Roots, Wings and The Flames of Transformation

A unique lion eagle pendant, part of the “Treasure of Ur,” was discovered at the Palace of Mari in present-day Syria during the Early Dynastic Period IIIb (ca. 2500 B.C.), crafted from gold, lapis lazuli, and copper.

My wife, Massimilla, and I have often talked about how accepting the failure of our dreams, ideals, and what we thought we knew about life has dropped us into the singeing flames of transformation. This acceptance isn’t easy, and we’ve had to learn to honor our grief and bitterness as part of the transformative work. Acceptance is a turning point. It means we face the fire of our own experiences and quit trying to avoid the necessary psychological death of an old self that precedes breaking through our limitations and being reborn…This approach is the road less traveled; it is countercultural, and it negates our ideas of control, rationality, and fixing problems. But it allowed me to turn my depression into a path of deep healing and reflection and the source of a new life.

— Bud Harris PhD

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There are two things children should get from their parents: roots and wings.

— Goethe

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Instead of roots and wings we often get weights and shackles. We have to find our own roots and make our own wings. Parents have an impossible task of growing up as they struggle to help their children become their best selves. Our ideas are so tiny and partial in the face of an overwhelming culture with its infernal certainties about what our limits are. The most…