There were five brothers, all of whom had an extra-ordinary ability. One could swallow the sea, one had an iron neck, one had stretchy legs, one could not be burned and the last could hold his breath indefinitely.
So the one who could swallow the sea was on his way to market with some lovely fish when a young boy asks him the secret of his success. The first brother shows him how he swallows the sea, leaving the fish stranded.
Off runs the boy from one fascinating thing to another. The first brother tries to call him back but is still holding in the sea which is getting…
heavier…..
and heavier.
Swallow the Sea eventually has to pour the sea all back out.
The young boy is drowned…..
overwhelmed by archetypal contents that do not belong to him…
The first brother is condemned to the axeman…
but he begs leave to visit his poor mother and swops places with Iron Neck whose head won’t be chopped.
So they try to drown him but he swops places with Stretchy Legs who can reach the bottom.
Then they try to burn him but Can’t be Burnt just laughs and calls for more wood.
Then they try to smother Hold his Breath in cream…..
What a wonder! He must be favoured by the Gods and therefore innocent!
And so the five brothers and their Mother all lived together happily for many years.
But he wasn’t innocent.
And you can bet it wasn’t happy.
The ordinary boy who unselfconsciously followed his own interest along the sea bed was killed….
negligently killed.
And so it is that there is a terrible price to be paid for being special. The curious, spontaneous child who can be as amused by a starfish as a merri-go-round is dead.
And the five special brothers might get fed to the hilt and sleep like angels, but they will never be free to leave or find wives of their own….
a tight orbit..
”around ‘planet mother’, on which we can never land, so we live in Never-never land.’ Dale Mathers.
Symbiotic Omnipotence is like being joined at the hip with a power that is simultaneously trying to eat you.
So when someone’s niggly narcissism is getting on your nerves remember that what you’re witnessing is only one half of a double act under which the present protagonist is fighting a rear-guard action…….
”So, what did you want to do this afternoon?”
Fait accompli hangs in the air like a toxic cloud. The six year old doesn’t know about verb tenses or implication. He just knows that whatever he had in mind will now no longer be possible..
and wasn’t ever possible.
The decision has already been made.
Pictures will be taken. It will be special. Money will be spent and a careful tally kept. You will have everything..
and nothing.
”When I was just a little boy, I asked my Mother, what shall I be? Will I be handsome, will I be rich…?
Join me in my world. Let me sit on your lap and cuddle up while we imaginate together about all the adventures my fate holds in store so that I can gain perspective, contain the anxiety of separation and the lonliness of life’s road.
Whatever will be will be, the future’s not ours to see, Que sera sera.
Don’t be ridiculous. Not yours to see, nor yours to shape. Are you not content with all your special gifts? You who know the wild soul of the Hills, who understands the voice of the wind in the pine trees….?
…and so we find the child in class who can’t concentrate because what is maths to the mystical interpreter of the wind?
…the child who feels destroyed because he doesn’t actually know the answer to everything and is therefor clearly a dunce..
…the child who can never find his stuff because its just so irrelevant next to the holy quest of embodying Mother’s highest value.
…the child in a rage because his friend has other friends…..
…the child consumed with apathy because he’s had to leave his destiny behind in a ditch…..
And if everything on the surface is so wonderful and has to be kept so, then getting to know your way around ordinary stuff like how to lose your temper can’t be done.
”Unless anger or rage can be voiced, it becomes difficult to manage extreme feelings. The child has no way of learning to control his aggressive emotions unless he is able to experience them himself.” Asha Phillips
Mother refrains from addressing the less than wonderful qualities in the child, which leaves them free floating and liable to enactment or symptomatic expression..
Freud went to see his mother Amalie every Sunday, always bringing flowers, delighting in her praise, making much of her devotion….
”but he had stomach ache every time.” Sophie Freud.
Symbiotic omnipotence is a twilight world where what you see is not what you get and things don’t mean what they say on the tin.
The easiest thing to do is let yourself be carried along in a way that…
”enables a person to both perceive and deny [reality]”. M. Kahn
useful, say, if you had some command codes and a red telephone. Or had to make a call as to which way the Belgrano was pointing, or had any qualms about lending money you didn’t actually have, but would have once the loan is repaid with interest.
In other words Symbiotic Omnipotence is perfectly adapted to create Empires,to crush people with impunity and send young men who believe entirely in their immortality and holy purpose….
to their deaths.
Rememberance Sunday 2015.
