Throwing the Baby Out With the Trash
I took this photo in Phnom Penh just before flying off to Nha Trang, Vietnam. This is a street family in their “home” just one block from the promenade along the river. Yes, you are seeing correctly, that is a baby sleeping in the trash pile. The family is on the bed, living room sofa and communal bed while the baby sleeps. Life on the streets is not all that inviting when one sees images such as this. You might wonder what is the point of posting a photo such as this. Am I changing the blog to become more of a critique of society and its ills? Well, I would have to say that the purpose isn’t to be critical of societies, cultures or politics in IndoChina. The purpose is to show how the “self” is not healthy. What happens to others is also happening to ourselves. One can’t seal oneself off from others by raising barriers and fences around our homes, by having security guards and police forces keep the “others” at a distance. All the money in the world doesn’t build a big enough wall to keep out the ripples that the existence of these others and what is happening to them.
The baby sleeping in the trash cart is symbolic for the self, a self that is denied as we buy into the persona we find ourselves in at birth and the personae we build as more luxurious prisons in order to escape the prisons in which we were born. We come to belief we are the masks we wear, that the shadows we flee from are “others” and not really our own shadows. We disown and disinherit the baby in the trash cart. This is how we end up working so hard to drown the denied baby self in all manner of substances and activities. Yet, the baby reappears at night in our dreams, pleading for us to remember self, to reinvest in self. The baby is a symbol of promise and hope, letting us know that all is not lost, that we are not lost.
Dear Robert,
Thank you for this interesting Post.
Your former Post about you being very tired and your dreams about Rituals – made me feel sad and in more than one way very sorry for you.
Here in Holland we have the saying, about throwing the baby away together with the water in which the baby is washed, and this symbol popped up, after reading your Post about your dreams.
Now you have produced the Post with the baby in the Trash Pile, which could be similar with the baby and the washing water.
So far the introduction – now what I mean to say and feel, is hard to find words for.
The closes that I can get is, that the essence of what you wrote in this last post contains only the surface and in truth, goes far deeper….
The first thing that overcomes me when I see the symbol of the baby in the Trash Pile, I am aware (thanks to my Ego) and ask myself what message behold this “gift” from the Numinous, that is there is to apply to the my complexes – in order to heal them.
Could this be a gift to show me that I can erase some of the Blind spots in my-self ?
Blind spots that are part of me due to conditioning or other circumstances of which I am so accustomed to in my life that I consider them as “normal” in my daily behavior pattern.
Like you wrote,” The purpose is to show how the “self” is not healthy”.
In your Post of your vacation, (in my opinion) the accent lies most of the times in “normal” and “abnormal” and can be read as individual or in the collective sense of the word.
So, I think the question of the standards of what is normal and what is abnormal is not only to be applied to the standards of collective society, but also has the deeper meaning to apply to the individual.
The problem is that due to my blind spots that influences my vision it is hard to distinguish the matter.
To end with your words : “The baby is a symbol of promise and hope, letting us know that all is not lost, that we are not lost”.
Opa Bear
9 Feb 11 at 7:34 PM
This is a heart breaking picture Robert but your words give me hope and encouragement to seek the deeper meaning.
Viv
9 Feb 11 at 9:50 PM
Powerful words, Opa Bear. I often forget that others are actually listening to my words here. A few of you resonate loudly and deeply with the words and make wonder with a sense of awe that I could have said something that would communicate to another soul so deeply. Since I have turned off, or rather eliminated all statistic gathering widgets for this blog site, I have no sense other than through comments, of others being present. I have tried unsuccessfully to reinstall the stats feature and for some reason feel okay with that. For one thing, it helps me keep my head on straight without getting caught up in numbers and perhaps making a big deal out of the numbers – it forces me to be a bit more humble.
Your words here are powerful words. As I listen to them, I find that I want to get to know more about you and how it would be to talk face-to-face. But then, perhaps this meeting place is all that I will be allowed for the next few years. I am committed to following where my soul leads me in the work of self discovery, self recovery. Peace, friend. Your heart is good and I treasure it being shared here with me.
rgl
9 Feb 11 at 9:56 PM
That is what I have to do as well, Viv. I have seen so much that it has overwhelmed all of my consciousness. I know that each of us is “self” responsible and must honour and care for the self in a way that is not narcissistic or selfish, but in a way that allows us to be better in our relationship with others who are all a part of who we are. Thanks for the comment, it is good to know that you are here.
rgl
9 Feb 11 at 10:00 PM
If we are not critical of connected reality we are at least on the edge of being cowardly. We should subject everything to criticism ~positive or negative~ esp. in the context of connected reality in the real world that exists independently or our recognition of it. Keep up the good work. The above picture says so much about the world. Be bold!!!
Peter S. Lopez
10 Feb 11 at 4:59 AM
Thanks for commenting here, Peter. I encourage my readers here to check out your pages as well. As for being bold with my photos, I don’t know any other way. I do what I have to do for my own soul knowing that in doing so, I do it for others as we are all one. I look forward to your returning again with more comments.
rgl
10 Feb 11 at 6:11 PM