It is especially important as well as relevant at this time of year to discuss the theme of death and rebirth and how it can lead to the transformation of consciousness and personality. The winter solstice time of year is intimately connected with this theme. This is the time of year in the Northern Hemisphere when the sun is furthest from us. It is the time of the shortest day of the year, the longest night. This is also the time when the sun first begins to return, when all life, knowing this, rejoices and waits for the coming rebirth of spring.
     Our energy and our feelings are definitely seasonally affected. Our energies naturally turn inwards at this time of year, towards our deeper consciousness, towards that place of soul where lives the guardian of our true life story, that witnessing part of ourselves that knows exactly who we are and who we can be. If we are courageous and let ourselves go on this inner journey, we can return laden with treasure, certainly with increased awareness and energy. We can be reborn. We can transform ourselves and become more able to love and to achieve our true life's goals.
     The Hopi and the peoples of the other pueblos in the Southwest of the United States know this. The pueblo men abstain from sex at this time of year and instead retire from their ordinary lives of family and work. Together they descend into their underground Kivas to pray for the sun and for consciousness to return. Both the Taoists and the Tibetans hold to similar views.




     There are three parts of such a journey to the center of our self. The first part is the most difficult. We have to let go of our egos, of who we think we are. We have to surrender ourselves to our fate and dive into our darkness. I first did this in my mid-thirties. Until then, I had always been frightened and depressed, ever since I could remember. When I decided to finally stop fighting it and let go to it instead, I had the following dream:
     I was the captain of a submarine. We were detaching ourselves from the cable that connected us to the pier above. The people standing on this pier warned us not to do this. They said that we wouldn't be able to survive on our own. They were my friends and Jungian colleagues. I told them that we were going to let go. They couldn't stop us. We were going to dive to the very bottom of things. We would take care of ourselves too, just as any independent nation would.
     This dream began a time in my life when I left the outer world collective, when I finally stopped trying to fit in. It began a time when I left behind who I had been. I changed so much because of this that, in the middle of my transformation, my mother told me that I wasn't her son anymore, that I had been taken over by some other personality, one that she couldn't relate to at all. Of course, she changed her feelings about me eventually, especially when she lay dying and she and I had our final loving time together.

     In the second part of our journey to our center, we search among the discarded and the unused, often unappreciated aspects of our wholeness of being. If we are lucky and determined, we will find treasure - new ways of being or old, discarded ways that are now relevant to our lives. It is possible to become lost here in the darkness of our souls, like those mortals who have become lost in the world of Faere. We have to always remember that we are here only to find the treasure of rebirth. We are not here to stay.
     When I was in the midst of this spiritual transformation, I had a powerful and enlightening dream. I had had this dream once before, when I was a dying seven-year-old boy. In my dream, I was that little boy again, wandering underground through these amazing caverns and tunnels. I came upon a giant and fearsome Genie. I turned to run, but he told me that I needn't be afraid, that he was there to help me. He said that he had been guarding a treasure of mine until I was conscious enough to guard it myself. He showed me where it was, in a little alcove behind him. Then he stepped aside, and I looked inside. There was a little box within. It contained my treasure. When I took it, the Genie thanked me and said that his work was ended. Then his face dissolved, and I could see the now still clockwork within his head.
     When I woke from this dream, I realized that the treasure he had long guarded for me was my true self, my innate wholeness of being that I had finally earned for myself by bravely letting go. I realized also that I had had this dream a second time so I could see what I had accomplished in my dive to the center of my being.

     Joyfully, I returned from my journey to the interior, beginning a new and enriched life in the mundane world, one that I have lived happily ever since - until maybe now that I'm a new dad and the larger world really does need my help again.
     The last part of our inner journey then is to return to our ordinary, outer world life, renewed, reenergized, and spiritually uplifted. This is also a difficult part of our journey. It is easy to lose the treasure as we return to the hurry of our lives. It is easy too, at least at first, to fall into old patterns, especially if our family and friends have become attached, as my mother and others had been, to who we had been. For our transformation to succeed, we have to stay firmly connected to our newfound inner energies and visions of ourselves, while, at the same time, actualizing and grounding our new and enriched selves firmly in the outer, mundane world.

     In The Return of the King, the third book and movie of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings Trilogy, the theme of death and rebirth is powerfully and beautifully told. Frodo and Samwise have to surrender themselves to their fate and enter into the very heart of darkness in order to find their true selves. Aragon has to accept his destiny and become the leader of mankind, the King who returns. Arwen has to give up her immortality for love of this beautiful man. The Elves have to realize that their time in Middle Earth is over, that they have to give over their stewardship to mankind. Then and only then, when evil is finally overcome - not by force of arms but by courage and love - the King returns, the White Tree is reborn, the land begins to heal, and the people rejoice.
     It is certainly interesting and definitely spiritually relevant that the Rings trilogy - a potent and convincing portrayal of death and rebirth and the triumph of Spirit - has come so forcefully upon the collective consciousness at this time. Perhaps it has come so that we may see that the evil of Sauron has manifested again in this Age of Man. Middle Earth has once again come under siege. The darkness has already begun to spread throughout the lands and the great armies of Mordor march to war.
     It is time for those of us who follow the White Light of consciousness and compassion to strive against the darkness. It is time for us to come together to defend all that we hold dear and true and to neutralize the negative and destructive energy of the Dark. It is certainly the end of one age and the beginning of a new. Most likely the future of the world depends upon each of us now - as it always has.

Eugene Marks, Ph.D.