Integrating chaos and wholeness

Recently some friends gathered to reflect together on my recent Egyptian journey. In contrast to the standard academic approach to Egypt, our tour (as do all Quest Travel tours), had a spiritual focus. We came smack up against the unknown, the mysteries and the profound.

Check out my blog for the detail: www.becomingthejourney.blogspot.com

One of the reliefs that particularly spoke to me was in the Temple of Queen Nefertari at Abu Simbel. It show Set on the left, who represents the forces of darkness, chaos, disintegration. On the right is the falcon-headed Horus, whose name means 'he who is above.' Horus is a complex deity, at core standing for wholeness and light--the realized divine principle, higher consciousness.

Between the two forces we find a pharaoh -- a human being, with manifold potential. As someone in the middle, between conflicting forces, we can feel caught, trapped. He/we could be pulled apart, split up by the contrast, the juxtaposition. Or he/we could seek to understand, integrate, balance, and even transform the two seemingly oppositional forces.

For me, this relief is a whole cosmology at one glance! As human beings we have the opportunity, the capacity, the challenge, to integrate forces of darkness and light, disintegration and wholeness. Standing in front of this relief, I was deeply touched... by its simplicity, its depth, its message -- to me, to us, to our world -- so fraught with conflict, and so full of potential for integration and wholeness.