SEASON OF CREATION, PART 3; THE FOREST

THE DARK, TRANSFORMING DEPTHS

In his popular book on men’s business, Robert Bly introduces the central character, Iron John…

As the story starts, something strange is happening in a remote area of the forest near the king’s castle. When hunters go into this area, they disappear and never come back. Twenty others go after the first group, and do not come back. In time, people begin to get there feeling that there is something weird in that part of the forest, and they “don’t go there any more”.

One day an unknown hunter shows up at the castle and says “What can I do? Anything dangerous to do around here?”.

The king says “Well I could mention the forest, but there’s a problem. The people who go out there do not come back. The return rate is not good.”

“That’s just the sort of thing I like,’ the young man says. So he goes into the forest, and interestingly, he goes there alone, taking only his dog. The young man and his dog wander about in the forest, and they go past a pond. Suddenly a hand reaches up from the water, grabs the dog, and pulls it down.

The young man does not respond by becoming hysterical. He merely says, ‘This must be the place.”

Iron John. P5

We value forests for many reasons. They are the lungs of the earth, and they contain enormous biodiversity. They provide food and shelter for people and animals. They are beautiful, providing an environment for the nurture of the human spirit.

This mysterious environment can also be strange and frightening such as in many of the great fables and fairy-stories with which we are all familiar. Hansel and Gretel, Snow White and others, have their transforming adventures deep in the woods. In a moving scene from the Star Wars series, Luke Skywalker is being trained by Yoder to become a Jedi Knight. One of his tests is to enter a dark and sinister forest, where he comes face to face with the figure of Darth Vader. After a short flurry of light sabres, the Vader figure is beheaded; but when Luke removes the mask, he recoils in horror, for it is his own face that he sees. In our dreams, or perhaps our nightmares, forests are places of testing, where we come face to face with aspects of our true selves

The forest, literally or metaphorically, give us the context in which to face our greatest challenge: to confront the shadow side of ourselves. This task, when successfully accomplished, contributes to our personal transformation.

The deeper message fables and dreams is to value the dark places for their transformational qualities. Carl Jung teaches the necessity of our being willing to face the dark parts of ourselves. We must have the courage to confront them, rather than deny that they exist, or try to bury them deep within our psyches. That which is thus buried, says Jung, has the propensity to become demonic and rise up against us, and pull us down. That which is faced and accepted, on the other hand, can give us new positive spiritual energy.

Humanity has tended to deal brutally with the forests, so far removing or degrading 80% of what used to be there, and continuing to denude the earth of forests at the rate of an England a year. This is akin to cutting out our own lungs for money. It also diminishes biodiversity; impoverishes the soil, which is often useless for farming after one crop, and destroys the beauty which forests give to the land.

Destroying the forest, denying the darkness, is in spiritual terms a demonic activity. Those of you who watch the TV program Midsomer Murders know that the violent acts of the present always have their genesis in the dark acts of the past, which have been denied or covered over. Undealt-with grief and conflict always eventually rise up against us, sometime with tragic consequences.

This is also true of communities and nations. When we extol ‘our’ country or ‘our’ community as the best in the world, with ‘the most friendly and caring or intelligent people it could be a sign that we have not really faced our own dark past, or entered the forest that hides a monster ready to strike the unwary. Those who are at peace with who they are and where they are do not need the constant boost of a swag of gold medals or a successful war to prove their worth. Viewed from this perspective, the attempt to defoliate the forests, of Vietnam for example, in order to expose ‘the enemy’ can be seen as an unwillingness to enter the darkness of one’s own nation’s psyche, and face the monster there. It is always easier to name and attack the enemy ‘out there’ than it is to confront and transform the darkness ‘in here’.

Bly continues with the story as follows…

Fond as he is of his dog, and reluctant as he is to abandon him, the hunter goes back to the castle, rounds up three more men with buckets, and then comes back to the pool to bucket out the water. Anyone who has ever tried it will quickly note that such bucketing is very slow work.

In time, what they find, lying on the bottom of the pond, is a large man with hair from head to foot. The hair is reddish- it looks a little like rusty iron.

Iron John is thus found and exposed, and Bly makes a number of points about the story:

1. There are some places that one has to enter alone. In this story, the forest is symbolic of the hero’s own psychic space

2. The task of coming to terms with oneself is manual labour. Others can help, but it a case of ‘a bucket at a time’

3. What is frightening when it is unknown, becomes a strong ally in the light of day, something that becomes known later in the story.

Bly is specifically concerned about male transformation. He argues that beyond the crass macho male behaviour which in our area is best displayed by rugby players and politicians, men are capable of better. For Bly, this goes beyond the qualities of the ‘sensitive new age guy’ to the still deeply masculine, strong male who stands up for himself and others, not because he has to prove his manhood, but because this is who he has become in the process of facing his own fears, his own inner darkness.

Corresponding stories in feminist literature, such as that of Clarisa Estes, encourage women to ‘wake up’ from the slumber that societal roles have induced in them. It is actually not a law of the universe that a woman always needs a man to look after her, be it a father, a husband or a son. Facing that fact can be like going into a dark forest alone, only to find oneself emerging strengthened.

Cutting down the forests is not the way to deal with our fear of darkness.

There were no forests in the regions where Jesus lived, and entering the wilderness is the biblical equivalent of the forest as far a transformation is concerned. Jesus entering Jerusalem is another parallel. His disciples are horrified when he tells them that he is going to Jerusalem to face the forces of darkness. When they try to restrain him he insists, saying in effect “this must be the place”. In the darkness of Gethsemane he faces his demons alone. His transformation was truly from death to life, and he offers us the opportunity to walk that way with him.

Valuing, preserving and entering the forest is a challenge we shirk at our peril. This is true from the point of view of our personal spiritual health and wholeness. It is also true for life on this planet. The two are inextricably linked. Reading Tim Flannery’s article in yesterday’s Sydney Herald brought home to me with renewed force the critical nature of our environmental future. We just cannot sit in the safety of our little castles, hoping for the best while the forests disappear, their captured carbon released into the atmosphere in ever increasing amounts through burning, and the consumption of fossil fuel.

“Is there anything dangerous to do around here”? You bet! But not half as dangerous as doing nothing!

Brian Brown. 21/9/08