The Unraveling and the Re-making

To keep things in perspective. With all that is happening, it is easy to succumb to the overwhelming sense of helplessness and overwhelm in the face of what can only be described as dark forces operating in the Universe. The paradox here is that without these dark forces we would not have the contrast with which we can recognize and appreciate as beauty and light, and we would not have a driving impetus, a force pushing consciousness always to a higher state of refinement and evolution.

This is not to justify nor condone the dark forces, it is to embrace paradox at a time overflowing with it. We will never have a Utopia, this is true, but what we presently have is an utter dystopia, this is indisputable, there will will always be darkness, but we can consciously work to create a world with less of it.

I got this from Navigating the Coming Chaos: A Handbook For Inner Transition by Carolyn Baker, a book I highly recommend for anyone who acknowledges the necessity of building an "internal bunker" for what inevitably awaits all of us as we experience the upheaval and chaos associated with the maturation of our species from adolescence to adulthood. Her blog can also be found on my constantly growing list of recommended sites to the right.

The Unraveling and the Re-making 

Once upon a time, a story was told about an old woman and a cave, and the story continues to be told today. Some People said that the cave did not exist, nor the old woman, but the old ones said that cave exists, and in that cave there's an old woman weaving a beautiful garment. She's making a trim for it, elegant and beautiful, in order to finish it. And because she wants it to be the best it can be, she's making it out of porcupine quills, and in order weave them, she has to flatten them, and in order to flatten them, she has to bite them down with her teeth, and she's been biting down on porcupine quills for so many years-for maybe hundreds, maybe thousands of years that her teeth have been worn down to stubs that barely appear above the surface of the gums. And still she keeps biting down on the quills and weaving the trim of the garment. 

She Does it constantly and only once in awhile stops, and when she stops, she goes to the great cauldron that is on the other side of the cave, and when she goes to that cauldron, she stirs the soup that is in it-the soup that she has been making from all of the herbs, and all of the plants and grains and everything good that grows on the earth in this great cauldron. And if she doesn't stir it once in awhile, it will burn, and many things will turn out badly, so she stirs it, and because she's so old and tired from all that she's been doing, she moves very slowly. And while she is stirring the cauldron, the black dog that is also in the cave goes to the garment that she has been weaving and unravels everything that she has done so that when she finishes stirring the soup that has everything in it, she has to begin the weaving of the garment all over again. 

Now some people say that black dog is the cause of all the trouble in the world, and if that black dog would just stop interrupting the weaving of the old woman o f the world, everything would be fine, but the elders say, if that black dog ever stops unraveling things, if this world ever loses the trouble that is in it, and the garment is completed, then that will be the end of the world and everything in it. That is to say, it is the unraveling that keeps everything going. It is the trouble that keeps the beauty being made. It is the taking apart that causes the old woman to begin making the world again, over and over again.