One of the virtues of being in charge of my own time, mostly, has been the opportunity to reflect on some of the deeper questions on life. This is not new for me. As a child I remember asking "what is the meaning of life?" with the rather cute response being "to find the meaning". For a little nipper, that is pretty wise and deep...
I'm fascinated by philosophy. Love to get poetic and metaphoric with spirit and science. I get called a 'hippy' on a regular basis. Which still bugs me a little but I am learning to embrace it. I don't know what qualifies me as a hippy... But nevertheless as a 'bonafide hippy' there's one idea I work to advocate and that is the shortcut key of 'Peace & Love'. I've got there a few times. Of completely 100% embodying this place but then like a burning fire on a relentless mission to purify the soul, something will come up and I'll be put back to work again. That's the inside practice.
What I often fall in to duality with is the 'inside-outside' world. I have written a lot on some of the madness our world faces and there have been times when I have walked around and felt disturbed by the world around me. Just the other day I walked around Times Square and being wide open to everything felt like I was taking a huge over excited moving screen hit of neon that was injected directly in to my adrenal gland. People everywhere. Lights everywhere. Messages. Buy, buy, buy... Eurgh. I'm exhausted just thinking about it.
Then I teleport back to walking through a small market town in the Himalayan region of India and seeing a beautiful grubby girl holding a plastic bag full of empty bottles. I loved that child. She was doing such a service by collecting that recyclable waste instead of allowing it all to toxify the lands in the area. But her society saw her as a low caste, an 'untouchable'. When I held her hand and we walked through the street together, my Indian friend Ganesh explained that people were pointing and expressing their disgust at this girl and I for being in contact. How cruel to think there exists a world where a child cannot be held because of the caste she was born in to.
There's a shamanic principle that suggests one 'has acceptance for all'. A wonderful non-dualistic concept; learning to appreciate the darkness to appreciate the light. Or something like that. But stepping aside from this enlightened place of 'everything's meant to be' I still struggle to come to terms with some of the terrible things that are happening on this planet.
A decision I felt forced to make in 2011 was to get dark, deep and gritty with my stuff. To delve within. And after many a self-righteous rant about all this is wrong with the world; the environment, poverty, sexism, inequality and a whole plethora of issues that need to be addressed besides the fact that media is brainwashing us with fear and subscribing us to tow a line that may not be in service of good at all ie. war... After all this ranting, I very quickly realised that inside me also exists shadow dimensions of pain, anger, fear, sadness and turmoil. Some inherited genetics, most psychologically conditioned reactions and resistances from Earth school grit.
I hadn't previously realised how much the past was still replaying in my present. What emerged were psychological wounds and vulnerable feelings of a misunderstood and very sensitive child. I recall reading about a polar bear that died in the local zoo due to the heat wave and I just broke down in tears. I began psychologically studying myself, got angry a lot, I practiced mindfulness and therapeutic practices. In an act of self-care, I hired a hut in the Caribbean and spent most afternoons doing yoga and meditation on the beach. In my shack I worked on integrating, writing, photo editing, creating beautiful things out of the resources I had and I danced. It was transformational and it was painful and at times I felt very sorry for myself. I found the key to mindful awareness was to develop a secure frame that could contain any feeling; no matter how painful, to allow it to to be received with grace.
I share this because I want to get real here and I know what it is like to be going it alone and feeling vulnerable. Things happen in life, the ocean gets choppy, we swallow too much salt water and we may struggle to keep afloat. There are times when the life boat feels like it is sinking and safety feels a long way away. I learned that safety needed to be something I could create for myself amidst any kind of chaos and pain. An inner trust and sense of safety. With a tightly gripped hand we cannot hold water, it falls between our fingers. But with our hands we can cup it. When I came home to this place again, I realised it had never gone, I was always held by mother nature. But I'd got swept up in a big rip, held on too tightly and needed to improve my breaststroke and breathe a lot deeper. I needed to surrender and allow myself to be present with life no matter how painful. The chemical soap burn scene in Fight Club encapsulates that feeling; no power animal, no visualisation techniques, no mantras, just 100% there with the feeling.
The thing's that plague our society still make me dream it better and have had me in tears but I am grateful to feel. In the West we have built up a strange notion that feelings are a weakness not a strength. And there's a lot in this world that is heartbreakingly destructive or darn right insane. But thankfully there's also a lot on this planet that is so so stunningly beautiful, inspiring and kind.
If we want to be shining beacons for peace, it starts - in my humble opinion - with being ok with oneself; to respond to one's authenticity with presence and acceptance (and compassion) even when the ocean's rough. And we need to have the courage to allow for change, as life inevitably is.
“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.” - Gandhi
