The Great Spiritual Calling Of Our Time: To Unite In Revolutionary Love

This piece is something that I'm moved to write for

our children and grandchildren. This is also 

written out of my deep love for all

beings and our Earth Mother.

― Molly

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. 
I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, 
the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, 
even the phrase "each other" 
doesn't make any sense.

― Rumi

Out Beyond Our Ideas of Wrongdoing and Rightdoing 

Things used to be very black and white for me. After growing up with a once severely narcissistic mother, engaging in deep healing related to my addictions and family of origin and cultural wounding, and following my many years as a social worker, I have come to understand in my heart and soul how feeling separate and better or less than others can seem so real. This triggers a memory of when an early counselor reflected that she saw me growing and beginning to feel more equal to others rather than consistently superior to, or gravely flawed and less than, other human beings. I had no idea back then just how disassociated I was from experiencing a sense of equality and intimate connection within myself and with others. I did not know that anything existed outside of what I had normalized and what had been my experience.

Thích Nhất Hạnh speaks wisely when he states that "we are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness." Yet, all around us we see the symptoms of our mistaken beliefs that have infected us with feeling apart from rather than a part of. And the truth, as Francis Weller reflects in his brilliant and soulful book, The Wild Edge of Sorrow, is that "we live in a society that is drenched in shame." (http://www.wisdombridge.net/the-wild-edge-of-sorrow.html)

Shame, separation, illusions, ignorance ― and all unconscious and ungrieved individual and collective losses ― act to sever our experience of connection within ourselves and, therefore, with all of life. Francis Weller affirms that "shame ruptures our connection with life and with our soul," and he refers to shame as a "sickness of the soul." He also speaks wisely about the consequences of when we "compress and compact grief internally" and how this process "generates a lot of rage." Weller goes on to say that, "All war is unmetabolized grief." (Please go here to listen to Francis Weller speak to these issues: http://www.karmatube.org/videos.php?id=7828&fbclid=IwAR01j7wC4OE-9Ne5ajaQG6FuaWBvfVobsRDRoGUHShbmmOOjgXc1YwZiA0Q.)

As I look at the suffering in our world today, I am aware of the devastating impact ― on family and friends and communities, on whole nations and on whole species, and on the Earth herself ― of closing down our hearts and building walls of separation, domination, shame, fear, and ignorance. The diversity of symptoms from this disconnect is breathtaking and heart-wrenching. And it does not need to be so. This is not our human nature to exist in prolonged disconnect from our hearts and souls and the soul of the world.

Riane Eisler is among the great visionaries of our times who speaks and writes brilliantly about what she contrasts as domination cultures on the one end and partnership cultures on the other. With looking more deeply into these two very different ways of being, it becomes obvious that the United States ― from its inception which included slavery, genocide of the First Peoples, and marginalization and oppression of those who were not white male land owners ― has always embodied the ideology of domination. Riane Eisler has written extensively about humankind from prehistoric times to the present, including in this article illuminating how it is that we can break out of the domination trance: https://www.kosmosjournal.org/kj_article/breaking-out-of-the-domination-trance-building-foundations-for-a-safe-equitable-caring-world/. 

There are many wise ones who can assist us in our journeys of taking a step back and becoming empowered to see the whole elephant in our collective living room and the roots of our suffering and our peril. I experience how this frees us from our narrow perspectives which only sees one part, or several symptoms, rather than the whole of what plagues us. The Old Story of smaller and more black/white belief systems is what keeps us stuck in the polarities of rightdoing and wrongdoing.

*****

 One does not become enlightened by imagining

figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.

― Carl Jung

It is my own ongoing journey of gradual thawing out and dismantling the walls I've built around my own heart and soul that continues to clarify so much for me. What is so clear is how deeply we need to reconnect in order to heal and transform together the enormity of what we have lost. We simply cannot heal our hurting hearts and our hurting world in isolation. And we cannot strengthen our capacity to be in this world with our eyes and hearts and souls open ― both as individuals and collectively ― as long as we ignore or minimize the need for doing the deeper work of coming to understand where we are at, how we got here, and a path forward. This is the path that leads to us to the field beyond wrongdoing and rightdoing.

All of this also brings me to the point of acknowledging that there are many today who define The Problem as being Donald Trump or ― flip the coin ― as being those who they perceive "hate" Donald Trump. Or the problem is Bernie Sanders and the movement which is perceived as "trashing" other democratic candidates. This belief system holds as reality that electing or eliminating the current resident of the White House must take precedence over all else because this is The Solution to our problems. This mantra, I believe, has us at each other's throats and focusing on the Other who must at all costs be defeated. 

Projected onto this other political party is all the wrongdoing, while all the rightdoing is on "our side." And people get really angry when someone steps outside of this narrative and in some way exposes something that just doesn't fit ― like that Trump is in reality an incredibly dangerous and pathological narcissist, or that Joe Biden and most other presidential candidates, Obama and the Clintons and Nancy Pelosi, etc. are corporate democrats who are primarily beholden to the donor class and not the people or the planet. So many of us cling to "our side" and point fingers at how stupid those other idiot liberals or deplorable republicans are. The wagons are circled, the weapons drawn, and there is certainly no middle ground here upon which to meet.

This is but one example of holding fast to the belief systems of wrongdoing and rightdoing and erecting walls towards anyone who questions and exposes the deeper truths of the shadow side of what is being missed. Those who step outside of the prescribed narrative are judged, accused, and blamed ― "You're not on our side. You hate _____ (fill in the blank) You're going to give us/not going to give us another four years of Trump! How dare you!"  

What some of my friends and many others mistakenly believe is that if we're not on one side, then we must then be on the other side. You're either a democrat or you're a republican, period, end of story. Or maybe, worse yet, you're a communist or a fascist. From this perspective, anyone who doesn't fit in with one of these sides is seen as suspect, uninformed, "trashing democrats," "eating our own," "Trump haters," and on and on. Exposing the corruption on "our side" is seen as being a traitor, even as fingers are pointed outward on that "other side" and all the corruption of those Others. 

It is a courageous thing to seek the truth and not take the side what we are told we must be part of or else risk condemnation and rejection. Even 16 year old Greta Thunberg receives death threats. That's where we have tragically devolved to. 

It is a courageous thing to place principles before personalities, including a profound commitment to following the threads of truth wherever they may lead. It is a courageous thing to let go of "our side" being the right side and the "other side" being the wrongdoer. And it is a very, very courageous thing to open our hearts to ever larger and more painful and frightening truths ― truths that our ignorance and our allegiance to one side or the other has blinded and buffered us from knowing. It is a courageous thing to deeply question our worldviews and to shed the obstacles that we have built within ourselves individually and collectively against love and to instead make the darkness conscious and become empowered to seek and find that field where truth, interbeing, love, and justice reside.

As I've been emerging for some years now from the deep fog of my illusions, ignorance, and indoctrination, I've come to recognize that there is a much, much larger experience to be lived than the incredibly limiting, dividing, and distracting narratives that we're constantly propagandized to believe are normal and the "truth." What we struggle with so deeply ― the endless wars, the climate and ecological crises, the crushing poverty of billions while the most wealthy just keep getting wealthier, the epidemics of addictions and depression and despair, and more ― all began long, long ago. Just ask Indigenous Peoples and all people of color and other marginalized humans and non-humans who've long fallen outside of the circle of our consciousness and true caring.

Out beyond our ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I envision a time being birthed right now in which more and more of us are recognizing and letting go of what obscures our capacity to see this field and move towards it. I see us as walking out into this field and joining hands and hearts and weeping with the remembrance of the love that we have for so long forgotten. I see us doing this. I see humankind as evolving. And this vision makes me cry right now... 

I'm also aware that there is no magic wand that will catapult us into this Great Collective Awakening. I think of the quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes that Brian, my oldest son, gave me 20 years ago as he encouraged me to question what I believed was reality ― "I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity; but I would give my life for the simplicity the other side of complexity." My longtime teacher Michael Meade put it a little differently when he spoke of how many of us believe that we can magically leap from the first stages of waking up right into enlightenment. Not true. This is just another illusion.

The point here is that there is this messy middle. And we cannot be the people we like to think of ourselves as being without doing a deep dive into the individual and collective shadow work of this messy middle. The only path through is through, not over or under or around, but through. This means opening to seeing with new eyes, to questioning everything, to being very courageous, to knowing that there is always another greater vista beyond the one we see now, and to embrace an unrelenting and profound commitment to truth and to Love. 

At least, this has certainly been my experience.

*****

We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.
― Ursula K. Le Guin 

We Live in Capitalism 

 

Herbert Schiller has asked a core question of vital relevance to us all: "How did thinking that benefited the few gain the acceptance of the many?" 

Schiller is among countless others who have long spoken to the truth about capitalism and the inherent dangers and devastation of systems based in the ideology of domination. It is also true that in America we currently have a presidential race underway in which all but one of the candidates initially running for the highest office had affirmed that they are proponents of capitalism. Because we Americans are deeply acculturated into the normalization of capitalism as being the only way and the most advanced economic system, the majority of the American population doesn't question if another system could exist or be possible that would embody greater justice, equality, sustainability, happiness, caring, and peace. 

Ursula K. Le Guin once wisely warned that "people who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within." That pretty much sums up where we are today and the long road that has brought us to this place of great suffering, death, and national and planetary peril.

So perhaps it would be helpful to take a look into who has stood up against our capitalist system over the years and what they have said about it. Here is a glimpse:

"Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That's the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system." ― Martin Luther King, Jr. 

"Capitalism as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals." ― Albert Einstein

"What is called 'capitalism' is basically a system of corporate mercantilism, with huge and largely unaccountable private tyrannies exercising vast control over the economy, political systems, and social and cultural life, operating in close cooperation with powerful states that intervene massively in the domestic economy and international society." ― Noam Chomsky 

"Violence, with its ever-present economy of uncertainty, fear, and terror, is no longer merely a side effect of police brutality, war, or criminal behavior. It has become fundamental to neoliberalism as a particularly savage facet of capitalism. And in doing so it has turned out to be central to legitimating those social relations in which the political and pedagogical are redefined in order to undercut possibilities for authentic democracy." ― Henry Giroux 

"The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism." ― Martin Luther King, Jr.

“The evil of predatory global capitalism and empire has spawned the evil of terrorism... Unfettered capitalism is a revolutionary force that consumes greater and greater numbers of human lives until it finally consumes itself.” ― Chris Hedges

"If democracy were to be given any meaning, if it were to go beyond the limits of capitalism and nationalism, this would not come, if history were any guide, from the top. It would come through citizen's movements, educating, organizing, agitating, striking, boycotting, demonstrating, threatening those in power with disruption of the stability they needed." ― Howard Zinn 

"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back." ― Carl Sagan

"Many cultural stories worldwide present the domination system as the only human alternative. Fairy tales romanticize the rule of kings and queens over 'common people.' Classics such as Homers Illiad and Shakespeare’s kings trilogy romanticize 'Heroic violence.' Many religious stories present men’s control, even ownership, of women as normal and moral. These stories came out of the times that oriented much more closely to a 'pure' domination system. Along with newer stories that perpetuate these limited beliefs about human nature, they play a major role in how we view our world and how we live in it. But precisely because stories are so important in shaping values, new narratives can help change unhealthy values." ― Riane Eisler

*****

Love takes off the masks we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "Love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being or a state of grace ― not in the infantile American sense of being made happy, but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.

 ― James Baldwin

Love Takes Off the Masks We Fear

We Cannot Live Without 
 

I am often mindful of feeling this sadness for how it is that we are so often conditioned to judge and blame and dehumanize one another. Or we simply turn away and remain uninformed of the suffering of others outside our family, friends, and the limitations of our awareness. We also live in a nation which perpetuates divisiveness and separation and ignorance related to the pain of our world and any part that we may unknowingly be playing in perpetuating it.

It is love that takes off the masks of our ignorance, our unknowing, our illusions, our harmful belief systems which we fear we cannot live without. Love is stronger than fear. Love strengthens our hearts, minds, spirits, and souls and brings us to this place where, more and more, we don't turn away. And we become aware of how... ah, yes, this is how it is. 

At least this has certainly been my experience.

Today I feel this ever growing love even more with my awareness of so many countless beings who are suffering and dying worldwide due to the great crises of our times ― the sixth major extinction, the climate and ecological crises, endless wars and unfathomable poverty and dislocations and desperate, desperate humans and nonhumans fleeing and fighting for their lives. And added onto all of that, there is the coronavirus and a worldwide pandemic.

And my heart breaks. Again and again, my heart breaks.

And it is the power of love and grace that have enabled me to increasingly open to seeing and feeling and knowing what it is that is happening in my own heart and the heart of the world. And with that knowing comes the responsibility to act, to do my part, to do what I can to alleviate rather than add to suffering, to do what it is that I came here to do.

"The heart that breaks open can contain the whole universe." ― Joanna Macy

*****

If we want there to be peace in the world, we have to be brave enough to soften what is rigid in our hearts, to find the soft spot and stay with it. We have to have that kind of courage and take that kind of responsibility. That's the true practice of peace.

― Pema Chödrön

If We Want There To Be Peace In the World 

We are all walking each other home. 

As we individually and collectively peel back the illusions of our separation and emerge from the fog that has obscured the truth and wisdom and power of our hearts and souls, we will increasingly recognize that we are all interconnected and all related. Those beings who swim in our waters, fly in our skies, and walk on the Earth are all part of our family.

Your suffering, your pain, your joy is also mine.

This understanding has brought me to this place in my life where I am committed to the ongoing process of dismantling one by one by one the places within myself of my not knowing, my mistaken belief systems, my unskilled thoughts and actions, my unknowing collusion with that which harms, and all the places where I have been lost, ignorant, confused, unconscious, and disconnected from who I truly am and who you truly are. 

Instead I commit myself to alleviating the suffering in the world. And it is my experience that we all become increasingly empowered to act on behalf of those who suffer ― who are silenced and marginalized and unseen, who are dehumanized and oppressed and brutalized, who are seen as collateral damage and enabled to live in sacrifice zones, who are demonized and dismissed as the unworthy Other ― as we courageously work to soften what is rigid in our hearts and open to the power of truth, compassion, and love.

And this, I believe, is the great spiritual calling of our time ― to embody and unite in revolutionary love, a love and caring that expands to include all of life. Consciousness is the path. Compassion is the path. Truth is the path. Justice is the path. Peace is the path. Love is the path. 

In these times of COVID-19 and the many layers of both planetary peril and also deep love, courage, wisdom, and beauty, may we all heart-to-heart walk this journey together.

Blessings to you 

and to all of our planetary 

sisters and brothers ―

Molly 

*****

"Grace happens when we act with others

on behalf of our world." 

― Joanna Macy