unless its roots reach down to hell.
The higher you rise, the deeper you must have gone first. There is no exception to this law.
Jung did not mean hell as a place of punishment. He meant it as the underworld of the psyche, everything rejected, buried, and denied. Every fear you have refused to name. Every wound you have covered instead of healing. Every part of yourself you decided was too ugly, too dangerous, or too shameful to claim as your own.
Most people try to grow upward while ignoring what lies beneath them. They chase enlightenment, success, or peace without ever descending into the parts of themselves they have spent a lifetime avoiding. And so they stay small, reaching toward the light with roots too shallow to hold real height.
The alchemists called this the nigredo, the blackening, the necessary descent into darkness before any true transformation can occur. You cannot skip this stage. You cannot bypass it with positivity or spiritual bypassing dressed as growth. The tree that reaches heaven does so precisely because its roots have gone where it is uncomfortable to look.
This is not a metaphor for the weak-hearted. It is a law of the psyche, as real as gravity. What you refuse to face controls you from below. What you finally face becomes the foundation that lets you rise.
The serpent wrapped around this tree is not the enemy of ascension. It is the guardian of it, the very thing that must be integrated, not defeated, before the branches can reach the sun.
Your shadow is not what is wrong with you. It is the root system waiting to hold your growth.
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Honoring the Darkness While Remembering the Light
• Sweet Darkness
• Dark Light
• Light and Dark: “Both Holy, Both Life-Giving”
• Dark Matter: “An Intriguing Aspect of the Universe”
• Mystics Full of Grace
• Tomb Time
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Gerald May
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Caroline Jones
• A Church of Both Roots and Branches
• The Mysticism of Trees
• The Prayer Tree
• A Visit to the Prayer Tree
• Cosmic Connection
• A Profoundly Troubling and Tragic Indictment
• The Devil (We Think) We Know
• Cernunnos and Pan: “Witch-Fathers of the Wild”
• Ed Simon on Why We Need a Pagan Theology
• Biophilia, the God Pan, and a Baboon Named Scott
• Pan’s Labyrinth: Critiquing the Cult of Unquestioning Obedience
Image: Bryan Proteau.
I’ve never researched the psychology behind this theory but since a very young age after a lot of loss, grief, suffering, healing and growth (a lifelong process) I’ve believed this, that we can only experience joy to the level we have allowed ourselves to experience pain. Like two ends of a spectrum that are ever expanding as we grow.
ReplyDeleteNot to say we should “stay” in pain or make ourselves suffer. We have to allow ourselves to feel it, to experience it long enough to process it and then heal from it.
This is what opens us up to a new appreciation and higher capacity for accepting and feeling joy. It gives us “depth”, wisdom from experience and opens us up to a new awareness of the good in life and in people.
It’s hard though. It can be difficult to “get out” of that level of pain. It’s important to have support and not isolate, especially if you’re dealing with trauma. But when we do not process or deal with difficulties, it always stunts our emotional growth and healing and then that hurt, no matter how much we try to hide it burry it, will come out sideways…often through addiction of some kind (drugs, alcohol, eating disorders, impulsive spending, gambling, sexual addiction, workaholic, obsessing in working out, etc.).
I heard the saying once, a long time ago. “Hurt people, hurt people.” That’s true, in my opinion. And not always in an “abusive cycle” kind of way, but often more subtle. It’s difficult to fully open ourselves up to people and relationships in a non-destructive way when dealing with stressors in life if we have not healed.
I love this, Michael. Thank you for sharing.