Ego breaks open – then you see what you really are.*
Ram Dass
The ego is initially born into us as potential, and is shaped, developed and filled up with ideas, values, and duties by the world around us, our parents, our teachers, our culture. And this is how it should be, for it becomes our escort, our armour, our scout in the outer world. However, if the wildest nature is not allowed to emanate upward through the ego, giving it colour, juice, and instinctive responsiveness…the soul does not, cannot, will not approve such incompleteness of its work.**
Clarissa Pinkola Estés
In my beginning I am Echo,
In my growing I am Ego,
In my becoming I am Self:
Dependent, independent,
Interdependent.
I am no clean progression–
I hope to be Self
but sometimes
I am Ego,
And I may even be Echo.
Yet there remains in me and all
a wild nature or soul–
Some say this is god’s image,
Others say it is nature’s image, urging
Me and you and us towards all we can be.
*Quoted in Victor Strecher’s Life On Purpose;
**Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With The Wolves.
THIN|SILENCE 