Is She Worth It?

Blue Marble 2012

Gaia - deceptively calm, peaceful, healthy and whole

- NASA's latest HD composite  image taken from space

... worth finding a way to live on, with, in, through her - our mother - in sustainable harmony with all the other life forms that complete her/us?

AND if we all agree that it is worth the endeavour, can we, will we, get it together before it's too late?

Metamorphosis

Well, I've started several posts over the past 2.5 months and not completed any of them... they're still sitting in the "draft" queue and I don't know if they will ever appear, which is something of a shame because they've got great images and music and some almost profound(!) thoughts...

But there you go.... that's metamorphosis for you...

"When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin." 

Kafka's masterpiece, The Metamorphosis, is the story of a young man who, transformed overnight into a giant insect, becomes an object of disgrace to his family, an outsider in his own home, a quintessentially alienated man. 

Metamorphosis - a process of transformation, change from one state of being to another, which for me has defied clear articulation...

Not even sure I can now describe the process, or what the outcome is shaping up to be.... think I'm at the point where the butterfly has emerged, but its wings haven't yet dried enough to fly... 

It was about cutting the final ties that bind me to the material world, as it manifests itself on this planet... casting myself adrift, deliberately, knowing there is no going back...

It was very intense and disorienting... a bit like the feelings I experienced when my parents died, one in 1994 and the other in 1995... Although I was an adult in my late 30s, with three children of my own, I felt I had been orphaned and left quite without any anchor/safe harbour in the world...

Some phrases that are relevant:

I no longer recognise or answer to any authority outside of myself...

We all are at war.... there is a war going on within each of us, and on the entire planet, between expansion and contraction, love and fear...

I had known that intellectually, but had not accepted it emotionally or spiritually - which was BIG and hard!

And it's time to pick a side.... not choosing is still picking a side... and I have picked a side...

I have no attachment to this society/culture we live in... it is dysfunctional to the core and I no longer resonate with it... I have to create a way to live outside it...

I will live my life as I see fit, according to my understanding of Divine harmony and balance, not man-made laws...

I know there are consequences that come with making that choice, and I accept them in full awareness...

Rejecting the status quo brings with it "push back", but I cannot live an authentic life without rejecting the status quo... and it will kill me to live inauthentically... 

I have come to understand that all "awake and aware" people through all time have had to make that choice and live with/through what comes next... they've known full well what would follow making that choice, and have continued anyway - and that's what I have to do... AND I ACCEPT THAT... AND THE FEAR IS GONE... AND I FEEL SOLID...

...and now that I have that clear in my soul, heart and head, I expect my external world to change - AS ABOVE, SO BELOW, AS WITHIN, SO WITHOUT... 

I wonder what it will look like...

 

Revenge???

So, I'm sitting here, fuming, frustrated, fed-up and freezing, wondering what there is I can do to deal with this craziness about having the thermostat locked away inside a plastic box, so I can't warm the house beyond what my housemates have decided is OK...

And really, there is not much that I can, in honour, do...

I can smash the lock box and turn up the thermostat - am thinking about it, but then we get into the possibility that they'll match violence with violence, either against me or our stuff, and/or that they'll call the police...

I can steal or damage their property, hoping it will give me leverage to get them to unlock the thermostat so I can be warm... same risks...

I can rant and rave and throw things... makes me look crazy

I can just give in...

It was the same when my housemates moved my possessions down into the garage and put all their art work on the walls, leaving no space for mine...

I could have hauled all my stuff back up the stairs...

I could have taken their art work down...

I could have put mine up...

I could have left theirs up, and filled every last square inch of wall space with mine, regardless of the aesthetics of that...

Gandhi said: "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind"...

And what's that truism about two wrongs not making a right?

None of these options could be implemented without me seeming to be vindictive, without adding to the energetics of abuse, disrespect, without escalating this battle for power and control...

And yet, there is no denying I have a right to be warm and comfortable in the space I pay for us to live in, using utilities I have already paid for, just as Connor and I have the right to make our surroundings feel like our home too...

And in all of this, Connor is watching to see how to handle conflict in a healthy manner...

I've been playing a game called Balance on Bejewelled, where you have to collect equal numbers of red and blue gems, all the time keeping two tubes balanced so one doesn't reach the bottom before the other.

I've come to understand, in the last few weeks, that this is what life is about - keeping the balance...

In this world of duality and paradox, there are two driving forces - love and fear, expansion and contraction... and it's not a case of either/or, it's a case of and/also...

They don't necessarily have a qualitative value attached to them (we humans might assign them values, but Life itself does not).   They are not good and evil, positive and negative, black and white... they just are... and harmony exists when they are in balance...

So for me, the object of living well is to maintain balance...

And, if my housemates' action is symbolised by a red gem, for example... to stay in balance, harmony, I have to put forward a blue gem... putting forward another red gem (an act of revenge, of power and control, of abuse) will create imbalance and disharmony... 

My question to myself is - what will a blue gem action or state of mind/attitude look like?

 

How can I solve this problem, stay in integrity and not become a victim?   I can be compassionate, I can be understanding, I can be forgiving.... but... I'm still bloody cold sitting at 55F inside my own home in the middle of a Seattle winter!

New Year Wishes...

 

Wishing you all an eventful and fulfilling New Year...

Eventful and fulfilling in the best possible way
for your individual needs and circumstances,

And for the planet as the living, breathing mother
who sustains us and all beings...

Thank you for being in my life...

 

 

 Namaste

 

 

 

Self-Delusional Arrogance...

Beware - this is a rant... so if you don't want to read a tirade, click out now!

It's been one of those days, when, with insufficient coffee and food in the system and too much stress over too long a period of time, I've run out of elastic in dealing with self-righteous, self-centred, arrogant, delusional, "know-it-all" housemates who hide behind their "spiritually advanced" personas to "win" or "maintain" their power...

 

I find it ironic that people who claim to be so advanced don't recognise when they're using actions, language, tone of voice and body stance to disempower others, to manipulate the conversation and to generate the outcome they desire...

I find it ironic that they can't accept that there's a place of "and/also" where both points of view are valid and that it's possible to find resolution of issues without having to make one person/perspective right and the other wrong...

I find it ironic that these so-called spiritually advanced people preach one thing but practise something else altogether, and don't recognise when they're not living their teachings... and then criticise others for not "walking the talk"...

I find it ironic that these people hide behind their own "stories", including so-called past lives as famous people, to bolster their egos and to claim their space, legitimacy and authority in the world, while at the same time they criticise other people for being so much in the "ego" and so attached to their "stories"...

It's sad really, watching these people do that... It reminds me of my mother, who, when life was really tough and she felt like a failure or that she was being judged, used to remind herself that her family came from minor French nobility and that they lost all their power, prestige and lands in the French Revolution... 

I'm disturbed when I hear them denigrate other people, including their teachers, respected leaders of the Buddhist community here in this town...

I'm disturbed when I hear them, in conversation with third parties, denigrate other people for whom they are providing astrology "readings"...

I'm disturbed when I hear them judge other people for not journeying through life in the way they think is most appropriate; it's frightening that such "spiritually advanced" people don't acknowledge their own limitations and yet don't recognise the Divine, infinite autonomy of others and the  sacredness that is their journey, however they choose to walk it...

I'm disturbed when I see them meddling in their clients' lives to the extent that relationships and careers are irrevocably affected, all on the 'authority' of astrology and their so-called spiritual enlightenment... 

I'm plain pissed-off when another "alpha" female criticises me for using ultra-pasteurised cream for a dessert, saying it has no nutritional value left, when she nukes her food in the microwave...

I'm plain pissed-off when the same female interferes in my parenting of my son, and attempts to correct his behaviour by mocking him.   I have raised three children to relatively successful adulthood already, and I think I know what I'm doing...

I'm plain pissed-off when the same "know-it-all" woman insists that peptic ulcers are caused by a virus and that they are treatable by antibiotics... they're not caused by a virus but by a bacteria...

I'm plain pissed-off that just because I don't spout off my life history and everything I've learned along the way, the same woman assumes I know nothing and feels a need to lecture me on everything from spirituality/metaphysics to history, politics, economics, parenting, pet care and housekeeping...

I'm plain pissed-off that this woman has a need to correct everything I say that's not 100% accurate.   The other day, in the middle of a tense discussion about how warm the house should be kept, she corrected me that the word I should be using was "oil" and not "gas"...

Such a strong need to exercise power and control and to "win", coming out of her own deep-seated insecurity... 

So today we had a blazing row which no one "won" and did not result in any solutions/agreements...ugh!

In my teachings, there are only two states of emotion - love and fear...

Love is expanding, fear is contracting...

All other "negative" emotions - anger, disappointment, frustration, envy etc - are cover-ups for fear...

And there are four basic fears: fear of death, fear of abandonment, fear of rejection and fear of humiliation...

In any situation where we're not feeling love, one or more of these basic fears has been triggered in us...

I wonder which fears my housemate and I are each reacting to?  

We're all  mirrors for each other, bringing to light unresolved wounds from the past, and playing the role of other people in those unresolved dramas, so I'm feeling her fear will be complementary in nature to mine...

I'm saying my version of prayers to my version of god asking for insight into my part of this tangle and for guidance to resolve this with ease, dignity, grace and love...