Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Holistic in theory only!

Halfway to the next eclipse

Do you have a unified theory of self? I've been thinking about it a lot.

Physicists regularly burn the midnight oil trying to establish a Unified Theory of Everything. They believe they've figured out the bits and pieces, but they can't make everything fit together.

Many candidate theories of everything have been proposed by theoretical physicists during the twentieth century, but none have been confirmed experimentally. The primary problem in producing a TOE is that general relativity and quantum mechanics are hard to unify. This is one of the unsolved problems in physics.

It's very ambitious and extremely optimistic of the scientific community to even try, yes?

I've tried, on a personal level, to find the root cause of Reya-ness, thereby bringing all my disparate parts into some kind of organizational whole. For many years in therapy, I worked with my family history, thinking surely the key to bringing it all together had to do with my relationship to my parents, for instance, or the fact that I am the dreaded middle child.

Later in life when I began my career as a high priestess, I hoped the life of the spirit would make me whole. I thought that by reaching back through time, practicing the ancient art of shamanism, as well as by connecting with the ancestors and spirit animals, I could become a harmoniously assembled being.

For awhile I thought maybe the part of me that so loves breaking free was the unifying principal. I left the witch cult, my marriage, many relationships and friendships as well as several cities I once called home. I thought perhaps the wandering shepherd part of my soul was the key to wholeness. A friend said to me once, "Reya, you see even happiness as a jail you must break out of."

True, but it doesn't explain everything.

My current theory is simple: TMI. I am, as my mother used to say, sensitive - too sensitive. I notice every damn thing in the "real world" as well as the imaginal realm. I am, on a daily basis, overwhelmed by so much information that I hardly ever get to a place in which I can process even half of it. This could account for my extreme introversion and many other character traits. It explains why I have so much trouble with people who have Gemini strong in their charts - because Gemini is all about overloads of information. It accounts for why I'm crippled when trying to shop in large department stores. There are too many choices, too much stuff! You should have seen me in India. I was rendered almost comatose due to all the unfamiliar sounds, sights, smells. Good lord.

TMI even explains why I keep the chateau so clean that the space doesn't actually fit my creative personality. Part of creativity has to to do with chaos, but I can't abide clutter. 

I know - I'm holding a hammer, therefore everything looks like a nail. Yeah, yeah. But I think this unifying theory of me is the closest I've come to attaining the unattainable - reducing the complexity of me into three short words: Too Much Information.

Do you have a unified theory of self?

6 comments:

Rebecca Clayton said...

I crib Walt Whitman's unified field theory:

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Reya Mellicker said...

Ha. Yeah.

Jinksy said...

There are times when I feel part of everything, and everything is part of me - but I cease to exist then - so where lies self? :) Any answers? :)

Reya Mellicker said...

Don't ask me!

Steve Reed said...

Hmmm. I'm not sure I've really thought about this before. I think of myself as an integrated being, with my past and present all amounting to NOW, but now changes every moment, and according to all my surroundings and perceptions. Does that make sense?

Reya Mellicker said...

Steve, it does. And you are an integrated whole. Hell yeah.