Do Not Rush Through The Awkward Silence.

Honoring the incredible weight of having no idea what to do.

After writing my last essay where we explored the fourth Factor of Awakening, Rapture, I found myself spinning in a dreamy pool of juxtaposition. Joy in these times seems so profound, as it dances in an unlikely swirl on the backdrop of unthinkable sorrow. Has it always been this way? I can’t say for sure. All we really can be certain of is how things are now. We observe deeply, with skillful means, through direct engagement and consistent enquiry to come to know things experientially. Often times science isn’t enough. Show me last night’s dream. Hand it to me. Place it on the petri dish. It can’t be done. But we all know we have dreams. Because, we lived them, while asleep.

We are living through a time of decay, of endings. For many of us in the so-called “developed” world, we grew up in such a sheltered bubble of privilege that as we now catch glimpses of the horrors most have known for centuries, we can’t bear it, we can’t believe it and we don’t know what to do. So we go about it all in the same ways we always have, dissecting it all, researching and probing from the safety of our air-conditioned dens. But what’s actually presenting itself now is far vaster, far more terrifying, awe-inducing and strange than anything simple reasoning can solve.

Without dark, there can be no light. Without day, there is not night. It is true that we must develop a mature capacity for joy if wish to armour ourselves rightly for the mad battle before us now. But if Truth is our aim than so too must we be honest about what is going on around us, under the lotus blossom of rapture.

I have been blessed to spend a great deal of time with peoples of the world who truly know how to grieve. I am working on a piece now I hope to share with you all eventually about some of these journeys and what was encountered in these tucked away corners of human brilliance. But today, I feel the need to drop the pen and honor, in real time and in a genuine way what is actually going on here and now. No mud, no lotus.

Dear friends, we are living in a great deal of mud…

Overhead view of Gaza.

…

This week I have nothing more for you.

What more can be said?

We have seen enough pictures of children missing limbs,

Mothers weeping in vain.

We all know the president of the stolen land now referred to as “America”

likely raped a 13 year old girl.

We know he is currently setting the stage for another era of fascism

While the people just bitch about it all from the convenience of their comfy homes,

in between watching sports and reruns of Seinfeld.

This is where we are. This is it. Look deeply.

The last ember of what builds hope has nearly turned to ash.

The last tree is about to fall.

Let’s not feed modernity’s void even further with more bullshit “content”.

Instead, let’s look the countless dead babies directly in their lifeless eyes

And feel the grief of those we ignore.

Let’s come to terms with what we have collectively allowed to happen

And stop using the tools of empire.

Let’s honor the incredible weight of having no idea what to do

And cry out to the gods we have forgotten,

“Forgive us! We lost the plot long ago!”

Let’s stop scrolling.

Let’s stop pretending.

Let’s stop spinning around in self-defeating circles

…and just admit it.

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:::WE DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO:::

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Let’s really stop.

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Let’s put the FUCKING screens down,

Turn off the noise

And listen to The Universal Hum of Creation;

The Great Grief guiding us now into an entirely new understanding

Of what it means to have failed,

To have lost everything.

Let’s feel into our longing to be human again.

And not rush through the silence

But breathe,

Breathe.

Breathe.

Breathe.

Weep.

Surrender.

Breathe and,

Let go.

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I wish it could have been another way.

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dedicated to gaza

#maypeaceprevailonearth

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