Leadership

Labyrinths of Our Own Making

by Terry Barlow
07/26/13
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Trapped by and then imprisoned in a labyrinth of his own making, Daedalus could not even preserve his own son Icarus from the same fate. That is until, in the cunning of their workmanship, they fashioned wings of wax and real feathers to fly free. Trouble was, though, that exuberant Icarus flew too near the sun and melted his wings, falling into the sea beneath and drowning there. Small consolation it was and must have been for father Daedalus to have the fatal sea named after his son: The Icarian Sea it became henceforth. But he would much rather have had his son back, much rather have had another opportunity to coach and counsel him before that last deadly flight of escape, to urge him to beware of the heat of the sun. There was once a gifted young man who scaled a towering mountain of truth and revelation. After basking on its peak awhile in the heat of its intense illumination, it was time to leave in order to be able to get back to camp before dark. But he had never felt like this before and he was determined to hold onto this ecstatic feeling for just a little longer and then a little longer yet. His climbing companions were growing impatient and concerned because his behavior was changing and he began muttering mysterious things about some higher plan in which he was the key person, in fact so key as to be some kind of savior for the seekers of truth. From the perspective of his friends and companions,  he was becoming delusional, he was beginning to snap. Maybe if they could get him to start back right away there was still time, still oxygen, still hope but the more he talked the harder it was to budge him, and at last impossible. The intensity of the light of these "illuminations" (that had begun quite plausibly) had blown his mental circuits, so to speak. He had not only begun to snap now, the break with reality was complete. He spoke of being immortal now, of having a legacy of inspiration so great that it could never be denied. He was glimpsing with glazed eyes what only he could view, the enormity of a vast sea of faces looking to him for their deliverance: an Icarian sea of human faces of all ages and races!  Later with continued encouragement and urging he did return to the base of the mountain, and even "composed himself" and reintegrated into his former life and society, but it was never the same after that.   Trying to act as if nothing had happened was itself a symptom that he was being destroyed progressively from within.  Hearing of this destruction and mourning for him, remembering him again, we who knew him have become more patient with our particular learning curves, the meager rate and depth at which we are able to grasp the great truths. We respect their power to drive us insane if unfolded too quickly, before we have time to live into them in a practical way. We realize better the need to "fly" in a flock in the formations in which flocks tend to fly. This is not to say we don't have a lot more truth in our heads than we have yet to live, a lot more head knowledge than heart knowledge. But at least we are not as dismayed (shaken) by it, that is, I'm in a little less of a hurry these days. All ways of saying that, hopefully,  there is more of a foundation under us now.  After all, it occurs to me now that it was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that may have migrated that day from Eden of old to that fateful mountain peak.