The Alchemy of Relationship by
Tom Kenyon
This article was taken from the Magdalen Manuscript (ORB
Communications).
Many of us do relationships the way
we play poker. We do everything possible to get the upper hand. And if that
fails, we bluff. We pretend to hold cards we don’t have. We cheat. We lie.
And while this is the model for many
a relationship in our post modern era, it is not the model for Sacred
Relationship as described in the Manuscript.
Let me be very up front here. Sacred
Relationship is not for everyone. In fact, I suspect that there are far fewer
persons capable or even willing to undertake it than there are those who prefer
to play emotional card games.
This type of relationship demands
utmost honesty both with oneself and with one’s partner. Instead of hiding our
cards, we lay them all out on the table. All our hopes, all our fears, all our
petty and jealous thoughts, all our conniving: all of it gets laid out in the
clear light of awareness for our partner to see. And he or she must do the
same. It will not work if there are back doors unlocked with mental escape in
mind. It will not work if both partners are not absolutely impeccably honest
with each other.
And the reason for this radical type
of honesty is that without it, the Alchemy of Relationship cannot take place.
Now this may be a new term to many, even students of internal alchemy, since
the dynamics of intimate relationship are rarely discussed in the four major
alchemical streams (Egyptian, Taoist, Yoga Tantra and Buddhist Tantra).
So I think it might be good to
define what I mean here, and to lay some type of foundation. Like all types of
alchemy, this type of work is about changing one form into another. The form,
in this case, is the inter-dynamics that have become habituated between two
people. After a while, people tend to get into ruts. The liveliness that
existed at the beginning of the relationship begins to fade. Both people become
more or less unconscious. The harsh reality is that it takes continual
vigilance and effort to keep a relationship conscious and alive.
Many relationships drop by the
wayside because the partners are either unwilling or unable to make the efforts
required to sustain them. Instead of experiencing the newness of each moment
within the relationship, a kind of dullness seeps in over time; what used to be
exciting is now boring. And worse, a kind of psychological and emotional
lethargy sets in, and both partners succumb to the dulling effects of
unconsciousness.
This type of unconsciousness is a
death knell to psychological awareness and insight; and although it is rarely
mentioned, this type of unconsciousness has a negative effect on one’s
spiritual life as well.
So the form that needs to be changed
within a relationship is literally the form of interactions that habitually
take place between the two partners.
Like all types of alchemy, there
must be a container for the reactions to occur. And in this case, it is the
container of safety and appreciation that provides the reservoir for
transformation.
If there is a lack of safety or
appreciation, this type of alchemy cannot be undertaken. And if you have
decided you wish to try this type of alchemy in your relationship, I suggest
you do an analysis first. Honestly assess if you feel safety and appreciation
in your relationship. If you don’t, you will be wasting your time trying to
undertake this type of alchemy with your current partner. I suggest you focus
your efforts, instead, on the solitary practices mentioned in the Manuscript.
If you still want to give it a try, get your partner to talk about these
feelings of danger and lack of appreciation that you are feeling. Only if and
when they get resolved, should you consider taking on this type of alchemy.
So now we have two of the three
elements needed for alchemy: something to be transformed (the habitual patterns
of interaction) and the container (the safety net, if you will, of the
relationship itself). A third element is needed; and that is, of course, energy
to drive the reaction. There is usually plenty of energy in relationships in
the form of neurotic patterns, hopes, fears, and desires. We’ll get to those in
a moment, but for now I want to talk about steel.
Our psychological selves are much
like swords made from steel alloys. They have been forged in the hot searing
foundry of our childhood, in the formative pressures of our early experiences.
It is this early period of life that bonds the elements of our psyches
together. And like steel, this was done under immense heat and pressure. Some
of us were abused by overbearing or downright hostile or even destructive
parents. Some of us were left to our own devices without any kind of support or
guidance. And every kind of parental/child relationship falls in between these
two polarities. The possibilities of childhood pressures are virtually endless,
and so too are the psychological alloys that result from these types of
experiences.
There is a lot of talk about the
child within in many personal growth groups, and while there is certainly value
in making contact with this younger self, it is not always pretty. Our cultural
myth is that childhood is a time of innocence, a time in which everything is
right with the world. For some children this is true; for many it is definitely
not.
I remember being at a fellow
therapist’s house for a party quite a few years ago. Most of the adults were
practicing therapists, psychologists or psychiatrists. I had plopped myself in
a big oversized sofa, and, sipping my Pepsi, I noticed a remarkable event. One
of the therapists had brought his son and his son’s best friend to the party.
It was clear that the two boys were buds. They were playing some kind of card
game and respectfully giving each other a turn. There were no attempts at
cheating, and they seemed to be in a bubble of camaraderie.
Then the boy’s father came into the
room and asked both kids if they needed anything. They both looked up with
cherub faces and smiled. No they said, in the cutest little boy voices. The
father patted his son on the back, and as he walked off, he nonchalantly patted
his son’s friend on the back as well. For a moment, his son looked at the
incident in abject horror. You could see that he could not believe his eyes.
And then as his father turned the corner into the other room, his son pulled
back and hit his best friend in the face!
This was not childhood innocence.
This was childhood rage. He was not willing to share affections from his
father, not even with his best friend. This type of jealousy is typical of
higher mammals, and we are, for all our self-righteous self-congratulatory
delusions, still mammals. No matter how high we get spiritually, we will, for
as long as we live, share traits with our mammalian brothers and sisters.
The inner life of a child is often
far different than those around him or her imagine it to be. Surrounded by both
dangers and opportunities, the psychological life of a child is directly shaped
by how he or she chooses to deal with them. Whether it is something as life
threatening as a deranged parent or a child molester, or seemingly innocuous as
whom to go to the prom with, does not in some ways matter. While the impact of
fighting for one’s life may very well imprint a child’s behavior well into
adulthood, the little decisions of life, like who to socialize with or not,
also have impact. All these major and minor decisions create internal
psychological heat and pressure. The alloys of one’s personality get bonded
together or burned away. The sword has been tempered by the time we reach
adulthood, and the alloy of our personalities has been set.
Some of us emerge from this
childhood foundry with rock hard edges; others of us are blunt. Some of us hold
our edges, and some of us can never seem to hold anything.
The thing about steel is that it
tends to remain in its original form once it leaves the foundry. And one of the
few things that can ever re-configure the alloy is if the steel gets as hot as
it did when it was first formed.
In the alchemical work of Sacred
Relationship, we voluntarily put ourselves back in the foundry. The heat that
arises between two people when their neuroses rub against each other can get
quite intense. If both people can find the courage to be radically honest with
themselves and with each other in these searing moments, the psychological
alloys can be altered. A new type of aliveness then enters the relationship
fueled by the energy of psychological truth.
The thing is–most of us will do
almost anything to avoid psychological heat. When we get uncomfortable, many of
us get the hell out of Dodge. Now for some of us this means literally packing
up and getting out of town, or at least out of sight. For some of us it means
that we are physically present, but no longer emotionally present. We numb up.
We become automatons. We move and talk, almost like normal, but we have
retreated far, far inside. Others of us numb ourselves with alcohol or drugs.
And some of us do it with television. We humans are, after all, quite clever
and creative. We can find all sorts of ways to avoid facing ourselves. In fact,
they are far too numerous for me to list here. But I suspect you get the idea.
I guess the real question here is this–what do you do when things get
psychologically too hot for your taste? What do you do when you are on the
verge of feeling something that you don’t want to feel?
For those in Sacred Relationship
such feelings are a call to presence. It is a time to be radically honest, and
for both partners to express their true feelings no matter how embarrassing or
scary they might be. By speaking their truths to each other, an enlivening
element enters the dynamic. Psychological honesty results in psychological insight.
And with insight there is hope for awareness, and with awareness there can be
change.
This chapter is hardly a manual for
the Alchemy of Relationship. It’s mainly, I think, a warning. Magdalen alluded
to this in the Manuscript. She called it obscurations to flight. That sounds
wonderfully exotic doesn’t it? Well, it isn’t very exotic when the obscuration
is clearly in your face. And it isn’t very exotic feeling when the foundry of
the relationship gets so hot that you feel you are dissolving (psychologically
that is). It takes courage and fortitude to stay in the foundry when the heat
begins to weaken the stability of one’s self-perceived image. Few of us care to
look foolish, scared, petty or jealous. And we will often go through elaborate
means to hide these feelings from ourselves or others.
But in Sacred Relationship these
things invariably float to the surface like mud that has been stirred up from
the bottom of a barrel. The thing is to realize that this does not mean you are
doing it (Sacred Relationship) wrong; it means that you are probably doing it
right. As Magdalen said in the Manuscript, the power of the alchemy extrudes,
or pushes out, the dross. This can be fascinating when the dross is being
pushed out of your partner, but it is truly horrific when it extrudes out of
you.
What makes Sacred Relationship
sacred is that it is truly a holy way of being. The root of the word holy
actually means to make whole. So… when we do something that creates wholeness
(in this case psychological wholeness), we are engaged in a sacred or holy act.
In the crucible of mutual safety,
honesty and appreciation, it is possible to forge a new kind of self. This new
self is psychologically more honest, more aware and freer than its counterpart
before entering the foundry of relationship. And like the phoenix that arises
from its own ashes, this self has wings. It can fly places that it could only
imagine before.
There are mysteries here, and
treasures that await those who have the courage to enter the depths of
themselves and their partners. It is not, as I said, for everyone. You will
probably know if you are a likely candidate because you will feel it in your soul,
your heart.
If you enter this path, know that
there are no manuals. There is precious little guidance out there. The path to
spirituality has traditionally been one of solitude. And while times of
solitude may be necessary for those in Sacred Relationship, something has
turned. They agree to walk the path to godhood together, side by side, through
both heaven and hell, through the brilliant summits where all things are
suddenly crystal clear, and through the dark valley of psychological death
where it is hard to even see one’s foot in front of the other. And yet through
the darkness of not knowing, a deep primordial force begins to rise up. It
requires an unusual type of holy trinity – three things for it to do its most
holy task- mutual safety, psychological honesty and appreciation of the
Beloved.
Have a good journey!
© 2012 Tom Kenyon. All rights
reserved.
You may make copies of this message and distribute it in any media as long as you change nothing, do not charge for it, credit the author, and include this complete copyright notice and web address.
You may make copies of this message and distribute it in any media as long as you change nothing, do not charge for it, credit the author, and include this complete copyright notice and web address.
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