Dichotomy

I remember a while back in my "studies" of new age spirituality I came across the simple notion "There is only Love and Fear" a reframing of the old duality of good and evil, God and Satan, etc. These ideas are old and ongoing for a reason; there is truth there. It is becoming more and more clear to me that so much of my life is just about fighting fear, or perhaps "managing" fear. In moving away from fear, often it follows along, as in "every where you go there you are." So moving away from fear has to be more than that. It has to be a moving towards...something. As I consider the duality of "There is only Love and Fear" it implies an opposite. So if I am running up the number line of fear, I see negative integers, then I would be running toward the Love numbers, headed toward an infinity of love. but I don't think it is quite that simple. I run in circles. And i in truth I am not all that clear about love. Fear seems more obvious. Love is so multifaceted, so misunderstood, a word so over used its meaning is unclear and its practice in application is even more vague. I'm working on it. Love comes up like a scent that passes on the road, fleeting and unexpected. In between be build on other things, patience, companionship, and even duty.

So in the flight from fear toward something... I think maybe the duality is with peace. Out of the quiet and safety of peace, love may grow. But peace I think is the leading road sign.

So many nights i wake up and my first thought is I feel small. I feel small. I feel it now, just to write it. My heart tightens, my eyes blur a bit, my shoulders fold to hide my heart, the world looks very large and very frightening when one is so small. I have learned this is my version of anxiety, the daily uniform of fear, when it is not in its monster sunday best dress, instead the pajamas and barefoot fear, anxiety. It is for me a base state. My stomach is growling agreement. Once a teacher asked me if I was aware of my anxiety. i literally stopped walking on the street where we were. I said that is like asking a fish if she is aware of the water. Always swimming in it, everything colored by it, breathing and eating it. But never noticing it, never seeing it, having no thought to it. My body raises it up before me day after day in nearly every form of stress related illness one can name, all the symptoms come and go, over and over, sign posts, dark colors in the water, sick scents in the the stream.

I do not know if others swim in anxiety. I guess so considering the use of drugs, medicines, alcohol, considering the violence, and illness, and strife, I guess it is the same sea of fear and grief for us all.

Seeking peace sounds simple enough and parts of it I am good at. I thoroughly avoid conflict. I live slowly. I live very quietly. My one remaining child at home is a quiet gentle man. My lover is a lover of quiet. But quiet is not the same as peace. My former husband was quiet, we were quiet together, but we were not at peace.

I can do peace. In the depths of prayer it descends, the holy spirit like a dove. But this language does not communicate it. My charge is not just to sit at prayer in peace, which I do, but to remain in peace at all times. When I struggle with purpose, with destiny, with mission, with all these big words, the only command I am charged to obey is to remain in peace. All else springs from that one thing, health, purpose, calling, abundance, all else.

I do know that when I am least at peace, when I am seriously angry it is a field of energy around me so intense that electronic equipment ceases functioning, small children cry without a word from me, it is a cloud of dysfunction that radiates even as I stand wordless, still. No fist needs to fly for me to wound in anger. A wise woman told me that if the field is that intense outside of my body, imagine what it is doing to the inside of my body. Indeed. So the cause to move from fear and anger toward peace is important. I cannot function with out it.

But of course most days I am not angry; am not within the monster costume of fear. Rather I am in the pajama clothes of fear, the ordinary anxiety that robes me in smallness, in aches, and procrastination, in hiding, the paralysis of waiting and pretending.

Indeed I do see there is a great dichotomy of fear and peace. I am seeking peace, little steps, as best I can, seeking peace. As I wonder that direction the scent of love floats by once in a while, flowers and manna.

There is no absolution.

Calculus of Peace

So many people talk about the "go with the flow" thing, or if you have a different theological orientation, it may be "walk in the spirit." Either way it is about surrender, and peace, non- resistance. The idea that if we are pushing and pushing, begging, demanding, pleading, desiring, craving, NEEDing something, anything, that the force of all that trying makes it very difficult for the desired thing to happen. I have heard many stories about this seeming to be true, though I cannot explain the phenomenon as to why, but I wish I could. As for me I was raised in a household of try hard, work hard, plod, plod, dutifully plod. And we do. (In the bible this is called "living under the law," which means follow all the rules, very strictly, and that makes everything okay. Jesus came to end that by bringing grace and the Holy Spirit).

The dutiful plodder method does work, for some things. However, it is slow, methodical, and ultimately joyless. And it doesn't work very well for some things, "minor" things, like love. One can build powerful obligations and commitments, decisions that look like "love" by that method, but not Love, not that adoration and comfort in the joy and wonder of the other. And I am thinking maybe not destiny either. Certainly one can achieve goals by the plod harder method, but perhaps not Destiny.

I have been plodding for a long time. I am a plodder. One could look at my resume, and see only a very short list of very similar professional positions each held for a long time, a long plodding tenure through my career, a career that has come to an abrupt halt. An Intuitive Soul Reader I went to points me toward a Destiny. She said I am at a point of no return, that I must surrender. Surrender had already come up in prayer. So I thinking about this surrender thing.

And that brings me back to the "go with the flow" thing. Today I was praying. As I often do I wanted to ask, "whatamIgoingtodo?, whatamIgoingtodo?, etc." But as I began I felt the presence of my beloved Goddess at my left side, towering over me, sheltering me, drawing me close to her. I began to ask my question as I often do. But she said no, just listen. So I just listened. Then came her outpouring of grace. It is difficult to explain and I may have already lost the few readers I have. It feels like just relaxing, a breath, and the flesh finally lays gently on the bones, muscle and sinew drape like a veil of gossamer. The heart slows, respiration slows, the subtle trembling that goes unnoticed stops. A slight weight comes to the top of the head were the light pours in like a funnel, invisible but having a slight mass, like a very tall hat, so tall it goes up into heaven. So there I sat in that place of relaxation, of no worries for the moment, of peace, of surrender. And Goddess said this, this is what you are going to do, this is all I want you to do.

That seems nice, but what about client contacts, and forms to fill out, and only one report left to write, and bills coming, and bank accounts draining, and all the myriad chaos of unemployment, of out of business, of no where to turn? No, she said, just this, just the surrender, just the peace that passes understanding. Anything else that you do chose to do must be done from here. I immediately go to arguing, how can I possible stay here? I would look like a stoned flaky fruitcake from LaLaLa Land. She said one day, do it one day. Then do it one more day, one more hour, one more minute, just do it and when it doesn't work, do it again. So I think, okay I will Try.

But do you remember Yoda? the funny little big ears guru in Star Wars? He said "There is no try, there is only do or do not do." I had a guru once and she showed me that too. She said "Stand up, okay now see that chair over there? Go try to sit in that chair." So I went and sat in that chair. She said "No, stand up again. You did not do what I said to do, you sat in the chair. I didn't say sit in the chair. I said try to sit in the chair." So I "tried" to sit in the chair. She said "No, now you are crouching and hovering over the chair. I didn't say crouch and hover over the chair I said Try to sit in the chair." It reminds me of calculus as one approaches the limit of zero, "No, do not divide by zero, only approach dividing by zero." Well, it works in the faith based religion of calculus, but it doesn't work in the world of real geometry, a math that can take to a real place, or going to a destiny.

So if you look for me today I am here in this flaky place, of relaxing, of surrender, of peace, at least in little pieces, string them together, adding fractions of infinity.