THE MOVEMENTS OF LIFE: EXPANSION-CONTRACTION-REST!

Lincoln's words in "TODAY'S QUOTE" go well beyond politics or social movement.

Rigidly holding onto the familiar, and dogged resistance to the unknown is not only the source of stagnation in a society, but it is the main cause for difficulties personally in love and work - in other words, for life in general.

Expansiveness in the areas of love, Eros and sex, as well as in creative expression, physical health and material abundance can only be experienced and sustained by venturing into the new. On the other hand, if one primarily seeks familiarity and control over one's direction in life, then said life must be narrow and constricted.

Opening up to an expansive life means opening one's heart, body and soul to what may come from that very opening up, what Lincoln called the "new and untried." "Adhering to the old," as Lincoln described conservatism, can mean hunkering down emotionally, mentally and physically against the movement of life's processes if the grip to the past is too tight.

Does this mean that we should attempt to abolish conservatism? Not exactly.

Unfortunately, the current remains of the conservative movement politically have made it seem as if "conservative" equals racist, hate-mongering, gun-toting, sex-abstaining lunatic fringe - with ridiculous costumes to boot!

In reality, however, there are three necessary movements to life, what Wilhelm Reich called the "Three Cosmic Pulsatory Movements: expansion, contraction, rest."

And as we will see in the definitions below, elucidated by a former teacher of mine, there are positive and negative sides (distortions) to each type of natural movement.

Expansion in its harmonious form, is movement as creativity, growth and building, forward movement, outgoingness, unselfishness, searching for union with anything outside of the self, for the other, the other you. In the negative, expansion manifests as aggression, hostility, quarreling, destructiveness, cruelty, impatience, ultimately in some cases, war.

Contraction in its positive form, is assimilation, balance, introspection, inward movement, caution, patience, thoughtfulness, self search. In the negative it manifests as regressive, backward movement, resisting progress, selfishness, egocentricity, avarice, separateness.

Rest in its positive aspect is healthy passivity, preservation, a state of beingness, timelessness, gathering momentum for a new growth cycle. It is needed for fruition to take place. In the negative, it is stagnation, lifelessness, inertia.

Each human being is predominantly motivated by one of these pulsatory movements, but all three are present in everyone and ideally blend harmoniously. If you just kept expanding, for example, if expansion didn’t work together with contraction, it would become destructive and you would lose your grounding. People with tremendous will who force themselves to stay in expansion mode are blocking nature, just as much as those who refuse to move forward at all costs are blocking nature.