I sense that a heightened level of anxiety and fear in our lives has ratcheted up of late. With all that we have been through with threats to our health, freedoms, liberties and pressures to change all manner of the ways we live our daily lives, we are reaching dangerous levels of strain on our existing coping mechanisms. Now we approach an election year here in the States and this really fuels the anxiety about our strength for it. The painful thing about this level of free floating fear and anxiety is that to survive it with any dignity, we cannot hide from it. We must develop skills to stand and take it. To hide from our fears is to surrender what we deem of value in our lives and the lives of our families. That said, we must find the courage to weather current events without having these things push us into our darker natures. We ALL have darker natures and some of us are more aware of this than others. Those who are completely blind to their abilities to be destructive and void of caring become a dangerous lot, indeed, because they can no longer gauge their place in the schematic of their better intentions and they become monsters inclined to act out their frustrations.
Shadows and their embodied monsters, whether personal or collective are effectively dealt with in the same way. Not by violence, shame and retribution but by holding fast to what is good within us all and allowing it to weaponize creatively. A person who has fallen victim and embodied their shadow selves cannot help themselves nor can a community or a country. Though it sounds completely counter productive, Polly Anna and insane, holding space for a monster of destruction is the only way to disempower it. One must see it, know it and love the lesson it brings forward no matter how scary, blood thirsty or painful. One must love it even as they don't like it.
Hafiz declares that our ability to receive love in this life is dependent upon our capacity for forgiveness and compassion. Love being the river as it flows winding through our lives between the banks of our dogma, personal boundaries or spiritual ambiguity. Sometimes the river floods and it challenges our beliefs and we must respond. The struggle is real and becoming more constant.
Thank you for listening.
Music: I've been saving this video. Here is the deal and something I'm trying to remember as a mantra: There are so very many of us who will not turn back to return to an oppressive time when we did not understand what we do today, despite the pressure to back down. There are many more of us than there are those who are polarized by fear and reacting to it. Love will always conquer fear because the vibration of love is so much stronger than cowardice. The earth will not perish though humans might...but, hopefully, not one person dies without carrying a light. I find strength in this knowledge. Monica Pasqual singing,You Can't Kill Light.
We built a fire
The fire burns bright
You can blow hard
But you can’t kill light
The original post in this series of poems by Hafiz (including an addendum regarding the authenticity of these poems) can be found here. Also, my thoughts on this series a year into these poems, HERE.
The Gift: Poems by Hafiz and translated by Daniel Ladinsky can be purchased here.
My book can be purchased HERE. E-book HERE. The Season Two blogcasts with audio excerpts from my book begin HERE: in Behind The Lines. This reading of the book excerpts in a mixed media format is Season Two of this blog. These recorded excerpts are outside the chronological order in which the book was written. Podcasts with audio only beginning with episode 22 can be found HERE.
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