I've been musing. Thinking about the state of the world. The lock-downs. The virus. Everything.
No matter where you stand on this issue. There is a heaviness in the collective.
Everyone feels it.
You can see it in people's eyes when you walk through the grocery store.
Fear.
It's strong. And holding tightly.
Enemies seem to be hiding under every bush.
Even if they weren't, you can create them by your thoughts, and project them into the world.
I have done this---unconsciously in many subtle, different ways.
It's a strong, strong, terrifying reality to live in.
Everyone is pushing their side, and creating blow-back from the other side.
Yin, and Yang dancing.
I have been thinking about posting my thoughts about 2020 and what that includes, and my personal views about it all. But I have held off. It is such a loaded topic. I know that If I'm not dynamic, instead of adding a bit of peace, and space to the world, I'll just have added more noise---just created resistance and a sense of isolation and separation. Polarity. It's so easy to do without realizing it. I'm not even sure I dare post this as my own views just seep through, no matter how dynamic I try to be.
It's tricky.
Is there a balanced equanimous third way? Where we both see the other as a soul, not as our opinions? And instead of just seeing our outward differences and clamoring on how horrid the other is, couldn't we respect each other's freedom and voice without the need to mandate the other into submission, without censorship---even if it's for a seemingly 'good' reason?
It's strange because both sides of the issues going on in the world have similar fears, and similar reasons for their beliefs. Both trust in something, the news, intuition, experience, research---something.
Both sides don't want to be caged, silenced, and pushed into a corner. Both want health and vitality. Both are doing, saying, and believing what feels most in alignment with their experience. And in our rightness, we defend our views like chickens defending our ground, when in fact, if we allowed the other, allowed, in the truest sense of the word, all fighting would cease, and peace would ensue.
We've made our views a religion, and the heated conversations, the carrot and sticking, the if you don't do this to keep me safe statements, then you are____(fill in the blank)
It's appalling to my soul.
Last spring I raised a bunch of chickens. Several
turned out to be roosters, beautiful, wonderful, bright orange roosters. They
ate together, they roosted together, and all got along just dandy. They were
all perfect pals. Until last month. 
One morning while milking and feeding our goats, my sister let out a woeful scream. She howled, and I came running to see why she was making such a fuss.
There in the goat pen, were two of our roosters, just sitting motionless in the snow, their feathers drenched in blood. They had fought until they were both unable to fight, totally incapacitated, nearly frozen.
The scene was horrifying. Stomach curdling. Ugly.
It made no sense. They had destroyed each other.
They were the most beautiful roosters you could ask for, ruby red, and bright orange. They looked perfectly identical. Nearly the same in every way. Yet, they had turned on each other, and fought until they had destroyed themselves---Bloodied in the snow. Unable to move, and totally unaware of their surroundings.
Had they just allowed the other, they would have lived out their lives harmoniously.
Like the chickens, if we were all are free ranging it, minding our business, it seems like we should be okay to let everybody do and be, without much fuss.
No lock-downs required.
But there's so much picking, and scratching, and crowing, and roostering going on, that the lesson of the two stupid, sad, pitiful roosters sitting in the snow, nearly frozen to death from fighting each other, will linger in my mind for a very long time.
It seems our need to silence the other
is also creating another kind of cage---where the truth is locked up in defense of our egos. Like two parents arguing while the most precious children of all get left abandoned. Freedom, and truth, neglected in the name of safety.
Those are two precious children are worth giving our attention to. Nurture them.
Not a virus.
What you focus on grows. So let us focus on what we would like to grow.
Love.
Compassion.
Realness.
Authenticity.
Connection.
Liberty.
Truth.
Freedom.
In all this we've turned people into walking viruses to be feared, isolated the old, and thousands of people have committed suicide because they don't know how to cope with it all. And we have ignored the fact that the real enemy is the ego fearing its own destruction---needing to prop itself up, to keep itself safe, to wall itself in, to control the environment, the people, and truth itself. To mask itself in thousands of layers that it creates its own prison in the name of safety.
"The word person comes from an old French word persone. In Latin persona "human being, person, plays a part in a drama---originally a mask, a false face," such as those of wood or clay, covering the whole." https://www.etymonline.com/word/person
It seems quite metaphorical that we are required to dawn a false face, and keep it on forever, and hand out the same kind of masks to everyone we meet.
To save ourselves from the unseen threat.
To view the very breath from another as something to be feared.
To require the world inoculate itself to make us feel safe to move about? Whatever that 'inoculation' may be, metaphorically, or literally.
To let fear amuck. To create a place where everyone has to be safe?
It sounds insane. Because it is.
It's not possible.
Why so much fear?
Why so serious?
But we let our fear run amuck everyday.
We do it in small ways.
I do. It's so subtle, and crafty, it gets me before I realized what's happened.What would happen we dropped it. Dropped fear. Looked at its ugly face. And just allowed it---no motes, no walls.
What if we uncovered the soil, dug up the layer of cement encrusting it from getting any sun?
What could happen?
What if we let everyone be just as they are. Full of fear. Or not.
Let life be.
Let freedom happen.
Let air happen.
Let sun happen.
Surrendered to the weather of life.
And let Grace happen.
Underneath the cement I think we all feel terribly mortal. We all know that everything in this reality is subject to decay. It's quite frightening. We want to hold on to what we know. Keep our families safe.
To make life last as long as possible.
That's where walls get built. And motes get dug, and fear is created. Rules and mandates run a muck.
No matter how valid, and justified the mask of fear may be. No
matter how many stories it tells, and how real the pain was, or is, or
threatens to be. There has to be a better way. Something beyond the need to control, or be controlled.
Light can only get through an open window.
As I'm writing this, my own super-ego is accusing me of every fear that's ever existed, and it's true. I'm preaching to myself---every word is for me. Every word is me talking to the part of myself that gets stuck protecting what?
The microcosm and macrocosm seem synonymous.
The outer commotion of the world seems only a echo of our own internal commotion. Of Heaven. Of hell. Sometimes both at once.
Family life, and the world.
Lockdowns, masks, mandates, social distancing, conformity---I only have to look to my innermost life, family, friends, community to see what's going on in the bigger picture.
I need only be aware of my innermost states, actions, and reactions, to get more accurate information than any news channel.
When I find myself wanting to change another, the world, wanting to make a difference I try to remember:
"If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself. If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation.”
―“Treat everyone you meet like God in drag.”
―
We have all been one of these souls in our life. For in pain, or fear, our rightness, or wrongness we are all on this journey together, we may have fear programs running, or our self righteous programs playing, or something we have been running unconsciously since childhood. But the only thing that really works, the only cure, the only true immunity is---love. It's not a program. It is who we are. It is the only thing that goes beyond polarity, programs, governments and systems.
Love is the only thing that breaks through all the masks.
It is the only real thing. And to love is to allow.
And in allowing. Flow.
And in flow, you allow the incoming and outgoing,
the good and the bad.
So in allowing it all gets through. And hopefully your immune system is functioning so the bad just gets transmuted into good.
And in air, you can spread out your wings, and in wings you have flight.
And when you fly, you aren't heavy.
Nothing holds you. And when aren't held down, you are free.
And in true freedom there is love, and fear vanishes.
The Latin word inspirare (“to breathe or blow into”) comes from the word spirare, meaning “to breathe.”
If God has given us the breath of life, then I think breathing is a good place to start---to allow that breath to flow, and accept what comes, and goes.
“When you feel life is out of focus, always return to the basic of life. Breathing. No breath, no life.” Mr Miyagi (Karate Kid)
The ins, and the outs. Your ins, and outs, ups, and downs. Your faults, and their faults.
God's breath.
And even if we don't agree, God's breath is still there in every soul. And his Grace is sanitizing enough for us all. For my 'germs' your 'germs' the collective's 'germs' and imperfections.
Love. Through it, everything is transformed. This is the way of the peaceful Warrior.
Breathe.
No mask required.
