Musings
“The Powerful Play Goes on…
and when you get your cue…you say your line.”
Beneath the scripts left by others long ago, read over and over in our daily lives and deeply intertwined, there is an ache, a restlessness, moving us toward unchartered, fresh territory. We wonder, wander, stumble and fall in the grand labyrinth of life in search of the feeling of awe that reveals we are unique, we are here, and we are ready for the cue ……to say our line.
Exulansis
We need people in our lives with insatiable curiosity and worldviews large enough to imagine what has yet to be experienced… to help us cross thresholds of consciousness without slipping into that endless fog where we no longer search, where we have settled into an infinite wandering restlessness.
Midwife Wisdom
Some pages take longer to turn than others.
It doesn’t matter if the spotless sheet follows a blotted one, or if the preceding lines are blurred with tears.
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What went before is erased, or embraced, as we begin another chapter.
Call the Midwife
What Is Our Alternative To Struggling?
Picture of a palimpsest…
“Sometimes we project fractal scripts, palimpsests of possibility, onto others and then relate to them as if this is who they are rather than recognizing them as fictive characters in our inner drama. Thus we unwittingly seek out persons to play and replay our persecutors, or rescuers, or victims. Sometimes we repress stories, and their presence may only be surmised when they leak into our dreams, our bodies, our children, our anaesthetizing addictions. Sometimes we dissociate from or condemn others when they enact our secret lives and embody our shadow, which is always repulsive to the ego. The vastness of the human psyche is such that we will never know it fully, or even in significant measure. So we who pride ourselves on being conscious, lead lives in service to stories, some conscious but construed and witnessed aslant, some unconscious but persistent, and almost always binding us to a past over which we had no control. Given the ubiquity of these silent formative narratives, what is our alternative to struggling for a precious purchase on consciousness…… over and against whatever agencies are there dictating our lives?”
Hollis, James. Hauntings: Dispelling the Ghosts Who Run Our Lives (Kindle Locations 296-301). Chiron Publications. Kindle Edition.
Life Unfurling…
It is not always sunshine that splits the seed cleaving the armour,
releasing the shoot.
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Darkness makes the heart’s case fragile.
Pain breaks it open.
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Courage teases out the leaves and life unfurls and
expands thrusting upwards into light.
-Heidi Thomas
Call the Midwife
So McCool!
Nanine McCool! What an apropo name! She is a remarkable model of perseverance! She kept her cool when the heat rose! She paid $3000 to attend this gigantic “Power Within” event, with thousands in the audience invested in this charismatic guru, and she knew the MeToo Movement had her back. She knew the MeToo Movement is bigger than him, the teacher, the coach. She must have known this deep within to PEACEFULLY persevere and PROACTIVELY illuminate the positive message that was getting lost in the allegation that it is a “victim” movement, high on the “drug of significance.” Robbins unwittingly and quite beautifully illustrated the resistance the MeToo Movement is up against when he cut her off, presuming her, a stranger amidst thousands, to be someone with something so “insignificant’ to say that he could use her to illustrate his point. He also unknowingly and beautifully illustrated the power dynamics the MeToo Movement is up against with that exercise. Still…SHE PERSISTED and SPOKE her TRUTH which is what it is about. The humiliation and shame of violation SHUTS DOWN SPEECH, silencing and isolating the wounds to slowly cut off the oxygen of life. The MeToo Movement is BREAKING THE SILENCE and connecting women to eachother, to their truth. The example he used to illustrate his point was threatening but it did not threaten the movement which is clearly bigger than his “power to influence millions.”
Ultimately, we ALL (men and women) need to know others have our back don’t we? Without it, the truth gets locked in dark hidden places and drives thousands, men and women, to attend an event with a charismatic giant to learn the secrets of unlocking the power within.
We, of course, need to acknowledge that there is always an operating shadow side to absolutely everything and the MeToo Movement is not the exception. We know that many have been swiftly destroyed. Daily in fact. Truth and reconciliation with humility and transcendent tolerance was modeled by South Africa’s Nelson Mandela. The power of collective peaceful protest creating change was modeled by Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi. May we strive to learn how to discern when power is drawing from bullying, threatening, and destroying lives, reputations and careers unnecessarily, unhesitatingly. May we know the difference between vengeance and pursuit of healing. May we have checks and balances against ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY about what is good and bad, who are the good ones and who are the bad ones, what is true and what is false. May we strive to discern and contain when fame, sensationalism, ratings and PR campaigns contaminate progress. May we strive to pause and listen, learn, and tolerate all angles of a story to understand our humanity. May we always leave room for redemption.
Out of Darkness, Into Light
To the extent that one enters the temple of the heart with true intrapsychic awareness empty of illusion and hate, areas of the heart are awakened, integrated, healed. What once could not be imagined from the brokenness, the fragmentation, CAN…for the first time. Out of darkness, into Light.
As a Strong Wind Blows….
“As a strong wind blows down a weak tree, Mara the Tempter overwhelms weak people who, eating too much and working too little, are caught in the frantic pursuit of pleasure. As the strongest wind cannot shake a mountain, Mara cannot shake those who are self-disciplined and full of faith.” The Dhammapada, translated by Eknath Easwaran
Handmaid’s Tale
“A perfect gift. A girl trapped in a box. She only dances when someone opens the lid, when someone else winds her up…If this is a story I’m telling……I must be telling it to someone. There’s always someone, even when there’s no one…… I will not be that girl in the box.” June in Handmaids Tale
Whether she is trapped in a box, a tower, the wolf’s belly, or the rabbit hole…this is a motif held in wisdom tales across time about the feminine… in men and women…that reflects our collective attitudes and fears toward fully entering paradox, where the feeling, procreating, messy, nurturing, integrating, vulnerable, humble, loving aspects of our selves, our humanity, lies in potential.