There seems to be a certain kind of death and rebirth that occurs in adulthood, perhaps at multiple times in different forms. Some astrologers refer to something similar when they speak of “The Return of Saturn.” From a lesser adult self-sense (perhaps what Thomas Keating refers to as the false self), we suffer and emerge into a higher, more authentic Self. But it is isn’t a onetime thing, or a one-type-fits-everybody-and-every-situation. The clothes we wear change, and our own Passion Plays take on different characters and different scenes in different acts. But what happens is always some kind of destruction to reconstruction, differentiation to transcendence, brokenness to wholeness. Moving towards what Carl Jung called “individuation,” the revisioning of interpersonal models often requires the false light of the false self getting metaphorically murdered by a more sacred Shadow, a sacred shadow that is thirsting for the Light of God. Personal story meets Humanity’s story; the snake sheds its skin; the Velveteen Rabbit becomes Real. These processes are captured both subjectively and prophetically in Bruce Springsteen’s landmark album, Darkness On The Edge Of Town. Archetypal theorists tell us that phylogeny recapitulates ontogeny. Or, said a different way, we live our own Bible stories. In this track, Adam Raised A Cain, the Boss talks of himself as Cain doing the difficult inner work and shadow work necessary to break free from old, toxic scripts and childhood woundings.
Lyrics and music below:
In the summer that I was baptized
My father held me to his side
As they put me into the water
He said how on that day I cried
We were prisoners of love, a love in chains
He was standin’ in the door, I was standin’ in the rain
With the same hot blood burning in our veins
Adam raised a Cain (yeah)
Adam raised a Cain (yeah)
Adam raised a Cain (yeah)
Adam raised a Cain (yeah)
All of the old faces
Asked you why you’re back
They fit you with position
And the keys to your daddy’s Cadillac
In the darkness of your room
Your mother calls you by your true name
You remember the faces, the places, the names
You know it’s never over, it’s relentless as the rain
Adam raised a Cain (yeah)
Adam raised a Cain (yeah)
Adam raised a Cain (yeah)
Adam raised a Cain (yeah)
In the Bible Cain slew Abel
And East of Eden mama he was cast
You’re born into this life paying
For the sins of somebody else’s past
Well Daddy worked his whole life for nothing but the pain
Now he walks these empty rooms looking for something to blame
You inherit the sins, you inherit the flames
