There are many things about Chelan Harkin that I appreciate, respect, and feel deep gratitude for. It isn't only her three amazing books of poetry, which I treasure. It is also her vulnerability, humanness, courage and fierce commitment to truth. I imagine a time where more and more of us can be inspired and feel safe and supported enough to own these deep truths and struggles and pain that have been so disassociated and layered in shame. As more and more of us open our hearts and honestly share, how freeing it is to know that we are not alone. How freeing to know that we are still loved. How incredibly freeing it is to come out of hiding and to root into this journey of shedding our shame and separation and shoulds and suffocating fear. And what a profound gift it is to open and undefend our hearts and come to increasingly embody the sacred wisdom, beauty, strength, connectedness, compassion and love that has always been there. As always, thank you Chelan. 🙏
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| Photo by Molly |
Human social, relational, emotional evolution has to do with one thing—the bringing forth of truth.
The only thing wrong with any of us is we have deeply absorbed the idea that it is threatening somehow to experience and express almost any authentic emotion to its fullness. Our misery, then, is that we are idealogically imprisoned in a fragmented and malnourished internalized law that our social survival demands we cut ourselves off from the flow of Life itself.
The line between enlightment and madness is narrow. Often both are simultaneously straddled. Madness could be said to be a pre-requisite to awakening. Certainly it must be recognized and contended with before one can experience anything beyond it. And what is madness but believing in and acting upon falsity? And who among us could be said to be free from that? To normalize madness is to make awakening more accessible. And often what looks most mad to those whose madness is both more powerfully driving them while more hidden, is someone beginning to take off the garb of the world. The process of molting facade isn’t elegant. But we must grow weary of the yield from our attachments to the world before we release ourselves from them. We must go through the harrowing heroism of allowing everything external to let us down. And often to get to this great point of release, our self image must be damaged beyond repair. True madness is protecting our pain upon which our self image is built with the maintenance of our favored external factors. The madness of awakening is tossing out the self-image protections and going headlong into the pain and the deep unknowns beneath it. The bud of the mad holds the secret blossom of the Buddha.
Each release, each offering up of the self to The Self is a sacred surrender, a death and a birth. We release old history from our bodies into the field of shimmering presence. To anchor ourself as we go through this passage where our hearts roar and dilate and the light of the new world crowns and more inspired divinity is brought in, we need the stabilization of the doula of empathy. We need beings around us who understand, support and honor the pain in the name of what’s beyond it.
People who love and support you are everywhere. This world is made of love and there are myriad hearts overflowing with it. The narrow tales that create confirmation bias from your past don't know this. But it's time to step out of those confines and experiment with a wider way. The tales of your past are not true. Go where your potential is watered. Life wants to nourish your growth and as soon as you say, "Yes," beings arrive with clear mirrors for your beauty.
A caterpillar eats itself to transform. It metabolizes its form to grow wings. We do the same. We metabolize our trauma. We metabolize the past in our bodies. We do this through meeting it, through feeling it. The metabolizing of our trauma directly feeds the emergence of our capacity. The wings we grow are colorful tapestries of truth, authentic love, radiant beauty. With them we paint the world.
There is no prayer more powerful than choice that moves you in the direction of what you love and most desire for yourself and that takes risks in the name of the fullness of your potential.
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