Monday, February 23, 2015
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Contact Dance: A Metaphor for Human Connection
I went to an Improvisational Contact Dance gathering for the first time today. What a beautiful community! I've been shown something so special through this practice and its group of warm, open humans who are eager to help one another grow more into their lives (as the members of many conscious communities are humbly apt to do). Contact dance is a metaphor for the life experience as we relate to one another and move through the world.
We face the stories that our minds create constantly -- sometimes we turn towards them; other times, we're more able to turn away from them in the name of presence. Many of these stories come up for us and interfere on ours paths to fluidity; for me, I struggle with dropping into the somantic experience in favor of giving in to my stories. Contact dance is something that "feels hard" to me, and this is for the reason that, throughout most of my life, I've categorized experiences as somewhere on a spectrum that includes that quantifier: Things are easy, things are hard; things are stories, man. "I'm not good at this" comes up a lot. The thought-pattern that says to me, "I'm not good at this, I'm not good at this", stops me from being fully in anything at all because I'm not recognizing that we are good, always. At everything. Good is a natural state of being; it's what and how we are. Our minds work hard to clutter up this simple truth -- and pile all sorts of un-truths on top it -- so that we act in certain ways that are in alignment with our believed state of being: We believe good to be subjective. We believe more and feel less. But we're still good, even when "I'm not good at this" is the soundtrack of our mind's experience.
Contact dance forces you -- the gentleness or harshness of this force being parallel to how you force things in your own life, of course -- to release this story. The flow of the dance shifts along with this process.
We find fluidity when we relate to each others' heaviness -- and it is through relating to heaviness that we find lightness: sweet release.
Because of ground and breath, we find life. Life is expressed through contact -- with ground and with breath, and also with one another. Contact dance is an expression of this manifestation of experience. As humans, we find ourselves most often with our feet on the ground, relating to a vertical axis. Through this relation to earth, we move. But our heaviness does not always want to move with us in this way -- and it is through respecting and relating to ground and the vertical expression, and then finding other forms of movement in order to release this heaviness, that we find deeper connection. That connection comes first when we realize closer contact with ourselves. We grow into greater contact with ourselves as we grow lighter, and through the space that's created by the shifting of heaviness, we find connection with each other. We give our heaviness to the ground when it grows too much for us to carry ... or we give it to one another to be held, moved, transformed. Through this relating, a dance evolves -- and we reach more deeply into the life within ourselves.
We face the stories that our minds create constantly -- sometimes we turn towards them; other times, we're more able to turn away from them in the name of presence. Many of these stories come up for us and interfere on ours paths to fluidity; for me, I struggle with dropping into the somantic experience in favor of giving in to my stories. Contact dance is something that "feels hard" to me, and this is for the reason that, throughout most of my life, I've categorized experiences as somewhere on a spectrum that includes that quantifier: Things are easy, things are hard; things are stories, man. "I'm not good at this" comes up a lot. The thought-pattern that says to me, "I'm not good at this, I'm not good at this", stops me from being fully in anything at all because I'm not recognizing that we are good, always. At everything. Good is a natural state of being; it's what and how we are. Our minds work hard to clutter up this simple truth -- and pile all sorts of un-truths on top it -- so that we act in certain ways that are in alignment with our believed state of being: We believe good to be subjective. We believe more and feel less. But we're still good, even when "I'm not good at this" is the soundtrack of our mind's experience.
Contact dance forces you -- the gentleness or harshness of this force being parallel to how you force things in your own life, of course -- to release this story. The flow of the dance shifts along with this process.
We find fluidity when we relate to each others' heaviness -- and it is through relating to heaviness that we find lightness: sweet release.
Because of ground and breath, we find life. Life is expressed through contact -- with ground and with breath, and also with one another. Contact dance is an expression of this manifestation of experience. As humans, we find ourselves most often with our feet on the ground, relating to a vertical axis. Through this relation to earth, we move. But our heaviness does not always want to move with us in this way -- and it is through respecting and relating to ground and the vertical expression, and then finding other forms of movement in order to release this heaviness, that we find deeper connection. That connection comes first when we realize closer contact with ourselves. We grow into greater contact with ourselves as we grow lighter, and through the space that's created by the shifting of heaviness, we find connection with each other. We give our heaviness to the ground when it grows too much for us to carry ... or we give it to one another to be held, moved, transformed. Through this relating, a dance evolves -- and we reach more deeply into the life within ourselves.
Saturday, February 21, 2015
The Circle of Life
I've had what I'd called the "Writer's Curse" all my life. I try to narrate my own story, constantly. I narrate it to myself as it's happening, or I make up a story when I don't feel the current narrative is one I want to read. (The latter types of stories often fall apart when "reality", or Spirit, shows me a clearer scope into how things really are.) I often journal as if someone might read it one day, as if I'm telling the story to someone other than myself. I've never found much use for journaling just for myself, just for simple processing. I'm inclined towards storytelling. My journaling is a process, no doubt; its value is that it becomes the narrative that I'll stumble through, its outline my map that carries me through to the other side of the story. But even with maps, we lose the route sometimes; get re-routed to some new path. But it all comes full-circle, and looking back at the map I've constructed through my writing, I can make sense of the various turns I chose to take on any particular leg of my journey.
Everything is a circle.
Beyond this, each living being has a story. We humans tend to be a bit egocentric -- being the only species who has -- to our knowledge :) -- learned how to write our stories so they are translatable by others of our species. This creates in many of us a feeling like our stories are perhaps more special, more unique than those of a species whose story we cannot read, cannot hear or see in the ways we are taught that "hearing" or "seeing" means. We skim then sit atop one of a few uppermost layers like they're all that we know, so indeed they are.
We are indeed unique and magical beings -- no more or less unique and magical than grasshoppers, vaulting themselves from place to place with some somewhere-known intention in their spring; no more unique and magical than lions in the African bush hunting and feeding their young and inspiring Elton John renditions of songs that still bring can bring us to tears long after first hearing them in our angst-y adolescent years. We are no more unique and magical than foxes, or bears, or otters, or their ancestors or their young, or the cells that make up any of them -- each of these creatures holds a unique purpose and carries with it a message, a story. Its message and story tells of why and how its life came to be, and fits in perfectly. We are no more unique and magical than any other being ... Our brains just work in a way that creates for us conditions like the "Writer's Curse" -- along with a plethora of other curses: burdens humans must bear. This blog was created to share a piece of my story; I am grateful for this condition, because it's brought me to examine, ever closer, my own narrative. It is unique. Magical, even.
Everything is a circle.
Every once in a while, when I can check out of my own story, I'll look around in sheer awe at the stories swirling around me at any given time. That is to say, this is how I've seen people: Each fills a body that moves through its life within a set of circumstances for the purpose of fulfilling certain and unique karma. How this plays out for each person is the story of their life, and every single human has one, as well as the humans who came before that human, who made way for this one or that one to take their place. Each one has a story. Stories do not die, like most things we cannot touch.
Beyond this, each living being has a story. We humans tend to be a bit egocentric -- being the only species who has -- to our knowledge :) -- learned how to write our stories so they are translatable by others of our species. This creates in many of us a feeling like our stories are perhaps more special, more unique than those of a species whose story we cannot read, cannot hear or see in the ways we are taught that "hearing" or "seeing" means. We skim then sit atop one of a few uppermost layers like they're all that we know, so indeed they are.
We are indeed unique and magical beings -- no more or less unique and magical than grasshoppers, vaulting themselves from place to place with some somewhere-known intention in their spring; no more unique and magical than lions in the African bush hunting and feeding their young and inspiring Elton John renditions of songs that still bring can bring us to tears long after first hearing them in our angst-y adolescent years. We are no more unique and magical than foxes, or bears, or otters, or their ancestors or their young, or the cells that make up any of them -- each of these creatures holds a unique purpose and carries with it a message, a story. Its message and story tells of why and how its life came to be, and fits in perfectly. We are no more unique and magical than any other being ... Our brains just work in a way that creates for us conditions like the "Writer's Curse" -- along with a plethora of other curses: burdens humans must bear. This blog was created to share a piece of my story; I am grateful for this condition, because it's brought me to examine, ever closer, my own narrative. It is unique. Magical, even.
Thursday, February 19, 2015
The Witchiness of Womyn
We womyn are wired in a very different way than society would have us believe. When the convictions of witches led to public burning in a time that burned a deep scar onto Salem's name, a fear in men was to blame. A fear that there might be more to life's fabric than was available to the touch; more stitched into It than what the Bible, and Man's God, were able to decipher. A fear that womyn, that woMEN (creatures that were so rigidly held to a standard of subservience because, after all, we were created of man's rib, just a singular and simple bone located in his digestive cavity) might hold deep knowledge of the why, the sort of why that wisdom whispers to us ... and that that whisper might have a gender preference as to whom it reveals itself.
And it's true: this why weaves its tales of the sacrament that is us: it tells stories of secrets, ones of creation and its cycles, and this was too much for a man to bear. Embarrassing, even. It needed to not be, said men, who were raised by their fathers, and them by their fathers, to believe that they held all knowledge, that they would bring home what would sustain a family: Food apprehended through control and strategy; knowledge of nearby danger, and protection when it drew close.
So to the fire with the witches it was, literally speaking.
If womyn escaped the fury of men's fire, they were left to tend to it, at home, and to raise the children. Perhaps some men and boys, those of our brothers who drew close to their own inner Divine Feminine, saw more deeply into this implication: perhaps they saw that it was because of the fire that children were created. That children were raised from the fire, by the fire, kept warm by this fire while in the womb of womyn and later, around the fire next to womyn.
In many early matriarchal cultures, womyn were seen as connected to the Sun and men to the Moon, rather than the reverse. Womyn were seen as solar goddesses; we were seen as the creators, we were held in exaltation because, like the Sun, it was womyn who gave life to life.
We hold all knowledge, still, deep within our bodies, deep within these sacred temples that echo with the cries of joy when we fill them with dance, with craft, with movement, with creation, with life -- they echo with the cries of a child. There is a reason that that cry, when heard by a mother, can awaken something in her soul that pushes her to an edge not journeyed to until that time. It is the primordial cry of creation, and it screams of cycles -- within those cycles can resonate for a womyn a manifestation of deep joy or deep pain. A mama acts on that burning instinct, and the child is formed from that fire.
The child's cry is within us all: it is echoing, and begging us to return to our own Divine Feminine.
It is not only through the physical creation and birth of a child that a child may be born. Through our deep listening, through the activation of our own healing, we can re-create our inner child. That child has never left us. We hold within us a choice to heal that child, to protect the child that we once were. How we nurture and nourish that child that is each of us is the beginning and the end. It is what creates our lives -- it is true that we are burned by the fire or we are created from it. There is a reason, they say, that before one dies, that person's whole life flashes before their eyes. From the womb we came, and to the womb we will return. This sort of primal and unconscious magic, this cycle in reverse, takes us on a return journey to our first mother, to the mother of all beings, to the Creatix of Alchemy, our Mama Gaia.
And Gaia, our Earth Mother, provides us with tools to implement this practice, this practice of returning to the earth, to healing her and to healing all mothers, including the one within each of us. We have the resources, here and now, to come home to ourselves: Activate your knowing, the knowing that you hold deep magic, and that this magic lives within you. Live from the knowledge of your womb and less from the knowledge of your mind. If you don't know where to start, seek your sisters. Reach out to them. They are all around you. Listen for them in the forest, in school, in shops and stores, when you are out -- and listen to the voice within yourself when you are in. Turn towards that voice; answer it. And when you can't find that voice, because there will be times when the fire is blazing around you and you cannot hear the voice of others, know that this voice is your own, and make it heard ... make it heard for yourself. You are here for a reason, right here and right now, and it is to own this sacred wisdom. You are here, and this is no mistake, for fire is perfect, and unique, and we all know the trick to stoking a fire. It is through your breath that your fire will grow.
We are intuitive beings. All beings are, for held within all of us is the Divine Feminine. And as physical manifestations of the Divine Feminine, we womyn have a special sort of access. When we open to our power, we see into that chasm that we've allowed to form before us. We feel deeper. We see images, visions, dreams that can touch the soft and tender and seemingly invisible core at the center of our existence. We are Goddess, and it is no wonder that fearful cries of "Witch, Witch!," that sacred synonym, held such impact. Witches were once burned -- returned by force to the alchemical fire from which we all came and to which we will return. It can be our choice to return to that fire now, to the fire of our wombs, to our secret and expansive, all-pervading knowledge. Listen, whisper, then let your voice grow louder so that it matches the resounding accusation.
Witch! Wear this emblem and know it is a sacrament with a purpose. Let this truth -- its aliveness, its breath -- to grow the fire within you every day of your precious life until it returns to embers, to the dust of bone, to the remnants of smoke from exhale.
Then, inhale it again.
And it's true: this why weaves its tales of the sacrament that is us: it tells stories of secrets, ones of creation and its cycles, and this was too much for a man to bear. Embarrassing, even. It needed to not be, said men, who were raised by their fathers, and them by their fathers, to believe that they held all knowledge, that they would bring home what would sustain a family: Food apprehended through control and strategy; knowledge of nearby danger, and protection when it drew close.
So to the fire with the witches it was, literally speaking.
If womyn escaped the fury of men's fire, they were left to tend to it, at home, and to raise the children. Perhaps some men and boys, those of our brothers who drew close to their own inner Divine Feminine, saw more deeply into this implication: perhaps they saw that it was because of the fire that children were created. That children were raised from the fire, by the fire, kept warm by this fire while in the womb of womyn and later, around the fire next to womyn.
In many early matriarchal cultures, womyn were seen as connected to the Sun and men to the Moon, rather than the reverse. Womyn were seen as solar goddesses; we were seen as the creators, we were held in exaltation because, like the Sun, it was womyn who gave life to life.
We hold all knowledge, still, deep within our bodies, deep within these sacred temples that echo with the cries of joy when we fill them with dance, with craft, with movement, with creation, with life -- they echo with the cries of a child. There is a reason that that cry, when heard by a mother, can awaken something in her soul that pushes her to an edge not journeyed to until that time. It is the primordial cry of creation, and it screams of cycles -- within those cycles can resonate for a womyn a manifestation of deep joy or deep pain. A mama acts on that burning instinct, and the child is formed from that fire.
The child's cry is within us all: it is echoing, and begging us to return to our own Divine Feminine.
It is not only through the physical creation and birth of a child that a child may be born. Through our deep listening, through the activation of our own healing, we can re-create our inner child. That child has never left us. We hold within us a choice to heal that child, to protect the child that we once were. How we nurture and nourish that child that is each of us is the beginning and the end. It is what creates our lives -- it is true that we are burned by the fire or we are created from it. There is a reason, they say, that before one dies, that person's whole life flashes before their eyes. From the womb we came, and to the womb we will return. This sort of primal and unconscious magic, this cycle in reverse, takes us on a return journey to our first mother, to the mother of all beings, to the Creatix of Alchemy, our Mama Gaia.
And Gaia, our Earth Mother, provides us with tools to implement this practice, this practice of returning to the earth, to healing her and to healing all mothers, including the one within each of us. We have the resources, here and now, to come home to ourselves: Activate your knowing, the knowing that you hold deep magic, and that this magic lives within you. Live from the knowledge of your womb and less from the knowledge of your mind. If you don't know where to start, seek your sisters. Reach out to them. They are all around you. Listen for them in the forest, in school, in shops and stores, when you are out -- and listen to the voice within yourself when you are in. Turn towards that voice; answer it. And when you can't find that voice, because there will be times when the fire is blazing around you and you cannot hear the voice of others, know that this voice is your own, and make it heard ... make it heard for yourself. You are here for a reason, right here and right now, and it is to own this sacred wisdom. You are here, and this is no mistake, for fire is perfect, and unique, and we all know the trick to stoking a fire. It is through your breath that your fire will grow.
We are intuitive beings. All beings are, for held within all of us is the Divine Feminine. And as physical manifestations of the Divine Feminine, we womyn have a special sort of access. When we open to our power, we see into that chasm that we've allowed to form before us. We feel deeper. We see images, visions, dreams that can touch the soft and tender and seemingly invisible core at the center of our existence. We are Goddess, and it is no wonder that fearful cries of "Witch, Witch!," that sacred synonym, held such impact. Witches were once burned -- returned by force to the alchemical fire from which we all came and to which we will return. It can be our choice to return to that fire now, to the fire of our wombs, to our secret and expansive, all-pervading knowledge. Listen, whisper, then let your voice grow louder so that it matches the resounding accusation.
Witch! Wear this emblem and know it is a sacrament with a purpose. Let this truth -- its aliveness, its breath -- to grow the fire within you every day of your precious life until it returns to embers, to the dust of bone, to the remnants of smoke from exhale.
Then, inhale it again.
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Giving In To The Night // Trusting
So, I can either begin to say no to the stories that follow me around, jumping, scrambling, heavy as they land on my back and scramble, provoked by the promise of a vulnerable heart space snack, into my chest. I can begin to say no to this disruptive flow -- counter-intuitive to flow's true nature -- the one that finds itself as a rushing undercurrent of thoughts: knowing what's unknown, the knowing and unknowing of illusions. The heaviness spreads to my belly, the thought-flow breaks through the dam where it reunites with its catalyst on the other side, the lizard brain, fight or flight, I've been here all my life.
Or, I can continue to let these cycles carry on -- the ones that disallow any beliefs that bring me to I'm okay, that everyone is okay. Okay in the way I want things to be okay. This bed sheet keeps tearing underneath me, I've had these sheets for probably half my life and that number means something to me now, even though it did then, too. It's a green bed-sheet, this one that tears: Anahata -- feels right. I don't change the sheets but it doesn't feel like it's out of laziness. Right now, it's just more comfortable, and it's here; earth-stuff. Worn. I can see what's white underneath -- when I was growing up my mother always lined the mattress with a fitted cover first, and then fit and laid the sheets on top when she would make our beds, orderly: this habit has found itself reflected in me. Orderly. I like things this way. But for the first time, maybe ever, when I changed my bed last I didn't use a fitted sheet underneath these green ones, so the white I see here is the down feather layer I lie on for added comfort -- and support. It feels okay.
--
(I had a vision that two shells I gave you, melded by residue from the sea, would break apart when we did, and today when I saw those shells, they were as it had been in my mind. "We were together for a little while after," you said. It's true. The sea does as it pleases.)
--
May all beings be warm, be kind, be at peace.
Or, I can continue to let these cycles carry on -- the ones that disallow any beliefs that bring me to I'm okay, that everyone is okay. Okay in the way I want things to be okay. This bed sheet keeps tearing underneath me, I've had these sheets for probably half my life and that number means something to me now, even though it did then, too. It's a green bed-sheet, this one that tears: Anahata -- feels right. I don't change the sheets but it doesn't feel like it's out of laziness. Right now, it's just more comfortable, and it's here; earth-stuff. Worn. I can see what's white underneath -- when I was growing up my mother always lined the mattress with a fitted cover first, and then fit and laid the sheets on top when she would make our beds, orderly: this habit has found itself reflected in me. Orderly. I like things this way. But for the first time, maybe ever, when I changed my bed last I didn't use a fitted sheet underneath these green ones, so the white I see here is the down feather layer I lie on for added comfort -- and support. It feels okay.
--
(I had a vision that two shells I gave you, melded by residue from the sea, would break apart when we did, and today when I saw those shells, they were as it had been in my mind. "We were together for a little while after," you said. It's true. The sea does as it pleases.)
--
May all beings be warm, be kind, be at peace.
Discovering Our Higher Truth by Healing Lower Truth // The Start of the Alchemy of Social Justice, Part Two
This is a manifesto, a call to action, for us -- all of us -- to begin to move into our lower truths, to heal them, and to recognize that in order for us to break cycles now, we must all come together and recognize that yes, while we may never truly understand another's personal pain and suffering, we do all carry within us deep and pervasive and ingrained trauma (again, regardless of which side of oppression it is that we fall). I do not dismiss your pain, and can never fully understand the intricacies and nuances and depth of the channels through which it runs. I see that you have experienced pain, and that you experience pain, and I acknowledge that some of that pain may very well have been from the catalyst of my own doing, or that of my generations of ancestors -- these cycles run deep. I believe this understanding must be packed in with the word "ally": so that when one identifies as "being an ally", one cannot just consider oneself an ally and through this, feel better about oneself and call it a day. What must be packed into the subscription of this label is a sense of responsibility -- to use one's privilege to create an impact. To say this plainly: If you witness a person of a minority being handed the shorter end of the stick, receiving rights lesser than those that they, as a human being, deserve (and less than the rights that are being doled out within that same vicinity to those in majority groups), or being treated in a way that doesn't sit well within you, there is a pact you have signed through your calling yourself an ally to STAND UP to this injustice in service of counteracting it. That standing up can be subtle or overt, but it must be done, or you cannot call yourself an ally. You must also understand that you can't ever fully know another's struggle. Know that pain is pain, but many of our ancestors have caused more pain for others than otherwise (and this is of course disregarding, through not being able to access, the pain being self-inflicted upon one's own soul through inflicting pain on another's).
There is a deep divide between humans and it manifests through the instilled notion that a hierarchy must exist; our planet has suffered because of humans' ignorance and arrogance and need for power and ownership. It is no mistake that a great divide between the people exists here on earth. And it seems to be, at times, our personal attachment to our pain and the continuance of a habitual need to place blame and embody the victimized role that continues to divide us, to keep us from coming together in order to heal ourselves and our planet. This is no mistake, and I imagine those at the head of corporations like Wal-Mart and Goodwill and that biggest monster company of all Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named (yes, the one that sprays poison on our food and in the process kills the vital pollinators of life) sitting atop their ivory thrones above people riling in the streets, drinking whiskey out of short glasses and smoking exotic cigars and chuckling, simply REVELING in the fact that the people down on the streets have no power. (If you don't know about the deeply unsettling and problematic values upon which each of these companies have built their fortresses, please simply Google them. Links provided, but please own your process of learning and take it farther; take your learning process so far that you recognize that you actually know nothing, and then surrender to it: and here, may you leap into the fire of the unknown, for it is there that the real alchemy occurs.)
There is a deep divide between humans and it manifests through the instilled notion that a hierarchy must exist; our planet has suffered because of humans' ignorance and arrogance and need for power and ownership. It is no mistake that a great divide between the people exists here on earth. And it seems to be, at times, our personal attachment to our pain and the continuance of a habitual need to place blame and embody the victimized role that continues to divide us, to keep us from coming together in order to heal ourselves and our planet. This is no mistake, and I imagine those at the head of corporations like Wal-Mart and Goodwill and that biggest monster company of all Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named (yes, the one that sprays poison on our food and in the process kills the vital pollinators of life) sitting atop their ivory thrones above people riling in the streets, drinking whiskey out of short glasses and smoking exotic cigars and chuckling, simply REVELING in the fact that the people down on the streets have no power. (If you don't know about the deeply unsettling and problematic values upon which each of these companies have built their fortresses, please simply Google them. Links provided, but please own your process of learning and take it farther; take your learning process so far that you recognize that you actually know nothing, and then surrender to it: and here, may you leap into the fire of the unknown, for it is there that the real alchemy occurs.)
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Discovering Our Higher Truth by Healing Lower Truth // The Start of the Alchemy of Social Justice, Part One
I have felt incredibly concerned with the state of the world recently. I know I am not alone in this.
I've written a lot here about discovering "higher truth" -- I believe that we each can connect with our own unique purpose and gifts by moving into our higher truth, but it came to me today: the only way to locate our higher truth is by first locating, exploring, and clearing what can be called our "lower truth". So much sludge and muck and karmic pollution has been packed onto and into each of us over the course of thousands of years. This baggage we carry comes in the form of deep ancestral wounds that we carry around with us in our cells. These wounds have been developed through many sorts of trauma: whether our ancestors inflicted or received pain, whether they lost or bore witness to loss, whether they ran from fear, whether or not they stood up or succumbed to the forces of destruction, or whether it was some combination, or all, of these traumas. Diving into them and being with them there, these lower truths within our bodies that express to us generations of loss and pain and fear, will show us elements of why we are just how we are today. It is through their excavation that we will move into our higher truth.
As above, so below; as within, so without.
In order to create real social change and heal the state of the world, change must occur. And I have some ideas for how to incite real change.
Our country is sick because our systems and corporations are sick, and continue to spread their sickness to us: to our land, to our people. We, citizens of earth for a short but meaningful while, cannot sit idly by anymore while our earth is ravaged and drilled out of the illusion of necessity, while her waters and the life that inhabits them are poisoned by massive amounts of physical waste, a manifestation of our own unaligned ignorance. And the part that will keep us stuck here is our refusal to band together and create true, pervasive, effective change.
This divide between us, between our brothers and sisters, is due to unhealed lower truth. It is through recognizing that across time and space, we have been cruel to one another; we have pillaged and plundered and destroyed one another's homes and families and lives -- and it is time to stop. This is not a manifesto against the white man, and although centuries of generations of white men have wreaked havoc and evil on civilization in all its myriad forms. I will mention here that I am white, so I am walking an edge here -- for it is true, I have many ancestors who were oppressive, white men. I carry deep shame within my cells, as we all do for various reasons: I carry much inner conflict around my shame, experiencing certain privileges because I am white and a lack of privileges because I am a female; these flip sides of privilege and the lack of privilege are at work in myriad ways for certain populations of people. (I will mention here that I have gone through periods of giving into the fullness of reactivity to triggers around white men, specifically, for years -- and at times, it has even shown up as a trigger around men in general. I am in process, and have not at all fully integrated what is brought about by this trigger, specifically when that stuff arises from the comments and actions of hetero-identifying, cis-gendered, "A-type", white men [my archetypal trigger] -- I often, in these instances, fall right back into the swamp of my trauma. But perhaps, little by little, by creating more space, by reacting less, we start to surrender to acknowledging our pain and be with it so that we can then release it, breaking cycles in whatever way it means for each of us. We learn that pain will have far less power if we redirect that power towards our own healing.)
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.” ―Viktor Frankl
I've written a lot here about discovering "higher truth" -- I believe that we each can connect with our own unique purpose and gifts by moving into our higher truth, but it came to me today: the only way to locate our higher truth is by first locating, exploring, and clearing what can be called our "lower truth". So much sludge and muck and karmic pollution has been packed onto and into each of us over the course of thousands of years. This baggage we carry comes in the form of deep ancestral wounds that we carry around with us in our cells. These wounds have been developed through many sorts of trauma: whether our ancestors inflicted or received pain, whether they lost or bore witness to loss, whether they ran from fear, whether or not they stood up or succumbed to the forces of destruction, or whether it was some combination, or all, of these traumas. Diving into them and being with them there, these lower truths within our bodies that express to us generations of loss and pain and fear, will show us elements of why we are just how we are today. It is through their excavation that we will move into our higher truth.
As above, so below; as within, so without.
In order to create real social change and heal the state of the world, change must occur. And I have some ideas for how to incite real change.
Our country is sick because our systems and corporations are sick, and continue to spread their sickness to us: to our land, to our people. We, citizens of earth for a short but meaningful while, cannot sit idly by anymore while our earth is ravaged and drilled out of the illusion of necessity, while her waters and the life that inhabits them are poisoned by massive amounts of physical waste, a manifestation of our own unaligned ignorance. And the part that will keep us stuck here is our refusal to band together and create true, pervasive, effective change.
This divide between us, between our brothers and sisters, is due to unhealed lower truth. It is through recognizing that across time and space, we have been cruel to one another; we have pillaged and plundered and destroyed one another's homes and families and lives -- and it is time to stop. This is not a manifesto against the white man, and although centuries of generations of white men have wreaked havoc and evil on civilization in all its myriad forms. I will mention here that I am white, so I am walking an edge here -- for it is true, I have many ancestors who were oppressive, white men. I carry deep shame within my cells, as we all do for various reasons: I carry much inner conflict around my shame, experiencing certain privileges because I am white and a lack of privileges because I am a female; these flip sides of privilege and the lack of privilege are at work in myriad ways for certain populations of people. (I will mention here that I have gone through periods of giving into the fullness of reactivity to triggers around white men, specifically, for years -- and at times, it has even shown up as a trigger around men in general. I am in process, and have not at all fully integrated what is brought about by this trigger, specifically when that stuff arises from the comments and actions of hetero-identifying, cis-gendered, "A-type", white men [my archetypal trigger] -- I often, in these instances, fall right back into the swamp of my trauma. But perhaps, little by little, by creating more space, by reacting less, we start to surrender to acknowledging our pain and be with it so that we can then release it, breaking cycles in whatever way it means for each of us. We learn that pain will have far less power if we redirect that power towards our own healing.)
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.” ―Viktor Frankl
Monday, February 16, 2015
The Fire of the Womb
I recently connected with a sister from Turkey who told a story of her experience of oppression, and that of sisters, mothers and daughters of mothers, and their grandmothers, womyn of all generations, in her land. Womyn there are not allowed to outwardly, publicly, openly channel their divinity, to seek their truth and manifest their dreams of what their unrestrained, wild lives could be. In our Women's Circle, we invoked the goddess as we asked for deep healing of her ancestors. As we know, if we heal our ancestral wounds, we are doing great work in healing ourselves as we presently are.
This sort of oppression is true for those identifying as womyn, women, female, and any other embodiment that is not strictly male, throughout much of our world. It is no secret that womyn, across time and space, are experienced and treated as second-class citizens. We succumb to the power of men, and of the enacted, unnatural "law" of the land, because we must -- with often our lives as the sacrifice if we do not; whether that life be in the physical form or the vital force of the soul (for without that pulse of the soul, what purpose has life?). This sister of mine, she suggested that we perhaps don't see the oppression in our own country quite as much, through her eyes, simply and justifiably because of the contrast from the overt oppression she's suffered alongside the sisters of her native land.
Even with trail-blazing, shift-inciting crusades like the Women's Suffrage Movement a century ago (the likes of which many, many countries have never seen), womyn in our country are still paid around 78% less than men, on average. We know these embarrassing facts. I am noticing myself self-conscious of spelling womyn as so, rather than theculturally-acceptable traditional spelling of "women". I feel that I may not be taken as seriously in this post, or might be seen as "new age", or a feminist, and that I will be dismissed. This is my insecurity and deep-seeded, ancestrally unhealed karmic wounding as a womyn arising: it whispers to me that if I claim myself as something apart (not separate) from men, even in semantics, I will be less seen. And this is a valid insecurity: It is proven by the simple fact that womyn in this country, The United States of America, this country of we the people who every four years find ourselves the electors of the supposed "Leader of the Free World", and the land that so many other lands look to and, because of the historic and gradual building of oppressive systems, must rely heavily on for their own sustainment, are unseen.
And to be quite honest, it's embarrassing. It's embarrassing as a citizen of this country, but this embarrassment is not mine. It's for those who are aware of these facts, have the power to enact change, and don't. It's embarrassing that these people do not see, when they've been handed the power to have such a far-reaching scope. It's embarrassing because this country's society at large labels itself as more evolved, more powerful (power-hungry for sure), and assumes itself as the key-holder of the sought-after, elusive answers the world needs. [I will note here that there are many clear-headed folks in the political arena working for deep and meaningful change for our land; it's just unfortunate that there is, created through the government, such polarity and separation ... so still I use the term "society at large".] And because the USA puts itself on this oversized pedestal, it's embarrassing because our citizens are not equal.
I just got off the phone with my wise, resilient, brilliant mama who reminded me of an even deeper truth -- and that as a mother and homeowner, care-taker of a family and puppy, and at times, and for much of her life, a full-time employee of the American workforce, would have been the one to remind me: Womyn are also expected to be all of these, or they're even less seen. A womyn who is simply a home-maker is seen as shallow, or perhaps lazy; a womyn who works full-time and, because of basic busy-ness, perhaps doesn't always maintain a clean home or keep up the *expected* aesthetic appeal of that space is seen as scattered or incompetent; a mother who works full-time and is away from her children during the day or isn't available to pick them up from school because she is at work, carrying her family's needs in her heart, is seen as neglectful. This is basic injustice at its core. And the façade here, is that this country, at its core, cares for its womyn (or even that it needs t coddle us: it needs us so be subservient and less-than so that there can be a more-than, there can be a hierarchy). Our most basic documents outlining the values of our country would lead one to believe that all of our citizens are truly holders of all the same rights. That we are We The People -- and that "people" here denotes us all: all of us under a shiny multi-colored umbrella as one, weathering the storms together, making decisions that are best for us all. That that is what Democracy is. I laugh, but it's not really that funny.
THIS is how womyn will rise up, though: by returning to our womb, the heart of where creation lies. This means, in creating, we returning to our purpose. We stretch what creation means, and we develop innovative ways to embrace the new paradigm, because it is within us. We step outside of the quick, demanding, action-inciting energy of the old paradigm, and we embody the Sacred Feminine. We start small businesses and run them from our homes. We work with our hands. We sew, we paint, we write. There is something to be said that creation is of the yin energy, which is the female embodiment of the Chinese symbol that encompasses the merging of basic duality and symbiosis with all. It is also of the left brain, and of Ida Nadi (the feminine channel of Kundalini energy) and the left (feminine) side of the body. We create Women's Circles and hold each other in sacred space and support for discovering our true calling. We do this while maintaining homes and full-time jobs for companies that insist on paying us less than we deserve but can never understand that this in no way reflects our true worth, despite aggressive attempts to show us otherwise. We are being called to embody deeper and more expansive levels of creation because that is our craft, and it is what we are wired, in all ways, to do -- and its fire, amidst adversity, glows bright.
[A note for my brothers, for you who see the plight of womyn and the deep injustice we have faced and continue to face -- thank you. If you see this injustice and embody your inner warrior with the intention to unite in healing alongside our warrioress, thank you. There is also much to be said for what the soul carries: in my belief, we have been many beings through many lifetimes. That means we hold the karma of all that is gendered and un-gendered. My words here are a statement of womyn in the physical manifestation, and for our sacred womyn ancestors.]
This sort of oppression is true for those identifying as womyn, women, female, and any other embodiment that is not strictly male, throughout much of our world. It is no secret that womyn, across time and space, are experienced and treated as second-class citizens. We succumb to the power of men, and of the enacted, unnatural "law" of the land, because we must -- with often our lives as the sacrifice if we do not; whether that life be in the physical form or the vital force of the soul (for without that pulse of the soul, what purpose has life?). This sister of mine, she suggested that we perhaps don't see the oppression in our own country quite as much, through her eyes, simply and justifiably because of the contrast from the overt oppression she's suffered alongside the sisters of her native land.
Even with trail-blazing, shift-inciting crusades like the Women's Suffrage Movement a century ago (the likes of which many, many countries have never seen), womyn in our country are still paid around 78% less than men, on average. We know these embarrassing facts. I am noticing myself self-conscious of spelling womyn as so, rather than the
And to be quite honest, it's embarrassing. It's embarrassing as a citizen of this country, but this embarrassment is not mine. It's for those who are aware of these facts, have the power to enact change, and don't. It's embarrassing that these people do not see, when they've been handed the power to have such a far-reaching scope. It's embarrassing because this country's society at large labels itself as more evolved, more powerful (power-hungry for sure), and assumes itself as the key-holder of the sought-after, elusive answers the world needs. [I will note here that there are many clear-headed folks in the political arena working for deep and meaningful change for our land; it's just unfortunate that there is, created through the government, such polarity and separation ... so still I use the term "society at large".] And because the USA puts itself on this oversized pedestal, it's embarrassing because our citizens are not equal.
I just got off the phone with my wise, resilient, brilliant mama who reminded me of an even deeper truth -- and that as a mother and homeowner, care-taker of a family and puppy, and at times, and for much of her life, a full-time employee of the American workforce, would have been the one to remind me: Womyn are also expected to be all of these, or they're even less seen. A womyn who is simply a home-maker is seen as shallow, or perhaps lazy; a womyn who works full-time and, because of basic busy-ness, perhaps doesn't always maintain a clean home or keep up the *expected* aesthetic appeal of that space is seen as scattered or incompetent; a mother who works full-time and is away from her children during the day or isn't available to pick them up from school because she is at work, carrying her family's needs in her heart, is seen as neglectful. This is basic injustice at its core. And the façade here, is that this country, at its core, cares for its womyn (or even that it needs t coddle us: it needs us so be subservient and less-than so that there can be a more-than, there can be a hierarchy). Our most basic documents outlining the values of our country would lead one to believe that all of our citizens are truly holders of all the same rights. That we are We The People -- and that "people" here denotes us all: all of us under a shiny multi-colored umbrella as one, weathering the storms together, making decisions that are best for us all. That that is what Democracy is. I laugh, but it's not really that funny.
THIS is how womyn will rise up, though: by returning to our womb, the heart of where creation lies. This means, in creating, we returning to our purpose. We stretch what creation means, and we develop innovative ways to embrace the new paradigm, because it is within us. We step outside of the quick, demanding, action-inciting energy of the old paradigm, and we embody the Sacred Feminine. We start small businesses and run them from our homes. We work with our hands. We sew, we paint, we write. There is something to be said that creation is of the yin energy, which is the female embodiment of the Chinese symbol that encompasses the merging of basic duality and symbiosis with all. It is also of the left brain, and of Ida Nadi (the feminine channel of Kundalini energy) and the left (feminine) side of the body. We create Women's Circles and hold each other in sacred space and support for discovering our true calling. We do this while maintaining homes and full-time jobs for companies that insist on paying us less than we deserve but can never understand that this in no way reflects our true worth, despite aggressive attempts to show us otherwise. We are being called to embody deeper and more expansive levels of creation because that is our craft, and it is what we are wired, in all ways, to do -- and its fire, amidst adversity, glows bright.
[A note for my brothers, for you who see the plight of womyn and the deep injustice we have faced and continue to face -- thank you. If you see this injustice and embody your inner warrior with the intention to unite in healing alongside our warrioress, thank you. There is also much to be said for what the soul carries: in my belief, we have been many beings through many lifetimes. That means we hold the karma of all that is gendered and un-gendered. My words here are a statement of womyn in the physical manifestation, and for our sacred womyn ancestors.]
Change // Coming Home to Ourselves
There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others. --Martha Graham
Everything has prepared itself perfectly to lead up to the present moment -- this preparation is no mistake. This speaks to me personally, as I feel the deep unrest that Martha Graham speaks of ... I feel it right now, and it feels like it's about time. I have been in my period of (what I consider) conscious awakening for about four years, but it's only now that it's starting to feel INTENTIONAL. And I when I turn to this feeling, this knowing, I sense a deep, resonating inner buzz that won't quiet down; it's alive. No wonder I feel so connected to bees.
Currently, the buzz is driven by fear. When I tap into the fear, it's clear that much of it comes from my thoughts. In an earlier post I wrote about how I tend to build up stories so, so quickly in my mind and give them full access to the wheel -- and what happens when these thoughts drive is a backseat ride for me on the Carousel from Hell. Once I finally eject myself from this absurd, unrestrained whirl, I'll recognize I had been holding my breath; I'll recognize feeling some tightness in my chest and weight in my belly. And then I'll realize that the whole time, I was missing what could have been a far more unobscured view of what had actually been going on around me -- on earth.
A friend shared with me that fear shows up to reveal to us that there's something we don't want to look at. I've written a lot here about running from fear, how it takes us away from the present. I now see my major habit of doing that -- of running. I simply hadn't realized until recently that my mind's deeply habitual way of distracting myself is its own self-defense; it's because the ego doesn't want to die. And therein, lies the purpose of fear: to distract us from the inevitability of death.
I believe that all fear is derived from the fear of death. This could be physical death, of course. It could also simply be change. Change denotes the death of something. At all times, things are dying and being reborn into new things. This is the order of everything: it occurs in nature in its most simple and perfect form -- it creates space for new growth, for new life. It is why patterns exist, what a kaleidoscope is made of, why monks spend lengths of time creating intricate and ornate mandalas from colored sand and upon their completion, whisk them away in a matter of seconds. If change didn't exist, nothing would. But what keeps our minds from resisting change? Why do we allow our minds to create for us the egoic state? Because it's safer here. Why is it safer? Because it's familiar. Why are we so attached to familiarity? Because it's what we know. Why do we need to grasp to what we know? Because the unknown is TERRIFYING. Anything could happen. Any level of change could occur at any time.
Becoming familiar with uncertainty feels like my current task -- it feels potent and resonant and vital, if only for the reason that RIGHT NOW, it's the only way I'll currently be able to tap into my higher truth, to delve deeper into what I need to do with my time here, with this beautiful and blessed incarnation I've been given. And for each of us, discovering that highest manifestation of our gifts and talents is of the most crucial of importance for each of us here and now.
I've been continuously calling in more and more sisters and brothers all the time (of various ages ranging from children to elders) to show me how to better live (and to support me in showing myself how to live better), to tap into my higher truth. They are in many different places in their journeys, but all feel critical and vital to my process -- which of course, is everyone's process when we really look at it. All of them have paved their own way with the golden brick and sparkling mortar of their wisdom and action -- some see this about themselves and because they continue to do so, they light my path. Other sisters and brothers with whom I've connected are stuck in a fear-placed Samsara of the type I often find myself immersed in as well. (I seem to jump back and forth a lot, especially recently, between these two spaces of understanding -- I suppose we all do at times. Welcome to the human experience, right?). I've noticed that when I meet family from this latter group, I tend to bust out my torch and strike it against something so it alights so they can see the path. And I notice that when I do this, we both see the path. Healing is symbiotic; it's co-creative. We are all just in our own unique place in it -- in the precious journey of coming home to ourselves. And this journey, of course, wouldn't be possible without change. Bless it.
Sunday, February 15, 2015
Healing Society by Healing Ourselves // Playing Kickball with Community
It seems that fear really, really wants to release itself from me. It's working its way out of me through lower back pain (storage space for emotional trauma), manifesting in my dreams, and building stories in my mind that create uncomfortable visceral responses in my belly (the story-building thing is familiar; I'll get to that later). For most of my life, I've lived in a state of fear. I've compared myself to other people and quite often felt less something than someone else -- less than the best, due of course in part to the energy of competitiveness and the value placed on physicality in our society -- so whether it was less beautiful, less able to be of help or competent in some way, less good at a sport or a subject in school, there had been (and still sometimes is) always a constant voice expressing to me the need to be something other than I am. This voice has shown up from so many different sources, and at some point, it eventually became my own. I equate the volume and ferocity of that inner voice with the sort of deafening, nonstop static that penetrates the space during a professional football game: it's very OUR society, and it's VERY loud. Those Western ideals can get'cha, and they got me -- for real.
Rejection -- in all its forms -- whether it be having the "wrong" [ha, duality] answer in class, experiencing unrequited might-have-been love, or not making some team (or being one of the best on the team), often felt unbearably crushing to me ... though I would often numb those feelings through various means of distraction. I mean, how often do we tell people we're okay when we're really not? What is it with mainstream society's aversion to vulnerability? Show us how you really feel, society. Oh, you do: it's very clear, and manifests in the way psychotherapy is largely viewed and treated and responded to in this culture: there's major stigma there, and it keeps us from finding holistic health and exploring what could be our higher truth because we're subtly (and often not-so-subtly) shown that if we put action toward healing ourselves, there's something wrong with us; it shows us that vulnerability equates with weakness. So instead, we succumb to the bombardment of the messages we receive all around us; we numb our "symptoms" of confusion or unhappiness and we disregard our emotionally void low-serotonin-level-having brain chemistry with the vices of Western culture: extreme boozing; immersing ourselves in watching mindless reality TV shows; chasing money and things always right outside of ourselves, and a thousand more etceteras. We immerse ourselves in anything that will keep us away from where we are -- shutting out the cognizance that where we are is really the only place we'll ever find true answers, after all.
Rejection -- in all its forms -- whether it be having the "wrong" [ha, duality] answer in class, experiencing unrequited might-have-been love, or not making some team (or being one of the best on the team), often felt unbearably crushing to me ... though I would often numb those feelings through various means of distraction. I mean, how often do we tell people we're okay when we're really not? What is it with mainstream society's aversion to vulnerability? Show us how you really feel, society. Oh, you do: it's very clear, and manifests in the way psychotherapy is largely viewed and treated and responded to in this culture: there's major stigma there, and it keeps us from finding holistic health and exploring what could be our higher truth because we're subtly (and often not-so-subtly) shown that if we put action toward healing ourselves, there's something wrong with us; it shows us that vulnerability equates with weakness. So instead, we succumb to the bombardment of the messages we receive all around us; we numb our "symptoms" of confusion or unhappiness and we disregard our emotionally void low-serotonin-level-having brain chemistry with the vices of Western culture: extreme boozing; immersing ourselves in watching mindless reality TV shows; chasing money and things always right outside of ourselves, and a thousand more etceteras. We immerse ourselves in anything that will keep us away from where we are -- shutting out the cognizance that where we are is really the only place we'll ever find true answers, after all.
Saturday, February 14, 2015
Free Will With Limitations / Be Free Without Any
Recently, there's been shared with me by a few women of Shamanic traditions and beliefs a concept: This concept has been terrifying to me at times throughout the last few weeks, but I've lately warmed to it a bit. It sits somewhere within me that feels like it might be okay. The concept is that when we choose the lives that we do, we agree to a set period of time. We have free will, and are able to do what we will and what we can with that time, but we have a unique and personalized "deadline", dark humor unintended.
What I've come to recognize from this possibility is that we each have a unique gift to unwrap and share with the world. We're here to do what's ours, not anyone else's. We're creating a roadmap for others at all times -- when we run out of steam, we can look back to those people who hold the roadmap and can remind us of the path.
"Everything is food for everything else. The world is continually chewing itself up and nourishing itself. Everything is grist for the mill." // "Triumph and tragedy are the same: it just depends on which perspective you're looking at it from." --Colin Robison
Don't let your spectrum be limited: say yes. Say yes to everything (within reason, that is: if you've checked in with yourself and you know that an opportunity is in service of your higher good, you'll know -- you'll know because this means you're choosing to know your soul; you're listening to your heart's true song and singing along). Saying yes to a YES is in service of broadening your world and allowing your human experience to emerge more expansively. It's in service of emotion displaying to you its array of color, of texture and scent and feeling, and through this, to show you that it's NOT you (to be more clear, it's simply a part of you as long as you're in a body: but it's not you.) It affects you when you attach to it, and sometimes it feels beautiful. Glorious. It can feel like the sort of expansive sunlight you can revel in for hours and when your cheeks hurt from cheesing your face off, you smile wider because it's the best kind of hurt. And other times, perhaps you'll experience the feeling of the most unrelenting, hairy and foul-smelling creature to ever find its way into the darkness of your soul find its way there and settle in. Sometimes this creature takes residence for long stretches of time, and embracing that creature can feel like the the only choice you have in those instances -- but try to realize that that creature is not you. All of this, these experiences that feel so dualistic -- and yet aren't -- are all in service of a richness finding its way into you. Trust me, this richness is for you, and once you find it, you can never become poor. [Side-note: And if you'd like to meet people who embody this spectrum fully, who grow it from their land and live in it in each and every moment ... find your way to Jamaica. Open your heart to this land and it will open its heart to you and shower you with abundance that will infuse your soul and never leave.]
What I've come to recognize from this possibility is that we each have a unique gift to unwrap and share with the world. We're here to do what's ours, not anyone else's. We're creating a roadmap for others at all times -- when we run out of steam, we can look back to those people who hold the roadmap and can remind us of the path.
"Everything is food for everything else. The world is continually chewing itself up and nourishing itself. Everything is grist for the mill." // "Triumph and tragedy are the same: it just depends on which perspective you're looking at it from." --Colin Robison
Don't let your spectrum be limited: say yes. Say yes to everything (within reason, that is: if you've checked in with yourself and you know that an opportunity is in service of your higher good, you'll know -- you'll know because this means you're choosing to know your soul; you're listening to your heart's true song and singing along). Saying yes to a YES is in service of broadening your world and allowing your human experience to emerge more expansively. It's in service of emotion displaying to you its array of color, of texture and scent and feeling, and through this, to show you that it's NOT you (to be more clear, it's simply a part of you as long as you're in a body: but it's not you.) It affects you when you attach to it, and sometimes it feels beautiful. Glorious. It can feel like the sort of expansive sunlight you can revel in for hours and when your cheeks hurt from cheesing your face off, you smile wider because it's the best kind of hurt. And other times, perhaps you'll experience the feeling of the most unrelenting, hairy and foul-smelling creature to ever find its way into the darkness of your soul find its way there and settle in. Sometimes this creature takes residence for long stretches of time, and embracing that creature can feel like the the only choice you have in those instances -- but try to realize that that creature is not you. All of this, these experiences that feel so dualistic -- and yet aren't -- are all in service of a richness finding its way into you. Trust me, this richness is for you, and once you find it, you can never become poor. [Side-note: And if you'd like to meet people who embody this spectrum fully, who grow it from their land and live in it in each and every moment ... find your way to Jamaica. Open your heart to this land and it will open its heart to you and shower you with abundance that will infuse your soul and never leave.]
A Blended Remedy for Society's Ills // More Bees, Please
Spirituality + Science + Social Justice
Admittedly, I hadn't considered social justice as a piece of this critical blend for healing ourselves and this planet. The ideas of grown into and co-created around the potentially flourishing gift that we could give back to the world in the form of an alchemical purity of Spirituality and the positive brilliance of a somewhat-reined Science were to merge, life on this planet, NOW, as we know it, would ascend. But the social justice piece speaks to where we are now, in this time and space. It is just as critical, because it creates a triad, and has the potential to even bridge the science and spirit elements. In an earlier post, I've mentioned karmic shame, and breaking cycles. This lends to what true social justice could be, and I would like to write a bit about this and its elements of diversity as I work my way through the density of spirituality and science and what this mean to me, today -- but it come in a new post as it's also very dense and layered and I would like to keep each post somewhat digestible. :)
So, for now, I'll say this is Part One: Science + Spirituality //
Throughout time and space into the now, pervading modern day, the mucky context that both spirituality and science have found themselves has deeply polluted each, and through it has created a great chasm of polarity: Science (a religion to some) on one side and Spirituality (a religion, or packaged within religion, to others) on the opposing. This separation is detrimental to the healing of our planet.
Spirituality -- for thousands of years -- has, for the general population (read: all of those who didn't want to be killed or oppressed) operated under the guise of religion and for the purposes of maintaining power and control. I know Christianity is often the scapegoat, but as it's the largest and most followed religion in the West, I'll start here. Originally writing the Bible, and then forcing upon citizens the strict adherence to these teachings laws of the text allowed for a select few men to maintain a hierarchy and enforce an impossible caste system; it allowed for the rich to stay rich and in power and left the poor without, their overall lives devoted to providing and producing food and necessary goods for those sitting on the thrones, in whatever jewel and ignorance-encrusted form they appeared, above them. I like to imagine those original scribers of the Bible, those priests and clergymen, close to 3,000 years ago, experiencing moments of synchronicity and magic (the sort we witness all the time, being citizens of this mysterious planet) and interpreting it to their own will. Applying their own agenda to these witnessed signs and then scribing, based on their interpretations, just what should be and what shouldn't. [I will mention here that I have nothing against Christians who recognize and accept all living creatures as a necessary part of the great fabric of our existence, who recognize our intercorrelation. I have met many Christian sisters and brothers of this nature -- to whom "Jesus" and "love" are interchangeable. If the guidance (and there is much valuable guidance in there, however juxtaposed it may be from other parts of the text; valuable insight like "love thy neighbor as thyself and so forth) from the Bible serves up peace on a platter to some, this is lovely, and brings peace to the collective unconscious -- and this is what the world needs now, more than every. Pervasive and expansive acceptance and love for one another. But also, a mutual encouragement to do better. To wake up to the truth of our existence: Things need to change.
Antidotes to Living Life in Fear
- Find your way back to your body: it's your own little piece of earth, and there are answers there.
Get grounded on the planet that we inhabit. We, as humans with abilities of discernment and free will are able to adopt any energy we choose, but this comes only with practice. The kryptonite to the development of this ability is one’s continuing to give in to a habitual patterning – a manifestation of programming, karma, and repressed cellular genetic knowledge that no longer serves our present reality. A recognition and balance of the elements within each of us is necessary, but can also be potentially less-serving if we lean into any one energy more than the others equanimity (examples could be attempting to quantify and compartmentalize and logically analyze everything, often resulting in an objectified, polarized way of viewing experience = earth, or to try to figure out the meaning in everything – which resulting in completely spiraling out in our thoughts = air, floating aimlessly about without putting actions towards any grounded intentions = water, etc.) We can adopt earth energy at any time – go outside, look at a tree for three minutes. Continue to come back to the physicality of the tree: the way the bark connects and separates from itself and mazes its way up the trunk in unique and specific patterns, the way moss grows from between the cracks in the bark, the changes of colors up from the roots all the way into the lofty branches stretching above you. From this fixed place on earth, we can see movement. The alternative to this grounded perspective is too much motion; this could be spiraling out in our thoughts or darting from task to task in a fiery manner, totally frantic and unable to see the bigger scope. When you’re in constant motion, perspective completely dissipates. This keeps us in one particular pattern (and is generally a manifestation of our thoughts) and unable to see the bigger picture: what could actually take us out of this spiraling experience and bring us to higher truth – and with it, a sense of true okay-ness. To find perspective, ask: “What’s really going on right now?”
What’s on the other side of fear? Anything and everything in the form of love and pure truth, and it flows unrestricted.
An Initiation
I am witnessing myself step into my personal power, and it is beautiful, and about the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I word it that way, because for me, there's no other choice. To live in authenticity with what I'm here to do is now, the only option. It's this, or lie here with the dead weight of unexpressed brilliance spreading its poison through my bones.
This blog is a collection of writing, topics spawned from recent experience and also those I've wished to write about for a while. Some are old posts, others are continuing to be birthed into the now. This expression can't wait any longer ...
I am walking into the light; I am coming home to myself: I am moving into full recognition of my "higher truth", or personal power ("it", of course having been within me, as it's within all of us, as it's within all of everything). I've allowed these embers -- this could-be raging fire that's been in need of breath and stoking -- burn slowly in its slow, dim form for far too long. Fires can be created from embers, but it's my breath that will allow this one to rage. Here, I bow to my breath.
I've felt fear for so much of my life: this fear has spun its life from the yarn with which I've continued to provide it: my feeding these fears has aided in the slow weaving of a tapestry threaded from an ancestral and karmic manifestation within me, its life perpetuated by society -- built on thousands of years of trauma to the human psyche, and
passed down to us, the successors of our race – in the form that my unique trauma comes:
perfectly, intricately layered, and colored in such way that it now just looks monotone. I am breaking cycles now -- I am LISTENING to my
truth; I have learned that full access to this recognition is (and has been) always available to me, if only I simply intentionally check in with myself.
"The first step is to go for the truth. Self inquire… what is true about who I am? Tear away layer after layer. Ask yourself what’s true until you know. Neti Neti. Think for yourself. Don’t follow." -- Jed McKenna
We each have our own karma to work through in this lifetime: And to drag ourselves around weighed down with all the literal weight we carry as humans, working through confusion in an independent-minded manner (while embracing vulnerability enough to reach out for support from our sisters and brothers when we need it) while holding space within our processes for both ease and grace to enter us, what does one do?
Continue to breathe. And start a blog, perhaps.
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