Like everyone in a body on this planet, I must work with my “ego,” that part of me formed at the age of two, when “ME” and “NO!” and “MINE!” were ascendant. What we call, ruefully, the “terrible twos” coincide with the first return of the planet Mars to its own natal place.
The ego is utterly necessary; it functions to distinguish me from not-me. I imagine ego as a hopefully permeable membrane around my ensouled being that keeps the inside in and the outside out, while allowing mutual exchange. This exchange enables my inner being, my essence, to “grow” in awareness. And likewise, the feedback, the mirroring, I give to others, hopefully, encourages them, their inner beings, their essence, to likewise “grow” in awareness.
Moreover, let’s face it! Our warrior egos are what we utilize to “get ‘er done!” — whatever it is. As such, ego is vitally necessary to life in a body.
BTW: I suggest that those who suffer from TDS need to realize that Trump’s enormous ego is necessary, given his seemingly impossible life goal, to “drain the swamp.” Not surprisingly, he was born with Mars, in kingly Leo, on the Ascendant!.
Trump’s ego both protects him from the vituperation constantly targeting him from every angle, and enables him to direct his enormous internal energy exactly where he wants it.
Think of the ego enclosure as having an opening, a nozzle, where internal energy can be directed into the world. Most of us sport tiny nozzles; Trump’s is a firehose.
In other words, it may be that those who hate Trump’s ego, are not comfortable with their own egos! That they have trouble recognizing ego as the active agent in this world!
When the ego’s membrane hardens into a wall, trouble ensues. The ego-ridden person is then spoken of as defensive, and/or aggressive. Either way, ego has taken charge of essence, and dominates. One’s essence cannot grow in awareness as long as ego functions as a wall.
How do I know that my ego has hardened into a wall? If I refexively want to win, to dominate, to control.
Now, at nearly 82 years of ago, my battles with my own ego, though not nearly as drastic as earlier — when I got myself in trouble, made enemies — still exist.
These days, for the first time, it’s more about my “appearance” — what most women have a great deal of ego wrapped up in their entire lives.
Despite the fact that in 1989 I founded and ran Crone Chronicles: A Journal of Conscious Aging for 12 years, now, 35 years later, my ego has a great deal of trouble accepting that, within the last few years especially, more and more I “look old.”
The latest blow to my near-82-year-old ego came in the a photo of me posted in a local publication yesterday. So much so that I feel reluctant to point out the article to others, and certainly don’t want to put up that photo here!
https://www.idsnews.com/article/2024/10/green-acres-conservation-district-bloomington-city-council
This is a first. The first time I have felt that much “ego” at my age, and how it’s now tied to my “appearance.”
BTW: Theo Hawkins did a good job in most of the article. Of course, there’s always so much more to say. I appreciated her attempt to be objective. What she did not say, was that unlike the recently elected city council, the old city council would have, as one of its members told me, “accepted your petition (to become a conservation district) in a heartbeat.”
In the article, the new city council was not mentioned. A good thing, because we still need to work with them to get anything done!
In any case, here’s a clip from the movie Revolver which got me going today on “ego,” and how it leads us astray.
BTW: I found myself hoping that the guy on the bed would recognize what the guy with the gun was doing, and thereby instantly move through his own corresponding change of heart. But it so rarely works that way in real life!
We all open to increasing awareness at our own speeds.
Remember that, Ann!
