Who knew Fukushima from Frankfurt a week ago? I’m sure you are infinitely more well read and globally aware than I, but I was unfamiliar to the extent that I just had to Google the word again to make sure I was spelling it correctly here. The cataclysm and rebuilding in wake of Japan’s earthquakes gives unfortunate new meaning to “things are shifting.”
I could go into elaborate philosophical meanderings of how and why this happened and why we collectively created it for ourselves, but I’m going to keep that end of it short.
However Glenn Beck did go there, and (yes, I’m surprised I’m saying this) is in the right direction when he says that we did it, or G*d did it, or “Gaia,” what have you. There was a seriously harsh media backlash to Beck’s statements. From daytime ‘mom keeps you on in the background while she vacuums the house’ “journalism” of The View to the more substantive San Francisco Chronicle he was spurned as “wackery.”
To dismiss our part in what happened in Japan is to dismiss the notion that everything is one thing. We can call it God, Gaia, the force, emptiness from which all is birthed, or the woo within, but to dismiss that we’re connected to it, goes against the idea that that woo/One thing/God/emptiness is also, through and through, throughout all of us.
Gaia is tearfully praised in gratitude at a beach wedding. A global tragedy? Ooh, we don’t like that so much. Being a part of that is not so palatable.
The problem is that Beck doesn’t seem to have the depth, sophistication or understanding of consciousness to really illustrate what he means, much less the widsom (or airtime) to lead us through the process we collectively need to, as he says, “buckle up to get through.” Or if he does, he’s just not utilizing it.
To only take into account the Ten Commandments as a solution might be viewed as simplistic, bombastic, and (as are many rightist fancies) absolutely driven by fear. I proffer: Dear Mr. Beck. God is not just for you. Please stop hijacking Him. You’re lookin a little crazypants, sir, and kinda givin’ the force a bad rap. See how I can agree and disagree with you in one blogpost? As my teacher has said, “God is where all contradictions coexist.”
Again, I don’t want to dig deep on my whole take of how/why this happened, so instead I will discuss a more intimate and pressing tool for solution:
Fear. Fear is our currency, our language, our Ultimate arch nemesis. Fear is what is keeping us from everything we desire, and I don’t mean piddly diddly material things—I mean from our experience of being one with all that is. Of freedom. Fear is what paralyzes us.
For the very vast majority of Americans, fear is the daily bread. And there are pockets, communities who consciously choose to not tap into this fear; people who most definitely don’t watch Fox News and I would venture to guess across the board would label reality TV ‘junk food’ rather than ‘guilty pleasure.’
But even for those conscious few, fear is going to come into the picture because it’s a part of what is sometimes referenced as the Akashic records, or thought sphere… a mass of knowledge that is our collective unconscious, springing forth our thoughts, whether we’re cognizant or not. Because our thoughts are not ours, fear will manifest for us, no matter how far deep into an ashram or skyscraper we may be.
I was gifted an instantaneous love for Satya Columbo this week when we were introduced by the world. He later posted something on fb— which pretty much scientifically shows how the mind is not in our control. I’ll let you watch that rather than explain it. Our thoughts are not our thoughts.
Fear is going to come up and it’s important to recognize it. We don’t even need to change it, we just need to see it and the collective action of shining the flashlight will naturally cause it to dissipate.
And this is not going to show up in huge dramatic sweeps—we, safe in America, probably will not be paralyzed with fear over Fukushima. (Unless you are super empathetic or an attention seeking drama queen.) Yes, we flip to nytimes.com, follow on our twitter feed, perhaps text donations to Red Cross, but as of yet, for most, it will not displace our daily life. Our fears come to us through our own experience.
The ego, you might say the mind, is a strong and a tricky little bastard. The mind is a total jerk; I don’t think meanbastardface is too strong a designation. To offset the innate weasel strength of meanbastardface mind, we must be merciful but vigilant in compassion, lest we identify the meanbastardface as ourselves. ‘Cause it’s not us. It’s just part of those Akashic records.
Earlier this week I was on the phone with my mom and despite all our healing in the last years, right now she can’t quite get on board with what my life looks like. As I was trying to just give her a basic “here’s what happened this week” rundown, she once again exasperatedly exclaimed “Margaret, why can’t you just be normal?”
I was calm, collected. I explained (what I thought was gently) that that was probably not going to happen any time soon, as it has yet to have happened for my entire life leading up until now.
But the yoga mat does not lie. And the next morning as I was squeezing my spleen in Marichyasana D and that toxic fear flowed freely through, anger took over.
Why aren’t I normal? Why can’t I have a husband. Uh, how ‘bout even boyfriend? Regular job? Security. Certainty. Uber-clear skin. An apartment with sunlight. Why aren’t the “normal” things of this life enough? Why can’t I “settle” and just make my mother happy? My fear played out as: fury.
Mom only reflected this little body’s deepest fear back to me. The unconscious fear, which wasn’t even my fear, but fear as it looked through me, as it played and passed through “mags.” The fear that 99.9% of the time I don’t see.
And when I saw I didn’t want to feel that? Experience it? I leaned into it more. My teacher talks of needing to let the tiger swallow you whole.
Midst fury, conveniently located in the corner of my yoga school there was a statue of the goddess Durga, sitting atop a tiger. I looked into the face of that (not really menacing per se, but give him a break, he’s just a guidepost) plastic tiger and allowed the anger/fear to swallow me. Because ultimately it’s an illusion, but we can’t get to the freedom unless we turn to face the fear.
Fear is nothin’ new…obviously it’s always been here. But now we’re not worried about live tigers chasing us, it’s nuclear reactors and uncertain futures. It’s misperceived notions of a vengeful God and the biggest, most unconscious underlying fear: the impending death of our ego. It’s all about metaphoric tigers these days.
We have to let life swallow us. This is part of the merging. This is how we evolve.
By practicing fully experiencing life, eventually life fully experiences us.
Shortly after the mom/yoga/tiger incident I was listening to the kickass new Adele CD and she sang: “I know it ain’t easy giving up your heart. Trust me I’ve learned it. So I dare you to let me be your, your one and only, I promise I’m worth it.”
We have a collective fear of intimacy with ourselves. We don’t want to see the scary parts. We want to run from the fear rather than experience it.
My bestie (I have lots of dear friends I reference here, but my closest friend and ex has told me that he wants his own designation. So, he’ll be willclark from here on out, smushed together, like a twitter name.)
willclark often texts me stuff like Ram Dass tidbits. Yesterday it was:
“So where am I gonna hide? When you can’t hide, it’s all out in the open and if it’s all out in the open, well here we are. I have to be wherever I am. I have to. I can’t make believe I’m something else—who am I going to fool?”
We can’t fool fear. It will find us. Whether it’s Fukushima or our mother. Oy; or both. When we run into the tiger’s mouth, fully experience it, it shows life that we’re ready for it to experience us. THIS, and only this, is how we wake up.
