AWAY IN A MANGER
“Psychological development…without corresponding spiritual development tends to leave a person at the typical mid-life crisis point: many accomplishments but a life that feels empty of meaning and purpose even if one is engaged in community service or other worthwhile activities. The final spiritual passage through, where the ego is decisively dethroned in our psyche feels experientially like a real death, with all the fears and inner chaos this brings up.”
(Hillevi Ruumet Pathways of the Soul)
Being in a transition from tropical sunlight and warmth to the chill and rain of the great gray north, I reach for the same creature comforts that have appealed to generations of hardy Canadians: soups and stews, crackling fires, music, books, puzzles, cheesy rom-coms and Christmas lights times infinity. And the companionship of others, not because “misery loves company” but because we crave the feelings of acceptance and belonging generated by the presence of our loved ones. This is especially important as the nights get longer and we have fewer reasons to venture out of doors. This protracted period of darkness has its echo in the spiritual journey as well. Though this can occur at any time in one’s life (not just in December, or among our elders) there are common elements between the winter solstice and the “dark night of the soul” as written about in contemplative Christianity, or as the apotheosis of the ego in transpersonal psychology.
Hillevi Ruumet describes it thus:
“How many people at midlife, feeling a vague call to something deeper or greater, have unconsciously sought in a new personal love relationship the connection with divine Love, often betraying commitments and breaking up families in the process? But if in this waltz where both are struggling to lead, the Ego manages to see that the Self knows the dance better and consents to follow, their struggle can lead to the birth of a capacity for love as Aloha, embedded in the Divine and grounded in well-developed Egoic skills that will help to implement the person’s newly realized values in the world.”
Without trying to sound sacrilegious, I ask myself: What if the Christmas story were simply metaphorical for this birth of a capacity for love as Aloha? Ruumet explains Aloha with the following: “According to the late and much respected Hawaiian elder Nana Veary, ‘Alo’ means the bosom, the center of the universe. ‘Ha’ is the breath of God. Aloha is a feeling, a recognition of the divine. It is not just a word or greeting. When you say Aloha to someone you are conveying or bestowing this feeling. [It] is about the heart energy of the divine, and seeing our common divine essence in every human being.”
Seeing our common divine essence hinges on the discovery that we are not the unique, independent and self-sufficient individuals we imagine ourselves to be. It requires a basic cognitive shift from the perspective of “us versus them” and “me versus you” to an understanding that we are all interdependent, and nobody wins unless everybody wins. Aloha levels the playing field, as it were. It comes with the acceptance of our relative insignificance.
This transformation occurs slowly because the ego is highly defended against anything that threatens its dominance, its sense of control and all-knowingness. It’s just too humiliating for the ego to admit that it doesn’t have all the answers. But if one learns to trust in the power of love over the love of power in which the ego is embedded, the world takes on a much different hue. Spiritual expression can then evolve into the practice of compassion, arising out of a sense of connectedness and empathy with all humanity.
I believe that every individual comes to this Rubicon between the ego’s I, me, and mine, and the sense of connectedness with all humanity that Ruumet is describing. Each of us is at some time a babe in the manger with Fate or circumstances rendering us helpless — if only in our ability to find meaning and purpose in serving the demands of an overgrown ego. May we all see and follow the bright star of an open, caring and compassionate heart.
So as not to get coal in our Christmas stockings.