From Daniel Odier, The Doors of Joy: 19 Meditations for Authentic Living, pages 95-97.

“The fear in which our present society lives pushes us to forget about the creative aspects of chaos and to see only disorder and catastrophe.”

“If we go back to Greek mythology, we will be able to see the creativity of chaos and then be able to reintegrate it into our lives. Chaos was here before anything else, a kind of floating and undifferentiated magma filled with suspended energy. . . .

By perceiving chaos as energy, we reduce both the fear we have of chaotic states and our desire to suppress our strategies to avoid them.

Periods of chaos are marvelously creative.

They are the end of a deceptively organised universe and bring the emergence of a new force. If we dare not to run away from chaos, and not to close our eyes, we will get the impression of floating amidst an ocean of a quivering energy. The body absorbs this energy, the spirit is nourished by it and goes through a phase of withdrawal and restful emptiness out of which the seeds of creativity germinate. It is the end of one order and the beginning of a revitalisation. . . .

Accepting chaos, floating on it as on a benevolent ocean, is a joyous state from which fear has been vanquished. By ceasing our desire to control everything we will feel stimulated, encouraged to desire things to emerge. Control emerges out of the fear of feeling fully alive. There is no authentic joy without encountering chaos.”

Daniel Odier, The Doors of Joy: 19 Meditations for Authentic Living, pages 95-97.