As we passed the baton of conversation, Lee pointed me to the metaphorical lines from The Silver Chair, by C. S. Lewis. A thirsty little girl named Jill encounters the powerful and wise Lion, Aslan, as she approaches a stream for water:
“Are you thirsty?” said the Lion.
“I’m dying of thirst,” said Jill.
“Then drink,” said the Lion.
“May I-could I-would you mind going away while I do?” said Jill.
The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience.
The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.
“Will you promise not to do anything to me, if I do come?” said Jill.
“I make no promise,” said the Lion.
Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.
“Do you eat little girls?” she said.
“I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms,” said the Lion. It didn’t say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.
“I daren’t come and drink,” said Jill.
“Then you will die of thirst,” said the Lion.
“Oh dear!” said Jill, coming another step nearer. “I suppose I must go and look for another stream then.”
“There is no other stream,” said the Lion.
Lee’s reference to Jill at the stream demonstrates our attempts to negotiate among life and death, existence and essence, dilemmas born when we cling to security while begging for revival. Scared and confused, we first negotiate with nature, then with whoever offers sustenance, seeking a fictive risk-free path to new life. We’re susceptible to delusion from within our vulnerable state.
Our story of death and resurrection, our narrative of transformation, is both the original inconvenient truth and the path to life’s essence. This mythical trope of transformation through death and resurrection was recognized long before its Christian associations, it’s a longstory more enduring than religion itself. Our transformation narrative expresses an early recognized law of nature. It tells us that:
“Paths that nurture necessarily possess the capacity to destroy, that new life requires death, and that all paths to life and maturation hold the risks of unanticipated loss.”
Standing at the Stream of Transformation, we falsely convince ourselves that there must be a way to separate life from death, and essence from existence. When we do this we create two dilemmas disguised as choices, a choice between life and death, and a choice between essence and existence. Though, our only life giving choice is to enter the unknown in Aslan’s Stream.
My life and death dilemma is created at the Stream of Transformation; cling greedily to my self-defining stories while desiring renewal. I become seduced into negotiation among illusions of opposites; comfort versus stimulation, safety versus adventure, life versus death. I create my dilemma when I see life and death as opposites, as separable qualities. My clinging creates an illusion of duality, like the particle-wave duality of physics. All matter is both particle and wave. Confusion arises when I forget their mutually supporting roles.
Our other transformational dilemma, the dilemma of essence and existence, is different from our life and death dilemma. It comes when I confuse existence as essence. Jill can help us to understand our existence and essence dilemma with my extension to her quandary at the stream:
“Hello little girl”, says the Rich Man. “I heard of your predicament. I happen to have a pond of my own, though the water is a bit salty. Would you like some?”
“Oh that sounds good. Is it far from here?” said Jill.
“Not too far,” said the Rich man. “I’ll take you there if you’ll stay with me.”
“You mean I can have all the water I want, even when I am thirsty again. And in exchange I must stay and keep you company at your pond, and give up wandering freely in the woods?” said Jill.
“Yes.” said the Rich Man “What good is freedom to explore when you’re dying of thirst?”
“Oh my, I see what you mean.” said Jill “Thank you for the offer. Though now I’m both scared and confused!”
Jill is disoriented with her expanded opportunities. She faces life, death, and freedom at Aslan’s stream, or she can choose safety and basic sustenance at the Rich Man’s Salt Pond in exchange for some of her autonomy and freedom.
Our Rich Man explicitly states our fundamental mortal concern: “what good is essence, if you don’t exist?” The argument confuses Jill with her desire for self preservation. Our fear of our mortality breeds our ego. We confuse all life and essence with our selves, with our individual life. We forget our interrelationship among all life. We forget life’s need for renewal of essence, that life’s renewal only comes when individuals choose stories of essence over stories of existence. An ocean worthy ship, Jill is offered a lifelong safe haven in the harbor. But that’s not why ships are built.
Faustian bargains arise between essence and existence when we’re offered sub-nutrifying substitutes for essence in exchanged for safer existence, or when we offer such substitutes to others. We often unwittingly do this when we offer contracts or laws as substitutes for relationships, gifts as substitutes for connection, compensation as a substitute for appreciation, and compromise as a substitute for resolution. The list goes on. All are offers for counterfeit stories, empty calorie substitutes that fail to satisfy deeper hungers of life. The dilemma of choosing among essence and existence stories, while facing awareness of our individual mortality, may be our challenge intimated in the story of the metaphorical fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, in the Garden of Eden.
Most all of us begin our lives drinking stories from the Salt Pond. Born ignorant into the world, we’re offered the safety of Salt Pond stories to meet our sustenance needs. When we have discerning moments to recognize that we can choose our stories either from the Stream of Transformation or from the Salt Pond, our guide is our Transformation Story. It tells us that: though Salt Pond stories can prolong individual lives, Stream stories are our only source for new life, and that only Stream stories contribute to life beyond our individual lives. Stream stories are life-creating longstories.