Tag: holding space

Election reflections: thoughts on change, stillness, and the pressure of light

/ Lanae / 7 Comments Featured

Initially, I felt purposed not to publish my deeper reactions to the election outcome.

I wanted simply, only, to point people to the light, to grace … to implore people to remember kindness and compassion toward others, toward both those elated over election results and those disheartened by them, those rejoicing and those grieving.

But something shifted me toward sharing more, come of it what may.

I’ve never felt this sort of visceral reaction to any previous election, so I find it telling:

Election night, a nameless, depthless dismay welled up inside. I glimpsed a sense of powerful forces and movements of spirit afoot, which were (are) far too big and deep for me to even put words to …

The following day, a fire burned in my chest, throat, forehead. No matter how my mind said to me, look, the sun still came up; the world is still beautiful; don’t make catastrophic assumptions … the fire burned.

And all day long, I practiced deep, cooling breaths, trying to quell the heat and flame. In the midst of this, though, I tried to listen to what my body seemed to understand about the gravity of the situation.

A wise friend, whose profound perspectives I respect deeply, shared a lovely thought with me that has helped me process things.

She spoke of the pressure of light, of how she believes there’s actually more light in the world now, but paradoxically, it’s that very light to which people are reacting in such intense ways. Some people are being provoked to love, others to anger, to fear. The light is provoking transparency, causing hidden things, some of which are painful, to rise to consciousness …

I think she’s right, that there IS more light. Oh, I think there’s always been light, but it’s breaking forth more brilliantly, fiercely! Yes, I know it’s so hard to believe, with all of the fear, anger, and anguish present, with the apparent resurgence of dark, nasty roots of bigotry and basest prejudices of all kinds, with the shadows of hatefulness and evil that seem to loom.

Yet, I suspect perhaps these things are happening because of the work of the light, because the light is driving them into the open, where they should be!

The pressure of the light is breaking through into places of darkness and making the seeds and roots that hid there visible … biases, wounds, ancient, unhealed traumas of oppression, violence, and injustice that we all bear stains or scars of, harmful beliefs that collectively or individually burden us. Deeply embedded patterns of perception, communication, and relationship that desperately need transformation …

And the pressure of the light is painful, isn’t it … to see, to feel what it reveals hurts.

But what we can see and know, we can heal! And therein is the hope … but also the urgency. The urgent need of holding on to the light, being the good, watering seeds of peace, seeking stillness in the chaotic swirls of societal and personal emotion …

Yes, stillness is needed, now. You and I, we need stillness, to be able to sit with all the powerful emotions swirling up, to hold space for them. To sit with anger and fear and learn to bring the fruit of loving change and genuine justice from it.

You and I, we need stillness, so that we can then rise up and be the good, be the love, be the light, that is needed now.

Out of the stillness is born the deepest living and the purest action.

Out of the stillness, the brightest light shines.

And in the stillness, we can bear the pressure of the light, and respond with love and grace, to even the hardest and most painful, devastating things.

I’m not naïve to the presence and power of evil, but I believe whole-heartedly, whole-soulfully, that goodness is strong, is strengthening, is the strongest force in the world. Everywhere, I see a surging of fierce grace, fierce pleadings for grace and light. People expressing powerful intentions to bring the pressure of light to bear against hate and injustice … and powerful intentions to be willing for the pressure of light within, to let it reveal, heal, and transform.

I am willing for the pressure of the light. Willing to let it provoke unbounding, unconditional love in me. What about you? What will the pressure of light provoke in you?

May it provoke belovedness.

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One other reflection: We are in the midst of a massive societal transformation, a change in consciousness, and it won’t be stopped. Regardless of who won the election, it was/is happening, anyway. Some experience this as beautiful and good, but others as painful and terrible.

Rather like an intense grief reaction, because there’s loss involved, the loss of the familiar/status quo … but for some, a way of life is dying. It’s hard to see the goodness in that dying, and they’re grieving. And anger is a part of grief. Fear, resistance, a part of it. It’s important to try to understand that, to allow compassion toward it, whether we see it in others or in ourselves.

I’ve read so many reactions and reflections the last few days, people pouring their hearts out, lifting their voices. Pain from all sides, pleas to be heard. It awakens a question: as we’re seeking to be heard, are we also listening? Are we in a space to listen; can we find it?

Listening with belovedness, to the hurts and the hearts of those who voted differently than we, as well as to those who share similar views? Listening inclusively?

Listening leads to understanding; understanding to compassion. Then, to loving, to healing.

If we’re wondering how we got to this point in our world, perhaps one reason is because we have been raising our own voices to speak our truths, yet not listening to others’ truths, not listening for or hearing the hurts and the hearts of those with whose choices or voices or truths we disagree …

Make no mistake, hatefulness and injustice MUST be spoken against, lived against, and love must be lived into, even if it costs us the dearest friendships or asks us to let go of privileges we’re attached to. Yet let’s not be so quick to assume hate is the truth of a heart and soul without first listening deeply to hurts there!

What a beautiful thing if this pressure of light would also provoke us all to listen more to one another … if it would provoke the awakening of stillness so that we could listen in belovedness.

sorrowfulness, a sacred part of belovedness

/ Lanae / 2 Comments Featured

Yes, this little space has been echoing silence  …

As it’s said, there’s a time to be silent and a time to speak.

When it was a time to speak, I spoke boldly and passionately about what was deep in my heart and soul, about mindfulness and justice, about owning the truth and living the truth.  About Belovedness, as not just ‘my truth,’ but a deep Truth, a Truth for all!

But then it was a time for silence … and as I’ve learned, knowing when to hold space for silence is an important – perhaps the most important – part of finding your voice and knowing how to use it well, with love and truth.

It’s a time of sorrowfulness, of grief, both personally and communally, and silence, stillness, seemed the most necessary for the healing and health of my heart and soul …

So I embarked on what has felt like a lonely journey, practicing silence, speaking, writing less. It has felt like being in exile, a chosen exile and a redeeming one, but still …

I thought, why should I write/share these days, anyway? When sorrowfulness is so strong in me … I cannot write of belovedness in the same way, and if I write of sorrowfulness and grief, doesn’t that seem contrary to belovedness, to the message of belovedness? When I write of saying “YES!” to belovedness, but then I write of knowing sorrowfulness and feeling intense grief, being in deep mourning, doesn’t that sound like a “NO!”?

Does it seem joy-making, gratitude-inspiring, hope-spreading? Which truly is what I want to do and be!

But here is a truth I cannot deny about myself:

I am one well acquainted with sorrow, with grief. One who knows suffering. Who knows the suffering of others, feels it in her bones, in the inward marrow, in the heart-center. Yes,  I have an apprenticeship with sorrow … yet I also now have an apprenticeship with belovedness.

Oh yes, wild sorrow and wild belovedness, I know these both.  I know the darkness of sorrow, but also its light; the light of Belovedness, but also its darkness. I know this wildness, and if there is any edge on which I live, it is this edge.

It is not quite a safe wildness, no, but yet – I am secure, because I am anchored, I am grounded in belovedness. My soul is safe, my ego is not, and this is as it should be.

The wildness of being fully alive … fully, deeply, intensely, powerfully alive in, with, and through sorrowfulness and Belovedness both!

And another truth:

The other part of Belovedness, is this sorrowfulness, this grief-fullness – the yin/yang, the both/and.

Sorrowfulness IS another part of belovedness! Grief and mourning ARE a part of belovedness.

They are a part of a full, deep, rich “Yes!” to belovedness.

What is belovedness without sorrowfulness? What is belovedness without honoring and holding sorrowfulness? Sorrowfulness is a part of the wholeness of belovedness, part of its wholeness and richness of meaning.

Belovedness contains joy and sorrow. Goodness and suffering. Grace and grief. Peace and pain. Hope and  despair.  Abundance and loss. Groundedness and uncertainty. Wholeness and brokenness.

Having awareness of them all within us, within each other, is important, vitally important. Knowing how to give space to and to hold space for them is fundamental to knowing our own both/andness, our completeness, our aliveness as human beings.

It’s not about embracing either belovedness or sorrowfulness … it’s about embracing both and being taught by both.

Belovedness teaches compassion, empathy … it can crack your heart wide open, to feel and know the sorrow and the suffering in the world, to make it a real rather than an abstract understanding … and move you to loving action.

Sorrowfulness, grief, loss, exile. Belovedness gives the grace and strength to face them. They must be allowed, respected, honored, given space … if there is to be a full healing of the body and soul, heart and mind.

So much soul-sickness and suffering comes when grief and sorrow are not given space to be, to be known, to be tended. Not only to individuals, but also to communities and nations.

Here is our country, our society, its psyche deeply, gravely wounded, reeling from profound losses and traumas,  facing and fearing change …  fear seems to be a common ground we share, wherever we stand.

Underlying it all, I sense the vastness of an unheeded sorrow, an untended grief, feeding the fear, the anger, the despair; giving root to the seeds of violence and suffering.

I see a society that doesn’t know how to grieve, give space for sorrow.  That doesn’t have a healthy relationship with pain, grief, or sorrow – and thus perhaps not a healthy relationship with grace, goodness, or belovedness either, then.

What is happening in our society (in our world?) is a breaking wide open … there is so much pain pouring out. It overwhelms me with sorrow and grief, a sense of deep spiritual loss, death, darkness.

And yet, in this breaking open, belovedness teaches me to see hope – that with all the pain and sorrow rising so visibly to the surface, perhaps we will learn, together, how to give space to sorrow and pain. Perhaps we can learn together the gift and the grace of grief …

I know that Belovedness is teaching me how to have a healthy relationship with sorrow, to bind grief with grace, to give space to mourning   … the gift of great losses and heart-rending choices and experiences is that I am being given the opportunity and the space to learn how to grieve, how to see and know the grace in grief.

A gift that perhaps I can learn how to share, even to fashion into part of my life’s work  … the blessedness in sorrowfulness and the sacred work of grief, and their beautiful oneness with Belovedness.

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What if we allowed ourselves to be better acquainted with grief, with sorrow, to not fear or shame them, but to welcome them? To work with and through them, to find meaning and hope in them? Would restoration and renewal come? Would we become whole, in ourselves, as a nation, as a world?

 

 

Balancing act

/ Lanae / Leave a comment

If you’ve been reading along, you might have noticed that I have mentioned ‘balance’ a number of times. It’s something that matters a lot to me, something I’m always attempting to find and maintain, but wow, can it be elusive … or illusive! Just when I might feel tempted to pat myself on the back just a bit and think, with wonder, oh, look, I’ve got myself, my thinking, my writing, my living, in balance … well, then I get bumped, and well, lose balance!

Equanimity is another word I love, and it’s a word that is about ‘balance’ – maintaining an emotional, mental, spiritual steadiness. Even in the bumpier, rougher times. Equanimity is about noticing both the light and the dark, the heavy thoughts and the lighter ones, the joys and the sorrows, the happiness and the suffering, and being able to hold them both, having the space to hold them both.

I’d like to think I can do that, and I can, but if I’m honest, I can only do it imperfectly! The gifts of imperfection, indeed … learning that it’s okay to be off-balance sometimes, that sometimes there are gifts in the off-balance feelings and experiences, that  in them there are important lessons and opportunities to grow (and become better balanced!).

The word ‘equanimity’ comes from Latin roots meaning ‘even’ and ‘mind’ – even mind, a balance of mind. An even mind, holding even seemingly contrasting observations, thoughts, emotions, experiences, memories in awareness, at once, as one. A story that illustrates this so beautifully and clearly comes from a book I’ve read (and re-read, and would recommend!) called Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom. It explains the neuro-cognitive effects and physiological processes involved in mindfulness and meditation, written with a clear, eloquent, spiritual elegance.

As the story goes, a Buddhist teacher was journeying on a boat down the Ganges River, in India, at dawn. On the left bank of the river were ancient temples and towers bathed in the blushing glow of the rising sun. On the other bank of the river were burning funeral pyres, with wails of mourning rising with the smoke. She was seeing life and beauty on the one side, death and sorrow on the other, with her heart wide open enough to encompass and accept both. Not letting the view of suffering cancel out the view of beauty, not denying the feeling of sorrow in favor of the feeling of joy. Acknowledging both, holding both in awareness.

It’s not either/or. It’s both/and. Life is both/and. Equanimity, balance, is found in the both/and.

Equanimity isn’t seeking, striving, to reconcile or even to justify jarring juxtapositions, things that are seemingly irreconcilable, but rather to accept their present existence – whether within ourselves or within others, in the world, where suffering and violence contrast with goodness and grace. To see both and yet to see beyond … to see the potential of goodness and belovedness arising, even from smoke and ashes. Beauty from ashes, beauty with ashes.

To see beauty in our own selves even through intimate acquaintance with our imperfections, to value our strength even in our weakness, to accept the both/and of the darkness and the light in us. To acknowledge the both/and of goodness and wrongness, of death and life, in us … to love ourselves with the love of belovedness in all of that.

Heart wide open … to accept alike the off-balance times as well as the in-balance times, the difficult emotions as well as the pleasurable ones. Heart wide open, mind even … to know that the seeds of happiness are still there, still can be watered. Heart wide open, mind even … to know that balance returns.

I have to remind myself of that often, it seems … on the days that I feel like I am so unmindful, critical or ungracious; the moments that I feel like I am failing as a mother, struggling to be patient with my children; the times that suffering and violence in the world cause me to feel broken with anger or sorrow; the moments where I doubt I am echoing much belovedness into the world, and wonder if my words, my life, my actions, my motives are in harmony (in balance!). To allow myself to believe I can have equanimity about feeling off-balance … or about living in an off-balance world!

Remember belovedness, balance returns …

Equanimity – heart wide open, even mind. The grace of acceptance, balance, and compassion. Holding space and stillness, space for stillness. Holding space and belovedness, space for belovedness.

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Now that I shared some about equanimity and balance and how I experience them (or seek to experience them!), I want to leave you with some questions! How would you define/describe equanimity for yourself? Balance? What do those things mean to you? How do you experience them? How would you like to experience them?