The Mercurial Nature of Wholeness

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There is a lot of emphasis these days, due to Carl Jung’s early work, on becoming Whole.
But there is a lot of misunderstanding about what “wholeness” is. Wholeness is not being
good, being better, becoming perfect, being "saved" by Jesus, becoming powerful,
becoming wiser, being "of the light", or even becoming more spiritual. In fact, taking the
journey to Wholeness is actually the process by which one becomes psychically well.
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Wholeness requires recognition of our instinctual, animal-nature as well as our higher
will to be something more than earthbound beings.
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Wholeness, in fact, encompasses both man’s darkest Dark and his lightest Light. Being
Whole requires that we each investigate all that we are, and what mankind is is
Everything That Is.
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Many choose a spiritual approach to becoming Whole, but find that in spiritualizing their
needs to be “of the Light” they increase psychological suffering in their lives. The
problem is that spiritualization often drives us away from our natural needs, our
instinctual nature, and our bodies. And that Path leads to illness…not Wholeness and not
psychological wellness. When we are focusing upon spirituality or soul, we tend to be
influenced by cultural values or religious teachings that are concerned about ethical
decisions. We turn towards behaviors we have been taught are "good." And in so doing
we increase the pressure to become another kind of being than we, in fact, are! And that
turn becomes an invitation to psychological or spiritual illness, and if we don’t discover
the way inward to listen to our state of mind within, our path directs us into physical
illness as well. But it is precisely these earthy, instinctual and taboo needs that we reject
and repress, refuse to accept as aspects of our true selves.
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Our inability to embrace what is basic and base in ourselves leads to a false sort of
spirituality.
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If our nature is to instead turn away from societal programming--abandoning ethical
belief systems or dogma-- spiritualization can provide an impetus to turn inward,
investigating dreams and images that arise from one’s subconscious or Collective
Unconscious realms. But that spirituality is different than our modern day ethics-based
religious training. It is a spirituality that asks "what am I? And "Who am I?" And then
opens and listens within.
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And it is inside that we uncover our own mercurial nature…we discover that we dance in
both darkness as well as in light. As our dreams contain the numinous energies of the
archetypes, we find ourselves playing all kinds of roles in life, guided by these archetypal
patterns of light and dark. The images point the way to wellness be directing us into our
instincts and our bodily needs and challenges us to discover our paradoxical nature is
mercurian..
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Living close to one's instinctual nature is the key to psychic health. But instincts are not
to be spiritualized. They are not to be classified as “good” or “evil”. But they do take us
down into our bodies and link us to Nature. They force us to obey the Law of Survival,
and thus they are the basis of wellness in Matter. Survival is insured by taking care of our
own needs. But instincts can be expressed destructively or constructively. Our instincts
may drive us into violence, rape, murder, manipulation or abusive relationships, greed,
and lust. They are basic and enormously powerful energies. So in working with these
powerful needs, we must be prepared to think through and will ourselves into positive
directions.
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As we surrender the Heights and Fall to Earth, we discover we must surrender the battle
to be Good. We must stop spiritualizing the Path. Our journey is the exploration of the
Self…not becoming Perfect or Good or Better. We confront and accept our beastial
nature, our Serpentine side. We stop trying to make Soul at the conscious level.
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The gods (archetypal needs) are mercurial---not easily classified into human concepts of
“good” and “evil.” As we become guided by these archetypal energies, we encounter the
way in which our instinctual nature interacts with human cultures. We feel the
compulsions that accompany this experience and abide in their painful yearnings for
awhile, as we learn that we are playing out Great Stories of Myth and legend. The gods
play here through us.
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Since the earliest times, the symbols of Love were of a mixed nature in human culture.
Zeus was the god of Thunder and Lightning, a Killer sometimes and a Lover sometimes.
Aphrodite, the goddess of Love, was a seducer and a possessive wife needing love too.
Love was a thing higher than the gods that ruled human behavior. Human love was
different. To the gods, Good and Evil were of little concern, for the gods were mercurial,
containing both. Good and Evil behavior did not restrain or contain them.
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When Mankind plays the parts of those energies, we too cannot be contained by
categories of behavior. Both good and evil emerge from our life stories.
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To find wellness in these times, mankind must learn to perceive life at a metaphorical
level that accepts both Good and Evil as events in grander plan. In the meantime, we
must choose wellness, and that means accepting and becoming familiar with our
mercurial nature. To accept ourselves here as creatures of this Earth, playing out the
themes of Love and Hate, manifesting the gods here. Those who fight their own nature to
act out ideals of pure love, pure goodness will find that their behavior generates psychic
dysfunction, suffering or illusion.
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But as we turn away from "normal" society to follow our own path inward, we disobey
the rules of society; we ignore society’s ethical rules; we act out our pain and our need to
heal ourselves. To find a new way to live in psychic wellness, love what we are, and find
meaning in life, we journey into strange places. We become eccentric or strange. We
investigate unpopular wisdoms an occult teachings. We discover that what is natural in
the psyche has in our culture become rejected, outcast, occult, and mysterious. We
become “seers, visionaries, prophets, and psychics...all behaviors that society defines as
pathological. Our friends draw back and abandon us. Our families grow angry and
pressure us to abandon our search, our behavior and our new independence of thought.
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As our archetypal stories unfold, we can catch the meaning of what is happening to us.
We can step out of the archetypal roles, see the great stories we are living, and become
more conscious of who we are and what we are doing here on Earth. Our insights then
release our lives from their archetypal, spiritual or conceptual containers. Dropping the
spiritualization and dropping the intellectualization of our Path frees us to live in
Freedom here. Life is “As It Is”. Nothing more be said here.
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When this is done, we can stop repressing our instinctual nature and live. We can enjoy
the miraculous sensations of being alive and meeting powerful needs. We can let go of
our need for power, stop living in our egos, and stop trying to control things. We can stop
trying to get “Lighter” or better, stop dividing up the Cosmos into Light and Dark, or stop
associating ourselves with the Light alone.
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We lose the battle to change ourselves and fall back into our natural selves.
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We discover that our Great Work has been to understand and accept our own dark
mercurial nature.
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In discovering our own nature, we discover the nature of the Universe. We no longer are
imprisoned by the endless passage from one imagined reality to another. We recognize
the realities that we represent above us. We no longer abide in fantasies or illusion about
ourselves.
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Plainly, no one else can do this work for us. This is our own task.