BEHIND THE FACE OF THE OTHER STANDS SOMETHING THAT BELONGS TO US
Lost soul fragments wander the outer world in search of themselves. They move beneath the veil where the waking mind rarely dares to look.
There are pieces of the soul buried so deeply that retrieving them means remembering truths the mind was never meant to survive.
The mythic tragedy is humans spend their lives loving, hating, pursuing, fearing, idealizing, condemning, or self sacrificing to figures who arrive carrying fragments of our own soul.
They come wearing the faces of lovers and enemies, wounded ones and saviors, monsters, demons, and gods, those who irritate us and intrigue us, repel us and fascinate us.
These figures are not just individuals within the psychic world. Beneath the encounter the soul is arranging an initiatory reunion with itself.
They become vessels for what the soul has been unable or unwilling to reclaim directly. They enter the inner chamber wearing clothing of the outer world. And because we do not recognize what they bear, we fall beneath their enchantment.
The image becomes an autonomous possession with an emotional force if it’s own.
We believe we must possess the beloved. Defeat the enemy. Save the wounded one. Expose the betrayer. Destroy the monster. Follow the savior.
Worship the god. But the deeper task is none of these. The outer drama becomes an inner task.
To see through the mask is not to deny the reality of the person wearing it. The soul does not erase the outer truth in order to discover the inner one.
Behind the face of the other stands something that belongs to us. The outer figure draws us into the labyrinth because somewhere within that labyrinth lies a fragment bearing our forgotten name.
The moment the disguised figure is truly recognized, the enchantment begins to weaken. The projection withdraws and the spell breaks.
What had been scattered outwardly begins to gather again within the inner chambers. The energy once imprisoned is released from the figures that carried it. It returns as living soul.
Only when the mask falls away does the fragment recognize itself in the mirror and cease its wandering through the labyrinth seeking itself.
Only then can the reunion begin.
~ Maxpein
