Toward Catharsis

Is catharsis a result of acquiring pure faith? When the last bit of doubt is gone, does it all come pouring out? I imagine that being the result of the defeat of inner oppressor-illusions, as well as my having watched the entire process.

My mind must be integrating the lessons, because I get caught off-guard by the lack of emotional energy behind what would have at one time been strong emotions in certain situations. I'm so accustomed to reacting to potent thoughts with strong negativity, that I take it for granted. Or, I used to.

The result of the integration of the lessons is always joy or based on joy, just as fear is the basis for the negative lessons. It usually happens in multiple periodic releases, but occasionally full catharsis is reached in short order by attentive students. It is difficult for the trauma-bound to pay this kind of attention to the lessons that appear in their lives, because the lessons happen largely through pain. If the pain is too great, it might not be possible to use for self discovery. Not at the moment, at least. 

Most people go to great lengths to avoid that pain. But for those who are ready to try, you can't go wrong with becoming aware of as many moments of your life as possible. 

This one, for example. Or this right here. It's a nice moment, no? 

Notice how your mind struggles to go absent again, to get lost in confusion just to not have to be here.

But with perseverance, sooner or later comes the desire to share, to say, "Hey, let me tell you what's happening to me!"

The Gods' only Sin

The Gods' only sin, that they'd commit again, was choosing not to be wholly good, in a way. She made that hard choice mothers always have to make. Whether to have em grow through it, the way it is, or to make them happy in the short run. Apparently, the way they made us predisposes us to evolve, and that's what's gonna happen. By hook AND by crook.

Stuff's happening to me. No emergency, or nothing to worry about, see? 

You don't worry. You agonize.

 

I don't want to do that anymore. I feel it all over. My body won't let me agonize anymore.

You're almost done.

OK, I trust you. More and more every day.

Faca Amolada (Sharp knife)

"Just arrived from a wonderful concert - Milton Nascimento. That song he played is certainly for you." 

Ana

 

Agora eu não pergunto mais aonde vai a estrada
Now I no longer wonder where the road goes

Agora eu não espero mais aquela madrugada
Now I do not expect that daybreak anymore

Vai ser, vai ser, vai ter que ser, vai ser, faca amolada
It Will be, will be, will have to be, it will be, sharpened knife

O brilho cego de paixão e fé, faca amolada
The glow of passion and blind faith, sharpened knife

Deixar a sua luz brilhar e ser muito tranqüilo
Let your light shine and be very tranquil

Deixar o seu amor crescer e ser muito tranquilo
Let your love grow and be very tranquil.

Brilhar, brilhar, acontecer, brilhar, faca amolada
Shine, shine, happen, shine, sharpened knife

Um brilho cego de paixão e fé, faca amolada
A glow of passion and blind faith, sharpened knife

Plantar o trigo e refazer o pão de cada dia
Plant wheat and remake the daily bread

Beber o vinho e renascer na luz de cada dia
Drink wine and be reborn in the light of every day

A fé, a fé, paixão e fé, a fé, faca amolada
Faith, faith, passion and faith, faith, sharpened knife

O chão, o chão, o sal da terra o chão, faca amolada
The ground, the ground, salt of the earth ground, sharpened knife

Deixar a sua luz brilhar no pão de todo dia
Let your light shine on bread every day

Deixar o seu amor crescer na luz de cada dia
Let your love grow in the light of every day

Vai ser, vai ser, vai ter de ser, vai ser muito tranquilo

It Will be, will be, will have to be, it will be very tranquil

Um brilho cego de paixão e fé, faca amolada
A glow of passion and blind faith, sharpened knife

I am the Well (Grateful Part 2)

The identical nature of my pain and the feelings I get from others' negative thoughts and expressions explains, potentially at least, where it comes from. I was told that the pain I hold in my body isn't mine. I understand it now. I was helpless to avoid the damage. Simply fragile, even delicate, I'm loathe to admit (I'll get over it). But I know that it was not a moral failing or cowardice that limited me. It's been a limiting world, and I'm by far not the only one. It's that understanding that will allow me to help others. Insisting that I not see myself as one thus vulnerable to life's harshness not only defied logic, it robbed me of the ability to find common ground with many people over the course of this lonely journey.

Also delayed was the discovery of my work in life, which asks me to draw near others. Part of my inability to find my place has been that an aversion to working with others long ago assumed priority among my motivations. And this aversion was a direct result of my exaggerated reaction to the everyday social shocks of life (to say nothing of the un-exaggerated, bona fide jacked up stuff). It wasn't that I was choosing to be sensitive or dramatic, though, to be sure, I could have used some information about how to manage the avalanche of negative emotional stuff that hit me and my siblings as children. We all could. I know all of us are very sensitive, and we all have different ways of dealing with the memories. I realize now that I am the well. I take people's emotions into my body. It makes it easier for them. That's part of my function. A significant part.

I now see myself as less worthy of blame for not being a different kind of person. I'm able to forgive myself for having the emotions that I have, and I guess at some point I'll celebrate them. And this is just the beginning of the release and liberation that will come from this particular lesson. I'm so grateful to God, the spirit of Jesus Naga-Luz, Wadjet, the Buddha, Shiva, Shakti, Yemanja, Oxumare, Bwiti and the love of friends and family for helping me reach this understanding today.

Where we Meet (for James and Ana)

On the Seashore

By Rabindranath Tagore

Here dedicated to James and Ana.
 

On the seashore of endless worlds children meet.

The infinite sky is motionless overhead and the restless water is boisterous. On the seashore of endless worlds the children meet with shouts and dances. 

 

They build their houses with sand, and they play with empty shells. With withered leaves they weave their boats and smilingly float them on the vast deep. Children have their play on the seashore of worlds. 

 

They know not how to swim, they know not how to cast nets. Pearl-fishers dive for pearls, merchants sail in their ships, while children gather pebbles and scatter them again. They seek not for hidden treasures, they know not how to cast nets. 

 

 

 

 

The sea surges up with laughter, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach. Death-dealing waves sing meaningless ballads to the children, even like a mother while rocking her baby's cradle. The sea plays with children, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach. 

 

On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. Tempest roams in the pathless sky, ships are wrecked in the trackless water, death is abroad and children play. On the seashore of endless worlds is the great meeting of children.

The Journey

“The Journey,” by Mary Oliver, from Dream Work (Atlantic Monthly Press).

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.

It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Grateful Part 1

11-19-13

Today was a wonderful day. At first it sucked, because I went to do a presentation and found out that there would be no presenting. I needed that money. So I got depressed and went home to sulk. I forgot that I was supposed to be meeting with my friend. My Niece Assata came in and started talking about her relationship issues. I noticed after a while that I felt terrible, in the same way as I always feel, but more pronounced and somehow more urgent. As I paid more attention to the suffering I felt inside my body, it all clicked into place. I remembered the dream ordeal of 10 years ago, how I saw and felt myself to be a well, and those dead Indians that had come and cried into me. And the pain was unbearable.

I interrupted Assata rather dramatically to tell her that I had just learned something very important about myself that explains so much of my story and struggle. I am a true Indigo. I feel other people's pain in more than a sympathetic way. I thought it was just my own reaction to the ideas, and it is, but there's something about my kind of reaction, coupled with the history of my spiritual education, that convinces me that I'm supposed to use this empathy to heal. I wasn't a well merely for a day during a trip. I was being shown something fundamental to the character of my soul. I had been given the gift of feeling other people's emotions.

Because I wasn't around people capable of noticing, to say
nothing of nurturing my gift, I just went through life on an emotional roller coaster, and here I am. I thought I hated people, but I simply hate their capacity to, at the very least, inspire the volleys of negativity that I constantly find myself slinging and dodging- or not. I have avoided people for my entire life because of the possibility that negativity might rear its head. 

I hurt my mother once in the early nineties when I asked her not to tell me about my family if there were no good news, that I no longer wanted to hear anything bad about them, us. The pain I felt was that kind of pain. I felt like I was going through all of their problems with them. Maybe part of it was judgment. But I know I felt a sense of despair that I was certain all the others of us must feel, especially those directly involved with the story.