A lion eaten by a man is blessed
as it changes to human form,
but a human devoured by a lion
is cursed as lion becomes human.
But this morning, in my reading from David Whyte's The Heart Aroused, I found a passage which helps illuminate this confused devouring:
"Whether we work with supportive or unsupportive colleagues, we will always be hunted by what we have most denied in ourselves. Waking or sleeping, it takes many different forms, but most often the shape of a devouring creature trying to include us, literally, in the greater body of its experience. If outer corporate inertia is used as an excuse for our own hesitations, we become the frightened stag at the edge of the lake, looking back to find that our deeper longings have turned, suddenly, to the snarling teeth of pursuing hounds.
Ironically, our place of refuge is the lake where the greater devouring animal of our disowned desire lies...The refusal to go down into the lake is the refusal to be eaten by life. The delusion is that there might be a possibility of immunity from the natural failures that accompany the soul's explorations in the world. But [Beowulf] tells us you are going to be swallowed by something greater one way or another. The question is whether you will give yourself to that greater life consciously."
I'm thinking this issue of devouring or being devoured is about our willingness to pay attention to those dark parts of ourselves; that if we do not choose to engage with them, to risk going deeper into those terrifyingly gloomy corners of the psyche, we are doomed to encounter the alternate, and ultimately much more deadly risk of being eaten alive by the very things that might have fueled us; that instead of functioning as our fullest selves, we are overtaken, consumed and derailed by our fierce and unrecognized inner demons.
Hmm. I may need to go back and re-do the photo/reflection for that Logion...
5 comments:
Yes, it is illuminating, and fascinating to think of Logion 7 with Whyte's words and yours in mind.
The element of choice is important, I think. Humans have choice, and the ability to recognize and exercise it. Animals, in our not so advanced understanding of them to date, do not; a lion must kill to eat; it may attack out of fear.
The lion has already chosen surrender to the patterns of life before it is born. We humans are the odd ones, with this constant tension as we make choices on the fly. But free will is what makes human life interesting for the Divine to experience. Sometimes, we're just God's episodes of Jerry Springer. Then He/She takes a break and watches the Dalai Lama for awhile. ;)
OK -- Joanne -- that is pricesless!
And Diane -- as always, great food for thought that I must devour byte by byte to nurture myself completely.
I'm glad someone understands this Logion ... it completely escapes me. In both cases the lion becomes human but in one the lion is blessed and the other the human is cursed. This makes sense ... how?
So, I'm thinking (if you agree that the lion is all those inner demons) that when we brave our demons, get to know them, and incorporate them into our understanding of ourselves (eat them) then the demons are blessed, lose their scariness, and become more manageable; we understand that they are all part of being human.
If in our fear we choose to ignore our demons, they will overtake and devour us, at which point we become cursed because lion becomes all that we are; we are so consumed by those dark sides of us that we lose sight of the light altogether.
Maybe it's the word "form" that makes the difference? In the first case the lion CHANGES to human form, becomes more manageable. In the second it doesn't change, soften, go away, redefine itself; it takes over the whole person, so that the person becomes lion masquerading as human; the lion -- those inner demons (and competing commitments) - has/have complete control and we can no longer honor our nobler side?
Does that help at ALL?
You can see why I found this one so challenging the first few times through...
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