Is still the answer

Our western culture is saturated with duality; in our zeal to create heaven on earth through the tool of politics, we each, according to our own perceptions of what is right and wrong, engage in Moral Combat and we have co-created hell instead. 

Somehow, collectively we were successfully divided into factions, that word that describes other people in foreign countries that can’t get along, they allowed minor differences in their belief systems to become chasms. Those same splinters once didn’t matter because the cracks revealed the light of each other’s humanity as well as what we value, thus allowing us to share thoughts, food, sorrow, and joy, rather than dying with the most toys or needing to kill for the last bowl of rice.

New York Times bestselling author, activist, and spiritual leader, Maryanne Williamson confronted our cancerous politics of fear and divisiveness (now threatening our country) during her presidential run in 2020; she urged Americans to return to—and act out of—our deepest value: which is love. 

Is functioning through love unrealistic as our culture would have us believe or is agape (universal impersonal love) our collective real purpose? It is ours to choose which we make it to be.

I have quoted my dear friend and potent healer, Susan Roback has said,“This isn’t all love, light and faery dust”.

This work is painful, challenging, messy, self confronting, it’s joy filled, creative, expansive, a pointer of what it takes to be here now, hoping we don’t hurt ourselves or another if possible, and it won’t be possible every time, and that is our fear. 

There is always that place where we don’t mesh whoever we are to each other; lover, partner, parent, child, family, friend, colleague, stranger. Often we try to control ourselves to fit in so we don’t hurt the ones we love; it’s not healthy for anyone. And there are times when we try to make others fit into our perception of who they are, that is also not healthy for anyone. When we can’t be ok until “the other(s)” are doing what we need, for whatever reason, this is codependency, an unhealthy relationship to others and ourselves. One spiritual practice can be found in the expression you do you, i’ll do me as in allowing, accepting, appreciating each other’s differences. 

While visiting family in DC some years ago, my young cousin was elated that he knew God existed because of the beauty of creation. I couldn’t agree more, in fact it’s why I answered the call of environmental stewardship when my rural Adirondack community was cited for a regional landfill and incinerator 32 years ago.  

How is it ok that we annihilate a near virgin forest on a family farm of 100 + years, and all the life it supports to burn garbage and dump it into a lined clay pit, leaving a toxic ash mountain surrounded in a toxic ashy sludge, where clear skies, pure mountain water, abundant flora and fauna reside? The amount of dump-truck traffic through small towns driving through back winding roads from across two counties to a facility which cost millions in taxpayer dollars to build, and in order to be profitable needs a steady stream of waste, making recycling a moot point because most of what is recyclable is also burnable, and the monster we create needs to be fed.  Yes, this was my call to action to stand for  creations’ right to exist for itself singing praises for it’s Beingness. 

While I agree with my cousin that God is evident in Creation, my response to him and to others on why God is evident for me is less obvious, but when seen is very clear: when we care for each other, come together despite our hairline fractures, everything works ‘easy’ and when we do not prioritize care of each other, including other life, then there is dis-ease. Why would random existence have such a choice? 

To be clear, caring for one another isn’t defined by shoulds of a dominant narrative; dominant narratives have a history of inauthenticity, usually upon digging deeper into these narratives, we find exploitation, oppression, suppression, division and abuse of power.

The “most vulnerable” aren’t limited to the unhealthy and the elderly, they include those who are enslaved for profits, their own or for others; they include the silenced, the “othered”, those denied rights because of religion, race, status, they are courageous (Assange), live on reservations, in ghettos, in apartheid states, can’t work at home, can’t work, are targets of police brutality, disproportionately imprisoned, live in food deserts, those whose bodies are trafficked, succumb to alcohol and substance abuse, can’t access clean water, live near toxic industries, nuclear waste, and other toxic waste sites and corporations, no access to land, or green spaces, or in other countless ways are disenfranchised putting them at risk of countless terminal diseases and whose suffering reveal the wide gaps and cracks in our unjust society. 

To truly care for the most vulnerable we would take the billions of dollars funneled into researching gain-of-function enhancement of common viruses into lethal life forms and instead use it to green industry, to ensure clean air, water, the land so that our innate immune systems will thrive making us impervious to external harm, but this is not profitable to patent holders. 

I am reminded of the mission my generation once felt and perhaps are too overwhelmed and tired now expressed in  49 bye byes when Stephen Stills sings

“We gotta keep on keeping on

Because if we don’t do it nobody else is gonna

But you know if we can’t do it with a smile on our face

You know if we can’t do it with love in our hearts

Then children we ain’t got no right to do it at all

Because it just means we ain’t learned nothing yet

We’re supposed to be some kind of different Ahhh”

John Lennon told us that “A dream we dream alone is a dream; A dream we dream together is reality” so what are we dreaming together as the unsustainable structures of a self-serving culture crumble, are we waiting to survive what is left for us when the dust settles or are we actively engaged in being the change creating new ways to thrive? 

A dear astrologer friend once told me “you are here to bring in the new way” and “you believe in the power of the mind to heal but you are not there yet” to me the key word is yet which also indicates a journey. I have had some profound experiences healing myself with my intention and I have had experiences where it wasn’t happening. 

One of the legacies of the Hippies was the re-membering of herbal therapies that have proved their effectiveness through living cultural-use across the globe for thousands of years and therefore has grown into a significant billion dollar alternative health industry over the last 40 years. It paves the way for future health therapies using frequencies of light, sound, and magnetics. 

We are currently at a crossroads, we can choose a path that recognizes each individual’s unique biological responses to various types of diseases and medicine and allows for one’s freedom to choose what is best according to those needs, or we succumb to the pressure of the dominant narrative that only one type of medicine works and it works for everyone. 

Caring for each other isn’t confined to wearing a mask (though this is one form of caring), there are many forms of caring. We are unwittingly allowing our preferences to faction us, and those in power benefit because as Napoleon knew, “Divide, and conquer” – but the inverse is also true: a people united can never be defeated, and “united” doesn’t imply everyone agrees or thinks the same.

Struggling with my own preferences, seeking something to help me be codependent no more this verse came to me in meditation: 

Prayer for Covid Codependency ©

I love you if you wear a mask

love you if you double mask

I love you if you half mask

I love you if mask you don’t

It’s love that heals

and love that seals

and love that keeps us afloat

I bless your choice whatever it may be

for to bless this mess is the remedy

There are times I need help to re-member and pull me through; thank you to all who have done this with me when I need, I am so very grateful. 

It’s not a linear experience, it will ebb and flow, but when you can remember: 

Love Is Still The Answer and Love Is All We Need