Different Ways #16 It's a Beautiful Day, Part Three
This excerpt inspires me to discuss history and the importance of navigating with it and not in spite of it. I know it is contentious to bring up the issue of responsibility for historical gaffs and the evolutionary ones aren't even on the agenda yet, but here goes. Millions of people cannot even face and take responsibility for their personal history to lift their own weight let alone expand to embrace a world view. How can we expect people to widen their vision to allow for all these changes that are so mysterious and scary? We can't. All we can do is hold space for them and not allow them to lower the bar with fear and distrust.
I was thinking today the experiential distance from 2001 to 2011 and then, again, the distance in scope from 2012 to 2021. We are changed. I've seen a lot of change over the course of my life but nothing like what I've seen within me and around me in this last decade. In terms of normal (which most agree is a slippery concept now) I have surrendered to the fact that we are 'not in Kansas anymore' and we will never see that state again. We have not even been in any area of recognizable rational cognition in relation to the history we have been taught for a good long while now. It is easier to see this in those we disagree with but it is happening to everyone.
War and killing. We have learned but not yet applied what is necessary to supplant the world view that supports it. We have to try and accept that it is wrong to kill as we have, that we have been party to massive suffering, and forgive ourselves and those we vilify. Once that paradigm shifts, we can answer to the history we have all partaken of and lay down a foundation based on a sustainable life of benevolence and abundance.
Different ways, Chapter 13, pp 95-99
When I was reading this excerpt aloud, I was reflecting on how many times I bring up the subject of mental illness in this book. It was written four years ago. Much of what preyed on my mind at the time of this writing was a residual worry from my emergence. That worry was centered around other people's opinions. The fear narrative on my mind involved my being
vulnerable and in danger in some way by people who had more power than I thought I had. Everyday in the two years when I wrote the manuscript, I sat before this screen and faced a huge wall of anxiety over revealing myself as insane. Sentence by sentence I wore down that wall. I did not intend on publishing it when I was writing it. I just wanted to know what it felt like to externalize my story. When it felt done, that is when I began feeling strongly I needed to publish it. That was yet another phase of fear that I needed to face and understand. Eventually that became less of a concern but it surfaces here in this reading. The issue of how people are reacting to the vast and speeding changes we are all experiencing is the point. We are all emerging at various degrees. We want a name and a pill or a therapy for our distress but there is no need of a cure for growing, aging and stepping into a compassionate life. We are on our own and we need to understand that we already have everything we need to succeed.
Music: This song and video by Harry Stiles reminds me of the challenges that our young face. They must remain strong as they recognize that the history they are being taught is, in a large part, propaganda. They must field shootings in their classrooms, while being told these lies, to boot. It is falling heavily upon these young people to be bold in their living and strong in their desire for a better world. Stiles song suggests that they know that they have been here before; they know that they have not always been good in other lives. They were born for this time as we were born for our work here as elders. We should be doing what we can to support them by carrying our own weight in shade. Leave them to the light and let them fly and fulfill their destinies.
Harry Styles, Sign of the Times
Thank you for joining me here. The memoir Different Ways: Revealing the Feminine can be purchased through my website using a link to Village Books at AlltheDifferentWays.com. There will soon be an eBook version available with an independent retailer.
The BlogCast that outlines my intentions for this series of readings from my book, Different Ways, Revealing the Feminine can be found here in the post, Between the Lines.