Prakasha/Vimarsha

On this day, I think of Janus, the Roman god of thresholds, bridges, and new beginnings, whose image is dominated by his two faces.  One looks forward, and one looks backward.  He gives his name to January, which we will make much to-do over in the course of the next days.  Like the Hindu Ganesha, who reigns in the same areas of our experience, they are each the first gods invoked in their respective cultures.  They are the gateway to and the boundary between where you are now and where you’re heading. 

That’s all well and good, and I love Ganesha as much as the next WASH (thanks, Eric).  But Janus’s image really does it for me today.  He is the depiction of prakasha (shining forward) and vimarsha (the light back as reflection).  If you made it to this blog, chances are that you’ve already made it through some others, some Oprah, and some yoga classes.  We understand that we’re each other’s reflections, what with our mirror neurons and all.  What you’re getting is a result of what you’re putting out there.  In a way, though, we can let ourselves off the hook a bit because we’re reflected and refracted through the individual lenses of other, radically free entities.  Sure, it messes us up when we see our insecurities and need to have the last word right out there in the open.  It touches that place inside of us that we’ve been taught to believe doesn’t belong.  But, with other people, we can also tell ourselves that we’ve been doing our own work and that we have very little to no jurisdiction over other people’s behaviors, expressions, and voices.  So there.  You can use it.  Or not.   

Now, turn it around.  When we direct the light toward ourselves, the vimarsha is what comes out as our actions.  When you’re hard on someone else, check in on how hard you’re being on yourself.  When no one can please you, in what way are you unable to please yourself?  When something’s wrong with everyone else on the planet, chances are you’re directing that same attitude toward yourself.  (Take a few breaths with this one, especially if you’re telling yourself that you’re getting it ‘right’ here.)  The point is, you’re always keeping company with yourself and your actions.  Give yourself a break.  Give other people a break.  You will go a long way toward happy. 

Let’s move on.  Janus is more than just forward/backward…

He is two-faced, duplicitous.  When we sit with him, we’re of two minds, loving the leaving while at the same time wanting to keep everything from before.  That attitude, that injury, that habit.  I mean, we never really leave them behind, anyway.  We just crowd them in nooks and crannies, possibly never seeing them again until it’s time to move out of this house (and on to the next?). 

He shows us that we’re more than one person.  We’re all the authentic guises we can handle, the fractalizing making more of us rather than less.  But in order to learn and love, we must not just make more of the same.  We must let in more than just the same. 

Janus’s faces don’t face each other, looking past each other in to the middle distance.  Nor are they side-by-side, looking opposite directions.  They are back-to-back, leaning and merging into each other.  The same, but different.  Just like today and tomorrow.