glimmers of for-gift-ness
Last post I focused on the full moon light that set off the pinball machine ricochet of triggers and stories in my psyche and used astrologese to see and map the patterns. It’s easy to get fixed on the triggers but I really only shared at that level so you could see the complexity of untangling karma and rewiring our monkey minds.
For balance, now I’d like to focus on the active rewiring that we can do via focusing on the glimmers more than the triggers (which I did at the end of that last post by focusing on Love.)
And for-gift-ness. I spell it that way to point out the remarkable gift that true forgiveness is for both forgiver and forgiven.
This season has been corrupted by capitalism and is now wrought with consumerism. The stress that people put themselves under to BUY gifts for those they profess to love has, since childhood, made this one of my least favorite times of year. I actively avoid it.
The things I actually love about it are the connections to the markers of a northern hemisphere Christmas—the fragrant pine, the sharp-edged holly, the poisonous mistletoe that redeems itself by becoming a kissing station, the red bows and white snows (if you’re lucky).
Even the Christian carols. The fact that so many people gather to sing together and focus on the birth of a giving, loving man, that I love. The gifts under the tree and the white man’s lap little kids are meant to sit on irritates me. The lack of inclusivity of other holy days this time of year also irritates me. Diwali, festival of light…Ramadan…Passover...Solstice… Next time I’ll share my latest stand up that includes a joke I’m working on about all this...
How do we forgive ourselves the ongoing genocides? Or the ongoing ecocide?
Yes, let’s celebrate love. I’m all for it. ALL for it. I’m all for celebrating LOVE FOR ALL. But that’s not what’s happening. Thanksgiving was bad enough and another so-called holy day that I refuse to buy into. Give thanks every day and in every way you can. That’s what I attempt to live. Are you really that ungrateful that you need one day out of 365 to remind you to be thankful?
And so rarely is that even what this day in November is about. Couched between the stress of getting all the goodies for the feast and getting all the goodies from the sales, it’s vulgar. An honest, no-hiding Thanksgiving would look like admittance of genocide, and genuine apology for the idiocy, greed and violence that’s led us to continued ecocide, and would instead centre on true gratitude for all life.
I’m grateful to this land that holds us and gives us everyTHING. I’m grateful to my ancestors and all the ancestors and especially to the wise ones who remind us how to be better two-leggeds. We are some of the youngest species on this brilliant planet and were we truly wise we’d learn from those who have successfully co-existed here for millions of years longer than we have.
We would do well to honour them consciously and regularly:
So how do we forgive the fact that we haven’t been grateful and honouring, and that some of us continue to focus on how much we can get? And on this ludicrous idea of “getting ahead”. Of course there are levels of this. Those cultures or areas of the world that lack plumbing or who suffer from and still support societal violence against half their people, their females, may need a little dose of “getting ahead”. Of pulling themselves up a bit to a more equitable place. But those other places for whom “getting ahead” means a bigger yacht or a more impressive car or more power to cause more harm…those so-called humans, they, we are the problem.
I say “we” even though I don’t consider myself monetarily wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. Why else would your support here and my gofundme campaign be necessary for my university fees to start a new life for myself?
But I am still privileged and I am aware, and even wary, of how wildly unconsciously I can wield that privilege.
Perspective is essential. We are one species on one planet. We like to divide ourselves up into different types organized by different land masses or colorings or food preferences, but our dna barely differs and mostly by dis-ease, so we are essentially one species. Which means I am part of the problem.
Even when we can isolate and separate pockets of dis-ease, such as one of our collective favorites—“the Middle East”—if you adopt this wider view for just a moment you’ll see that, yes there may be a cancer there in the metaphorical earthwide human body. As elsewhere. If we don’t get our shit together soon then we, as a species, will be riddled with cancer and the remaining healthy human cells will be eaten alive.
I have encountered 3 people in recent years with cancers. One died, one lived, and one is in the midst of it. What was remarkable to me was that I was instinctively repelled by all 3 of them, which I felt guilty about. But now, studying deeper, I realize my perceptual awareness goes beyond what might be easily identifiable or even understandable. I am picking up the cancer and reacting to that dis-ease, as is natural. I am repelled by the cancer and mistaking that for the person.
No one wants to cuddle up to evil.
No one opens their arms wide and invites inside the malignancy that will eat you alive.
Or do they? Or do we? Or do I?
I suspect that the truth is we all do, on some level. And it’s the levels that matter. When it’s more gross, literally more established in the gross--in matter and the material world--it’s obvious and we can point fingers. But for many, if not most of us (until the cancer spreads and even we too are infected), it’s far more subtle.
The cancer resides in our insides.
In the arrogance we hold over others.
In the delusion of control we think we exert over our surroundings.
In the denial of our oneness.
I shared this recently and it got a surprising amount of coverage. I don’t mean that I was surprised that it, in itself, got a lot of attention, but that relative to all the other posts I’ve shared of ways in which we are cancerously consuming the golden egg of our world that got no attention, this one struck home for folks:
Two main takeaways here, along with whatever else holds gold for you in this wise woman’s dying words to a dying race:
Ask yourself—are you running towards life or running away from death?
Or to quote another teacher from the current northern hemisphere myoga season practice with the crown chakra/deep winter focus, where we learn the value of death:
“In the last analysis, it is our conception of death which decides our answers to all the questions that life puts to us.” — Dag Hammarskjold
Which leads us to our second main takeaway:
What IS our relationship to death?
Kerri has highlighted here the dangerous place we have taken ourselves as a species by adopting this battle consciousness. Because no one, even if they survive temporarily until they die, can win a war.
When it comes to war, everyone loses.
So many times in my life I’ve had this conversation (more like argument) over the years and so many times people (usually male) justify that we’re shit, the world is shit, and war is inevitable because we’ve all-ways been this way and we’ll all-ways be this way.
And I call bullshit.
Over the years I’ve had to ferret out the sources to prove my point, but it’s all along been coming from a deep knowing beyond my individual being (so I won’t say deep in my bones because it feels beyond this-body in its knowing). Like Sherlock Holmes, I trust my instincts and intuitions and intelligence, which I then augment with “book” learning.
“Widen your gaze, Holmes,” Moriarty taunted Sherlock.
See the bigger patterns.
Go wide.
We humans are so often limited by the consumeristic cancer that plagues us. We forget we lived differently 6000, even 20,000, years ago. We are caught up in arrogant judgment and fail to see our own malignancy. We hate rats, pigeons, cockroaches, cancers because they reflect back to us our own wiley seemingly-wicked insidiously overtaking ways.
The friend who is currently struggling with cancer is so tricksy to engage with because I realize the cancer is alive in him and in fact has overtaken him. What I struggle with is the cancer itself. If he manages to have even one positive thought seated in love and gratitude, it is undercut in the very next sentence.
And he doesn’t even see it happening.
Our so-called superior minds are super slippery. Changing our language is more than cute and fun and a way to mess with old-school minds. It is everything. The framework within which we make sense of our surroundings and communicate our perceptions to others, is every thing.
In my non-doctor estimation what he needs to do is change his mind so that he speaks from his heart and acts only on his highest intention of health and goodness and purity. In essence, he is learning to love himself and be seated in love. Which requires forgiveness.
I have been grappling with forgiving myself for recent errors but also across this entire life. It seems I came into this life feeling guilty and responsible, like I did great harm somewhere, or could, if not careful.
Recent focus on declassified CIA-funded research is showing what so many have known in their own ways and without scientific proof—that our souls carry on across incarnations. Although you could say science agrees with this at the basic level of “matter is neither created nor destroyed”. At any rate, going beyond any desire to prove and instead being informed by the idea that it’s true, “we” carry on and therefore inevitably carry baggage from one life to the next.
Which begs the question, “How will you clean up your shit?” Whether from a past life or this life or, if we bend our minds further and play with the concept of simultaneous time, we can include future lives in our range of impact. Our thoughts, words and actions impact far wider than we might be prepared to believe.
And whether you believe in this, or Santa Claus, just consider the value of doing right by us all regardless.
Forgive your self, your small self. The ways in which you’ve been small and have been ruled by fear. Forgive the times you’ve run away from fronting up to the truth and have denied where and how you’ve harmed. This is me speaking to you but also to myself.
It’s no wonder some sects become vegetarian or hand pick the worms from the earth dug up to build the temple. Or re-cognize the impact of their actions on the 14 generations “ahead” as well as “behind”.
I mean I’m not being righteous here. I struggle with forgiveness. Each morning I wake and I’m not always immediately grateful. I aim to be, yet I watch my mind and it so easily slips into a groove that is long and deep. A long, deep cut that fixates on what, and who, I’ve done wrong. As though some misguided disciplinarian in me believes it can coerce me out of bed from this place of guilt over wrong-doing.
And it’s so insidious. The work it takes to rewire ourselves is some of the toughest work we’ll ever do, and generally no one will ever see that we’ve done it. How can they? How can they acknowledge what we didn’t say? How would they even know how we steered our minds away from the detritus, the denials, and deceits?
So, we can’t rely on the adulation and congratulations of others for our evolution.
The telltale signs that we’re evolving are the laughter that we bring, the joy that we sing, the love that we sling.
You’ll know you’re making progress by how you attract all manner of creatures. How wordless children smile at you, wordless animals are drawn to you, wordless plants thrive around you, and even wordfull humans are beguiled by you.
Here are some glimmers from my day today:
And chatting with you! Knowing you’re reading truly helps me to steer my thoughts, feelings and learnings into readability, so thank you! May your glimmers be bright and frequent and your journey with for-gift-ness unfold with ease. I love hearing from you, so please pipe up if you feel inclined. Much love, Mox
