For the past number of years, we have been experiencing the great awakening of human consciousness.  This awakening has been given many names and equally as many faces.  Some call it the “New Age Movement” (for the record, there is nothing “New” about New Age. It is simply a rediscovery and reclaiming of what Mystics and Prophets have known all along).  Others call it Ascension.  I’m sure there are other names, but we’ll leave it at that.  While there have been many positive aspects to this awakening, there is one ENORMOUS DANGER and pitfall which very few acknowledge and even more fall into:

The Danger of getting stuck at Ascension.

Ascension is NOT the path to our wholeness.  Ascension is not the goal.  Ascension is not the final outcome.  In fact, our human journey toward wholeness – where we are one with our Divine and Human selves – is not complete until we have moved past ascension and are willing to descend into the depths of our own, as well as the world’s darkness.  Descending is the profoundly challenging (and yet deeply liberating and rewarding) part of our journey toward wholeness where we come face to face with:

• Our unhealed wounds.
• Our unacknowledged anxiety.
• Our egoic attachments.
• Our societal conditioning.
• The inner demons that have hindered us from fulfilling our mission and purpose on this plane.
• Death.

After we ascend and discover the ecstasy of our Union with the Divine (our higher and truest self), we have to bring that Union into embodiment.  The only way to embody our true and Divine Self is to let it come through us, bringing us face to face with all of who and what we are that is not in alignment with Love.  This is the work of the Shadow Worker and where our true gifts come to light.

The truth about Descending is that we cannot “LaLa” the darkness away.  Neither can we avoid it by escaping into reverie.  We don’t change things by thinking the right thoughts, raising our vibration, eating “more highly vibrational foods,” or through thoughts and prayers. We have to do the messy, dirty, sometimes terrifying work of turning away from the light and toward the darkness.  This is the DEEP DIVE that has nothing to do with “Dark Night of the Soul” and everything to do with the BIRTH of our Soul.  Here, the fragmented and broken parts of our humanness are acknowledged, transformed, and then released so that only Love remains.  I will make no bones about this part:  the LOVE that we are is not some glittery, flowy, rainbow filled unicorn of light.  This is the LOVE that can withstand all that we are, all the world is, and everything life will hand us, without turning tail and running away.  This is the Love made up of fierce courage.  It is the Love of Mother Kali who cuts away all that is not supportive of our mission and purpose on this plane.  On a collective level, it is the Love of the Destroyer that burns down whatever stands in the way of our human evolution – even the Brazilian Rainforest if that is what it takes to

WAKE US UP

But again, here is the trick:  We do not arrive at our wholeness through “love and light.”  We get there by burning the f’cker down.  And the work starts and ends with ourselves!

If we are not willing to do the challenging work of facing and being with our darkness and our greatest fears, then we cannot be a source of Love and support for our dying world.  If we do not do this critically important work, choosing instead to escape into Ascension, then we will suffer the consequences.

While Ascending past the illusion of separation and finding our Union with Self is an important first step, avoiding the Descent will paralyze us with this one critical truth:

What we resist will persist!

As a friend of mine once observed, “God is a nag!”  I would translate that by saying that our True Self, our Soul is a heartless bitch!  She will hound us until our work is done.  The harder we work against Her, the more vicious She becomes. Choosing only Ascension, imprisons us in our darkness which then comes out sideways in:

• Blaming.
• Shaming.
• Manipulating.
• Passive Aggressive and .Bullying Behaviors.
• And the king of all demons:  DENIAL. 

When we are stuck in ascension, we are blind to our darkness (oh, we might see it, but we will do everything we can to “La La” it away).  We pretend it isn’t there.  We avoid anything that might have to do with death, disappointment, failure or inner conflict.  We pretend we know ourselves, when we really do not.  Our unhealed wounds come out sideways as we spin round and round in the drain of our inability to be completely and wholly accountable to and responsible for ourselves. 

The journey if descent is excruciating, but staying in ascension is even worse!  How would you like to spend an eternity in the game of pretend?  Pretty soon you can no longer remember the lies you have told yourself to stay in the light as your darkness overtakes you.

Sigh.

Here’s the really funny thing about this truth……Jesus knew it, and so did the Kabbalists who were likely his teachers. 

Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him,
“Here is a true child of Israel.
There is no duplicity in him.”
Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?”
Jesus answered and said to him,
“Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree.”
Nathanael answered him,
“Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.”
Jesus answered and said to him,
“Do you believe
because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree?
You will see greater things than this.”
And he said to him, “Amen, amen, I say to you,
you will see heaven opened and the angels of God
ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

JN 1: 47-51

“Amen, amen, I say to you,
you will see heaven opened and the angels of God
ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

In the cryptic statement above, Jesus is describing the initiatory process that he was inviting Nathaniel into.  Jesus is describing the ascending and descending process of coming into our wholeness as human beings.  Before the institutional Church designated Jesus “the only Son of Man,”  this was a common phrase which simply meant all of human kind.  Here Jesus is saying, “Nathaniel, if you come with me, I will show you how to become a fully integrated human being – Divine and Human, balanced in your masculine and feminine, and living out the fullness of your mission and purpose on this plane.”  In short, Jesus was inviting Nathaniel to join him in the knowledge of “the kingdom of God,” the word Jesus used to describe the fulfillment of our human spiritual journey:

To know Oneness with –

• The Divine
• Ourselves
• Each other
• All of creation.

The kingdom of God.  Enlightenment.  Wholeness.  Peace.  Contentment and Joy.

But as the Tree of Life demonstrates, the journey of Oneness that Jesus promised did not end in our meeting with God.  Instead, we have to bring our Union with the Divine fully into our human experience where we can live it out. 

---