Morning Shadows in the Labyrinth
With the sense of hearing, we listen to creation. … It is lovely to have the gift of hearing. John O’Donohue (Anam Cara: Spiritual Wisdom from the Celtic World)
Mourn what no longer is and call forth that which wants to be birthed from the heart.
This morning finds me a bit wobbly, not unlike when I overindulge in food and adult beverage. Yet last evening I indulged in neither. Rather, feeling a sense of civic duty along with curiosity, I plugged into the mainstream/legacy political scene to listen to President Biden’s State of the Union speech, the Republican response, and just a tad of post speech commentary.
In hindsight I wonder how my feeling might be different if I’d chosen to just listen and not watch. But alas I watched, enjoying the splashes of color worn by many of the women members of Congress amongst the drab suits of the men and trying not to get caught up in the political theater of who clapped and stood for what and when.
I listened, hopefully with care, to both speeches. While I lean more toward one ‘side’ than the other, I found both empty of vision, of new ways forward in our rapidly changing world. A world barely recognizable from the world I grew up in and the world I expected. Today I’m struck more by what I didn’t hear than by what I did hear. I’m struck too by the hollowness I feel as this day dawns.
Each side touts and promises freedom, each claiming theirs to more and better yet both promote policies that limit our sovereignty and the choices we make in walking through the world. Each claims their freedom is better than the other’s.
I want more from our leaders. I expect more. I expect better, honest, truth, integrity from the inside out. WE deserve it! I expect and long for the new stories that are emerging within so many individuals, groups, communities to be sought out and shared so that all may know, participate, thrive. WE deserve it!
I long to hear leaders speak about the truth of who and how powerful we humans are and for them to envision creating frameworks, scaffolds, support for tapping into this potential to heal, to create, to live truly free, at peace and in peace. I long to hear political leaders address the necessity of clean, toxin-free, nutritious food in creating and maintaining health and offer a vision for creating, sustaining, and maintaining life enhancing food for all. I long to hear leaders speak to what science is revealing about our true nature and the nature of Nature and to recognize that we are not victims of our genes, but rather that we hold the potential to master them from the inside out rather than controlling from the outside in.
Yet while I long to be inspired by our leaders, I find inspiration in the grassroots. In the farmers practicing bio-dynamic farming and soil regeneration. In movements such as slow money, providing zero interest loans for such efforts. In local health initiative and healers who practice natural medicine first. In innovators and entrepreneurs who are shucking the cloaks of the old to create the new.
Having been deeply engaged in politics for many years in my younger days, I’ve long had an interest. Today, as the political game’s dark side comes more to light and highlights the darker side of our humanness, the upside is that we are becoming more aware and with that awareness comes greater potential for change. We need to acknowledge the world that no longer serves to create a world that does. Gregg Braden suggested in a recent talk that we need to learn to mourn and let go of what no longer works so that the new can rise. For surely, a new world IS rising.
So I’m without a political home, something that I’ve had, participated in, and even cherished throughout much of my adult life, starting as a Young Democrat years before I was old enough to cast a vote. Somewhere in my memorabilia is a hat autographed by Hubert Humphrey during his 1968 presidential campaign. I was present at the 1992 Republican National Convention when President George H.W. Bush gave his acceptance speech (a Clinton-Gore button in my pocket).
Just last year, I supported a friend’s campaign for County Commissioner, not because of her party affiliation, but because of her commitment to a positive vision, to justice, to fairness, and to local foods. Earlier this week I chuckled upon receiving an invitation (with words sounding more like a plea) to a meeting to ‘reorganize’ the county party. Not me. I’m no longer a party animal.
Since I no longer desire to be identified or to participate as ‘this’ or ‘that’, it seems I’m mourning what no longer works and that my search for a political home isn’t the search that’s needed. Muse reminds me that the same is true for me in other of life’s domains. Health care, financial, etc. The old stories, the old molds, the old ways no longer fit. My search is for those creating the new.
Mourn what no longer is and call forth that which wants to be birthed from the heart. That is where home truly is.
Full Moon on the Rise