Moves it from its crouched place…” ~Denise Levertov
that?? Will you take the time to read them?
What I feel to be true is that this outflow is, in part, an example of the nature of allowing one’s self to be in the deeps…the abyss…the gallows of dismemberment which I seem to have been in for months now. If we surrender to such a descent and give ourselves over to its rugged ways, one day moments of insight may begin to bubble up from the muck and mire at the bottom of the abyss. It is a sign that there is life down there…biological activity under all that goo creates bubbles of inspiration and they often contain something of wisdom.
I so appreciated those of you who wrote to me in response to my last blog called “Facing Extinction”. The conversation itself is fascinating as I learn how different ones of us are wrestling with their experience of the times we are in, but it is also serving to provoke in me a more tenacious pull into the inquiry. How do we face this time and remain heartful, kind and a viable asset to the world?? Certainly this is not the first time that humans have struggled mightily in response to a certainty that their world would soon “end”. One could argue the facts of what is true around the sense that so many of us have that we are in a dire situation on so many fronts but perhaps what is more important is the fact that so many of us sense something and many are being effected in dramatic ways by this.
Something is going on here.
First I want to suggest that we admit that there is a swell of people falling into depression, despair, anxiety, PTSD affects, sadness, reactionary anger, victimhood, etc. Just noting this has me want to point to the good news that our intuitions and instincts are working AND perhaps there is even a teaching here about our connectedness!! Isn’t it clear that we are all tuning into something…whether we follow the news or not, we sense something in the field. THIS is important. This is a sense we carry that is utterly valuable and perhaps a lifeline. Is Grandmother Spider is at work, casting her numinous web with stronger fibers in order to link us together in this time?
Secondly I’d like to offer a hypothesis of the heart here. While I, for one, am in constant prayer and questioning about what my part of the solution is and am ever faithful to the longing to be a change maker in the world, I want to note that for some people this happens more on the inside. Some do not have gifts for being on the front line of action in the physical realm, but DO have gifts alive and active and influential in the inner worlds. All are important! But let me propose here that there is some inner work that I believe is essential and absolutely being called for as a part of the healing necessary right now. I believe it is safe to say that every single one of us is feeling some kind of response to the world right now, with the climate in chaos, many species going extinct every day, the political bullying, and the diaspora of so many peoples from their homelands and so much more. Each of us responds differently from different rooms of our emotions, or at least expends energy to suppress the natural emotional response that wants to arise.
My friends, these emotions are rising to the surface for a reason!! Like the bubbles from the deep, they need to be aired and witnessed. By this I do not mean that we all need to become a bubbling, boiling mass of overheated expression, though that may be true for some and if you can do that without harm to others, fantastic!
Moreover what I am suggesting here is this. Who hasn’t, when quieting yourself to feel an emotion inside, felt the child self inside connected to the emotion? Our emotions were birthed when we were infants and fetuses, and it is safe to say that nearly every one of us was not tended with as much spaciousness, tenderness, and care as would have been ideal when we had the so many feelings that we had as children. Most of us had feelings at times that were met with hushing, ridicule, impatience, temper, ignoring, abuse, criticism, threat or shunning or all of the above.
How many of us have taken on any of those practices in our response to our own feelings as adults?
Can you feel the pain of this? The pain of the child within?
Whatever the causes…and there are many, our emotions are rising, even if by way of a falling into suppression and depression. Many of us are avoiding them when they threaten to overcome us…to be too big, too debilitating. So many are turning to medications to avoid them or escapism by way of a multitude of addictions.
What if the call at this time is to take the time and the tenderness of heart to be with the heart of the matter inside of YOU? What if what is being asked of each of us is to be a loving parent to the little one inside that is likely terrified by the state of the world? Or who is in despair for the inevitable loss of places and creatures in nature that were our friends and safe haven as children? Or who is traumatized by the threats of the world that are somehow triggers for how we were treated as children?
We MUST tend the children inside.
Yes, even if you are a parent to children that you care for daily, we must take the time to tend, love, calm and listen to the ones who are terrified inside.
Imagine if we all did this for ourselves? How then would we be with each other on the political stage, on the street, in our relationships, in our schools and simply at the market?
The work starts within. Period.
What we see around us exists within.
Inside we have ecosystems falling out of balance, we have shunned immigrating feelings, we have separated our inner children from their inner parents, the rivers of our grief are damned and polluted, we have bullies threatening the innocent ones, we have good ideas stomped upon, and extinction is upon us…aspects of ourselves that will never live again. Can we turn within to this vital world and tend it with the care of a Mother? Can we open our arms and hearts to hold the hurting ones? be present to hear all the feelings with love? make the small things important and every feeling matter?
What if…WHAT if this is where all the healing begins?
At home?
Within our Earthen Bodies and Hearts?
My friends, I’d love to invite you to join my guided meditations and upcoming courses that I am now publishing on the meditation app, Insight Timer! There is much more to come and most of it is free for the listening ! Just download the app and look for me, Jade Sherer to begin listening! Thanks!