GOLDEN AND DARK SHADOW REFLECTED IN OTHERS, WAIT WITHIN US, FOR OUR FREEDOM

All of us at some time in our lives, are confronted with parts of ourselves that get in our way, that limit us, and keep us from becoming more than we are.  It might be a manipulative behavior, or avoidance.  It might be an unexplainable attraction to bad boys, or even attraction to a “golden child” or person who seems to move in complete grace.  This is our shadow in action, and our ego instinctively looks away because shadow holds the limited portions of our personality and habits developed in the past that no longer serve, and are not part of conscious awareness. These are the parts of ourselves that we have learned to repress. 

Our dark shadow holds repressed negativity while our golden shadow holds our repressed potentiality.  These two aspects of shadow are the Guardians of the Threshold to spirit, to non duality, and to living in grace.  They prevent us from being all we can be, from reaching our highest potential, and from living our lives in the experience of heavenly, loving spirit. 

When we come to the same place with our science and our mysticism, the importance of understanding our viewpoint and our place in it cannot be denied.  That threshold of fear, where our own shadow keeps us from the non dual experience, is where I find most verbose folks whose need to rail against the world's ills might be threatened by taking responsibility for the world in a new morality.  This anxiety can be difficult to let go of, like the fear that guards the threshold.  Letting go of the need to find the world wrong so that we can feel right is releasing our own golden shadow.  What we cannot know without crossing the threshold, is that releasing the shadow is also stepping into it, and opening the door to infinite possibility for ourselves and our experience.  We choose possibility with our viewpoint, creating our experience, and when we cross the threshold and accept the will of God as infinite possibility, we accept all that is as our own.  The paradox can be unimaginable, especially to those who hold tight to fear, good and evil and its sweet fruit, me and not me.  The promise of the Kingdom and infinite possibility is just beyond, and so much more...

Excerpted from All About Living by Molly Brogan

Guardians of the Threshold

OUR OWN FEARS GUARD THE THRESHOLD TO SPIRIT AND OUR ENTRY

I love Rudolph Steiner's story about the Guardians of the Threshold, who guard our entry into spiritual awareness, until we understand that one Guardian is the golden part of us who's beauty is too blinding and we must look away (or accept our self worth) and the other Guardian is our dark nature that holds the archetypes of the thief, whore, and all other undesirable natures that we look away from and cannot own up.  Until we do, we cannot cross the threshold.  Once we do, the guardians vanish, because they ARE us. 

I think it is worth noting, that according to the Steiner teaching, once the threshold is crossed, the experience of the seeker changes to one who's experience does not contain direct violence and chaos - because duality is transcended, harmony can rule the day.  It does not mean that duality no longer exists, only that it is no longer the experience of the seeker who has crossed the threshold. 

You cannot cross the threshold into integration until you know that you can illuminate darkness yourself.  The first Guardian contains all of our fears in aspects of good and evil. These fears prohibit our crossing the Threshold until we reconcile all good and evil within and see them interwoven into our whole being.  The unseen then becomes seen. 

The second Guardian, our golden shadow, is a sublime, luminous beauty impossible to describe.  It holds our highest potential, and our low self image and our perceived limits keep us from embracing this Guardian and crossing the Threshold.  To embrace the second Guardian we must realize that our highest possibilities (unseen) within ourselves creates our character and that our world of sense is a seed ground for the higher world.  By embracing the second Guardian, everyone is redeemed and all are connected.  We cannot cross the threshold in separation.

Excerpted from All About Living by Molly Brogan
Artwork by Alejandro Silveira Bruno.  Many thanks.

Heroes, Villains and Rudolph Steiner

Linda said...
Can you tell me about "the Opposing Spiritual Powers," and how they are like anti-heros?

Thanks for the question, Linda. I should preface the answer by saying that I have read the Rudolph Steiner teachings for several years now and find them to be mythical and complicated. I feel that whatever organization there is to life is much, much simpler, but I do admire some of his concepts. One of my favorite is his idea that humanity has a soul that influences and evolves along with our individual souls, much like CG Jung’s collective unconsciousness. Another is that our awareness unfolds, and humanity evolves due largely to the interplay of opposing forces (the tree of knowledge or good and evil.) The Steiner teachings tell us that in the course of human history, three specific opposing forces have provided our common soul and individual souls with opposition to our perfect nature (the Christ impulse) or the God within us. The dynamic of these forces are such that either we transcend the opposition and realize freedom by reconciling the forces (transcending duality) or we continue to battle.

Lucifer was the first, providing our natural, darker side. He is closely linked to nature and the mechanics of human nature so that the opposition he presents are storms or plagues or the fall of an civilization or the domination of our ego nature. His gift to humanity was free will, obtained in the choice to realize the Christ impulse and to transcend.

Ahriman was the second. His influence was first felt about 4M years ago and is still present today. He is associated with technology and materialism and prevents us from not seeing through the material to the spirit. He is also closely linked to the laws of karma, and keeps us from understanding the process of our freedom from karmic debt. But once the Ahrimanic forces have been reconciled, and we are free from karmic debt, we enter the age of Azuras. The Steiner teachings tell us that humanity is just beginning to enter this age but is still primarily ruled by Ahriman.

Not much is written on the Azuras and to research, I joined the Steiner library in New York, and read several of his books and lectures that hadn’t been taken out of the library in decades. I also joined Steiner discussion groups all over the world, talking to folks who had their own ideas about where Steiner was going with this. The forces of Azuras distract us into looking away from spirituality and convince us that our material experience is reality, not a reflection of our conscious awareness. It tricks us out of taking our objective into the subjective and becoming the creator with it, and believing the reverse is true. The Azuras has both the natural quality of Lucifer and the Ahrimanic qualities of technology and materialism. There is a bit written and much discussed about Steiner’s notion that once we give any part of ourselves to the Azuras, it can never be recovered. My (controversial) belief was that Steiner understood that once we transcend duality, mind and soul (karma), our lives and the formation of our experience is more immediately effected by universal laws. Once we consciously understand how to reconcile the opposition and realize our connection with all of life, we are distracted less easily even though the distractions become more dramatic. Ken Wilber would say it hurts more but we suffer less after the One Taste.

It’s easy to see how these opposing forces can be used as the hero/anti hero of a novel. I develop the characters of the three anti heros in my trilogy to reflect the nature of Steiner’s opposing forces. This allows me to develop the character of the heroine along a natural line of spiritual development, learning to release her karmic debt and move into a more harmonious storyline. And who doesn’t love a happy ending?

Journey of Spirit

Michelle said...
I have a question about your book of poems but did not know where to post it until I found the archives. You might want to have another general post on the mainpage. Where do the poems in "A Blaze of Light" appear in your books? Have the poems in Shadow Dancing been published elsewhere? Why were they included if that book is not published?

Many thanks for the good suggestion, Michelle. I will follow this up with a new welcome post.

The poems in my book, A Blaze of Light, are all from my trilogy of novels. It is true, the third novel, Shadow Dancing, is a work in progress and not yet published. At the time that I considered publishing a book of poems, I was far enough along in the writing of Shadow Dancing to have several wonderful poems ready. I thought that the series of poems was enough to adequetly portray the journey of spirit of the main character of the trilogy. When Shadow Dancing is finally published, it may have more poems than those included in A Blaze of Light, but the poems already included will not be changed or left out. My hope was that the book of poems might pique interest in the third novel, and I will have anticipation for its release. Thanks for asking. Molly Brogan

Discussion of PD's comment on Rudolph Steiner

PD said...
Hi Molly. I see by your company webpage that you, like me, are a student of Rudolph Steiner. Do you use the ideas of Anthroposophy in your books?

Dear pd,
It is always great to meet someone who has an understanding of the Steiner teachings. They certainly can take a lifetime to study. As a matter of fact, I incorporate these ideas into my writing in a number of ways. The most obvious, is my creation of each anti-hero in my novels. Each is based on the characteristics of what Steiner would call the "opposing forces."

In Remember Me, the anti-hero, Bob, is motivated by his own primevil nature. His tempestuous personality driven by his darkest emotions create the opposing force most like Steiner's Luciferian forces. If the Mary Margaret character was better able to look inward for the answers to her problems, she would be better able to reconcile the conflict in her experience.

In Chasing Twilight, the anti-hero, Jake, is motivated by finances and technology. Even his Scientology beliefs are based in self will and control. In this, he represents Steiner's Ahrimanic forces. By embracing and releasing this relationship in grace, Molly can fully own her soul, release her karmic debt, and move into a direct relationship with spirit.

This is not easy to understand unless one has studied Steiner. I would love to discuss this with you further and invite you to email me directly. I know some other Steiner students in LA, Las Vegas and Switzerland who dialogue with me on Steiner. We would all enjoy your input.

Best Regards,
Molly Brogan