"Denying or hating the negative never makes it go away. You never resolve a problem by merely condemning it, personally or institutionally. That is not transformation but domination, and we typically confuse the two. You cannot contain evil by shaming it, but only by revealing it for what it is and then seeing the good as better. Salvation is sin forgiven much more than sin avoided. Couples begin to love only after their first fight and reconciliation. A man who owns his limitations and weeps over his sin is much more effective than one who thinks he has neither. Is that not the very training of Peter, and then Paul? How do we keep missing the obvious? I think it has something to do with our dualistic mind and the oppositional nature of the ego.
"Here in New Mexico, our pueblo peoples have created both clowns and kachinas to expose the dark and light side of things. There is an image of the good mother, the Corn Maiden with blessings in both hands. But she is balanced by the bad mother, the Ogre Woman with castrating knife, mocking tongue, and whipping reeds. The good father, the Sunface, mirrors your own radiance and also holds blessings in both hands. But he is counterpoised with the ugly-faced Ogre who mutilates you, humiliates you, and beats you. The bad mother and father are ritually presented so we will not be unduly surprised or shocked when they show themselves in real life. We will know how to relate to badness instead of being trapped inside it. The Pueblo clown ("Koshare") function is much the same. He exposes and mocks the tribe's recent failings publicly, like the year when I saw them wearing long balloons like phalluses, rudely poking everybody. When the negative presence is revealed, false innocence is denied you, and true victory is offered.
"The Far East did the same thing with dragons, mocking faces, and monsters who guard almost every door in Africa, Asia, and Oceania. Westerners wonder why they have so many ugly figures right at an entrance and not more smiley faces. We would prefer a waving Mickey Mouse or a sentimental blonde angel. The aggressive face has something necessary and good to teach you about the difficult and demanding side of things, about naivete, containment, perseverance, and your ability to stare evil down. Don't confuse the negative with the hostile; they are not the same. The negative is contained inside the truly positive; the hostile needs to be hostile and oppositional. Hostile people are never helpful; critics are necessary. Americans in particular tend to be trapped inside a happy-happy script and cannot easily integrate the negative. We want happy endings, and we would prefer the whole thing to be nice. It ends up nice, but not true."
