There is a delicate balance between giving respect to others, and allowing those with perceived power and superiority to retain their position. Men over women, white people over POC, wealthy over poor, and in every kind of disenfranchised, out-of-balance population. As someone who’s dedicated my whole life to practices of awakening, mindfulness, and peace, I have wanted to avoid all scenarios that involve conflict and aggression much of the time. And in recent years, I have also seen that by choosing avoidance, I am ultimately seeking to escape from the front lines of change in this world. That understanding has pushed me to question my position in it all, and I have found myself in a much different space in the last few years. If I choose my own awakening, mindfulness, and peace as a practice that walls me off from the injustice, violence, discrimination, and harm that is very much real in this world, I am choosing from a place of entitlement. But if I can take my lifetime of practices of awakening, mindfulness, and peace, and allow them to drive me into the front lines of righteous indignation and fighting for change, not just for myself but for ALL people? That is the goal.
I’ve had people give me a whole lotta shit in the past two years for speaking with anger, for being indignant, for allowing the voice of fury and intolerance speak through me. But what I have learned is that there is a HUGE difference between speaking with hatred, and speaking FOR difficult change. Anger is raw energy, and can drive forward a lot of good, when combined with wisdom and awareness of the bigger picture. Indignation and intolerance toward the injustice of violence and discrimination, causing the most vulnerable people to be directly and repeatedly harmed with no restraint, calls forth necessary boundaries in a culture gone mad, and insists that those boundaries be considered and respected. The voice of fury is the pure force of love in action ~ love that wants to protect, respect, and care, Mama Bear style. Kali Ma style. Thunder and lightning style. As a woman walking a spiritual path in these times, it would be indulgent and foolish NOT to be furious!!
And so, I continue walking in the world, listening to my guides, paying attention to the insidious forces of power that move from greed, control, and destruction. And I dedicate my forward path ~ ever step of the way ~ to dismantling this sickness. For it is just that ~ sickness of the body, sickness of the mind, sickness of the heart, and sickness of the soul, carried forward as intergenerational pain that only knows how to create more of the same.
