“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes. – Walt Whitman
This is Krishna revealing the truth of himself to Arjuna on the battle field just before combat. There’s the central face that can be seen and then staggered behind are all the hidden aspects that lay within but go unnoticed. It feels a little bit like when we put our game face on for the day ahead, deciding which parts of our self we’ll reveal and which parts we’ll keep hidden. Some get brought out when we’re with the ones we love, others come out for those we work with, still others for our parents, and then there are the faces we are unfamiliar with because we show them so rarely, if ever. But all of them live within us. These are all the identities, aspects, and paradoxes of who we are, all of our quirks and complexities. We may have one face we show primarily, but really we all carry a collective.
In truth, we are each a hodgepodge, a unique conglomeration of all that has come before. We carry all our personal incongruities but we also contain everything our ancestors have handed down to us. Strange habits or proclivities we’ve had as long as we can remember, a laugh like our crazy Aunt Lori, or the way we worry too much like Grandpa Laddie. That’s because they’ve been our teachers as we’ve grown up, but they have also passed along their genetic information that resides hidden within, and lays the very foundations of who we are. We are the latest articulation in a long line that extends all the way back to the beginning.
“The flowers of the Yucca plant open for one night only. The (Yucca) moth takes the pollen from one of the flowers and kneads it into a little pellet. Then it visits a second flower, cuts open the pistil, lays its eggs between the ovules and then stuffs the pellet into the funnel shaped opening of the pistil. Only once in its life does the moth carry out this complicated operation.” – Jung
The moth wasn’t trained or taught, it knew what to do and when because somewhere inside is this innate and ancient wisdom. The same is true for us. We carry the history of the universe and all the knowledge that’s been within us unconsciously, it’s like a secret code we are trying to decipher. And when we do make some sense of it, we make more sense of our lives. All that underground primeval information comes together with our inner multiplicity to direct us to what drives us, what resonates with us on a deeper level, it helps us piece together more of who we are on every level. When we travel these roads that speak to our soul we come to know our self more deeply.
By making space for all the pieces of who we are, we create a more complete picture of ourselves. The truth is we are an integral whole, not random pieces. And we need all the pieces of ourselves, good, bad, light, and dark, the wonderful and the terrible. Because together they create the real picture of who we are, together they create a richness and depth of character. Wholeness will never be found in only picking what we think are the best or most acceptable parts of our self, but in cultivating the whole realm, the many faces of who we are, and listening to what each has to contribute.
When we open to all that we are, we make room for our deepest and truest self to shine forth.
kb
