The 2016 Presidential Election

All Blog Posts, Spiritual Teachings

 
“The true spiritual life calls me, into the darkness of myself, into my fears, resentments, greed, jealousy, and dishonesty. I am called to own the darkness so that I emerge into the light.”

November 8, 2016 @ approx. 8pm PST:

I feel like something has died. I have so much grief. I am so disgusted with the potential outcome of our Presidential election that I can barely stand to speak about it. Is this really going to happen?

November 9, 2016

 
I wanted to lash out last night. My daughter called me wanting to share her grief and I could not be there for her because I was struggling with my own. I had to hang up. 
 

I was feeling hate toward everyone that voted in the direction I did not.  I stayed in that place of anger and pain for quite a while, I just could not shake it, and then eventually I did.

Today 
Today my emotions are calmer and I am coming to grips with our new change in power. While my initial reactions lingered with grief I now feel it is my path to be part of the solution, to move forward and work together with grace and live the *middle way. 

As with every encounter in life, I know that sometimes what appears “to be,” isn’t. Meaning we don’t get to choose how the change will look, it can come in the MOST unlikely forms. This is NOT to say our new change in power was “right or wrong” but rather to say let us put that ideal of win or lose to rest and try to focus on forwarding movement. 

There is always a force greater than us (I call it Life, some say, God, Source, etc.) that is guiding all of our paths, yes I did say guiding, and our role is that we get to choose how we will respond to it…this is co-creation. 

 
America vs Humanity

Over the course of the last year, we all watched and participated (in varying forms) in the hate and fear from both sides of the tickets. This election has brought out what has been present and has been building for quite some time in our country. Americas’ shadow is out in the open for all to see.  It has taken this election and its results to fully expose it.

 
This rage and hate (otherwise known as fear) have been deeply buried in our history and in the psyche of our culture for years. This country has worked hard to make many changes but there is still work left to do. 
 
The election results have opened, what I consider, pandora’s box. We are a nation that is trying to transform, a world that is struggling with change, a people that are trying to understand and define unconditional love, what equality means, what inclusivity means, what it means to truly integrate the *feminine principle into our culture.
 
Here is how shadow works, hate is hated no matter where it is generated from. For example, I believe in inclusivity and that EVERYONE has the right to love and marry whomever they choose. There are many people out there who believe that is wrong; hate and fear reside within that belief. Hate also has the potential to reside within how I react to their belief,  just like with my reaction to the Presidential results; hate, anger, pain, shadow, in perfect form, being mirrored.

It is our personality that compartmentalizes it into right or wrong, just or unjust. But it is STILL hate/pain. So how I react is my shadow of hate. And perhaps I then project a displaced response towards another area of my life, there again is my shadow. Hard to identify but ever-present. 
 
We have ALL awakened the sleeping dragon that lies dormant within all of us. Why do I say that?  Because “what is in the whole is in the one,” and it is time to face OUR OWN shadow. We ALL know we cannot transform a nation without transforming ourselves first. Where we are headed as universal citizens on this earth.  

I am going to ask you a question that my friend Kathy K. asked me after sharing how she was going to make a difference: “What are you going to do?”
Namaste.
T.C. 

* Buddhist tradition: The middle way is the path between two extremes.
*The masculine principle cannot stand alone, it will ultimately self-destruct.

 

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