So wonderful, Veronika, in its depth and yet accessible. I liked this post on Sophia and its connection to suffering and the "dark night of the soul." To know is to suffer. We do not ask to suffer, but once we are upon it, what do we do? We learn from it.
This advice goes against the Happiness Industry, so much part of America with its Disneyesque culture.
Thank you Perry! I know. Wouldn't it be nice if we could learn only from pleasant experiences...? Alas, the Happiness Industry (great term!) has spread the virus of toxic positivity while giving the 'dark side of the soul' a bad rep. In fact, I didn't even know about the dark side of Sophia until I wrote this essay 🤔💭
I suspect that we have collectively reached a stage where the only way out (of whatever we wish/ need to get out of) is through that dark side. True. We don't ask to suffer, but suffering is an astonishing and powerful transformative force.
'The Happiness Industry' -- well put, Perry. It's also one of many distractions on offer, but maybe not surprising if people do not have a regular way of otherwise dealing with their own 'dark sides' and 'dark experiences'.
What we “see” is what we get! Thanks for this deeper dive into the words! As my Grandmother was a refugeed Anatolian Greek from the Pontus Hagia Sophia (pic looks like Blue Mosque?) has a deeper ache of knowing in my bones. Kavafy’s poem The City echoing through me as I write. Ennoia now the taste of her spires. I welcome a journey into her seeing and knowing. Thank you Veronika for this kiss of possibility.
Sign me up for the mysterious work! Two feet, heart and soul already at the door. Ready to pull “in”. Synchronosophy: A Rough Guide to the Feral Side of Life- calls me. 🙏❤️
I think you're right. Well spotted! Unsplash generously lumped both places together. Having last been in Istanbul looking at the Hagia Sophia half a century ago this escaped my attention.
to discover the knowing in the bones and connect with it... that's what the journey is all about. So glad to have you as a fellow intronaut on board for this wild ride.
The survival of legacy Byzantine Christianity under Ottoman rule seems still to have contemporary relevance. I worked on/off for 7 years to 2006 in post-Yugoslav Macedonia, now North Macedonia, and saw ancient churches / frescoes / iconography renewed up to the early 19thC. I visited often: "The Church of Saint Panteleimon in Gorno Nerezi, North Macedonia... a small 12th-century Byzantine church located in a monastery complex." A Greek colleague on one occasion could read to me some of the verses on the walls.
The agreed forced population exchange of 1923 is still being played out across our world, tragically very much so in new and more terrifying versions as we write. This history could do with a bit more scholarship I guess, but suffices https://merip.org/2013/06/the-greek-turkish-population-exchange/
Thanks Phillip. Lots of history and politics post WW1 indeed. What happened prior to 2023 is not well documented by “official” history. A lot of Greeks didn’t make it. There’s always two sides and reality is in the middle. It’s nice to see the old churches surviving. And on we go…. Thanks so much for sharing.
Hang in there Jamie! Yup... witness stories and it becomes human. Err... I did it in my first typing... 1923... think Nansen and The League of Nations concurring with a bad idea. I did not know that bit about Lloyd George, even madder. Another Empire already going round the bend?
BTW; re Kavafy's City, up popped the lyric's in my head for 'Hotel California'... it turns out to be the Eagles, 1975... modern mind and all that.
Great stuff Veronika and I too am looking forward.👍👍
As always you trigger some proto thoughts.
I guess Shakespeare got his dreaming soul of the wide world from Robert Fludd, although the newer geometers were giving Robert a hammering even by then? (I already had a glimpse of Fludd via Frances Yates.)
I wonder about the soul dreaming: Jung tried to make it 'scientific'?
Thinking of geometers, the Justinian Hagia Sophia's design by geometers out of Alexandrian pagan gnostic philosophy, when I looked this morning, is astounding.
I became a fan of Geza Vermes shortly before he died because I needed help with history and Christian exegesis that I had gone on stubbing my toes against over a lifetime. I was to find him with his background in extant earliest Jewish documents.
Then this morning I find that there is the later 'Pistis Sophia' in libraries.
I have enough hares running to inspire me to enlarge the wide world, and look forward to your help.😊👍
Thank you Philip! Always a joy to read your perspective.
Although I grew up in the Holy Land, in a Lutheran setting, and come from a family heavily influenced by Bible texts, this is not my perspective (or perhaps because of this background...)
Having said that I do remember the excitement when the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered, and read the material (or some of it) with great interest.
Reading the interview with Geza Vermes, I find it very relatable. Especially this:
"Languages are absolutely essential. When I work on the New Testament, what I’m asking is not “What do people understand today?” but “What did this mean for the people for whom this was written 2000 years ago?”
and this:
"If you asked me what I consider the most important thing in religion, I’d say go to the solitude somewhere. (I live on the edge of a wood.) Go there and look at yourself and examine yourself, and listen to the still, small voice, referred to in the Bible, and the voice of the living God will speak to you. That’s where true religion lies."
Although I left the church at the age of 14 (after confirmation) my personal search has guided me along a path where I found answers and truths that resonate with Vermes. (the old roots are still in there somewhere, as recorded in one of the early chapters of Synchronosophy https://veronikabondsynchronosophy.substack.com/p/the-rootstock-of-synchronosophy-part-370)
I can also relate to what GV says about being intuitive. Thanks for introducing me to him.
I only understand a little of others religious upbringing. We still had 'morning prayers' at state schools, especially for juniors. It was part of 'education' after compulsory schooling became 'policy' toward the end of the 19thC. That bundle was never properly accepted by the recently evolved working class. Maintaining independent 'worker education' and dissenting religion was still a big thing, but declined in the 20thC and is almost completely gone now.
My father's complicated relationship with religion, CoE, kept us out of church. I think I was only in a church service 3 or 4 times until I was 17/18 when at school we debated talks by faith representatives. These sent me to the local suburban Church because of the sincere nature of the vicar and the presence of a girl I knew a little. The Nicaean Creed was a shock to me. My eldest brother, 10 years older, had brought home the Beatitudes for discussion earlier and I had been impressed, but the recitation of the Creed was something else. My 3 brothers however went the other way, one becoming an ordained priest, and the other two active 'church wardens'.
Somehow I avoided it and stayed out in the wild, but sympathetic with love and kindness and gumption in its manifestations in practicing friends, and even in institutions, e.g. latterly Rowan Williams. I have been fairly immune to evangelisation secular or religious. I am going to lob the GV interview at Martin Shaw the storyteller who has recently converted to Christian along with his friend Paul Kingsnorth. Like them I have liked from childhood the atmosphere in many small country churches, holy sites and legends. Martin has already taken an interest in that little Byzantine church, and Lababidi's poems. I'm not evangelising though!😊
Hi Veronika, Oh this has stirred some curiosity in me about ancient wisdom and our yet to be discovered possibilities re your suggestion about 'healing world soul'. The point you make about the connection of the individual and world-soul resonates. And is wisdom needed with regard to chaos because they are always an option - the 'seeing' and 'knowing' you mention? Looking forward to the 'Feral Side'. Thank you, as always.💜🙏
As I understand, the primordial Chaos is always 'there' (but that's perhaps not the 'chaos' you are referring to). I understand 'seeing and knowing' as expressions of wisdom. Without wisdom we are only 'looking and speculating'. Wisdom is not a fixed state. I see it as a flowing river fed by an infinite well of divine knowing.
Thank you for reading and engaging in the stirring: I fully believe that every individual who engages in their own deep individual work of healing also makes significant contributions to healing the anima mundi (and the ancestral souls for that matter, as you know).
Ennoia and Epinoia—fascinating! I want to learn more and was thrilled to read at the end of this post that you’re doing a deeper, serialized dive!
“Ennoia holds an internal knowing which is deprived of the opportunity to express itself.” Which is exactly how it feels in those dark night of the soul days, but how cool for you to articulate her essence and her balancing sister. Offering a new opportunity to trust that the inner knowing is working on something even when we can’t see or hear it, and Epinoia will eventually join the dance to usher in the insight.
I was fascinated to discover these two sides myself! That's why I shared them here. When I took a break from Synchronosophy last summer, I did so in the knowledge that the book is far from 'finished', but had to allow the creative well to replenish, ready for the practical part. Not sure whether I'm ready (or ever will be).
What I do know is that my intention to bring this book to completion is as clear as ever, and the only time I've got is now! So I have to trust the creative process, and the relentless voice of Ennoia, to call on Epinoia to join that dance...
You’ve got this Veronika! I deeply respect your wisdom to trust the hibernation/cultivation period, going dark, allowing Persephone and Ennoia to hold those seeds close and keep them warm. Spring is coming!
The genuine value of 'the dark', and of 'negative experiences' is in much need of being brought to a wider public, without in anyway side-stepping what we call 'just plain evil'. I'm sure you won't. A much more sophisticated model awaits futher development.
I love this post about the annoying side of Sophia, Veronika. Her wholeness of being darkness & light IS the gift! Ever since reading thru your post the first time, feeling at a loss of words to comment, Sophia has shown up all week in other posts and conversations. One author I spoke to thought he saw a lack of women in his first draft manuscript only to realize they were with him throughout, including an early friend named Mary!! Divine mischief! I am enjoying a visit from two close friends this weekend and Sophia is pouring her love and energy all over the place! Thank you for the insights to be able to be more aware!
Interesting insights here, Veronika. I'm wondering if there isn't also something like a collective "dark night of the soul" in humanity's experience, where light gives way to darkness. The Middle Ages might be one such period; the Inquisition another. And what Epinoia might come from that experience?
I might add another divine feminine manifestation to your list from Jewish mystical tradition and Kabbalah, the Shekhinah, known as the "in-dwelling" aspect of God - residing in the life of the world: God as mother, nurturer, protector and compassionate one. In this way, She tracks with the Greek Sophia, or the Christian Mary.
And similarly, she has a dark side (I had to research this, we don't customarily associate Her with darkness). According to Telshemesh, "The Shekhinah embodies joy, yet she is also a symbol of shared suffering and empathy, not only with a nation’s exile (Israel's being banished into the Diaspora), but with all the hurts of the world," she is also associated with death and darkness. And to answer my own question, this might speak to the communal experience, more so than just that of the individual.
Curious to me that all these wisdom traditions speak to this divine feminine manifestation for God/wisdom, seeing and knowing.
You are right, the Shekhinah fits perfectly into this circle of soul mothers. The common strands and parallel images might tell us that all these religious have tapped into a deeper 'universal truth'.
I'm sure there are collective 'dark nights' too. All individual human experiences have parallels in the collective... "And what Epinoia might come from that?"
I don't think there is a general answer to this, and assume that different thinkers have different perspectives on the insights gained from a dark night period...
Sometimes it seems, as if nothing has been learned at all. On the other hand, knowing the powers of transformation, perhaps we are heading for a big collective Epinoia 🕯️
Yes, the prospect of a collective dark night certainly gives pause for deep reflection. May we find in the darkness the blessings of Shekhinah, insights of Epinoia's and Sophia's light 🕯️ 🙏🏻
I first became aware of Sophia during my Waldorf teacher training, which interestingly wasn't as much teaching as it was anthroposophy and theosophy reading. So for me, it's fascinating to see the other 'Sophias' and the dark side of it, as well. But why must wisdom come from suffering?
Good question! This is where this work of mine originally started...
My (tentative) answer is that it has to do with learning and ignorance. If we take wisdom as the highest level of insight, and suffering as the result of 'when things go wrong' (= failure due to ignorance = a natural part of the learning curve) then it seems natural that suffering CAN lead to wisdom, IF (and only when) we go through the suffering and come out the other side (i.e. Sophia's 'dark night of the soul')
There is no guarantee for suffering to lead to wisdom just because we've been 'suffering enough'. In my experience, there has to be some insight from the depth of the darkness.
Hmmm. Maybe suffering has something to do with a shared or collective experience or memory. But I agree, no guarantees because unfortunately, I think sometimes we have a tendency to ‘massage the misery’ as I like to say. We definitely need to find a way out, or make peace with it.
There may be that too. Some people seem too attached to their hardships and suffering to step out of their discomfort zone and 'do the inner work'. I find that hard to understand or relate to. But what do I know? Perhaps they are fulfilling some collective role as 'memory keepers of the suffering'?
What I do know, is that we can only work on and transform our personal stuff, and that can (and does) make a difference to the collective healing. I'm happy and at peace with that role.
So wonderful, Veronika, in its depth and yet accessible. I liked this post on Sophia and its connection to suffering and the "dark night of the soul." To know is to suffer. We do not ask to suffer, but once we are upon it, what do we do? We learn from it.
This advice goes against the Happiness Industry, so much part of America with its Disneyesque culture.
Thank you Perry! I know. Wouldn't it be nice if we could learn only from pleasant experiences...? Alas, the Happiness Industry (great term!) has spread the virus of toxic positivity while giving the 'dark side of the soul' a bad rep. In fact, I didn't even know about the dark side of Sophia until I wrote this essay 🤔💭
I suspect that we have collectively reached a stage where the only way out (of whatever we wish/ need to get out of) is through that dark side. True. We don't ask to suffer, but suffering is an astonishing and powerful transformative force.
'The Happiness Industry' -- well put, Perry. It's also one of many distractions on offer, but maybe not surprising if people do not have a regular way of otherwise dealing with their own 'dark sides' and 'dark experiences'.
Yes, that's right. I can well understand the reasons why it exists. It distracts from the pain of reality.
Happiness Industry indeed. What an appropriate term; had not heard it before.
What we “see” is what we get! Thanks for this deeper dive into the words! As my Grandmother was a refugeed Anatolian Greek from the Pontus Hagia Sophia (pic looks like Blue Mosque?) has a deeper ache of knowing in my bones. Kavafy’s poem The City echoing through me as I write. Ennoia now the taste of her spires. I welcome a journey into her seeing and knowing. Thank you Veronika for this kiss of possibility.
Sign me up for the mysterious work! Two feet, heart and soul already at the door. Ready to pull “in”. Synchronosophy: A Rough Guide to the Feral Side of Life- calls me. 🙏❤️
I think you're right. Well spotted! Unsplash generously lumped both places together. Having last been in Istanbul looking at the Hagia Sophia half a century ago this escaped my attention.
to discover the knowing in the bones and connect with it... that's what the journey is all about. So glad to have you as a fellow intronaut on board for this wild ride.
The survival of legacy Byzantine Christianity under Ottoman rule seems still to have contemporary relevance. I worked on/off for 7 years to 2006 in post-Yugoslav Macedonia, now North Macedonia, and saw ancient churches / frescoes / iconography renewed up to the early 19thC. I visited often: "The Church of Saint Panteleimon in Gorno Nerezi, North Macedonia... a small 12th-century Byzantine church located in a monastery complex." A Greek colleague on one occasion could read to me some of the verses on the walls.
The agreed forced population exchange of 1923 is still being played out across our world, tragically very much so in new and more terrifying versions as we write. This history could do with a bit more scholarship I guess, but suffices https://merip.org/2013/06/the-greek-turkish-population-exchange/
Thanks Phillip. Lots of history and politics post WW1 indeed. What happened prior to 2023 is not well documented by “official” history. A lot of Greeks didn’t make it. There’s always two sides and reality is in the middle. It’s nice to see the old churches surviving. And on we go…. Thanks so much for sharing.
Hang in there Jamie! Yup... witness stories and it becomes human. Err... I did it in my first typing... 1923... think Nansen and The League of Nations concurring with a bad idea. I did not know that bit about Lloyd George, even madder. Another Empire already going round the bend?
BTW; re Kavafy's City, up popped the lyric's in my head for 'Hotel California'... it turns out to be the Eagles, 1975... modern mind and all that.
To 1923
Thanks Philip! I appreciate you leaning into this.
Great stuff Veronika and I too am looking forward.👍👍
As always you trigger some proto thoughts.
I guess Shakespeare got his dreaming soul of the wide world from Robert Fludd, although the newer geometers were giving Robert a hammering even by then? (I already had a glimpse of Fludd via Frances Yates.)
I wonder about the soul dreaming: Jung tried to make it 'scientific'?
Thinking of geometers, the Justinian Hagia Sophia's design by geometers out of Alexandrian pagan gnostic philosophy, when I looked this morning, is astounding.
I became a fan of Geza Vermes shortly before he died because I needed help with history and Christian exegesis that I had gone on stubbing my toes against over a lifetime. I was to find him with his background in extant earliest Jewish documents.
Then this morning I find that there is the later 'Pistis Sophia' in libraries.
I have enough hares running to inspire me to enlarge the wide world, and look forward to your help.😊👍
Anyway here is Vermes in a short interview with the CT: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2010/5-february/features/interview-geza-vermes-biblical-scholar He was living next to Bagley Wood, which was a good idea.
Thank you Philip! Always a joy to read your perspective.
Although I grew up in the Holy Land, in a Lutheran setting, and come from a family heavily influenced by Bible texts, this is not my perspective (or perhaps because of this background...)
Having said that I do remember the excitement when the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered, and read the material (or some of it) with great interest.
Reading the interview with Geza Vermes, I find it very relatable. Especially this:
"Languages are absolutely essential. When I work on the New Testament, what I’m asking is not “What do people understand today?” but “What did this mean for the people for whom this was written 2000 years ago?”
and this:
"If you asked me what I consider the most important thing in religion, I’d say go to the solitude somewhere. (I live on the edge of a wood.) Go there and look at yourself and examine yourself, and listen to the still, small voice, referred to in the Bible, and the voice of the living God will speak to you. That’s where true religion lies."
Although I left the church at the age of 14 (after confirmation) my personal search has guided me along a path where I found answers and truths that resonate with Vermes. (the old roots are still in there somewhere, as recorded in one of the early chapters of Synchronosophy https://veronikabondsynchronosophy.substack.com/p/the-rootstock-of-synchronosophy-part-370)
I can also relate to what GV says about being intuitive. Thanks for introducing me to him.
I rather hoped GV would be in tune!👍
I only understand a little of others religious upbringing. We still had 'morning prayers' at state schools, especially for juniors. It was part of 'education' after compulsory schooling became 'policy' toward the end of the 19thC. That bundle was never properly accepted by the recently evolved working class. Maintaining independent 'worker education' and dissenting religion was still a big thing, but declined in the 20thC and is almost completely gone now.
My father's complicated relationship with religion, CoE, kept us out of church. I think I was only in a church service 3 or 4 times until I was 17/18 when at school we debated talks by faith representatives. These sent me to the local suburban Church because of the sincere nature of the vicar and the presence of a girl I knew a little. The Nicaean Creed was a shock to me. My eldest brother, 10 years older, had brought home the Beatitudes for discussion earlier and I had been impressed, but the recitation of the Creed was something else. My 3 brothers however went the other way, one becoming an ordained priest, and the other two active 'church wardens'.
Somehow I avoided it and stayed out in the wild, but sympathetic with love and kindness and gumption in its manifestations in practicing friends, and even in institutions, e.g. latterly Rowan Williams. I have been fairly immune to evangelisation secular or religious. I am going to lob the GV interview at Martin Shaw the storyteller who has recently converted to Christian along with his friend Paul Kingsnorth. Like them I have liked from childhood the atmosphere in many small country churches, holy sites and legends. Martin has already taken an interest in that little Byzantine church, and Lababidi's poems. I'm not evangelising though!😊
Hi Veronika, Oh this has stirred some curiosity in me about ancient wisdom and our yet to be discovered possibilities re your suggestion about 'healing world soul'. The point you make about the connection of the individual and world-soul resonates. And is wisdom needed with regard to chaos because they are always an option - the 'seeing' and 'knowing' you mention? Looking forward to the 'Feral Side'. Thank you, as always.💜🙏
As I understand, the primordial Chaos is always 'there' (but that's perhaps not the 'chaos' you are referring to). I understand 'seeing and knowing' as expressions of wisdom. Without wisdom we are only 'looking and speculating'. Wisdom is not a fixed state. I see it as a flowing river fed by an infinite well of divine knowing.
Thank you for reading and engaging in the stirring: I fully believe that every individual who engages in their own deep individual work of healing also makes significant contributions to healing the anima mundi (and the ancestral souls for that matter, as you know).
Love it, wisdom as a flowing river and knowing is felt, aside from intellectual pursuit. Thanks for your clarification Veronika. 😊
Ennoia and Epinoia—fascinating! I want to learn more and was thrilled to read at the end of this post that you’re doing a deeper, serialized dive!
“Ennoia holds an internal knowing which is deprived of the opportunity to express itself.” Which is exactly how it feels in those dark night of the soul days, but how cool for you to articulate her essence and her balancing sister. Offering a new opportunity to trust that the inner knowing is working on something even when we can’t see or hear it, and Epinoia will eventually join the dance to usher in the insight.
I was fascinated to discover these two sides myself! That's why I shared them here. When I took a break from Synchronosophy last summer, I did so in the knowledge that the book is far from 'finished', but had to allow the creative well to replenish, ready for the practical part. Not sure whether I'm ready (or ever will be).
What I do know is that my intention to bring this book to completion is as clear as ever, and the only time I've got is now! So I have to trust the creative process, and the relentless voice of Ennoia, to call on Epinoia to join that dance...
You’ve got this Veronika! I deeply respect your wisdom to trust the hibernation/cultivation period, going dark, allowing Persephone and Ennoia to hold those seeds close and keep them warm. Spring is coming!
The genuine value of 'the dark', and of 'negative experiences' is in much need of being brought to a wider public, without in anyway side-stepping what we call 'just plain evil'. I'm sure you won't. A much more sophisticated model awaits futher development.
It's a delicate line to tread. That's a big reason why it is taking me so long to write this book!!
I love this post about the annoying side of Sophia, Veronika. Her wholeness of being darkness & light IS the gift! Ever since reading thru your post the first time, feeling at a loss of words to comment, Sophia has shown up all week in other posts and conversations. One author I spoke to thought he saw a lack of women in his first draft manuscript only to realize they were with him throughout, including an early friend named Mary!! Divine mischief! I am enjoying a visit from two close friends this weekend and Sophia is pouring her love and energy all over the place! Thank you for the insights to be able to be more aware!
Wonderful! Thank you so much for sharing these stories. Yes, 'the goddess has a great sense of humour', as a friend of mine used to say... xx
Interesting insights here, Veronika. I'm wondering if there isn't also something like a collective "dark night of the soul" in humanity's experience, where light gives way to darkness. The Middle Ages might be one such period; the Inquisition another. And what Epinoia might come from that experience?
I might add another divine feminine manifestation to your list from Jewish mystical tradition and Kabbalah, the Shekhinah, known as the "in-dwelling" aspect of God - residing in the life of the world: God as mother, nurturer, protector and compassionate one. In this way, She tracks with the Greek Sophia, or the Christian Mary.
And similarly, she has a dark side (I had to research this, we don't customarily associate Her with darkness). According to Telshemesh, "The Shekhinah embodies joy, yet she is also a symbol of shared suffering and empathy, not only with a nation’s exile (Israel's being banished into the Diaspora), but with all the hurts of the world," she is also associated with death and darkness. And to answer my own question, this might speak to the communal experience, more so than just that of the individual.
Curious to me that all these wisdom traditions speak to this divine feminine manifestation for God/wisdom, seeing and knowing.
A universal Truth, perhaps?
Thank you Robin 💗🙏
You are right, the Shekhinah fits perfectly into this circle of soul mothers. The common strands and parallel images might tell us that all these religious have tapped into a deeper 'universal truth'.
I'm sure there are collective 'dark nights' too. All individual human experiences have parallels in the collective... "And what Epinoia might come from that?"
I don't think there is a general answer to this, and assume that different thinkers have different perspectives on the insights gained from a dark night period...
Sometimes it seems, as if nothing has been learned at all. On the other hand, knowing the powers of transformation, perhaps we are heading for a big collective Epinoia 🕯️
Yes, the prospect of a collective dark night certainly gives pause for deep reflection. May we find in the darkness the blessings of Shekhinah, insights of Epinoia's and Sophia's light 🕯️ 🙏🏻
I first became aware of Sophia during my Waldorf teacher training, which interestingly wasn't as much teaching as it was anthroposophy and theosophy reading. So for me, it's fascinating to see the other 'Sophias' and the dark side of it, as well. But why must wisdom come from suffering?
Good question! This is where this work of mine originally started...
My (tentative) answer is that it has to do with learning and ignorance. If we take wisdom as the highest level of insight, and suffering as the result of 'when things go wrong' (= failure due to ignorance = a natural part of the learning curve) then it seems natural that suffering CAN lead to wisdom, IF (and only when) we go through the suffering and come out the other side (i.e. Sophia's 'dark night of the soul')
There is no guarantee for suffering to lead to wisdom just because we've been 'suffering enough'. In my experience, there has to be some insight from the depth of the darkness.
Hmmm. Maybe suffering has something to do with a shared or collective experience or memory. But I agree, no guarantees because unfortunately, I think sometimes we have a tendency to ‘massage the misery’ as I like to say. We definitely need to find a way out, or make peace with it.
There may be that too. Some people seem too attached to their hardships and suffering to step out of their discomfort zone and 'do the inner work'. I find that hard to understand or relate to. But what do I know? Perhaps they are fulfilling some collective role as 'memory keepers of the suffering'?
What I do know, is that we can only work on and transform our personal stuff, and that can (and does) make a difference to the collective healing. I'm happy and at peace with that role.
I feel the same way, Veronika.
Thank you so much, Tim for restacking!