The Tao

This blog is a continual story that begins with the first posting in the Blog Archive, The Journey Begins. Click down the list to read entries, and click on arrows to reveal monthly drop-down menus.

I feel very blessed by the many people who have stepped forward to help me navigate through the dark night of my cancer journey. As my partner Ken, my sister Jacqui, and my dear friend Pat were negotiating practical realities for me, I was working with a few therapists and a Native American shaman to help me clear a path through the Underworld. With the loving support of these gifted people, I began to steadily chip away at my unconscious complexes that hold unresolved fear, anger and other destructive emotions soon after the day of my diagnosis.

An unconscious complex is a pattern we hold deep inside that effects how we think and feel and act. And not only do we have no idea that our unconscious complex holds this kind of power over us, usually, we don't even know that it exists. But when we run into an inescapable, relentless obstacle in life, it is a sign that our soul is making a move to transform our unconscious complex, and that a great struggle is taking place deep within. As our soul efforts to push our hidden complexes into the light of awareness, we are thrust into great drama and turmoil in our life. Suddenly, the energy that is trying to move up and out from our depths can take on volcanic force. We might be diagnosed with cancer. Our husband might suddenly declare he wants a divorce. We might be losing our child to drugs. The bank might be repossessing home. These events that seem to be happening from the outside in are actually happening in perfect synchronicity with the movement of our soul. They are taking place within the Flow of All That Is, the Great Eternal Tao.

Lao Tzu, Translated by Victor H. Mair

15

(52)

____

Everything under heaven has a beginning

which may be thought of as the mother

of all under heaven.

Having realized the mother,

you thereby know her children.

Knowing her children,

go back to abide with the mother.

To the end of your life,

you will not be imperiled.

When our hearts ache, our bellies churn, and our raw, broken voices sob, "How do I make the cancer go away?" "How do I get my husband back?" "How do I rescue my child?" "How do I save my home?" we desperately turn to Spirit for an answer. When threatened with profound loss, our longing for restoration makes us desperate to wrestle answers from divine powers that seem uncaring at best and unthinkably cruel at worst.

Let's go back to the riddle: Everything under heaven has a beginning which may be thought of as the mother of all under heaven. Our keyword is "beginning." The mother of all under heaven is the Source, the energy of the Big Bang, the fountain of Spirit that created all that is. The Mother Moment is the instant of pure potential that is about to burst forth into form. Next line: Having realized the mother, you therefore know her children. Having understood that Mother Moment is the birth of pure potential into infinite varieties of form, we know her children, which is All The Cool Stuff That Got Born, including you and me. Next line: Knowing her children, go back to abide with the mother. Now that we have experienced All The Cool Stuff That Got Born, it's time to remember the quiet, unborn Mother Moment, the true Source of our awareness. To the end of your life, you will not be imperiled. Once we break out of the trance that enthralls us in the multiplicity of phenomena, we will be one with Source in each present moment, and we will be safe from delusion.

This painting from the fifteenth century by Hieronymus Bosch is a surrealist vision of humanity caught in All The Cool Stuff That Got Born in the Mother Moment. Accessing his vivid imagination, Bosch painted the diversity of human experience that runs from the luxuriant highs of pleasure to the anguished mires of torture. To use Lao Tzu's metaphor, the people in this painting are abiding with the children and ignoring the mother. You might say that they have some inner work to do. It takes some will power to free ourselves from the hypnotic reveries of creation and enter the peace of Mother Moment, but it's doable.

The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch

When I do work with my therapists, my intention is to dissolve the unconscious complexes that keep me hypnotized in Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights. And each time I dissolve one of these complexes, I feel a release of pent-up life force that is urgently needed for my healing on all levels - physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. In my psychospiritual work, I find that my soul naturally guides me into the peaceful, healing space of Mother Moment, a space in which cancer cells are not energetically fed, in which loving acceptance is generated, and in which my mind finds nonjudgmental, soothing rest.

I would love to hear from you. To leave a comment about this posting, scroll down and type inside the white box below the heading, POST A COMMENT. Underneath the white box, it says Comment as: with a white bar that says Ria Moran (Google). Click the arrows on the right and a dropdown menu will appear. Choose name/URL and type in your name. The URL is not necessary. Or, if you wish, you may choose to leave a comment anonymously. Then click Post Comment in the next white box and your comment will be published. Thank you!