This Human Life...An Archeological Dig

I gave my husband two surprise gifts for his birthday this year. The one I though would be a shoo-in for the Simple But Great Gift Award was a complete disappointment, while the other sprinted off with the prize without even breaking a sweat.  

We'd both been quite taken by videos of k.d. lang's live renditions of the Cohen classic Hallelujah. Without an audience to propel her into true brilliance, however, the CD studio version was stilted, lacking the passion befitting an ode to the glory and the heartbreak of life. 

The second gift, a DVD box set of all 110 episodes of Northern Exposure has been a different and thoroughly engaging experience. Quirky, evocative, funny, well-written with ultimately endearing characters, each episode holds at least one wise pearl. 

Like this one in season three, disc 2: "There's a dark side to each and every human soul," muses free-wheeling, philosophizing disc jokey Chris Stevens. "We wanna be Obi-Wan Kenobi, and for the most part we are, but there's a little Darth Vadar in all of us." 

Psychology has been saying the same thing for decades. We might prefer to hold a view of ourselves as virtuous, but the human psyche is profoundly textured, holding depths, inconsistencies, and impulses that defy our best whitewashing efforts. All of life is a mix of darkness and light, and we humans are no exception. While many of us celebrate the ultimate goodness lying at our core, there's just no denying that there's also a lot of static that can get in its way. Darth Vadar lives in us as well. 

While Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung gave us many gifts, one of the most important was his elucidations on the concept of the Shadow, the repository within the psyche for those traits we deny or repress, preferring not to acknowledge them even to ourselves. Jung saw it as counterpoint to the Persona, which is the face we present to the world, full of qualities we feel are acceptable. The Persona need not be a lie. It's just not the whole story. To paraphrase Walt Whitman, we are large, we contain multitudes. 

The Shadow is simply a part of us. The trick is to become acquainted with it, to know it as well as we can, to make it our own. Otherwise it exerts its influence from the sidelines, or rather from the depths of our unconscious. The Shadow is not evil, or not necessarily so. “Everyone carries a Shadow," Jung wrote, "and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.” 

But how do we come to better know this part of us? By reflection, by looking deeply into our motivations or any responses that are in opposition to what we truly believe, and by exploring reactions that are out of proportion to the situation at hand. In other words, by living as consciously as possible, by scratching the surface of how we'd like ourselves to be, in order to discover who we really are in all our human complexity and contradiction. It's like an archeological dig. Our current responses and behaviors are the present-day civilization, but as we excavate a few layers down we find their causes, either in the distant past or something more current clamoring for our attention. 

If, for example, I get hurt or furious about something relatively minor, I stop to explore that reaction. Is the current situation similar to something from my past that's in need of healing? Are my present needs not being met and, if so, how can I rectify this? Perhaps I have a less-than story I'm carrying or, conversely, an exaggerated sense of entitlement. Whatever answers come to me, I simply feel my way forward, following the breadcrumbs and trusting the goodness at my core to lead me to a fuller truth. 

As we bring the light of our awareness to all our many parts, they become less dense, more known, and better integrated. We grow more whole, exchanging a cut-out, cartoon version of ourselves for something livelier, more authentic. True. 

"This ain't no either-or proposition," muses Chris Stevens, "cuz we're talking about dialectics, the good and the bad merging into us. Ya know, you can run, but you can't hide...Face the darkness. Stare it down and own it. It's like brother Nietzsche says, being human's a complicated gig. So give that old dark night of the soul a hug, and howl the eternal "Yes!' " 

Which brings us back to Hallelujah, an eternal "Yes!" song if ever there was one. If you're unfamiliar with it, you can click on the link below or google the video from the Juno awards, and let lang's voice carry you to the final crescendo in this ode to life's glory and its heartbreak. 

Our hallelujah moments are often gloriously ecstatic. And yet they can also be heartbreakingly painful, reflected in Cohen's phrase of the "broken hallelujah." Such is this mixed bag of a life we've been given. 

To say "Yes!" to life means saying "Yes!" to it all. If we practice doing so now, we'll have the best chance of arriving at our last breath whole and grateful for the life gifted us. Our final exhale then will be likely to carry with it a simple, a beautiful, and a heartfelt hallelujah. 

And streaming from me to you in this moment...Hallelujah!

Leia

Here are some links for you...

You can find the musings of Chris Stevens by clicking here.

You can find what is arguably the best of Hallelujah renditions, by k.d. lang at the Juno awards, by clicking here.