Less arrogance. More listening. If we examine the nature of the power we assert when we think we are right, what do we see? Is our power porous, interested in what we don’t know, our minds open and curious? Or are we rigid, fragile in our so-called certainty? Is our power married with heart, flexible, calm, kind? Or is it a tight shell of fear, reactive and feeling entitled to take or hurt, our voice shrill and forceful? What do we do with the social power we have access to because of our privilege, our race, our class, our gender, our talents, our circumstance? Do we share this power, invite in and uplift with it? Have we believed somewhere along the way that any of us can truly win while another loses? Are we humble in our power? not as some kind of special spiritual ego mask, but because we have learned that everything we think we know can dissolve in an instant? Are we aware that we are fools who have stumbled around in the dark for aeons, until fortunate enough to be graced with moments of wisdom, now growing tender buds of discernment, carried on the backs of those who walked before? Has our vision yet revealed to us the consequences of our own unconsciousness, our misunderstandings, all we once thought we knew? If so then we have been humbled in the awareness that our power gives birth to more of whatever state of consciousness is driving it. Unless we are rooted in love when we express our power then when we act we’ll likely be channeling harm, and there really is no outside in this world, it all comes home in the end. Perhaps we feel that we are now using our power for good. Maybe so. There are more than enough opportunities to stand up in solidarity with the earth, her creatures and her people. Let us always remember then that we live in a hall of mirrors, that any ignorance we can recognize in another has an existence inside each one of us that needs to be acknowledged and integrated if we are really interested in the healing of the whole. Let’s not throw our righteousness around like bullies because we haven’t yet learned how to be responsible for our own pain, and our own complicity in that which we seek to change. There is a transparent power that is shared with every being under the sun, a power not threatened by appearances, a power that animates this and every moment, steady as a mountain, quiet in its confidence, vast as space, limitless in its potential. This true power belongs to none of us and yet breathes life into us all. Sharing is its nature. It doesn't require our perfection or purity for us to learn to serve in this alchemy of awakened intelligence for us to learn to cooperate with the incoming tide of this evolutionary momentum. What is required is that we open our eyes and ears, turn for direction to the wild, clear and vital, and stay close to the sincerity of our deepest heart's yearning. Less arrogance. More listening. Less arrogance. More listening. ~~Luke Anderson |
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