Rare opportunities

"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." - Carl Jung

As we hear our country's policies excluding immigrants, excluding Muslims and condoning automatic weapons to protect ourselves from others, we are called to become conscious.

In making others bad and dangerous, we are displacing our fears of our own split off parts. We have stuffed all that is not acceptable in our family, culture and greater society into a bag we drag behind us. We can choose to look at these parts in the eye and re-inhabit them within ourselves. Or, we can project them out into the world making others bad.

The principle at work here is that which is excluded - whether a family member, a traumatic event or disowned parts of ourselves such as fear, anger, shame- will reappear somewhere in our family, in a similar event or in our collective blame of others.

We must first look at these split off parts in ourselves. Then we can understand them in others and in society at large. Thus they can find a place in our hearts and we can we move forward enriched and renewed.