Facing Our Darkest Shadows

I woke up this morning finally ready to speak.As this week has erupted into full blown expression of the rage and terror and even deeper impulses that normally live buried deep inside all of us, I have waited and watched as witness as much as I could stand to see-- as much news and social media posts as my nervous system could possibly handle without devolving into hopelessness or projection.And I was shocked, truly, the other evening to be watching His Holiness the Dalai Lama speaking live, and to use the word ‘slavery’ in his prayer. Though I cannot quote him directly, what I received from his comment was that we are all living enslaved in patterns and habits that are suffocating us. That we cannot get out of. And that the time has come for us to dig deep on the paths of liberation that have been laid out for us by the Buddha, and Christ, and so many others—and start to get free.__We are living in a time where the collective cultural shadow of this country—pillaging and stealing and slavery—is finally coming fully into the light of day. This human distortion, this violence and abuse, has existed, yes, long before America as a country was founded over 250 years ago. Slavery existed in Rome, in cultures in Asia as far back as 1200 BCE.But this is our slavery of Africans and their forced resettlement to serve America. This is our pillaging of Earth and resettlement of her indigenous people onto secret plots of land so we didn’t have to remember. This is ours. And that’s why it’s here for us now.And in the time of a globalized pandemic trauma, where we are all living under the threat of an invisible deadly virus that threats to steal our life, our unprocessed collective slavery and abuse wounds race hard and fast towards the surface.But here’s what feels most important for me to speak:These demons are not arising because we are evil and incapable and life is hopeless.They are revealing themselves because we finally have to capacity to see them.They are arising because we are capable of meeting them and transforming them.They arising to the surface precisely because enough of us have the psychological spiritual maturity to look at them straight in the eye, allow our nervous systems to expand to receive their medicine, and to change our behaviors and our habits so that they can die.Slavery and abuse and control want to die.  And we are their liberators.__In the past couple of weeks, alongside Covid-19 and the brutal murder of George Floyd and subsequent riots, especially as I have opened the doors to a dream course, I have been closely working with my own dreams.They have ranged from release to beauty to abject evil.But there has been a theme arising that feels both vulnerable and important to share with you. My hope is that it helps liberate you from the shame of your deepest shadow, knowing that this darkness is not what makes you separate, but what makes you the same as all of the rest of us who have been incarnating here on Earth, courageous enough to be born into a world where slavery and abuse run rampant.These dreams have been arising, asking me to drop deeper and deeper into caves and basements. Deeper and deeper into hidden, darkened, hot corridors where trafficking and Naziism and abuse are occurring. Into co-opted religious sanctuaries where enslavement and murder are happening. And to rescue dragons (often an archetype for the True Self, the true Life Force energy).Without sharing too much intimate detail, I will offer that the invitation presented to me, in my current life path, is to find a way inside myself to neither not assimilate into that darkness, nor to run away. To find a way (which has often seemed completely hopeless), to rescue the dragons and transform the darkness into rose petals and glittering starlight.If you are here on Earth now, this may be the invitation for you, too.__How do we face the darkest demons – slavery, abuse, murder, pillaging of Earth, trafficking of humans, global pandemic and subsequent chaos, and infinite interconnected outspirals, without becoming, again, reincarnated versions of that which we’ve already tried? How do we liberate ourselves and one another from this cycle, this samsara, and into the light of Life?How do we actually name the shadows as they are—truly call them by name—so that we don’t keep projecting them onto our black and indigenous brothers and sisters? The shadow works this way—when we aren’t able to look at it, it hides in the faces of the “other.”How do we use new tools and new perspectives to open our hearts and come together, rather than polarizing and controlling? How do we allow all of the human reactions to this reality – rage, terror, fear – without destroying what is truly already whole and good, here now?How do we allow all of our brothers and sisters to rage at the injustice, at the brutality, at the utter hopelessness of the reality they have been experiencing? How do we stand beside them and weep? How do we allow the shared truth of what has been happening to set us all free?How can we let the tears of the utter despair water the seeds of a new world instead of just burning down the one we have?__One of the most important and challenging parts of my pathway has been acknowledging that simply by incarnating here on Earth, and choosing to take a pathway on a planet that has so much pain, that that seed of evil has lived in me, too. That, I, too, have had fears and projections about the “other.” That, I, too, if allowed to polarize myself too far in the spectrum, could have been someone who assimilated into Nazism or slave-ownership. And I know in other lifetimes, I have before.Many people, from all kinds of circumstances, really struggle to do this. Especially when we have been conditioned to see ourselves and ‘good’ and the other as ‘bad.’This acknowledgement is vital. It allows us to be liberated from the incessant need to protect our own ego and judge and condemn “the other.” It saves me from my self-righteousness. It collapses my separation from you.It means I am not different than you. Not that I am no different than you in your  specific struggle, but that I am not different from you in the true field. That here now, we are all in this challenge to uproot and transform the ramifications of our collective shadow TOGETHER. Yes, we play different parts, but none of us will be free until ALL of us are free.We are all being challenged to do our own parts.We are invited to face the demons that arrive at OUR doorstep.For some of us, this will be abuse.For some, obsession with control.For some, unconscious consumerism.For some, self-righteousness.For some, victimization.For some, violence.For some, retaliation.We are being invited into this sacred space with our demons because we are strong enough and courageous enough and old enough and together enough to transform them. Because deep down, underneath all the lies we have been told, and all the lies we have lived, we are Love. We are good. We are (w)holy.__Because of the work I do and the particular life path I take, I hold the side of the coin which suggests that our liberation will come not through new laws and governments, but through transformed nervous systems and our own consciousness and relationships with the Earth. That’s not because I’m right.That’s because it’s my pathway to hold.Others of my sisters and brothers know that when we transform structures and governments, the laws will make it safe for those who have been enslaved and abused to have the space and safety to start to heal. That’s not because they’re right.It’s because it’s their pathway to hold.We need all of us, holding our light, to get free. None of us can do everything. All of us can do something. And when we hold, boldly and humbly, our puzzle pieces, a new mandala begins to arise.__This is what is mine to say.I’ve waited, all week, to know. And this morning, I remember.No matter how dark the darkness is that lives inside of you—no matter what rage and control and abuse and violence. No matter what grief and terror and hopelessness, there’s one thing I know for sure:You, yes you, human. You carry the medicine to transform it. It’s a simple law of physics. Equal and opposite reaction. If you carry the shadow, you carry the medicine to transform it.You are that powerful.Let’s get free.