Growing out of duality / archetypes / the doppelganger

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When we are stuck in duality,

we are only living half of reality.

Half is better than nothing

but eventually it might dawn on us

that there are greener fields.

I learned this when I was writing

"New Wasichu, Crossing: Our story is just beginning" (2014).

When I began writing about the doppelganger,

starting with how the doppelganger showed up

in the dreams of some clients,

it quickly expanded into a much larger topic

than I was prepared for.

As I expanded my research,

for one thing, it soon became clear

that the doppelganger is an archetype in its own right.

And then my job became twofold:

to (1) say what the doppelganger represented culturally

and to the collective (the human race),

and (2) what it meant to me.

This is always the case when exploring an archetype

which is only understood by its effects

and cannot be approached directly

because an archetype is essentially a field,

and its nature is quantum.

So you might experience the archetype

as a wave or waves and sometimes as a solid.

but also as a projection (which also represents a certain amount of energy).

Archetypes are most commonly appreciated

In symbolized form, such as a "tree".

A tree is an archetype

but a tree, in reality, is also quantum.

That is to say, what a tree "is", fundamentally speaking,

is a concenfield field of living energy

that is assuming the form of a tree.

So your favorite tree is, in reality,

your personalized projection of a condensed field

that is appearing one way to you,

and another way to someone else

such as the bird in its branches.

So the doppelganger, for me, manifested

as a black and white photo of a little boy, my age (age 7)

who was featured in an issue of Life Magazine in 1958

that my mother showed me.

When I saw this photo of this boy,

who was the spitting image of me,

I had an out-of-body experience.

I saw myself as this someone else..

He was me.

As I grew older, from that point on,

I imagined that this boy, my Life Magazine Twin

was also growing older, but somewhere else.

This fantasy continued until I wrote "New Wasichu, Crossing"

Which took up the theme of Crossing.

"Crossing" is also an archetype,

so what I said above holds true for what happened

when I started approaching the theme of crossing.

It expanded into an archetype for the culture and the collective,

but, as I personalized it, I was shocked

by how quickly it took on a life of its own

as the image of a black road,

that I was being challenged to cross

and, in almost knee jerk fashion

I found myself writing a poem that captured all of the anxiety

and terror and awe

of "Crossing the Black Road".

I found myself standing on the shoulder

of an asphalt road with a double line,

along with a host of animals that were also getting ready

to cross the Black Road,

such as turtle and deer and caterpillar.

We were crossing separately, but

we were also crossing together.

The occasional car that thundered by

was perceived as through the eyes of an animal

as a juggernaut of enormous power

that careened by at unpredictable intervals.

Crossing was a gamble.

The black road, for me, represented many things

but for the turtle it was just a dangerous boundary

that stood between her and where she wanted to lay her eggs.

For the deer it was what separated her or him from the herd

or the safety of the woods.

The black road, for me, was also death, or my mortality.

And it was also what I needed to cross to leave behind

how I was living my life, which was stifling me.

I needed to cross from my old ways,

from who I had become.

Writing the poem was a kind of prayer, which I shouted

as if into a strong wind..

(I could have written that poem in caps and in bold font.)

Once I wrote the poem, an amazing thing happened.

I imagined that my doppelganger,

my Life Magazine Twin, was looking for me

and that soon he (now 63 years, same age as me in 2014)

would find me

and when he did, we would merge.

I came up with the idea that he was more whole than me.

He carried the template of my undamaged self.

What I realized was, even as we, as human beings,

are eaten up by life

and may only fulfill a fraction of our dreams,

the whole template of our fractal-self

is outside of us, safe and sound, in our doppelganger.

I have written a lot about the soul

and I have written a lot about the Self

and I have written a lot about the shadow.

The doppelganger is none of these.

It is a unique archetype.

I could say much more, but I don't see the point

of going on when my book "New Wasichu, Crossing"

Is available. It is out of print, but I have plenty of copies.

What is your black road?

What are you crossing to?

Have you crossed? More than once?

I welcome sharing.