November 8, 2020
The world is celebrating. Fireworks in London and Berlin. Bells ringing in Paris. People dancing all day and all night in New York City, D.C., Philadelphia, and Atlanta. As foreign correspondent Richard Engle put it: “People were reacting like America had overthrown a dictator. That Democracy had been saved.”
This was never about Democrats versus Republicans. This was not a political match. The entire world is celebrating this weekend because this election was about democracy over fascism, sanity over insanity.
That is why we felt so scared these last four years, why we fought so hard in this election, and why we feel such elation at the win.
In preparing for our upcoming seminars with Dr. Sharon D. Johnson, I began reading a book by Barbara Hannah in which she recounts Jung’s response when asked if he thought there would be an atomic war: “I think it depends on how many people can stand the tension of the opposites in themselves,” he replied. “If enough can, I think we shall just escape the worst.”
I feel this weekend that we have, for now, escaped the worst. I feel proud of all of us. I also know that this same work to which Jung spoke remains our work today.
Can we stand the tension of the opposites within ourselves? Can we work to develop greater consciousness with all the courage that it requires, all the humility and humiliation? And can we expand our understanding of the opposites far beyond the Christian ethos of “good” and “evil” and towards a recognition of the very divisive foundation of American civilization: men over women; white over black; “civilized” over “barbaric”?
America has always had roots in fascism under the guise of democracy. Women have always lived under unequal representation and have been demanding, protesting, and screaming with rage to be heard. Black Americans have always lived in a police state, and they’ve been sounding the alarm for the rest of us for centuries. Native populations and immigrants have been speaking, since before America existed, against the notion that land can be owned, imaginary boundaries erected, and fences locked against human and animal travelers.
So this is not about simply replacing fascism with democracy in one fell swoop. Going forward, it is also about continuing to dig the whole damn thing up by its roots.
That means continuing the work of identifying white supremacy and patriarchy within our bodies, minds, and souls. It means detoxing from these psychological viruses on which we were raised, like poisoned milk. It means doing our psychological work to integrate our shadows — shadows which also contain our creativity and eros, our deepest joys and love.
This presidential ticket of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris is its own union of the opposites. It is its own union of America’s conscious self-perception and unconscious riches. We have an older white man with deep American roots and a good ol’ boy background and a younger Black woman with new American immigrant roots, and an HBCU degree.
It is a joining of the male and the female, the white and the black, the old and the young on a presidential ticket. It is a union of the opposites, and it is a beautiful union.
So let us celebrate and rejoice for the fall of fascism in America and the emergence of a new possibility for wholeness in American leadership. It is a model for greater consciousness for all of us.
Our celebrations should be many and they should be long!
And going forward, we can keep in mind that our work to understand ourselves continues: work to understand our own internal oppositions, our own valuing of hierarchy borne from white supremacy and patriarchal thinking, and our search for balance and a lack of hierarchy within ourselves. This is the task of wholeness. It was the work of Jung’s life, a white male at the top of all possible social ladders who looked around him and around a world at war and sought another way. It can be the work of our lives too, no matter our backgrounds.
We will continue to pursue these conversations at The Salome Institute, and we hope you will continue to join us.
Until next time, love to each of you — and congratulations!
xo,
Satya
Satya Doyle Byock, Director of The Salome Institute