balance returns

"How beautiful is the black, lascivious purity of small children and wild animals" - Victor Anderson

For years I've embraced the metaphysical Feri concept of the Black Heart of Innocence, a state where we are coming from our raw, wild and primal nature - connected to the power and force of sheer being alive, feeling our sexuality and the pleasure of being embodied, devoid of shame or self consciousness, and able to speak with the honesty, directness, and innocence of a child not edited by social convention.

This concept has proved to be a useful tool for me. It has helped me access and draw from a state of being which is authentic, it taps into the joy and fierceness of the life force. The Black Heart is being back in the garden with the absence of shame. The paradox of lascivious purity is a good one, and I love the mysteries of paradox.

And yet. I'm a parent. I have a thirteen year old son. I'm thinking of how so much of parenting has been channeling that lascivious purity into creating a being who is thoughtful and kind to others, who unlike a wild animal, will take turns and knows how to share, who won't bite or kick when their primal will is thwarted. Having been raising a child, I know up close and personal the lascivious purity of which Victor speaks. It's not always beautiful - and that's a problem with working with the Black Heart.

By working with the Black Heart, I've worked on being able to feel the strength and connection to my animal self, the part of me that lies beneath my social construction, not ruled by social niceties and convention. The uncivilized part. I'm thinking right now of the id - and how it is important in my work as a therapist to assist others in acknowledging their primal urges, to release the shame and disavowal of irrational lascivious desires. In doing so, we also often marvel - how beautiful the construction of a superego!

One of the birthrights of our humaness is our ability to feel desire and strong impulses and to choose not to act on these impulses and desires. Part of the art of parenting is not shaming children for their lascivous nature, but assisting them in creating consciousness in regards to the feelings of others around them. What is commonly called "morality" is what the small child and wild animal usually lack. This seems to be created as a function of living in the culture of other human beings - it develops in relationship to others. Freud called this the superego, in Feri tradition many call it the divine self.

The Black Heart beats from the younger self - it is the heart of that self, the id. What does it mean to only aspire to work from the Black Heart of a small child and wild animal? Shouldn't the other aspects of the human soul also have a heart? How much more potent to strive for the black heart of innocence, the green heart of consciousness, and the pink heart of compassion to beat together in us at the same volume, none drowning the others out, creating a rhythm that is divinely human.

How powerful this equinox is proving to be! Balance is returning. Thank Goddess.