Fear and Loathing

I’ve been watching TED talks on youtube and then reading the comments below. I have never done this before. I am - for some reason - drawn to them. When I am drawn to some experience, I assume it is relevant in some way and this time is no different. 

I noticed a lot of stridency and discord in the comments. I have heard similar things before from various areas of our collective space and it seems to be that those who are angry and voicing resistance to 'leftists' and 'liberals' are saying something important about everyone being accepted and respected. 

They / We (because there is no 'they' and it is all 'we') have been saying this for quite some time now. 

Liberals don’t understand. “But we DO respect everyone!” they say. Yes. I get it. Liberals respect everyone except those who fear and mistrust and begrudge and … Liberals respect everyone and everything except the fear that is underneath.

And that fear needs to be loved and brought into the light. We respect everything except disrespect, disregard and the incipient ubiquitous fear that feeds these. It needs to be seen and heard with empathy and compassion. 

And until it is, it continues to ‘act out’ all around us. 

I don't know how caring and loving individuals will respond to the collective's very loud and dramatic expressions of fear. It is a very challenging time for all of us. I do know - beyond any shadow of a doubt - that love is the answer. 

Compassion is the response that I choose. 

The repeated comments calling for a non-judgmental response to fear and loathing, for a non-judgmental response to calls for exclusion and the 'circling of the wagons' both metaphorically and actually, is the call of all of humanity for our deepest, darkest most fearful aspects to be seen and heard with compassion. 

Always with compassion. 

Feel free to share this post. It goes along with what I said a few weeks ago https://www.facebook.com/lu.emanuel.5/posts/1489439037761971?pnref=story ; there are no enemies. There are people who are troubled, afraid and struggling. And we are all in this together.

Enlightening

I was in conversation with a neighbour who is very careful what she puts into her body and what she pays attention to. She wants to be in high vibrational energies as much as possible and I get that.

I mentioned that I end up watching Netflix at the end of the day. I read the Montreal Gazette every day because my husband is addicted to the crossword puzzles and I am addicted to having something to read while I eat my breakfast.

"Oh," came the comment, "that stuff is so filled with bad news and low vibrational energy. You are giving it power as you give it attention."

I thought about this afterward. After we had parted ways, I felt into how much I enjoy reading the news either in the old Montreal Gazette or online. I felt into how long it has been since I made a commitment to 'watch what happens.' I was living in Vancouver, briefly and rather tragically, as a penniless twenty-one year old. My older brother - whom I emulated in everything important - read The Economist. I picked up the latest issue and understood so little of it that I was ashamed. It was then that I made the commitment to read and watch and listen to the world - all of it. There is a sense of honouring us all in this... saying, "Yes. I see you. I hear you. Yes, even this."

I have the sense of shining on it all as I place myself as witness to it. It does not anger me. It does not take me out of joy. It does not bring me to despair, although I do sometimes find myself amazed at what we collectively are creating for ourselves to experience.

I suddenly gave myself the gift of a beautiful image, which I will do my best to share with you.

The news and views, the outrage and violence, all of that turmoil and turbulence is like a fast moving river, the waters swirling and churning downstream in a mass of movement that is beyond our control.

My steady gaze, my loving attention, shines like sunlight on water. The turbulence is bathed in that light. I am love incarnate, observing with that steady gaze. I do not turn away. I do not condemn or betray. I am that shimmer above the water, on the water, permeating it, enlightening it.