Fwd: Cyclical Nature

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In a message dated 5/14/00 12:52:14 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

altruism101@... writes:

<< Yours,

Rob

To Any and All Interested Parties,

Something is making me think of the way that even the

most defined paths are cyclical. In Alchemy we move

from one stage of transformation to the next, usually

to find that to gain a better understanding of the

stages we are approaching, we must return to the

beginning and clear up what was missed the first time

through.

Maybe these things can be very simply explained by our own

imperfectionn and improvements. It is not wise to approach

any kind

of

process in the distorted belief that we will get it right

the first

time or that in our growth we we will not be able to go

back and

perfect our methods. The first time we calcify salts our

idea of

whiteness might be acceptable to our untrained eye even

though the

color we see as white is something more of an antique white

to a more

trained eye, or one that is more in tune with the concept

of purity.

So we repeat, and our idea of pure whiteness improves.

This is not very different from a 12 step process where we

advance to

the next step even though we have not completely or

perfectly

accomplished the highest ideals of the one before. There is

always

the

opportunity to return and look things over again later.

The warning which comes with realizing our imperfection is

to not use

it as an excuse for carelessness. I guess he balance is to

do the

best

we can without demanding perfection from ourselves or

others.

My experience has shown that no matter how hard we try to

organize

and

align our external lives, the inner life just does not

conform to the

same type of rigid thinking and the complexes which posess

our inner

life will actually rebel against any attempt to control(or

organise)

them into something we can easily categorize.

For myself, it is only with great imagination and courage

that we may

begin to see the inner work begin to manifest itself in the

external.

Playing with the process,

Rob

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