An admission. This is not at all how I am feeling tonight.
This, I am taking in as medicine administered by my younger self
who was completely rooted in grander scope, broader vision, and this moment as a blip in the evolutionary path.
I drink from her cup, now.
(not uber-editable, but listen softly and you'll catch her trope.)
2004 -
The morning after.
I knew who had won because all was quiet outside my east village window.
And faintly, beyond trees, up high rises came at some vague hour of morning a familiar chant. Not our president. Not our president. Like an alarm sounding in the night it came, a clear indication to go back to sleep.
There is a story told in every tradition (in one way or another) about a farmer and his family who lose their one horse whom they’ve relied on for sustenance, and everyone despairs- except for the farmer who says, Fortunate, unfortunate. I don’t know. Let’s wait and see. And, in fact, the horse soon returns with five wild mares following him. And the farmer’s family and neighbors rejoice at such luck, while the farmer says, Fortunate, unfortunate. I don’t know. Let’s wait and see. And, indeed, later their dear son falls off the back of one of the mares breaking his back, which then prohibits him from being sent off to war. On and on like this it goes, weaving in and out of the perception of good and bad, fortunate and unfortunate. All along the farmer maintaining the perspective, This is simply What Is Happening. Fortunate, Unfortunate, I don’t know. Let’s wait and see.
I kept eye out for fellow farmers on those city streets the morning after the election.
The morning after.
I found myself scanning the streets for them, some Army of Mirrors for the feeling I felt within. Beyond even, Fortunate, unfortunate. I don’t know, let’s wait and see, I sought eyes crooning in a loud whisper, Hush.
Hush, it’s going to be okay.
Love is not defeated.
Love is here.
You are that, it is you, and in it we are swimming.
There is nothing to fear. No woman, no cry.
Is peace not the thing that we fear is at stake by this forbidden result? Is it not known that embodiment for what we want is the means to take us there? Can we be strong enough to apply peace with every step? And do we take Life's dark dare to walk more strongly in our truth, in our trust, in our truth?
Is the intellect alarmed right now and your inner skeptic’s ears perked? They should be. Is your heart bloodied and torn? I admit that what you are reading may seem like a very Nice idea- a lame justification for the flawed Reality as it’s unfolding. A horror so high-pitched that hands in every corridor of goodness are cupping ears. Here’s my hypothesis: My neatness in the face of this mess isn’t my fault. The explanation here may seem nice precisely because the underlying Reality happens to be… nice. Oliver Wendell Holmes speaks of a Simplicity on the far side of complexity as opposed to the simplicity on the near side of it.
We scoff at the simple, because it seems ignorant to the darkness, the facts, the misogyny, the complexity, the tragedy, the history, the stakes, the danger, the news! However, the heat of all of that boils down What Is Happening into something crystallized, something simple. Recognizing it and acknowledging what that simplicity might look like, now, possessing it and becoming it, will quite possibly (and by my hypothesis is quite surely) aid us in walking the complexity of the world we experience from day to day, successfully. That is, in a way that will allow us to see that ultimate simplicity so manifested on the planet, or bring us closer to it.
Love, in fact, might prove to be the most rational thing in the world.
“Evolution” here, is that which is at the core of every single thing in creation, that which is the core of Creation, being uploaded into Action.
That which is downloaded as the essence of Nature, being manifested as what the world actually looks like.
All of nature, We included, doing its dance in alignment and accordance to its own nature, that which is at the essence of its being.
(We have many words for this core, this nature. It is Truth, Unconditional Love, Jesus called it the peace that passeth all understanding.)
Of course all darkness, every seeming hindrance in evolution (truth’s being manifested on the earth) is not truly in conflict with the evolutionary process at all. Indeed, the seeming obstructions to truth’s unfolding, are paradoxically its catalysts.
Like the crucible that turns the coal to diamond, creation is providing heat. And this 'heat' takes place as a dynamic process.
Every conflict, obstacle in the way of light and love’s being fully cultivated here, every apparent Monster that we either a) resist like crazy, or b) run from like hell, is other than it seems.
The monster dance, goes something like this:
Monsters- and every single one- are akin to the Scooby Doo variety, meaning: they will chase us as long as we run, dictating our paths, our actions, our agendas, our gangs, our governments, our activities, our selves, until Wait a minute- Aha! we turn to face them, saying, Hold on- you’re not really a cycloptic snake! and lifting its mask, You’re the grocer, Mr. Sleizer!
Oh, kids. You got me, he’ll say.
Patiently Truth sits within every monster and waits to be recognized by itself in all of creation.
It is our vision, our recognition, and voice- it is our expansion into the possibility that this ugly thing, too, is truth- that it has been chasing us for that recognition! The realization that ALL IS TRUTH, is what we are evolving toward. And every form of ugliness is the next opportunity to say, Yes, this too.
There is againstness, there is running away, there is tiring, there is giving up, and then Aha!
And this is how it goes.
So, not only are they not the monsters they appear to be, they are in fact Secret Agents of Truth. They are catalysts, working for evolution.
Every hindrance, obstacle, obstruction, threshold and adversary is a stealthy secret agent, secretly working for its apparent opposite, albeit usually unwittingly. They actually work toward truth’s 'taking over the world.' They see to it that rather than stay where truth is- deeply immanent within all things- that it is birthed up and out of us, into action, into physical reality, into the voice of This is what must be done, ultimately into legislature, into the relationships creation has among itself. The darkness in this world is the catalyst for our fully uploading the light that is downloaded so sublimely within us.
We associatively call the absence of ease, dis-ease. But the true Affliction, lies in complacency that is born out of ease.
Ease is where stagnation of truth that is spiritual death, develops. Stagnation renders the river of truth into a cesspool. Dis-ease is the movement of that river. Turbulence of current events, is its current. Disruption to the disruptive state of things. Dis-ease, itself, is nature’s ultimate cure for the sickness of Stagnation. Movement is the evolutionary tool that all this, and everything is in service of. It is all for the sake of the gradual birthing of unconditional love from the depths of all, into manifestation. Dis-ease draws truth, unconditional love, from the depths of creation, by offering such shadow, which we in turn must match in light, driven by the laws of Nature and the mandate for balance intrinsic within it. That balance is our potential. Evolution is at work and our despair and desperation within it, while immediately understandable, is actually at best, unnecessary- at worst, paralyzing. Darkness and evil have their place as catalysts in the evolution of the universe toward full manifestation of unconditional love, that it was created to fully embody.
This does not mean we do not work to wipe out darkness and evil, Only that our despair and desperation will render it much more difficult to do so.
We are the midwives and the mothers. And mostly we are the Child, the Song, the Life, the Truth that is born through these bodies. Waiting so long in the womb- there is now a quickening to come forth. T h a n k s to the entire Tragedy we so lament, the love that is, that is all we have ever been, is here ready to be born.
Thus darkness.
Thus disease.
And so, ultimately peace.
And so immanently, peace.
It begins with we who know this and trust it within process.
Embody the end now, and in so doing, become the means that will take us there.
Exponentially, and covertly.
Ultimately, and immediately,
At some later time down the road, and now, here in this moment,
Simply by being it- and f u l l y- through and through.
For we cannot only know who is not our president. We must know what is. See it and be it.
All That We Are is the president of me.
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