Dopelganger

All mythic creatures have their genesis in very real dynamics of human relationships and emotions. The dopelganger traditionally is a shapeshifter, a creature that can take on different forms or appearances for purposes of deceiving, escaping, or attacking a foe.
One mirror of the dopelganger in our lives is at the level of our unresolved emotions themselves. Lingering grief, bitterness, mistrust shows up in current relationships, having taken the form of our current partner or other relations. We can meet the familiar one in new people, picking up where we left off - but at the point of breakthrough, when we imagine a healing connection is made, then the veil is pierced and we find ourselves with a stranger; the familiar essence has moved on... we can fall into wandering after it.
Longing for intimacy lost with parents can be displaced into demands made on current relations. Anger can flare up out of proportion to the present. We fight the dopelganger, but in the midst of the attack, he slips away again, and we hurt those we never meant to.
In current relationships, as well as displaced unmet needs, there are seeds of truth from the present. Yet eventually, the truth of presence can shift into longing for aspects of a partner before not as prominent: a sincere heart in our beloved- after the dopelganger's brief appearance to peel back scars - becomes a phantom we can no longer access. The memory of something truly good becomes submerged in forms that never dominated in their presence before - such as physical longing amplified in absence. And again, we grasp at emptiness as the dopelganger hides his true identity from us.
Efforts to track down the original being, once lost, becomes a frustrating chase of life, as we seek to reconnect with the true identity of the shapeshifter.

On the path, we may encounter substances or passtimes the dopelganger temporarily inhabits. But as soon as we start to feel relief, he leaves that form as well, rendering it lifeless to us, and again our eyes scan the horizons for his new incarnation.
Inevitably, the chase leads us to unexpected destinations. Eventually, through frustration and desperation, we reach a place of hopelessness, of diminished searching, and we are forced to sit with all the longing, the angst, the anger and the grief. We sit alone, and through our patience, we find that the presence is with us. Somehow, without an object. We cannot see the dopelganger's form, but here he is, as present as the wind.
In our depths. Beneath our compulsions and resistance. He is with us. He has been with us all along. In ourselves, we find what we have been running toward. In ourselves, we find what we have been hiding from.
The dopelganger is in us. The dopelganger is with us. Traditionally, the only way to avoid the shifting of a dopelganger is to stay with him constantly. Look away not even for a moment, or he will escape, into another once again.
We must embrace that which is with us, in us, and not let go. The feelings we have that deserve validation; the pained circumstances which deserve mourning rather than action to change. When we leave the turbulent reality within ourselves for a second - when we look for a rescue, rather than calming the wild animal ourselves - then the shapeshifter slips away, leading us again on a chase that can last a lifetime... but which always arrives back with ourselves.

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