I’ll be free when…
"Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing." ~ Pema Chodron
When life feels overwhelming and uncertain, my automatic seeks to control my environment. And, so, it's no surprise that a large chunk of my career in retail was spent bringing order to objects - creating stories and vignettes of shared experiences that I may have tripped over along the way from one department to the other -- responding to the momentary avail of desire and the opportunity of vulnerability and product utility.
The more I think of it, the more I see how this natural need to create is the strength that's led me through every experience so far; it never leaves me, this ability to resurrect and reconsider from uncertainty.
Like right now, with my hand on the recorder and my feet on the ground - this desire and need pulse through me as I walk through my home and pick up the objects and things cluttering our space. I notice that the idea of tripping on them gets in the way of creative flow - how these things may not stop us completely, but how their stories slow us down; and, how this slowing down allows us the opportunity to challenge and codify their meaning, their availability, usefulness, and cost.
What is here when I slow down? What do I see in this object? What memory does it carry? What use does it serve? Is it integral? Does it need updating - what needs to be purged - what needs to be put in its place?
Indeed, there's a cost attached to every object - free will: the time, attention, and energy it takes to maintain, manipulate and use that object, or shift it from here to there and from there to here, even if it's a thought. And, with 50% of all our energy going toward our visual cortex, we understand the power of vision - what we remember, how we behave, and why we believe.
This is flow.
Being in flow is being free from the idea of letting go ... it's more of a surrender, a relaxing of the ego. The ego only trusts what it knows - this knowledge that's always from and attached to the past - and so, it will continue to project what it knows into the future in order to fulfill a sense of certainty.
In this way, ego is never present to really trust.
However, the soul/witness/self is eternal - of the NOW, not stuck in the past or projecting the future; the soul is trustworthy. Opening up space for this understanding automatically shifts attention toward flow (like figure-ground) because you must surrender that projection to see what else is available.
It's not a thinking gig, but an intuitive sensing gig.
Now there's personal flow - that "Me" that is expressed through the prism called Annette which is expressed in all sorts of colors and textures and shapes that worked at Bloomingdales. But, also, there's "this" me, stripped-down and impersonal ... the light that radiates without preference - the light that WE are and from which we come.
It sounds super dramatic! But the shift is as subtle as noticing the ground under your feet - quiet and profound.
Still, this distinction is not easily recognizable when we're unconsciously tripping over our objects - our things, our thoughts, our biases, our perceptions, our stories, our suffering, our fears, our outdated misguided beliefs ... our biological, ideational, and spiritual DNA.
When we're unconscious - reacting from a history of fear and hijacked by a neural network of somatic proof - "AHA!"- it's easy to 'trip' the wire of blame, fear, and defense - it's easy to get pulled into some internal psychic dope drama - spiraling between hero, and victim and villain.
Indeed, when we begin to measure ourselves through the validation of others or by the objects we possess, these objects have the power to activate fearful emotions that trigger fearful behaviors that have fearful consequences.
The need for certainty calls for the hero.
When we look outside ourselves toward someone or something (law, idea, emotion, object, god) to save us - we don't recognize the potential strength of our own vulnerability (like the figure-ground).
Crisis offers us a spontaneous opportunity - the call to return, relook, rethink, retrain, redo, reform, and renegotiate the limiting beliefs standing in the way of co-creating a new story. Our willingness to be True, connects us with an intuition that returns us to wisdom; and when we are "woke" enough to start challenging the beliefs that have been handed down to us, life begins to shift in miraculous ways.
Amen!
This is a very necessary experience of our collective, psychic evolution. This is the work that will progress society - the atonement that dispels illusion - and, the correction that reveals Truth.
Some people call this process or state "spirituality", "consciousness" "awakening", "loving-kindness", "healing" or "enlightenment". The words are not as important as what they're pointing toward: some state of mind/heart union that vibrates and resonates and vacillates around a cooperative core of neutrality - peace and love - which expands exponentially as happiness and freedom.
And this is a really big thought - dharma, realization - a sharp contrast to the "objectified" relationship of our first encounter when we first tripped on the object in the dining room, or in the kitchen, or in the room in our head - a huge departure from blaming someone else or even ourselves - and a huge leap of faith into the creative potential of this everything instant.
Within this humility is the understanding that there will always be more - something bigger, better, brighter! And, this sense of ownership over our future is what ushers us to the purpose that is always happening - the happiness that is always here happening - and, toward the potential for this happiness in this field of experience, this singular love and freedom.
There are, however, certain fundamental skills and understandings that need to take place before we meet in this field, and they are not a matter of privilege - not based on some external measure - yet absolutely dependent on certain conditions that may be possessed by certain groups (which give rise to building and using these skills in ways that benefit the few).
Attention and free will and meaning can be harnessed by one group in ways that manipulate or exclude other groups in ways that offer disproportionate wealth and power and growth to others.
A flower cannot grow without soil and water and sunlight
... or some variation of these conditions because it is what sustains its' growth; it's what restores balance - mutuality.
Like any seed, the basic conditions of this seed of being human demand:
Safety: we need food and shelter/refuge for this body.
Desire: we need emotion - the energy of motion - to access insight into our potential.
Agreement: we need mutual intention - to offer and accept - and to obey the Cosmic and Divine Laws of relationship.
Loyalty: we need to be honest, stand by our shared values, be faithful to our family, and be respectful of their proper/property - the body of experience.
We need something outside ourselves to slow us down before we manifest above the soil, so we can resolve the residue of all that we still have not understood: we need to feel safe enough to hear each other, we need to be available enough to feel each other.
Conflict forces us to crouch down low to the ground like we're about to give birth - on the earth giving birth into the earth. This feels familiar as we look around at what's happening in our nation:
Getting kicked down by COVID; getting back up.
Getting kicked down by our economy; getting back up.
Getting kicked down by racism; getting back up.
Getting kicked down by absolutism; getting back up
Getting kicked down by all these bu**shit rules and ideas that keep us in conflict, insecure ... apart:
... the biology and psychology and belief systems - the behaviors that are obstructing the flow of where we belong and of what we're all searching and longing for.
There's so much going on - so much information - so many power systems vying for our attention - so much denial and so much pain. No wonder we're calling on fear - the hero, the bully, and the victim - no wonder we are caught in the loop of the dope drama again.
This is the stuff of Epics - Human Drama - the stuff of gods and mortals! It is long and enduring - being possessed by the object and in the story that that object tells could take twenty minutes (like this ego) to a lifetime (like this soul) to describe what happens in an instant (like this spirit).
And, so many Beings of Presence are saying the same thing, "Look here! Beneath your feet and within your Heart." But we no longer have the attention to listen and, after a while, we recognize that without understanding and attention, we can hear and hear and hear, but still forget that we need to see each other and start noticing how this is true - that what has been passed down through the body of Perennial Wisdom (not religion) is vibrating Truth, and any idea or object or organization that stands in the way of including all of humanity in God's plan is a lie. And, any idea or object or organization that claims that it has the answer to your freedom is a thief, denying you freedom.
The goal is not to erase some condition in society, the goal is to rise together.
We need a vision of every color and shape standing together in some magnificent fractal - some digital code that's so powerful yet so tender that just one shift will change its dynamic. Like a kaleidoscope, we gently turn the lens and allow all to flow, accept the patterns that emerge, find wonder and amazement in their infinite capacity, and comfort in knowing that all within are held and welcomed and loved.
We understand, that we cannot affect our will on the objects in the lens, however, we can be aware of the One turning and attuning the lens.
And, we have to start actioning ourselves from a space of love; and in order to do that, we have to understand what love is; and in order to make space for the understanding of what love is, we have to feel safe enough in our bodies, and in our choices, and in our homes and in our classrooms, and in our towns, and in our cities and in our nations.
And we must stop shaming each other! Shame is something that works internally for the Eternal system to let it know that something is happening that is against Nature. When we start using shame against others or even ourselves, we trip up that system and we no longer know what to trust.
Only predators and purveyors or power knowingly "trip up" the system.
What I am speaking of is not to be defended, or to be "against" or be "for" - it's a longing for our fundamental Freedom; it's a longing that's beyond the cloud of that object - beyond the shadow and the story that that shadow tells - beyond the colors of the idea and of everything that arises in light - "beyond the idea of right and wrong" (Rumi).
It is united in solidarity at the wellspring of our humanity and it precedes this idea of humanity!
What and how this change looks like is not for another to judge.
We are our own judge and jury. When we are able to create a safe space inside, within and because of this consciousness, we can start to explore and reflect upon the places of fear that keep us from the purpose of this very moment - from the purpose of this object on the floor "Being here" for me to trip on - the purpose of this thought that spontaneously combusted with the intention that it be captured and be shared so that others can delight so that others can relax:
... so that you can start to feel safe inside your body and instead of asking for heroes to come save you, to rise through fear, beyond the idea of fear, into the light - to connect with courage and to challenge the beliefs that are keeping you a victim.
You are not angry; anger is happening and is pointing toward something that needs your attention.
You are not overwhelmed: overwhelm is happening and is pointing toward a series of events or tools that are needed in order to feel present and grounded and to actuate peace from this root.
And, so, we must! We must. willingly descend into the soil of our actions and words and beliefs and ask:
What is this object? Where did it come from? Why is this happening? Why am I angry? Why am I here at this very moment having this experience? How can it serve me? How can it serve the world? How can it serve the vision I have of the world I want to live in?
When we start to live from this intention - to have words complement and contribute to humanity rather than hurt or divide it, even if it means lying down like a smooth stone in a river bed, creating whirlpools ... knowing something there needs our attention - then we can start taking a good, loving, hard, honest look at ourselves and the things in our lives that are getting in the way - that are really beginning to harm us and hurt us - harm these bodies ... these subtle bodies and these physical bodies -- happening at a time when we need our immune system to be at its most resilient - to come together in ways that are internal and creative, eternal and loving.