“Never lose hope, my dear heart, miracles dwell in the invisible.” ~ Rumi

I am profoundly sorrowful. I blew past being sad a long time ago. It appears to be our mutual fate to be living during a time of great upheaval and sweeping change. There is so much suffering and I know firsthand that suffering is a place where clichés don’t work and words often fail.

From the view of the soul, facing an overwhelming array of troubles is an old story. Throughout history, in times of great uncertainty, we have told stories and myths which seem to provide us with a meaningful path through life and give us what we all need the most, the touch of the eternal. These myths continue to remain relevant because we continue to endure the same challenges as our ancestors, and myths continue to captivate and help by reinforcing the concept of connecting to the old soul within each of us.

The story of Pandora’s box is an origin myth made up to explain how all the evils came about in the world. It was written by Hesiod in an epic poem called “Theogeny” about 800 BC. Zeus gives a wedding present, a box to Pandora, the first mortal woman on earth. Zeus does not tell Pandora what is in the box but gives her strict instructions not to open it. Pandora waits a year, at which point her curiosity gets the best of her, and she opens the box. The lid flies open and all the evils and miseries of the world bolt out: hate, violence, sorrow, ignorance, jealousy, and sadness. Pandora manages to shut the box, leaving only Hope who is hiding under the lid.

This old myth teaches us that all the ills and ailments, the scandals and betrayals, and rampant dishonesty must be faced before the hidden hope of life can be found again. It’s as if things must become hopeless before a deeper sense of hope can return from the depths of the human heart. This level of hope includes a darker knowledge of the world and a sharper insight into one’s own soul.

Hope is found, not by clinging to old dreams or by denying despair, but by surviving it. When life becomes darkest the eye of the soul begins to see. “Hope springs eternal” when people begin to see beyond the parade of facts and the litanies of ideologies and learn to trust the deeper values of individual life as well as the underlying truths of human culture. Great crises are not solved by simply conserving assets, but by finding inner resources that were hidden from sight.

In the end, Pandora hears a faint voice in the box and when she lifts the lid she finds hope, releasing it into the world. And everywhere evil goes, hope goes too. And all that is touched by evil – so too is touched by hope. And so hope continues to make all the difference in the world.

Ultimately I think we are all called to have hope. Not the blind hope that pretends everything is fine and refuses to accept how things really are. But the kind of hope that comes from staring pain and suffering right in the eyes and refusing to believe that this is all there is. We need that kind of hope –the kind that comes not from going around suffering but from going through it. As my talented son August has written, “I believe with all the bad stuff also there comes the good. If our lives are like clay cups, then pain carves the cup deeper as we endure more sorrow, but only to make it hold more joy as we drink from the well of the love that surrounds us every day.” That’s the real hope here.

Have any Feng Shui questions? Feel free to contact me at michelle@michellecromer.com and sign up for your Power Color or visit me on Facebook at Michelle Cromer Feng Shui.