Thursday, November 04, 2004
Maintaining Connection in a Time of Stress
This morning, I woke up with a great sense of despair over the recent events in our country. I am sure many, many others shared my grief. Once more, my shoulder seemed to be out of place, and the pain in my upper back was insistent.
I dawdled through breakfast, toyed aimlessly with the daily crossword puzzle to put off facing the day (could I really bear knowing the reality of what had happened?) I thought of my childhood, which was spent in a very “conservative” small town environment (Oklahoma), and how much social progress has taken place since then (I was born in 1928—so that would be over seventy years of struggle for social equality.) We had no “Negro problem” in our town. The city fathers had long since passed a law banning their presence after sundown. Gay marriage? Not an issue, since most people had not even heard of them (us), and if they were mentioned at all it was in whispers and disgust (after all, they were clearly “perverts,” just as the psychology books of the time averred.) Jews? We had never seen any, until during WWII a Jewish family bought a small clothing store on Main Street. They turned out to be hard working, solid folk who soon won the respect of the community
The only bit of diversity we had were a few Catholic families scattered in. The Baptists, of course, preached that the Catholic Church was the Great Beast of Revelations. But others among us looked on them as somehow special, in some way connected to mysteries we were not familiar with.
What are now called the religious right were then the Baptists (against smoking and dancing and certainly sex outside of marriage and other unmentionable misdeed) plus a few Pentecostals and other fundamentalist groups.
Almost all of us (except for a few German farmers) were named Jones and Thompson and Pearce and Talbott and Smith (and Walters) and other typical anglo-saxon names.
The point is, the extreme fundamentalists were there and influenced many, but they were not really in control (in part because the “givens” named above were accepted with little question by almost everyone else but not with such radical insistence.) Even my Baptist classmates turned out for the senior prom, and danced with the rest.
So during my life I watched great and meaningful social progress on all these fronts---notable forward movement on issues of acceptance and diversity in my hometown and throughout society. We have come a long way, and things are not perfect, but they are indeed better all around.
And so, after yesterday, I began to wonder what was happening, if all the great improvements of the last half century were to be swept away, and we were to return to the “dark ages” of my youth. Were we entering Huxley’s “Brave New World”? Orwell’s “1984”? Were we watching a Greek tragedy, in which the hero would fall because of overweening pride (though he himself had never read a Greek tragedy)? Were we a nation of lemmings, rushing over the cliff to the sea?
How could we survive such a restricted world? Would women once more be driven back to their kitchens, and gays back into their closets? What would happen to the minorities and the oppressed, and people in need? Would we continue to be given slogans and clichés of reassurance, while the reality was carefully hidden from the populace at large?
I decided to do my little “practice,” in part to see if I could reduce the tension locked into my body. First, as always, I bowed to the Beloved Within (was it there today? Would it come for states of pain as well as bliss?) I did a few preliminary stretches, and then began to do the first of the two chi gong forms I have finally managed to learn. They are simple, slow movements which follow (rather than lead) the energetic flow within. Immediately, I felt a soft tingling in my root, the source of all our “spiritual” and creative energy. It was confirmation of the abiding connection. It said, “Yes, I am here.”
Then, I raised my arms level with my heart, and there it was—a soft, gentle, almost imperceptible sensation of—love, renewal, blissful sustaining presence. I caught my breath as the heart once more was subtly opened to awareness of the sacred.
So I continued my chi gong practice for another twenty minutes or so, and then I paused to commune silently with the Inner Teacher.. I asked for direction in this time of need. And the answers came:
First, keep your connection with your inner guide. You guide is present always, ready to lead and help you.
Do your spiritual practice (whatever that may be) with regularity. It will keep the connection strong in adversity, and remind you who you are.
Hold your friends and special companions close. You will sustain each other in remarkable ways. You are explorers together, and wonders are unfolding.
Keep in mind that this is a time of continuing discovery and renewal as well as seeming loss and catastrophe. Think of the Taoist yin yang symbol, which reveals how the seed of the future already exists in the present. Remember that the forces of the spirit (the large Spirit) are invisible to the eyes of those focused solely on material aims.
Review your own life. Think of the many obstacles (social, personal, and other) which you faced and overcame. Think how much joy, how much growth, how much creativity you have experienced. What a rich life you have had, a grace that was given, often a gift born of suffering.
Above all, think of your own spiritual awakening, and how it has revealed the majestic profile of something beyond ordinary human perception. You may not exist always in fully transcendent awareness, you may be dismayed at what you see taking place in the “outer” world, but you carry within the knowledge of another reality, and know what is possible despite external appearances.
Indeed, “something is happening,” and we are a vital part of that transformation. We are charged with “carrying the vibration,” preserving the awakening consciousness, helping humanity reach a new level.
Greet your friends in joy, band together to explore the possibilities now flooding into earth. What knows what helpers are there? Who can say what the outcome will be?
Peace and Blessings to All
I dawdled through breakfast, toyed aimlessly with the daily crossword puzzle to put off facing the day (could I really bear knowing the reality of what had happened?) I thought of my childhood, which was spent in a very “conservative” small town environment (Oklahoma), and how much social progress has taken place since then (I was born in 1928—so that would be over seventy years of struggle for social equality.) We had no “Negro problem” in our town. The city fathers had long since passed a law banning their presence after sundown. Gay marriage? Not an issue, since most people had not even heard of them (us), and if they were mentioned at all it was in whispers and disgust (after all, they were clearly “perverts,” just as the psychology books of the time averred.) Jews? We had never seen any, until during WWII a Jewish family bought a small clothing store on Main Street. They turned out to be hard working, solid folk who soon won the respect of the community
The only bit of diversity we had were a few Catholic families scattered in. The Baptists, of course, preached that the Catholic Church was the Great Beast of Revelations. But others among us looked on them as somehow special, in some way connected to mysteries we were not familiar with.
What are now called the religious right were then the Baptists (against smoking and dancing and certainly sex outside of marriage and other unmentionable misdeed) plus a few Pentecostals and other fundamentalist groups.
Almost all of us (except for a few German farmers) were named Jones and Thompson and Pearce and Talbott and Smith (and Walters) and other typical anglo-saxon names.
The point is, the extreme fundamentalists were there and influenced many, but they were not really in control (in part because the “givens” named above were accepted with little question by almost everyone else but not with such radical insistence.) Even my Baptist classmates turned out for the senior prom, and danced with the rest.
So during my life I watched great and meaningful social progress on all these fronts---notable forward movement on issues of acceptance and diversity in my hometown and throughout society. We have come a long way, and things are not perfect, but they are indeed better all around.
And so, after yesterday, I began to wonder what was happening, if all the great improvements of the last half century were to be swept away, and we were to return to the “dark ages” of my youth. Were we entering Huxley’s “Brave New World”? Orwell’s “1984”? Were we watching a Greek tragedy, in which the hero would fall because of overweening pride (though he himself had never read a Greek tragedy)? Were we a nation of lemmings, rushing over the cliff to the sea?
How could we survive such a restricted world? Would women once more be driven back to their kitchens, and gays back into their closets? What would happen to the minorities and the oppressed, and people in need? Would we continue to be given slogans and clichés of reassurance, while the reality was carefully hidden from the populace at large?
I decided to do my little “practice,” in part to see if I could reduce the tension locked into my body. First, as always, I bowed to the Beloved Within (was it there today? Would it come for states of pain as well as bliss?) I did a few preliminary stretches, and then began to do the first of the two chi gong forms I have finally managed to learn. They are simple, slow movements which follow (rather than lead) the energetic flow within. Immediately, I felt a soft tingling in my root, the source of all our “spiritual” and creative energy. It was confirmation of the abiding connection. It said, “Yes, I am here.”
Then, I raised my arms level with my heart, and there it was—a soft, gentle, almost imperceptible sensation of—love, renewal, blissful sustaining presence. I caught my breath as the heart once more was subtly opened to awareness of the sacred.
So I continued my chi gong practice for another twenty minutes or so, and then I paused to commune silently with the Inner Teacher.. I asked for direction in this time of need. And the answers came:
First, keep your connection with your inner guide. You guide is present always, ready to lead and help you.
Do your spiritual practice (whatever that may be) with regularity. It will keep the connection strong in adversity, and remind you who you are.
Hold your friends and special companions close. You will sustain each other in remarkable ways. You are explorers together, and wonders are unfolding.
Keep in mind that this is a time of continuing discovery and renewal as well as seeming loss and catastrophe. Think of the Taoist yin yang symbol, which reveals how the seed of the future already exists in the present. Remember that the forces of the spirit (the large Spirit) are invisible to the eyes of those focused solely on material aims.
Review your own life. Think of the many obstacles (social, personal, and other) which you faced and overcame. Think how much joy, how much growth, how much creativity you have experienced. What a rich life you have had, a grace that was given, often a gift born of suffering.
Above all, think of your own spiritual awakening, and how it has revealed the majestic profile of something beyond ordinary human perception. You may not exist always in fully transcendent awareness, you may be dismayed at what you see taking place in the “outer” world, but you carry within the knowledge of another reality, and know what is possible despite external appearances.
Indeed, “something is happening,” and we are a vital part of that transformation. We are charged with “carrying the vibration,” preserving the awakening consciousness, helping humanity reach a new level.
Greet your friends in joy, band together to explore the possibilities now flooding into earth. What knows what helpers are there? Who can say what the outcome will be?
Peace and Blessings to All
