Mishkan ha-Echad

Tuesday 17 June 2008

Poetry: Demons

I wrote a new poem today on the topic of demons (some of you might find the terminology used in the poem interesting and familiar). You can check it out here:


We all have to face our demons some day. Indeed, the very phrase "face your demons" is ingrained in our modern psyche, but what exactly does it mean? In Jungian terms it is the Shadow, all the parts of ourselves we do not like, the parts we ignore and repress; and one day it rebels against us, like a child locked away in his bedroom. In the end we find we neglect our Shadow. But is it the same as our demons? Is our Shadow made up from our demons? It is the Nephesh of the Qabalah, our animal nature, and it does us the good service of taking all our unwanted junk. Its reward: we shun and ignore it. We must, of course, sacrifice our demons, our Lower Self, before the altar of the Higher. But we also need to open the locked door; we need to make amends for our neglect, for ultimately we find that the dog-face is merely a mask, and when we demask our demons we might be troubled at what we find. And when we become troubled we will be astonished, and we will rule over the All.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I like your poem very much. I am a Tibetan Buddhist, and altho intrigued with the Western tradition, it seems a lot of energy is spent on infighting, and we need to put that focus on meditative practice, on spiritual practice. I like the way you write, but how much energy are we putting into our genuine tradition, and how much energy is on defending our tradition? trust the path with full faith and trust and follow without discursiveness?

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