Alice’s Mirror and the Great White Elephant
A story of conflict and healing in human interaction & collaboration
With compassion in his voice, he said (something like) you can be too sensitive. The energy with it was almost as if the conflict was not that big of a deal, and more in your mind; as if it wasn’t real enough. Since there are some similarities between you and me in the area of ‘sensitive’: Do you think we are too sensitive? In what ways? How might we blow things up bigger than they really are? Or how much of this is others projecting the unseen ‘white elephants’ that arise in the room and shoving them onto our backs? Hec, I usually just want to return her to her herd.
It’s hard giving up something that one likes, but I’ve been here before and things don’t change, so I end up alone – either while in the group, or because I feel a need to choose a lesser of two evils, to leave the group. Usually it’s about this white elephant that no one will acknowledge. I love the white elephant. It’s a misunderstood soft but wounded feminine energy that this elephant represents … And it’s a dark feminine energy that rides her. Ahhhh, there’s the conflict.
And this elephant just wants the weight off her back. She just wants to play (participate) and be reclaimed/accepted by her community, but is guided by the reins of her unconscious master. I wonder where her herd is that she longs for? And where does the rider belong; certainly not on this white elephants back.
Somehow she keeps getting lost in the safari, or is it abandoned?, misguided?, forced to leave? (by others, by self?) In that vulnerable place she is bridled. Or when lost on her own, the poor animal gets surrounded by a mash-up of uninitiated bulls that have clustered together from other elephant tribes. Desperate to claim their masculine nature, but un-fathered – their energy is abusive, manipulative, and of war.
If you look closely, you will see a few unusual elephant warriors that seem to be of this turbulent tribe, but are merely seekers who journeyed into the group as they crossed paths. Afraid of this stranger, they know not who the real leader is, and project their dark masculine force in all directions, suppressing the needed insight that arises, seen in reflection through the new one’s presence. Then, when the dark feminine rider smells this musk energy on the rise, she pulls on the reins of her white elephant and leads it into the culminating battle. The pubescent masculine force becomes a gathering of wimps, confused by the intertwined light and dark feminine that overpowers with rage, killing the masculine acts.
In rage, the rider and elephant reach the looking glass. Wonder if the white elephant can see her own reflection in Alice’s mirror? No. She can not see herself. But the rider does. Although it’s too late, as the white elephant stampedes through (rather than step into) the mirror, and shatters it. Too late now for reflection. The rider bleeds to death as the bulls stand silently, and ignorantly helpless; longing and waiting for silence to return.
Ongoing emergent metaphors and questions arise that I’d like to dialog with you about, maybe next time we talk. The story is not clean nor perfectly clear, yet helps me to express my sense of it all better than a summary or review. And it holds its own healing for me, as I weave myth and act into a story to share – a potent potion that helps to return a realm of self and group identity that’s too often hidden – lost within the human psyche.
WHAT COMES UP FOR YOU ABOUT YOUR OWN ‘REAL’ INTERACTIONS WITH OTHERS WHEN YOU READ THIS STORY?
For more experimental information/notes on the subject of human interaction and collaboration,
go to http://tinyurl.com/FractalContinuums
Vic Desotelle
Inquiry: Starting everyone of my questions with ‘open ended’ question words including the 6 ‘W’s: WHY is it this way, WHAT is it exactly, (w)HOW does it work, WHO is involved, WHEN is it enacted, WHERE does it reside or show up. In this way, your research will expand from isolated assumptions into broader understandings and improve data outcomes.
A more challenging but (in my view) more fun part of development, is enabling your research into a ‘social performance’ process for creating social capital and social innovation. This is done through 3 phases as follows (note ‘phases’ are different than ‘stages’):
