Healing: Storm-Child
A few years ago, under the counsel of one of the wisest and kindest men I’ve ever known, I undertook a thought exercise to attempt to find some structure within my soul.
He invited me to imagine a scenario where I was hosting a dinner party for each of the separate parts of me, and to do my best to describe each of them in great detail.
As you can imagine, this is a strange yet powerful exercise.
In my meditations, I created the vision of a round table, with several chairs. There were no walls, just light receding into darkness, and a white tablecloth contrasting with the black chairs.
The light came only from a few candles on the table. There were no place settings, just glasses of water. After creating the vision, I breathed gently, awaiting the guests who I was hoping would arrive.
And three of them came.
The first was a small child. Maybe 5-6 years of age. He moved timidly, as though afraid to be there, and afraid of how his presence would be treated. He took his place at the table quietly, hesitantly, and waited with his eyes darting to and fro, his movements rapid, his posture sunken.
It was like he was trying to take up as little space as possible, and was scared that his very existence would result in his expulsion.
And I knew him as me.
The second guest at the table was slower to arrive. An older man, he seemed tired, exhausted. His clothes looked as if they had been laundered a million times, yet somehow his weariness and frustrations had been baked into the very garments he wore.
He seemed angry, but without the energy to express it any other way than to shout at the child. Every move, every breath, seemingly every thought that the child had was in one way or another subject to the judgment of the man.
His words were vicious, cutting, cruel. He was the personification of the antithesis of mercy.
And I recognized him as the voice that my childhood had installed in my soul.
And then the third entity arrived. He entered from the darkness, every movement controlled, but barely suppressing the rage inside of him. He flowed into the chair, precise, determined and radiating a desire to destroy all in front of him.
I sensed that his presence here was an anathema to him, that being called against his will was an insult of the highest order. He stared at me with eyes full of anger, his face a snarl of repressed pain and loathing. No words escaped his tongue, as if to speak would be to open the floodgates of all he held back, all he kept within.
And I gently nodded my head to the shadow inside of me.
As the three of them sat there, I was overwhelmed with a flood of emotion. I could see the pain of the child, and his fear and helplessness that had breathed life into the shadow.
I could feel the weariness of the old man, and yet I knew that his voice had to be silenced, until he could be taught to speak words of balance, coda of kindness, principles of peace and understanding.
For the child has to grow into the man, taking his place against the voice, and somehow integrating the shadow into his persona, so that he might have the power that he needed to heal from the things he has seen and felt.
The shadow needed to be brought into alignment, so that he might protect the child within the bounds of kindness and humility that the child desired.
It was my role to bring these three together into my world, and find a peace between them, enabling the child to stand against the storms of his past, and face the storms present in his future.
And as you can probably surmise, the dinner party is far from over.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings