Morning Light on a Portal Near Home
…to listen long enough for the deeper truth to surface. … to learn how to belong to the same earth at the same time. May our children inherit not our certainties, but our courage to co-exist. The Agreement Beneath All Names
If tears are any accurate representation, then in the past week I’ve peeled another layer of this onion we call life. Through a darkened portal light begins to emerge. I can see further underneath surface events and people that led me to a journey into and, fortunately, through heaviness, anger, and grief. And I sense the next steps forward.
The dance (I can all it that now as I emerge, but in it the experience felt like navigating through and sometimes on a bed of hot nails.) went to a depth beyond the ‘mama bear’ anger I experienced and shared a few weeks back. Although that experience likely helped pave the way for this one, for several days this week I found myself locked in the grasp and rolling tapes in my head about events that had triggered anger inside.
I couldn’t quickly tap into the tools that often bring me to a higher frequency and clarity about how to move forward. Whether walking the labyrinth, writing in my journal, or quietly leaning into Grandmother Pinon, I was present not to the moment, but to a mind stream that was feeding my stuckness rather than providing nourishment to move forward.
I finally surrendered, inviting whatever deeper truth that wanted or needed to surface, to do so on its own time. Through the haze a portal began to emerge, though not one that held a quick solution or pivot. Rather one that invited me to question more deeply: ‘What is this experience really about?’. What deeper truth needs to surface that will guide me through, beyond, and into more fully aligning with and serving Life?
I calmed, the endless tape paused its roll, and these questions began to lead me into territory and times before life in this physical vessel. Beyond ‘this person’ reminding me of mistreatment from ‘that person’; this unfair tactic in a local political campaign bringing the tone of national politics too close to home; and that I had no voice or choice in either other than possibly withdrawing I began to wonder when I might have experienced this in another lifetime. Dare I ask if I might have been a perpetrator?
I became present to seeking the deeper truth not simply for relief from the pain of my anger and to feel better (though both would be welcome!) but for the sake of healing something that felt old, ancient, ancestral and of both me and the land that I occupy individually and all of us collectively. The inquiry wasn’t new, yet it seemed fresh with expanded possibilities for walking on the planet in greater harmony with one another and with Life itself.
The deeper questions seemed to provide light through the portal, another layer peeled, not with answers, plans, or specific pivots but with renewed and deepened curiosity, commitment, and capacity to speak up in new ways yet to be fully revealed. I began to wonder how we might engage in community conversations collectively asking one another and the land we occupy what is genuinely needed in this time.
I sensed new light being shined on the necessity of addressing, indeed healing, the pain and trauma perpetrated by our past colonizing ways, ways that we have carried forward into the systems we navigate as they dissolved today. And, in a most unexpected way, I received confirmation of just that.
Our way out of the current chaos, dissolution, and yes, dangerous threats not just to our democratic ways of life but to Life itself is not an exit strategy. It is our willingness to move through these portals of darkness with the light of our awareness, our care, our commitment, and our love. Individually and collectively may we move from knowing to asking and from head to heart as the drivers of our choices. May we build together the courage to co-exist.
Beauty of an Autumn Morning