The Wisdom of Zippers – CREDO CXXIX

 
I thought I had already written a Credo on this topic, but am unable to find it. As it is such a fun way to share some insights, here goes.

One day in meditation, I wondered about the antonym for the word symbolos, which means joining together, and in Grk. that would mean diabolos [!!] which means separating. And these two archetypal processes come together in the zipper!

The wee tab of my last Credo, the Transcendent Function, obviously has a Descendent Function, so it was time to reconsider the Zipper. And this is what I learned: it is the best example for Jungian symbolic understanding.
Ask yourself, what makes one out of two going up? And two out of one going down? A zipper.!So the wee tab is ruled by Mercury and going up, it becomes the psychopomp [love that word!], leader of souls, and the Trickster, or worse, going down.

Well, I shared this insight with my beloved Polar Bear, my husband, and from then on, he would gleefully put on his pants in the morning and shout “Symbolos!” and at night, with a wink, reverse the action and whisper “Diabolos!”So this soon became a part of my lectures and showed that Jungian psychology can be a source of humor as well as wisdom.

Now to be serious, Jung called this function the coincidentia oppositorum or the coming together of opposites of any kind, showing the psychological importance of keeping both our positive and negative emotions in full sight, rather than the usual Christian choice of owning the good and denying the bad. Then the negative is cast back into the Unconscious and gets projected out onto someone else! Collectively, the enemy. This insight of Jung’s is vitally important, and it is the energy then that fosters our individual spiritual growth or the ascent of the zipper. It implies a profound humility on the part of each of us to acknowledge that we are not perfect on the one hand nor hopeless cases on the other, as long as we maintain the balance. Duality rules our existence in this manifest world except at the miraculous apex of union or what I call the occasional pook of insight given when a lesson is learned.

I believe I have shared what happened to me when I smugly became conscious of some mistaken attitude – I learned to my dismay I could not claim it until I had applied it! Christ is described as wearing a “seamless garment” or a whole aura. That image translates into a sort of sheath that the rest of us have with holes in it – not spots – and so to become conscious of our lack we need to be wholly present in order to become holy! Ouch!

So the danger is inflation and the wise course is to assume that, okay, I filled that hole, where’s the next one? At 88 years of age, I am no longer able of committing grave active sins, but I know what it is to “sin” on the installment plan!

I honestly think that ‘sin’ is an outmoded word. I prefer this definition: A mistake is a loop in consciousness made to expose a greater surface to experience. [Sayings of Gezeebius] Or the image of a tree whose vertical ascent is dependent on horizontal branches which grow, thanks to leaves exposed to the sun, each leaf crying Aha! Aha!

As I am now a very oooold tree, I am dropping my fruit willy-nilly, always remembering:

    What you would grasp
          let go,
    only those seeds that fall
          grow.

lovingly
ao