Power

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