In the Belly of the Whale, the seeker experiences what poet Robert Bly calls “time in the ashes.” It’s a time of katabasis, as Coyote is about to find out…
Once Coyote crossed the river to the other side, he was further from his home village than he had ever been. The terrain looked strange and unfamiliar, and the sights and smells were confusing to him. He walked on and on throughout the rest of the afternoon. Near twilight, he came upon a cave entrance.
From deep within the cave he could hear the distant sound of drumming and singing. The sound was so faint that for a moment he wondered if he’d heard it at all, or if he’d simply imagined it. He strained his ears to listen.
Yes, it was definitely the sound of chanting from deep within the cave.
Although the thought of journeying into an unknown cave this late in the day filled him with trepidation, the idea of sleeping out in the open in unknown territory with this strange, cold, white substance falling from the sky frightened him even more. He took a deep breath and entered the cave.
As he made his way down the tunnel, he gradually became aware of a faint light in the distance, coming from the direction of the music. He descended down the narrow passageway towards it.
When he arrived at the source of the light, he found himself in a large inner chamber. At the center of the chamber was a fire. The heat from the fire instantly warmed him to the point that he was almost uncomfortably hot. Its light reflected off the crystals that adorned the cavern walls, making shadows and bits of light bounce throughout the chamber. He had never seen anything like this. It was as if the stars of the heavens had come down to the earth and were dancing to the music. And what music it was! It was at once soothing and invigorating; calming, yet disturbing.
As he entered the main chamber he saw a tribe of two-leggeds dancing around the fire. They were all adorned in paint and feathers, and each wore a mask designed to mimic one of the creatures of the earth. There were masks of four-legged creatures like Brother Wolf and Sister Cougar, and masks of the creatures of the air like Brother Eagle and Sister Wren. There were also masks in the likeness of the fishes, like Sister Salmon and Brother Trout. All the creatures of the three realms of earth, air, and water were represented.
As Coyote watched the dance, he noticed something unusual: All of the dancers were circling the fire backward. They danced in a spiral, moving in the direction opposite of the way their masks were facing.
“This is very strange!” thought Coyote. He settled down to watch the dance so that he might glean from the performance what his next move might be.
He lay down on the cavern floor to watch. He tried his best to stay awake, but the warmth of the fire and the surreal quality of the music, combined with the rhythmic motions of the dancers, soon conspired to lull him into a trance, and he fell fast asleep.
As he dreamed, he pondered the quest. He was full of self-doubt. “I’m just a Coyote. I can’t do this,” he kept saying to himself. “I haven’t the skills or the strength to complete this mission!”
As he lay dreaming and thinking about these things, he was startled by the sound of screaming. The two-leggeds had stopped dancing, and they were all rushing towards him! One grabbed his hind legs, another grabbed his forepaws, another seized his tail, and yet another grabbed him firmly about the neck. They began to pull, still screaming at him, until he came apart and his body was ripped to pieces!
He awoke on the cold ground with a start. He quickly checked himself to discover that he was still in one piece. It was only a dream, but it had seemed so real! He had thought himself dying. The illusion was so complete that upon waking he was actually puzzled to find himself still alive.
Why are you, you? What are the things that make you the person that you are today? Why do the inner work required by ecospirituality in the first place?
Many of us carry a vision of who we would like to be. We also carry a vision of who we perceive ourselves to be at this moment in time. The Humanist Psychologist Carl Rogers called these two visions the Ideal Self and the Perceived Self. At the times when we do not feel at peace with ourselves because of some anxiety, stress or depression, it is most often due to a conflict between our vision of who we would want to be, and who we actually perceive ourselves to be. In other words, we experience a conflict between the Ideal Self and the Perceived Self. This is the conflict that often leads to the Belly of the Whale.
The act of centering involves striking a balance between the powers of chaos and order in our lives. From this perspective, the Ideal Self represents the power of order, and the Perceived Self represents the power of chaos. The way to strike a balance between these two powers is to introduce a little chaos into the order or introduce a little order to the chaos. This is how we escape the Belly of the Whale.
If conflict and inner turmoil are arising within you because of the gap between your Ideal Self and your Perceived Self, then the way to achieve balance would be to narrow that gap or to close it completely. Suppose for example that your Ideal Self is a person who is organized, punctual, and capable of completing multiple tasks at once during the day. On the other hand, your Perceived Self (the person you see yourself as) is not very organized, always late, and incapable of meeting all the goals you set for yourself in a day. The conflict within you has arisen in this case because you have set impossible standards for yourself, yet you feel you should be able to meet those standards anyway.
One way to find balance in this situation would be to realize that your Ideal Self doesn’t have to be perfectly organized and punctual all the time, thereby allowing a little chaos to enter into the “perfect’” order established in your vision of your Ideal Self. Another way to introduce balance is to impose a little more order upon the chaos of your Perceived Self by taking the time to plan better so that you are more able to meet the schedule set by your Ideal Self. This is the sort of self-examination that constitutes “time in the ashes” during a Belly of the Whale experience.
At the Belly of the Whale phase of the journey on the Way of the Coyote, there are two modes of escape. The first is to increase the pain of staying the same until it is greater than the pain of changing. The second is to decrease the pain of changing so it is less than the pain of staying the same. In the Belly of the Whale, we make the change.
The ultimate goal of the inner journey that is the Way of the Coyote is to strike a balance between the Ideal Self (or the life of perfect order) and the Perceived Self (or the life of perfect chaos). The more we learn about our own inner wants, needs, and desires, and the reasons for them, the more we will draw closer to achieving the balance of individuation. In short, if we can change our thoughts and feelings, we can change our world. But in order to change our thoughts and feelings, we must first know what those thoughts and feelings are. Centering is a way to learn about your thoughts and feelings so that you may change them if you so desire. Centering is the path out of the Belly of the Whale.
Escaping the Belly of the Whale
There are many things we may wish to change about ourselves and about the world. We may even be able to change many of them. But there are also things that are beyond our power to change. Those things we cannot change, we must learn to accept. If we do not, then we will be endlessly frustrated by attempting the impossible. Of course, it can be very difficult to tell which things we can change, and which things we cannot. This is where wisdom enters the picture. One purpose of centering is to gain enough inner wisdom to be able to know the difference between the things we can change, and the things we must accept. When we can achieve this knowledge we can escape the Belly of the Whale.
Think for a moment about the last time you were anxious or stressed out. Do you remember what caused your anxiety? Did that cause of your worry have something to do with an event that happened in the past, or an event that might happen in the future? Until someone invents a time machine, there is no way to go back and change the past.
So worrying about something that happened in the past is counterproductive. Likewise, if you are worrying about something that may or may not happen in the future, you are wasting energy that could be put to better use in the here and now. Unless you have a crystal ball, there’s no way of knowing for certain what may happen in the future. By worrying about it, you are expending energy that could be used to prevent a possible future disaster from happening in the first place.
When stress arises within us due to conflicts between our Ideal Self and our Perceived Self in the Belly of the Whale, we can restore balance and eliminate or reduce that conflict by seeking wisdom through acceptance and change. If there is something we cannot accept, then we must change it. If there is something we cannot change, we must learn to accept it. These are the only two choices we have. The wisdom comes in knowing whether a thing is something that can be changed, or if it’s something we have to accept.
If the conflict between our Ideal Self and our Perceived Self in the Belly of the Whale has to do with something that happened in the past or something that might happen in the future, then that is something we will have to learn to accept since it is impossible to change the past, and it is impossible to predict the future with any degree of certainty. The only changes we may make involve things that are happening right now, in the present moment.
Remember, as you set out on the path of making changes in your life, that you cannot change anyone but yourself. If problems arise in your life because of the actions of another person, you cannot force that person to do anything. All you can do is accept that they are who they are. If you persist in trying to change those around you instead of in changing yourself, you will forever be trapped in the Belly of the Whale, with no escape. Knowing this, you may then be able to change yourself so that you can accept others more easily. This acceptance can occur more readily if you learn to let go of the past and the future and focus only on the present moment. When you have achieved such present-moment awareness, you will have ended your time in the Belly of the Whale.
When you have successfully faced these challenges, your time in the Belly of the Whale will be over. You will have achieved katabasis.
Share Your Thoughts on the Belly of the Whale!
What do you think? Have you spent any time in the Belly of the Whale? Share your thoughts in the comments below!