The lonesome pine.

What does it mean for consciousness to evolve?

To know more stuff?

And how do you know if you are evolved?

Does it come with a chart?

Or an evolvomometer?

there’s no such thing..

no, but if there was that’s what it would be called.

Let’s say it did exist. What would it measure?

I knew a woman who  had married her more spiritual side in the form of a genteel analyst rather than develop that side of herself and so despite the art, philosophy and culture in evidence on the surface of their lives she was possessed by that with which she was unconsciously identified, matter.

Regardless of her exquisite house in pristine wilderness, with lakes and endless garden, she was unhappy. And she couldn’t resolve her dissatisfaction because it seemed to stem from outside her.

‘Look at that veiw’, she indicated up the majestic valley with its mighty forests and breath taking craggs. ‘Perfect, except for the eyesore’.

I searched about for the offending item.

‘There!’, she gestured impatiently at a distant tree. ‘That Scots Pine…’ and clucked further disapproval.

Waaay up onna faar hillside…

Despite the sophistication, or, actually because of it, there was a deep split in the woman that wouldn’t permit her to drink in the Spirit of Nature even when her priviledged circumstances handed it to her on a plate.

The next time I visited the tree had vanished.. but you may be sure the eyesore had not and was busy materialising elsewhere.

This kind of behaviour is typical of uninitiated puer energy and is the unhappy lot of anyone who feels that they are special. You can’t take in what you need.

To do so entails feeling the need..

which isnaa very special…

but whether you like it or not..

You become enlightened, not by imagining beings of light, but by going down into the dark. CG Jung

And so, paradoxically, being evolved means knowing you’re not, discovering your own darkness and diversity..

and being a bit chaotic in the process…

that, or the chilling madness of sneaking out with a chainsaw before dawn one day….

How much more truly evolved might it have been to notice the antipathy to that scots pine, wondered about its significance, meditated on it as a symbol or dressed its roots with wild flowers in curiosity and un-knowing?

The pine, by the way that it grated on her nerves, gave this woman a niggling shard of her story and the implicit challenge to discern its meaning in her life as that piece of Nature which spoiled itself.

Hacking down the tree was just one more stitch in a whole crochette work of compulsive repetitions and going around in circles in lieu of being able to participate in something greater than her own wants or babyish demanding.

She robbed herself of learning about herself from that tree, why it bothered her so much, what it represented, what the inevitability of ‘imperfection’ might signify and if it were to have a voice what it might communicate.

And whatever the content of those musings might amount to, they all rest on a premise..

that I can talk to me..

that i can reflect on stuff..

from different points of veiw

and not get bogged down in any one corner of the psyche..

till eventually you have to ask yourself…

who is this that moves so enthusiastically about the psyche….

finding value in diversity?