Читать книгу 1 ON THE PATH TOWARDS BASIC TRUST - Linda Vera Roethlisberger - Страница 6

Introduction

When we embark on the search for basic trust, we can start in the here and now, with all the concerns that preoccupy us both individually and as a collective at this very moment. Indeed, the state of our world in the early 21st century represents a true challenge to our sense of trust. Democracy, our values and our safety are in danger. Bees, insects and songbirds are dying and the climate is presenting us with challenges that no country can solve single-handedly. But has it ever been different? Have natural and later man-made catastrophes not always followed seemingly seamlessly one after the other? Has there not always been distress, grief, wars, flight, disease and loss? Yet, whom, if anyone, can we trust?

Instead of running the risk of drowning in fear and worry about our existence, I would like to invite you on a short journey through time to Egypt, the mystical land of the pharaohs.

Alexandria, 1st century after Christ. The magnificent city at the delta of the Nile, regarded as a stronghold of science and culture for centuries, is beset by a climate of stagnation. Some people believe that their civilization may well have discovered all that there is to discover: the elements, the laws of mathematics, the science of the stars, the art of healing … But as scholars are busily pursuing their various disciplines, a new science combining natural philosophy, Aristotelian research and mystical cults begins to flourish: alchemy.

Let us imagine a workshop on the outskirts of the city, where a woman named Maria, also called “Maria the Jewess,” set up a laboratory in a stone hut. There she brought various substances to smelt and melt In thick-bellied boilers with double walls. (Indeed, the legacy of Maria the Jewess lives on in the French term bain-marie, a device, today used mostly in cooking, for heating materials in a heated water bath.) The woman, about whose life we know little, also developed other laboratory devices, such as the presumably first distiller and various techniques that exist to this day in modified form in modern laboratories. What might have driven her? Who or what inspired her?

Unlike the dark hocus pocus of the Middle Ages, ancient alchemy sought the laws of nature of life. Convinced that there must be more than the four elements of water, fire, earth and air, Maria sought to discover the philosopher’s stone, the key substance that would allow for a transformation from a lower to a higher form.

Most of her writings have long been destroyed or absorbed in the records of those who came after her. We know, however, that Maria had been privy to the Opus Magnum, the masterpiece of the alchemists. And even though her accomplishments as a scientist and initiate gradually fell into oblivion, Goethe in his Witches’ Multiplication Table and later C. G. Jung in his interpretation of the Axiom of Maria Prophetissa (“One becomes Two, Two becomes Three, and out of the third comes the One as the Fourth”) paid tribute to the remarkable researcher many centuries later.

But what do alchemy and basic trust have to do with each other?

C. G. Jung was fascinated by alchemy and believed to have recognized in it a counterpart to his psychology of the unconscious: He looked at the desire of the alchemists to transform matter into gold from a spiritual perspective, namely as the union of the conscious part of the personality with the unconscious. Indeed, the early records of the alchemists indicate that they, too, had been working toward an all-embracing perfection. Maria was one of the first to have put a series of practical tests into a theoretical framework. The important process of distilling, which Maria continually refined with her inventions, was at the same time a process of purification and spiritualization with the aim of reuniting with matter.

Let us now jump back to the present. Have we not all been in situations where we saw ourselves forced to turn lead into gold? Illnesses, loss, fears – our lives are all marked by small and large disasters that break some of us. Some people, however, manage to make it through these difficult times, at times even taking them as a challenge and turning them into something positive. Like the early alchemists, they pick up the rubble of life and forge something new out of it that carries within it the core of the old and yet has the brilliance of the new. Some people find their purpose in life after having been faced with a serious illness, bankruptcy or other type of loss.

In retrospect, we often recognize that we underwent a transformation or grew inwardly as a result of difficult times. In those cases, we might find ourselves saying: Had I known that, I would have been less worried. Or, if I had had faith, I could have let go and simply had the confidence that I would make it through this stage of my life. In times of challenge or crisis, our alchemical recipe for life is to look confidently into the future, trusting that we can find meaning in whatever happens. It is in this sense that basic trust is an important substance: the key element of our transformation and our inner growth.

While we forever strive for happiness, not all those whose lives are free from suffering are happy. Rather, most people who are happy concede having had to master an intense challenge at some point in their life, and to have grown through it and discovered a new simplicity for themselves in the process. The joy over a small gust of wind that ruffles up our hair. The taste of pure water. The smell of freshly fallen snow. And again and again, the wonder over a new sunrise. But why are some people able to cope with fate and become happy while others break when challenged with obstacles? Why is one person resilient while the other falls apart or becomes burned out?

When we look deeper, we realize that basic trust is the common denominator that enables us humans to find and to walk our path in life. When we have faith in ourselves, in the cosmos, obstacles become guides that orient our very own path in the right direction. Because where trust prevails, fear cannot prevail.

Maybe you have marveled at the degree to which small children can fully abandon themselves when held in their parents’ arms? When we have faith, we overcome fears and let go – we are like children of the universe, always sure that it will catch us should we stumble and fall.

But where does the basic trust come from? Where do we find this philosopher’s stone?

We shall pursue this question in the following pages: What is basic trust? How does it manifest tri-logically speaking, in other words, rationally, emotionally and spiritually? What is its foundation?

And what can each of us do to rebuild our trust and use it as an important resource in our lives?

Let us now go back to alchemy and take a small lesson to heart that will allow for a great inner transformation:

Transform fear into drive,

grief into trust,

resistance into acceptance,

anger into serenity and

problems into solutions.