Examining my consciousness

I've been wondering about the best way to approach examen consciousness, and as I sat in prayer today this image came to me.

It's like...placing my hand in a flowing stream, where many marbles of different colours and sizes are pushed along by the current. They, the marbles, are different events in my life,and the emotions that accompany each event. If I find one that particularly calls out to me, a bright colour, a sparkly tinge, a powerful emotion, I reach down to grab hold of it and examine it more closely. Not to question why or to ask how, but simply to hold, and to accept.

And then I must let go, for it will flow down the stream to a better place in the open ocean, where freedom is. I should not avoid inspecting them, because those which are important will only get trapped under weeds and rocks, and cannot make it out into the open sea without my help. Neither can I hold on to them for too long, for they will burn in my hand.

Their rightful place is in the open, free, life-giving Water.

PS Two of my friends have written extensively about the difference between examination of conscience and consciousness examen, two very different things, which I made the mistake of thinking were the same. Read their comments for more!

snapshot of the imagination

~The Illustrious Forger of Dreams, Max Ernst (1959)

almost as if

haunted by spectres of the night

but unafraid.

they watch,

yet cannot touch

neither to harm

nor console

the ghost within

that drifts,

drifts

drifts