.8

Accepting Your Country and Your Roots

In many of my previous blog posts I have touched upon the topic of acceptance. The acceptance of your life, your wounds and scars, your personal history. I deeply believe it is through acceptance, not through denial or repression, that we heal and become whole. It sounds easy, but it is often more difficult than we believe. It somehow seems so much easier to resist, fight, and deny.

Celebrating the Vietnamese New Year. Photo: Maarit Suokas-Alanko

Recently I’ve been thinking of one area of acceptance that in my life has passed by a bit unnoticed. I have become more aware of my roots. I have started to see my own country in a different light.

I have spent many years in Asia and Africa, and of course those years have influenced me a lot. At times I have been extremely critical about my own country, and I’ve only seen all its negative aspects.

Now I have been back home in Finland for two years. During the past year I have also spent several weeks in Sweden, our Western neighbor, that I very much like. A new acceptance and appreciation has begun to grow in me. I understand that in many  ways I have been lucky to have been born in this Northern country with cold winters and long distances.

I have started think of my family and my ancestors. I’ve come to a point where I look at myself and understand that there were lots of people before me, and I am only a part in a long chain of generations.

And as I’ve been mulling over and experiencing these openings of new vistas, I have also thought of one foreign country that has a special place in my heart: Vietnam, where we lived for five years.

In Vietnamese culture ancestors have always been a living part of also the present day.

In 2005 I was able to participate in a meeting in Hanoi in which spoke a Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Thanh. He had come to visit his own country after over 20 years of exile in France.

I want to share a passage from Thich Nhat Thanh’s  book Teachings on Love. I am not a Buddhist myself, but as I am open to various sources of inspiration, I treasure this piece of text, the first of the five practices of “Touching the Earth”. To me it speaks of the acceptance of my own roots:

“In gratitude I bow to all generations of ancestors in my blood family. I see my mother and father, whose blood, flesh, and vitality are circulating in my own veins and nourishing every cell in me. Through them, I see my four grandparents. Their expectations, experiences, and wisdom have been transmitted from so many generations of ancestors. I carry in me the life, blood, experience, wisdom, happiness, and sorrow of all generations. The suffering and all the elements that need to be transformed, I am practicing to transform. I open my heart, flesh, and bones to receive the energy of insight, love, and experience transmitted to me by all my ancestors. I see my roots in my father, my mother, my grandfathers, my grandmothers, and all my ancestors. I know I am only the continuation of this ancestral lineage. Please support, protect, and transmit to me your energy. I know wherever children and grandchildren are, ancestors are there, also. I know that parents always love and support their children and grandchildren, although they are not always able to express it skillfully because of difficulties they themselves encountered. I see that my ancestors tried to build a way of life based on gratitude, joy, confidence, respect, and loving kindness. As a continuation of my ancestors, I bow deeply and allow their energy to flow through me. I ask my ancestors for their support, protection, and strength.”