Unafraid— Soon at Principle Gallery, Alexandria
In myths the hero is the one who conquers the dragon, not the one who is devoured by it. And yet both have to deal with the same dragon. Also, he is no hero who never met the dragon, or who, if once he saw it, declared afterwards that he saw nothing. Equally, only one who has risked the fight with the dragon and is not overcome by it wins the hoard, the “treasure hard to attain”. He alone has a genuine claim to self-confidence, for he has faced the dark ground of his self and thereby has gained himself. This experience gives some faith and trust, the pistis in the ability of the self to sustain him, for everything that menaced him from inside he has made his own. He has acquired the right to believe that he will be able to overcome all future threats by the same means. He has arrived at an inner certainty which makes him capable of self-reliance, and attained what the alchemists called the unio mentalis.
–-Carl Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, 1955
I was thinking yesterday, on Thanksgiving, about those things for which I was grateful. A kind of summing-up of the people and those few memorable moments and events that shaped and gave meaning to the life I now live.
It wasn’t surprising that most of the people were remembered and appreciated in a warm way. However, I was struck by how many of the things deserving of my gratitude came about and were formed as a result of my struggles in this world. It gave me the realization that by somehow surviving those things that might have broken me — my personal dragons– I had been granted a gift of sorts.
A “treasure hard to attain,” as it was put in the text above from Carl Jung.
It was comprised of the knowledge and confidence that I could endure the attack from dragons, both from inside and outside myself.
And what a treasure it is.
It’s easy to be thankful for our good fortune, for things that come to us as gifts or with little effort. Unfortunately, those things often teach us nothing and can leave just as easily as they came. But those things that test you, that leave scars and teach you lessons for survival, stay with you forever. You can draw on their lessons and the self-reliance they provide nearly every day.
I know I have. On the most dismal of days, when I feel the weight of fatigue and near hopelessness, it is the knowledge that I have endured before and can endure again that sustains me.
This extends to my work. There are times when this is a very hard task, times when I feel like an empty vessel with nothing left to offer and that my time in the creative sun is done. On those dark days, with that new dragon at the door, just a small reminder of battles with dragons from my past, provides just enough self-belief to gather the courage to carry on.
As Jung put it:
He alone has a genuine claim to self-confidence, for he has faced the dark ground of his self and thereby has gained himself. This experience gives some faith and trust, the pistis in the ability of the self to sustain him, for everything that menaced him from inside he has made his own. He has acquired the right to believe that he will be able to overcome all future threats by the same means.
So, of all the things for which I could be thankful, I reserve special thanks for those dragons I have survived. They have kept me alive, and I am better for the lessons they have taught me.
Redtree Times 